An Action Research Report of an E-Commerce Firm in South Korea

Abstract

This chapter describes an aspect of electronic commerce; that is, advertising in South Korea. Since South Korea is a developing country, its national IT infrastructure is not developed sufficiently to support all aspects of electronic commerce as in developed countries such as the USA. Nevertheless, there are many new organisations that are trying to do business in cyberspace in South Korea. Firstly, this chapter introduces the IT environment of South Korea and the inevitable choice of direct e-mail advertising as a chief marketing tool for these cyber businesses. Secondly, the action research method used in this research, the inevitable choice of this particular research method, is described. Thirdly, the attitude towards direct e-mail advertising by end-users of cyberspace in South Korea is identified by presenting the results of an online survey with intensive interviews and a simple questionnaire, which was conducted by the action researcher as a part of the action research plan. The analysis is done qualitatively, largely due to the small sample size. Lastly, a South Korean firm’s struggle to implement and run a direct e-mail system is chronicled based on the observation of the action researcher. This example shows that, in a country with a less developed IT infrastructure, there are a lot of pitfalls for an e-commerce company to overcome in order to succeed.