Contact: Aga Haupt
A veteran Mississippi State business professor and researcher is leading an international conference in Japan examining electronic and mobile commerce.
J.P. Shim, a holder of the university's John Grisham Faculty Excellence Award, is attending the Aug. 28-30 Cross Cultural Study on E-Commerce with support from the National Science Foundation and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
To be held in Niigata and Tokyo, the meeting will be the first such academic collaboration between Japan and the United States, said Shim, a professor of management and information systems who joined the MSU faculty in 1984.
"Our goal is to establish research collaboration between American and Japanese information systems scholars and such major international corporations as Motorola and NTT DoCoMo, a leading Japanese mobile communications company," he explained.
In particular, Shim said the conference will address the effects of e-commerce's Web presentation on retail customer shopping experiences. "Our findings suggest that simplicity and convenience are two key elements in commercial Web site design," he said.
In addition to preparing to head one conference session himself, Shim has been responsible for arranging presentations by faculty colleagues from Syracuse, Oklahoma State and DePaul universities, as well as the universities of Maryland and Illinois. Japanese experts and industry representatives also will be on the program.
Upon returning to Mississippi State, Shim will continue to collaborate with scholars from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Finland in examining consumer perceptions of electronic and mobile commerce, including streaming technology, Internet agents and wireless services.
Shim holds a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a master's of business administration from Seoul National University in his native Korea.