First, the impact of e-commerce on existing systems.
As the product of the network era and the most prominent representative of knowledge economy, the emergence and development of e-commerce will cause revolutionary changes in the social and economic fields, and its significance will exceed the impact of the industrial revolution on human society 200 years ago. This is not only because e-commerce is a brand-new development direction of network technology application, but also because of the openness, globality, low cost and high efficiency of the Internet, which can increase trade opportunities, reduce trade costs and improve trade efficiency. What's more, e-commerce has surpassed its value as a new form of trade, is changing the production and management activities of enterprises themselves, and even affects the economic operation and structure of the whole society. Many basic rules of the game of human economic activities will undergo profound changes.
In other words, the most profound significance of e-commerce is that it is changing the main business model of enterprises and the rules of the game of market competition, and even impacting and changing many systems on which human society depends in the industrialized era. In fact, this kind of influence is various, whether it is economic system, political system or social and cultural life system, it is or will be challenged by e-commerce. Among them, the commercial system and its related property rights system, distribution system, financial system, tax system and enterprise management system are the direct goals of e-commerce.
As far as the trading system is concerned, "the application of e-commerce is producing new trading processes and new trading methods. On the one hand, enterprises use e-commerce to provide more useful information, expand choices, provide new services, simplify procurement processes, reduce costs, and thus gain competitive advantages. On the other hand, because customers can get a lot of price and product information from various channels through the Internet, the Internet has achieved a certain degree of price constraint "[1](p22). Specifically, first of all, e-commerce establishes an interactive e-commerce platform through network technology, realizes the docking of virtual business platform and physical business operation, integrates the spatial form, time form and virtual form of the market, makes the traditional trade mode enter the electronic age, establishes a virtual market on the Internet, and completes all business processes of production, supply and sales; Secondly, the Internet and IP protocol make the remote cost the same as the near cost, so that the transaction cost will not increase because of the change of scope and distance. The modern information environment formed on this basis has changed the symbols of human recording and disseminating information, making information the core of e-commerce transaction process. Whoever has the latest and most comprehensive product information and market information will have the initiative in this virtual market. Thirdly, e-commerce is the most effective tool and carrier for equal competition, which has changed the basis and mode of enterprise competition, standardized transactions, prevented black-box operations, reduced bribery and purified the circulation field. Finally, the rapid development of e-commerce has impacted the traditional economic structure and trade mode, had a far-reaching impact on international trade, become an important factor leading international trade, and accelerated the process of world economic globalization and trade and investment integration.
As far as the property distribution system is concerned, e-commerce will fundamentally change the property right system, especially the wealth distribution system. The network era, especially e-commerce, provides necessary explanations and examples for knowledge as capital. It can even be said that social wealth will be redistributed because of the existence of e-commerce. Those intellectual heroes who have mastered advanced network technology and can best understand e-commerce will quickly gain a larger share of social wealth by virtue of their own knowledge capital. It is in this sense that Mr. Ghali, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, regards e-commerce as "the world is paying attention to a revolution of national wealth to re-create relations" [2](p40).
As far as the labor system is concerned, with the expansion of e-commerce, the employment demand effect will be transmitted to all fields of the economy. Providing transportation and shipping services, online catalogues, desktop publishing and other services is in great demand and developing rapidly. At the same time, the demand for other occupations will also decline, including travel agencies, stock brokers, bank tellers, communication equipment operators and so on. The reason is that consumers will increase online shopping and other online trading activities in order to bypass additional modes of communication or choose direct routes to collect information.
As far as the management system is concerned, "E-commerce is becoming a strategic means of enterprise management and government management" [3](p282). Specifically, e-commerce will completely change the management thinking of human beings, which requires enterprises to change from production-oriented management thinking to market-oriented management thinking. The criss-crossing computer network has changed the way of information transmission. The middle-level organizations that used to play the role of uploading and distributing have gradually disappeared, and high-level decision makers can directly contact grassroots executives. The organizational structure and functions of enterprises will change from hierarchical command and control structure to horizontal organization of information, and the information exchange, management functions and working group structure within enterprises will change. The original supply chain will form an end-to-end relationship management model. This integrated or expanded supply chain manages the network connecting customers, manufacturers, suppliers, vendors and competitors.
All these show that we are in a technological innovation driven by digital processing, and we are carrying out institutional reform because of this technological change.
Second, the development of e-commerce needs to optimize the institutional environment.
A remarkable feature of the emergence and development of e-commerce is that it is a brand-new business form produced by the network technology revolution, which is its root and foundation. Therefore, most people who initially engaged in e-commerce were technical elites with network knowledge. Their main concern is how to commercialize network technology and technological innovation of e-commerce. However, with the development of e-commerce, technical elites increasingly feel that the main problem of e-commerce is commerce. No matter how advanced the technology is, it will become beyond the reach of traditional business rules. Therefore, people have to look at the development of e-commerce from a perspective other than technology. Those far-sighted governments and economists have realized that e-commerce as a brand-new business model needs to be determined in a systematic way. "New organizational forms in the new economy are as important as new technologies" [1](p97).
In a certain sense, the influence of e-commerce on the existing system is the degree to which the existing system rules restrict the further development of e-commerce. In fact, the biggest obstacle to e-commerce at present is the institutional environment. This obstacle is manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, many systems established in the industrial era have seriously hindered the development of e-commerce. Many existing systems in human society are based on the requirements and characteristics of the industrialized era. The foundation of e-commerce is the network age and knowledge economy. The difference between the two is very obvious. It is this fundamental difference that constitutes the conflict between e-commerce and existing institutional rules. On the other hand, people have not established a new rule system for the development of e-commerce. E-commerce is the direct product of the explosive development of the Internet, and human beings lack the necessary theoretical understanding of their own e-commerce. As alan greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve, said, "A latest invention-we call it information technology-is beginning to change the way we trade and create value in a way we didn't expect, which was unimaginable five years ago" [1](p 10). In other words, due to the rapid development of e-commerce and the lack of understanding of governments and economists in various countries, it still cannot provide a suitable institutional environment for the development of e-commerce.
Modern institutional economics believes that people are active under the constraints given by the real system. Because people are selfish and rational and always pursue the maximization of their own interests under given constraints, competition has become a realistic and objective existence. However, unconstrained competition will certainly aggravate the uncertainty of trading activities and increase transaction costs. In order to reduce this cost, people have established many contractual relationships or trading rules that require actors to abide by as constraints of social and economic activities. The existence of these rules makes the society orderly and the allocation of social resources more reasonable, thus improving the efficiency of human activities and changing the economic environment of human life. System is a series of behavior rules used to regulate specific behavior patterns and relationships. This system reduces the uncertainty of trading activities by defining and restricting the selection set of trading subjects, thus reducing the transaction cost and making the potential benefits of trading activities become a reality. Through this series of rules, people have made clear their choice space and constraint relations, reduced the uncertainty of the environment, reduced the increase of transaction costs caused by specialization and division of labor, and thus created effective organizational operation conditions and promoted production activities. Because of this, human society has created many effective economic systems to solve various cooperation problems faced by human beings. It can be said that the development process of human society is the process of constantly creating new systems to adapt to new economic conditions. A scientific and effective system is the result of people's full understanding, rational development and application of institutional resources.
In order to optimize the institutional environment for the development of e-commerce, we must eliminate the old system that seriously hinders the development of e-commerce, and the most important thing is to create a new system that can promote the development of e-commerce. Because, there are many new situations and new problems that need institutional innovation to solve in the network era and e-commerce, a commercial form of trading through virtual markets. For example, people are generally concerned about the business reputation related to transaction security. Some domestic scholars have pointed out that the problem of e-commerce is not only an electronic problem, but also a commercial credit problem, which is a moral problem on which commercial credit depends. There is no doubt that this view is correct. But if you want to go deeper, you will find that although the foundation of credit has a cultural and moral foundation, its real support should be the establishment of a credit system.
The influence of system on human choice is realized by influencing the availability of information and resources, shaping power and establishing the basic rules of social transactions. Institutional innovation promotes development by providing more effective ways to organize economic activities, which usually lead to basic economic adjustment. To establish a more efficient way to organize economic activities, we must first establish more efficient organizations that can influence information and resources, and construct these organizational principles and methods, that is, create systematic and scientific institutional rules. Institutional innovation in this sense is particularly important for the emerging e-commerce that represents the future economic development direction.
Third, the characteristics of institutional innovation in the Internet age
The characteristics of network era and knowledge economy determine the mode, way and path of e-commerce system innovation.
In the network era, institutional innovation will be carried out in a technology-led innovation mode. According to the traditional economic theory, there are two basic theoretical models for the rearrangement of economic system or the emergence of new economic system, namely, demand-induced model and supply-oriented model. The so-called demand-induced type refers to the demand for institutional change caused by a single actor seeking benefits that cannot be obtained under the existing system (that is, external profits), which leads to the rearrangement of the system. The model assumes that a single subject who pursues the maximization of interests always tries to determine the most favorable institutional arrangement and right definition under the given institutional constraints. Once the actor discovers the imbalance of the system and the existence of external profits, it will produce the demand for institutional change. Whether this demand can be transformed into a new institutional arrangement depends on whether the actors who agree, support and promote this institutional change are in an advantageous position compared with other stakeholders. If the strength advantage is obvious, the original institutional arrangement and right definition will be replaced by the new institutional arrangement and right definition. Finally, the state will establish institutional arrangements and property rights rules in favor of leading actors through laws and other forms, which will lead to institutional changes. The supply-oriented institutional change is carried out under a certain constitutional order and ethical behavior norms. The power center's ability and willingness to provide new institutional arrangements is the dominant factor that determines institutional changes, and this ability and willingness is mainly determined by the power structure or strength comparison of various vested interest groups in a society. Obviously, these two theoretical models about institutional change need to be revised in the Internet age. E-commerce, as a brand-new economic model, is a historic business revolution triggered by technological changes, and the role of technology-led exceeds that of interest-led. Of course, this does not mean that technology-led institutional innovation has no interest factors. What we emphasize here is that when people use the Internet for business activities, they are first restricted by technical means, and perhaps they are not fully aware of the possible interest pattern generated by such efforts.
In the network era, the way of institutional innovation is open contract. Because general contracts promote effective specialization according to comparative advantages, some special contracts between joint inputs are used for team production. It is not due to the multilateral contract of all owners of joint investment, but to a centralized and effective organization, which promotes joint investment in team production. The contract form forms the foundation of the so-called enterprise, especially the entity suitable for organizing team production "[4](p85). The essence, development form and mode of network economy require the exchange and arrangement of economic rights, especially property rights, of relevant subjects, which should be a voluntary contract selection process and an exchange process in accordance with the law of value and the principle of fairness and justice. Therefore, the institutional innovation in the network era should regard contract selection as the soul of e-commerce, scientifically quantify the specific property right selection, and embody this quantified property right in the form of standardized contracts, so as to finally realize the market interest exchange and property right arrangement voluntarily selected by economic actors. That is, "the old institutional barriers to competition and innovation should be replaced by the principle of' open architecture' that is not particularly biased towards a certain technology or industry" [1](p94). Economists have given many principled opinions on this open institutional structure. The Institute for Advanced Policy Studies, which has extensive influence in the United States, believes that the innovation policy of the new economy with e-commerce as its core should be based on four basic principles: investing in the basic fields of the new economy, especially education, training and scientific and technological research; Establish a set of flexible and open trade rules and regulations to support innovation and development, including the policy of information technology revolution; Ensure that workers can acquire the necessary skills to advance smoothly in the changing economic environment; The reorganization and digitalization of the government ensure the rapidity, flexibility and quick response of the government. Obviously, this is not all. At the very least, we should take global integration as the principle and standard. Because the network era is a truly global integration era. Any creation, any standard, can't survive in the network if it can't adapt to this feature. However, this does not mean that all Internet companies in the world have the same standards. The global integration of institutional standards refers to the compatibility of various systems and standards. This compatibility shows that the institutional system in the network age should be carried out on the premise of the basic principles of * * *. These basic principles of e-commerce rule system should be the basic characteristics of the network age.
In the network era, the path of institutional innovation is from institutional integration to the establishment of new systems. The institutional innovation in the network era is to realize the reorganization of the marginal effect of the system on the basis of confirming and dividing the current system of institutional rules. The primary purpose of this reorganization of institutional marginal effect is to reduce the transaction cost in real economic life and realize the balance of institutional rules system at a higher level. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the restrictive factors of institutional innovation. These constraints will determine the cost and implementation cost of rearranging the marginal effect of institutional rules, which is an institutional choice made on the basis of theoretical innovation. However, institutional innovation cannot be carried out completely freely like theoretical innovation. In fact, certain institutional rules represent certain interests, and the conflict between systems reflects the conflict between interests. The vested interests of the old system often try their best to hinder the development of new things. Therefore, there can never be a completely free system integration system, and any rearrangement of the marginal effect of the system must be constrained by various conditions. Among them, the influence of existing laws on institutional innovation and the constraint of operating cost of institutional marginal effect complex are the most important. The existing laws, especially the constitution, determine the choice space and, to a certain extent, the process and mode of institutional change. The legal order of a country in a certain period is the concrete embodiment of the basic system of the country. The law establishes and protects the social rules it deems necessary and desirable. This is not to say that the law opposes all institutional changes. As the fundamental law, the Constitution actually stipulates the direction of institutional innovation. In order to control the direction of institutional innovation defined by law and coordinate the balance between the vested interests of the existing system and the winners of the new system, the national power center is generally reluctant to adopt radical innovation methods. Especially in China, a country with a supply-oriented institutional change, maintaining the political authority of the power center will help to complete the implementation of institutional innovation in a stable and orderly manner and reduce the negotiation cost. It can be said that personal income is to induce the demand of microeconomic subjects for institutional innovation, but it is not the basis of formal institutional supply. The real supplier of the economic system is the law representing the state power. In other words, when we regulate e-commerce, we should fully consider the definition of various institutional rules and systems by national laws. Any behavior prohibited by national laws cannot be confirmed and allowed as the rules of e-commerce, otherwise it will directly violate national laws and create new obstacles to the development of e-commerce. Only by reorganizing the economic relationship between the state's affirmative behavior and protection can it be recognized by national laws, at least it will not cause direct legal conflicts.
xyb 20 1 1 1 1 1 1