Literature review of emerging trends and future directions of e-commerce in global business landscape

The global business landscape is undergoing a dynamic transformation due to the increasing penetration of internet and communication technologies. This article reviews the e-commerce literature to understand the emerging trends and future directions, which are shaping the competitive trends in the global business landscape. The article focuses on the following research dimensions - e-commerce definition; underlying research themes; theoretical models and frameworks used to understand e-commerce adoption; and key challenges faced by the e-commerce providers. The first contribution involves elaborating the broad perspectives and statistical overview of the selected articles including the publications summary, research themes, methodology, and locations. The second contribution involves presenting an integrated view of e-commerce definitions across five dimensions - information, technology, buy-sell transactions, monetary transactions and competition. The third contribution involves highlighting the theoretical models being used to study patterns of consumer behaviour. The fourth contribution lies in identifying the key challenges faced by the e-commerce organisations.