PurposeWithin a larger mandate of reviewing the key global trends concerning consumer protection in the electronic commerce (e-commerce) literature, this study aims to study the legal framework concerning e-commerce and consumer protection in the Sultanate of Oman and to analyse the current regulations concerning e-commerce and consumer protection.Design/methodology/approachThis study followed the normative legal research approach and resorted to the desk research process to facilitate content analysis of literature containing consumer protection legislation and regulatory provisions in Oman in particular and the (...) rest of the world in general.FindingsThe study reveals that consumer protection initiatives in Oman are well entrenched for offline transactions, but are relatively new and limited for e-commerce. In spite of the promulgation of consumer protection laws, electronic transaction law and cybercrime law, consumer protection measures for e-commerce in Oman do not address a large number of the global concerns necessary to build consumer confidence and trust in the online environment.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a dearth of information concerning Oman on this topic in the extant literature. The research also witnessed the lack of empirical data on the issue of consumer protection and e-commerce in Oman that offer a detailed database of consumer complaints and associated outcomes.Practical implicationsThe mechanism of consumer protection in electronic transactions is not robust in many countries. Because of the lack of comprehensive and robust legislation, consumers remain vulnerable in the online contractual purchase process. Moving beyond the fragmented legislation, many countries are currently mulling an all-comprehensive e-commerce law, implications of this paper will help the policymakers in identifying the focus areas.Social implicationsConsumer protection is a burning global issue in this era of consumerism. It is important to build consumer trust, transparency and integrity of transactions to reduce the risk and uncertainties of purchase.Originality/valueConsumer protection studies conducted in the context of Oman, hitherto, deal more with data protection and dispute resolution mechanisms, and less with legal provisions, regulations and consumer confidence. The study shares newer insights based on a systematic review of legal and business databases. It is the first study of its kind in the context of Oman and the Middle East in general. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the efforts made by Jordan in the direction of e‐governance and people's perception of corruption, trust, and e‐governance.Design/methodology/approachDesk research was conducted using secondary data sources followed by a field survey conducted with 412 sample respondents in three major cities of Jordan. Following the triangulation approach, the responses of university professors and the common people were also secured.FindingsThe Jordanian government's efforts towards e‐governance are commendable in the Middle East. However, there are certain impediments (...) that are witnessed in the form of the digital divide, corruption, social bottlenecks, the stage of democratization, the lack of marketing to stakeholders, and the citizen's lack of adoption of technology. Educated people are aware of the merit of e‐governance contrary to the uneducated ones and perceive that corruption in the Jordanian public sector is increasing.Research limitations/implicationsThe study mainly reflects the views of the educated people. The views of the uneducated ones are secured through basic interactions as they expressed their inability to respond to the questionnaires. Somehow, the respondents are not very open to freely share their opinions or have abstained from participation‐since they consider this a sensitive issue within the Jordanian cultural and political setup. Further, asking opinions of members of the public might not be the ideal way of judging the level of corruption, or changes in it.Originality/valuePeople's perception is that Jordan is affected by a low level of corruption and that its citizens lack awareness of e‐governance. To remedy this, its citizens need to be motivated to trust and to participate in the process of e‐governance and to increase their understanding of the tools and technologies available. (shrink)

We applaud Ram Frost for highlighting the need for multicultural perspectives while developing universal models of visual word recognition. We second Frost's proposal that factors like lexical morphology should be incorporated besides purely orthographic features in modeling word recognition. In support, we provide fresh evidence from Hindi, an example of hitherto under-represented alphasyllabic orthographies, in which flexible encoding of akṣara position is constrained by the morphological structure of words.