1. Introduction
The entire world faced an unprecedented situation in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic [
1], which led to another major series of changes. For example, in Singapore, cybercrime accounts for almost half of the total crimes reported, and the number of ransomware attacks rose by 154% [
2]. A recent study [
3] demonstrated that European countries develop different sensitivities to cybersecurity issues. The Craigen et al. study revealed the definition of cybersecurity as “the organization and collection of resources, processes, and structures used to protect cyberspace and cyberspace-enabled systems from occurrences that misalign the jure from de facto property rights” [
4]. In addition, this topic is the subject of national interest because the United States consider cyber offence and cyber defence as “vital elements of security strategies”, these being more related to national policies and defence strategies [
5]. Digitization and cybersecurity play a key role in the NGEU (Next Generation EU), which are two of the main drivers of sustainable development [
6]. The purpose of the NGEU is to support the sustainability-resilience relationship and the importance of cybersecurity is highlighted in this way. It becomes necessary to protect the information and data of citizens and companies (this paper highlights the need for new studies in the context of electronic commerce [
3]. All of this generates a positive relationship between information systems, sustainability, and resilience [
3].
All of these challenges have decisively influenced various areas, especially electronic commerce and digital business—both company and consumer behaviour.
Contrastingly, the study of Dirgantar et al. [
7] brings forward the importance of the information system for electronic commerce organisations, whereby their results confirmed that system characteristics such as quality, information quality, or service quality, influence the level of use and user satisfaction of customers. An information system refers to the process of collecting, processing, storing, and transmitting relevant information to assist decision-making and foster operations in any type of organization [
8]. It involves a set of interconnected components such as hardware, software devices, human resources, and networks that contribute to improving organizational productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness while ensuring business survival and resilience [
9,
10]. In the absence of a resilience mechanism to overcome interruptions in business, as usual, activities in electronic commerce could no longer function [
11]. Resilience may be analyzed from the perspective of cyber threats to the information system, as cyber resilience can help organizations to anticipate and manage them [
12,
13]. At the same time, increasing resilience in electronic commerce can be achieved using Artificial Intelligence, which can contribute to ‘readying supply chains to reduce their risk of disruption’ [
14]. To combat threats, function accordingly, and take on challenges, information systems must adapt through structural and operational resilience techniques [
15]. So, to prevent companies from losing important components of their information systems, cybersecurity is the key to success [
16,
17].
Contrastingly, the COVID-19 pandemic forced ‘late’ consumers to reduce the digital gap, directing them to electronic commerce platforms [
18], but it also demonstrated the resilience of consumers increases [
19,
20,
21]. Digital resilience is not a new concept, its definition has existed in literature for many years [
22]. It is “the ability for an organization to rapidly adapt to business disruptions by leveraging digital capabilities to not only restore business operations but also capitalize on the changed conditions” [
23]. Contrastingly, cyber resilience is the capacity to protect data and electronic systems from cyber-attacks, but also, to rapidly resume business operations in the case of a successful attack event. [
24]. Knowing these aspects, the digital resilience of electronic commerce was ascertained [
25], as was the importance of long-term planning, and the need for strategic skills to make the right decisions for traders [
26]. Electronic commerce is a vital element in worldwide economic resilience [
27] and the adoption of digitisation and digital platforms is an ‘escape hatch’ in the development strategy and resilience of organisations [
28,
29,
30]. Even though there are still potential consumers who perceive online shopping as risky [
30], it is concerned about both the resilience of the retailer’s information system and the security of personal data [
31,
32].
All of these facts have revolutionized people’s lives and influenced users’ buying habits, and the way that companies sell their products or services [
33]. As such, information system security became a major challenge for modern organisations, which has led to a growing interest from academia and researchers in information security knowledge. [
34].
To better understand the context regarding electronic commerce, cybersecurity, and digital resilience, the authors illustrated
Figure 1.
In this context, the authors tried to find resilient opportunities for electronic commerce, by aiming to analyse the research knowledge fields, respectively. The study was performed with the method of visual network analysis with Java technology by constructing and observing the connections between the scientific resources.
The results were conducted to relevant outcomes for proposing a new conceptual model by including all relevant key concepts regarding the knowledge fields included in the study. (The Resilience Right Decisions for Electronic Commerce and Cybersecurity Model).
All the concepts existing in the literature, the methods used, and the results are presented in the subsequent sections. The article finishes with a discussion and conclusion section, followed by two sections that highlight the importance of the study and the its necessity to the scientific community.
4. Discussion
The paper enriches the literature by bringing together three major themes that are strongly inter-connected. Remembering
Figure 1 presented in the introduction (where the existing scientific contribution related to electronic commerce, cybersecurity, and digital resilience were illustrated), the authors exhibit a single big picture of the findings, connecting the current state of knowledge. Thus, to illustrate the important outcomes of the study, a conceptual model of Resilience Right Decisions for Electronic Commerce and Cybersecurity was created (
Figure 8).
Electronic commerce, as a vital element in worldwide economic resilience, gains a lot of attention currently from the point of view of implementing the necessary technology to use it. Electronic commerce adoption and mobile commerce adoption are two important challenging research lines for this field in the global economic resilience [
27]; the largest group of references by the keywords criteria validated it. Electronic commerce, customer experience, social media, search engine marketing, and big data perspective represent the guideline topics for digital business owners. This fact highlights the global impact.
The study revealed that cybersecurity with specific threats, the quality of information security, and the security of personal data were found as the main challenges for the resilience and the right decisions for stakeholders [
26].
The analysis performed centred on the human factor in the middle of the pursuit of the risk faced when cybersecurity is referred to. The fear of cyber-attacks, such as ransomware or other types of cyber threats, is no longer a novel issue. What is now a real concern refers to facing the perception of online shopping as being risky, especially from the point of view of personal data security. Consumers who perceive online shopping as risky and who are concerned about the resilience of the retailer’s infrastructure and the security of the personal data [
31,
32] draw a connection with cybersecurity awareness, which requires the need for fraud mitigation in the online environment. The connection between cybersecurity and electronic commerce adoption asks for cybersecurity education, cyber awareness, data protection with lasting attention to purchasing behaviour, e-WOM, social commerce, and fast shipping to increase the resilience of digital businesses. A relevant outcome of this study revealed that aiding better development requires the use of data, even in the face of challenges related to global cybersecurity. Adding blockchain and machine learning alongside Artificial Intelligence [
14] as technologies in use for strengthening resilience can represent the right decision for traders to accelerate the recovery to pre-COVID-19 levels. Additionally, the results of the study can complement other knowledge research fields, such as digital transformation (addressed with bibliometric analysis) [
48], cyber threat and cyber-attack literature for higher education [
49], but also, a global perspective on cybersecurity trends [
50].
5. Conclusions
The authors bring to light a summary of the electronic commerce research and cybersecurity knowledge field, strongly connected with global digital resilience, by presenting to the academic world: the big picture, which is easy to understand. The Resilience Right Decisions for Electronic Commerce and Cybersecurity Model promotes the top priorities and useful information, increasing the awareness of the global impact of cybersecurity on commerce performed in the digital environment.
The managerial implications point to the priority of deploying cybersecurity optimisation actions to shape marketing strategies for purchase, re-purchase behaviour, and technology adoption. The most important detail business owners should understand is related to the nature of the human factor, which influences the competitiveness of organisations and their resilience, especially during hard times. Knowing about factors such as purchase behaviour, customer experience, blockchain technology, big data, and data protection, organisations can develop a strong resilience. Additionally, business owners have the opportunity to deploy solutions regarding the quality and security of the infrastructure and know-how for the safe use of resources: both for customers and employees.
The theoretical implications consist of collaborating with organisations, researchers, and publishers to develop and promote new theoretical frameworks to implement cybersecurity solutions for electronic commerce. Among the types of study they could create in the research field are: sentiment analysis, latent transition analysis, literature reviews, and empirical investigations.
The first limit comes from studying the research papers by only using the Web of Science Core Collection database. The second limit is represented by the probability of including several articles that are less relevant for the analysis because of the selection made automatically by the software. Additionally, the authors decided to choose only two research knowledge fields—the possibilities being endless.
These facts can turn into research directions by extending the number of both research knowledge fields. Additionally, an extension from the Web of Science Core Collection to the SCOPUS database may enlarge the analysis opportunities. It is also possible to conduct direct research on the perception of electronic commerce site owners, regarding the impact of cybersecurity, to develop their businesses.