امضای دیجیتال: استفاده و تغییر برای دستیابی به موفقیت در فرآیندهای کسب و کار الکترونیکی نسل آینده

A US law, the electronic signatures (E-Sign) in Global and National Commerce Act (signed by then President Clinton on 30 June 2000 with an effective date of 1 October 2000), grants electronic signatures legal validity equivalent to traditional hand-written counterparts. The intention of this law is to cut costs while providing more stringent security. In the emerging e-commerce arena, electronic signatures hold great potential for facilitating secure electronic transactions. But signatures are used in many critical business processes that occur prior to or independent of final transactions. Contract development and numerous other processes entail a series of draft modifications and sign-offs. Can electronic signatures provide cost savings and security in these activities? In this paper, we (i) detail fundamentals and the current status of electronic signatures; (ii) describe the integration of electronic signatures with electronic verification and authentication technologies; (iii) explore e-commerce applications, especially document management processes, that could benefit from adopting electronic signatures; and (iv) propose modifications to the electronic signature process to enable innovative document management processes. We propose modifications using partial document ownership, soft signatures, and hard signatures.

In the e-commerce arena, security is a great concern to many organizations when a considerable volume of documents and transactions are computerized/digitized and exchanged online [8], [11] and [13]. This paper’s primary focus is on the techniques commonly referred to as “digital signatures,” which are attachments to documents used to verify or authenticate a “signer” and the document signed. Combined with certificates issued by trusted third parties and enhanced by biometric authentication tools, digital signatures are gaining a presence in the transaction or final document arena. Our argument, however, is that their really significant benefits for companies and organizations lie in potential improvement of stepwise sign-off processes including negotiation and contract/document generation. Following the American Bar Association (ABA) guidelines [1], we differentiate digital signatures from the more mundane digitized images of hand-written signatures, such as typed notations like ‘/s/John Smith’, or even addressing notations, such as electronic mail headers. In addition to improved security, digital signatures provide the following advantages: (i) no need to print out documents for signing; (ii)reduced storage of paper copies; (iii)improved management and access (anytime/anywhere) of electronic versus paper documents; (iv)elimination of need for faxing or overnight mailing—reduction of cycle time; (v)improved security of document transmission; and (vi) enhanced management processes outside the “final signature” step. The concepts and ideas in this paper have been developed in an attempt to adopt leading edge digital signature technologies for everyday business processes. Operational managers helped in shaping and refining the vision of an ideal system and helped identify the shortcomings/limitations of current digital signature technology. Such interaction is critically important in understanding existing practices as well as in shaping technological solutions that enabled process enhancements.

The digital signature process is being or will soon be adopted by organizations to replace traditional ways of signing documents, especially when they are transmitted over the Internet. As Sprague [16] pointed out, most organizations have a substantial set of paperwork systems that have not been fully computerized because they are based on documents rather than data records. We contend that, while digital signature technological tools exist, these tools were developed with limited business applications—final transactions—as their focus. Today large corporations are driving their employees towards paperless operations. Still, rather than redefining underlying workflow, the focus is too often on adopting technology that fluidly fits into existing workflow rather than considering how technological advances enable innovative workflow processes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. Digital signatures have natural applications in many business processes. This technology can move beyond playing the role of supporting organizational processes to actually enabling business processes. However, a different paradigm needs to be established. In particular, documents have to be explicitly managed as a collection of entities that can have multiple ownerships. Our framework identifies the current capabilities and shortcomings of the digital signature process. In addition, we identify and illustrate an electronic document management process that will significantly enhance the application of digital signature technology in a wide array of business processes. Managers can play an active role in adoption and design of technology. In doing so, they can actively help to reshape and increase the effectiveness of their business processes. In this paper, we begin to demonstrate such efforts with respect to future roles for digital signatures in organizational processes by focusing on technological requirements to deliver the desired product—a secure and authentication-based automated document management and contract negotiation system.