Morad Benyoucef Receives a $75,000 Grant For His Research On Social Commerce

Professor Morad Benyoucef of the Telfer School received a grant of $75,000 from the Natural Sciences Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) over five years for his project “Enabling Social Commerce - A New Form of E-commerce that Leverages Social Ties Between Users.” He will examine design frameworks and processes for developing social commerce platforms and delve into the links between users of these platforms. Design frameworks that add “commerce” features to social media platforms as well as those that add “social” features to e-commerce platforms will be investigated.

Professor Benyoucef’s research into online marketplaces, e-procurement, e-negotiations, e-health, and web 2.0 has received funding from, among others, the NSERC, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. It is anticipated that his latest study will help fill the gap in academic research on social commerce while benefiting businesses and consumers. Explains professor Benyoucef: “The findings will enhance our understanding of social commerce, which is taking on an increasingly important role in the marketplace. The scientific contribution will be in creating and using new methodologies to address complex issues such as innovative social commerce design and more accurate and efficient algorithms for social tie prediction and community detection.”