Comparing Value Propositions with Users’ Perceptions to Better Understand the eValues of Electronic Marketplaces

In this paper, we question the nature and dimensions of eValues. We apply our approach to electronic marketplaces (EMPs), as an illustration of interorganizational information systems. The research is based upon 50 interviews made in 6 EMPs, and a thematic analysis on the themes linked to “the value of EMPs”. Our results categorise the different perceptions of eValues according to the different profiles: the value proposition of EMPs’ managers and the perceived values of buyer and supplier managers. We highlight that eValue is a key component that helps to distinguish three types of EMP business models: the Buy-type, the Supply-type and the Indus-type. Finally, we discuss the orientation of each business model according to the current value it offers to customers, and conclude that the concept of eValue questions the design of the model of revenue of EMPs

14 graus : fighting for the survival of its online marketplace

This Case Study addresses the early days of a small online marketplace that sells other brands' sustainable products, from personal hygiene items to clothing and home decoration. The Portuguese company was founded a year and a half earlier, and from the beginning it faced several difficulties in acquiring sales and customers. The company was created with the founders’ own investment and based on the success of its informative sustainability community on Instagram. Several operational changes were made, and additional sources of revenue were developed, although none of them generated a significant increase in the marketplace sales. The strategies followed by 14 Graus can be an interesting topic for discussion, including the sustainability market in Portugal, the challenges in launching a business, the influence of social networks, and the problems related to product diversification and differentiation in an online marketplace. This Master's Thesis includes a Literature Review, on relevant topics related to the Case Study, and a Teaching Note in order to assist instructors to prepare the Case discussion.O Caso de Estudo apresentado aborda os primeiros tempos de um mercado online de pequena dimensão que vendia produtos sustentáveis de outras marcas, desde artigos de higiene pessoal, a roupa e decoração para a casa. A empresa portuguesa foi fundada um ano e meio antes, e desde o início que enfrentou diversas dificuldades de aquisição de vendas e clientes. Foi criada com o investimento da própria equipa, e com base no sucesso da comunidade informativa de sustentabilidade que tinha no Instagram. Foram feitas diferentes mudanças operacionais, e desenvolvidas fontes adicionais de receita, ainda assim nenhuma delas gerou um aumento significativo das vendas do mercado. As estratégias seguidas pela 14 Graus podem ser um tema interessante de discussão, incluindo tópicos como o mercado de sustentabilidade em Portugal, os desafios inerentes ao lançamento de um negócio, a influência das redes sociais e os problemas relacionados com a diversificação e diferenciação dos produtos num mercado online. Esta Dissertação de Mestrado contempla uma Revisão de Literatura, sobre tópicos relevantes relacionados com o Caso de Estudo, e uma Nota de Ensino de forma a auxiliar o instrutor a preparar a discussão do Caso

Business-to-business electronic marketplaces: membership and use drivers

Business-to-business (B2B) electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) are one of the most heralded developments in recent years. These marketplaces bring together businesses buying and selling goods and services in an online buying community. E-marketplaces promise to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of procurement activities by replacing traditional manual processes with automated electronic procedures and by expanding the number of available trading partners. Despite the technology availability and the high potential benefits, very few e-marketplaces have succeeded. This three-year study identifies and investigates two major B2B e-marketplace stumbling blocks: attracting a sufficient number of members, and then influencing these members to use the e-marketplace. This investigation uses a variety of qualitative techniques to solicit information from nearly fifty executives representing four B2B e-marketplaces with contrasting membership and use levels. Within each e-marketplace, the study solicited information from high and low use organizations, buying and selling organizations, and a nonparticipant organization. The interview data was analyzed using line-by-line analysis from grounded theory. The analysis involved assimilating the unique stories of each manager into drivers that affect e-marketplace membership or use. These drivers were then compared to membership levels and/or use levels. The analysis resulted in three research models. Each research model is a data-driven representation of factors driving B2B e-marketplace membership, B2B e-marketplace use, and a particular organization's B2B e-marketplace use. Each model contains several unique drivers and offers a comprehensive picture of what is happening in e-marketplaces. These findings enhance management's understanding of e-marketplaces, their role in business, their challenges, and ways of overcoming these challenges in order to reap the benefits of e-marketplace participation. This study brings one of the first grounded theory investigations of B2B e-marketplace membership and use to the limited academic research in this area. This research offers insights to a number of theories, including transaction cost economics, institutional theory, resource dependency theory, and public goods theory

Electronic procurement: dealing with supplier adoption

E-procurement systems make purchasing activities more effective in terms of both time and cost. However over the past years there is evidence that some of the expected benefits have not been achieved. Among several appointed causes, supplier‟s adherence to such platforms has been regarded as one. The focus of this research is in supplier adoption of e-Procurement. Such a study is important in order to better address the issues actually faced by suppliers within e-Procurement. We have conducted a questionnaire-based survey to 721 Portuguese companies and performed an empirical analysis of the results. The findings from this work provide empirical evidence that the supplier perceived benefits and business partner pressures are positively related to e-Procurement adoption while some barriers like implementation costs have the opposite effect. The main critical success factors on e-Procurement adoption are also presented.Os sistemas de e-Procurement permitem melhorias significativas no tempo e custo associados aos processos de compra. No entanto, nos últimos anos existe evidência de que alguns dos benefícios esperados não têm sido alcançados. Entre as várias causas apontadas, a falta de adesão dos fornecedores a esse tipo de plataformas foi apontada como uma. O foco desta pesquisa está na adopção dos fornecedores ao e-Procurement, mais especificamente nos factores que levam a sua adesão. Foi realizado um questionário a 721 empresas Portuguesas e os dados obtidos analisados. Os resultados deste trabalho fornecem evidências de que os benefícios percebidos pelos fornecedores e as pressões dos parceiros de negócios estão positivamente relacionados com a intenção de adopção, enquanto algumas barreiras, como custos de implementação têm o efeito oposto. Os principais factores críticos de sucesso na adesão ao e-Procurement são também apresentados

Promoting Honesty in Electronic Marketplaces: Combining Trust Modeling and Incentive Mechanism Design

This thesis work is in the area of modeling trust in multi-agent systems, systems of software agents designed to act on behalf of users (buyers and sellers), in applications such as e-commerce. The focus is on developing an approach for buyers to model the trustworthiness of sellers in order to make effective decisions about which sellers to select for business. One challenge is the problem of unfair ratings, which arises when modeling the trust of sellers relies on ratings provided by other buyers (called advisors). Existing approaches for coping with this problem fail in scenarios where the majority of advisors are dishonest, buyers do not have much personal experience with sellers, advisors try to flood the trust modeling system with unfair ratings, and sellers vary their behavior widely. We propose a novel personalized approach for effectively modeling trustworthiness of advisors, allowing a buyer to 1) model the private reputation of an advisor based on their ratings for commonly rated sellers 2) model the public reputation of the advisor based on all ratings for the sellers ever rated by that agent 3) flexibly weight the private and public reputation into one combined measure of the trustworthiness of the advisor. Our approach tracks ratings provided according to their time windows and limits the ratings accepted, in order to cope with advisors flooding the system and to deal with changes in agents' behavior. Experimental evidence demonstrates that our model outperforms other models in detecting dishonest advisors and is able to assist buyers to gain the largest profit when doing business with sellers. Equipped with this richer method for modeling trustworthiness of advisors, we then embed this reasoning into a novel trust-based incentive mechanism to encourage agents to be honest. In this mechanism, buyers select the most trustworthy advisors as their neighbors from which they can ask advice about sellers, forming a social network. In contrast with other researchers, we also have sellers model the reputation of buyers. Sellers will offer better rewards to satisfy buyers that are well respected in the social network, in order to build their own reputation. We provide precise formulae used by sellers when reasoning about immediate and future profit to determine their bidding behavior and the rewards to buyers, and emphasize the importance for buyers to adopt a strategy to limit the number of sellers that are considered for each good to be purchased. We theoretically prove that our mechanism promotes honesty from buyers in reporting seller ratings, and honesty from sellers in delivering products as promised. We also provide a series of experimental results in a simulated dynamic environment where agents may be arriving and departing. This provides a stronger defense of the mechanism as one that is robust to important conditions in the marketplace. Our experiments clearly show the gains in profit enjoyed by both honest sellers and honest buyers when our mechanism is introduced and our proposed strategies are followed. In general, our research will serve to promote honesty amongst buyers and sellers in e-marketplaces. Our particular proposal of allowing sellers to model buyers opens a new direction in trust modeling research. The novel direction of designing an incentive mechanism based on trust modeling and using this mechanism to further help trust modeling by diminishing the problem of unfair ratings will hope to bridge researchers in the areas of trust modeling and mechanism design

Review and critique of supplier selection process and practices

With increasingly competitive global world markets, companies are under intense pressure to find ways to cut production and material costs to survive and sustain their competitive position in their respective markets. Since a qualified supplier is a key element and a good resource for a buyer in reducing such costs, evaluation and selection of the potential suppliers has become an important component of supply chain management. Hence, development of an effective and rational supplier selection model is naturally desirable. Several evaluation and selection models for supplier selection have been proposed and reported in the supply chain literature. This paper reveals the findings of a wide ranging literature review of supplier selection practices and models. Altogether 147 refereed academic journal articles are reviewed and classified into five categories. A list and summary of the papers falling into each category with brief annotations is provided. The areas that have received little attention or lack of research interest are discussed and some new research settings are also suggested

Exploring Sellers' Experiences in the C2C Online Auction Environment

Online auction websites are becoming increasingly important as an intermediary for both sellers and buyers. They offer consumers an alternative source of goods to those sold at retail stores and other second-hand traditional consumer-to-consumer (C2C) channels, such as garage sales or flea markets. They also represent a new market model which incorporates a new distribution channel and a new means of establishing prices. Some researchers predict that retailers are now facing a new competition and the potential for declining sales as a result of the cannibalisation effect of the C2C online auction market. Noticeably, although much research has been carried out in an attempt to understand online auctions in relation to buying behaviour, little effort has been made to investigate the dynamic nature of individual sellers, in particular C2C sellers, in the online auction environment. Therefore, this study is aimed at filling in the gaps by exploring the sellers' behaviour and experiences in the C2C online auction environment. Its objectives are: (1) to explore the learning process that individual sellers go through in the C2C online auction environment; and (2) to find out what skills and techniques are commonly used by sellers and how these skills have been applied when marketing their products in the online auction environment. This study used a qualitative method, and a market-oriented ethnography was adopted. Data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with sellers on TradeMe and from a wide range of archival documents. Nineteen sellers were recruited to participate into this study. Consequently, a learning model has been built, based on the consumer socialisation model, to explain the learning process of sellers as they become experienced in the C2C online auction environment. The findings from this study highlighted that sellers went through a learning process to become more experienced in online auctions. Moreover, different learning methods occurred at different stages of the learning process, including social interaction, observing and imitating, rewards and punishments, and other sources of information. This study also demonstrated the fact that sellers both implicitly and explicitly perceived the importance of marketing strategies and tactics and had extensively applied them. Several implications and recommendations arise from this study, including the need for more in-depth research on sellers' behaviour and experiences, using a longitudinal approach. Additionally, it is recommended that TradeMe should continue to improve their auction site in order to attract more sellers which, in turn, will lead to a greater number of buyers

Creating business value through e-marketplace trading

Electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) have been researched over many years from the study of electronic data interchange (EDI) systems to the current internet based trading platforms. Early e-marketplaces connected a buyer and supplier using proprietary systems that established a market hierarchy. The buyer was responsible for the system, established the terms of trade and the electronically enabled supplier could connect to the system. These systems were costly to build, which limited their use, and only organisations with an integrated system could use them. The web based e-marketplaces opened up the possibility of connecting many buyers and suppliers and enabling electronic transactions. The e-marketplace offers opportunities for establishing trade relationships with many organisations across the world. Business to business (B2B) e-commerce is a significant part of the Australian economy and there are opportunities to take advantage of e-marketplace trading. One of the advantages of electronic trading is the ability of the technology to deliver transaction benefits; these can have a significant impact on organisations regardless of organisational size. However, despite the potential of the e-marketplace to deliver organisational benefits there have been limited studies which consider the strategic implementation of e-marketplace trading. Organisational strategy and the implementation of strategic initiatives involve interactions between organisational structures and agents. The analytical dualism this represents complicates uncovering the fundamental causes of e-marketplace participation. Not only does the adoption of e-marketplace trading impact on the buyer and supplier organisations, it introduces the e-marketplace vendor organisation and the e-marketplace technology into the participation decision. The complexity of the interactions across organisational structures and between organisational agents and technology adoption can produce a diversity of outcomes. The philosophical underpinning of critical realism for the study is supported by the lack of understanding as to why, and in what circumstances, organisations successfully participate in e-marketplace trading. The critical realist philosophy provides the opportunity to understand the interrelationships between context, organisational structures and agents and identify the causal mechanisms involved in producing various outcomes. It allows for the development of middle level theory as existing theories are examined to explain the perceived phenomena. Large organisations operating in Western Australia are used as case studies to uncover the causal relationships between context, structures and agents that can produce successful, strategic implementation of e-marketplace participation. Existing literature in relation to e-marketplaces and IT adoption is used to develop the research questions and formulate the interview questions. The structured case methodology is used to analyse each case and relate the findings to possible explanatory theories. Context, mechanism and outcome patterns, identified in each case, are presented. Building on economic market, institutional and network theories the research identifies organising vision theory and community discourse as explanations for organisational legitimation that can circumscribe the use of e-marketplace trading. Six types of community group that influence organisational adoption of e-marketplace technology are identified. The research suggests that the influence of these groups within the organisation, the fit with organisational culture and strategic objectives can prevent or instigate change. Further, the decision making process supported by the group (or group member) is more influential in the strategic adoption of the e-marketplace than the ability of the technology to deliver efficiency or transaction processing gains. This implies that technology adoption studies should include contextual and environmental issues and practitioners should examine how much their decision making is influenced by organisational and environmental features. The thesis contributes to the discussion on organising vision theory, e-marketplace trading and business value creation. It demonstrates the application of the structured case study methodology to research that is underpinned by critical realism

The role of e-procurement in purchasing management

This exposition summarises research published in several academic articles, in order to meet the requirements of PhD by publication. The focus of the work is on the role of electronic procurement in management of the purchasing function. From the late 1990s a number of independent e-procurement mechanisms were launched which offered potential benefits such as increased order accuracy, transaction efficiency and greater integration between trading partners. At the outset of this programme of research, e-procurement was therefore an emerging phenomenon with little academic research and presented an opportunity to investigate a largely unexplored area. Edmondson and McManus (2007) suggest that for nascent, as opposed to mature areas of research, where few formal constructs or measures exist, an exploratory, qualitative approach is required. This research followed such an approach through the use of case studies, involving observation, participation and interviews with key organisational actors. Each paper makes use of several cases in order to compare and contrast results from different organisations and to draw conclusions from multi-case analysis. The published articles focus on the impact of core applications within e-procurement, including online reverse auctions, electronic marketplaces, online catalogue sites, and buying systems covering the ‘requisition to pay’ cycle. The findings from the papers address a number of core themes in purchasing management. In considering buyer-supplier relationships, it was observed that such dyads are driven by traditional buyer negotiation factors such as segmentation, power and price and that use of eprocurement applications tended to enforce such traditional behaviours. In relation to the potential for integration, the study found that integration between firms was barely affected, as the concept of integration was neither an objective nor a business case driver for e-procurement adoption. This situation reflects the finding that procurement managers pursue functional targets rather than supply chain-level objectives. However, other significant effects from e-procurement adoption were noted such as the tendency by buyers to reduce supplier numbers and a move to re-engineer the procurement function in buying firms, through automating transactional processes. The research finds that e-procurement does not have a deterministic impact on purchasing management, and that it acts as an enabler to more effective management of the function though the way its different mechanisms are deployed. The exposition establishes that e-procurement is used in relation to supply conditions which are characterised by both ‘markets’ and ‘hierarchies’, but that it is the predefined purchasing strategy of the firm, rather than available technology solutions, which determines when markets and hierarchies are used. Additionally, an original model is introduced, focusing on developing an e-procurement policy which can support strategic purchasing goals. This model extrapolates findings from stages in the research, and marries together elements from various papers and frameworks therein, to produce some guidelines for adoption of this technology