The Real Value of B2B: From Commerce towards Interaction and Knowledge Sharing

The paper analyzes the evolution of business-to-business e-commerce (B2B) and outlines the emerging framework for business networks where interactive relations between firms are empowered by ICT. The rise and decline of B2B have highlighted the weaknesses of its hypotheses, focused on the benefits for firms to gain in efficiency through electronic transactions (Transaction cost theory). The economic and financial problems in which B2B marketplaces occurred have stressed the dif- ficulties of their transaction-based business models, while the low value of e-commerce over the years can be explained in terms of firms\u2019 indifference in using electronic networks as new commercial channels. Instead, such emphasis on emerging technology solutions, mainly based on the Web, to connect firms with its customers, suppliers and partners increases firm\u2019s opportunities of interaction within its value chain. From a knowledge-based perspective, firms are discovering a completely different scenario and new drivers for their competitiveness, based on a renovated use of ICT to manage distributed business processes. Opposite to the e-commerce value proposition focused on spot efficiency of electric transactions, firms refer to ICT to enhance their established networks of business-to-business relationships

A computational approach to modeling commodity markets

Computational framework, Agent based, Bilateral market, Matching order,

Greasing the Wheels of Trade: A Profile of the Dutch Transaction Sector***

How many resources does a nation spend on transactions costs to ‘grease the wheels of trade’? To examine this question the Dutch economy is used as a case study. The Netherlands are known as a nation of traders and this image was derived in the seventeenth century from successes in long distance trade, shipping and financial innovations. Despite its historical background the trading sector has never been adequately measured. In this paper, we present a first attempt in measuring and describing the Dutch transaction sector. Measurement by means of occupational data points out that approximately 25% of Dutch workers is employed in transaction jobs, and 29% if one includes transport tasks. We make the case that traditional industrial sector categories overestimate the true transaction character of an economy. Traditional ‘trade’ sectors employed 13% of the workers in 1807 and 39 percent in 1998, but these figures conceal the fact that all organizations employ jobs which have transformation and transaction tasks. A counterfactual exercise suggests that the growth of the transaction sector share in employment over two centuries was not 200% but 42%. Copyright Springer 2005labor, trade, transaction costs,

Spatial pricing models with lumpy transportation costs: the case for travel cost subsidization

Spatial pricing, Shopping trip, D42, R10, L1,