Supporting collaboration in business-to-business electronic marketplaces

Abstract.

Service offerings that support collaboration among participating firms are gaining popularity in Electronic Marketplaces (EMs). Although many papers have addressed the issue of collaboration, it has received little attention in the EM context. Collaboration is a rather broad term that means different things to different people. A detailed classification and analysis of such collaboration activities is needed to provide some clarification and a foundation for further research.

In this paper, we offer a framework that classifies collaboration activities on two dimensions: the level of collaboration and the parties involved in the collaboration. The support for activities in each kind of collaboration, product level criteria that identify where such collaboration levels are most likely to appear, and challenges in supporting each type of collaboration are addressed. Product level criteria and related issues provide important managerial implications for EM operators, which are not necessarily suited to supporting all levels of collaboration.