Developing a framework to analyse the roles and relationships of online intermediaries

Authors:
David Barnes;Matthew Hinton
Affiliations:
School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK;Open University Business School, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK
Venue:
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
Year:
2007

Citing 8
Cited 4

The case research strategy in studies of information systems

MIS Quarterly
Electronic markets and electronic hierarchies

Communications of the ACM
Qualitative research in information systems

MIS Quarterly
Characteristics of electronic markets

Decision Support Systems - Special issue on electronic commerce
Power, politics, and MIS implementation

Communications of the ACM
Place to Space: Migrating to Ebusiness Models

Place to Space: Migrating to Ebusiness Models
An exploratory study of the emerging role of electronic intermediaries

International Journal of Electronic Commerce
CASE tools as organizational change: investigating incremental and radical changes in systems development

MIS Quarterly

Applying Stabell and Fjeldstad's value configurations to E-commerce: A cross-case analysis of UK comparison websites

The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
An Ontology for Modeling Complex Inter-relational Organizations

OTM '09 Proceedings of the Confederated International Workshops and Posters on On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: ADI, CAMS, EI2N, ISDE, IWSSA, MONET, OnToContent, ODIS, ORM, OTM Academy, SWWS, SEMELS, Beyond SAWSDL, and COMBEK 2009
The role of the entrepreneur in identifying international expansion as a strategic opportunity

International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
The impact of consumer trust on attitudinal loyalty and purchase intentions in B2C e-marketplaces: Intermediary trust vs. seller trust

International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Internet-based information and communication technologies (ICTs) have offered opportunities to reconfigure supply chains. A new kind of intermediary has emerged in many industries; the cybermediary-an online intermediary that only operates in the virtual environment. Many new types of online intermediary have emerged with differing business models. As yet, there have been few attempts to describe and categorise their e-business practices or to analyse the roles that they play within their supply chains. This paper seeks to address this deficiency by addressing both the theory and practise of online intermediaries. A two-dimensional framework based on the roles of cybermediaries and their relationships between supplier and buyer in the supply chain is developed from a synthesis of the extant literature. Five roles of cybermediaries are identified: informational, transactional, assurance, logistical and customisation. Cybermediary relationships are characterised in terms of their affiliation to customers and suppliers. Case studies of three online intermediaries are presented to illustrate and test the framework. An analysis of the empirical data from these cases served to demonstrate the utility of the framework in categorising online intermediaries and offering additional understandings of the rapidly evolving world of virtual supply chains.