Information asymmetries, proprietary knowledge that one party in a trade holds over another party, in electronic markets might cause a loss in market efficiency and market failure. Reputation mechanisms may provide a means to reduce the effects of information asymmetry and prevent possible market failure. Feedback rating systems are among potential mechanisms to develop reputations. They are often used in naturalistic environment electronic market studies. Reputation mechanisms are difficult to assess, however, in naturalistic research settings since the researcher cannot control the many variables of interest. To control the variables, this study used an experimental research setting. The setting enabled buyer and seller values to be controlled to study the impact of reputation mechanisms on market efficiency and price premiums. A theory from economics, the induced value theory, was used to modify subject preferences through the use of a reward medium. The experimental market was implemented in a classroom environment patterned on Holt's (1999) design. University students accessed a Website that enabled a fictitious market in which the students acted as buyers and sellers of a fictitious product. The product is valued with a fictitious currency which has no real-world value. This allows for values to be induced. Two market control conditions were established, a full information near 100% efficient condition, which is the `ceiling' expectation, and a fairly low efficient condition in which no seller or product grade information was available to buyers, is the `floor' or "Lemons" condition. Two treatments, `cheaptalk', where sellers can make unverifiable product claims, and `feedback', where seller identity and historical ratings are available to buyers, were tested. The impact of asymmetric information on market efficiency was evaluated, as was the impact of a feedback rating mechanism on enhancing market efficiency. Analysis of the experiment results indicate that the treatments can be ordered as: Full Information-Feedback-Cheaptalk-Lemons, with regard to the affect of information on market efficiency.

Existing electronic markets are fragmented in the sense that each is an information island. The interoperation of product information between them is difficult especially in semantics communication. This prevents the formation of global electronic markets and the lowering distribution cost through market globalisation. The traditional and contemporary ap-proaches of product standardisation and ontology mediation could solve the problem only if all markets could adopt the same product standards, or mediation systems could mediate all heterogeneous standards and markets without semantic conflicts. However, problems generally exist in adopting a universal standard or mediating all markets through existing mediation systems. A reflection of the issue is that there are millions of ad hoc electronic product catalogues (EPCs) situated in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), where each EPC is a semantic community, often not aware of standards and mediation systems due to its ad hoc nature. This thesis focuses on the semantic integration of autonomous ad hoc EPCs, which are semantically inconsistent with each other. Firstly, a novel Collaborative Concept Exchange (CONEX) approach is developed for the se-mantic integration of ad hoc EPCs. Using this approach, a PRODUCT MAP is first built based on the theories of semiotic analysis and market segmentation. It functions as an analytical framework to articulate ad hoc EPCs, and answers the questions: what are the general char-acteristics of ad hoc EPCs, what are their heterogeneous relations, and how they are unevenly distributed in fragmented electronic markets. Within this framework, an abstract representa-tion of ad hoc EPCs is proposed using the articulated elements that are simple and manipu-lable. Major contributions of this framework include: the models of the abstract representa-tion of ad hoc EPCs on their structures, concepts and contexts; the semantic integration conditions of heterogeneous ad hoc EPCs; and a ConexNet of market network topology that captures the characteristics of ad hoc EPCs that are unevenly distributed in fragmented elec-tronic markets. Secondly, a three-layer CONEX information model is proposed to integrate ad hoc EPCs based on the PRODUCT MAP, which provides a trichotomy of systems, designers and users. The strategy behind the model is the separation of structure from concept and context, and hence they can be independently managed to resolve semantic conflicts between ad hoc EPCs. The major contributions of this model include the CONEX framework, collaboration mechanism and context transformation. The CONEX framework presents a formal characteri-sation and reconstruction of the structures of ad hoc EPCs based on a CONEX structure model and a CONEX grammar. It provides a formal specification for representing ad hoc EPCs including concept structure, classifier structure and mapping structure. The semantic conflicts in designing the concepts of ad hoc EPCs are resolved by a collaboration mecha-nism based on a semantic consistency model. The collaboration mechanism includes three key procedures: replicating unique concept identifiers and translating concept definitions be-tween common concepts of common EPCs; localising common concepts to local EPCs; and globalising local concepts to common EPCs. Users in the CONEX information model are not involved in any integration activities. They are provided with automatic and accurate concept exchange services through a mechanism of context transformation, which is designed based on an algorithm called Heterogeneous Concept Transformation. The separate integration of structures, concepts and contexts of ad hoc EPCs guarantees that the requirements of flexi-bility, evolvability and exactness of semantic integration have been met. Thirdly, the feasibility and features of the Collaborative Concept Exchange approach have been demonstrated in a prototype implementation that provides the services of collaborative concept design for semantic conflict resolution, and heterogeneous concept transformation for accurate and automatic concept exchange between ad hoc EPCs. A key contribution in the implementation level is the independent representation of the CONEX framework called XML PRODUCT MAP (XPM). XPM provides a feature of platform independence by con-forming to the standards of W3C XML, Simple Object Access Protocol and Web Services Description Language in both document specification and document transport. It is also a demonstration that the generic CONEX structure model and CONEX grammar can be imple-mented in any specific language such as XML for the particular scenarios of semantic integra-tion. With the aid of a collection of XPM document templates, two components called Con-cept Collaborator and Concept Transformer of the CONEX prototype are implemented to demonstrate how concepts are collaboratively designed to resolve semantic conflicts and how concepts are automatically and accurately exchanged between autonomous, heterogeneous and distributed ad hoc EPCs.

No description available.

Over the past 20 years the field of electronic markets has seen a considerable proliferation and differentiation. This position paper takes the opportunity of the 21st volume of “Electronic Markets” to look back at important developments and insights, suggesting a framework that captures the multiple facets and indeed empirical breadth and depths of this concept. It comprises three perspectives which include the market environment, governance choices by economic actors as well as the entrepreneurial dynamics of firms who initiate and operate market platforms as their business. In addition, we propose to study the interplay of technological, market, and institutional drivers in order to understand the phenomenon of electronic markets, which is also a precondition for designing electronic markets. Both activities involve more than an economically motivated choice between the discrete alternatives of markets and hierarchies. Rather, electronic markets are configurations across multiple, interdependent dimensions: Technology is an important force in shaping the field, but needs to be complemented by considerations of the competitive environment and the setting of rules in order to ensure efficient and effective plays of the game. Based on this framework, this position paper develops six propositions for the future of electronic markets. Overall, the advantages of intermediated structures, an ongoing technological sophistication, as well as further innovation in market mechanisms and services make electronic markets an ena-bler for many interorganizational value chains. While we are confident that the ingenuity of inventors will yield a flow of innovations, recent economic crises have shed a dark shadow over the sustainability of electronic markets. They call for suitable rules and regulation amenable to economic prosperity and stability to be agreed upon on a broad level.

This interview with Paul Timmers reflects on how the domain of business models has emerged since the publication of the first business model article in Electronic Markets in 1998. The interview provides insights in how his seminal article on business models for electronic markets originated and on the role of government bodies, in particular the European Commission. Among the opinions shared are that electronic markets should be conceived as a broad concept and that interdisciplinary views are key for shaping future developments, especially in the area of ubiquitous data in many industries.

<p>In this thesis we focus resource allocation problems and electronic markets in particular. The main application area of ours is electricity markets. We present a number of algorithms and include practical experience.</p><p>There is an ongoing restructuring of power markets in Europe and elsewhere, this implies that an industry that previously has been viewed as a natural monopoly becomes exposed to competition. In the thesis we move a step further suggesting that end users should take active part in the trade on power markets such as <i>(i)</i> day-ahead markets and <i>(ii) </i>markets handling close to real-time balancing of power grids. Our ideas and results can be utilised <i>(a) </i>to increase the efficiency of these markets and <i>(b) </i>to handle strained situations when power systems operate at their limits. For this we utilise information and communication technology available today and develop electronic market mechanisms designed for large numbers of participants typically distributed over a power grid.</p><p>The papers of the thesis cover resource allocation with separable objective functions, a market mechanism that accepts actors with discontinuous demand, and mechanisms that allow actors to express combinatorial dependencies between traded commodities on multi-commodity markets. Further we present results from field tests and simulations.</p>

In this thesis we focus resource allocation problems and electronic markets in particular. The main application area of ours is electricity markets. We present a number of algorithms and include practical experience. There is an ongoing restructuring of power markets in Europe and elsewhere, this implies that an industry that previously has been viewed as a natural monopoly becomes exposed to competition. In the thesis we move a step further suggesting that end users should take active part in the trade on power markets such as (i) day-ahead markets and (ii) markets handling close to real-time balancing of power grids. Our ideas and results can be utilised (a) to increase the efficiency of these markets and (b) to handle strained situations when power systems operate at their limits. For this we utilise information and communication technology available today and develop electronic market mechanisms designed for large numbers of participants typically distributed over a power grid. The papers of the thesis cover resource allocation with separable objective functions, a market mechanism that accepts actors with discontinuous demand, and mechanisms that allow actors to express combinatorial dependencies between traded commodities on multi-commodity markets. Further we present results from field tests and simulations.

In recent times, the Internet revolution has spawned numerous innovative enterprises-virtual companies, and electronic markets. Electronic markets (or digital markets) are scalable web-based platforms for buyers, sellers, marketmakers, and brokers to carry out business transactions. Over the last two years, there has been a proliferation of such E-Markets on the web. In this thesis, we develop an E-marketplace, which we call IMAGINE (Intelligent Market with AGents and Integrative NEgotiations) that improves upon the existing state-of-the-art in several non-trivial ways. IMAGINE combines the best features of existing E-marketplaces with several innovations. The thesis describes the conceptualization, analysis, and design of IMAGINE and provides details of implementation of a prototype of IMAGINE at the Electronic Enterprises Laboratory, Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science. IMAGINE is a collaborative, co-operative, intelligent E-Market that maximizes the combined utility value of the all traders involved. IMAGINE has several distinctive features: • It uses an innovative business model, which is intelligent in the sense of perceiving the nature of the market and market forces and using this market intelligence in matching buyers with sellers and in determining the prices. • It uses integrative negotiations, which make it attractive for buyers and sellers to reveal their true business interests and valuations. • A sound and robust software architecture for a web-based implementation using best practices in object technology. • Implementation of a prototype of IMAGINE has been carried out using leading edge Internet technologies such as multi-agent technology, Jini, and Javaspaces.

The banking industry has been a pioneer in adopting electronic markets with exchanges, clearinghouses, and multilateral trading facilities having become the backbone of today’s globally integrated financial transactions. While most banks use the services of these electronic markets to handle interbank processes, they still strive for bilateral relations in the field of customer-facing processes. This position paper argues that the financial crises, the changing behavior of customers, upcoming innovations based on information technology (IT) and financial services offered by non-banks are strong drivers towards more customer-orientation in the financial industry. A large variety of banking IT innovations has emerged and illustrates that traditional banks are expected to have less power to impede competition at the customer interface and in consequence need to re-position themselves. Building on these developments on the one hand and existing electronic market infrastructures in the banking industry on the other, the concept of a customer-oriented financial market infrastructure is proposed as a possible future solution. The impact is illustrated using a competitive analysis of the banking industry and analogies to the media industry where new entrants from the computing industry have caused disruptive changes. Besides describing the threat to existing banks, the position paper also discusses the perspectives for banks.

Over the past 20 years the field of electronic markets has seen a considerable proliferation and differentiation. This position paper takes the opportunity of the 21st volume of “Electronic Markets” to look back at important developments and insights, suggesting a framework that captures the multiple facets and indeed empirical breadth and depths of this concept. It comprises three perspectives which include the market environment, governance choices by economic actors as well as the entrepreneurial dynamics of firms who initiate and operate market platforms as their business. In addition, we propose to study the interplay of technological, market, and institutional drivers in order to understand the phenomenon of electronic markets, which is also a precondition for designing electronic markets. Both activities involve more than an economically motivated choice between the discrete alternatives of markets and hierarchies. Rather, electronic markets are configurations across multiple, interdependent dimensions: Technology is an important force in shaping the field, but needs to be complemented by considerations of the competitive environment and the setting of rules in order to ensure efficient and effective plays of the game. Based on this framework, this position paper develops six propositions for the future of electronic markets. Overall, the advantages of intermediated structures, an ongoing technological sophistication, as well as further innovation in market mechanisms and services make electronic markets an ena-bler for many interorganizational value chains. While we are confident that the ingenuity of inventors will yield a flow of innovations, recent economic crises have shed a dark shadow over the sustainability of electronic markets. They call for suitable rules and regulation amenable to economic prosperity and stability to be agreed upon on a broad level.