E-marketplaces for professional e-services: trust, reputation and performance

Currently, Professional Service Firms (PSFs) are becoming more and more important in a ‘knowledge-worker based’ society. This trend is supported by the development and diffusion of web-based technologies, encouraging firms to outsource a wider variety of business functions, especially those not included in the company’s core competencies. Many web-based platforms offering services for contractor management in the field of professional e-services emerged in these years. Reputation mechanisms are arising as key components for them because they help to build trust and to favour cooperation among loosely connected and geographically dispersed economic agents. In this work, we aim at exploring the relationship between online reputation of professionals (individuals, groups or PSFs, in brief PSFs) and their performance. We exploit one of the most widely used Web platforms for professional e-services and contractor management in the world, Elance. We try to reduce the research gap due to the fact that few previous works focused on e-marketplaces where rated and tested PSFs offer their e-services. Though this work is jointly authored, Alberto Francesconi is author of paragraphs “Theoretical Framework” and “Empirical Setting, Method and Hypothesis” and Claudia Dossena of paragraphs “Results and Discussion” and “Conclusions”