The relationship between electronic marketplace strategy and structure

The number of business-to-business electronic marketplaces (B2B e-marketplaces) reached a peak in 2000 after which a period of consoli- dation took place (Day et al., 2003). The significance of e-marketplaces has not diminished since those that remain offer a more viable and sus- tainable business model for organizations to participate in. Although, researchers have given some attention to the antecedents of successful e-marketplace participation by organizations, there has been relatively little attention given to the e-marketplaces themselves. In particular, the literature on e-marketplaces has not explicitly addressed the stra- tegic implications embedded within e-marketplace structures. The structural implications of e-marketplaces go beyond the perception of bias and neutrality mentioned in the literature (Brunn et al., 2002). The purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationship between e-marketplace strategy and e-marketplace structure. A classification of e-marketplace strategies is presented. The benefits and issues related to each structural form are examined through an extensive literature analysis and a number of examples. The resulting framework of structural implications can be used by e-marketplace developers to decide on an e-marketplace structure to match their strategy an