The study focuses on why organizations host and why entrepreneurs participate in business-to-business (B2B) virtual communities. The answer to this question can aid hosting organizations in creating and using B2B virtual communities in ways that will provide them economic benefits. We use social exchange theory to develop a model and research hypothesis based on a synthesis of the B2B ecommerce...

Since their rise during the 1990s, business-to-business (B2B) electronic marketplaces have been subject to numerous scientific articles. Especially during the dot-com era, these research efforts have been accompanied by several start-ups such as CommerceOne, with mixed market success. For researchers looking for promising areas of IS research, these facts raise the question whether B2B electron...

E-commerce (EC) success and related influencing factors have not been investigated properly in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), while these businesses possess very different characteristics as compared to large businesses. The purpose of this study is to provide a better and clearer understanding of business-to-business (B2B) EC value and success within SMEs, particular...

Because small and medium sized businesses form the basis of the national economy, creating conditions under which they can maintain stable growth in a more competitive environment is a principal challenge for continuous economic growth. Due to a lack of managerial resources in practice, however, they experience difficulties in raising funds and accessing the financial market. On the other hand,...

The automation of business processes spanning organizations requires the formal specification of so-called B2B protocols, which define the interfaces of cooperating business software systems thereby enabling interoperability and loose coupling. Currently, there are two main approaches proposed for the specification of B2B protocols, the WSDLbased approach supporting Web Service languages, and t...

Business to Business (B2B) relationships in Ecommerce are becoming increasingly important. However, there is little guidance available for managers about how relationships should be formulated or managed. Further, requirements analysis for information technology support of B2B interorganisational relationships (IORs) depends on the business model of the relationship, and needs a predictive basi...

This chapter explores the private and social desirability of information transparency of a business-to-business (B2B) electronic market that provides an online platform for information transmission. The abundance of transaction data available on the Internet tends to make information more transparent in B2B electronic markets. In such a transparent environment, it becomes easier for firms to ob...

This article presents an economic model of a monopoly retailer that enables the study of incentives for business-to-business (B2B) e-procurement technology investments that permit inventory coordination and improved operational control. We focus on the information technology (IT) adoption behavior of firms in the presence of agency costs and information uncertainty. We distinguish among three k...

The TPC-App is a B2B benchmark implementing a retail scenario. This benchmark specifies a set of web services interactions to test the performance of an application server. Today B2B systems undergo a permanent technological change. There even exist competitive technologies at the same time. From a business perspective it is important that the application systems of the business partners intero...

The proliferation of online auctions has attracted significant research interest in understanding real-life bidding behavior. However, most of the empirical work has focused on business-to-consumer (B2C) auctions. A natural question is whether the findings obtained from B2C auctions are applicable to business-to-business (B2B) auctions which often involve much higher stakes. In this paper, we e...