click on star to go back to Joseph Sarkis' HomepageThe current and projected growth of electronic commerce represents the beginning of the long-envisioned paradigm shift in organizational structure and design. As more and more organizations adopt the virtual-enterprise metaphor, interorganizational interactions are being transformed and can increasingly be viewed as some form of customer-supplier relations wherein one organization becomes the supplier of goods, services or intellectual property and the another becomes the receiver of the same. It is in this context that automated electronic third party mediation (or brokering) mechanisms become significant. In this paper, we discuss how the roles of brokers change with respect to organizational forms as well as the supporting tools and technologies needed to implement electronic brokering. Possible future directions to both managers and researchers are also provided.
click on star to go back to Joseph Sarkis' Homepage