Resultados de las encuestas

The first stream of electronic markets literature investigates how ICT affect the choice of coordination mechanism. It started with the seminal work of Malone, Yates and Benjamin (1987). They offer three arguments that increased ICT use will lead to electronic markets being favored relatively more than electronic hierarchies. Their first argument is that on a general level, ICT reduces the cost of communicating and processing information, i.e. the cost of coordination. As these costs are higher in markets than in hierarchies, the absolute cost reduction will be larger in markets, thus leading to a relative shift towards electronic markets. Butler

et al. (1997) make a similar point in their discussion of interaction costs, which they estimate to be reduced by 60% on average, through use of the Web.

On a more detailed level, Malone, Yates and Benjamin observe that these coordination costs are determined in part by the asset specificity of the product (the degree to which the product can be employed outside the specifics of the current transaction (Williamson, 1985) and the complexity of product description. When both factors are high, the product is likely to be obtained through hierarchical coordination and when both factors are low through market coordination (when one factor is high and the other is low is not dealt with in their paper). They then argue that ICT-enabled flexible manufacturing systems essentially reduce the asset specificity of the product; lower asset specificity favors market-based coordination over hierarchical coordination (Williamson, 1985). Their third argument is that databases and high-bandwidth electronic communication enable markets to communicate effectively more complex product descriptions than before, thus again favoring markets over hierarchies.

Although seemingly compelling, empirical tests of this hypothesis have not yielded very supportive results. Rosenthal, Shah and Xiao (1993) investigated the chemical industry, but their evidence suggests a move towards electronic hierarchies. They explain their results by pointing to the sourcing literature, which shows an increased use of single sourcing, geared towards developing long-term relationships with a sole supplier. They argue that this development is more important than the possible consequences of ICT, which therefore leads to use of more hierarchical coordination instead of markets. Hess and Kemerer (1994) studied five electronic coordination mechanisms in the home mortgage industry and found that the ones that survived in the long term were electronic hierarchies, not electronic markets, again contradicting the Malone, Yates and Benjamin- hypothesis. They suggest that the failed marketplaces may not have aligned the incentives in the marketplace properly, which leads to reduced adoption and eventually failure. Other relevant factors in this respect are the relative market power of buyers and suppliers, as well as which party owns the market.

Other researchers have refined the original theoretical arguments and arrived at similar conclusions regarding the importance of market participants’ sourcing strategy. Clemons, Reddi and Row (1993) pointed to the neglected variable of transaction risk and posed the “move to the middle hypothesis”. This said that although there will be an increase in outsourcing of activities caused by ICT

(which was validated by Brynjolfsson, Malone, Gurbaxani and Kambil (1994)), this increased outsourcing will be from a relatively small number of suppliers, with which the firm has long-term cooperative relationships. This network-like structure is chosen in order to reduce the risks of opportunistic behavior and the loss of critical resources, while also providing higher incentives for investments in IT, organizational adaptations and learning processes. Bakos and Brynjolfsson (1993) arrived at a similar conclusion reasoning from the economic literature on incomplete contracts, when they argued that ICT increases the importance of “non-contractibles” such as quality, innovation, responsiveness and information sharing in buyer-supplier relationships. Both these articles show that there are more factors than asset specificity and complexity of product description at play when determining the choice of coordination mechanism.

Steinfield, Kraut and Plummer (1995) highlighted the importance of the openness of the technical infrastructure and the locus of control of the infrastructure. Particularly the locus-of-control variable influences the resulting coordination structure, because unless the infrastructure is controlled by a neutral third party, entry barriers and lock-in are likely to arise (not unlike the results found by Hess and Kemerer (1994)). This would result again in network-like configurations. Holland and Lockett (1997) took a slightly different approach when they proposed the “mixed-mode hypothesis”. They argue that, instead of a single preferred coordination mode, firms use combinations of market and hierarchy-type relationships with their suppliers. Furthermore, instead of causing a shift one way or the other, ICT allows firms to maintain such relationships simultaneously. The specific organizational context will determine which type of electronic relationship will arise, although they do not offer any predictions as to how the organizational context will determine electronic coordination mechanism choice.

Other than the proposed shift from electronic hierarchies to electronic markets, Malone, Yates and Benjamin (1987) also identified an electronic brokerage effect. Electronic markets can connect many different buyers and suppliers through a central database, which theoretically could reduce the need for brokers and other intermediaries. This ‘disintermediation hypothesis’ has often been repeated in the popular press (Champy 1999) as well as the academic literature (Benjamin and Wigand, 1995). However, the work of Steinfield and colleagues shows that empirical evidence does not support such disintermediation (Sarkar, Butler and Steinfield, 1995, 1998; Steinfield, Chan and Kraut, 2000). They give two reasons

for this: the first is that the transaction costs for intermediaries also drop because of ICT and this reduction may offset the reduction in transaction costs of a direct buyer-supplier link. The second reason is that an exchange process consists of many more phases than just brokering -the matching buyers and suppliers- (Kambil and van Heck, 1998; Bakos, 1998) and some of these additional functions are not easy to replicate without using an intermediary. For example, how do electronic markets deal with processes such as the legitimization of transactions and the resolution of disputes between buyer and seller? (Kambil and van Heck, 1998) Although in principle the trading parties themselves could fulfill these roles, it is more likely that an intermediary will do that. Having an external party that is perceived as independent by the trading parties will increase the trust that they have in the effective functioning of those processes, thus making markets more viable. As the cost of intermediation drops because of ICT, Steinfield and colleagues predict that there will actually be more intermediaries, as now specialized intermediation for certain phases of the exchange process becomes feasible (Sarkar, Butler and Steinfield, 1995, 1998). Vervest and Dunn (2000) note that the increasing importance of customer information gives rise to new parties skilled in infomediation. Such infomediaries focus on collecting customer information from various parties and organizing it for other businesses to use to deliver customer value.

Bailey and Bakos (1997) and Bakos (1998) arrived at similar conclusions regarding re-intermedation and new roles for intermediaries, using several case studies of successful electronic markets as did Jin and Robey (1999), who drew on literature from sociology and marketing to support the re-intermediation case.