Disintermediation, Reintermediation, or Cybermediation? The Future of Intermediaries in Electronic Marketplaces

Abstract

Early researchers seemed to agree on the prediction that decreased transaction costs in electronic marketplaces would lead to the reduction, or even extinction, of traditional intermediaries from electronic value chains. Despite some validity in these claims, a careful examination of the way that electronic commerce restructures traditional market functions reveals three equally plausible scenarios for the future. Traditional intermediaries will either be driven out of the market (disintermediation) or be forced to differentiate and re-emerge in the electronic marketplace (reintermediation), while wholly new markets for intermediaries will also be created (cybermediation). In this paper, we use a model of market functioning to establish areas where each of these three scenarios are expected to dominate. 1. Disintermediation in Electronic Markets: An Historical Perspective Advances in Information Technology are widely acknowledged as causing fundamental changes in organisational and m...

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