http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/865/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/26479/ 2011-04-18T00:00:00Z The literature on selection of interface formats is fragmented and does not provide an overall framework in which all relevant factors are included. Current frameworks are incomplete and focus on a subset of the total set of factors. In this paper we develop a more complete overview of factors based on the available literature. First, we perform an extensive literature study of 127 publications, resulting in 29 factors for format dominance. Second, we group the factors into five categories: characteristics of the format supporter, characteristics of the format, format support strategy, other stakeholders, and market characteristics. Third, we perform a meta-analysis and we specify the direction of each factor on format dominance. This results in a framework that facilitates assessing the chances that an interface format achieves dominance. We demonstrate that this framework is more complete than previous frameworks. The framework can be used by both researchers and practitioners to understand historical and current format battles as well as acceptance of formats without direct competitors. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31793/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z Purpose - Within an IT outsourcing relationship, transition represents a critical and complex phase that starts immediately after contract signing. Transition involves handing over outsourced activities from client firm to service provider firm and accompanies a new way of operating. The purpose of this paper is to determine and detail factors influencing the performance of transition phase within global IT outsourcing relationships. Design/methodology/approach - In this paper, the authors present a framework for transition performance that includes four factors: transition planning, knowledge transfer, transition governance and retained organization. This framework is tested and enriched by utilizing a single, in-depth case study involving over 25 interviews with a global offshore IT outsourcing engagement. Findings - It was found that knowledge transfer and transition governance are more critical factors than transition planning and retained organization for transition performance. This was due mainly to two reasons: the critical challenges faced, within the scope of these factors, had higher potential to disrupt transition; and both these factors and their related issues required a significant joint and coordinated effort from client and service provider firms, thereby, making implementation challenging for transition. Originality/value - Practitioners have suggested that over two-thirds of failed outsourcing relationships are due to transition-related challenges. This paper represents one of the first in-depth studies that provides insights from a real-life global outsourcing engagement, which contributes to and complements existing literature on IT outsourcing by providing a greater understanding of transition. Furthermore, it provides practitioners with insights and best practices that can be used to guide transitions in real-life engagements. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31794/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z Purpose - Within an IT outsourcing relationship, transition represents a critical and complex phase that starts immediately after contract signing. Transition involves handing over outsourced activities from client firm to service provider firm and accompanies a new way of operating. The purpose of this paper is to determine and detail factors influencing the performance of transition phase within global IT outsourcing relationships. Design/methodology/approach - In this paper, the authors present a framework for transition performance that includes four factors: transition planning, knowledge transfer, transition governance and retained organization. This framework is tested and enriched by utilizing a single, in-depth case study involving over 25 interviews with a global offshore IT outsourcing engagement. Findings - It was found that knowledge transfer and transition governance are more critical factors than transition planning and retained organization for transition performance. This was due mainly to two reasons: the critical challenges faced, within the scope of these factors, had higher potential to disrupt transition; and both these factors and their related issues required a significant joint and coordinated effort from client and service provider firms, thereby, making implementation challenging for transition. Originality/value - Practitioners have suggested that over two-thirds of failed outsourcing relationships are due to transition-related challenges. This paper represents one of the first in-depth studies that provides insights from a real-life global outsourcing engagement, which contributes to and complements existing literature on IT outsourcing by providing a greater understanding of transition. Furthermore, it provides practitioners with insights and best practices that can be used to guide transitions in real-life engagements. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31795/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z Purpose - Within an IT outsourcing relationship, transition represents a critical and complex phase that starts immediately after contract signing. Transition involves handing over outsourced activities from client firm to service provider firm and accompanies a new way of operating. The purpose of this paper is to determine and detail factors influencing the performance of transition phase within global IT outsourcing relationships. Design/methodology/approach - In this paper, the authors present a framework for transition performance that includes four factors: transition planning, knowledge transfer, transition governance and retained organization. This framework is tested and enriched by utilizing a single, in-depth case study involving over 25 interviews with a global offshore IT outsourcing engagement. Findings - It was found that knowledge transfer and transition governance are more critical factors than transition planning and retained organization for transition performance. This was due mainly to two reasons: the critical challenges faced, within the scope of these factors, had higher potential to disrupt transition; and both these factors and their related issues required a significant joint and coordinated effort from client and service provider firms, thereby, making implementation challenging for transition. Originality/value - Practitioners have suggested that over two-thirds of failed outsourcing relationships are due to transition-related challenges. This paper represents one of the first in-depth studies that provides insights from a real-life global outsourcing engagement, which contributes to and complements existing literature on IT outsourcing by providing a greater understanding of transition. Furthermore, it provides practitioners with insights and best practices that can be used to guide transitions in real-life engagements. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22274/ 2010-09-01T00:00:00Z Information technologies (IT) have affected economic activities within and beyond the boundaries of the firm, changing the face of e-commerce. This article explores the circumstances under which value is created in business networks made possible by IT. Business networks combine the capabilities of multiple firms to produce and deliver products and services that none of them could more economically produce on its own and for which there is demand in the market. We call this business network-based value creation. We apply economic theory to explain the conditions under which business networks will exist and are able to sustain their value-producing activities. Informedness has the potential to increase the complexity of consumer demand. Addressing this demand requires flexible production and delivery of products and services, and can be achieved by value-adding business networks supported by IT, standardized technology, and business process solutions. We also examine the benefits associated with business network-based value creation and fair value-sharing to support the sustainability of business networks. We develop a set of propositions and draw upon multiple case examples from the travel and hospitality industry to validate our theoretical perspectives on business network-based value creation. The results demonstrate that this industry is going through a digital transformation that makes it possible for many firms to engage in highly effective and innovative network-based value creation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19690/ 2010-05-07T00:00:00Z In this theory-building research, we develop a set of propositions to examine the existence, the essential workings, and the conditions for value created and borne by business network co-production. We use transaction cost economics and informedness theory to explain why business network co-production exists; how informedness enhances value; and why customers, a network orchestrator and open standards add value to co-production. We use multiple observations from the public transport industry to validate the theoretical perspectives we develop. Triggered by liberalization and enabled by smart cards, this industry is going through a digital transformation from segmented travel to providing networked travel, where service vendors co-produce customer travel services to produce multimodal customer-oriented services. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19367/ 2010-05-02T00:00:00Z In this case the Dutch Flower Auctions (DFA) are discussed. The DFA are part of the supply network in which flowers are produced, stocked, and then sold through either mediation or auctioning. This case focuses on the buyers’ and auctioneers’ positions when flowers are traded through auctions. This case deals with the application of personalized agents as part of a Decision Support System which empowers the decision maker. The decision makers discussed in this case are the auctioneers who control the auction process, and the buyers who bid at the clock auction. Agents are defined as software programs that sense their environment and react autonomously on their environment in order to maximize a certain outcome. The agents, as envisioned in this case, are able to determine users’ preferences and based on these preferences agents can proactively make recommendations. Agents as applied to the auction process could empower the auctioneers in their decisions. Another type of agent could empower the buyer, since buyers have the high-pressure task of buying at the clock auction. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39942/ 2010-03-01T00:00:00Z There is a common expectation among forward-looking companies that through the use of information technology new ways of working can be created that will enhance workplace conditions with such an effect as to improve employee satisfaction levels, increase productivity and ultimately impact positively upon company performance. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38670/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Abstract: Founded in 1999, the Alibaba Group had become China’s leading e-commerce company by 2008. It owns and operates Alibaba.com (the world’s largest business-to-business e-commerce platform) and Taobao.com (China’s number one consumer-to-consumer e-commerce platform). Alibaba.com Limited raised US$1.7 billion at its initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in November 2007, making it the world’s second biggest Internet offering after Google’s 2004 IPO on the NASDAQ. Taobao.com also attracted significant international attention because it managed to displace the once dominant eBay (the world’s largest consumer marketplace) in China by 2007. The Alibaba Group attributes its success largely to the business network it has fostered. It founded several sister companies alongside Alibaba.com and Taobao.com to cross-sell and cross-market one another’s services and offer packaged deals. In this way, it formed a network of suppliers, partners and customers to fully exploit and serve their market. The Alibaba Group’s vision is to build a business network that will make it possible to do all aspects of business online. Considering the growing e-commerce industry worldwide, three questions are pivotal: 1) How should the Alibaba Group anchor its long-term strategy – further expand the business network by including players from many more industries or specialise in several strong industries within the business network? 2) Would another business model emerge to challenge the Alibaba’s business network? 3) How would the Alibaba Group face competition within China and abroad – continue to focus on the Chinese market or grow outside the home base and build a global business network? http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19478/ 2009-11-02T00:00:00Z Organizations are moving, or must move, from today's relatively stable and slow-moving business networks to an open digital platform where business is conducted across a rapidly-formed network with anyone, anywhere, anytime despite different business processes and computer systems. Table 1 provides an overview of the characteristics of the traditional and new business network approaches [2]. The disadvantages and associated costs of the more traditional approaches are caused by the inability to provide relative complex, bundled, and fast delivered products and services. The potential of the new business network approach is to create these types of products and services with the help of combining business network insights with telecommunication capabilities. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19514/ 2009-11-01T00:00:00Z Most studies on the role of IT for economic exchange predicted that under a given set of exchange attributes buyers would choose a certain mode of relationship with suppliers. Our study of an online IT services marketplace revealed that buyers do not have a single, uniformly preferred type of relationship, but rather maintain a portfolio of relationships. Furthermore, different buyers arrange their portfolios of exchange relationships in different ways. We found four clusters of buyers' portfolios of relationships labeled Transactional buyers, Recurrent buyers, Small diversifiers and Large diversifiers, that differ in their usage of auction or negotiation mechanism, their supplier relations as well as their usage of preferred suppliers. Our results thus paint a richer picture of how buyers organize their supplier networks online. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16260/ 2009-02-01T00:00:00Z Using the process-oriented view and resource-based theory, we investigate how mobile ticketing technologies can successfully enable revenue management. We collect data from 17 cases worldwide in which smart cards and mobile devices have been adopted in the public transport industry over the last decade. The use of these technologies allows service providers to capture real-time and complete information of customers' actual travel. This enables service providers to employ advanced price differentiation and service expansion strategies and achieve new best practice in revenue management. The results demonstrate that service providers that use more sophisticated mobile ticketing technologies are more likely to adopt advanced strategies to create value. Further, they are more likely to achieve higher performance gains. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19518/ 2009-02-01T00:00:00Z An investigation of the pervasive impact of multi-access technologies, i.e. the internet, wireless data, wired and wireless voice, and interactive TV, on consumer electronic auctions was carried out in the Dutch market by some researchers. This article extends the analytic generalizability of their research findings through a replication study in the emerging markets of China. By comparing the empirical research findings, we reveal that there is no significant difference in the impacts of multi-access technologies on consumer electronic auctions within dissimilar contexts; as long as both the business and the technologies are prevalent. This affirms the argument that the use of more sophisticated multi-access technologies has positive effects on the maturity level of exchange processes and stakeholders interactions in consumer electronic auctions, thereby leading to an increase in the expected success of the auctions. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14114/ 2008-12-01T00:00:00Z This paper discusses the selection of a preferred strategy for implementing an IT infrastructure from a range of competing alternatives. The model presented here combines the use of an evidential reasoning approach based on the Dempster-Shafer theory of belief functions with real options analysis. We discuss the combined use of both theories and show that combining the Dempster-Shafer theory with real options analysis provides flexible support that takes account of the multi-dimensional nature of implementation decisions. We also go into the fundamental requirements that need to be met when selecting a strategy for implementing an IT infrastructure. We conclude by outlining a number of the model's limitations. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/12871/ 2008-07-15T00:00:00Z Online markets have dramatically decreased costs of search and communication for buyers. By contrast, costs of evaluating purchasing alternatives have become critical due to an overwhelming range of available options. When high, evaluation costs can offset potential gains from transactions and cause inefficiencies, e.g. by forcing buyers to abandon transactions without allocating contracts. While most previous studies treat evaluation costs as an exoge-nous factor, this study considers them endogenous. We identify several tactics (search, request for proposal preparation, budget announcement, bid filtering, and negotiation) that buyers at online markets can use to reduce their evaluation costs and hence influence project allocation. Using data from nearly 10 thousand transactions at a leading online marketplace for IT services, we show that buyers who use these tactics are more likely to allocate their project to a winner than buyers not using these tactics. Buyer experience also has a positive effect on allocation and, in addition, moderates the effectiveness of some of the tactics. As experience grows, budget announcement be-comes more effective in coping with evaluation costs and increases the likelihood of allocation, while the effectiveness of request for proposal preparation decreases. Together, these results shed more light on the buyer side of online reverse auctions, which leads to guidelines for improving the efficiency of online marketplaces. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/11288/ 2008-02-04T00:00:00Z The choice of contract allocation mechanism in procurement affects such aspects of transactions as information exchange between buyer and supplier, supplier competition, pricing and, eventually, performance. In this study we investigate the buyer’s choice between reverse auctions and bilateral negotiations as an allocation mechanism for IT services contracts. Prior studies into allocation mechanism choice focused on factors pertaining to discrete exchange situation, such as con-tract complexity or availability of suppliers. We broaden the research by focusing on buyers’ past exchange relationships with vendors. Based on the literature on the economics of contracting and agency theory, we hypothesize that prior re-peat interaction with vendors favors the use of negotiations over auctions in the next transaction, while the need to explore the marketplace due to buyer’s inexperience or dissatisfaction with vendor’s performance in the most recent project leads to the use of auctions instead of negotiations. We find support for these hypotheses in a longitudinal dataset of 2,081 IT projects realized by 91 repeat buyers at a leading online services marketplace over a period of eight years. Taken together, the results show that analyzing B2B auctions and negotiations should move beyond analyzing discrete instances and instead analyze them in the context of the individual firm’s history and supplier strategy. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10458/ 2007-07-03T00:00:00Z In online affiliate marketing networks advertising web sites offer their affiliates revenues based on provided web site traffic and associated leads and sales. Advertising web sites can have a network of thousands of affiliates providing them with web site traffic through hyperlinks on their web sites. Search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo, consider hyperlinks as a proof of quality and/or reliability of the linked web sites, and therefore use them to determine the relevance of web sites with regard to search queries. In this research we investigate the potential impact of online affiliate marketing networks on the ranking of advertisers’ web sites in search results. This article empirically explores how seven different affiliate marketing networks affect the rankings of the advertising web sites within web search engines. The field study followed intensively seven online affiliate marketing networks for twelve weeks after their launch. The results indicate that newly started affiliate networks effectively improve the rankings of advertising web sites in search engine results. Also, it was found that the effects of affiliate marketing networks on search engine rankings were smaller for advertising web sites operating in highly competitive markets. Another finding was that a growth in visitors coming from search engines was present as a result of the improvement of search engine rankings. Finally, the results indicate that cost-benefit metrics associated with affiliate marketing programs, such as the average marketing cost will decrease when the positive effects of affiliate marketing on search engine rankings are taken into account. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10072/ 2007-05-10T00:00:00Z Small firms face distinct problems and opportunities when procuring IT resources. Whereas previous work focused at the level of firm or buyer-supplier dyad, we address portfolios of buyer-supplier relationships at an online marketplace for IT services. Using the portfolio approach, we develop a buyers taxonomy and analyze properties of resulting clusters. Our investigation reveals four clusters of buyers with distinct mixes of long-term and short-term supplier relationships. Although reverse auctions are found to be associated with short-term relationships and negotiations support long-term relationships, buyers in different clusters use the two mechanisms in combination to a different extent. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7902/ 2006-08-22T00:00:00Z Following their larger counterparts, an increasing number of small firms outsource their IT tasks to lower cost offshore destinations. For small firms, however, offshore outsourcing is a difficult undertaking as it involves high transaction costs. Online marketplaces for IT services, which have recently become available to small firms, make offshore IT outsourcing more accessible and manageable, although differences in the marketplace design result in varying outcomes across the marketplaces. This has consequences for SME’s decision as to which online marketplace to use, because different markets may have different types of benefits and costs. This paper sets to analyze some of the similarities and differences between online marketplaces for IT services and their effects for small firms. First, we analyze if and how online marketplaces reduce small firms’ transaction costs in offshore IT outsourcing. Second, we examine the effects of market entry barriers on outcomes of online marketplaces and their implications for small firms. The results indicate that online marketplaces for IT services do reduce transaction costs for small firms in offshore outsourcing across ten specific market processes. More surprising, however, is the finding that the lower market entry barriers for suppliers result in lower prices for buyers without compromising other aspects of market performance. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7903/ 2006-08-22T00:00:00Z Companies increasingly outsource IT-related tasks using reverse auction mechanisms embedded into online marketplaces. However, a considerable proportion of auctions at these marketplaces do not result in a contract between buyer and supplier. Extant literature mostly refers to costly bidding and bid evaluation to explain this phenomenon. Another possible explanation is that because of the low entry barriers, buyers with a low commitment to exchange can use the marketplace solely for information gath-ering purposes such as price benchmarking and obtaining free consultations, having little or no intention to contract a supplier. We test this explanation by looking at how different types of costs incurred by the buyer during the sourcing process, are related to the outcome of reverse auctions in terms of contract award. We argue that higher levels of search, preparation and negotiation costs are associated with higher commitment to exchange and find that opportunistic behaviour does indeed play a part in the non-contracted projects, while committed buyers are more likely to enter into a contract with a supplier. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 2,574 reverse auctions at a leading online marketplace for IT services and further verified across projects of different value and different levels of buyer experience. On the practical side, we recommend setting up entry barriers for buyers with a low level of commitment. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7320/ 2006-02-01T00:00:00Z The objective in this paper is to shed light into the design of logistic networks balancing profit and the environment. More specifically we intend to i) determine the main factors influencing environmental performance and costs in logistic networks ii) present a comprehensive framework and mathematical formulation, based on multiobjective programming, integrating all relevant variables in order to explore efficient logistic network configurations iii) present the expected computational results of such formulation and iv) introduce a technique to evaluate the efficiency of existing logistic networks.The European Pulp and Paper Industry will be used to illustrate our findings. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/1906/ 2005-03-08T00:00:00Z This article addresses the emergence of networks of practice and the role of knowledge sharing via knowledge portals. Its focus is on factors that stimulate the successful emergence of networks of practice. Literature on knowledge management and communities of practice suggest the preexistence of shared knowledge or a shared believe system as a condition sine qua non for the networks of practice to emerge. We challenge this assumption and argue and demonstrate that common knowledge and believe systems are rather a result of knowledge sharing instead of a pre-condition. The central question is how a knowledge portal facilitates the diffusion of knowledge among rather loosely coupled and often disconnected innovation projects. Research is carried out in the agricultural industry in the Netherlands. In this industry there is a need to change from a product-oriented to a problemoriented innovation structure. The set up of a platform and knowledge portal around agro-logistics – crossing different product-oriented production clusters – was therefore a logical result. It gave the opportunity to analyze what the impact of a knowledge portal is in a situation that people and projects come from different organizations that do not know each other. Do they start to share knowledge and what are the conditions? With regard to the case study of the knowledge portal in the agricultural industry we conclude that a knowledge portal will have an impact on how projects are sharing knowledge and on the emergence of a network of practice. The results show that preconditions for the emergence of a network of practice are sense of urgency and fragmented awareness. These results also indicate the important role of a knowledge broker. The developed knowledge portal seems to lead to overcoming structural holes and a closer cognitive distance among the projects. However, we did not find a direct effect of the knowledge portal on sharing tacit knowledge. In the initial phase of a network of practice the knowledge exchange seems to focus on general, non-project specific and explicit knowledge. There was also no direct effect of the knowledge portal on the reciprocity of knowledge exchange among the projects. However, knowledge was shared between the project level and the platform and public level. Conclusions and directions for future research are formulated. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/274/ 2003-03-04T00:00:00Z The search for enablers of continued growth of SMS traffic, as well as the take-off of the more diversified MMS message contents, open up for enterprises the potential of bulk use of mobile messaging , instead of essentially one-by-one use. In parallel, such enterprises or value added services needing mobile messaging in bulk - for spot use or for use over a prescribed period of time - want to minimize total acquisition costs, from a set of technically approved providers of messaging capacity. This leads naturally to the evaluation of auctioning for bulk SMS or MMS messaging capacity, with the intrinsic advantages therein such as reduction in acquisition costs, allocation efficiency, and optimality. The paper shows, with extensive results as evidence from simulations carried out in the Rotterdam School of Management e-Auction room, how multi-attribute reverse auctions perform for the enterprise-buyer, as well as for the messaging capacity-sellers. We compare 1- and 5-round auctions, to show the learning effect and the benefits thereof to the various parties. The sensitivity will be reported to changes in the enterprise's and the capacity providers utilities and priorities between message attributes (such as price, size, security, and delivery delay). At the organizational level, the paper also considers alternate organizational deployment schemes and properties for an off-line or spot bulk messaging capacity market, subject to technical and regulatory constraints. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/217/ 2002-08-05T00:00:00Z Electronic auctions have rapidly increased in popularity, but the consequences of switching to an electronic auction are unclear. In part this is because multiple changes occur at the same time so one can only observe the combined effect of these changes and not the effect of each separate change. For instance, electronic bidders face lower transaction costs, but also have less information about product quality and about the state of the market such as the number of bidders. In this paper, we report a study of bidding behavior at a large Dutch flower auction in which we are able to separate some of these effects. We compare electronic bidders with traditional bidders and when correcting for quality differences and seasonal effects, we find that they to bid lower on average than traditional buyers, as predicted by Bakos (1991, 1997). The electronic bidders were divided in two subgroups, internal bidders and external bidders. The external bidders had less product quality information and market state information than the internal bidders. This led the external bidders to not only bid significantly higher than the internal bidders, but in fact as high as the traditional bidders. Both these effects run counter to theoretical predictions and some possible alternative explanations are offered. In general, it highlights the importance of focusing the information flows that occur in a market. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/346/ 2002-06-28T00:00:00Z Rede, in verkorte vorm uitgesproken op vrijdag 28 juni 2002 bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van bijzonder hoogleraar aan de Faculteit der Bedrijfskunde, vanwege de Vereniging Trustfonds Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, met als leeropdracht Bedrijfskunde in het bijzonder Ontwerp van Elektronische Markten. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/136/ 2001-12-12T00:00:00Z This paper argues that a better understanding of the business model of web auctions can be reached if we adopt a broader view and provide empirical research from different sites. In this paper the business model of web auctions is refined into four dimensions. These are auction model, motives, exchange processes, and stakeholders. One of the objects of this research is to redefine the blurry concept of the business model by analyzing one business model, the web auction model. We show in this research the complexity and diversity of factors contributing to the success of the web auction model. By generalizing the results to the level of business model we also show how complex and diverse business models can be. Motivated by the lack of empirically grounded justification for the mixed business results of web auctions, this paper adopts a qualitative approach that includes telephone interviews with web auctions developed in different European countries. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16714/ 2001-12-01T00:00:00Z Exploiting the Internet for commercial ends has become a key theme for most organizations. There are significant advantages for both buyers and sellers in using this medium. Savings are made as a result of reducing transaction costs, increasing the circle of potential customers, and improving the search-and-find capabilities for all parties concerned. At the moment there are several hundred Web-based auctions. And yet the place to see state-of-the-art auctions is not on the Web but rather in one of the dozen or so auction halls in Holland. This article analyses different electronic auction initiatives in the Dutch flower industry. These auctions use the "Dutch auction" as price discovery process. In a Dutch auction the auctioneer offers products at successively lower prices until his offer is accepted. Most auctions on the Web today use the English method. An English auction process involves a succession of increasing bids by potential buyers until the highest (and final) bid is accepted by the auctioneer. But the Dutch method offers advantages, as the flower auctions reveal. The Dutch method is much faster and tends to generate higher prices. This is illustrated by presenting the results of experimental economic research with different Web-based auctions. One of the analysed electronic auction initiatives, Tele Flower Auction, shows that electronic auctions have an impact on the chain configuration and its performance. Conclusions are formulated and further research is discussed.