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Evolution of B2B Marketplaces

In order to reach the goal of frictionless information sharing, firms form different types of business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces that facilitate transactions among trading partners along any supply chain. Forecasts of the amount of revenue that will be generated over these technology platforms reach billions of dollars. Our aim in this paper is to present a novel approach to look at the formation of networks of firms. Unlike the previous research that analyses B2B networks after they are established, we look at the dynamics of how they come into existence and where they can be expected to converge. We use tools from non-cooperative game theory and strategic network formation literature to study the evolution of B2B marketplaces. The paper provides conditions under which an exchange-based B2B is preferred to a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. It also indicates the importance of asset specificity in the strategic link formation and shows ways to incorporate this effect in the framework it attempts to establish.