Forming Dynamic Supply Chains in the Electronic Marketplace: A Partnership Negotiation Mechanism

Abstract

Recent researches on agent-mediated electronic commerce focus on automating interactions between buyers and sellers. These automations are fundamentals of supply chain formation, but not enough in facilitation dynamic partnerships which consist of more than two partners. In this paper, we explore business roles within a supply chain from a higher-level viewpoint, and identify their special cooperation requirements. We propose a partnership negotiation mechanism to facilitate their cooperation. An experimental electronic marketplace is implemented to test the negotiation mechanism. The results show that it facilitates formation of dynamic supply chains, which improves efficiency of an electronic marketplace.