Aims & Scope

Electronic Markets - The International Journal on Networked Business is a leading scientific journal for advancing the understanding and practice of electronic markets.

Started in 1991, Electronic Markets was the first journal to report on developments and the latest trends related to the exciting and rapidly evolving research field of electronic markets and related issues and thus has been a pioneer in the field of scientific electronic commerce (e-commerce) research publication.

Beside the general research section Electronic Markets covers a special theme in each issue as well.

Electronic Markets is a multidisciplinary journal whose audience includes:

• Scientists/scholars from various disciplines with an interest in the relationships between advances in information and communication technology, new forms of value creation, and social change;
• Policy and decision-makers in government, industry and education;
• Managers concerned with the effects of the electronic commerce revolution, organizations and society.

Scope

Electronic Markets embraces a rich array of electronic markets and networked business issues. Examples are market mechanisms, market laws, value chains, web services, portals, standardization, social aspects and legal issues, methods, business models, and information / communication technology.

Electronic Markets is a methodologically pluralistic journal. Quantitative and qualitative research methods are both welcome, as long as the studies are methodologically sound. Conceptual and theory-development papers, empirical hypothesis testing, and case-based studies are all welcome.

Electronic Markets is a journal that offers a forum for research on all forum for research on all forms of networked business. This covers all forms of electronic collaboration between organizations and consumer as well as vice versa. Among the examples are:

• company websites that serve communication and transaction purposes
• electronic purchasing systems on EDI-basis as well as based on catalogs
• systems that support the configuration of products, such as car configurators
• automated download of product information based on the scan of an article number
• activation of a emergency chain based on the monitoring of heart frequency 
• social networks that link consumers, such as recommendation communities

Electronic Markets, in particular, refer to forms of networked business where multiple suppliers and customers interact for economic purposes within one or among multiple tiers in economic value chains. As a broad concept, there are many forms of Electronic Markets:

• In a narrow sense, Electronic Markets are mainly conceived as allocation platforms with dynamic price discovery mechanisms involving atomistic relationships. Popular examples originate from the financial (e.g. CBOT, XETRA) and energy markets (e.g. EEX, Clean Sourcing).
• In a broader sense, price discovery is not critical for Electronic Markets.  These solutions emphasize longer term relationships and processes for enabling business transactions (e.g. Grainger in procurement) and/or knowledge management (e.g. SAP Solution Manager).  
  

Background

Electronic Markets was established in 1991, long before the Internet became known outside the academic world and before the rise of modern electronic commerce and electronic business.

The journal emerged from the 'Competence Center Electronic Markets', CCEM, an industry funded research group founded 1989 by Prof. Beat Schmid at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.

At that time the concept of ‘electronic markets’ (EM) was a vision developed by leading researchers from various different fields. From the very beginning, electronic market research and the respective publication followed a highly interdisciplinary approach. Whereas many journals focusing on EM-related subjects have their beginning and home in the domain of information systems (IS), Electronic Markets brought together researchers from various disciplines including IS and business but also economics, design, information science, psychology and sociology from the very beginning. In doing so, it contributed to the emergence of a new area of research.

It is our strong belief that only an interdisciplinary perspective can cover the whole range of possible impacts of electronic markets on economic systems and thus on societies. Therefore the main contribution of Electronic Markets to the respective field is not only to address innovative and upcoming topics at an early stage but to broaden the perspective on e-commerce and e-business as well. And because it is evident that electronic markets significantly transform the way value is being created, there will be an even greater need for Electronic Markets in the future.