Evolving brokering paradigms in e-commerce enabled manufacturing

Supplier selection and partnership formation is greatly influenced by how inter-organizational practices and organizational forms have evolved. Organizations can be in a number of stages in terms of their organizational practices. These stages and how they manage their relationships will be integral in deciding how they should be formed. One of the important and growing roles of this formation has to do with the introduction of third-party mechanisms or brokers to aid in this formation. These brokers and the roles they play, depending on the organizational form of the proposed inter-organizational relationship, will be defined. Supporting tools, practices and technology are then discussed. The major focus of these support items will be on agent and agent technology. Initially the paper provides a foundational discussion on the corporate (manufacturing) perspective on various practices and the evolving relationships among organizations. The paper concludes with some possible directions available to both managers and researchers in this important and growing area.