Decision management: Role and effect of using an intelligent intermediary to aid in information sharing

Organizations have adopted new business channels, such as using electronic markets, to better enhance productivity of their operations through information and communications technology (ICT) enablement for greater reach and range in their transactions. These ICT tools, allowing streamlined processes, can enable new means of competition and coordination, changing how individuals and organizations exchange goods and services.The effectiveness of decision management using these markets depends on the electronic market design. In electronic markets, intermediaries are used as a “someone” who provides an added value mechanism for the transaction. This value role can be to mitigate risk, leverage uncertainties and/or reduce certain economic costs in the exchange of information. How this intermediary is managed and organized is important in achieving the intended value. This is more challenging when the intermediary is not a “someone”, but a “something”, as the design of the resource is impacted by the designer and owner of the resource.Designing and managing an intermediary resource for intelligence in information sharing across organizations may enhance the quality of the information exchanged between parties, as the role of this intermediary in the information transaction may add value to the timeliness, accuracy and relevancy of the information provided.In this research, the intermediary is defined as a “something”, an autonomous, intelligent matching solution that is designed to add value for the buyer and seller in an electronic market transaction. The contribution of this paper is to illustrate how matching becomes intelligent should be defined by the mechanism or functionality required of the intelligence. This may be seen as a function of the information quality requirements and of firm boundaries both in terms of collaboration and ownership of the matching solution.Our findings suggest that intelligent matching impacts decision-making and information acquisition by a combination of positive economic effects, but is still constrained by organizational and technological interoperability.