A Framework for Composing Electronic Marketplaces - From Market Structure to Service Implementation

In coordination theory, markets stand for flexibility and dynamics. Today’s implementations of electronic marketplaces, however, limit the flexibility in a sense that processes along the market transaction are rigid and the provided functions proprietary. In order to further foster flexibility in market coordination, we propose breaking down marketplaces into services. These services can then be composed to customized market processes that trace proven company-internal business processes instead of prescribing a least common denominator for all marketplace participants. This turns a marketplace operator into a service-broker who provides merely the very fundamental infrastructure. All other functions can be delivered by independent specialized providers and flexibly assembled to processes. The marketplace operator’s main contribution is then to guarantee reliability and quality of service levels for the providers’ products. Our paper presents a framework that enables the configuration and implementation of a service-based electronic marketplace. Step by step high-level market processes are decomposed into manageable and autonomously implementable components. As a proof-of-concept we built a prototype using BPEL4WS and Web Service technology.