Theoretical foundations for collaborative commerce research and practice

Going beyond the trading view of electronic commerce, collaborative commerce (c-commerce) is concerned with electronic means to enable and facilitate collaborative relationships involving knowledge flows among distributed participants engaged in various joint activities such as those that make up the value chain. C-commerce experience among practitioners is in an emergent stage and c-commerce research has yet to be well-developed. There are many open questions about c-commerce practices and fundamentals. Drawing on a wide range of literature, this paper introduces a theoretical foundation for investigating the nature and outcomes of c-commerce. This foundation takes the form of a relatively comprehensive theoretical framework that identifies salient factors and relationships for practitioners to consider in launching a c-commerce initiative or for researchers to consider in designing c-commerce research studies.