Carsten Orwat, Ulrich Riehm, Bernd Wingert
Congress "Innovations for an e-Society. Challenges for
Technology Assessment"
Berlin, Germany, October 17-19, 2001
The paper focuses on the hypothesis of "disintermediation", that establishes a diminishing role for traders, or intermediaries respectively, with the arrival of electronic commerce, because producers and consumers may transact online in a direct way. However, the analysis of the German bookselling industry, which has a relatively well-established branch of b2c electronic commerce, presents an ambiguous picture of disintermediation. Structural changes which are not only caused by technological development, result in a wide range of types of traditional and new online intermediaries which fulfil specific combinations of intermediary functions.
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Dr. Carsten Orwat Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse (ITAS) Postfach 3640 D-76021 Karlsruhe oder Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1 D-76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen |
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