• Information Systems Review
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.67-84
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• 2004

In spite of the widely held belief that e-Marketplace will be expanded continuously, scholars are still reluctant to accept the positive expectation. Many anecdotal evidence and case studies indicate that there are several obstacles that hinder e-business firms from building the e-Marketplaces. Actually, this obstacles has led many e-marketplaces' failures. The purpose of this study is to verify the possibility of the e-Marketplace expansion and to explore how to deal the obstacles in the e-Marketplace operation. To achieve such objectives, a successful e-Marketplace case was investigated. The conclusion of this research is as follows : (1) e-Marketplaces can be built even in the high asset specificity and high complexity of product description market. Therefore it is acceptable that e-marketplace will be expanded continuously as argumented by Malone et al.(1989). (2) But the driving factor is not solely information technologies but the capability of e-business firms that consider technical factors, social factors, and service related factors all together. It was also noted that the capability of e-business firms to handle the inherent obstacles is important for the expansion of e-Marketplaces.