In analogy to the market concept which can be viewed from a macroeconomic (describing relationships among actors in an economic systems, e.g. a monopoly) as well as from a microeconomic (describing different allocation mechanisms, e.g. public auctions of telephone frequencies) perspective, electronic markets denote networked forms of business with many possible configurations: First, the topology of electronic markets may be centralized or decentralized in nature.
The former usually refers to classical supply chains where business collaborate during a longer period of time.
This leads to two definitions: In a narrow sense Electronic Markets are mainly conceived as allocation platforms with dynamic price discovery mechanisms involving atomistic relationships.
This covers all forms of electronic collaboration between organizations and consumer as well as vice versa.
This may be explained since in reality electronic markets have emerged as platforms which combine several modes of governance or types of coordination mechanisms.