Knowledge marketplaces: strategic issues and business models

An increasing number of enterprises are getting interested in exploiting their knowledge assets outside the organizational borders and in augmenting their knowledge network. A first generation of electronic knowledge marketplaces has been developed in order to provide the platforms for knowledge exchange and trading at inter‐organizational level. This paper develops a framework to evaluate the strategic issues, business models, roles, processes, and revenue models of knowledge trading platforms, and provides a detailed analysis of five existing knowledge marketplaces based on this framework. Finally, a set of conclusions is drawn on what issues should be addressed in a knowledge marketplace in order to eliminate the risks and gain the trust of its targeted customers.