Emerging e-commerce business models: an analysis of case studies from West Lothian, Scotland Tony Kinder Introduction E-commerce has entered the realm of buzzwords associated with major industrial and business upheavals. ‘‘Businesses will be e-commerce, or no business at all’’, said Tony Blair in a memorable speech aimed to enthuse or scare the business world to pay attention and join the fray of e-commerce. Many have indeed joined the fray, before and after Blair’s speech, in pursuit of the new Klondike. Stories of success and failures abound in the press and an entire body of information, experience and knowledge has been building up on e-commerce in recent times. This paper builds on this body and has three objectives: (1) conduct a selected conceptual review of e-commerce issues and models; (2) propose a framework useful for understanding and informing the strategic development of e-commerce experiences; and (3) apply this framework to the experiences of three e-commerce start-ups, with the aim of the processes and lessons of how this is being made to happen. With this in mind, the second section of the paper reviews and discusses various concepts related to e-commerce models. It proposes first a definition of e-commerce, identifying as critical ingredients, on the one hand, the processes of search, assessment and transaction and, on the other, the factors of interactivity, connectivity and agility. Agility in particular is seen as critical to the dynamic learning processes involved in the current early phase of e-commerce evolution. The section also discusses the business concepts of intermediation, re- intermediation, virtual supply chains and Internet communities. The third section introduces Molina’s sociotechnical constituency approach and diamond of alignment as a conceptual framework to make sense and inform processes of e-commerce innovation and development. The author Tony Kinder is a Researcher, Department of Business Studies, University of Edinburgh, UK. Keywords Sociotechnics, Internet, Business strategy, Models Abstract The paper surveys existing theory of e-commerce business models and associated conceptual instruments. It employs three original case studies of SMEs using e-commerce to demonstrate the dynamic nature of e-commerce business models for networked SMEs. The idea of evolutionary business planning based upon Molina’s sociotechnical constituency approach and the diamond of alignment is introduced. Electronic access The research register for this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregisters The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/1460-1060.htm This paper results from the EU funded BuKs project, which supported the adoption of ecommerce by SMEs in West Lothian. I gratefully acknowledge the support of West Lothian Council Business Centre, my colleagues in the project Mark Winskell and Alfonso Molina for commenting upon earlier draft of this paper and the useful comments of the reviewers. 130 European Journal of Innovation Management Volume 5 . Number 3 . 2002 . pp. 130±151 # MCB UP Limited . ISSN 1460-1060 DOI 10.1108/14601060210436718