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E-business based e-lance networks can impact the coordination and completion of work within organizations and improve efficiencies in global supply chains. This may be particularly true for organizations mitigating sudden demand spikes, or lacking internal expertise and bandwidth. However, little is known about what governance and social control mechanisms impact network success. Utilizing data from 14,644 projects, this research tests a theory of network governance specific to this new emerging e-lance economy by integrating transaction cost economics with the concepts of social controls. For transaction costs, findings indicate that higher average project values lead to more projects and more money being exchanged, but more bids leads to less monetary exchange. For social controls, restricting access by sealing bids and not disclosing budget amounts leads to less bidding, but not disclosing budgets is associated with more projects being posted. The authors further find that the best predictor of e-lance success across all measures is the number of projects posted in the prior time period.

This research broadens the study of trust as it applies to developing stable relationships in electronic environments. Prior studies have investigated many aspects of trust, but few have looked at its incremental development. Previous empirical research identifies antecedents to initial perceptions of trust that may influence the progression of trust to deeper levels. More conceptual work identifies antecedents that swiftly cultivate trust, allowing for stable relationships to develop more quickly. The antecedents investigated in this study, using regression and structural equation modeling, are the use of security symbols, trustworthy brand names, and personalization techniques. The results of the study indicate that the use of security symbols and trustworthy brand names have a positive and lasting effect on trusting beliefs and that personalization has a decreasing and lasting effect on trusting beliefs. There was no support for the hypothesis that trust develops over time in electronic environments.

In this article, we focus on the role of brokers as the essential facilitators of e-collaboration. E-lance brokers are Web-based and serve as online clearinghouses for information about customers and their projects, as well as suppliers of services seeking work, allowing knowledge work to be traded like a commodity. Brokers bring together those seeking services and those who can provide those services to meet the particular needs of the customer. The study of the different ecollaboration tools used by e-lance brokers provides important insights into how loosely coupled, autonomous agents exchange services through e-lance forms of organization. Examining the different e-collaboration mechanisms and how these mechanisms translate into successful transactions, is essential for understanding the future of knowledge work. Since knowledge-based work can be codified and shared electronically, such as software development, consulting, translation, and accounting, e-collaboration tools enabled through ICTs present viable alternatives to traditional models of organizing.