Generation of Hypotheses on the Evolution of Agent-Based Business Using Inductive Learning

Agent-based business in e-commerce can be defined as a business enabled and operated by software-agent technologies. The discrepancies between expectations on and reality of the business have raised research interests in its critical success factors. We suggest a framework for analysing the evolution of the agent-based business and analyse 16 representative agent-based business cases to derive explanatory variables seeming to have effect on the longevity of the agent-based business. The results of the case studies are used as an input to an inductive learning method to generate five theoretical hypotheses on its evolution. Finally, we provide strategic implications of the generated hypotheses about the evolution of the agent-based business.