As more open systems develop, these risks will be greatly reduced. As electronic hierarchies have formed, organizations have begun to share new information. This has increased both environmental and organizational risk. Organizational risk initially increases as organizations transform to adapt to new roles. For example, Walmart has eliminated its own purchasing groups, contracting with suppliers to replace products as sold.
Electronic hierarchies can redistribute power and authority as access to information changes.
These changes present dependence risk as power and advantage are redistributed with changing access to information. In electronic markets, environmental risk is high if the system is biased. However, Malone et al. If this occurs, organizational rather than environment risk may be a key factor if organizations are not flexible enough to transform their internal business processes to effectively use these new types of markets. One key impact is projected to be the decline of the traditional business intermediary.