Business network information ecological chain
提出商业网络信息生态链（BNIEC）这一新工具，从多学科视角构建其结构模型和信息流模型，旨在解决物联网时代商业网络中的信息问题，促进商业网站盈利和网络环境可持续发展。
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a new tool, business network information ecological chain (BNIEC) aiming to solve the current information problems in business network, make more profits to business websites and to maintain the sustainable development of the business network environment in Internet of Things (IoT) era. Design/methodology/approach – From multi-disciplinary perspectives, learning from the knowledge in information ecology, economics, the IoT and system theory, this paper first analyzes the positioning of BNIEC in different subjects. Second, it proposes the definition, components and characteristics of BNIEC and designs the BNIEC concept map helping to understand the BNIEC system. Last, this paper builds the structural model and the information flow models of BNIEC. Findings – The study first presents the concept of BNIEC and based on the trans-disciplinary point of view, builds the structure model of BNIEC from three aspects: nodes, relations among nodes and link modes and illustrates the model using the knowledge from the system theory. Also, it builds two kinds of the information flow models by the related information knowledge in IoT. Originality/value – This paper aims to introduce not only a new tool but an ecological idea to business network companies, to create a pleasant network environment, more than that, to make more benefits for themselves. Meanwhile, it has important significance in the sustainable development of the business network environment, business websites, business network information resources and information technology. Especially in today’s IoT era, it shows an ecological thinking to solve the information problems in business network that we may face in the future.