An enterprise wide electronic commerce system allows trading partners to act as participants in a complex trading process. Participants communicate with one another by joining conversations that are hosted in a collaboration space and managed by a collaboration hub. In this manner, the enterprise workflow may have an effect on, or be affected by, local workflows. The invention provides an open market collaboration system for enterprise wide electronic commerce. An embodiment of the invention includes a collaboration system that allows the exchange of data between participants in an electronic commerce environment, comprising a collaboration hub for the transfer of data between participants, a collaboration space defining the rules governing said transfer of data and the role of said participants, and a hub transport that allows a participant to send and receive data from the collaboration hub in accordance with the definitions of the collaboration space.