Information Technology and Industrial Competitiveness

Information Technology (IT) - the field that links computer and communications equipment and software - is transforming the way modern business is done. Examples of factors leading these changes are: rapidly decreasing costs of computer hardware, government de-regulation, accelerating global competitiveness, an increasing management awareness, and the knowledge of how to employ Information Technology successfully. These have all led to the increase of IT's effects on existing markets, and, in the process, are creating entirely new markets. This book explores a variety of advances in IT by a group of researchers who are at the cutting edge of this research. Moreover, the book examines these innovative developments in terms of the Information Technology field and its effect on modern business. It is becoming increasingly apparent that IT is critical to success in today's competitive marketplace.
As a result, this book examines a host of emerging effects at work in these developments and seeks to make sense out of these counter-acting, sometimes multiplicative, effects which can become obstacles for managers who wish to develop competitive applications of IT. These effects and the development of IT are grouped into four general categories in the book: Future Markets, Inter-Organizational Systems, Focused Applications, and Future Strategies.

1. Future Markets: Information Technology s Impact on Market Structure. - I. Future Markets. - 2. Elements of Market Structure for On-Line Commerce. - 3. Marketspace Markets: Factors for Success and Failure. - 4. Organizational Partnerships and the Virtual Corporation. - II. Inter-Organizational Systems. - 5. Inter-organizational Information Systems and the Role of Intermediaries in Marketing Channels: A Study of Two Industries. - 6. How to win with Electronic Data Interchange. - 7. Sharing Logistics Information Across Organizations: Technology, Competition and Contracting. - III. Focused Applications. - 8. Technology s Impact on the Equity Markets. - 9. Information Technology in Japan: Are there Lessons for the West? . - IV. Future Strategies. - 10. Rectifying Yesterday Versus Creating Tomorrow: Leadership Challenges In Balancing a Portfolio of Processes. - 11. Creating the Forgetting Organization: Using the Scenario Process to Facilitate Learning During Rapid Technology-Driven Environmental Change.