Suchergebnisse

The recent financial debacle was preceded by a long complex evolution in the way firms created value and organized. The fragmentation of production, intense global competition, and the information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled transformation of services are all part of a story that was framed by, and in turn further framed, ideologies of deregulation and self-regulation. In the aftermath of the crisis political leaders worldwide find themselves in a heightened double bind. On one side, the demands for rules allowing experimentation and innovation are sharpened as growth and job creation are needed; on the other side, the demands are heightened for the state to act and regulate markets to prevent future crisis. The article focuses on the development of ICT, the main general-purpose technology of our time, and how the ways it allows value to be created interacted with the politics regulating uses and defining the winners and losers. Adapted from the source document.

The recent financial debacle was preceded by a long complex evolution in the way firms created value and organized. The fragmentation of production, intense global competition, and the information and communication technology (ICT)‐enabled transformation of services are all part of a story that was framed by, and in turn further framed, ideologies of deregulation and self‐regulation. In the aftermath of the crisis political leaders worldwide find themselves in a heightened double bind. On one side, the demands for rules allowing experimentation and innovation are sharpened as growth and job creation are needed; on the other side, the demands are heightened for the state to act and regulate markets to prevent future crisis. The article focuses on the development of ICT, the main general‐purpose technology of our time, and how the the ways it allows value to be created interacted with the politics regulating uses and defining the winners and losers.

Driven by two fundamental processes, rapid technological change as well as social innovation and reorganization, a new digital economy, the E-conomy, is emerging. Rather than merely adding an Internet sector to the economy, the E-conomy has brought about tools for thought, tools that transform every sector of the economy by amplifying brainpower the way steam engines amplified muscle power during the Industrial Revolution. For analytic purposes, the rise of the E-conomy can be told as a story composed of 1) networks and tools, 2) e-business and e-society, 3) the productivity dilemma resolved, and 4) governance and politics. In the short run, the transformative processes unleashed by the E-conomy are likely to lead to new bargains among existing coalitions and interest groups. In the long run, the changes underway promise to fundamentally alter the political sociology of vast communities, give rise to new interests and coalitions, and transform the institutional foundation of social, economic and political life.