Managing in the Information Economy: Current Research Issues

By Uday Apte

Managing in the Information Economy: Current Research Issues presents the recent research directions that address the issue of management in this economy. The contributors include leading researchers with interests in a diverse set of topics. While the volume cannot give a complete and comprehensive picture, it can provide introductions to important areas, and point to some important topics for future research. Therefore the book begins with perspectives at the level of the economy as a whole and then progressively addresses industrial structure, sectors, functions (e-commerce) and business practices. Introductions to the main sections and the papers in each section are provided. The volume is organized around six sections: The Information Economy; Structure and the Organization of the Information Economy; Marketing and Ecommerce; Emerging Issues in the Information Economy; Operations in the Information Economy; and Empirical Studies of Business Practices. Please see the Table of Contents and Editor's Introduction for further details.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0387342141
• ISBN13: 9780387342146
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 472 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A valuable effort about a changing subject

As most books formed by putting different, isolated articles together around a common subject, this volume has indeed some problems of consistency, readibility, depth, and focus. Nevertheless, it is a valuable effort aimed to understand how management practice is being affected by (digital) technologisation of the most advanced economies. More precisely, the editors (who are, significantly, two distinguished scholars of Indian origin based in the USA) only promise "current research issues" in this topic. The volume starts with a very brief outline of the book structure in which a diagnosis of the information economy is stated (perhaps too brief). Chapters 1 and 2 are the backbone of this diagnosis, given they measure the size of the information economy in the USA (chapter 1 by Apte & Nath) as well as the importance of IT investments in the G7 economies throughout the last two decades (chapter 2 by Jorgenson). The remaining ones fit into five further sections: Structure & Organisation of the Information Economy, Marketing & Commerce, Emerging Issues, Information & Transaction-Based Services, and Empirical Studies. Given the variety of topics covered, not everybody will be compelled to read all of them. I was personally attracted by chapters 5 (Managing Network Organisations, by Ekbia) and chapter 10 (Inter-Organisational Knlowledge Transfer by Cohen & Dal Zotto). I would have added the three last chapters as well (even though they are relatively tentative in nature), yet I was familiar beforehand with the findings from Karmarkar & Mangal in the USA, Gosh & Seshadri in India, and Dermatte et al. in Italy. Despite an overall good quality of the discussions, occasionally some arguments would have required further explanation -yet probably word limits prevented expanding the chapters. In summary, an important complement for everyone interested in how management is being changed by digital technologies. You won't find too many answers to all your queries, but at least quite a few good research questions and a wide arrangement of problems to take care of.