Information Technology And The Corporation Of The 1990s

One of the most pathbreaking and influential business books of the 1990s is The Corporation of the 1990s by Michael Scott Morton. Its expert view of how information technology would influence organizations and their ability to survive and prosper in the 1990s has become the benchmark of thinking about information technology. Now, in a supporting companion volume, Information Technology and the Corporation of the 1990s makes available the research on which The Corporation of the 1990s was based. The research was conducted at the Sloan School of Management at MIT by the Management in the 1990s program. The program was funded by a group of 12 industrial and government sponsors from the United States and Britain which included American Express, Digital Equipment Corporation, Eastman Kodak, British Petroleum, MCI Communications, General Motors, U.S. Army, ICL Ltd., Internal Revenue Service, Ernst & Young, BellSouth, and CIGNA Corporation. Information Technology and the Corporation of the 1990s aims to disseminate ideas on how organizations can manage the impact of information technology, and also to raise issues and stimulate further thought by both academics and professionals. The book is divided into three sections which cover the information technology revolution, strategic options, and organization and management responses. It incorporates the work of many important scholars including Charles Jonscher, Michael J. Piore, Thomas W. Malone. JoAnne Yates, Robert I. Benjamin, Gary W. Loveman, Eric von Hippel, Edgar H. Schein, Stanley M. Besen, Garth Saloner, N. Venkatraman, Akbar Zaheer, John C. Henderson, Jay C. Cooprider, Kevin Crowston, Jeongsuk Koh, Gordon Walker, Laura Poppo, John S. Carroll, Constance Perin, Brian T. Pentland, John Chalykoff, Lotte Bailyn, D. Eleanor Westney, Sumantra Ghoshal, John D.C. Little, Thomas J. Allen, Oscar Hauptman, Lisa M. Lynch, Paul Osterman, Thomas A. Kochan, and John Paul MacDuffie.

"Addressing questions raised by managers and researchers over the last decade on the business value of information technology (IT), this book provides business professionals with a more precise rationale for making IT investments by detailing how computerization does not automatically create business value, but is one essential component that should be coupled with organizational changes such as new strategies, new business processes, and new organizational structures."

This volume focuses on the Information and Communication (ICT) revolution and its impact on economic growth. Even though the emergence of the knowledge economy is at the center of attention by media and is often a subject of economic policy debate, economic research on the issue is still relatively underdeveloped and many aspects of it are still awaiting proper theoretical and empirical scrutiny. One important question is whether, as many economists and opinion leaders maintain the knowledge economy and the new information technologies have fostered the birth of a 'new economy' which by inducing a strong productivity growth in most sectors, is behind the impressive growth of GDP experienced by the US economy. Empirical research has in fact been unable to provide a conclusive answer to this question. This book debates this issue and provides the opportunity to discuss the economic and social effects of the ICT revolution. It also focuses on the functioning and the micro-economic structure of the ICT sector, as well as on its impact on various industries, on the financial system and on the labor market. It analyses the role of the ICT revolution on regional development and it addresses important policy issues such as its consequences for antitrust legislation and government regulation.

Managing Information Technology Resources in Organizations in the Next Millennium contains more than 200 unique perspectives on numerous timely issues of managing information technology in organizations around the world. This book, featuring the latest research and applied IT practices, is a valuable source in support of teaching and research agendas.

The language of business and management, and of infor mation technology, is being employed across all sectors of economic and social activity. In recent years computers and information technology (IT) in general have moved from being a scarce resource to being a more generally available commodity, without a corresponding increase in understanding of how the new generation of tools can be used. IT is available on individual desktops, supporting decision making and communication, but often conven tional organizations have failed to adapt, individuals lack competence and confidence, and senior managers lack both the strategic insight to develop appropriate strategies and the humility to accept that they need to learn. As each sector, whether business, education, public sec tor management or the community and voluntary sector, realizes that the potential of IT is not being exploited to the full, calls are issued for the development of new "hybrid managers", a term coined to describe the gap in understanding and competence that is to be filled. The two editors work in the hybrid field of business information technology, which is a melting pot of ideas and experience from numerous traditional disciplines. The pace of change is such that no one individual could ever be abreast of all technical and business develop ments, but the field is now sufficiently mature for us to identify certain underlying issues and principles, and areas of research for the coming years.