Information Communication Technologies and Emerging Business Strategies (original) (raw)

2006

"This book provides a collection of theoretical and empirical strands that, with the growing usage of communication technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones, what used to be understood as the domain of consumption seems to have become a player in, on the one hand, production, distribution, and inte- gration processes and, on the other hand, seems to potentially impact on a firm’s competitive dis)advantage. It is indirectly the result of a collaboration of Hakuhodo Inc., Ericsson Consumer & Enterprise Lab, and the Utrecht University that came up with an international comparative survey program, named Media Landscape Survey 2003-2004 to examine and compare communication technology environments in the U.S., The Netherlands, Sweden, South Korea, Japan, and China. This very broad initiative brought us in contact with other researchers and practitioners interested in similar issues that center on the relationships among emerging and existing firms, markets, and consumers. Specifically, this book focuses on the wide and rapid diffusion of the use of various new media, such as e-mail, mobile phones, Internet, interactive TV, games, and Web logs, and the way they have impacted the paradigm of human and business communications. These new communication means that are major products of ICTs, are gradually complementing or even replacing some more conventional communication means, such as physical mailing or using fixed phones rather than wireless ones. As some of the chapters will show, new technologies have contributed to changes in the way we communicate and seem to have given way to new or alternative social norms and cultures within and across cultures, for example, striking differences between Japan, Europe, and the U.S. regarding the way various media are used, seemingly based in each region’s political, economical, cultural, and social contexts. The most important viewpoint in the examination of communication means and new technologies are, we believe, innovation processes that occur while these technologies diffuse among users. Investigating the changes of interpretation in our society for each communication means and its technology is significant from various disciplines as we have sought to represent in this volume. By investigating such innovation processes, we can examine emerging business strategies—especially in the creative industries—processes of innovation, community-thinking, the evolution of social norms, and emergence of new (sub)cultures, emerging markets, and organizational cultures rather than merely tracing superficial trends of ICTs. All chapters combined, provide an in-depth overview and at times a challenging framework, in which a variety of new media technologies are mapped, based on empirical and theoretical studies and not on mere subjective impressions or fashions in the forefront of ICT industries in the East and West. "