This title was first published in 2003. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are increasingly being recognized as vital to the economic growth and global inclusion and participation of developing countries. This book brings together both academics and practitioners to provide a comprehensive and insightful overview of ICT and development around the world. It examines the role of IT in providing new economic and industrial opportunities, in increasing access to global information and communication, in assisting small cultural and ethnic groups to overcome disadvantages of physical distance and in catalysing initiatives towards democratic decentralization and empowerment of citizens. It also critically appraises major problems such as inappropriate focus and resource allocation, and of missed opportunities. By combining comparative case studies from Africa, South and East Asia, South America and Eastern Europe with theoretical analysis, this volume synthesizes a range of issues related to the evident tensions that exist for developing countries as they try to balance global and local priorities through the adoption and use of ICTs.

The Digital Supply Chain Challenge is a distillation of the authors' 50+ years of combined supply chain experience. Their insights and observations - captured in short articles and best-practice case studies - are brought together in one place for supply chain executives to consult at different times during their SCD voyage.

This volume presents contributions that analyse the extraordinary impact of digital technology on business, services, and the production of value in many sectors of the economy. At the heart of this book is the fact that the entire digital economy is now worth almost 6% of global GDP, and it continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. The volume covers the general debate on taxation and the digital economy with the chapters by Russo, Makiyama and Boccia, before completing the analysis with discussion of three national case studies covering the U.S. (Pagano), U.K. (Leonardi) and Italy (Boccia and Leonardi). Contributors are leading experts in the fields of taxation and the digital economy and contextualise the key issues surrounding the digitalisation of the economy from an international perspective.

Digitalization is the transformative event of our lifetimes. It is all-encompassing, omnipresent and irresistible. Its benefits are as undeniable as they are manifold. But it also throws a long shadow. The potentially harmful side effects aren't just limited to security and privacy issues but affect us on a mental and societal level as well. Addiction to social media sites or video games, cyberbullying and opinion manipulation through echo chambers are serious threats. This book describes what psychological and sociological mechanisms are at play that make these dangers ever so potent. Furthermore, it looks at what people do to protect themselves and to better integrate digitalization into their lives. In doing so, it offers a wide range of digital coping methods and strategies for everyone seeking a healthier conduct with the digital world of today. What you will find in this book: - An extensive summary of the most important social and security digital dangers we face. - Hands-on strategies and methods to better cope with digital dangers. - Real life examples backed with the latest scientific findings.

Public and university libraries are at a crossroads, hard-pressed by competition from Internet search engines, declining budgets and changes in popular culture. Libraries must respond aggressively. Otherwise they will be marginalized by the impact of digital technology on their traditional customer base. Author Ralph Blanchard, drawing on twenty years of experience as an information services entrepreneur, argues that it is irresponsible for librarians to simply turn academic tasks over to search engines, as many do. Instead, libraries should expand digital services and, using the tactics and strategies of successful for-profit information service businesses, reconnect with their customers by promoting themselves as 21st Century information experts. Topics in this wide-ranging study include: The library as a service business Change, risk and unintended consequences The Internet search engine business model Problems with students using search engines The evolution of "ambient information" Music and information technology "Millennials" as library customers Hiring and training library information workers Push and viral marketing strategies for libraries The Digital Challenge for Libraries calls for new initiatives by librarians and for a rekindling of interest in the vital role libraries play in an informed, prosperous and democratic society.

The impact of digitalization on people and society has become so large that we are talking about a massive digital change of society. Every person, rich or poor, every organization, every country, is profoundly affected by digitalization. Thousands of companies are going through digital transformation processes, to adjust their business model to the digital world in which you can only keep up if you operate internationally, through the Internet. No one can do without a smartphone and access to the Internet anymore. Social media have a major impact on everyone's life, including politics. Just like the industrial society had to be governed differently from the peasant society that preceded it, the digital world increasingly demands other forms of governance. Traditional laws no longer function properly, governments are losing grip on social media and the Internet, tech giants increasingly dominate the digital playing field, economies are rapidly changing from traditional to digital and cybercrime is given free rein. Digitalization also offers excellent opportunities to achieve the necessary global changes and improvements in numerous areas, such as migration, climate, good education and good healthcare for all. After extensive analysis of what is changing as a result of digitalization, this book takes an in-depth look at possible new forms of governance in the digital world. Europe has been taken as the starting point. First of all, because the author is most familiar with the state of the art in Europe, but also because Europe has already been taking a number of important initiatives in the field of digital legislation. Nevertheless, Europe is in many ways still very much behind large countries such as the US and China. This book makes numerous suggestions to strengthen the European digital position in the years to come. This is badly needed for the future prosperity of Europeans and for Europe's position in the world.

After a half-century of glacial creep, television technology has begun to change at the same dizzying pace as computer software. What this will mean--for television, for computers, and for the popular culture where these video media reign supreme--is the subject of this timely book. A noted communications economist, Bruce Owen supplies the essential background: a grasp of the economic history of the television industry and of the effects of technology and government regulation on its organization. He also explores recent developments associated with the growth of the Internet. With this history as a basis, his book allows readers to peer into the future--at the likely effects of television and the Internet on each other, for instance, and at the possibility of a convergence of the TV set, computer, and telephone. The digital world that Owen shows us is one in which communication titans jockey to survive what Joseph Schumpeter called the "gales of creative destruction." While the rest of us simply struggle to follow the new moves, believing that technology will settle the outcome, Owen warns us that this is a game in which Washington regulators and media hyperbole figure as broadly as innovation and investment. His book explains the game as one involving interactions among all the players, including consumers and advertisers, each with a particular goal. And he discusses the economic principles that govern this game and that can serve as powerful predictive tools.