Management of the Interconnected World

The authors (from 15 countries, besides Italy, and mainly from Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and the United States) who have contributed to this collective work have catalyzed their efforts around twelve themes which constitute the sections of this book. The research areas include ‘macro’ questions and ‘organization specific’ issues bridging theoretical aspects with the description of exemplary cases. Thus, for example, ethical implications of ICT, which remain in many respects controversial, have been studied in connection with the possibility of increasing the transparency and efficiency of courts by evaluating the results of change induced by the adoption of extensive IS (Section 4). The theoretical implications stemming from the encounter of human practices with tools and learning aims have been explored by examining a case of post graduate education (Section 10). A number of researcher looked into the opportunities that are coming to the foreground when considering the interplay of globalization and connectedness. In this respect there are companies that manage to combine in-house innovation with externally acquired technologies in order to enhance new businesses (the so-called ‘open innovation’ and ‘lead users innovation’ is examined in Section 9 addressed to emerging issues). Also the question of transferring innovation of IT research projects (Section 12) relates to the possibility of cooperation among private and public partners by investigating models capable of harnessing different competences and knowledge. Since such choices of engaging in partnerships involve the overall objectives pursued by organizations (together with the ways they choose to pursue them), the strategic role of information systems is growing. Thus eight writings have explored some of the manners in which IS and the Internet can contribute to acquire and to sustain a competitive advantage (Section 5). Within the strategic discourse related to the governance of an organization, accounting information systems have an important role to play both in operations and reporting (Section 11). The ways through which value is created and governed is particularly critical in exploring the ways through which e-services can be designed and delivered. Emerging services and novel models have been examined in nine essays addressing both the private and public sectors (Section 1). The question concerning the overall equilibrium of an organization when new ‘tools’ are adopted (for example, to secure a new e-service) is crucial because such ‘equilibrium’ has a dynamic character. It requires people to undertake change in their behaviors and the context of processes and regulations to open up to innovation. Thus, ten papers have studied the interplay of ICT impacts and organizational change (Section 2). The impacts of ICT (considered specifically as a human-computer interaction) have been studied for a long time. In this book specific attention has been paid to the involvement of the user base of business interactive systems in the issues related to HCI (Section 8) so that a better accessibility is achieved. The problem of ‘access’ is certainly crucial in the information society, as the European Union policies show, so that appropriate research in the ways in which new technologies (e.g.: service oriented architectures, tools for data and service integration) facilitate networked collaboration and knowledge exchanges are of high interest: nine papers concern this subject in Section 3. Of course, all the above mentioned efforts performed by private and public bodies have to be supported by appropriate IS development and design methodol-ogies (Section 7) so that a proper balance can be achieved between business re-quirements and solution development. Such balance is certainly rooted in the availability of reliable criteria and metrics in the evaluation of IS, of their impacts and costs (Section 6)