2007
Developing Virtual Communities in Transition Economies, in Encyclopedia of Virtual Communities and Technologies
Authors: Takis Damaskopoulos and Rimantas Gatautis
Editor: Subhasish Dasgupta (George Washington University)
Series: Books (published by Information Science Reference)
This article explores key sets of drivers of formation of virtual communities in transition economies with particular reference to recent developments in Lithuania. Its central thesis is that virtual communities are a central component of an emerging economic system that is powered by ICT, is knowledge driven, is organized around electronic and organizational networks that generate knowledge, which transform industries and markets, and is dependent on dynamic and flexible regulatory public institutions. For ICT to diffuse throughout the whole economy in a way that supports virtual community formation, business firms, market conditions, and the culture and institutions of society need to undergo substantial change in a coordinated manner. It is the dynamic interdependence of these conditions that is the source of innovation and value creation in the new knowledge-driven economy.
Abstract
This article explores key sets of drivers of formation of virtual communities in transition economies with particular reference to recent developments in Lithuania. Information and communication technologies (ICT) centered on the Internet are today widely recognized as one of the driving forces in the transition toward a new economic system. This transition has been especially challenging for European transition economies that are in the midst of a historic restructuring in anticipation of entry into the European Union. These countries are confronting a historic challenge of converging to the economic, technological, and organizational practices and standards of their EU counterparts. ICT applications in the form of e-business provide a unique opportunity for companies in these economies to accelerate learning processes for the facilitation of the adoption and implementation of competitive and sustainable e-business strategies. A key challenge in this respect is how to construct sustainable virtual communities that bridge civil society and organizations of the public sector in ways that support the transition toward an ICT-enabled economic system.
The central thesis of the article is that virtual communities are a central component of an emerging economic system that is powered by ICT, is knowledge driven, is organized around electronic and organizational networks that generate knowledge, which transform industries and markets, and is dependent on dynamic and flexible regulatory public institutions. For ICT to diffuse throughout the whole economy in a way that supports virtual community formation, business firms, market conditions, and the culture and institutions of society need to undergo substantial change in a coordinated manner. It is the dynamic interdependence of these conditions that is the source of innovation and value creation in the new knowledge-driven economy. The agenda of research on the dynamics of adoption of new economy practices, innovation, and economic growth, as a result, needs to be expanded beyond the level of the firm. It needs to be built around the dynamic interrelationships between technological transformations, firms’ organizational and knowledge-creating capabilities, emerging market and industry structures, and public institutions.
The article situates drivers of virtual community formation and the necessity of coordinating their development on three levels: the level of ICT infrastructure, regulatory environment, and market or civic attitudes toward ICT-enabled market transactions. On each of these levels the observations made are conditioned by the definitional parameters of “virtual community.” For the purposes of this article, a virtual community is understood as a set of interwoven relationships built upon shared interests, which satisfies members’ needs otherwise unattainable individually. It must be stressed that a virtual community thus defined refers not only to consumers but also businesses and organizational entities of the public sector.
Download [Link connects to “Encyclopedia of Virtual Communities and Technologies” document…
Go the the publisher’s site…
https://www.igi-global.com/book/encyclopedia-virtual-communities-technologies/371
2005
“Toward a Network Topology of Enterprise Transformation and Innovation”, in William H. Dutton, Brian Kahin, Ramon O’Callaghan and Andrew Wyckoff (eds.), Transforming Enterprise: The Economic and Social Implications of Information Technology, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Author: Takis Damaskopoulos
Information and communication technology (ICT) is today recognized as the epicenter of a profound economic dislocation associated with what has come to be known as the transition to a new knowledge-driven economy. The capacity of organizations to engage in learning processes has increasingly come to be viewed as a crucial determinant of innovation, enterprise performance and economic development. In the emerging new economy innovation constitutes the foundation of the competitiveness and value-creation capabilities of economic organizations. Innovation has emerged as a strategic issue because of the disarticulation of established economic and social structures and processes that the knowledge-driven economy and society bring in their path. This disarticulation is the product of the interplay of technological, industrial, economic, and social transformations. The alignment and re-articulation of technological capabilities, especially ICT, through novel knowledge-creating organizational forms geared to constant innovation and value creation is the intangible quality that today determines the competitiveness of economic organizations and the national and regional environments within which they operate.
However, innovation is not something happening “inside” organizations but rather at the networked interfaces of organizations with the business, regulatory, and institutional environments within which they operate. The process of innovation is increasingly driven by open-source networks of cooperation and involves dynamic interrelationships between technological transformations, organizational capabilities of firms, and public institutional and regulatory structures supportive of innovation and entrepreneurship. In other words, for new ICT that powers the knowledge-driven economy to be able to spread throughout the whole economy, thus enhancing productivity growth, the organizational structure of business firms, the institutions and culture of the society need to undergo substantial change. This is why the agenda of research on the dynamics of adoption of new economy practices, innovation, and economic growth needs to be expanded beyond the level of the firm. It needs to be built around the dynamic interrelationships between technological transformations, firms’ organizational knowledge-creating capabilities, emerging market and industry structures, and public institutions.
Download [Link connects to ““Toward a Network Topology of Enterprise Transformation and Innovation ”” document…
Go the the publisher’s site…
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/transforming-enterprise