The selected papers in this volume bear witness to a maturing of High Technology Small Firms (HTSF) research. In the past, HTSF research has produced some solid findings, but also several paradoxes: shedding more light on the unintended and paradoxical effects of technology developments regarding HTSFs is now one of the aims of research in this field, and an observed change in the focus of the research agenda is reflected in this book.
Although many of the topics have also been covered in earlier volumes, a gradual shift from descriptive case or survey studies to more explanatory studies, with an objective of understanding the processes that drive HTSF development, now becomes apparent. Researchers from different backgrounds increasingly strive to apply and integrate theoretical traditions that focus on the individual firm, regional and wider environmental levels. As a result of this shift, topics such as financing, internationalisation or firm development are viewed more from a perspective of networking and cooperation, or of development and growth.
The understanding of how to promote cooperation and networking will probably remain on the HTSF research agenda for some years to come; the development and growth processes of HTSFs, within the context of clusters and networks, will also be high on the agenda in the next decade.

In this timely and unique study, the innovations in India's information (IT) industry are examined in detail. Globally the IT Industry has experienced phenomenal growth. The book examines the issues surrounding the analysis of the Indian IT sector on a global, national, regional, firm, and product level and the significance of national policies to sustain the competitiveness of the Indian IT sector.

Chance discovery means discovering chances - the breaking points in systems, the marketing windows in business, etc. It involves determining the significance of some piece of information about an event and then using this new knowledge in decision making. The techniques developed combine data mining methods for finding rare but important events with knowledge management, groupware, and social psychology. The reader will find many applications, such as finding information on the Internet, recognizing changes in customer behavior, detecting the first signs of an imminent earthquake, etc. This first book dedicated to chance discovery covers the state of the art in the theory and methods and examines typical scenarios, and it thus appeals to researchers working on new techniques and algorithms and also to professionals dealing with real-world applications.

How do you design personalized user experiences that delight and provide value to the customers of an eCommerce site? Personalization does not guarantee high quality user experience: a personalized user experience has the best chance of success if it is developed using a set of best practices in HCI. In this book 35 experts from academia, industry and government focus on issues in the design of personalized web sites. The topics range from the design and evaluation of user interfaces and tools to information architecture and computer programming related to commercial web sites. The book covers four main areas:
-Theoretical, Conceptual, and Architectural Frameworks of Personalization,
-Research on the Design and Evaluation of Personalized User Experiences in Different Domains,
-Approaches to personalization Through Recommender Systems,
-Lessons Learned and Future Research Questions. This book will be a valuable tool in helping the reader to understand the range of factors to take into consideration in designing and building a personalized user experience. The authors of each of the chapters identify possibilities and alert the reader to issues that can be addressed in the beginning of a project by taking a 'big picture' view of designing personalized user interfaces. For anyone working or studying in the field of HCI, information architecture or eCommerce, this book will provide a solid foundation of knowledge and prepare for the challenges ahead.

A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable us to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable. In this groundbreaking book, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines. He describes the near-term benefits we can expect, from intelligent personal assistants to vastly accelerated scientific research, and outlines the AI breakthroughs that still have to happen before we reach superhuman AI. He also spells out the ways humans are already finding to misuse AI, from lethal autonomous weapons to viral sabotage. If the predicted breakthroughs occur and superhuman AI emerges, we will have created entities far more powerful than ourselves. How can we ensure they never, ever, have power over us? Russell suggests that we can rebuild AI on a new foundation, according to which machines are designed to be inherently uncertain about the human preferences they are required to satisfy. Such machines would be humble, altruistic, and committed to pursue our objectives, not theirs. This new foundation would allow us to create machines that are provably deferential and provably beneficial.

To be successful in the 21st century, governments must make use of digital and communication technologies in order to coordinate resources and collaborate with their citizens. IT in the Public Sphere: Applications in Administration, Government, Politics, and Planning evaluates current research and best practices in the adoption of e-government technologies in developed and developing countries, enabling governments to keep in constant communication with citizens, constituents, corporations, and other stakeholders in modern societies. Within these chapters, scholars, administrators, managers, and leaders will find the latest information on utilizing digital technologies in their e-governance projects.

'This is a riveting book, with as much to say about the transformation of modern life in the information age as about its supernaturally gifted and driven subject' - Telegraph Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years - as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues - this is the acclaimed, internationally bestselling biography of the ultimate icon of inventiveness. Walter Isaacson tells the story of the rollercoaster life and searingly intense personality of creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies,music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written, nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

David O. Loomis Illinois State University The explosive growth of the Internet has caught most industry experts off guard. While data communications was expected to be the "wave of the future," few industry observers foresaw how rapid the change in focus from voice communications towards data would be. Understanding the data communications revolution has become an urgent priority for many in the telecommunications industry. Demand analysis and forecasting are critical tools to understanding these trends for both Internet access and Internet backbone service. Businesses have led residential customers in the demand for data services, but residential demand is currently increasing exponentiall y. Even as business demand for data communications is becoming better understood, residential broadband access demand is still largely unexplored. Cable modems and ADSL appear to be the current residential broadband choices yet demand elasticities and econometric model-based forecasts for these services are not currently available. The responsiveness of customers to price and income changes and customer's perceptions of the tradeoff in product characteristics between cable modems and ADSL is largely unknown. Demand for Internet access is derived from the demand for applications which utilize this access; access is not demanded independent of its usage. Thus it is important to understand Internet applications in order to understand the demand for access.

The World Wide Web is truly astounding. It has changed the way we interact, learn and innovate. It is the largest sociotechnical system humankind has created and is advancing at a pace that leaves most in awe. It is an unavoidable fact that the future of the world is now inextricably linked to the future of the Web. Almost every day it appears to change, to get better and increase its hold on us. For all this we are starting to see underlying stability emerge. The way that Web sites rank in terms of popularity, for example, appears to follow laws with which we are familiar. What is fascinating is that these laws were first discovered, not in fields like computer science or information technology, but in what we regard as more fundamental disciplines like biology, physics and mathematics. Consequently the Web, although synthetic at its surface, seems to be quite 'natural' deeper down, and one of the driving aims of the new field of Web Science is to discover how far down such 'naturalness' goes. If the Web is natural to its core, that raises some fundamental questions. It forces us, for example, to ask if the central properties of the Web might be more elemental than the truths we cling to from our understandings of the physical world. In essence, it demands that we question the very nature of information. Understanding Information and Computation is about such questions and one possible route to potentially mind-blowing answers.

This timely volume provides a comprehensive view of the economic and social research frontiers of the telecommunications and information activities in the Information Age. New technologies and deregulation characterize this rapidly growing sector, which is assuming an increasingly international character. These changes are generating a wide range of local, regional and international policy issues. An international group drawn from research, industry and policy communities outline the important frontiers on which research efforts should focus. The book emphasizes the need for the implementation of such economic and social research.

Like Icarus flying too close to the sun, many once-promising dot.com entrepreneurs have been burned by overweening ambition and come crashing to the ground. Besides the economic wreckage left in the wake of their high-flying dreams there is also a good deal of psychological turmoil. Psychologists Mel Krantzler and his wife Pat, both counselors who have helped hundreds of managers and CEOs of high-tech companies cope with dreams turned to nightmares, expose the shadowy side of Silicon Valley in this revealing book about the personal costs of "success." In addition to being a psychologist, Dr. Krantzler is also a trained economist. His economic expertise, combined with his psychology practice, enables him to uniquely illuminate Silicon Valley's culture from both perspectives. This is the first book to explode the romanticized myth of Silicon Valley, which is still so prevalent in advertising and the media.
What you never hear about this Mecca of high-tech culture is that it has one of the highest divorce rates in the world, more children who are psychologically disturbed than in less-affluent areas, almost no affordable decent housing even for those earning $50,000 a year, and widespread alcohol and drug use. What the Krantzlers make clear is that aside from the simple geographical designation, Silicon Valley is the name for a psychological obsession found any place where people believe that instant fame and fortune can be gained through silicon chips and Web sites. This dream nourishes itself on an illusion of power and instant gratification. And like heroin and cocaine, it is highly addictive, promising total happiness, but often ending in disarray and despair.
Based on interviews with many Silicon Valley executives who have decided to change their lives to achieve true well-being for themselves and their families, this book concludes with a formula for real success - a well-rounded, balanced, and fully human life.

Understanding, appreciating and taking corrective steps to maintain and enhance social and ethical responsibility in the information age is important not only because of our increased dependence on information and communication technologies, but also because information and communication technologies pose complex challenges. Ethical Issues of Information Systems strives to address these pertinent issues. This scholarly and academic book provides insight on many topics of debate and discussion in the field and lends the most recent research in the field of IT ethics and social responsibility.

'Rana el Kaliouby's vision for how technology should work in parallel with empathy is bold, inspired and hopeful' Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global 'This lucid and captivating book by a renowned pioneer of emotion-AI tackles one of the most pressing issues of our time: How can we ensure a future where this technology empowers rather than surveils and manipulates us?' Max Tegmark, professor of physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Life 3.0 We are entering an empathy crisis. Most of our communication is conveyed through non-verbal cues - facial expressions, tone of voice, body language - nuances that are completely lost when we interact through our smartphones and other technology. The result is a digital universe that's emotion-blind - a society lacking in empathy. Rana el Kaliouby discovered this when she left Cairo, a newly-married, Muslim woman, to take up her place at Cambridge University to study computer science. Many thousands of miles from home, she began to develop systems to help her better connect with her family. She started to pioneer the new field of Emotional Intelligence (EI). She now runs her company, Affectiva (the industry-leader in this emerging field) that builds EI into our technology and develops systems that understand humans the way we understand one another. In a captivating memoir, Girl Decoded chronicles el Kaliouby's mission to humanise technology and what she learns about humanity along the way.

The rise of Japan as an economic superpower is a remarkable episode in the history of the modern world. This book seeks to explain this phenomenal success by looking at the issues of culture and technology, and making comparison with the experience of the USA, the UK, and Europe as a whole. The relationship between culture and technology lies at the heart of the undoubted market success of Japan, and the development of high technology and the much-lauded "cultural" attributes of Japan have contributed powerfully to national success. These vital issues are examined in detail and include, for example, the relationship between company "culture" and "structure", and the overriding impact of Japanese "national" culture. National cultures in Japan and the West are compared with the consequent effect on entrepreneurial and technological progress.

This is the first study of business ethics to take into consideration the plethora of issues raised by the Information Age.
The first study of business ethics to take into consideration the plethora of issues raised by the Information Age.
Explores a wide range of topics including marketing, privacy, and the protection of personal information; employees and communication privacy; intellectual property issues; the ethical issues of e-business; Internet-related business ethics problems; and the ethical dimension of information technology on society.
Uncovers previous ignored ethical issues.
Underlines the need for public discussion of the issues.
Argues that computers and information technology have not necessarily developed in the most ethical manner possible.

What part does technological knowledge accumulation play in modern economic growth? This book investigates and examines the predictions of new growth theory, using OECD manufacturing data. Its empirical findings portray a novel and complex picture of the features of long-term growth, where technological knowledge production and diffusion play a central part, alongside variations in capital and employment. A parallel examination of long-run trade patterns and government policy issues completes a broader account of how knowledge-based growth in industrial output is at the heart of modern economic prosperity.

In this book, Davide Gualerzi employs the concept of transformational growth to explore the investment-driven cycle of expansion of the 1990s in the US economy, and of the of role played by the ICT sector.

The book articulates a view of demand-led growth in which the focus is on effective demand, the composition of the growth process and the link between changing composition and expansion.

This book is a critical introduction to code and software that develops an understanding of its social and philosophical implications in the digital age. Written specifically for people interested in the subject from a non-technical background, the book provides a lively and interesting analysis of these new media forms.

This book shows how the hybrid model, which uses both market and committee mechanisms, explains standard setting and firm competition in the mobile communications industry. The hybrid model explains why certain mobile communication standards like GSM have become global standards while others, for example digital standards supposed by US firms, have not become global standards. The hybrid model also explains why Nokia is the leading producer of mobile phones and Ericsson the leading producer of mobile infrastructure.

Application integration assembles methods and tools for organizing exchanges between applications, and intra- and inter-enterprise business processes. A strategic tool for enterprises, it introduces genuine reactivity into information systems facing business changes, and as a result, provides a significant edge in optimizing costs.

This book analyzes various aspects of application integration, providing a guide to the alphabet soup behind EAI, A2A, B2B, BAM, BPM, ESB and SOA. It addresses the problems of choosing between the application integration solutions and deploying them successfully. It supplies guidelines for avoiding common errors, exploring the differences between received wisdom and the facts on the ground. The overview of IT urbanization will help introduce English-speaking audiences to a powerful approach to information system flexibility developed in France. A key chapter approaches the analysis and interoperation of service levels in integration projects, while the discussion on deployment methodologies and ROI calculation anchors the theory in the real world.

"Application Integration: EAI, B2B, BPM and SOA" relies on concrete examples and genuine experiences to demonstrate what works - and what doesn't - in this challenging, topical and important IT domain.

This book provides a conceptual framework to understand and analyze the decline of the telecommunications industry and the rise of information industries. This includes information distribution, banking, advertising, computing, etc. and will use a value-based perspective to show the industry shaping dynamics. The integrative framework will cover issues relevant to all information industries including network externalities, lock in and switching costs, cost structure analysis, transactions costs and infomediaries.

Mobility has become a prominent feature in African societies: Populations all over Africa are both mobile and politically and economically marginal. Yet these populations are actively engaged in maintaining social networks across localities. Mobilities, ICTs and marginality in Africa looks at the dramatic changes brought about in socially marginal populations by new ICTs in general and mobile phones in particular. The book aims to situate the cultural, social and, in some cases, transnational context of ICT appropriation and virtual connectivity so as to reposition Africans from various countries and contexts as active agents of social change. The intricacies of local ICT use and the dynamics of mobility in the African context enables us to better understand material cultures, relationships between people, new media and social networking. Equally explored in relation to ICTs are the social and spatial dynamics of communication, association and belonging across spaces – particularly physical borders, social boundaries and confines and possibilities informed by the habitus of bodies and practices. Mobilities, ICTs and marginality in Africa is rich in theoretically informed case studies that lend themselves to comparative perspectives and to ethnographies from beyond Africa.