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Whether you call it the third wave, the information revolution, or the virtually connected world, the implications of a global information network are profound. As a society, we want to forestall the possible negative impacts without closing the door to the potential benefits. But how? Global Networks and Local Values provides perspective and direction, focusing on the relationship between global information networks and local values-that is, the political, economic, and cultural norms that shape our daily lives. This book is structured around an illuminating comparison between U.S. and German approaches toward global communication and information flow. (The United States and Germany are selected as two industrialized, highly networked countries with significant social differences.) Global Networks and Local Values captures the larger context of technology and culture, explores the political and commercial institutions where the global network functions, and highlights specific issues such as taxation, privacy, free speech, and more. The committee contrasts the technical uniformity that makes global communication possible with the diversity of the communities being served and explores the prospects that problems resulting from technology can be resolved by still more technology. This thoughtful volume will be of interest to everyone concerned about the social implications of the global Internet.
Opportunities and risks are twins. There are few to deny the opportunities of global networks in general and of the Internet in particular. But many fear for the concomitant risks, or what they perceive as a risk. Racist speech, pornography and personality profiling rank highest in public awareness. Some concerns are quasi universal, like child pornography. But for others there are at least differences of degree. Following its history, Germany has tabooed right wing publications. And Americans, in their majority, feel hurt by nudity, which most Germans find quite inoffensive. Such examples lure into a simplistic opposition: global values threaten local values. The reality of global networks, and of their interrelation with local values, is much more complex. This volume explores different paths for understanding global networks, local values, and their reciprocal impact. It streches from social philosophy to technology forecasting, from cultural theory to law, from systems theory to economic history, from sociology to external relations studies, from economics to political sciences. The volume collects the following papers: W. Kersting, Global Networks and Local Values -- D. Farber, Predicting the Unpredictable - Technology and Society -- P. David, The Internet and the Economics of Network Technology Evolution -- M. Hutter, The Commercialization of the Internet -- D. Baecker, Networking the Web -- M. Thompson, Global Networks and Local Cultures: What are the Mismatches? -- K. Keniston, Cultural Diversity or Global Monoculture -- M. Kahler, Information Networks and Global Politics -- R. Werle, The Impact of Information Networks on the Structure of Political Systems -- S. Sassen, The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty -- C. Engel, The Internet and the Nation State -- L. Muller, Discussion Report.
Opportunities and risks are twins. There are few to deny the opportunities of global networks in general and of the Internet in particular. But many fear for the concomitant risks, or what they perceive as a risk. Racists speech, pornography and personality profiling rank highest in public awareness. Some concerns are quasi universal, like child pornography. For others there are at least differences of degree. Following its history, Germany has tabooed right wing publications. And Americans, in their majority, feel hurt by nudity, which most Germans find quite inoffensive. Such examples lure into a simplistic opposition: Global networks threat local values. The reality of global networks, and of their interrelation with local values, is much more complex. The National Research Council has set up a binational, German-American committee to study the question. The committee has convoked two symposia. This abstract refers to the final report drafted by the committee and approved by the review process of the National Research Council. The report brings to bear knowledge from many fields: technology, economics, political science, communications science and the law. The report starts by outlining how the historically highly unlikely success of the Internet could happen. It lays conceptual foundations by determining the individual and social functions of values, what makes them local, and how global networks can impact on them. On these conceptual foundations chapters are built that look at democracy and political institutions, the highly contentious issues of free speech, privacy and freedom of information, and at commercial values. Each of these chapters demonstrates that the issue is by far not as simple as public discourse tends to assume. Not surprisingly, the potential solutions are not simple either. Characteristically, they imply considerable institutional creativity, and usually some hybrid mix of private and public, national, international and sub-national inputs. The report concludes with an outlook beyond the German-American perspective. Posted along with this abstract is a short document, summarizing the basic insights of the report. The full report is accessible on the web.
Global network research is an exciting new area of social analysis. This book is the first to provide a thorough investigation of global network links across time and space. Robert Holton demonstrates the way in which technological and interpersonal networks organise global society, providing vivid examples from the present and the past. This text gives practical advice on how to research global networks, and brings together leading theory and new evidence on the subject for all students learning about globalisation and contemporary social change.
In her pioneering book The Global City, Saskia Sassen argued that certain cities in the postindustrial world have become central nodes in the new service economy, strategic sites for the acceleration of capital and information flows as well as spaces of increasing socio-economic polarization. One effect has been that such cities have gained in importance and power relative to nation-states. In this new collection of essays, Sassen and a distinguished group of contributors expand on the author's earlier work in a number of important ways, focusing on two key issues. First, they look at how information flows have bound global cities together in networks, creating a global city web whose constituent cities become global through the networks they participate in. Second, they investigate emerging global cities in the developing world-Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Beirut, the Dubai-Iran corridor, and Buenos Aires. They show how these globalizing zones are not only replicating many features of the top tier of global cities, but are also generating new socio-economic patterns as well. These new patterns of development promise to lead to significant changes in the structure of the global economy, as more and more cities worldwide are integrated into globalization's circuitry. Includes contributions from:Linda Garcia, Patrice Riemens, Geert Lovink, Peter Taylor, David Smith, Michael Timberlake, Stephen Graham, Sueli Schiffer Ramos, Christoff Parnreiter, Felicity Gu, David Meyer, Pablo Ciccolella, Iliana Mignaqui, Eric Huybrechts, Ali Parsa. Also includes six maps.
Multinational Corporations are meeting new challenges by focusing on core activities, value chain disaggregation, relocation of activities to emerging markets, industry consolidation, technological change, and market volatility. In this volume we scrutinize different models to examine how MNCs can cope and orchestrate a global network organization.
The book discusses the magnitude, sequence, and dynamics of interdependent decisions regarding the location and control of various parts of the value chain: manufacturing cost, onshore manufacturing, offshoring site selection, competitive cost analysis, offshoring advantages and disadvantages, re-shoring and social impact. By using case illustrations from textile, clothing and footwear manufacturing the book provides a novel perspective on the disintegration, mobility, and reintegration of value chains. A specific chapter deals with Benetton new strategy, abandoning Italy and organising production around a dual supply chain: close locations (East Europe and North Africa) for quick production and far away locations (Asia) for more standardised products. This choice affects the definition of competences in the clothing district, where Benetton traditional sub-contractors have been drastically curtailed. Leveraging knowledge from geographically disparate subsidiaries is a crucial source of competitive advantage for multinational corporations. The determinants of knowledge transfers and dynamic capability building (not building) are investigated: motivations behind Italian parent companies' decisions to create subsidiaries abroad, cost and differentiation advantages, relations between the newly established production facilities, their local suppliers and markets, organisational adaptations, and the cultural and administrative difficulties. By combining direct observations with balance sheets data, and data on employment stock at the firm's level, the impact of the offshoring decision is evaluated both in the domestic and in the foreign markets.