|
on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Garrido Azevedo, Susana; Ferreira, João; Leitão, João |
| Abstract: | With the rapid growth of technologies, our economic society and life are changing significantly in the 21th century. The way to capture their competitive advantage has become the most important issue for enterprises in the rapidly changing and uncertain business environments. Many researches have pointed out that the adoption of technology is the most important tool for enterprises to keep their competitive advantage. The survival of an enterprise in the age of knowledge-based economy depends on how to improve their technological capability. In this sense, firms should develop adequate methodologies, in order to adopt, in a successful way, new technologies in the logistics field, and also to integrate logistics into the corporate strategy for becoming even more competitive. Growing number of firms are under pressure from their partners to change their traditional management style, both operationally and organizationally, replacing them with integrated systems that help increase the speed and fluidity of physical and information flows. In order to reach this kind of integration they are investing on new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). In this paper we consider that the ICT are the devices or infrastructures to make more efficient the communications of business information among organizations (Dawe, 1994). Being so, the present paper aims: (i) to highlight the importance of ICT on logistics; and (ii) to understand the impact of ICT on the firms’ competitiveness. In this paper a conceptual model for the adoption of Logistics’ ICT is presented, by taking into consideration four determinant factors: individual, organizational, technological or innovation, and environmental. The interaction established between the referred determinant factors may be identified through the computation of the predominant factor, by using a selected set of adequate indicators and a simple geometry methodology. These procedures may provide the identification of the sources of firms’ competitive advantages that adopt Logistics’ ICT. The Logistics’ ICT analysed in this paper are grouped into four types, such as, the identification, the data communications and the data acquisition technologies. With regard to the identification technologies, firms may appeal to barcoding, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). The barcoding (Chapman et al., 2003; Ellram et al., 1999), and RFID (Kumar et al., 2006; Twist, 2005; Choy et al., 2007), are identification technologies that facilitate logistics information collection and exchange. Nowadays, as regards the data acquisition technologies, the firms usually deal with a large amount of goods and data which means that data collection and exchange are critical for logistics information management and control. Good quality in data acquisition can help firms deliver customers' goods more accurately and efficiently. To attain this goal firms could appeal to some data acquisition technologies in logistics field, such as the optical scanning, the electronic pen notepads, (Lin, 2006), the voice recognition and the robotics (Dawe, 1994). |
| Keywords: | ICT; Logistics; Competitive Advantages; Strategy. |
| JEL: | M0 M11 |
| Date: | 2007–01–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:1359&r=ict |
| By: | Christiaan Hogendorn (Economics Department, Wesleyan University) |
| Abstract: | “Network neutrality” and “open access” are two policies designed to preserve openness on the Internet. Open access mandates openness of conduits (e.g. television cable and DSL) to service providers (e.g. America Online), while network neutrality mandates openness to advanced content (streaming video, interactive e-commerce, etc.). We develop a systems model with free entry and competition in all three industry segments (conduits, service provider intermediaries, and content) and examine the effects of the two types of regulation. We find that open access does not necessarily result in more openness of content and is not a substitute for network neutrality. |
| Keywords: | network neutrality, open access, broadband |
| JEL: | L1 L5 L9 |
| Date: | 2006–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cni:wpaper:2006-09&r=ict |
| By: | Guido De Blasio |
| Abstract: | By diminishing the cost of performing isolated economic activities in isolated areas, information technology might serve as a substitute for urban agglomeration. This paper assesses this hypothesis by using Italian household level data on internet navigation, e-commerce, and e-banking. Empirically, I find no support for the argument that the internet reduces the role of distance. My results suggest that: (1) Internet navigation is more frequent for urban consumers than their non-urban counterparts. (2) The use of e-commerce is basically not affected by the size of the city where the household lives. Remote consumers are discouraged by the fact that they cannot see the goods before buying them. Leisure activities and cultural items are the only goods and services for which e-commerce is used more intensively in isolated areas. (3) E-banking bears no relationship with city size. In choosing a bank, non-urban customers evaluate personal acquaintances as an important factor more intensively than urban clients. This also depends on the fact that banking account holders in remote areas are more frequently supplied with a loan by their bank. |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa06p440&r=ict |
| By: | Odysseas Sakellarides; Vassilis Angelis; George Dounias; Iason Koufodontis |
| Abstract: | In an open global market, SMEs are facing new challenges while trying to compete with large worldwide corporations. The forming of innovative alliances, known as virtual organizations (VO), is one of the most interesting proposals to achieve competitiveness and exploit strategic advantages. However, besides the obvious positive potential of innovative actions like VOs, there are several drawbacks, especially when SMEs are involved in such projects. VOs have very high needs for IT and communications; in fact they rely so much on them that the forming of a VO is only possible with the development of an extensive information and communication infrastructure. A lot of innovating management, re-forming and re-structuring is involved in joining several independent companies into a new virtual schema and several cultural, economical and legislative problems must also be overcome. In this paper we focus on the technological needs, and in particular, the need for an organization-wide data sharing and communication network. The high cost involved with the investments necessary in IT and communications technology make the effort harder for SMEs, even if it was to be assumed that they could manage the other important aspects of forming a VO. Along with the cost of computer equipment and specialized software, networking cost has until recently been a particularly prohibiting factor for SMEs even on the most advanced business sectors. A new term, the “virtual organization technology threshold†is introduced, defined as the minimum of IT and communication technologies necessary to form a “true†virtual organization, in its pure and functional form described and widely adopted by the scientific community. The investments needed for IT and communications to form a VO are analyzed and compared to the related investments of conventional SMEs in EU. The evolution in the cost, focused around the networking tools, is then examined to extract useful information about the feasibility of such specialized investments compared to the overall investment and turnovers of typical SMEs. We then argue that a recent development, the price drop and wide spread of broadband connections can act as a “key factor†that could make the difference in lowering the “threshold†and increasing the possibilities for SMEs to compete successfully by utilizing technological advantages and innovations that have until now considered to be more suitable for larger enterprises. |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa06p890&r=ict |
| By: | Dezso Szalay (Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | I study covert information acquisition and reporting in a principal agent problem allowing for general technologies of information acquisition. When posteriors satisfy local versions of the standard First Order Stochastic Dominance and Concavity/Convexity of the Distribution Function conditions, a first-order approach is justified. Under the same conditions, informativeness and riskiness of reports are equivalent. High powered contracts, that make the agents informational rents more risky, are used to increase incentives for information acquisition, insensitive contracts are used to reduce incentives for information gathering. The value of information to the agent is always positive. The value of information to the principal is ambiguous. |
| Keywords: | Asymmetric Information ; Mechanism Design ; Information Acquisition ; Stochastic Ordering ; Value of Information |
| JEL: | D82 D83 L51 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:780&r=ict |