Electronic Technology, Corporate Strategy, and World Transformation

How are the new electronic technologies transforming business here and abroad — indeed, the entire world economy — and what new strategies must business develop to meet the challenges of this transformation? Economist, writer, and communications executive Maurice Estabrooks provides a readable, comprehensive survey of how businesses are using microchips, computers, and telecommunications to reshape the entire world of work — its cultures, organization, and economic systems. With insight and impeccable scholarship he provides concrete evidence of the emergence of artificially intelligent, cybernetic, network-based entities that are creating new linkages between businesses, markets, and technology itself — linkages that will profoundly affect the way businesses create and implement their corporate survival and growth strategies in the future.Drawing on the work of economic theorist Joseph Schumpeter, Estabrooks shows how Schumpeterian dynamics have played a key role in the breakup of AT&T and the Bell System, and in the deregulation of telecommunications, broadcasting, banking, finance, and other economically critical industries. What has emerged, he maintains, is an increasingly integrated, global information- and software-based services economy. Optical fibers, satellites, and wireless communications systems have already made possible the development of electronic superhighways, but in doing so they have also initiated a massive redistribution of economic power and wealth throughout the world, the implications of which are only now being understood. Historical, analytical, descriptive, Estabrooks' book will speak not only to academics and others who observe world transformations from relatively theoretical perspectives, but also to corporate and other executives whose organizations, and certainly their personal work lives, will be changed dramatically by the developments he describes in practical day-to-day situations.

." . . An excellent analysis of the human and organizational impact of technology generally, but in particular, a focus on the areas of the micro chip and telecommunications revolutions....Most interesting about the book is that it does not end up in an unnecessary amount of technical jargon, but rather tries to deal directly, and in a straight forward way, about the impacts and the likely future roles that this electronic technology will play in society."- Gordon Cassidy, director School of Business Queen's University, "From the telephone and radio and television, to the microchip, the computer, the satellite and optical fibres and wireless personal communications systems and global information superhighways, from the rise of AT&T, IBM, Apple, and Microsoft to the breakup of AT&T and the creation of the new IBM, from programmed trading, electronic data interchange, electronic commerce to multimedia, workgroup technologies, concurrent engineering and paperless design techniques, from corporate strategies in manufacturing, banking and finance, cable television, publishing, to national industrial strategies: This book has it all."-Jean-Pierre Soubliere president, SHL Systemhouse International, "The sweep of information technology development from Gutenberg in the mid-15th century to the present time and into the foreseeable future with the planned introduction of global cellular phone satellites is covered in a very readable way. The author's assessment of the impact of information technology, throughout its evolution, on society, politics, and economics is particularly interesting."- Olaf E. Kraulis vice-president, Information Systems Toronto Stock Exchange, .,."a breath of fresh air. It is well researched and comprehensive, and written in a scholarly and eloquent manner, while still remaining accessible to a general audience....This is an important book, and those who are concerned about how technology will influence the quality of life should read it."-Allisonian, ?...a breath of fresh air. It is well researched and comprehensive, and written in a scholarly and eloquent manner, while still remaining accessible to a general audience....This is an important book, and those who are concerned about how technology will influence the quality of life should read it.?-Allisonian

MAURICE ESTABROOKS is an author and senior economist in the Department of Industry in Canada. With more than 20 years experience in information and communications management, he has studied the art and science of strategic thinking and management, and the interplay between technology, corporate strategy, and the market economy in particular. Trained in the physical, social, and managerial sciences, he is the author of a previous book, Programmed Capitalism: A Computer-Mediated Global Society which describes the role computers played in the stock market crash of 1987.