Over the last few years, every business has faced an onslaught of challenges: global economic volatility, fierce competition, customer churn, mergers and acquisitions, rising security concerns and waves of regulatory compliance issues. Meanwhile, stakeholders continue to demand that top executives increase profits, lower costs, expand market share and grow revenue. To solve these issues, much…
In this book, we argue that the strategies a company’s managers pursue have a major impact on its performance relative to rivals. A strategy is a set of actions that managers take to increase their company’s performance relative to rivals. If a company’s strategy does result in superior performance, it is said to have a competitive advantage. Much of this book is about identifying an…
eflecting their broad interest in the health of America’s research enterprise, the National Academies launched a study in early 2000 on the implications of information technology for the future of the nation’s research university—a social institution of great importance to our economic strength, national security, and quality of life. The premise of this study was a simple one. Although t…
In this short book, I try to outline the history of the European economy—which is somewhat different from an economic history of Eu- rope. By “European economy,” I mean a world economy in the sense of Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein, one that is of course located in Europe and has some common aspects and some common institutions; one that is somewhat integrated, as its different …
Handheld computers or personal digital assistants (PDAs) were launched in the marketplace in 1996. Within 18 months, these handheld devices had swept through the business community and virtually trans- formed the way people took notes and kept professional and personal cal- endars. Today, PDAs can connect to the Internet and provide a variety of services, from scouting out restaurants in the vi…
More importantly, the committee has tried in this report to provide a way of thinking about workforce issues in IT/HT that is largely indepen- dent of specific legislation. It seems safe to predict that the debate over the IT/HT workforce and immigration will not be definitively resolved by any one piece of legislation—such is the nature of controversial issues engaged by the political proce…
Computing technology is widely touted as fast moving. Generations of products and their underlying electronics are introduced at intervals of 18 to 24 months, and the number and variety of computer- and communications-based goods and services are growing. Technology and industry experts believe that the double-digit rates of improvement experienced in the last couple of decades can be sustain…