Autonomous Decentralized Enterprise Model-A New Wave in Web 2.0 Type E-commerce1

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, business conducted over the Internet (referred here as 'e-commerce'), with its dynamism, rapid growth, and high competitiveness, promises new avenues for the creation of wealth (Amit, Zott, 2001). Established firms are creating new online businesses, while new ventures are exploiting the opportunities the Internet provides. Moreover, since the emergence of Web 2.0 in 2004, users can do more than just retrieve information. The role of common customer in business has changed to a great extent, the customers have become more influential on sales and on new item development through their Internet activities (weblogs, forums, personal web pages, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarks, RSS feeds and other forms of many-to-many publishing). To some extent, Web 2.0 facilitates the construction of autonomous decentralized network outside the enterprises. This network, composed of autonomous customers and suppliers, and has become a topic, which caused extensive attention in the theoretical research and business practice. Accompanying the environmental shift outside the E-enterprises, inside the business organization, traditional pyramid-style management models, such as the functional structure, multi-divisional structure or matrix organizational form, no longer suit the new external environment. In this chapter, a new wave of organization model inside enterprises the Autonomous Decentralized Enterprise Model (ADEM) will be described, and its process and formulation mechanism will be analyzed. The chapter will be organized as follows: First, the paradigm shift in the external business environment, which urges the transformation of the enterprise organization, will be introduced as background; then, the Autonomous Decentralized System (ADS), as the theoretical origin of ADEM, and its development will be presented as a revolutionary viewpoint in interdisciplinary fields. The practical application in real-time production system and theoretical innovation in business and management field based on the ADS will also be reviewed. The main part of the chapter