The nature of economic change and management in a new knowledge based information economy

The development of management theory and practice and their informational assumptions are followed over three phases of economic development; (1) the pre-oil crisis experience 1969– 1975, (2) the post oil crisis sobering up through most of the 1990s and (3) the emergence of globally distributed production organizations, blurring the notion of the firm to be managed. The change from a belief in a predictable environment and only marginally uninformed actors to an increasing recognition of the fundamental ignorance that enters all business decisions, the consequent business mistakes and that learning between the periods has been of limited value and often misleading is found to be reflected in business information systems. 0167-6245/$ see front matter 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.infoecopol.2005.02.002 q This study is part of the project: The Macroeconomic Effects of Computer and Communications Technology, funded by Vinnova, earlier the Swedish Transport and Communications Board (Kommunikationsforskningsberedningen, Kfb). See Eliasson (2002a,b). Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Pacific Telecommunications Council Conference (PTC), January 20–22 1997 (published in 29 Annual Pacific Telecommunications Conference, plenary sessions) in Honolulu, at the 14th Nordic Conference on Business Studies, Bodø, Norway, August 1997 and at the Druid Conference on Bornholm, organized June 9–10, 1998 by the Copenhagen Business School. An earlier version appeared as working paper 1998:19 in the KTH TRITA series, Stockholm. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 8790 6830; fax: +46 8 622 6914. E-mail address: [email protected]. Information Economics and Policy 17 (2005) 428–456 INFORMATION ECONOMICS AND POLICY www.elsevier.com/locate/iep The increased rate of failure among large firms in recent decades appears to be related to the increasing complexity of business decisions, the decreased reliability of learning and the difficulties of controlling the value chain in globally distributed production. 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: A11; C44; C61; D21; D59; D83; G34; L23; M19