International Management WS 2006/07

Electronic Business is a popular term that subsumes the variety of business process execution based on digital technology and open networks (e.g. the Internet). Such processes can exist between any combination of consumers, businesses, and public bodies. The initial hype about this topic has been superseded by a more realistic understanding of the challenges and the business potential, and corporations are now trying hard to find hands-on and lasting solutions on how to adapt their processes and systems so that they become compatible with the paradigms and requirements of an accelerated and technically integrated business environment. This class will introduce the fundamental economic effects and theories that explain the diffusion of Electronic Business, especially new institutional economics, and map these to core concepts of management science. The overall learning goal of the course is an in-depth understanding of the interplay of economics, communication and information research, management science, and applied computer science; the underlying social and technical processes, and their implications for business and management.