The Global Internet Economy

Citation

Kogut, B. (2003), "The Global Internet Economy", info, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 45-45. https://doi.org/10.1108/14636690310495247

This useful collection of papers is edited by a professor of international management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Drawing on the expertise of a host of authors from different countries, the anthology makes clearer the varied nature and pattern of Internet adoption and use around the world. After an introduction, the book is divided into two parts.

The individual “country” chapters include eight papers assessing the different availability and impact of the Internet in the USA, Sweden, France (tracing the story from the Minitel to the Internet), the growing use by Indian businesses of the Internet, the German Internet economy, the Internet economy of South Korea, and hybrid forms of business governance in Japan. The second portion of the book – covering “cross‐cutting themes,” includes chapters on whether or not there is global convergence in regulation and electronic markets, the role of suppliers and intermediaries, regulatory trends in Europe, and non‐market strategies and regulation in the USA. The author wraps up with some conclusions, including that the often‐vaunted global Internet economy has not yet arrived. Sweden, Korea, and Japan already have more Internet users per capita than does the USA.

Kogut and his many contributors (the chapters are all original papers that have not appeared before elsewhere) have provided a valuable “snapshot” of where the Internet stands today. They underline how strongly national cultural and political differences show through in arrangements by and for the Web, pulling users in different directions. A global Internet economy may be coming, but it is arriving more slowly than many expected – and this anthology makes clear some of the reasons why.