Information technology (IT) has become a constant presence in contemporary life, infiltrating community, business and state affairs. This book discusses applications and consequences of IT in developing and advanced countries, focusing on the ways in which IT has changed society via the so-called Internet revolution. It examines the characteristics of network economies; Internet access; changes in supply chains; productivity increases; and the digital divide. It ranges through the U.K., European Union, Central and Eastern Europe, U.S., Japan, India, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand...

Information technology (IT) has become a constant presence in contemporary life, infiltrating community, business and state affairs. This book discusses applications and consequences of IT in developing and advanced countries, focusing on the ways in which IT has changed society via the so-called Internet revolution. It examines the characteristics of network economies; Internet access; changes in supply chains; productivity increases; and the digital divide. It ranges through the U.K., European Union, Central and Eastern Europe, U.S., Japan, India, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand...

This book focuses on East Asia, which has been attracting FDI and a centre of industrial agglomeration, and because of this, the production structure in the world has been dynamically transforming. This book analyzes this world trend and provides a framework for strategy that is required not only for Japanese local governments to implement industrial cluster policy, but also for firms to survive the global competition.

This book provides a coherent and useful framework to explain the formation of agglomeration and the endogenous innovation process of upgrading industrial clusters to the higher R&D. It contains country studies including; China, India, Japan, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.