The Role of ICT in Interfirm Networks and Regional Clusters
The importance of inter-firm networks, networks between academia and industry, and regional clusters continues to grow. Nuturing regional clusters becomes a major political objective in a globalizing world. The French government has, for instance, just set up a competition to allocate 1.5 billion Euro over a period of three year to foster regional clusters in high tech domains.
Much attention has been given to the need to provide adequate information infrastructures so that such regional clusters can flourish. The evidence regarding ICT usage and benefits in such clusters, both for internal coordination in the cluster (e.g. communityware, CSCW and collaborative commerce) and for contact with external markets (e.g. B2B and B2C e-commerce) is rather mixed. In this workshop, we want to explore the role of ICTs in such networks. The focus on research questions concerning ICT is driven by an overall discussion on the importance of regional clusters.
There is a growing number of studies of such networks, but it is difficult to generalize or aggregate the results of this work. We believe that a workshop such as this provides an important opportunity for researchers to share ideas and possibly coordinate their efforts. In this way, it may be possible to gain insights that would otherwise be beyond reach.
This workshop is designed to maximize interaction time among researchers who are actively engaged in research on inter-firm clusters.
The International Institute for Socio-Informatics (IISI) participates in this year's conference "Mensch und Computer 2004", which is held from 6. to 8. September 2004 at the University of Paderborn. Volker Wulf, Peter Mambrey and Volkmar Pipek participates for the IISI in the conference programme committee.
Volkmar Pipek, Peter Mambrey and Volker Wulf participates in Programme Committee of the year 2004 Participatory Design Conference 2004. The PCD 2004 was held from 27 to 31 July 2004 in Toronto (Canada).
Workshop e-Democray - Concepts, Methods and Applications for the social and democratic use of the Internet (Oktober 2nd, 2003)
Within the Annual Conference of the GI 2003 in Fankfurt am Main, Prof. Dr. P. Mambrey und Volkmar Pipek organised a workshop on e-Democracy issues. Additional information (in Geman only) an be found here.
International Workshop "CSCW@E-Democracy: Supporting Conversation and Collaboration in Policy-making" (September 14, 2003)
Within the European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW 2003) in Helsinki, Finnland, Prof. Dr. P. Mambrey und Volkmar Pipek, together with Prof. Dr. F. De Cindio, University of Milan (Italiy), Prof. Dr. E. Davenport, Napier University Edinburgh (Scotland), Prof. Dr. J. Gregory, University of Oslo (Norway), and A. Whyte, International Teledemocracy Centre Edinburgh (Scotland), organised a workshop on the use of experiences and concepts from CSCW for Electronic Democracy.
WissPro project (from 25th to 29th August 2003)
From 25th to 29th August 2003 this year's WissPro-summer conference took place in Bad Malente (Germany). Further detailed information at www.wisspro.de/sommertagung.html.
Symposium Perspectives in Designing Digital Media – Cooperative Learning and Playing in Networked Environments
Date: 24.5.2002 Location: Birlinghoven Castle, Sankt Augustin
Working and Learning in a Cooperative Community: The Collaborative Research Center 'Media and Cultural Communication' Wilhelm Voßkamp (Universität zu Köln)
