Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The world we live in...

I am currently reading a chapter by Lynette Kvasny and Duane Truex about discourse surrounding the digital divide. Setting the context, they explain a shift in world's balance of power. Here is a quote:

Elston (2000) goes even further in stating that the balance of global economic power has shifted from governments to corporate boardrooms. She cites a study by the Institute for Policy Studies that compared corporate sales and gross domestic products, and concluded that 51 of the largest 100 economies in the world are corporations, not countries. This means that General Motors is now bigger than Denmark, IBM is bigger than Singapore, and Sony is bigger than Pakistan. (p. 403)

I find it fascinating and also helping me to build an argument for looking at the role of corporate world in policy making in my research. Any thoughts? Suggestions for additional references?


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In case you are interested, the full citation of the article is:
vasny, L., & Truex, D. (2001). Defining away the digital divide: A content analysis of institutional influences on popular representations of technology. In N. Russo, B. Fitzgerald, & J. DeGross (Eds.), Realigning Research and Practice in Information Systems Development: The Social and Organizational Perspective (pp. 399-414). Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

And the Elston article is:
Elston, S. Global Economy: Shifting the Balance of Power, Environmental News Network, January 31, 2001 (available from http://enn.com/news/ennstories/2001/01/01312001/economy_41639.asp).


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