Reweaving the Economy : How IT Affects the Borders of Countries and Organizations

Information technology (IT) affects every aspect of modern society from daily communication to business models and politics. Developments in IT are especially important to business organizations. They not only alter the internal structure of departments and divisions but also the relationships among countries, regions, and entities in the market. In other words, information technology affects how people cooperate to produce value.

In Reweaving the Economy, Soichiro Takagi provides an integrated view in order to understand the impact of IT on changing organizational structures in an era of cloud computing and mass collaboration, which are swiftly changing national economies in terms of productivity and employment. The analyses are reinforced by microeconomic analysis on organizational structures based on transaction-cost economics, which provides the foundation for firms' decisions on organizational structure. Additionally, Takagi considers the importance of national culture as a determinant of foreign direct investment in the service sector to offer insights into international production and sharing information services.

Soichiro Takagi is the general manager of the research division, associate professor, and executive research fellow at the Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM) at the International University of Japan. He also serves as a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo and is directing the Blockchain Economic Research Lab at GLOCOM.