Key indicators show Germany belonging to the countries in the OECD with strong innovation activity even though some weakening in Germany’s position relative to other OECD countries has occurred recently. While the redirection of resources towards unification-related spending as well as low...

China is well-placed to avoid the so-called “middle-income trap” and to continue to converge towards the more advanced economies, even though growth is likely to slow from near double-digit rates in the first decade of this millennium to around 7% at the 2020 horizon. However, in order to...

With sound framework conditions, fine universities, good infrastructure and policies friendly towards foreign direct investment, Ireland scores high in international innovation scoreboards. Overall, policies to boost innovation and entrepreneurship are on the right track, but investment in...

In the business-to-business (B2B) sector, new electronic commerce (e-commerce) initiatives like Internet-enabled supply chains and electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) offer firms significantly lower procurement costs, increased operating efficiencies, and expanded market opportunities....

In this opinion piece, Dr. Anthony Kirby provides a snapshot view of the current business-to-business (B2B) landscape. He outlines how first-mover advantage has become first-prover achievement and explains why so many B2B exchanges are diversifying their range of services to build customer and...

The editor asked to me write a short paper for the inaugural issue of the journal. I thought that it would be most fitting to write on the truly fundamental transformation of financial markets brought by the most important network of the last fifty years, the Internet. Technology always had an...

In today’s highly competitive environment, financial institutions will be hard-pressed to fund capital investments, system upgrades, new projects, state-of-the art infrastructures, and ultimately new products and services. They will, however, be expected to grow their businesses in the double...