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Bulletin of Applied Computing and Information Technology |
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Book Review D2:
Entrepreneurship and Innovation in e-Business: An Integrative Perspective |
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05:01 |
Brian Cusack, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand Zhao, F. (2006). Entrepreneurship and Innovation in e-Business: An Integrative Perspective. Melbourne: IGI Global (304 pages).The world of e-Business literature is choked with post-dot.com publications that try to explain and dismiss the market re-adjustment that corrected e-stock values in the year 2001. Macbeth has much to say about the approach and some question why the re-adjustment demanded such myopic attention. The expectation in a free market is for re-adjustments big or small. The explosion of capital investment in eBusiness start-ups from the mid-1990s demonstrated that markets can break free from intense regulatory scrutiny - in moments, in any given life-cycle. The re-adjustment in 2001 was expected. Start-up e-Businesses had absorbed billions in venture capital. The availability of e-Business skills was far short of market demand. Most e-Business start-ups spent 90% or more of their venture capital on promotion. Most start-ups leased all infra-structures and not surprisingly most start-ups accrued no tangible assets. Affected traditional businesses were verbalising and litigating the intention to wipe e-Business out. It had to crash. A measuring stick to assess the worth of post-dot.com crash literature is to look at how the predictable market re-adjustment is treated. Literature that falls into the “Out, damn’d spot! Out, I say!” (Macbeth) category may be termed myopic, or simplistic, whereas other literature that analysed factors in relation to market models and its socio-economic antecedents can be grouped according to the type and value of the knowledge being contributed to the e-Business field. As the title suggests this book engages two business concepts - that of entrepreneurship and innovation. It is the editor’s belief that the future of e-Business is to be reliant on a combination of these two business concepts and that sustainability may be achieved. The evidence for and against the belief is left to the authors of the fourteen different chapters to accrue. Each chapter addresses a different aspect of the e-Business field and from a wide range of international perspectives. The editor asserts the importance of the two key business concepts but then slips into jargon that would equally fit any business approach. The concepts of culture and organisational structure are generic and the identification of the business environment sufficient to support systems analysis in any enterprise system. The reader however will demand to know the specific adaptations and problems that are to be addressed in the e-Business context. The key target of debate regarding innovation in the e-world is certainly raised in an interesting and thought provoking way but the issue of are we talking about e-Business or simply good old fashioned business best practice is not adequately addressed. The book presents numerous case studies of real e-Business company adventures and challenges. The analysis is searching and informative for e-Business students. It is not designed to be a text book but has sufficient depth to be supplementary or support reading for an e-Business course. A lecturer may also gain much from the discussion of issues, illustrated examples of practice and practical modelling of the e-Business context. The book can be positioned in the post-dot.com literature but often the text procrastinates between positions and tends to sleep walk over important distinctions between e-Business and business. This is a book that could come clean but stumbles in critical areas - for example, the book has enough new material and asserted direction to stick to the matters of e-entrepreneurship and e-innovation, so why the reference to the crash? And to contradict the editor the e-Business revolution has occurred, venture capital continues to be invested in e-Business start ups, and e-Business continues to lead the strategic direction of business enterprise systems. Overall this book is well worth the read for anyone interested in e-market developments. More explanatory power could be gained by addressing the working of capital in a market, but then the asserted target is just two business concepts. The editor can be forgiven for a clumsy editorial job and the independent chapters enjoyed for the informative and relevant reports on international e-adventures in contemporary e-market conditions. Copyright © 2007 Brian Cusack |
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Copyright © 2007 NACCQ, Krassie Petrova, Michael Verhaart, Alison Young and Tony Clear (Eds.) . An Open Access Journal, DOAJ # 11764120 |
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