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Abstract. Research highlights that most business managers continue to be dissatisfied with the value they perceive they are deriving from their organization's information systems investments. On examining the literature, the dominant perspective is that creating value through information systems is primarily the responsibility of the IS function. Accordingly, to address this chronic malaise, attention generally focuses on the IS function with proposed prescriptions ranging from re‐skilling the IS professional through re‐engineering the IS function to the ultimate sanction of outsourcing. This paper examines the problem of value creation from IS investments from an organizational as opposed to an IS functional perspective. Drawing on resource‐based theory, the paper argues that the effective deployment and exploitation of information should be viewed as a ‘strategic asset’. To leverage value from IS, the paper proposes that organizations must recognize and develop information competencies and that the elements of these competencies are distributed throughout the organization and not solely resident in the IS function. Through a multimethodological approach these information competencies are identified and described. The resultant competencies are then studied in an organizational context. The paper ends by drawing conclusions and articulating further research directions and opportunities

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The paper traces the genesis of SIGTUR, a new network/organization of southern unions that has been built over the past decade, which brings together democratic unions from Latin America, Southern Africa, Asia and Australasia. The impact of neoliberal globalisation has spurred this action, and Australian unions-with their rich tradition of labour internationalism-have been at the forefront. The paper shows how the initial hostility of the established trade union internationals has been transformed into strategic alliances as the internationals have come to value SIGTUR's campaign orientation. The paper argues that SIGTUR has continued to expand because of its strong emphasis on internal democracy. The new southern alliance is one instance of a search for a new form of unionism-global social movement unionism-that may offer greater scope for a more effective resistance to the logic of globalisation. In the new millennium, this search is critical if unions are to rekindle the vision and the confidence that drove the early movement. Millennium Movements, Ideological Crisis and the End of HistoryFor the past 200 years, private corporations have spearheaded global capitalist expansionism. These profit-driven companies transcended national boundaries in an endless drive for new markets. Various forms of government support, including a willingness to intervene militarily in certain instances and advances in communications and transportation systems, facilitated the global reach of capitalist corporations. The success of this drive to organise globally was matched by the relative failure of emerging union movements to internationalise as effectively as companies. Certainly, there were glimmers of labour internationalism, brief moments when unions did indeed turn outwards as a form of defence. These flourishes were without exception short-lived. There appeared to be a certain inevitable cycle, as fleeting moments inexorably gave way to the national. National organisation was viewed as a lever to force compromise.

In May 2015 the International Labour Organization (ILO) released its World Employment and Social Outlook: The Changing Nature of Jobs report. Its executive summary was stark in its assessment of the character of work at the beginning of the twenty-first century, detailing the 'shift away from the standard employment model, in which workers earn wages and salaries in a dependent employment relationship vis-à-vis their employers, have stable jobs and work full time' (p. 13). As the ILO noted: