Preface to the Symposium on Public Management in a Borderless Economy: National Governments in a World of Trans-national Networks

Globalization, borderless worlds, and the Tower of Babel

“…Information technology is a key element in achieving these purposes. In fact, these technologies may serve to define a whole new paradigm of organization: “The borderless economy discussed here is really a whole information society arising out of the spread of new computer/communications technologies” (Dobell and Steenkamp, 1993, p. 573, emphasis added). Stone (1989) calls information technology the “engine of economic growth” for the rest of the century, one which will “change the nature of competition in a fundamental way” (p. 92).…”

“…Government especially needs to reconsider its role in setting information and telecommunications policy; the public sector should address the question “...of administrative and organizational capacity to manage the contemporary social transition to the turbulent world of the global economy and, more generally, the global village” (Dobell and Steenkamp, 1993, p. 569 ). It should also re‐examine the tendency to promote more glamorous initiatives and consider a focus on mundane and fundamental needs, such as agricultural development, and support for investment “in the basic infrastructure of human resources and social mechanisms for consensus‐building and conflict resolution” (Dobell and Steenkamp, 1993, p. 575). The German government, for instance, hopes to use information technologies not only to support a geographically distributed government, but also to open up opportunities for both education and employment in underserved and underdeveloped rural areas (Sussmuth, 1992).…”