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| Director of ICEC |
| Dean of Business School |
| Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology |
| International Directors : | Jae Kyu Lee |
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| Andrew B. Whinston | |
| Beat F. Schmid |
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The Internet is establishing a global stage for commerce and industries. This brand new world of commerce, to use a historical analogy, promises more opportunities than were imagined by the Europeans who were headed for the New World of the Americas a few centuries ago. Internet's promises and changes are no longer just promises. The Internet's impacts on human lives are being felt in such diverse areas as entertainment, education, commerce and services. A few examples include online trading, distribution, banking, stocks and securities exchange, travel and hotel reservation services and so on.
Developed countries are already well into adapting the Internet for commerce. Electronic shopping malls are springing up; electronic payment systems and cyberbanks provide an advanced infrastructure for online transactions; and manufacturers have adopted the Internet and intranets to streamline production process, to manage supply chain, and to create new values in the electronic marketplace. These examples show the extent the Internet affects our economic lives and the pressing needs to embrace the technological medium and to stimulate initiatives for research and applications to be abreast of new developments.
The International Center for Electronic Commerce (ICEC) has been established to answer these urgent needs. The vision of the ICEC is to become a leading international center for research in technologies, their commercial applications and management, standardization and other basic frameworks related to electronic commerce. The ICEC's goals and objectives include, first, providing research and development functions performed by domestic researchers and international research fellows and, second, carrying out international activities via several research events such as international conferences, workshops and the publication of research papers.
The ICEC offers an indispensable platform to identify, develop and apply leading technologies of electronic commerce and it will play an important role as an international leader in this area. The home page of the ICEC is established to provide an integrated forum for exchanging and disseminating information about electronic commerce in order to achieve our goals. These and other on-going activities represent our commitment to being the leading international research institute based on your continuous interest and criticism.
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We are poised at the threshold of a major revolution in the global economic system. With the emergence of the digital economy there will be major changes in the way companies are organized and operate, the nature of inter company relationships as well as relationships between companies and consumers and in the entire fabric of the global economy. New financial institutions will be created, new laws on intellectual property rights will be defined and there will be a rethinking of the basic laws governing transactions. The manner in which these transformations evolve will dramatically impact the growth and productivity of the digital economy. The challenge is to understand the structure and fabric of the new economy and to be able to comprehend and evaluate the proposed institutional transformations. Billions of dollars will be invested in technology to develop business in electronic commerce. Of course, the ultimate goal is to make money. For this quest to be successful an understanding of the way to do business in these uncharted waters is called for. One way to acquire such insights is for companies to try out various business and technological alternatives. This can be very expensive. Another, more cost effective approach is to sponsor research, both analytical and experimental, which will provide the insights on which approaches to pursue and which directions may prove to be counterproductive. The ICEC with its affiliated institutions including the Center for Research in Electronic Commerce [CREC ]here at Austin, Texas, provide the basis for this activity. Through the collaboration of the many excellent research centers coordinated by ICEC we have the opportunity to accelerate the growth of EC in the most profitable directions. The CREC, centered at the University of Texas, has for long been the pioneers in electronic commerce research, always engaged in defining and exploring the cutting edge. Researchers at the CREC had the vision to identify and explore the potential of the digital economy long before business ventures were started on the Internet, or electronic commerce and the web became familiar phrases. Since then, they have been engaged in defining and exploring business models, processes and strategies for the new economy, and in envisaging possible bottlenecks in the smooth functioning of such commerce, and tackling them. The rich experience and vision so garnered can effectively enhance and inform ICEC's frontline research to guide the spread of the digital economy in some of the most exciting frontiers of the global economy.
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World comes closer due to political efforts, economical developments and new information and communication technologies and global telematic infrastructures. International cooperation is a ?must? rather than? nice to have?. ICEC with its broad international scope is able to mediate between different cultures, different viewpoints, and different methodologies. Participants of ICEC are representatives of the three economically meaningful regions of East Asia, North America and Central Europe. The scientific community as well as practitioners can benefit from each other by means of exchange of experiences, common projects and activities to get a comprehensive understanding of internationally needed solutions in the area of Electronic Commerce. Therefore, ICEC will help to make use of synergies and to address global needs.
From the European point of view North America often serves as an example for pragmatic actions, creative entrepreneurs and innovative businesses. Asia has shown its flexibility, its dynamics and strength in creating, adopting, and utilization of modern technologies. A combination of these qualities with the European way of thinking and acting is an enticing challenge and essential to harmonize and coordinate international developments on the way into the information age.