Strategic Management and Transformation in Converging Industries — Towards the Information Society

Abstract

The use of multimedia technologies as the core driving element of converging markets and virtual corporate structures will impel considerable economic and social change. Sound strategic management which takes into consideration the basic transformation processes of this sector will be a substantial success factor in securing a competitive advantage within this deciding future market. The related change from an industrial to an Information Society will above all else be affected by the dynamics of technological developments. The underlying principal of these developments can be explained with the Contratief Cycle Theorem (Nefiodow 1991). Accordingly, technological innovations are the substantial determinants of economic growth and social change. Today’s transformations are driven by information technologies, in particular multi-media based technologies, much like the steam engine, railways, the telephone, radio and the automobile (Contratief Cycle factors) have changed mankind’s daily existence in the past. Following the Contratief divisions of the model, our present post-modern industrial society is in the midst of a transformation towards an Information Society (the transition from the fourth to the fifth Contratief Cycle). The fifth Contratief Cycle will be strongly influenced by emerging multimedia technologies, which will act as catalysts towards the Information Society.