Date of Award

12-1997

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Business Administration

Department

Business

First Advisor

Betty LeMasters

Second Advisor

Gareth Gardiner

Third Advisor

Glen Bartholomew

Abstract

It's here, and whether you know it or not, you are getting swept away by a strong underlying current of the "digital revolution ." For many, life has become an inoperative treadmill on the loose, for the pace gets quicker and more challenging. How often do you find yourself or the people surrounding you saying, "Fax me the draft, so I can review it prior to tomorrow's meeting.," "Leave me a message on my car phone," and/or "e-mail me the latest statistics before noon?" Electronic mail (E-mail) is just one of many of the technologies that is changing the landscape on how we communicate and conduct business. A new frontier of electronic communication commonly known as the Internet is allowing endless possibilities of communication to take place and information to be shared.

Sharing resources has been at the heart of the Internet, which is commonly referred to as a "virtual community." For many years, scientists have used the Internet to share data, collaborate on research, and exchange messages. Now, the attraction of the Internet has gone way beyond the science community because of the many established Internet Service Providers (i.e., AOL) and its graphical interface appeal. The end result is that many computer users have joined an on-line service to access information, communicate via e-mail, and/or surf and develop web sites.

Participants from the business world are relatively new to the on-line world. Business decision makers have been slow to understand and make use of the unique community-building capabilities of this communication medium. The majority of the businesses on the Internet today advertise their wares on the World Wide Web in the hope that somebody will buy something. The Internet can be used in a much more sophisticated manner than this, because the potential of this medium is endless.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Download

Included in

Business Commons

Share

COinS