Product Description
New collaboration mechanisms and organizational forms supportedby networking tools not only induce new business domains but "invade"all traditional sectors and organizations, which requires thinking ofeach business as part of a wider economic ecosystem and environment.

The virtual enterprise / virtual organization developments, althoughinitially technology-driven, are gathering more and more contributionsof a multi-disciplinary nature, namely from the socio-economic andorganizational areas. New behavioral forms, new cooperation agreementsand social contracts, new liability agreements and risk negotiationpractices, new ways of generating value for common developments, andcorrespondingly new challenges on intellectual property and ownershipidentification are among the major trends. This book contains selected articles from PRO-VE'02, the third workingconference on Infrastructures for Virtual Enterprises, which wassponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing(IFIP) and held in Sesimbra, Portugal in May 2002. The includedarticles represent relevant examples of the current state of the artin virtual enterprises and other collaborative and networkedorganizations, and provide valuable insights on future trends andchallenges. The book contents clearly reflect a growing maturation anddiversification of the area. Important development directions are wellrepresented, such as: modeling and reference architectures, formationof virtual organizations, including contract management andnegotiation, operation support functionalities, infrastructures andinteroperability, virtual communities and new collaboration forms,best practices and strategic planning, economic aspects andperformance metrics, training and new ways of working.Collaborative Business Ecosystems and Virtual Enterprises isessential reading for researchers, engineers, managers, practitioners,sociologists, and students in production engineering, computerscience, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering,organizational science, and industrial sociology. ... Read more