Mark I. Wilson

e-Business and e-Commerce

e-business uses information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve and expand the operation and functions of an organization. It is a recent phenomenon, with online commerce dating from the commercialization of the Internet in the early 1990s. e-business has many dimensions, including its relationships between business, government, and consumers, as well as in terms of intermediate and final goods and services. The global nature of the network society, combined with changing production locations and different economic, cultural, linguistic, and legal norms creates a complex set of geographies for each element of e-business.

Nonprofit Management Students: Who They Are and Why They Enroll

Graduate and certificate programs in nonprofit management education are a growing element in the professional preparation of nonprofit managers. At an aggregate level, we know the number and types of programs available for students interested in pursuing advanced degrees in nonprofit management, but we know little about the students who attend these programs and why they chose these programs. To learn more about who these students are and why they choose nonprofit management programs, a survey was conducted in spring and summer 2000 of nonprofit management students enrolled in graduate or certificate programs at six universities across the United States. Results describe the demographic profile of these students, the reasons they sought academic training, and the characteristics they considered important when choosing a nonprofit management education program.

Chips, bits, and the law: an economic geography of Internet gambling

Online gambling offers valuable insights into the relationship between real and virtual places. Gambling in most countries is highly regulated, with its geography reflecting the licensing of gambling to specific activities and locations. The ability to use the Internet challenges the legal foundation for gambling by offering access in an efficient and private way from distant locations. The heaviest concentration of gambling websites is found in North America and the Caribbean, with the leading locations for gambling-domain-name registrations being the United States, Canada, Antigua and Barbuda, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom, and St Kitts and Nevis. In this paper I explore the location and operation of Internet-gambling websites, with emphasis on the legal and economic geography of this activity.

Location, location, location: the geography of the dot com problem

Cyberspace is often portrayed as a seamless expanse, with browsers of the web rarely made aware of the geographic location of a page. For all its professed aspatiality, however, analysis of the organization of cyberspace offers continuing proof of the presence of geographically determined influences. Beyond the core domain names suffixes (.com, .gov, .net, and .org) domains usually carry geographic identification (.uk, .au, .jp, and so on). As desirable domains are registered, organizations and individuals seek web locations in new areas to claim high visibility on the Internet. After examining the regulation, legal jurisdiction, and geography of domain name registration, in this paper I analyze the experience of six countries that have commercially attractive top-level domain names: American Samoa, Moldova, Nuie, Tonga, Turkmenistan, and Tuvalu. These domains illustrate how geographic issues can emerge in the practice of electronic interaction and identity.

Towards a mega-event legacy framework

The legacy created in pursuit of a mega-event, like the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, World’s Fair or the Hajj, can provide tremendous opportunities for the host to advance urban development. The challenge faced by cities is how to direct the public and private spending on desired legacies to support their pre-bid urban agendas. To provide guidance for scholars and event planners interested in using events to further urban development agendas, we present a framework for cataloguing the outcomes associated with mega-event planning.

Approaching Ubiquity: Global Trends and Issues in ICT Access and Use

After more than a century of telephony and twenty years of the Internet, the world presents a mosaic of the application and use of information and communication technologies. The influences of ICT form and function are organized by the authors into four realms of ICT characteristics. Each dimension is a classification employed across space to show the scale and scope of ICT use. Within each dimension there is a range of experiences evident across the global information society, so that it forms a spectrum. The four spectra that help define information society are devices, access, culture, and governance. The paper examines how different places are experiencing recent and new information technologies, and draws attention to the importance of the local, as well as the global, when analyzing ICT. The four spectra are represented by data from 19 city states and heavily urban areas globally to illustrate the rich diversity of the ICT landscape. Evolving characteristics of ICT application and use show how different places—cities, regions, countries—create different environments for ICT.

Mega-Events and Legacies: Milan Expo 2015 and the Future Event City

Le grandi esposizioni sono state un elemento caratterizzante delle dinamiche urbane mondiali dal 1851, anche se l’evento si e evoluto ed e cambiato nel tempo. Le Expo si trovano ora ad un nuovo punto di svolta: il cambiamento degli assetti economici e dei riferimenti culturali richiedono un aggiornamento di questa tipologia di grande evento. L’Expo di Milano 2015 ha per certi aspetti elaborato un modello di esposizione per il XXI secolo, piu adeguato alle esigenze di una societa dotata di un ampio accesso alle informazioni globali e di diffuse possibilita di viaggiare e di compiere nuove esperienze. Mentre l’opinione pubblica si interroga sui costi e sulle condizioni operative di questi eventi, e opportuno chiedersi quale sara in futuro l’approccio delle citta ospitanti

Accessibility and Societal Issues in the Information Age

The preeminence of information as the foundation for the economies of most countries is often attributed to the technical possibilities available through computers and telecommunications. The information age is often presented as a product of the marriage of technologies and the triumph of advances in electronics and engineering. Increasingly apparent, however, is the need to incorporate social elements into our understanding of information technologies and the information age. By addressing the social context for these new technologies, discussion moves from the realm of what is technically feasible, to issues of access, equity, community, and identity. The theme of Part III is how to revisit the well developed theoretical foundation established for accessibility in transportation research, and to advance this foundation to understand the social impact of electronic media, such as computers, the Internet, and Geographic Information Systems.

Telecom tectonics using geographic information systems

The rapid expansion and declining costs of global telecommunications is encouraging the globalization of production, especially services. Many firms are now able to reduce production costs by relocating away from costly core areas in North America and Europe to peripheral locations or low cost sites in Asia and the Caribbean. This trend has created a significant increase in the exchange of information via data flows across national and international boundaries. One challenge in understanding this phenomenon is capturing the spatial context of telecommunications cost relationships. This task is exacerbated by costs between different countries not alwa ys reflecting their physical distance. Reciprocal telecommunication costs between the USA and Japan for example, are not the same. Telecommunication costs to and from many developing countries are disproportionally high due to the lack of appropriate telecommunications infrastructure. This paper explores the challenge of mapping electronic cost space, and the...

Smart and Sustainable: Lessons from Fogo Island

Globalization and centralization of economic activity are increasingly challenging the viability of many communities distant from the world’s economic centers. One category of places that encounters economic challenges is islands, because they face higher costs and have long served on the periphery of the economy. One example of community and non profit action used for social and economic change is Fogo Island, a small island located off the coast of Newfoundland, with a unique approach to local development led by the Shorefast Foundation. Fogo Island is an excellent example of innovative policy, community action, and sustainable practice that informs planning for islands in general. Using a tourism and culture based model that features sustainability and heritage preservation, Fogo Island serves as a valuable example of ways to harness community assets and motivation for regional development.