http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-knm Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy 2009-06-17 Laura Stefanescu http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0927&r=knm Empirical studies on information communication technologies (ICT) typically aggregate the"information" and "communication" components together. We show theoretically and empirically thatthese have very different effects on the empowerment of employees, and by extension on wageinequality. If managerial hierarchies are devices to acquire and transmit knowledge and information,technologies that reduce information costs enable agents to acquire more knowledge and 'empower'lower level agents. Conversely, technologies reducing communication costs substitute agent'sknowledge for directions from their managers, and lead to centralization. Using an original dataset offirms in the US and seven European countries we study the impact of ICT on worker autonomy, plantmanager autonomy and spans of control. Consistently with the theory we find that better informationtechnologies (Enterprise Resource Planning for plant managers and CAD/CAM for productionworkers) are associated with more autonomy and a wider span of control. By contrast, communicationtechnologies (like data networks) decrease autonomy for both workers and plant managers. Ourfindings are robust to using exogenous variation in cross-country telecommunication costs arisingfrom differential regulatory regimes. Nick Bloom, Luis Garicano, Raffaella Sadun, John Van Reenen 2009-05 organization, delegation, information technology, communication technology, the theoryof the firm http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:0905&r=knm We propose an evolutionary perspective on the geography of network formation that is grounded in a dynamic proximity framework. In doing so, we root the proximity concept in an evolutionary approach to the geography of innovation networks. We discuss three topics. The first topic focuses on explaining the structure of networks. The second topic concentrates on explaining the effects of networks on the performance of actors. The third topic deals with the changing role of proximity dimensions in the formation and performance of innovation networks in the longer run. Ron Boschma, Koen Frenken 2009-06 evolutionary economic geography, knowledge networks, innovation networks, dynamic proximity