Evolution of a Firm in a Digital Economy

 
PIIS013122270006208-9-1
DOI10.20542/0131-2227-2019-63-8-21-28
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Affiliation: National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE)
Address: 20, Myasnitskaya Str., Moscow. 101000, Russian Federation
Journal nameMirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia
EditionVolume 63 Issue 8
Pages21-28
Abstract

The latest investigations in the area of firms’ behavior in a digital economy have revealed a wide variety of new phenomena that have to be analyzed, systemized and interpreted. The article presents a conceptual approach to deal with these current novelties. In a digital economy, many traditional features of firm, competition, and market have been wearing off. Rapidly changing digital environment caters for agility, network interactions, flexible ICT architecture, and entrepreneurship. Information technologies have changed their role from simple infrastructure resource to a key driver of contemporary business. IT are now an important organizational resource for competitive agility, improving firm performance during economic turbulence. The IT principles presented in Agile Manifesto have applied to project management, with high results in firm financial and economic performance. This process has revealed the necessity of new competence, for both employees and employers. New key positions have arisen in the firms; Chief Digital Officer is an example. The current firm activity is traced out with increasing intensity of global competition that stimulates business actors to form business digital networks. Complex business systems have evolved into scale-free networks the main feature of which is clusterization. In scale-free economic networks, the traditional principle of free competition as random walk is no more valid. The business units form clusters within their digital network, some companies being dominant actors with network market power. Among the determinants of dominant position in the digital network are as follows: agent costs, business experience, access to key resources, capital and labor assets, investment potential. Free competition has evolved into network digital rivalry. The network digital rivalry has a dynamic wavy pattern. Competitive pressure may increase or decrease when key players enter or exit from the digital network. Thus, the network digital rivalry has become a new factor in economic cycles. As more and more firms are in global business networks having less and less independent production, sales, or consumption activity, and when firms use to more and more extent mobile organizational devices instead of visible working areas, the traditional viewpoint for a company as a solid well-defined organization should be replaced by a concept of firm as a flexible function not an organization. The evolution of business activity has been going from companies and markets to business digital networks.

Keywordsfirm, management, digitalization, agile organization, organizational behavior, network structures
Received13.08.2019
Publication date24.09.2019
Number of characters24344
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1 Середина 2000-х годов привнесла в наш мир большое число технологических, организационных, экономических, социальных и прочих инноваций, которые трансформируют деловую среду и бизнес-процессы современной фирмы. Наблюдается отчетливая тенденция к росту цифрового уклада. Эффект цифровизации распространяется по экономике в возрастающем масштабе. Если в 2010 г. удельный вес сектора ИКТ в валовом внутреннем продукте стран мира составлял в лучшем случае 1–2%, то к 2016 г. его доля в ВВП достигла 10.4% в Республике Корея, 7.3 в Швеции, 6.9 в Финляндии, 6.0 в Японии и США, по 4–5 в Великобритании, Германии, Франции и Канаде, 2.9% в России [1, с. 85]. Специалисты по информационно-коммуникационным технологиям насчитывают 6.6% занятых в Финляндии, 6.3 в Швеции, более 5 в Великобритании и Эстонии, около 4% в США, Франции и Германии [1, с. 69].
2 Доступ к Интернету имеют и активно используют 100% бизнес-организаций Финляндии, 98–99% фирм Республики Корея, Канады, Швеции, Франции, Германии, 95 Великобритании, 86% бизнес-организаций России [1, с. 38]. При этом 30–50% деловых компаний применяют сложные типы ИТ-архитектуры, например, такие как “облачные” сервисы [1, с. 47]. Абоненты высокоскоростного широкополосного доступа к интернету на 100 человек населения составляли в 2016 г. 43 человека в Дании и Франции, 40 в Республике Корея и Норвегии, 21 человек в России [2, с. 94]. Беспроводным доступом в Интернет пользовались (на 100 человек населения) 153 человек в Финляндии, 120–130 в большинстве европейских стран, 72 человека в России [2, с. 99].
3 Еще в 2008 г. было замечено, что развитие информационных технологий как главной модифицирующей силы современного мира кардинальным образом воздействует на поведение компаний, изменяя привычные модели бизнес-поведения [3]. Экономическая жизнь не стоит на месте. За последнее десятилетие ранее наметившиеся тенденции углубились и приняли разнообразные формы. Пришло время подвести итог, оценить, каким образом нарастающие процессы цифровизации преображают деловой ландшафт глобального мира, проанализировать, как под действием новой реальности цифровой экономики меняется конфигурация фирмы и ее оптимальные стратегии.
4

СЕТЕВАЯ ЦИФРОВАЯ КОНКУРЕНЦИЯ: БАЛАНС СИЛ И НОВЫЕ РИСКИ

5 Цифровая трансформация затрагивает прежде всего сетевую конкуренцию как базовую экономическую среду межфирменных взаимодействий. Традиционно в экономической теории принята концепция “невидимой руки” Адама Смита, которая отдает приоритет свободной конкуренции как управляющего принципа экономической жизни. И хотя среди экономистов ведутся дискуссии по поводу оптимальной степени конкуренции и государственного вмешательства, все специалисты признают, что конкуренция – это хаотичное движение, случайное блуждание. Однако, по мере наблюдения за развитием цифровых эффектов в области сетевизации в современной экономике, появляются работы, которые подвергают сомнению это ключевое положение.

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