The CRITO Hour

May 17, 2006: Andrea Ordanini, Associate Professor of Marketing and Co-director of I-LAB, the center for research on digital economy at Bocconi University in Milan, gave a presentation titled "When does E-commerce Matter for Firm Performance Improvement? And How Long Does it Take? A Longitudinal Analysis on Italian Data."

Whereas most studies of e-commerce are only post-implementation, Ordanini reported on a study of pre and post implementation of e-commerce in Italy. Firms in the study were small and medium enterprises, rather than large firms, as in most U.S. studies. By looking before and after implementation, Ordanini was able to generate some interesting findings.

• Higher gains were obtained by firms who are early adopters. It is likely that these firms simply have more experience with e-commerce given that they adopted earlier and deciphered how to get the greatest benefit. This suggests that firms that adopt e-commerce should not expect to get the highest return immediately.
  
• Higher gains were obtained by firms who made stronger investments in human resources skills during the post-adoption phase. Like other IT investments which are complex, implementation is not simply a matter of technology installation, but of training people in the use of technology.
  
• Higher gains were obtained by firms who made stronger business and technology integration during the post-adoption phase. This confirms other research that say that the real payoffs from IT come from changes in business process, as well as from the technology.

June 5, 2006: Victoria Bernal is an Associate Professor and Anthropology Department Chair, UC Irvine. Her research has addressed a range of issues relating to gender, migration, nationalism, transnationalism, development, cyberspace, and Islam. She has carried out ethnographic research in Eritrea, Tanzania, and the Sudan. Bernal has been the recipient of a number of prestigious grants and fellowships from Wenner-Gren, Fulbright, and Rockefeller Foundations among others.

Her topic for the CRITO Hour was "Cyberspace and Citizenship: Long Distance Politics and the Eritrean Disapora." She analyzed the Eritrean diaspora (any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands) and its use of cyberspace to theorize the ways transnationalism and new media are associated with the rise of new forms of community, public spheres and sites of cultural production. Eritreans abroad use the Internet as a transnational public sphere where they produce and debate narratives of history, culture, democracy and identity. Through the web the diaspora has mobilized demonstrators, amassed funds for war, debated the formulation of the constitution, and influenced the government of Eritrea. Through their web postings, 'Internet intellectuals' interpret national crises, rearticulate values and construct community. Thus, the Internet is not simply about information but is also an emotion-laden and creative space. Diasporas online may invent new forms of citizenship, community and political practices.

Professor Bernal uses the Eritrean experience as a lens through which to bring into focus answers to key questions concerning the emerging world order associated with population movements, de-territorialized identities, and new technologies, paying particular attention to cyberspace as a site of cultural production and political expression.