E-Transformation and Digital Frontiers: Analysis a nd Perspective

If there is no debate on how huge is the impact of digital technologies on human activities, few reflect on the underlying patterns on which digital innovation relies. The field of sociotechnology (see Wiebe E. Bijker and Jhon Law) and sociology of innovation (see Michel Callon and Bruno Latour) offers a coherent framework to think about the relationship between technology and society. Indeed, producing new devices or applications transforms practices and potentialities, and consequently, the ground of reality from which organization and people interact. The aim of this book is to propose a state of the art on the effects of current and prototypal digital technologies on human activities on the one hand, and to report two concrete case studies regarding ICT for higher education and the Internet of Things. How digital data and media reconfigure perceptions, actions and collective thinking? How the Internet of Things could revolutionize management? How dematerialized and automated communications transcend physical borders? Discussing both the engineering and the practical aspects of these questions, the author defines key indicators related to four majors properties of digital frontiers: the capta dimension (collecting information), the data dimension (treating information), the media dimension (representing information) and the acta dimension (using information). The author also proposes prospective results of the e-transformation of modern societies.