R é s e a u E u r o p é e n S e r v i c e s & E s p a c e

New Information and Communication Technologies Services and Space: Aspects of Interrelation A report on recent publications in NORWAY Tor Selstad and Peter Sjoholt

Introduction
Research on NICT services in Norway
Economic-administrative approaches
Literature linked to sociological assessment of NICT services
Institutional aspects in ICT research
NICT research in Norway. A summing up and conclusion
Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

Information and communications technologies have come of age in Norway by now. The present system has its roots in a state owned and operated telecom company, grown out of the National Telegraph Company, which dates back to the 1850s. This used to be a monopoly with its price policy determined by the political çadministrative authorities, in existence into the early 1990s. Extensive deregulation took place during the 1990s, even though The Norwegian telecom company, Telenor, is still the dominating unit. Competition and technologigal innovations have pressed prices down and Norway is today also in an international perspective a very cheap provider of telecom and other information services. Integrated telecom and IT services have been gradually built out and have played an important role in the countryÌs communication infrastructure. Norway relatively early provided a digital network that serves the whole of the country, thus giving the major part of the population access to the different integrated communication services. Norway has the most dense network of internet penetration and has a leading position in mobile services. Broadband development is now being introduced but has not as yet found its final solution.

A comprehensive plan of developing the area of the former Oslo airport Fornebu just outside the centre of the capital into a test bed for new net based products and services is under way. According to the plans which are as yet only partly realised, this is going to develop into a combined entrepreneurial, industrial and research based community, where cooperation with universities loom particularly large. The new headquarters of Telenor is the first link in the chain of new institutions to be built in the area and the main part will be finished in the near future. Among the further projects planned seamless roaming networks are given high priority, offering services to the mobile and networked economy. This is also the case with testing out of a nationwide broad bandwith network

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Research on NICT services in Norway

Considering the rather well developed intercommunication services in the country , it is somewhat of a paradox that research on ICT has been rather limited apart from pure technological investigations which have had priority both at the Technological University (NTNU) and at the Norwegian Telecom Company (Telenor). Referring to the bibliography at the end of the report, we have succeeded, though, in locating a fair number of publications from the three-four last years which have affinity to New Information and Communication Technologies and which take their point of departure not in the technical aspects but rather in socio-economic-cultural relations. Few of these publications deal directly with services, but most include elements of them and some few give an in depth treatment of the service context. In the literature it is very difficult to find clear fundamental aspects that can be used to differentiate between dominant directions of research. The research projects and publications from them cover a wide range of subjects with little common interconnections. We might, however, try and categorize the research under three broad headlines:

› Research conducted from an economic-administrative angle

› Literature with basis in sociological research

› Research from an institutional point of view

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Economic-administrative approaches

The research linked to this theme is mainly done at The Research Foundation of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (SNF). It is, for example, unexpectedly absent from other research institutions with economic research in their portfolio, thus The Institute of Transportation Economics.

Two publications from the SNF typically illustrate the research going on in that institution, Spiller & Ulset on ÓGlobal Seamless NetworksÓ and Foros and Kind on ÓThe Broadband Access Market.Ó The former publication analyses the different forms of organisation of the network and its impact on the service performance. The methodology of the study is to a large extent built on literature study from many countries and is very much a description and appraisal of how the global network is performing. The main conclusion from the research is that differently organised service providers have strong and weak sides. An hierarchial structure as opposed to a looser alliance or contractural structure seem until today to have been the best organisational framework to serve customers optimally. Looking into the future, however, coordination of global service provision will probably be taken over by specialists rather than by vertically integrated telephone companies.

The broadband project is an analysis of the political aspects of the market for broadband access and is an approach to the research questions raised built on mathematically programmed models. The point of departure is the fact that in this market it is disproportionally more expensive to connect consumers in sparsely populated areas than in urban locations. If the market is unregulated, this will affect prices negatively for the consumers in the former locations. If a geographic justice in service provision is sought for, regulated uniform prices would traditionally be the solution. The main research question of the paper is to see how a policy mix of regulated prices and copeting firms would effect geographical coverage. Contrary to expectations the project team found a more narrow coverage with uniform than with non-uniform prices. Combination of uniform price and fierce competition is the worst case. Competition combined with a minimum coverage requirement gives, in fact, the best regional service provision.

Two projects on value creation from the SNF deserve mention, Ulset, ÓValue creation interconnectÓ and Cristensen et al. ÓValue creation. The state-of-the-art.Ó The former report is particularly concerned with organisation of services with an objective of finding possible benefit by integrating telecom, data and media. When looking at upstream production, midstream distribution and downstream customer services, the latter will be more closely related to electronic production than to network operation and thus more effectively carried out by computer or specialised distribution and service companies than by network operators. One important finding is that the integration of the different elements seems to become less profitable than before as technology is made more standardised and the resources linked to them made increasingly tradeable.

The article by Christensen et al. is based methodically on an extensive literature study and is particularly concerned with the socalled Óproductivity paradoxÓ of ICT, the fact that investments and services in this field do not bring immediate higher productivity returns. Certainly, some new research points incrementally in the opposite direction, but as yet the research has not been able to reveal which factors and mechanisms can contribute to more positive return. This is a plea for intensified research.

In quite another direction Ó The customer behaviour by use of net bank and other channelsÓ, followed over a three year period by Methlie et al. highlights modern ICT service provision through a comparative analysis of two consumer segments.. This study of service dynamics found differences to exist both between the user groups and the types of services sought. The net bank customers are people increasingly more strong in resources than the control group. They prove to use the new services for specific purposes, i.e. account information and payment of bills, and they have gained more confidence in the new instrument over time. On the other hand, the net bank users are more unreliable than the conventional bank users, who express more satisfaction with and tend to continue to patrionise their conventional bank connections.

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Literature linked to sociological assessment of NICT services

The main body of literature linked to this theme originates at The Centre of Technology and Society, the NTNU, and consists mainly of master theses, which are partly composed as a team work. These contributions are mainly directly service oriented and analyse NICT integrated systems developers and service consultancies. All the reports are combined theoretical-empirical analyses, strongly inclined towards qualitative methodology and participant observation. They all have somewhat different theoretical approaches. Eva Amdahl takes her point of departure in provider -user interaction with the issue of user participation as the crucial theme. Charlotte Lea concentrates on handling of knowledge and how knowledge regimes are constructed. The main theme of Kristin Lofthus Hope is company culture, particularly differentiated into participatory culture and cultural control regimes and how this affects the structure and functions of the different companies.

All contributions are in depth studies of two somewhat different consultancy companies in the ICT trade, a national and transnational organisation respectively. Amdahl differentiates in her work between user and designer driven participation. The former is highly valued and much addressed in rhetorics by both firms . It is, however, variably used, a fact which is also dependent on method. The national company develops its method in the near environment whereas the transnational actor develops an internationally derived and learned participation method, more difficult to translate and domesticate. However, the amount of practising of participation is furthermore dependent on the participation culture of the consultancies and has a lot to do with the professional orientation of the consultants. The technical orientation of the national companyÌs consultants may thus constrain their practice of user participation.

Lea distinguishes between professional and transdiciplinary knowledge regimes. The former has its roots in specific educational institutions forming their alumni through socialisation, and imbuing a rather static way of thinking. The latter regime consists of multidisciplinary organisations, is more dynamic, reflexive and problem oriented. The empirical data show that neither of the consultancies are pure prototypes in their knowledge structures. Characteristic is an oscillation between specialisation and more all round expertise. Both use rather well developed concretely designed methods as guidelines in their service provision, in general internationally developed with small possibilities of feedback in the transnational company, more flexible for corrections and domestication in the national (local) company. Generally, however, methods are reused and recirculated with small room for adaptation and innovation, both firms having to make efforts to make their tacit knowledge of method explicit.

Lofthus Hope underlines that the firm culture of the consultancies is strongly influenced by the engineer profession, which is the dominant one. Skill in programming is thus an important requirement of entry, although the transnational firm has a somewhat wider recruitment base of their staff. This will also impact on the methods, which on the one hand will be a way of exposing the firm culture and help to build a self image and lifestyle. Among these qualities should be emphasized hard work, responsibility and a culture of achievement. On the other hand, the common method will besides the participatory cultural regime thus developed also act as a controlling device in the hands of the leadership. From her study she could conclude that a trade-off exists between a participatory and control regime. The organisation culture can thus be characterised as double edged, a regime of symbiosis, as the consultants are imbued with a sense of freedom at the same time as they will be ÓvoluntarilyÓ controlled.

In a recent paper Amdahl and Lofthus Hope sum up the findings, concentrating on the function of the methods in information and communication consultancy work. They underline the coordination of knowledge as crucial, in this type of firms though with differences between technically oriented consultants and more social science inclined ones. The latter are more prone to cherish user issues, and focus on these, whereas the former display a more expert attitude towards the clients.

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Institutional aspects in ICT research

The STEP group, loosely affiliated with the University of Oslo, have during the last five years taken up a series of themes linked to the changing role of advanced services in modern society. Among the first reports originating in this research milieu can be mentioned ÓServices in European Innovation SystemsÓ, a co-production with Ian Miles. More specifically linked to New Information and Communication Technologies is the 1999 report ÓTechnological infrastructures and innovation policies.Ó This research deals with generic knowledge and its diffusion. Earlier national institutions provided the bulk of these services. However, a change is under way. Resources are becoming addressed more directly. It means a drift of policy thinking from institutionally based policies to more functional approaches. This is materialised in an increasing market based supply of innovation related services. One important message of the report is to instigate a debate on the role of public and private institutional arrangements for the dissemination of innovation on more general terms.

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NICT research in Norway. A summing up and conclusion

The bibliography and the short presentation of contents of ongoing research show a rather limited range of issues yet being illuminated in Norway in the field of services linked to information and communication technology. The literature available shows a balance between theoretical and empirical approaches, mainly tilting in the direction of empirical description. The methodology applied varies, but is generally a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches in the research projects that highlight economic issues. In this field mathematical modelling is also quite common. The outcome of this research may assist in giving guidelines for political decisions, but does not contribute substantially to a deeper understanding of the performance of the services. The latter goal is achieved in the qualitatively in depth studied consultancy firms based on broader social science approaches. On the other hand, it is more difficult to make more general inferences from these studies, which in their nature are more heuristic.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amdahl, Eva, 1999 : Metodisk medvirkning. Om medvirkningskulturer i IKT selskaper (Methodological participation. On the cultures of participation in ICT companies). Trondheim. Department of Sociology and Political Science. NTNU.

Christensen, Gunnar E, Anne Cathrin Haueng & Svein Ulset, 1999. Verdiskaping ved bruk av informasjons og kommunikasjonsteknologi. En kunnskapsstatus. (Value creation by use of information and communication technology. A-state-of-the-art of knowledge). Bergen. SNF Report 10.

Foros ?ystein, & Svein Ulset. 1998 : Naturlige grenser for teleselskapene (Natural limits of telecom corporations. Tidsskrift for ñkonomi og ledelse 5 79-90.

Foros ?ystein, Hans Jarle Kind & Lars Sñrgard, 2000 : IKTn ringen: integrasjon, konkurranse eller vennskap? (The ICT industry; integration, competition or friendship?). Magma 4 19-30

Foros ?ystein & Bjñrn Hansen, 2000 : Interconnection and competition between portals offering broadband access. Telektronikk 96 26-37

Foros, ?ystein & Hans Jarle Kind, 2000 : The internet market structure: implications for national and international regulation. Telektronikk 96 45-5 uniform pricing and geographical

Foros ?ystein & Hans Jarle Kind, 2000 : The broadband access market.Competition,coverage. Bergen. SNF Working Paper 76.

Hauknes, Johan & Ian Miles. 1996: Services in European Innovation Systems ç A Review of Issues. Oslo. Step Report 6.

Hauknes, Johan, 1999: Technological infrastructures and innovation policies. Oslo. Step Report 9.

Hope, Kristin Lofthus, 1999÷. Og bakom ligg metoden. Konstruksjon av kultur IKTselskap (÷.behind is the method. Construction of culture in ICT consultancies). Trondheim. Centre for Technology and Society. NTNU.

Hope, Kristin Lofthus & Eva Amdahl, 2000 : Standardisation or creativity. Are co-ordination, communication and control important for the understanding of methods in knowledge intensive firms? Trondheim. Paper to 4 S/EASST Conference 2000 ÓWorlds in transition.Ó

Lea, Charlotte, 1999: Fra kunnskap til metode? Om kunnskapregimer i IKT konsulentselskaper (From knowledge to method? On knowledge regimes in ICT consultancies). Trondheim. Department of Sociology and Political Science.

Methlie, Leif B. 2000 : A business model for electronic commerce. Telektronikk96 8-19

Methlie, Leif B, Herbjñrn Nysveen & Per Egil Pedersen, 2000 : Kundeatferd ved bruk av nettbank og andre kanaler. Utvikling i kundeatferd fra januar 1998 til oktober 2000 ( Customer behaviour by use of net bank and other channels. Trends in customer behaviour from January 1998 to October 2000). Bergen. SNF Report 76.

Nysveen Herbjñrn & Leif B. Methlie, 1998 : Multimedia Banking. Kundeatferd ved bruk avinternett og andre kanaler (Multimedia banking.Customerbehaviour by useointerneand other channels). Bergen. SNF Report 29.

Spiller, Pablo & Svein Ulset, 1998 : Organizing Global Seamless Networks: Contacts, Alliances and Hierarchies. In: E. Bohlin & S:L Levin (eds.) Telecommunications, Transformations, Technology, Strategy and Policy. IOS Press pp. 101-119.

Ulset , Svein 1998 : Infrastruktur og konkurranse i telesektoren (Infrastructure and competition in the telecom sector) Beta 1 38-56

Ulset, Svein. 1998 : Value. Creating Interconnect. Optimal Organization of the Converging Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Industries. Bergen. SNF Report 27.

Ulset, Svein & Paul Goodenham 2000: Organisering og ledelse av internasjonal televirksomhet (Organising and managing international telecom activity). Beta Tidsskrift for bedriftsñkonomi 1 44-61