Advances of information and communications technologies have created new forces in managing organizations. These forces are leading modern organizations to reassess their current structures to become more effective in the growing global economy. This Proceedings is aimed at the challenges involved in effective utilization and management of technologies in contemporary organizations.

From the back cover: This book is about the challenge and the opportunity Japan offers to Canadian financial institutions. Canadian banks will have to move beyond their traditional commercial banking activities, where Japanese financial institutions have a well-established edge, into newer, more creative money and capital market activities. And traditional, strict lines between the various banking activities must blur in order for Canada to acquire the same breadth of financial expertise as other global players. Canadian banks also must blur the distinction they tend to make between their activities at home and in Japan. As for Canada's securities companies, today's strengths may become tomorrow's liability. Securities companies are thriving today because their role as the main intermediaries in the massive flow of fund from Japanese institutional investors into Canadian government bonds. Tomorrow, however they could be vulnerable because of such heavy reliance on a single financial activity. The massive flow of Japanese capital Canadian securities is one of the public policy issues discussed. The most important, in the authors' opinion, is the nature and pace of deregulation. The authors argue that Canada must open itself to foreign financial institutions, not only to expose itself to the reality of competitive pressures, but also to forge the links and collaborative arrangements needed to survive and prosper.

The service sector is steadily growing as services that previously were undertaken within the family unit, now show up in social accounts as health care, education and public sector services. Technological changes make possible a process of intermediation in service activities, a separation in space or time of the recipient of services from the original producer, and the increase of v̀alue-added' services. This conference met to discuss implications of the growing service sector, with the larger goal of identifying frameworks for policies to support an efficient and expanding system for production and exchange of services domestically and internationally.

This study provides important empirical background to the continuing debate on Canadian industrial policy and trade. The analysis is based on primary data derived from a unique survey of individual firms, both Canadian and foreign-owned, conducted early in the 1981-1982 recession. The main purpose of the study is to assess whether recent changes in tariffs, exchange rates, wage rates, and other factors in Canada and the world economy suggest the need for any significant modification in the earlier analyses and conclusions. The study presents prior evidence on costs, specialization, and trade; assesses current costs and productivity, and presents new information on how increased exports and specialization would affect cost performance and international competitiveness; examines non-production costs and other non-cost influences on specialization and export performance; and suggests strategies for the private sector to consider in order to survive in the changing trade environment of the 1980s.

The growth of microcomputer applications in industrialized countries is predicated on an existing base that includes the ready availability of affordable hardware and software, trained personnel, capable maintenance, efficient communication systems, and a benign environment; applications are selected and facilitated by a wide range of underlying ex

In this book, addressed primarily to business leaders, politicians, andpublic servants, the author speculates about the economic problems thatchanging international conditions appear to be creating; argues that existing policies no longer work and must be replaced with new ones basedon a new national consensus about economic goals; reviews the ways businessand government have worked together in the past to formuate economic strategies; and suggests ways the government can create a new consensus andthe prospects for its success in doing so.

New health care technologies are often incorporated into the health care system without proper evaluation of their effectiveness or their efficiency. Dissatisfaction may develop as a technology fails to meet expectations