Innovating in a Learning Community : Emergence of an Open Information Infrastructure in China's Pharmaceutical Distribution Industry

How do firms jointly develop open information infrastructures? To answer this question, this book draws on the results of a longitudinal research project covering the development of the pharmaceutical distribution industry in China from 2004 to 2012, focusing on the emergence and subsequent evolution of industry-wide information infrastructures. How do firms delimit areas of proprietary innovation in open innovation projects? How do firms coordinate, initiate, negotiate and implement the development of innovative infrastructures? How do processes and practices within firms enable and constrain such collective efforts? - This book provides answers to these questions and draws conclusions regarding the challenges and new capabilities that firms will need in a world in which participation in the building of open information infrastructures becomes a necessary task for commercial organizations.

Kai Reimers is currently a Professor of Information Systems at the Faculty of Business and Economics, RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He earned a doctorate in economics from Wuppertal University and a venia legendi at Bremen University. His main fields of research are inter-organizational systems, IT standardization, and IT management.

Xunhua Guo is Associate Professor of information systems at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University. His research interests include information systems adoption, organizational change and business intelligence. He got his Ph.D degree from Tsinghua University in 2005.

Mingzhi Li is an Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, China. His major research interest is in the area of industrial organization and electronic commerce. He got his Ph.D degree in economics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999.

Bin Xie is an Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, China. His research interests focus on Product/Service’s Harm Management, Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, and Consumer-oriented Corporate Governance. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 1993.

Tiantian Zhang is a research assistant at the Faculty of Business and Economics, RWTH Aachen University, Germany. She got her BA in Business Administration from RWTH Aachen University in 2009.