Michael Barrett & Elizabeth Davidson 
Information Technology in the Service Economy: 
Challenges and Possibilities for the 21st Century

This book represents the compilation of papers presented at the IFIP Working Group 8. 2 conference entitled "Information Technology in the Service Economy: Challenges st and Possibilities for the 21 Century. " The conference took place at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, on August 10 13, 2008. Par ticipation in the conference spanned the continents from Asia to Europe with paper submissions global in focus as well. Conference submissions included complete d research papers and research in progress reports. Papers submitted to the conference went through a double blind review process in which the program co chairs, an associate editor, and reviewers provided assessments and recommendations. The editor ial efforts of the associate editors and reviewers in this process were outstanding. To foster high quality research publications in this field of study, authors of accepted pape rs were then invited to revise and resubmit their work. Through this rigorous review and revision process, 12 completed research papers and 11 research in progress reports were accepted for presentation and publica tion. Paper workshop sessions were also esta blished to provide authors of emergent work an opportunity to receive feedback fromthe IF IP 8. 2 community. Abstracts of these new projects are included in this volume. Four panels were presented at the conference to provide discussion forums for the varied aspect s of IT, service, and globalization. Panel abstracts are also included here.