ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with some leading features of the new multimedia trends in information and communication technologies, and discusses their organisational impact for large firms, small and medium sized enterprises (SME) and their co-operative networks in the context of the industrial district model. The promise of multimedia and electronic commerce is to allow every agent to make low cost transactions regardless of distance and the type of knowledge. Satellite SMEs and network firms will be differentiated in terms of organisational learning in relation to their respective networks. An important outcome of multimedia diffusion, learning and assimilation will be the shifting balance of competitiveness between large firms, SMEs and their networks. Network firms of smaller size, belonging to a variety of configurations and environments, but with a common, Marshallian paradigm, reproducing in their peer to peer networks many of the competitive advantages internalised by large corporations.
