This book explains the international interactions shaping the evolution of information technologies in the market-driven international economy, here termed the global information economy. International negotiations – diplomatic interactions featuring sets of collective problem-solving and individualized posturing among a diverse array of international players – are crucial to the expansion of this economy and to the deployment of technologies associated with it. A focus on negotiations is key to understanding the sociology of international interactions that shape the global information economy. The book also underscores the implications of these interactions for the exercise of power and processes of global governance, especially with respect to states, firms, and international organizations.

In introducing an understanding of the global information economy the story can unfold at two levels – the micro-organizational level and the macro international negotiations level. The presence and value of information work, the value added to any commodity by information and knowledge processing, was first recognized explicitly at the organizational level. Plato's cavemen also processed information and knowledge. Hermes taught them to communicate.