The information economy is based on the collection and the exchange of data and ideas. We all either contribute to or use materials from the information economy in most aspects of our everyday lives. Few of us, however, understand all of the nuances of the information economy or the communication factors that affect its operations. This special issue of IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication seeks to "open" this economic model through articles and tutorials that examine the connections between communication technologies and the products, practices, and services that constitute the information economy.

Information and communication technology (ICT) studies have a wide scope of application, particularly in their attention to the communicative interaction among human beings above and beyond man–machine interaction. The topic of human communication and culture for ICT is a timely one. While studies to date have focused largely on the technical communication aspects of ICT, this special issue proposes to innovate in its emphasis on the impact of the interaction of professional culture, rather than national or corporate, and new media on communication, with particular attention to economic ICT.

Innovation in a company's design process is increasingly a matter of cooperation between the company and its customers. New information and communication technology (ICT) possibilities such as electronic communication (EC) media generate even more opportunities for companies to collaborate with customers during the early stages of research and development. This exploratory study examined the design process of five Dutch firms and the cultural and communicative implications of cooperation in the design process between the supplier and the customer using EC media. We found that the selected use of EC media for communication between R&D and customers has a positive effect on the design process. We also discovered that the characteristics of the most suitable EC media depend on the design activity and that the corporate and professional cultures of both the company and its customers involved in the cooperation seem to affect the communication media used. Finally, the future use of new ICT in the design area is discussed.

With the globalization of the world economy, it is imperative that managers, both present and future, be sensitive to differences in intercultural business communication. In particular, the context of global electronic commerce leads to an increasing use of email in negotiating deals, which to this point has been carried out almost exclusively via face-to-face (FTF) or other high-feedback media (e.g., telephone) but not of non-FTF media. This study, involving 20 participants, uses speech act theory and psycholinguistic analysis to explore the effects of culture on non-FTF communication.

Rapid advancement in communication technology has brought with it a host of relevant questions. This paper looks at some interactions of culture, communication, behaviors, and multimedia technology.