The advent of the web and its intrusion into business, commerce, government and health have provided mechanisms for binding organizations together, for carrying out sales over great distances and at any time. It has created new modes for marketing and enabled partnerships previously inconceivable within a wide array of business as well as other human activities. A consequence of this connectivity and information richness is that one is faced with an increasingly dynamic business environment and marketplace. This has created the need for new business paradigms and organization forms that transcend the previous static, closed, competitive models and move to flexible open re-configurable, often collaborative models that are able to respond to the business environment dynamics inherent within the networked economy (McHugh et. al 1995, M. Uliera 2002). This new paradigm is referred to by several different terms, the most widely used being the "extended enterprise". Other terms include the holonomic enterprise. Several factors characterise this "extended enterprise" namely:

• (a) A strong information infrastructure that extends beyond the original closed walls of the individual enterprise.
• (b) High connectivity and electronic handling of information, of all sorts including data and documents.
• (c) An increasingly collaborative approach between what were more traditional individual enterprises.
• (d) Utilisation of new forms of electronic interaction, provision of services and utilization of services.
• (e) Ability to self organize and reconfigure the business of the organization, perhaps even the organization as a whole.
• (f) Use of multiple channels for sales and marketing.
• (g) Capture and utilization of business intelligence from data and smart information use;
  

these features are increasingly exhibited by successful modern business organizations, for instance, in collaborative supply chains, collaborative consortia for marketing, strategic partnerships, alliances and selling services, utilization of web sales, marketing and customer service and creation of multiple modes of user interaction with the business. A key factor in the success of such extended enterprises is the creation of the underpinning information infrastructure to carry out the required services. This proposal researches Frontier Technologies that lie on this intersection between business and advanced information systems, which form the very foundations of such extended enterprises. These Frontier Technologies constitute a number of fields that are of primary interest to Curtin Business School (CBS), Curtin University of Technology and to Western Australia, which will facilitate the development of such extended enterprises.

When one examines these extended enterprises, one can clearly distinguish two broad fields. Firstly, there are the enabling Frontier Technologies, which need to be researched in order to push out their envelope as well as to shoehorn them for the extended enterprise. Secondly, there are the specific services that need to be built up to support the extended enterprise. These frequently take the form of cutting edge advanced IT and IS applications, and are referred to by the collective term e-Services. It is important to realize, however, that these do not constitute development work but rather Application Driven Research. e-Services bind enterprises in a given field together. The field may be Manufacturers, Educational Providers, Logistics, or IT Industries, etc. campuses in the Education sector or out-sourcing in IT industries.

The AoRE, therefore, will focus on the following two fundamental research fields:

1. Frontier Technologies (Web Services, XML and Ontologies)
   
   
2. e-Services (e-Education, e-Business, e-Marketing, e-Health, e-Project Management, e-Logistics)
   

They clearly form a part of the priority area of Frontier Technologies - Smart Information Use designated by the ARC (Australia Research Council). The AoRE will be linked into National and International Networks of Researchers.

Professor Elizabeth Chang is Professor in IT, who is an expert on software engineering, XML Technology, Workflow methodologies and Ontologies. She has a good track record of supervision and one of her PhD students in January 2001 won Best Doctoral Dissertation Award in Computer Science Australia. Professor Chang was founder and Director of the Centre for IT Applications and Logistics Informatics at Newcastle University. She also helped developed the entire new Logistics curriculum both on-shore and off-shore for Curtin Business School (include 3 Masters programs, 3 Diplomas and 3 Graduates Certificates, and currently developing MBA (Logistics) together with Graduate School of Business as well as Master of Commerce (Logistics). She developed a course COMP 5006 on Web Advertising and Web Publishing delivered through the Internet for the Hong Kong Cyber University.

• Her receiving (as Chief Investigator) large ARC Discovery, Linkage grants and Industry Cash Contribution for over $1.5million for years between 1997-2006.
  
  
• Her opening up new areas of research in Ontology based Software Engineering and Multisite Project Management, e-Services including e-Logistics, e-Health, e-Education and ICT Application development methodologies.

Prof Chang has unique combination of industry/commercial and academic knowledge and skills. Her applied research in the area of software development methodology for ICT projects has been directly used by Industry partners. Her vision of binding the University with local/international industries will not only benefit industry in terms of commercial value of the research, but will also provide strong direction in teaching and research, developing graduate ICT skills though R&D, generating new ideas and turning them into commercially useful products.

Professor Nimal Jayaratna is Professor of Information Systems and Head of School of Information Systems. He is an expert on Software Development Methodologies and will have primary responsibility for the definition of the new multisite process model.
Professor Jayaratna has been working on methodologies for information systems and software development for a considerable time and is well know for the conference and research workshop leadership. Prior to his taking up this position, Prof. Jayaratna was heavily involved with leading UK conferences on methodologies. He was the founder of the Information Systems Methodology group of the British Computer Society and the Co-chair with Prof. Peter Checkland of the 'Soft' Systems Methodology Group. Soft Systems Methodology is used in industry to address unstructured problems and Professor Jayaratna has worked with companies such as the UK inland Revenue, the UK National Health Service (NHS) and Shell International (Holland) with policy formulation and strategic development. His work is in the inter-disciplinary areas of software development and information systems use incorporating both human factors and application successes and the design approaches taken by systems developers that focus on software performance. Since the editing of the Software Engineering journal of the UK, he has been working on E-Commerce related methodological work. The development of E-Commerce applications are still dominated by prototyping and HCI features but the gap between the performance of E- & M-Commerce and their usability is still a major issue. Prof. Jayaratna is working on this inter-disciplinary area. He is also currently supervising and co-supervising PhDs on the system development methodology. He has collaborated with Professor Elizabeth Chang over the last two years leading to several joint publications in the areas of Workflow Modelling and Generation Change Model of Software Development. Professor Jayaratna and Professor Chang have also jointly obtained industry support of over $210,000 cash commitment in early 2001 for their ARC Grant Application (was not successful).

Professor Ram Ramaseshan is Professor of Marketing and Head of School of Marketing, Curtin University of Technology, He is Chair of Australia New Zealand Region, Association for Global Business, Fellow of Academy of Marketing Science, Fellow of Australian Institute of Management, and a Member of Association for Consumer Research, as well as a Member of Academy of International Business. His area of specialization has been on international business and marketing with specific interests include the internationalisation of the firm, internationalisation of business education, export marketing strategy, strategic alliances / international joint ventures. He has received a number of research grants from the industry and Government (Australian Research Council, Department of Primary Industry & Energy) and is a Member of Editorial Review Board, Journal of Global Business and a Member of Editorial Review Board, International Business Review. He has over 80 publications in international journals/ conferences. He is a Consultant in Strategic Marketing, International Marketing and Marketing Research to a number of organizations including the Federal Department of Transport, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Verosol Australia Ltd., Western Australian Department of Sports and Recreation and Printing Industry Association.

Dr Robert Guthrie is Head of School of Business and Law. Dr Guthrie has been admitted to practice as a Barrister and Solicitor for over 20 years and retains the right to practice in Western Australia, being involved in a small number of litigious matters each year. He has been involved in research into workers compensation and related areas for the past decade, primarily at the request of the Western Australian Government who have requested on three occasions that I review workers compensation arrangements. This research and consultancy work has involved the production of substantial reports all of which have been tabled in the Western Australian parliament and have resulted in changes to legislation in each case. As a consequence of this research he has written papers in a number of related areas, including injury management, insurance processes, medical practice associated with personal injuries and dispute resolution. Dr Guthrie's main areas of interest are in workers compensation research, the mechanisms for paying benefits to workers following injury and the reduction and prevention of accidents. Currently he is engaged in a number of activates including a consultancy with Sun Alliance Insurance to develop a model for the calculation of premiums for workers compensation insurers which reflect employers safety records, the publication of a Singapore Employment Law student text and the co-ordination of research seminars for the discussion of workers compensation reforms in Western Australia.

A. Professor Des Klass works at Graduate School of Business. He is a founder for the Strategic Planning and Decisions Research Unit at CBS. The Research Unit has gained a local and international reputation for its work and research in Group Support Systems (GSS). The Research Unit is particularly recognised for its development of processes using GSS technologies for strategic planning. The SPD Unit has on its client list 22 organizations some of which include HBF of WA, Civil Service association, Perth City Council, Hartley Poynton Ltd., Curtin Business School, Western Australian Cricket Association, Emperor Gold Mining Co. Ltd., Taxi Control Board, Chicken Treat, Melville City, Independent Living Centre and Bryant Media. He has been a consultant on several Operations Research projects and introduced Project Management techniques to several companies in and around Perth over the last 10 years. The companies include Agnew Mines, Woodside Offshore Petroleum Pty., Hamersley Iron, Corporate Affairs Department, Australian Taxation Department, Telecom Australia, and the State Energy Commission. He is a coordinator for the Curtin Business School on the Joint Curtin/AIM Executive Development Program. He developed a management simulation exercise for industry. This work required the bringing together of the various functional dimensions of a typical commercial organization to provide the participants with a balanced view of the many facets of managing "an organization". In the last 6 years, he has over 30 publications.