the title or abstract. BPR is a further development of the enterprise value-chain notion. What it essentially does is to re-assert that organisational process is more important than organisational structure, and that organisational structure (form) must be determined by what it is that the enterprise does (function). IT is an enabler for BPR, because information systems support data flows, and are hence intrinsically oriented toward function rather than form, and because IT requires re-conception and re-development periodically, and such re-developments cause considerable upheaval and can therefore be used as a catalyst or opportunity for greater change than mere re-automation of existing arrangements. Other recent theme of relevance to SIS is assessment of IT's contribution to financial performance (e.g. Floyd & Woodridge 1990). In addition to these well-established lines of analysis, there is a number of areas in which maturation is incomplete. The comments in the remainder of this section are therefore particularly judgmental and tentative. A first concern is the prevalance of the use of the terms 'comparative advantage' and 'competitive advantage' as though they were equivalent and interchangeable. The notion of 'comparative advantage' was developed many years ago, as one of Ricardo's contributions to 'classical' economics. It refers to the notion of market forces allocating resources to nations where they would be relatively most productive, and is therefore applicable at high levels of aggregation, e.g. national and regional economies. The idea of 'competitive' advantage differs from comparative advantage in the scale at which it operates. Rather than relating to a broad geo-political area, competitive advantage accrues to individual corporations, provided that they are operating in relatively free-market environments. Although the notion of competitive advantage also originated in micro-economics, it has been much used in marketi...
