Introduction

This chapter provides a general introduction to this book. As such, it also describes the context of the CrossWork project that is the main source of information for this book. This project is introduced in the next chapter. We start below with discussing the business conditions for the raise of the virtual enterprise as an organization form in the modern economy. As we focus on process-oriented virtual enterprises in this book, we continue with an overview of developments in business process support technologies. Then, we introduce a framework with four aspects that can be used in a combined demand pull and technology push context – this framework is used later to structure topics discussed. In the last section of this chapter, we explain the structure of the book.