Le imprese e il social commerce: caratteristiche distintive, potenzialità, opportunità di marketing e sfide manageriali

I social media hanno radicalmente modificato le modalità di fruizione del canale online da parte degli utenti, segnando lo sviluppo di un’“era consumer-driven”. Oggi, infatti, i consumatori utilizzano sempre più spesso i media sociali come luoghi privilegiati per condividere informazioni in merito a prodotti, brand ed imprese. Questa forma di cooperazione tra utenti - che si traduce in un legame tra socialità virtuale e shopping online - ha portato all’emergere di una nuova forma di commercio elettronico denominata social commerce. Nato negli Stati Uniti e poi diffusosi in Europa, il social commerce può essere definito come “a form of commerce mediated by social media involving convergence between the online and the offline environments” (Wang e Zhang, 2012). Malgrado il fenomeno sia piuttosto recente, Forrester Research (2011) stima che, entro il 2015, il fatturato generato dal social commerce raggiungerà un valore di 30 miliardi di dollari. Nel corso degli anni il social commerce ha ricevuto molta attenzione sia dagli studiosi sia dai practitioner, perché considerato in grado di modellare la nascita di una nuova modalità di vendita online. Tuttavia, similmente a quanto accaduto più di dieci anni fa con l’emergere del commercio elettronico, il social commerce rappresenta una grande opportunità per le imprese, ma richiede, allo stesso tempo, un importante cambiamento di paradigma nella gestione sia dell’e-commerce sia del brand. Grazie ai social media, infatti, i consumatori possiedono oggi uno strumento semplice, veloce e a basso costo sia per soddisfare il bisogno di reperire informazioni prima di effettuare un acquisto, sia per condividere l’esperienza che ne segue. Tale opportunità, offerta dalle nuove tecnologie del Web 2.0, garantisce ai clienti un maggior potere nella relazione con il brand e con le imprese proprio perché aumentano esponenzialmente le opportunità di reperire informazioni ed il numero di alternative, canali e punti vendita in cui poter effettuare l’acquisto. Per le imprese, quindi, è necessario assumere piena consapevolezza del cambiamento in atto, in modo tale da gestirlo proattivamente. In tal senso, diviene prioritario comprendere le dinamiche sociali online, conoscere le piattaforme di condivisione, gli individui più influenti in Rete e ripensare la propria strategia di business e di comunicazione in un’ottica consumer-centrica. Oggi, la letteratura sull’argomento è ancora piuttosto limitata. Di conseguenza, questo lavoro intende fornire un contributo al filone di studi sul social commerce attraverso una prima esplorazione, dal punto di vista degli esperti di digital marketing, delle caratteristiche distintive, delle potenzialità, delle principali opportunità di marketing e delle sfide manageriali e organizzative che il suddetto fenomeno dischiude alle imprese attive nel marketspace, con particolare focus sul nostro Paese. L’Italia, infatti, se da una parte pone specifiche criticità dovute al relativo ritardo nella diffusione dell’e-commerce, dall’altra, rappresenta un contesto particolarmente propizio per i social media. Ciò si traduce nella possibilità di utilizzare il social commerce quale driver di sviluppo delle vendite online nel nostro Paese

Carbon Management for Sustainable Development: An examination of potential transition paths for the Saudi Arabian ‘national system of innovation’ towards a cleaner energy economy

PhDSince the first industrial revolution, rising carbon emissions have caused harmful effects on our environment. There is a broad consensus that climate change is happening and that it is as a result of anthropogenic carbon emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels. This raises concern for the future of our carbon-based world energy and world economy, particularly with economies heavily dependent on oil, such as Saudi Arabia. This dissertation aims to answer the question: How could Saudi Arabia, given its oil-based economy and vast oil reserves, respond to the challenges of climate change and the world’s transitioning towards environmental sustainability, and away from fossil fuels. Two studies have been conducted, a quantitative study and a qualitative study. The first study examined the Saudi energy sector, 40 life cycle assessment (LCA) studies on both carbon capture and storage (CCS) and solar photovoltaic (Solar PV) were used to create 12 scenarios for 3 growth cases from year 2010 to 2025. Results showed massive reductions in carbon dioxide emissions in all scenarios. The second study examined the economy of Saudi Arabia, using 30 interviews with participants from across the economy, to materialise the Saudi national system of innovation. Major forces of the economy and their relationships have been identified and discussed. Using both studies, transition paths of the Saudi NSI towards a sustainable and cleaner energy economy were then constructed and discussed. A Saudi sustainable carbon management ‘system of innovation’ (SSCMSI) was proposed. Given Saudi Arabia’s heavy dependence on oil, which characterised its NSI fabric, constructing an NSI around its energy sector was important. The proposed SSCMSI role includes: accelerating innovation in the energy sector, encouraging energy efficiency, accelerating the use of renewable energy, improving market conditions, supporting technology transfer from advanced economies, utilising international cooperation and mobilizing private sector investment in energy.Yamani Cultural and Charitable Foundation YCCF scholarshi

Automated Auction Mechanism Design with Competing Markets

Resource allocation is a major issue in multiple areas of computer science. Despite the wide range of resource types across these areas, for example real commodities in e-commerce and computing resources in distributed computing, auctions are commonly used in solving the optimization problems involved in these areas, since well designed auctions achieve desirable economic outcomes. Auctions are markets with strict regulations governing the information available to traders in the market and the possible actions they can take. Auction mechanism design aims to manipulate the rules of an auction in order to achieve specific goals. Economists traditionally use mathematical methods, mainly game theory, to analyze auctions and design new auction forms. However, due to the high complexity of auctions, the mathematical models are typically simplified to obtain results, and this makes it difficult to apply results derived from such models to market environments in the real world. As a result, researchers are turning to empirical approaches. Following this line of work, we present what we call a grey-box approach to automated auction mechanism design using reinforcement learning and evolutionary computation methods. We first describe a new strategic game, called \cat, which were designed to run multiple markets that compete to attract traders and make profit. The CAT game enables us to address the imbalance between prior work in this field that studied auctions in an isolated environment and the actual competitive situation that markets face. We then define a novel, parameterized framework for auction mechanisms, and present a classification of auction rules with each as a building block fitting into the framework. Finally we evaluate the viability of building blocks, and acquire auction mechanisms by combining viable blocks through iterations of CAT games. We carried out experiments to examine the effectiveness of the grey-box approach. The best mechanisms we learnt were able to outperform the standard mechanisms against which learning took place and carefully hand-coded mechanisms which won tournaments based on the CAT game. These best mechanisms were also able to outperform mechanisms from the literature even when the evaluation did not take place in the context of CAT games. These results suggest that the grey-box approach can generate robust double auction mechanisms and, as a consequence, is an effective approach to automated mechanism design. The contributions of this work are two-fold. First, the grey-box approach helps to design better auction mechanisms which can play a central role in solutions to resource allocation problems in various application domains of computer science. Second, the parameterized view and the reinforcement learning-based search method can be used in other strategic, competitive situations where decision making processes are complex and difficult to design and evaluate manually

Electronic commerce research and applications (ECRA) Co-Editors' Introduction for Volume 8, Issue 3, May-June 2009

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Interacção 2010: actas da 4ª Conferência Nacional em Interacção Humano-Computador

Prefácio: Encontramo-nos perante mais uma edição do congresso nacional sobre Interacção, o “Interacção 2010”, um evento científico cuja regularidade tem permitido consolidar a sua natureza profundamente transdisciplinar. A referência do congresso continua a ser a área científica internacional de “Human-Computer Interaction”, uma área que tem ganhado relevância e valor no progresso sócio-económico desta última década, onde o ser humano e a coisa social assumem a prioridade que lhes é devida. O “Interacção” tem assumido sempre a condição da debater um vasto leque de temas, mas sempre em contextos de mediação tecnológica e onde o objectivo final é servir a condição humana. Esta edição continua a confirmar esta atitude que se reflecte nas grandes áreas temáticas que anunciou para submissão de trabalhos: Concepção, Desenvolvimento e Estudo da Interacção, Tecnologias e Aplicações de Suporte à Interacção, Aspectos Humanos, Sociais e Organizacionais, e Contextos de Interacção diversos. A resposta da comunidade científica nacional ao apelo de participação foi de extrema eficiência e riqueza. Foram submetidos um total de 64 artigos longos, artigos curtos e posters e/ou demos. O resultado da avaliação (“double-blind”) pelos revisores, e as conversões de formato sugeridas a alguns autores, conduziram a que o leitor venha a encontrar nestas actas 21 artigos longos, 20 artigos curtos e 15 posters. Por insuficiência de propostas de demos esta possibilidade de exposição não foi considerada. Esta quantidade crescente de trabalho em relação a edições anteriores do “Interacção”, e os três oradores convidados (2 internacionais e 1 nacional), originaram um programa de trabalho que incontornavelmente se estendeu a três dias de trabalho contrariando os tradicionais dois dias de congresso. O programa decorreu de 13 a 15 de Outubro de 2010 na Universidade de Aveiro e as 8 sessões que o caracterizaram foram organizadas respeitando os temas: i) Interfaces Multi-toque; ii) Interacção com Dispositivos Móveis; iii) Concepção e Desenvolvimento da Interacção; iv) Realidade Virtual e Aumentada; v) Visualização de Informação; vi) Videojogos e Interacção; vii) Acessibilidade e viii) Interacção em Contextos Diversos. Por fim, e porque um evento desta natureza não se consegue organizar sem a mobilização, o trabalho de grande qualidade e a dedicação de várias pessoas, importa agradecer a todos os elementos da Comissão Organizadora, e aos estudantes voluntários que ajudaram em toda a logística, bem como a todos os elementos da Comissão de Programa e aos revisores externos que também aceitaram analisar trabalhos submetidos. Aos nossos convidados, Francisco Providência, Jennifer Preece e Shahram Izadi, pela disponibilidade de estarem e partilharem connosco o seu conhecimento e experiência na área, o nosso sincero obrigado. Pelo papel fundamental de um secretariado profissional e eficiente fica ainda o nosso agradecimento à Anabela Viegas. Terminamos com o especial agradecimento a todos os autores e conferencistas que acreditaram na competência e rigor de toda esta equipa para acolher o seu trabalho e expô-lo publicamente. Despedimo-nos acreditando que o "Interacção" continuará por terras lusas, quiçá numa toada cada vez mais internacionalizada, e deixando votos para que a edição de 2012 seja pautada por igual sucesso e entusiasmo; a área da Interacção assim o exige e merece. Bem hajam. Aveiro, Outubro de 2010. Óscar Mealha, Daniel Tércio, Beatriz Sousa Santos, Joaquim Madeira.publishe

When Can Oil Economies Be Deemed Sustainable?

This open access book questions the stereotype depicting all Gulf (GCC) economies as not sustainable, and starts a critical discussion of what these economies and polities should do to guarantee themselves a relatively stable future. Volatile international oil markets and the acceleration of the energy transition has challenged the notion that oil revenues are sufficient to sustain oil economies in the near to medium term. But what is the meaning of economic sustainability? The book discusses the multiple dimensions of the concept: economic diversification, continuing value of resources, taxation and fiscal development, labor market sustainability, sustainable income distribution, environmental sustainability, political order (democracy or authoritarianism) and sustainability, regional integration. The overarching message in this book is that we should move on from the simplistic branding of the Gulf economies as unsustainable and tackle the details of which adaptations they might need to undertake

Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is finally a common sense term. Nowadays almost everyone knows that using energy more efficiently saves money, reduces the emissions of greenhouse gasses and lowers dependence on imported fossil fuels. We are living in a fossil age at the peak of its strength. Competition for securing resources for fuelling economic development is increasing, price of fuels will increase while availability of would gradually decline. Small nations will be first to suffer if caught unprepared in the midst of the struggle for resources among the large players. Here it is where energy efficiency has a potential to lead toward the natural next step - transition away from imported fossil fuels! Someone said that the only thing more harmful then fossil fuel is fossilized thinking. It is our sincere hope that some of chapters in this book will influence you to take a fresh look at the transition to low carbon economy and the role that energy efficiency can play in that process

News on the Web in Arabic and English

In der vorliegenden Forschungsarbeit werden Nachrichten analysiert, die auf der englisch- bzw. der arabischsprachigen Website von CNN (Cable News Network) veröffentlicht wurden. Dabei wird von der Hypothese ausgegangen, dass CNN als Nachrichtenproduzentin Inhalte und Präsentationsweise der veröffentlichten Nachrichten den jeweiligen RezipientInnen anpasst. Weiters wird angenommen, dass - auch aufgrund der zunehmenden Bedeutung des Internets als Informationsquelle - die darin veröffentlichten Nachrichten eigene Charakteristika bezüglich der Form und des Inhalts entwickelt haben, sich daher von herkömmlichen Nachrichten unterscheiden und aus diesem Grund auch spezifischer Analyseinstrumente bedürfen. Die Forschungsarbeit ist interdisziplinär angelegt: Hauptsächlich in der Kritischen Diskursanalyse (CDA) verankert, bezieht sie auch Ansätze anderer Disziplinen und Zugänge, wie der Multimodalen Diskursanalyse, der Funktionalen Linguistik und der Translations-wissenschaften mit ein. Die analysierten Daten bestehen einerseits aus Nachrichten, die während eines einmonatigen Beobachtungszeitraums auf der englischen bzw. Der a rabischen Version der CNN-Website veröffentlicht wurden, andererseits aus einem Fragebogen, der an NachrichtennutzerInnen online ausgesandt wurde. Aus Gründen der Triangulation schließt die Analyse sowohl multimodale, quantitative als auch qualitative Fragestellungen zu Nachrichten und die Auswertung des Fragebogens mit ein. Die Ergebnisse der Forschungsarbeit sind: Das Internet hat sich zu einer wesentlichen Informationsquelle für viele Menschen entwickelt; in den jeweiligen Nachrichtenbeiträgen ist das geschriebene Material im Vergleich zu anderen multimodalen Elementen dominant; die verglichenen Websites adressieren ihre jeweilige Leserschaft mittels eines jeweils völlig unterschiedlichen Diskurses, indem sie Texte mit verschiedenen linguistischen, kulturellen und ideologischen Implikationen verwenden; aus der Auswertung des Fragebogens geht hervor, dass die Berichterstattung von CNN hinsichtlich Verlässlichkeit und Ausgewogenheit der Nachrichten von den Befragten als vorwiegend negativ bewertet wird. Außerdem zeigt sich, dass die Übersetzung von Nachrichten als ein Prozess des „Neu-Schreibens“ verstanden werden kann: Es entstehen völlig neue Nachrichten, die jeweils abhängig von den zugrunde liegenden ideologischen Positionen sind. Die in den Translationswissenschaften bisher verwendeten Methoden sind nicht darauf ausgerichtet, einer Analyse von Texten dieser Art gerecht zu werden. Weiters haben sich DiskursforscherInnen bis dato mehr auf monolinguale Texte als auf sprachübergreifende Diskurse konzentriert. Es erscheint daher erstrebenswert und ratsam, die behandelten Fragestellungen weiter zu bearbeiten, sowie einen kontrastiven Ansatz der Kritischen Diskursanalyse zu entwickeln, um diese Art von Texten adäquat analysieren zu können.This research consists of an analysis of the news presented by the CNN (Cable News Network) on its websites in Arabic and English. It is based on the hypothesis that the CNN as a news producer modifies the news content and presentation according to the audience it addresses. It is also assumed that, as the Web has actually become an important source of news, distinctive features of form and content are used, making web-news different from other traditional types of news and requiring different analytical tools. The research is interdisciplinary in nature. It is based mainly in the field of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), with insights from other disciplines, such as multimodal discourse analysis, functional linguistics and translation studies. The analysed data consisted of stories collected from both sites in Arabic and English during a one-month period, as well as a users’ questionnaire distributed and collected online. For the purpose of triangulation, the analysis included multimodal, quantitative and qualitative analyses of the collected websites stories and the questionnaire data. The research concludes that the Web has become a major news source for many people; the written material is more dominant compared to other multimodal elements; the websites in question address each public using a completely different discourse, i.e. using texts with different linguistic, cultural and ideological implications; and that negative views are widespread concerning CNN's reporting, reliability and balance. It also emerges that news translation is rather a process of re-writing, providing totally new products depending on different ideological positions. Translation studies tools are not adequately designed for analysing this type of text production and discourse analysis scholars have concentrated more on monolingual texts than on cross-linguistic discourse. It is therefore considered desirable and advisable to conduct further research that looks into these questions and to develop a contrastive critical discourse analysis approach for investigating them