Human choice and computers : an ever more intimate relationship

Since 1974, the Human Choice and Computers (HCC) conference series has firmly remained at the cutting edge of innovative thinking about the interface between the social and technology. This introductory chapter to the proceedings of the 12th Human Choice and Computers conference points out that what has set HCC conferences apart is the critical perspective that is its hallmark. HCC12 continues this tradition

How can start-ups increase their value co-creation through SEO?

Abstract. The internet started in the 1960s for government researchers to exchange research. Tim Berners Lee created the foundation for the web in 1990, which consisted of the HTTP protocol, a browser, a server, and the world’s first website. Netscape, an early web browser, had a very successful IPO in 1995, which ultimately popularized the web and sparked the so-called “Dot Com bubble.” The World Wide Web, since its creation until now, has become a critical channel between companies and customers. Over half of the internet starts their search on a search engine, making it imperative for companies that want to stay competitive to have a website online. Ever since the commercialization of the internet, startup companies have competed for the first search results in search engines through a digital marketing technique known as Search Engine Optimization. SEO as a study topic has been studied since Google was created in 1998. This thesis explores how value co-creation is created with Search Engine Optimization and how the two concepts are related. The context is for high-growth start-up companies that aim to increase their digital presence online. The research method is qualitative dominant and takes an abductive approach. The primary data was collected from a young startup company in North America and consisted of an extensive data set of user behavior. The data consisted of screen recordings of the users and user metrics collected through a tracking script on the website. The secondary data used takes the form of peer-reviewed articles, previous SEO studies, online articles, and books. Search Engine Optimization was found to enable companies that want to increase their value co-creation based on the data. It was shown to have the capacity to boost their online presence, create more opportunities for value co-creation, and provide an insight into any blockages preventing co-creation. Essentially, SEO was found to be a vehicle to drive users to companies’ websites and increase the chances for the company to engage the user with a value proposition that could later turn into value-creation. The data also revealed that companies could choose to become co-creators in value if they choose to do so. This was a contrary finding to the pre-existing theory

Success in challenging times: Key lessons for UK SMEs

There are approximately 4.5 million small businesses in the UK providing 13.7 million jobs, half the private sector workforce in 2011. However, while Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are of importance, it is their durability that can be considered of greater significance. The precarious nature of SME existence has been well documented. Only about 65% of small businesses are still trading after the first three years of initial start-up. After five years, less than 45% of businesses will have survived. Put simply, small firms are more likely to die than larger firms. Indeed, other than size per se, the higher likelihood of death is what distinguishes small from large firms. Much of the research into small firms has focused on their failure. The danger of this approach is that it identifies what has gone wrong, but may fail to discover what they need to do right. The approach of the current study, then, is to focus on the triggers that lead to SME success, as a way of highlighting more effective strategy decisions for firms themselves, and to inform better policy decisions for government. A return of over 1000 survey questionnaires completed by SME owners/directors or senior managers, 20 in depth interviews and 14 focus groups, makes this one of the largest surveys into the strategic management of SMEs in the UK

Political news construction in post-authoritarian Indonesia: citizen journalism in online news media during the 2017 election

This study was conducted in the response to the lack of empirical study of citizen journalism (CJ) within an online journalistic field in a newly democratic country. This study adopts Bourdieu’s (1998, 2005) field theory, the social theory of journalism of McQuail (2013) and McCombs’ (2014) agenda-setting theory to understand the “struggle" of the legacy media in defending its position within society as the mediator of political communication. It utilises parallel convergent mixed-methods with qualitative data is collected based on an ethnographical study of three major Indonesian online news media outlets. It analysed 33 media staffs interview results about news production during the 2017 Indonesian election. Meanwhile, the quantitative data was generated from published political news content during January- March 2017. The analysis of data shows that CJ put pressure on the journalistic fields so that journalists made efforts to maintain their status quo. Journalists are adapting their journalistic norms and traditions so as to defend their position in dominating political communication and influencing public opinion. This study argues that the online news media are engaged three areas of struggle; that is struggles to find a business model, to be equally recognised as offering quality journalism, and to compete with non-professional journalists. This study provides an original contribution to research on journalism in explaining the development of CJ in the Indonesian context both theoretically and empirically

Why is there a lack of digital marketing client-agency trust? An inductive thematic analysis of the contemporary challenges facing client-agency trust relationships

This study examines the contemporary challenges facing client-agency trust relationships in a digital marketing setting. The digital marketing industry is currently struggling with a crisis of client-agency trust. Research has identified that client trust in digital marketing agencies is declining. However, current scholarly debate has stalled, where inquiry into client-agency trust relationships in contemporary and digitised environments is lacking. The current study is the first of its kind to illuminate client-agency trust issues derived from a black box digital marketing ecosystem, dominated by an omnipotent Internet Oligopoly (IO). The IO comprise online media and advertising platforms, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.Findings derive from the inductive thematic analysis of 32 in-depth interviews with multiple digital marketing stakeholders, undertaken between 2016-2018. They comprise 12 clients, 11 agents, 3 training providers, 3 procurement specialists, 1 trade association, 1 lawyer and 1 recruitment agent.The current study makes the claim that the IO and their volatile, unpredictable, complex and ambiguous ecosystem, have the power to negatively influence client-agency performance outcomes. More specifically, it is found that unknown and unknowable top-down influences impair the ability to attribute digital marketing activity to performance data with any great confidence. A threat of unconscious and conscious opportunism within the client-agency relationship emerges, where poor performance may be blamed upon the perceived influence of the IO, against the better knowledge of the client, and often, the agent. Questions over accountability for outcomes are raised. Furthermore, it is found that digital marketing knowledge may be constructed from misattributed performance data resulting in weak-form evidence. Such fallible evidence may be used by agents in order to support claims to trustworthiness and benchmarks for best practice.An original contribution to knowledge is made where empirical findings challenge dominant rationalist and relational assumptions of client-agency trust in contemporary digital marketing settings. An original BAAKE framework (Benchmark, Attribution, Accountability, Knowledge, Ecosystem) is created, in order to represent such contemporary challenges to client-agency trust, along the client-agency lifecycle

The ethics of gamification in a marketing context

Gamification is an increasingly common marketing tool. Yet, to date, there has been little examination of its ethical implications. In light of the potential implications of this type of stealth marketing for consumer welfare, this paper discusses the ethical dilemmas raised by the use of gamified approaches to marketing. The paper draws on different schools of ethics to examine gamification as an overall system, as well as its constituent parts. This discussion leads to a rationale and suggestions for how gamification could be regulated and/or controlled by more informal codes of conduct. The paper ends by outlining a practical framework which businesses can use to evaluate the potential ethical implications raised by their own gamified marketing techniques

The use of social media marketing in telecommunication business: an exploratory study of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Limited

The study focused on the use of social media marketing in the telecommunication business in Zimbabwe, as it has received limited attention in the literature available to date. The study aimed to explore the use of social media marketing in a telecommunications business- Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Limited. The study took on an exploratory research design which was qualitative in nature. A case study approach was applied with Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Limited as focus of being studied. Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Limited was chosen because it is the market leader in the telecommunications industry which has adopted the use of social media marketing in its business. Data collection was done through in-depth interviews with judgement sampling being used to choose the participants for the interviews. The data collected was analysed using thematic analysis. It was found that Econet Wireless Limited is using social media marketing to communicate with its customers, for their brand to be visible. They also use it because it is an inexpensive way to promote their business with a possibility to reach a large number of people in a short space of time.Business ManagementM. Com. (Business Management

The identification of innovation opportunities by search engine optimisation agencies: small firm cases in a UK cluster

The aim of this thesis is to further knowledge of how digital marketing agencies identify opportunities for innovation. Being innovative within digital marketing is an issue faced by many of the small digital marketing agencies. Recent research that has been carried out on SME innovation has focused on networking and integration. It could be said that this research is largely not applicable to the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) industry when competitive advantage is such a major factor. Furthermore, the research suggests that many small agencies would take an ad-hoc approach to innovation. Other research has also shown that innovative companies can grow faster and become more profitable. Therefore, agencies that can become more advanced in their innovation capabilities could see competitive advantages come from this. This thesis investigates the emerging processes that are currently being used within digital marketing agencies to identify opportunities for innovation. It specifically looks at the identification stage of innovation rather than the entire innovation process. Breaking the innovation process down into various sub-processes enables a far greater depth of insight to be drawn. The research approach was qualitative with four in depth interviews of experts within the field being completed. Then based on these findings a further 17 interviews were completed in five agencies located within the Brighton and Hove area. All interviews carried out were semi structured. The contribution to knowledge is based around four key areas. Firstly, a definition of innovation is developed specific to the digital marketing agencies. Secondly, a model of innovation identification is constructed. Thirdly, key insights around time pressures within the industry are put forward. Finally, the concept of open innovation is considered. Within this project it was found that those companies more adept within their innovation capability were able to provide an appropriate definition of innovation. These companies also had a process for identifying innovation opportunities in place. In addition, time to complete innovation will always be an issue within this industry. However, there are some limited long term ways in which this can be mitigated through management support and company structure. Finally, within the concept of open innovation, there was found to be a disparity within the industry which thinks of itself as open when the reality points towards it being more closed than it believes. This thesis produces rich insights into the ways in which creativity is developed into innovation and how companies within the digital marketing industry may be able to absorb ideas from creative employees into the business in order to improve their innovative capabilities

Hakukoneoptimointialan kehitys ja toimijoiden vuorovaikutus

Tämä tutkielma pyrki selvittämään, onko hakukoneoptimoijien ja Google -hakukoneen kehittäjien välillä havaittavaa vuorovaikutussuhdetta. Samalla tutkielmassa tarkastellaan hakukoneoptimointialan kehitystä ja tiedon välittymistä suositeltujen optimointikäytäntöjen tapauksessa. Eritystarkastelussa verkkosivustolle johtavien linkkien optimoimisen taktiikat. Hakukoneoptimoijien ja Google -hakukoneen edustajien vuorovaikutusta tutkittiin analysoimalla verkosta löytyviä hakukoneoptimointimedioiden julkaisemia optimointisuosituksia liittyen linkinrakentamiseen, sekä Google -hakukoneen edustajien antamia lausuntoja ja virallisia ohjeistuksia vuosien 2010 - 2015 välillä. Artikkelit ja muut sisällöt on tässä tutkielmassa käyty läpi laadullisen sisällönanalyysin keinojen avulla. Tutkielman tuloksissa löydettiin säännöllisesti toteutuva vuorovaikutus Google -hakukoneen kehittäjien ja hakukoneoptimoijien välillä. Hakukoneoptimoijat jakavat toimivaksi havaittuja optimointitekniikoita eri hakukoneoptimointialan asiantuntijasivustojen kautta, jonka jälkeen mainittujen tekniikoiden käyttö yleistyy ja useimmiten niiden taso laskee muuttaen optimointitaktiikat heikkolaatuisiksi verkon roskapostitukseen verrattavaksi toiminnaksi. Google -hakukoneen edustajat puolestaan pyrkivät optimointitekniikoiden kasvaessa ensin ohjeistamaan ja rajoittamaan suosiota keräävien taktiikoiden väärinkäyttöä, jonka jälkeen lopulta Google -hakukoneeseen tehtävät päivitykset saavat tekniikoiden toimivuuden vaikutukset loppumaan Google -hakukoneen hakutuloksissa. Tässä vaiheessa seuraava toimivaksi havaittu tekniikka on jo usein alkanut kiertää hakukoneoptimoijien keskuudessa, jonka myötä ilmiö toistuu