How to Create an Innovation Accelerator

Too many policy failures are fundamentally failures of knowledge. This has become particularly apparent during the recent financial and economic crisis, which is questioning the validity of mainstream scholarly paradigms. We propose to pursue a multi-disciplinary approach and to establish new institutional settings which remove or reduce obstacles impeding efficient knowledge creation. We provided suggestions on (i) how to modernize and improve the academic publication system, and (ii) how to support scientific coordination, communication, and co-creation in large-scale multi-disciplinary projects. Both constitute important elements of what we envision to be a novel ICT infrastructure called "Innovation Accelerator" or "Knowledge Accelerator".Comment: 32 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Valence or Volume? Maximizing Online Review Influence Across Consumers, Products, and Marketing

Evidence shows that products with online reviews have a higher chance to stay in the consideration set of consumers than products with no online reviews do. Online reviews, as consumer-generated content, affect consumers’ purchase decision-making process. Most of the studies in this area have looked at valence and volume of online reviews. Generally, valence and volume of online reviews are considered to positively influence sales; however, the findings in the literature are inconclusive. While some studies have reported a positive relationship between valence/volume and sales, others have failed to find any significant relationship. Using both lab experiments and real-world data, this dissertation addresses the conflicting findings from previous studies by introducing the role of the individual, the product, and firm-generated promotional message. In the first essay of the dissertation, I attempt to explain the inconsistencies in the literature by examining the moderating effect of regulatory focus on the relative role of valence versus volume of online reviews in consumer purchase decisions. Regulatory focus theory suggests that people tend to have either a promotion or a prevention orientation in approaching their desired goals. The current research argues that depending on consumers’ regulatory orientation, the effect of either review valence or review volume on consumers’ likelihood to purchase the product will become more salient. Moreover, specific products also activate a certain regulatory orientation. Therefore, depending on the products’ regulatory orientation, valence or volume of online reviews (i.e. valence and volume) will become more or less influential across different product categories. The second essay of the dissertation investigates the use of firm-generated promotional message to maximize online review volume versus valence effects. Specifically, it examines how a common online retail-marketing tactic, scarcity appeal, can be used to accentuate the effect of online review volume and valence on consumers’ purchase decisions. I argue that the mere presence of a scarcity appeal and the specific type of scarcity appeal used can influence the extent to which consumers weigh valence versus volume information. The integrative approach developed in this research advocates the simultaneous consideration of firm marketing tactics and consumer-generated content. It argues that firm-level actions can interact with online review components (i.e. volume and valence) to affect sales

Users\u27 Attributes Associated with High-Quality Review in Online Communities

High-quality review within an online review community greatly determines the survival and success of the online community. As such, it is crucial for community operators to understand which kinds of users are more likely to share publish high-quality review, a topic not yet adequately investigated in e-commerce research. We used a unique dataset from a large traveling community, and examined which users’ characteristics are associat ed with the high-quality review publishing behavior. Results show that reviewers\u27 status, knowledge and rating comprehensiveness is positively associated with review quality. Moreover, we reveal that there exists an inverted U-curve relation between review length and review quality. The similar relation also exists between picture number and review quality. Further, we show that reviewers who have more experience, knowledge, intimate interpersonal relationship- are more likely to be motivated by a high-quality review engagement policy. The results can improve our understanding on the sharing behavior in online communities, and offer managerial implication to the community operators

Costs of Water Risks – Case of a Peruvian Agricultural Company

Water risk assessment is becoming an essential part of any decision-making process in the business sector. In the world where freshwater resources are becoming scarcer, water risks are growing and causing high costs to businesses. Therefore, numerous frameworks, guidelines, methodologies, tools, and other approaches were developed during the last century. Various scholars have appeared to give an economic value or price for environment goods in order to understand trade-offs better. Nowadays, the corporate world tends to use different approaches to convert sustainability management data to the financial language of decision-makers. This study explores the possible ways for a company to measure the costs of water related risks. It examines how to convert water risks to financial risks using a Peruvian agricultural company. The results show, that from all today’s available frameworks, guidelines or tools there is no one commonly accepted and recognised as the best for water risk assessment and monetising. It was learned, that available tools could provide just a simple overview of possible water related risks and calculate their costs in a very general way. The work also highlights the importance of regular and appropriate data collection on the company level in order to be able to assess water risk related costs for the business

An Investigation into Management Response to Negative Online Reviews in Hotel Operations

The advent of web2 and the interactivity it allowed net surfers to communicate freely with the purpose of exchanging ideas and opinions regarding the products they have purchased has given rise to a new marketing tool identified in the literature as consumer-generated content. As travel and hospitality are amongst the highest purchased services on the World Wide Web, a multitude of sites are currently made available to travelers to express either their satisfaction or voice their complaints on hotel properties that they have stayed at for business or pleasure. In providing informational queues, these online reviews are strongly affecting traveler’s pre-purchase decisions and their attitudes toward hotel choice. One factor that is considered of great effect on this decision-making process is identified as management response to reviews; regardless of their positive or negative nature. The purpose of this research is to provide an investigation into management’s behavior in responding to negative online reviews and the manner in which this type of feedback is handled in a way to build customer trust as well as a venue to service recovery.     Keywords: Customer-generated Content, Online Reviews, Travel, Hospitality, Management Response, Bahrai

Finance 4.0 - Towards a Socio-Ecological Finance System

This Open Access book outlines ideas for a novel, scalable and, above all, sustainable financial system. We all know that today’s global markets are unsustainable and global governance is not effective enough. Given this situation, could one boost smart human coordination, sustainability and resilience by tweaking society at its core: the monetary system? A Computational Social Science team at ETH Zürich has indeed worked on a concept and little demonstrator for a new financial system, called “Finance 4.0” or just “FIN4”, which combines blockchain technology with the Internet of Things (“IoT”). What if communities could reward sustainable actions by issuing their own money (“tokens”)? Would people behave differently, when various externalities became visible and were actionable through cryptographic tokens? Could a novel, participatory, multi-dimensional financial system be created? Could it be run by the people for the people and lead to more societal resilience than today’s financial system (which is effectively one-dimensional due to its almost frictionless exchange)? How could one manage such a system in an ethical and democratic way? This book presents some early attempts in a nascent field, but provides a fresh view on what cryptoeconomic systems could do for us, for a circular economy, and for scalable, sustainable action

Discovery and Communication of Important Marketing Findings: Evidence and Proposals

My review of empirical research on scientific publication led to the following conclusions. Three criteria are useful for identifying whether findings are important: replication, validity, and usefulness. A fourth criterion, surprise, applies in some situations. Based on these criteria, important findings resulting from academic research in marketing seem to be rare. To a large extent, this rarity is due to a reward system that is built around subjective peer review. Rather than using peer review as a secret screening process, using an open process likely will improve papers and inform readers. Researchers, journals, business schools, funding agencies, and professional organizations can all contribute to improving the process. For example, researchers should do directed research on papers that contribute to principles. Journals should invite papers that contribute to principles. Business school administrators should reward researchers who make important findings. Funding agencies should base decisions on researchers' prior success in making important findings, and professional organizations should maintain web sites that describe what is known about principles and what research is needed on principles