Identifying Costs and Benefits of Smart City Applications from End-users\u27 Perspective

The widespread availability and adoption of various smart city solutions have benefited their users by providing new services and information generated in realtime. These solutions use different types of sensors and GPS to collect, process and display data within the web and/or mobile applications. Focusing on the determinants of the intentions to use an application or its success, a large number of researchers developed and validated models such as TAM, UTAUT, IS Success Model and similar ones. This paper presents an exploratory approach that is based on the cost-benefit analysis with end-users who were invited to express their perceptions of different smart city solutions. Qualitative data were collected to devise a research instrument in subsequent phases based on the feedback from second-year business students. For each of the selected four smart city applications (smart parking, water quality monitoring, air quality monitoring, and real-time traffic monitoring), respondents were asked to work in groups and create a list of benefits and costs from their perspective. The analysis resulted with the list of 98 different cost and benefit statements (16 costs common for four smart city applications, 12 benefits common for four smart city applications, 10 distinctive costs and 60 specific benefits). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Consumer Location Based Service Perceptions and Response: a focus on Location Based Services and Emerging Mobile Lifestyles

Location Based Services (LBS) and electronically mediated lifestyles (e-lifestyles) represent emergent new areas with approaches (e.g. apps and e-activities) billed to change customer experiences and responses. Marketers are confronted with a challenge of understanding how consumers engage with mobile services and how to design appropriate strategies towards that (Donovan, 2013). A review of extant literature has indicated that the implementation of marketing strategies based on LBS is still in its infancy, and yet to gain widespread acceptance by consumers. The role of individual differences in consumer response to LBS is not reported in any substantive way in the literature- yet we know that e-lifestyles are now shaping different consumer responses to LBS. This PhD addresses this important area, with a focus on the role of e-lifestyles in consumer response to location-based services. The study relied on a sequential multimethod qualitative method of enquiry. Initially, in the first phase of data collection, relevant LBS websites were observed over a three-month period to explore consumer familiarity, attitudes and experience, offering some rich insights into consumer LBS awareness. In phase two of the research, specialist interviews (thirty-eight in total) were used in conjunction with cartoon tests as an effective way to establish the role of e-lifestyles, situational decision making as well as capturing actual (typical) consumer response in LBS encounters. In phase three, three focus groups were conducted with different user groups (young students, young professionals and older established working participants with families) to examine the role of individual factors in consumer LBS response. Findings in the study point to good experience with LBS with some selective engagement depending on user group profile, which broke down into ‘Involved’, ‘Observer’ or ‘Transaction’ orientations. Phase two (innovative cartoon tests) led to findings that mapped actual consumer response pathways in simulated encounters- four response pathways unique to this study emerged (immediate, delayed/future response, socially-mediated response and indifference). Findings also point towards influential individual factors such as variation on the basis of life stage, distinct patterns of proactivity and reactivity to LBS messages and the importance of situational factors on the nature of LBS response. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on LBS and e-lifestyles theory by providing deeper insights on actual consumer response process in typical LBS encounters (e.g. the UK context). It adds fresh insights into typical response processes by using specialist scenarios reflective of typical LBS encounters to map key response pathways, capturing ‘live’ customer experiences of different forms of LBS and interrogating the rationale behind individual responses using LBS scenarios. Findings also offer a clearer classification of customer response types (e.g. proactive and self-referencing LBS; reactive and cross-referencing LBS). By combining situational context, e-lifestyle and individual attributes influencing individual response to LBS in a single study, this research takes forward the argument of Weiss (2013) on the need for more in-depth examination of consumer response to LBS and takes further previous LBS adoption studies (Zhou, 2012)

The interrelationship between sustainable communities and the delivering pro-environmental behaviours actions in China

The majority of the world's environmental challenges are the result of human conduct. Existing pro-environmental behaviour theories that originated mainly in Western nations; due to differences in governance, culture and infrastructure, these theories must be evaluated for their applicability to the development of pro-environmental behaviour in Chinese communities. Therefore, this thesis explores the factors inherently influencing the formation of pro-environmental behaviour in Chinese communities and how this influences pro-environmental behaviour. A case study of the pro-environmental behaviour of inhabitants of two distinct types of residential communities in Beijing, the Hutong residential unit and the Commercial residential unit, is given using a mixed-methods approach. This thesis investigates how residents in both communities exhibit waste separation behaviour before and after mandatory separation regulations, and their perceptions of waste separation behaviour. The study found that the factors influencing the development of pro-environmental behaviour were a combination of legislation, social structure and infrastructure design, and for pro-environmental behaviour, strategies like recycling behaviour need to be developed based on the results of urban design and community demographics. The significance of this study is that by examining the factors that shape pro-environmental behaviour in local communities in China, it provides the basis for a locally relevant theory of pro-environmental behaviour formation and helps us to develop new models of application and evaluation, as well as specific methods to be used for different community types. These models and methodologies may better assist the government in developing policies that are suitable for diverse communities and areas, as well as enhance the creation of pro-environmental behaviour and the sustainable development of communities in China

Managing the Paradox of Growth in Brand Communities Through Social Media

The commercial benefits of online brand communities are an important focus for marketers seeking deeper engagement with increasingly elusive consumers. Managing participation in these socially bound brand conversations challenges practitioners to balance authenticity towards the community against corporate goals. This is important as social media proliferation affords communities the capacity to reach a scale well beyond their offline equivalents and to operate independently of brands. While research has identified the important elements of engagement in brand communities, less is known about how strategies required to maximise relationships in these circumstances must change with growth. Using a case study approach, we examine how a rapidly growing firm and its community have managed the challenges of a maturing relationship. We find that, in time, the community becomes self-sustaining, and a new set of marketing management strategies is required to move engagement to the next level