Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

The Effect of Using Social Media Marketing on Customer Engagement in the Public Sector: The Case of the Zakat Fund

Social Media Sites (SMSs) are affecting a wide cross-section of marketing activities, including research, strategy formulation, advertising, promotions and sales. It is proposed that Social Media Sites (SMSs) are not only an addition to the modern marketer\u27s toolkit, but mark an endemic and ecological change. The purpose of this research is to investigate what antecedents determine a user\u27s engagement with an account on a social media sites (SMSs). Through their use, the social media have facilitated various business opportunities as well as providing the public sector with platforms through which organizations can engage current and future customers. Still, the huge gap of practical knowledge about the role of SMSs in the public sector should not be forgotten. A key issue is this area is the focus on the user\u27s; however, beyond this, the dissertation probed below the surface to see how such virtual engagement is conceptualized and what factors facilitate and support customer materialization. In the same context, this research assesses the effectiveness of using Social Media Marketing (SMM) as a tool in the public sector and attempts to shed light on it by examining the different user needs that SMSs satisfy, together with the important implications and outcomes for public sector bodies hoping to become involved in SMM. Consequently, it proposes a framework to serve the building of theory for understanding Customer Materialization on SMSs. The research model was based on the premise that SMSs are likely to symbolically engage users in the social media when public sector organizations pay close attention to three key areas: Adoption, Implications and Outcomes. This research is notable for proposing an integrated framework which considers different aspects of social science: the media, technology, and marketing. The Uses and Gratifications theory (U&G Theory), the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the Customer Engagement Cycle are used as instruments in this research. With their aid, a questionnaire was developed to target Zakat Fund followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The questionnaire was hosted online, and then, a web link was posted to the Zakat Fund Accounts on the SMSs. E-mails were also sent to more than 2,000 users. The participants eventually totalled 733. The dissertation results supported its objectives and clarified four critical arguments by achieving: 1) a better understanding was reached of SMSs users\u27 behaviour and the psychological gratifications they derive from adopting SMSs; 2) those relationships were revalidated in the context of SMSs with hypotheses that focused on the relations between Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Perceived Usefulness (PU), attitude to Behavioral Intentions (BI) ; 3) the user\u27s journey via SMSs toward Behavioral Intentions (BI) could be speeded up (accelerated) or slowed down (decelerate) by one of two factors: Trust and Virtual Engagement; 4) the engaged user has the full intention to move from the virtual world to the real world. This research introduced a new concept, Customer Materialization . Moreover, this research contributes to the practical knowledge in the area of the social media and marketing through them, and has important practical solutions for increasing the effectiveness of marketing strategy overall and for the public sector on Social Media Sites (SMSs) in particular. Finally, this study has its own limitations and recognizing them should help refine future investigation efforts. Future researchers will also need to focus on integrating other SMSs and different contexts

Similarities and differences in self-disclosure and friendship development between fact-to-face communication and Facebook

This research identified the patterns of self-disclosure between face-to-face and Facebook friends’ interactions. A survey of 317 participants was conducted to compare the hypothesized relationships among social attraction, self-disclosure, predictability and trust in three types of relationships: recently added Facebook friend, exclusive Facebook friend, and an exclusive face-to-face friend. Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), t-tests and correlations. Results indicated that individuals reporting high levels of social attraction also reported having greater self-disclosure with their latest added Facebook friend, exclusive Facebook friend and an exclusive face-to-face friend. This supports a theorem of Uncertainty Reduction Theory that states that persons disclose intimate information to individuals they like and withhold intimate information from persons whom they do not like. These individuals also reported greater predictability of their Facebook and face-to-face friends’ behavior, which supports axiom of Uncertainty Reduction Theory that as the amount of verbal communication between strangers increases, the level of uncertainty for each interactant in the relationship will decrease. The more friends talked to each other, the less uncertainty they experienced. Additional evidence that the relationship development across different friendship types (latest added Facebook friend, exclusive Facebook friend and exclusive face-to-face friend) is similar was the statistically significant relationship between the variables of self-disclosure and trust. This supports the tenets of Social Penetration Theory and previous studies that found self-disclosure to be important for the facilitation of developing mutual trust. The results of this study showed that the process of relationship development, in terms of the relationship between social attraction, self-disclosure, predictability and trust, were similar in both Facebook and face-to-face relationships. However, significant differences existed in the amount of self-disclosure and trust between Facebook friends and face-to-face friends. Although the average duration of both exclusive face-to-face friendships and exclusive Facebook friendships was six years, participants reported more self-disclosure, more predictability and trust in their face-to-face friends than with their Facebook friends. The findings about offline friendships involving more breadth and depth than online friendships seem to support “cues-filtered-out” approach

Critical review of the e-loyalty literature: a purchase-centred framework

Over the last few years, the concept of online loyalty has been examined extensively in the literature, and it remains a topic of constant inquiry for both academics and marketing managers. The tremendous development of the Internet for both marketing and e-commerce settings, in conjunction with the growing desire of consumers to purchase online, has promoted two main outcomes: (a) increasing numbers of Business-to-Customer companies running businesses online and (b) the development of a variety of different e-loyalty research models. However, current research lacks a systematic review of the literature that provides a general conceptual framework on e-loyalty, which would help managers to understand their customers better, to take advantage of industry-related factors, and to improve their service quality. The present study is an attempt to critically synthesize results from multiple empirical studies on e-loyalty. Our findings illustrate that 62 instruments for measuring e-loyalty are currently in use, influenced predominantly by Zeithaml et al. (J Marketing. 1996;60(2):31-46) and Oliver (1997; Satisfaction: a behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw Hill). Additionally, we propose a new general conceptual framework, which leads to antecedents dividing e-loyalty on the basis of the action of purchase into pre-purchase, during-purchase and after-purchase factors. To conclude, a number of managerial implementations are suggested in order to help marketing managers increase their customers’ e-loyalty by making crucial changes in each purchase stage

Peer-to-peer-based file-sharing beyond the dichotomy of 'downloading is theft' vs. 'information wants to be free': How Swedish file-sharers motivate their action

This thesis aims to offer a comprehensive analysis of peer-to-peer based file-sharing by focusing on the discourses about use, agency and motivation involved, and how they interrelate with the infrastructural properties of file-sharing. Peer-to-peer-based file-sharing is here defined as the unrestricted duplication of digitised media content between autonomous end nodes on the Internet. It has become an extremely popular pastime, largely involving music, film, games and other media which is copied without the permission of the copyright holders. Due to its illegality, the popular understanding of the phenomenon tends to overstate its conflictual elements, framing it within a legalistic 'copyfight'. This is most markedly manifested in the dichotomised image of file-sharers as 'pirates' allegedly opposed to the entertainment industry. The thesis is an attempt to counter this dichotomy by using a more heterodox synthesis of perspectives, aiming to assimilate the phenomenon's complex intermingling of technological, infrastructural, economic and political factors. The geographic context of this study is Sweden, a country characterised by early broadband penetration and subsequently widespread unrestricted file-sharing, paralleled by a lively and well-informed public debate. This gives geographic specificity and further context to the file sharers' own justificatory discourses, serving to highlight and problematise some principal assumptions about the phenomenon. The thesis thus serves as a geographically contained case study which will have analytical implications outside of its immediate local context, and as an inquiry into two aspects of file-sharer argumentation: the ontological understandings of digital technology and the notion of agency. These, in turn, relate to particular forms of sociality in late modernity. Although the agencies and normative forces involved are innumerable, controversies about agency tend to order themselves in a more comprehensive way, as they are appropriated discursively. The invocation to agency that is found in the justificatory discourses - both in the public debate and among individual respondents - thus allows for a more productive and critically attentive understanding of the phenomenon than previously

Online Media Piracy: Convergence, Culture, and the Problem of Media Change

This thesis proposes that there is a symbiotic relationship between the emergence of online media piracy and the industrial, economic and legal changes that have shaped contemporary popular media in the early 21st century. The Internet is at the heart of most recent transformations of the popular media environment, such as the emergence of video-on-demand formats for film and television consumption and the impact this has had on the nature of those media forms. This thesis discusses the powerful role played by online media piracy in shaping these developments, both through changing the expectations of consumers, and the options that are available for distributors of media content. As well as exploring the diverse forms and practices of online media piracy today, this thesis also explores theories of media change, considering how we might understand such piracy as a force underpinning media change, and how the changes it has helped shape might be placed in a broader historical context. To that end, the history and impact of online media piracy are considered alongside other examples, such as the arrival of video recording devices and the expansion of cable television in the 1980s and 90s, and the significance of international trade deals impacting access to media via “geoblocking” and other techniques of access management. Finally, this thesis also examines debates around copyright, and the potential political significance of piracy as a tool for accessing media and culture, viewing online media piracy as a crucial practice appearing at a nexus of industrial and popular interests, tied to technological, economic and legal developments, and to changing consumer behavior and expectations

The Exposure Economy Model: Navigating Visibility on Instagram

To be seen on social media is a crucial concern for content creators, who have developed visibility practices to stand out in overcrowded online markets. ‘Exposure’, the state of being publicised to new audiences, has hence become increasingly valuable and is treated as a reward to be utilised as currency. This thesis shifts thinking around the social media landscape by offering a new model to view the participants and practices involved in the production, consumption, and trade of exposure. The Exposure Economy Model (EEM) compares the operations of the Instagram platform and its users, influencers, and agencies to respective economic stakeholders, namely retail institutions, consumers, brand manufacturers and distributors. This comparison is grounded in digital ethnography, consisting of participant observation, surveys, semi-structured interviews, and textual analysis. Through investigating the exposure-seeking practices within EEM, the research design examines algorithmic structures that lead to disproportionate visibility outcomes online. Subsequent research findings introduce new categories to segment social media users, namely engaged users, private participants, and need-centric consumers, and illustrate how variables such as aesthetics, aspiration and authenticity are crucial to the construction of influencer branding. By focusing on Instagram, this thesis explores the app’s specific use by key stakeholders, how they navigate capitalist systems and the social and cultural impacts of exposure inflation. Beyond the example of Instagram, however, these discussions build on existing research on influencers, micro-celebrity, and the creator economy by drawing attention to digital inequalities and providing suggestions for mitigating and adapting to social media change

The Nature of the Relationships Between Brand Loyalty and Advertising

abstract: In the recent years, more and more products come into the market, which provides thousands of choices for consumers. We live in a world full of brands, all trying to attract our attention. A critical part of this process is the criteria for selection. Research has found that criteria always derive from individuals’ experience, which finally creates a unique identity for certain products and brands that could be considered synonym with the specific product. This is a fast-growing phenomenon since the advent of the commodity economy period. In today’s competitive environment, modern consumers are the decision makers and the heart of a value exchange. They are becoming increasingly informed as they compare the attributes of different brands. Advertising has always been one of the important ways for companies to build strong relationships with consumers. This research aims to study the relationship between brand loyalty and advertising. This research is focused on two kind of advertisements; advertisements through social network and launch events, which have different characters, differences in broadcast frequency, and different promotion methods. Interview and survey were mainly used for this study. Research results conclude that: 1) The impact of the press conference is greater than advertising through social network and the effect of a precise advertisement is greater than repeated advertising for individuals. 2) Advertisements should be launched in a less forceful way than in the past. They should try to affect consumers subconsciously, to disguise the fact that they are advertisements and thus keep in sync with consumers, in order to help create loyalty through certain brand. 3) Consumers also want to have more interactions with firms and other users and to participate in the creation of brand-consumer relationships. 4) Advertisements have positive effect in creating brand image.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Design 201