Fidelización de internautas en la blogostera

Internet presenta un alto potencial como herramienta de fidelización para las marcas humanas. Entre ellas, los blogs se constituyen como uno de los modelos más atractivos para tal fin al tiempo que sirven para que sus autores se enfrenten a uno de los mayores peligros asociados a Internet: la circulación de información negativa. Si bien trabajos previos muestran como satisfacción, confianza y apego favorecen el desarrollo de compromiso, al tiempo que éste reduce el impacto de la información negativa sobre el comportamiento del consumidor, el presente trabajo se centra en el análisis del papel jugado por el género como variable moderadora en tales relaciones. Los resultados verifican como la relación entre compromiso e interpretación de la información negativa resulta superior para la muestras del género femeninoThe internet has a great potential as a tool in promoting loyalty to human brands. Personal blogs, one of its applications, are among the most powerful elements in pursuing this kind of loyalty. Furthermore, personal blogs are useful for their authors in confronting one of the main Internet risks, namely the possibility of harmful information flowing around. A look to the previous literature show that factors such satisfaction and have a positive effect on commitment –in turn, commitment clearly reducing the impact of potentially harmful information on user behaviour. The present research focuses on the roll that user gender has as a moderating factor on the relationships among the factors mentioned above. The research’s findings show that the relationship between commitment and the meaning of potentially harmful information is greater for women than for ma

What\u27s the Weather Like? The Effect of Team Climate and Individual Attributes on Individual Intention to Explore a New Technology

Research on technology adoption and use has come along way in explaining the factors driving individuals’ use of new technologies. However, recognizing the inherently nested structure of social systems, recent research has pointed to the need to understand new technology use from a multilevel perspective. This need is coupled with a desire to understand the factors that drive individuals’ utilization of the full range of features provided by the new technology. Drawing on the individual attributes and team climate literature, we develop a multilevel model predicting individual intention to explore a new technology. We test our model in the context of 410 individuals in 69 organizational work teams using a newly introduced VoIP system. Our results show that competitive climate has a positive influence on individual intention to explore. Moreover we also find that individual attributes not only significantly affect the individual intention to explore a new technology, but such attributes also place an important role in influencing the efficacy of competitive climate. In particular we find that older individuals and women exhibit a lower willingness to explore, and that team competitive climate serves as a catalyst for increasing women’s willingness to explore a new technology

Examining Student Satisfaction and Gender Differences in Technology-Supported, Blended Learning

Recently, blended learning has become popular in higher education. In this study, we aim to investigate influential factors that could impact student learning in this young and relatively immature environment. Factors from three perspectives – students themselves, instructors, and institutional support – were examined. Specifically, these factors are students’ computer self-efficacy, instructor characteristics, and facilitating conditions. A research model was developed to systematically assess their impacts on students’ perceived accomplishment, perceived enjoyment, and satisfaction toward the blended class. We also explored the gender differences by testing the research model on the two genders respectively. Interestingly, we found that for female students all three factors had significant impacts on their perceived accomplishment and perceived enjoyment, which in turn significantly impacted their learning satisfaction; however, for male students, no significant impact was found from computer self-efficacy to either perceived accomplishment or perceived enjoyment (the other two factors were significant)

Seminal Barriers to Female High School Students’ Choice of Information Technology as a Career Alternative

The under-representation of women in the IT profession is a well-known Information Systems phenomenon. Unlike the other sciences and mathematics, where the percentage of women receiving bachelor’s degrees has increased over the past two decades, the percentage of women obtaining degrees in technology has decreased. Information Technology started strong in 1984 with 37.06% women receiving bachelor’s degrees; however, 2004 brought a decrease to a low of 25.05%, near the level of three decades earlier. The consequences of this under-representation include non-diverse IT solutions, a predicted IT workforce shortage, and the United States losing its ability to participate as a fervent technological contributor in a global arena. Despite the importance of this issue, previous research has yielded isolated and often conflicting results. Past researchers have concentrated on small subsets rather than examining the complete breadth of barriers to the recruitment and retention of women in the IT field. This research consisted of seven major activities. First, a four-staged IT Career Lifecycle model was developed which advances the work of prior research. Second, it was determined that the specific scope and focus of this research would consist of Stage I of the IT Career Lifecycle model at a point where high school girls are considering college majors. Third, a literature review was conducted to establish a comprehensive list of Stage I barriers that have been identified by previous researchers. Fourth, a second new model was established that identifies and classifies all of the Stage I barriers identified by the literature. As part of this model’s development process, fourteen barriers were analyzed, summarized, and categorized into three sources: the girls, the IT community, and the societal influencers. Fifth, fourteen hypotheses were developed to validate the Stage I Barriers Model. Sixth, a survey was conducted to validate the Stage I model, determine the most prevalent barriers, identify new barriers, and capture the attitudes and perceptions of high school girls regarding the IT profession and its workers. The survey was administered to 417 female junior and senior girls in four high schools in the Chicago metropolitan area. Seventh, the Stage I model was reconstructed to incorporate the knowledge gained from the survey. Thus, through the process of this research, the reconstructed Barrier Model was grounded in research literature and validated through the “real world” view of high school girls’ attitudes, perceptions, and interests in computers and IT careers. Although the goal of the survey was to examine barriers to high school girls’ entry into the Information Technology field of study, findings went beyond that, falling into three main categories: barriers, enablers, and predictors. As expected, some of the findings identified significant barriers that were incorporated into a reconstructed Barrier Model. However, some results uncovered factors that were clearly, not identified as barriers by the participants. Consequently, some originally proposed barriers were reclassified as enablers and others as predictors of IT majors. Still other factors were recognized as having the potential to be classified in more than one way, barriers, enablers, or predictors. Since the original scope of the research incorporated barriers only, a framework did not exist to capture significant findings on enablers or predictors. Therefore, two additional models were developed, the IT Career Enabler and the IT Career Predictor. Additionally, this research created a new Pre-College IT Career framework to contain the three models, embracing factors that may influence high school girls in their potential pursuit of IT careers

Delivery issues in E-commerce: The case of Saudi Arabia

The rapid proliferation of internet has turned the growth of E-commerce into a global phenomenon including both, in the developed and developing countries. Several studies have been conducted in the perspective of consumer level Ecommerce adoption for different developed countries. There felt a need to look into the adoption of E-commerce on other countries, especially the developing countries. This study aims at investigate the delivery issues on E-commerce, and how does it concerns consumers. The delivery factors (cost of delivery, duration of delivery, and the ability to deliver products to any destinations) are involved in the study in order to find their importance in consumers’ decisions in online shopping. Saudi Arabia, like many other developing countries, has – to a certain extent – acceptable delivery systems. However, the delivery situation is not as strong as it is in the developed world, thus, examining the delivery systems in developing countries could provide different results. This Study verified the importance of the delivery factors in consumers’ decisions with regard the preference and willingness of purchasing from online stores. Additionally, the study identified the importance of the delivery factors in purchasing different types of products. In general, delivery factors are highly important in purchasing expensive and sensitive products. These results assist all players in E-commerce (governments, business, and individuals). Further, the study provides extensive details about online shoppers in Saudi Arabia which would help in improving E-commerce in Saudi Arabia. Generally, the situation of the delivery system in E-commerce in Saudi Arabia is not as bad as it is in other developing countries

Deconstructing the information and technology adoption process for the NGO sector in Saudi Arabia

Despite the lack of scholarly attention given to the voluntary sector in Saudi Arabia, the need for a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the NGO landscape in KSA has never been greater. Given Saudi Arabia’s global leadership in humanitarian and developmental aid and the growing scrutiny over the management of its non-governmental organizations (NGOs), especially post 9/11, the Saudi voluntary sector finds itself at an important crossroads. Calls for introspection, renewed management, and improved mechanisms for evaluation, control and monitoring have steadily been growing. This study argues that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has a central role to play in harnessing the NGO landscape of KSA. There are many benefits in the integration of ICT within the landscape of the Saudi NGO in providing better coordination and communication within and between stakeholders, knowledge and information transfer and sharing, the education and training for its staff and more rigorous evaluation, and the control and monitoring of initiatives. However, in order to advance the ICT agenda within the voluntary sector in KSA, a knowledge base regarding the sector’s attitude towards ICT adoption is essential. The aim of this study therefore, is to understand the dynamics of the technology adoption process in Saudi NGOs based on the experiences of Saudi NGO managers. Critically, the nature, i.e. whether technology adoption is based on personal, organizational or environmental and external factors, or a combination of these predictors forms the primary aim of this study. Second, the structure of technology adoption, in terms of determining which of these aforementioned factors generate a greater willingness to adopt new technologies forms a secondary objective. A third study objective seeks todeduce the managerial and public policy implications of a greater understanding of the nature and structure of technology adoption in Saudi NGOs.Post-positivist critical realist ontology is adopted to guide the mixed methods implementation of the research. An initial series of interviews with 12 Saudi managers is conducted to determine the key factors that influence technology adoption followed by the main element of the study, a survey of 287 NGO managers to test the conceptualization of technology adoption, and accompanying hypotheses, derived from the extant literature review and qualitative phase. Multi-variate, bivariate analysis and moderation analysis were used to test the proposed relationships. The initial interviews identified a modified version of the commonly applied technology acceptance model, the UTAUT framework, accurately reflected technology adoption in the Saudi NGO context and specifically proposed that the key predictors were a combination of personal factors (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, perceived risk), external or environmental factors (government support and competitive pressure) and finally organizational factors (facilitating conditions and compatibility). Multi-variate analysis validated this multi-dimensional nature of technology adoption in Saudi NGOs, but did not find statistical support for perceived risk, government support and compatibility, and with the exception of social influence, nor for any moderating role of gender and age on the personal predictive factors. The study contributes to theory since previous studies exploring technology adoption have adopted unitary approaches whereas the current study validates a multi-dimensional perspective as more reflective of technology adoption in Saudi NGOs. The implications of this finding, and for the inclusion and exclusion of predictive factors, are discussed. Specifically, the implications for managers and public policy are also overviewed. Finally, this study concludes with limitations and recommendations for further research