'The show must go on': Event dramaturgy as consolidation of community

Event dramaturgy and cultural performance have not been examined in the literature from a strategic standpoint of fostering the social value of events. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the case of the Water Carnival, a celebratory event in a rural community of Southwest Texas, demonstrating the essence of this event as a symbolic social space, wherein event participants instantiate a shared and valued sense of community. A hermeneutical approach was employed, interpreting the event and its symbolisms as a text, combined with findings from ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, in-depth interviews and analysis of archival documents. The study examines the ways that dramaturgy in the Water Carnival helps frame the ongoing public discourse for community improvement and enhances social capital. The implications of the study for social leverage of events are discussed. It is suggested that a foundation for strategic social planning is the understanding of events as symbolic social spaces and their embeddedness in community development, which can be accomplished when events are pertinent to public discourse, address community issues, represent an inclusive range of stakeholders, and promote cooperation

Facilitating Efficient Information Seeking in Social Media

abstract: Online social media is popular due to its real-time nature, extensive connectivity and a large user base. This motivates users to employ social media for seeking information by reaching out to their large number of social connections. Information seeking can manifest in the form of requests for personal and time-critical information or gathering perspectives on important issues. Social media platforms are not designed for resource seeking and experience large volumes of messages, leading to requests not being fulfilled satisfactorily. Designing frameworks to facilitate efficient information seeking in social media will help users to obtain appropriate assistance for their needs and help platforms to increase user satisfaction. Several challenges exist in the way of facilitating information seeking in social media. First, the characteristics affecting the user’s response time for a question are not known, making it hard to identify prompt responders. Second, the social context in which the user has asked the question has to be determined to find personalized responders. Third, users employ rhetorical requests, which are statements having the syntax of questions, and systems assisting information seeking might be hindered from focusing on genuine questions. Fouth, social media advocates of political campaigns employ nuanced strategies to prevent users from obtaining balanced perspectives on issues of public importance. Sociological and linguistic studies on user behavior while making or responding to information seeking requests provides concepts drawing from which we can address these challenges. We propose methods to estimate the response time of the user for a given question to identify prompt responders. We compute the question specific social context an asker shares with his social connections to identify personalized responders. We draw from theories of political mobilization to model the behaviors arising from the strategies of people trying to skew perspectives. We identify rhetorical questions by modeling user motivations to post them.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

Exploring Strategic Organizational Engagement in Social Media: A Revelatory Case

There has been little theorizing in information systems (IS) or management literature to inform organizational strategies for social media engagement. Aral et al. (2013) lament the dearth of scholarly work focused on understanding organizations’ high-level social media strategies. In this research, we describe our case research to develop an empirically informed understanding of strategic organizational engagement in social media to advance organizational goals. We present an in-depth case study of strategic social media engagement at a successful multi-national business and IT consulting firm who routinely develops and deploys social media strategies to advance organizational goals. We situate our interpretation in the dynamic capabilities perspective, and present a revelatory case well-suited to developing an empirically-informed understanding of strategic social media engagement to advance organizational goals. We develop an analytic perspective of social media based as social systems, and describe topical collectivities as strategically important members of their ontology

Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Lessons in Innovation from the High-Tech Sector

This paper examines the major priorities and prevailing values of firms highly regarded for innovation success within the Australian high-tech sector. In conjunction with the Information Industry Association of Australia (AIIA), a survey was undertaken regarding member perceptions of peer enterprises most admired for innovation origination and delivery. 244 responses from 102 organisations were received, analysed and compared. Direct follow-up with selected enterprises then more closely examined factors deemed key to sustaining a cycle of innovation leadership. Findings suggest that firms most esteemed by peers also prioritise the realisation of innovation over simply making money - yet both high growth and cash flows are still habitually generated .Results also show that having a strong reputation for innovation is a competitive advantage in its own right as they attract invitation to cross-enterprise ecosystems and beneficial partner alliances. Interestingly however, topics linked to outsider/peer perceptions of rival enterprises seem to collect comparatively limited precedence within innovation debates. What our study shows is that balancing an internal reality of innovation with the external perception for innovation can lead firms to significant improvements in overall commercial performance