An evaluation of digital marketing applications in airline sector

In the age of digital transformation , enterprises use digital marketing practices effectively in order to increase customer loyalty considering customer relationship management, to create difference and to provide competitive advantage. The airway sector, where the acceleration is fast and the competition is high, aims to present fast and secure user experience and make the customer live a different traveler experience by using all technology and marketing related  platforms. Research problem is that it is a necessity for airline brands to digitalize by utilizing the richness of technology and to offer digital applications to consumers at the local / global platform. The aim of this study is to investigate the digital marketing strategies of a number of national and international airway companies such as e-mail marketing, web marketing, social media marketing and mobile applications and to analyze the positioning of digital marketing applications. Because digital marketing is the leading actor of marketing and it is presented as the real throne of virtual world in the airway sector. For this reason, best practices from Turkey and abroad were analyzed in the context of the effect of digital marketing on the customer relations management by using descriptive method and screening method. The findings of the research shows that, by the changes in the customer expectations and demands, the airway companies try to use the digital marketing tools effectively. However, the usage of right strategy for digital management is important to make difference and compete in the airway sector

The Economics of Multi-Hop Ride Sharing - Creating New Mobility Networks Through IS

Ride sharing allows to share costs of traveling by car, e.g., for fuel or highway tolls. Furthermore, it reduces congestion and emissions by making better use of vehicle capacities. Ride sharing is hence beneficial for drivers, riders, as well as society. While the concept has existed for decades, ubiquity of digital and mobile technology and user habituation to peer-to-peer services and electronic markets have resulted in particular growth in recent years. This paper explores the novel idea of multi-hop ride sharing and illustrates how information systems can leverage its potential. Based on empirical ride sharing data, we provide a quantitative analysis of the structure and the economics of electronic ride sharing markets. We explore the potential and competitiveness of multi-hop ride sharing and analyze its implications for platform operators. We find that multi-hop ride sharing proves competitive against other modes of transportation and has the potential to greatly increase ride availability and city connectedness, especially under high reliability requirements. To fully realize this potential, platform operators should implement multi-hop search, assume active control of pricing and booking processes, improve coordination of transfers, enhance data services, and try to expand their market share

Instrumentalization in the Public Smart Bikeshare Sector

This thesis is concerned with understanding how smart technologies are conceived, created and implemented, and explores the ways these processes are shaped by historical, geo-political, economic and technical contexts. At its core the thesis is concerned with understanding how technical citizenship and democracy can be preserved within the design process against a backdrop of increasing neoliberalism and technocracy. This is investigated by means of a comparative study of smart public bikeshare schemes in Dublin, Ireland and Hamilton, Canada. These schemes are configured and systemized using a variety of technical and ideological rationales and express the imaginaries of place in significantly different ways. Utilising a conceptual framework derived from Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology, the thesis unpacks and problematizes the innovation process in order to understand how the outcomes of these schemes support the way of life of one or another influential social group. The philosophical orientation of the study is critical constructivism which combines a form of constructivism with more systematic and socially critical views of technology. The axis of comparison between the schemes is democratization and the manner in which the rationalizations and embedded cultural assumptions characterizing particular places operate to support or resist more egalitarian forms of participation. Methodologically, Feenberg’s critical framework is supported both by theory-driven thematic coding and critical hermeneutics which is an interpretative process that compliments the theoretical framework and positions issues of power and ideology within a wider, macro-level context. Data sources supporting the research comprise interviews, a variety of documentary sources and the architectures and technical specifications of both smart bikeshare systems. The findings from the research illustrate that despite the pervasiveness of a neoliberal orthodoxy conditioning technology production, citizen-centric design is still possible within a climate of consensus building and cooperation. As such, the thesis adds to the body of knowledge on philosophy of technology, critical urbanism, smart city development, democratic engagement and collaborative infrastructuring. In addition, the conceptual framework, developed in response to the empirical cases, represents an elaboration of Feenberg’s work and so the thesis also makes an important contribution to the analytic and methodological potential of critical theory of technology

The role of digitalization in the internationalization process of a traditional SME

The emergence of digital technologies and the on-going digital transformation accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic has presented also traditional SMEs opportunities to exploit the advantages of digitalization in their internationalization process. Although, digitalization and its connection to entrepreneurship have been studied by various researchers, there are few studies examining the phenomenon from the perspective of an SME and even less focusing on the traditional SMEs. The objective of the study is thus, to fill the research gap and extend the research to examine the role of digitalization in the internationalization process of a traditional SME. The term traditional SME is used in this study to describe a small and medium -sized enterprise trading consumer goods and services that exist in the physical dimension. The research was conducted in a form of a qualitative case study consisting of three Finland-based companies. The study was further supported by a literature review focusing on theoretical research around digitalization, internationalization, and the relationship between those two topics. The study’s aim is to answer the research question “How can digitalization advance the internationalization process of a traditional SME?”. The study’s findings show that digitalization has an enabling role in the internationalization process of a traditional SME. According to the results, digitalization can advance the internationalization process in terms of decreased risks related to foreign market selection, increased reach of wide audiences in a cost-efficient manner, and possibilities to swiftly implement data-based marketing decisions to support revenue creation. Additionally, remote operations enabled by digitalization create new international business opportunities and allow traditional SMEs to generate direct international sales. Lastly, digitalization enables resource-efficient internal and external value creation. The findings further emphasize the significance of the companies’ entrepreneurial orientation towards digitalization, appropriate capabilities, and sufficient resources in order to benefit from the opportunities presented by digitalization.Digitaalisten teknologioiden kehitys ja meneillään oleva Covid-19-pandemian kiihdyttämä digitaalinen transformaatio ovat luoneet mahdollisuuksia myös perinteisille pienille ja keskisuurille yrityksille (pk-yrityksille). Yksi näistä mahdollisuuksista on digitalisaation hyödyntäminen pk-yritysten kansainvälistymisessä. Digitalisaatiosta ja sen yhteydestä yrittäjyyteen on tehty lukuisia tutkimuksia, mutta ilmiötä ei ole juurikaan käsitelty pk-yrityksen saatikka perinteisen pk-yrityksen näkökulmasta. Tutkielman tarkoituksena on laajentaa aikaisempaa digitalisaation tutkimusta ja selvittää digitalisaation roolia perinteisten pk-yritysten kansainvälistymisprosessissa. Tässä tutkielmassa termillä “perinteinen pk-yritys” tarkoitetaan pieniä ja keskisuuria yrityksiä, jotka toimittavat fyysisessä muodossa olevia tuotteita ja palveluita. Tutkielma suoritettiin laadullisena tapaustutkimuksena, joka koostui kolmesta suomalaisesta yrityksestä. Tämän lisäksi tutkielma hyödyntää digitalisaatiota, kansainvälistymistä ja näiden kahden aiheen suhdetta käsittelevää teoreettista tutkimusaineistoa. Tutkielman tavoitteena on vastata kysymykseen “Miten digitalisaatio voi hyödyttää perinteisen pk-yrityksen kansainvälistymisprosessia?” Tutkimustulokset osoittavat, että digitalisaatiolla on avustava rooli tutkimuskohteiden kansainvälistymisessä. Tulosten mukaan digitalisaatio voi hyödyttää kansainvälistymisprosessia usealla tavalla: vähentäen ulkomaan markkinavalintaan liittyviä riskejä, kasvattamalla kustannustehokkaasti suurten yleisöjen saavutettavuutta, ja mahdollistamalla nopeiden dataan perustuvien markkinointipäätösten implementoinnin tuloksen kasvattamiseksi. Lisäksi digitalisaation mahdollistamat etätoiminnot luovat uusia kansainvälisen liiketoiminnan tilaisuuksia sekä antavat perinteisille pk-yrityksille kyvykkyyden kansainvälisten suorien tulovirtojen muodostamiseen. Kaiken tämän lisäksi digitalisaatio toimii alustana resurssitehokkaalle sisäiselle ja ulkoiselle arvon luomiselle. Tulokset korostavat lisäksi organisaatioiden digitalisaatioon suuntautuvan yrittäjämäisyyden, soveltuvien kyvykkyyksien ja riittävien resurssien merkitystä digitalisaation tuomien mahdollisuuksien hyödyntämisessä

How Do Mainstream Cultural Market Categories Emerge: A Multi-Level Analysis of the Creation of Electronic Dance Music

In my research I explore how a new market category is created in an existing market. I contribute to existing research in marketing by developing a novel framework that conceptualizes markets as constituted of three levels, and by explaining the contribution of each level to the creation of a new market category. My findings emerge from a qualitative inquiry of the creation of the category of Electronic Dance Music (EDM). I find that each level contributes differently to the creation of a mainstream cultural category. Local innovation networks (or LINs) unite consumers and producers and provide unique elements that facilitate the creation of new cultural products by consumers. Niches serve as a bridge between these local networks and a mainstream market. Niche actors contribute to the creation of a boundary infrastructure that supports the transfer, translation, and transformation of the knowledge associated with an innovative cultural product. This, in turn, facilitates the movement of an innovative cultural product from a local network to a mainstream market. Mainstream actors diffuse elements of the innovative cultural product and open what Bourdieu calls a space of possibles. Niche entrepreneurs and peripheral mainstream actors seize the opportunity to engineer a new cultural category. I discuss the theoretical implications of this research in regard to the conceptualization of markets as uni-level vs. multi-level, and the conceptualization of market creation from a categorization perspective. I provide strategic recommendations to facilitate the movement of a product from a niche to a mainstream market (i.e., selling out). I also provide managerial recommendations based on the use of boundary objects as instruments of power

WELCOME TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ERA: FROM PROOF-OF-CONCEPT TO BIG DATA INSIGHTS CREATION

Digital transformation (DT) is no longer an optional strategic priority, but the direction for managers of traditional firms that their success is built in the pre-digital era. With all hype around DT opportunities, it is rather a highly complex challenge that affects many or all segments of a firm and more so at the early stages of DT. Firms at the early stage of DT face the challenge of choosing among a big variety of existing and emerging technologies on the market, neglecting technological uncertainty, navigating through the technological solutions ocean, and avoiding hype-driven decisions while being technology competence-less. With this respect, the phase preceding any adoption or rejection of a new DT initiative and aiming at the first meeting and proving feasibility and commercial opportunities becomes increasingly important. The thesis investigates three particular phenomena of the earliest Digital Transformation (DT) stage, that are seemingly well-known and intuitively clear but suffer from the lack of empirical and conceptual evidence base as well as theoretical ground on closer inspection, namely, proof-of-concept, data-driven decision-making, and Big Data insights creation. Focusing on the three aspects of the early stage of DT allows building a research agenda that consists of complementing each other parts. Three-essays research was run with three related objectives. Each objective is addressed by conducting independent research using comparative methods. The thesis applies the qualitative approach as the overarching, with the relative to the three essays methodologies, namely, qualitative case study, ethnography, and participatory observation. The thesis uses qualitative methods to derive main findings and quantitative methods based on novel computational techniques to add more nuances to the results. This allows a new empirical and conceptual perspective on the earliest stages of DT. The findings suggest that a) cognitive biases drive what I labeled as perceived technology potentiality, moreover, technology awareness develops step-wise as PoC is run moving from borrowed technology awareness to minimum acquired technology awareness and enhanced technology awareness. These findings were used to explain how PoC dynamic changes with time. Further, findings show how b) different types of traps (cognitive and data) drive managerial trust in data when data-driven decision-making is first used. The findings were taken as the ground to build the three traps zones notion, where the decisions and trust in data are driven by different combinations of traps. Finally, findings reveal that c) Big Data dimensions have their related sub-dimensions, differences and similarities of which led to the discovery of the two effects of Big Data dimensions, namely, Proliferation and Additive. These findings helped to explain how exactly Big Data dimensions participate in the Big Data insights creation and to build the conceptual matrix of Big Data insights creation. In this vein, the research contributes to the technology innovation literature by shedding light on the phenomena of the earliest stage of DT and by initiating the first comprehensive conversation on PoC, data-driven decision-making, and Big Data insights creation. Further, the research contributes to the existing literature on managerial cognition, decision-making, and Big Data usefulness. Finally, contributions to methods in the technology innovation field are drawn

Digital Hollywood 2.0: Reimagining Film, Music, Television and Publishing Distribution as a Global Artist Collaborative

Jon M. Garon, Digital Hollywood 2.0: Reimagining Film, Music, Television and Publishing Distribution as a Global Artist Collaborative, 21 Mich. St. Int\u27l L. Rev. 563 (2013). The seven largest U.S. motion picture distributors control as much as ninety percent of the U.S. domestic box office and the majority of the global theatrical box office revenues. This economic dominance in gross revenue, however, undervalues the success of financially and artistically successful works budgeted for smaller audiences. Similar economics also drive music and publishing economies. Measured solely from gross revenue, the Hollywood model of distribution dominates most markets around the world. Lower budgeted projects, however, may have much higher returns on capital investment and allow the creative artists to engage more targeted audiences. When more appropriate measures of success are utilized, a different picture emerges. European productions represent a significant amount of content and although Hollywood continues to achieve a disproportionate amount of gross revenue, the European productions continue to achieve profitability and audience acclaim. The same is true elsewhere. India, for example, “has a thriving film industry, both Bollywood films, the Hindi blockbusters coming out of Mumbai film studios, and regional films made in regional languages dominate the Indian box office leaving less room for Hollywood films.” South Korea, Nigeria, Hong Kong and increasingly China all have strong attendance of regionally produced films despite the competition with U.S. product. This article will analyze the legal strategies and business models utilized by the new film distribution companies and contrast these with the models working for Bollywood, online music distribution at Apple, and e-book strategies at Amazon and Google. These strategies include social networking and community development at the inception, production and distribution stages of the content. Distribution 2.0 begins with crowd-funding and related strategies to engage the audience before and during production to build interest prior to distribution. It analyzes current financial structures to assure a healthier economic relationship between participants, producers, and distributors in order to create a sustainable business model. It then looks at the distribution strategies to emphasize the ability to use social networking and communities of interest to build and sustain audiences and rethink pricing strategy. This article will address the financial regulations, intellectual property laws and contracting strategies that interfere with existing models and articulate the potential best practices for the next generation of narrative and documentary films. The model also creates a platform for shorts, episodic content (e.g., series television) and music

The End of Traffic and the Future of Access: A Roadmap to the New Transport Landscape

In most industrialized countries, car travel per person has peaked and the automobile regime is showing considering signs of instability. As cities across the globe venture to find the best ways to allow people to get around amidst technological and other changes, many forces are taking hold — all of which suggest a new transport landscape. Our roadmap describes why this landscape is taking shape and prescribes policies informed by contextual awareness, clear thinking, and flexibility