Where Does My Product Stand? A Social Network Perspective on Online Product Reviews

Customer reviews often include comparative comments on competing products. Adopting the The Strength of Weak Ties theory, we build a product social network around “strong tie” and “weak tie” entities. By performing text mining on comparative customer reviews collected from Amazon, we successfully identify strong and weak ties in a product network and compute the strength of these ties. Utilizing these network properties, we generate network graphs based on different product features and discover the underlying competitive relationships among them. In particular, our regression analysis shows that the strength of ties positively contributes to the review rating of a product and the strength of weak ties plays a more significant role than the strength of strong ties. These results will benefit vendors in online market to discover potential competitors, effectively tailor their marketing and product development efforts, and better position their products to increase profit and explore new market opportunities

Social media adoption among small and medium enterprises: affordance perspective

Current study advances the understanding of adoption of social media technology in small and medium sized enterprises. Widely regarded as essential in contemporary business environments, social media have substantial effects on productivity and competitiveness. However, this research questioned the technology and did not take the technology features and functionalities for granted that predictable or has a universal properties to measure any adoption decision. In this study, in line with technology-in-practice perspective, social media is performed as a general function and no specific or has some predictable outcomes. This thesis focuses primarily on Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in a developing country context, with reference to Malaysia. The thesis uses technology affordance perspective and modified Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) model to determine antecedents and outcomes of the adoption of social media. This study employed a sequential mixed-methods research approach to meet the research objectives. The data was first collected through 17 semi-structured interviews to study the situatedness of social media in business setting, followed by a survey of 337 SMEs in Malaysia to examine the hypotheses of the extended model. The survey data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). Connectivity, interaction, intimacy, flexibility, collaboration, top management support, investment and customer pressure were found to have a significant influence on SMEs’ decisions to adopt social media, while the adoption itself has a positive influence on technology paradoxes and business performance. This study has important implications and value for the research community, on how the technology has affected the changing nature of work, work practices and business environment. It contributes to enhancing our understanding about the factors influencing the adoption of social media technology in SMEs