A Novel Design Science Approach for Integrating Chinese User-Generated Content in Non-Chinese Market Intelligence

Market research has long relied on reactive means of data gathering, such as questionnaires or focus groups. With the wide-spread use of social media, millions of comments about customer opinions and feedback regarding products and brands are available. However, before using this ‘wisdom of the crowd’ as a source for marketing research, several challenges have to be tackled: the sheer volume of posts, their unstructured format, and the dozens of different languages used on the internet. All of them make automated usage of this data challenging. In this paper, we draw on dashboard design principles and follow a design science research approach to develop a framework for search, integration, and analysis of cross-language user-generated content. With ‘MarketMiner’, we implement the framework in the automotive industry by analyzing Chinese auto forums. The results are promising in that MarketMiner can dramatically improve utilization of foreign-language social media content for market intelligence purposes

The Ready-To-Go Questionnaire predicts health outcomes during travel: a smartphone application-based analysis

BACKGROUND The Ready-To-Go (R2G) Questionnaire is a tool for rapid assessment of health risks for travel consultation. This study aims to assess the utility of the R2G Questionnaire in identifying high-risk travellers and predicting health events and behaviour during travel in the TOURIST2 prospective cohort. METHODS TOURIST2 data were used to calculate the R2G medical and travel risk scores and categorize each participant based on their risk. The TOURIST2 study enrolled 1000 participants from Switzerland's largest travel clinics between 2017 and 2019. Participants completed daily smartphone application surveys before, during and after travel on health events and behaviours. We used regression models to analyse incidence of overall health events and of similar health events grouped into health domains (e.g. respiratory, gastrointestinal, accident/injury). Incidence rate ratios (IRR) are displayed with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). RESULTS R2G high-risk travellers experienced significantly greater incidence of health events compared to lower-risk travellers (IRR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.22-1.33). Both the medical and travel scores showed significant positive associations with incidence of health events during travel (IRR = 1.11, 95% CI: 1.07-1.16; IRR = 1.07, 95% CI: 1.03-1.12, respectively), with significant increases in all health domains except skin disorders. Medical and travel risk scores were associated with different patterns in behaviour. Travellers with chronic health conditions accessed medical care during travel more often (IRR = 1.16, 95% CI: 1.03-1.31), had greater difficulty in carrying out planned activities (IRR = -0.04, 95% CI: -0.05, -0.02), and rated their travel experience lower (IRR = -0.04, 95% CI: -0.06, -0.02). Travellers with increased travel-related risks due to planned travel itinerary had more frequent animal contact (IRR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.01-1.18) and accidents/injuries (IRR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.15-1.44). CONCLUSIONS The R2G Questionnaire is a promising risk assessment tool that offers a timesaving and reliable means to identify high-risk travellers. Incorporated into travel medicine websites, it could serve as a pre-consultation triage to help travellers self-identify their risk level, direct them to the appropriate medical provider(s), and help practitioners in giving more tailored advice

The determinants of brand loyalty of football supporters : a study of Bundesliga

The dissertation addresses the factors which influence loyalty for football supporters with re-gards to the Bundesliga. Success seemed to be important for football clubs and logically to be important for having a large group of supporters. In terms of membership numbers, the Bun-desliga shows a different result. There are several clubs which are not that successful in terms of performance but have a big amount of members. The dissertation gives a deeper insight on this problem and this can be seen in the main research question, that is the determinants influ-ence on loyalty of football supporters, especially for the Bundesliga. The results of online sur-vey of 167 respondents suggest that group affiliation, emotional stimulation, economic motives and self-identity correlate positively with loyalty. Interestingly, the factor of success does not appeal to be of an influence on loyalty of supporters. Additionally, four in-depth interviews with football supporters were conducted to gain a deeper insight. The results of the in-depth interviews have strength the results of the questionnaire and gave a further insight that values of the club, local proximity, being with friends and sharing memories are the main drivers for loyalty. The research serves as a contribution to the scientific process as preliminary work for metaregression.A dissertação aborda os factores que influenciam a lealdade dos adeptos de futebol no que diz respeito à Bundesliga. O sucesso tende a ser importante para os clubes de futebol e, logicamente, é importante ter um grande grupo de adeptos. Em termos de número de membros, a Bundesliga apresenta um resultado diferente. Há vários clubes que não são tão bem sucedidos em termos de desempenho, mas que têm um grande número de membros. A dissertação dá uma visão mais profunda sobre este problema e isto pode ser visto na principal questão de investigação, ou seja, a influência dissuasora na lealdade dos adeptos de futebol, especialmente para a Bundesliga. Os resultados da pesquisa online de 167 inquiridos sugerem que a filiação em grupo, a estimulação emocional, os motivos económicos e a auto-identidade correlacionam-se positivamente com a lealdade. Curiosamente, o factor de sucesso não apela a uma influência sobre a lealdade dos adeptos. Além disso, foram realizadas quatro entrevistas aprofundadas com adeptos de futebol para obter uma visão mais profunda. Os resultados das entrevistas aprofundadas reforçaram os resultados do questionário e deram uma visão adicional de que os valores do clube, a proximidade local, estar com amigos e partilhar memórias são os principais motores da lealdade. A investigação serve como um contributo para o processo científico como trabalho preliminar para a meta-regressão

The Impact of Social Media Appearances During Election Campaigns

With social media services gaining importance in recent years, political institutions are continuously incorporating this development especially during elective campaigns. In the present empirical study, we use the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to conceptualize the level of acceptance of social media appearances. To identify differences when dealing with politically motivated social media appearances, seven hypotheses are derived and tested. We identified the seven most important social media services in Germany and globally and used an adaptive conjoint-analysis to extract 33 major functions of these services. Controlled by four moderators, multiple analyses of variances expose significant differences referring to effects of UTAUT determinants and thereby towards Behavioral Intention as well as Use Behavior. As elections took place in the USA or will be held in the near future in Germany, these results can be the basis to conduct additional transnational comparative studies in a further step

Should We Disable the Comment Function on Social Media? The Impact of Negative eWOM on Consumers’ Trust in Fashion Presentations

Part 4: Social Media and Web 3.0 for SmartnessInternational audienceElectronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has attracted a great deal of attention in both academia and practice in recent years. Our empirical study investigates the relation of negative comments and consumers’ trust in fashion presentations focusing on clothing. It is a product category characterized by a lot of online conversation and opinion sharing, but is surprisingly under-researched regarding eWOM. We calculate a multiple regression model moderated by consumers’ social media experience to identify the impact of a dichotomous eWOM stimulus. We find that negative comments referring to a fashion presentation cause a significant decrease of trust. However, the more experienced a user is in dealing with social media services such as Facebook or YouTube, the weaker this effect will get. These findings contribute to the existing academic discourse about the impact of negative eWOM

Big Data, Big Opportunities: Revenue Sources of Social Media Services Besides Advertising

Part 3: Big and Open DataInternational audienceFacebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other players in the social media world have been on the rise during the last couple of years. In contrast to their popularity, their underlying business models are vague and often only linked to advertising. In this explorative study we identify new revenue sources for social media service providers besides advertising. Based on three use cases with Facebook, Tencent, and LinkedIn, we identify three possibly fruitful ways to extend existing social media business models. Subsequently, a survey with 301 respondents changes perspectives on the user’s willingness to pay in order to identify usage-related differences evoked by cultural and external circumstances. Four derived hypotheses lead the way to avenues of further research especially in terms of Big Data analytics with new e-commerce trends like Facebook’s Buy Button

Comparing the required competencies of sales professionals servicing digital and physical channels of sale: a case study of a German children’s entertainment company

The digital transformation of the children’s entertainment industry has burdened sales departments with having to deal with shifting markets and rapidly changing consumer behaviour, e.g. a move toward streaming. Companies are being forced to reorganise their sales departments to serve digital channels – in addition to traditional physical channels. We investigate how required competencies for sales professionals differ between the two channel types, by conducting a case study with a leading German company in the children’s entertainment industry. Based on an analysis of several e-mails and internal reports, we develop a competency lexicon in a first step. We subsequently conduct behavioural event interviews with all persons involved in sales and use the competency lexicon for coding. We then compare required competencies of sales professionals servicing digital and physical sales channels. This short paper ends with a discussion of the next steps planned for acquiring a comprehensive picture beyond the case company

Quantifying Variation in Bacterial Reproductive Fitness: a High-Throughput Method

To evaluate changes in reproductive fitness of bacteria, e.g., after acquisition of antimicrobial resistance, a low-cost high-throughput method to analyze bacterial growth on agar is desirable for broad usability. In our bacterial quantitative fitness analysis (BaQFA), arrayed cultures are spotted on agar and photographed sequentially while growing. These time-lapse images are analyzed using a purpose-built open-source software to derive normalized image intensity (NI) values for each culture spot. Subsequently, a Gompertz growth model is fitted to NI values, and fitness is calculated from model parameters. To represent a range of clinically important pathogenic bacteria, we used different strains of Enterococcus faecium, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus, with and without antimicrobial resistance. Relative competitive fitness (RCF) was defined as the mean fitness ratio of two strains growing competitively on one plate.BaQFA permitted the accurate construction of growth curves from bacteria grown on semisolid agar plates and fitting of Gompertz models. Normalized image intensity values showed a strong association with the total CFU/ml count per spotted culture (P < 0.001) for all strains of the three species. BaQFA showed relevant reproductive fitness differences between individual strains, suggesting substantially higher fitness of methicillin-resistant S. aureus JE2 than Cowan (RCF, 1.58; P < 0.001). Similarly, the vancomycin-resistant E. faecium ST172b showed higher competitive fitness than susceptible E. faecium ST172 (RCF, 1.59; P < 0.001). Our BaQFA method allows detection of fitness differences between bacterial strains and may help to estimate epidemiological antimicrobial persistence or contribute to the prediction of clinical outcomes in severe infections.IMPORTANCE Reproductive fitness of bacteria is a major factor in the evolution and persistence of antimicrobial resistance and may play an important role in severe infections. With a computational approach to quantify fitness in bacteria growing competitively on agar plates, our high-throughput method has been designed to obtain additional phenotypic data for antimicrobial resistance analysis at a low cost. Furthermore, our bacterial quantitative fitness analysis (BaQFA) enables the investigation of a link between bacterial fitness and clinical outcomes in severe invasive bacterial infections. This may allow future use of our method for patient management and risk stratification of clinical outcomes. Our proposed method uses open-source software and a hardware setup that can utilize consumer electronics. This will enable a wider community of researchers, including those from low-resource countries, where the burden of antimicrobial resistance is highest, to obtain valuable information about emerging bacterial strains