Managing the Business of Social Technologies

A greater number of consumers use social technologies-social media, social networking, and social relevance-than organizations. Economically, however, companies have much to gain by taking the plunge. Results show that organizations that have made the effort to increase their knowledge and build social technology platforms have experienced astounding results. The purpose of this article is to discuss social technology categories and present a strategy for knowledge management so that organizations may successfully implement these technologies. A huge growth is expected in the number of companies whose management will make a decision or have already made a decision to develop social technology platforms in the near future. This article provides a straight forward approach accompanied by examples of real companies who have used social technologies and experienced real returns–many in the millions of dollars. The intention is to provide a concise, up-to-date social technologies knowledge management guide

Analyzing behavior patterns of internet consumers through database integration

A question facing contemporary entrepreneurs is: How can Electronic Commerce be used to exploit business opportunities now available through highly efficient electronic markets? This study aims to answer that question. Although the Internet is increasingly being adopted to market products and services, little academic attention has been paid to its linkages with database technology. This research used focus groups and convergent interviews to develop a framework illustrating how firms use the Internet and database technology for strategic advantage. Results revealed that integration of Internet and database marketing enhances the effectiveness of EC\u27s potential, offering such benefits as increased accuracy and speed, cost saving, and more importantly greater interaction and better relationships with customers; thus providing more effective application of existing and emerging technologies. The extent, degree and speed of communication enabled by the Internet makes it a synergistic component of an effectual database marketing strategy. Findings from this research have implications for both theory and practice providing strategies to achieve optimal results through the integration of Internet and database technologies

Resolving the Troubled IT-Business Relationship from a Cultural Perspective

This research investigates the effects of the culture of the information technology (IT) group on the relationship between business and IT professionals within two Australian organisations, one a public sector organisation, and the other a private company. The IT groups in these two organisations had many similar themes of culture. Both organisations reported a troubled IT-business relationship. This research investigates the effects of the themes of IT culture that surfaced in each organisation on six essential ingredients of an effective IT-business relationship, providing some suggestions for management to consider to improve their troubled IT-business business relationship

Communication through Social Technologies: A Study of Israeli Women

Social technologies have changed the way we communicate allowing users to interact, share knowledge, reach out to friends and family, keep up with the news, and even promote and support a business. A study of Israeli women was conducted to determine how social technologies platforms — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+ — are used and the benefits realized. Women worldwide face challenges including economic, educational, health, and political. Israel women, like women in every other country in the world, are challenged with gender inequity. Do women who use social technologies believe that these platforms provide empowerment leading to greater success? This paper discusses Israel’s global gender gap scores and rankings in four categories as compared with 144 other countries and reports the results of a study of the use of social technologies by Israeli women in the workplace

Do technology and social media preferences differ with age? A study of the use of social technologies for business purposes in Spain

Social technologies have rapidly become part of the workplace culture with companies using social platforms to communicate, for customer service, to gain exposure and create awareness, to gain new customers, to increase revenue and profits, for marketing purposes, to network and build relationships, and for recruiting purposes. This paper reports the results of a study of the usage of social technologies by working women in Spain to determine the purposes for using these platforms in a business environment. Furthermore, statistical analyses of the data reveal whether the age of the respondents make a difference in social media preferences. Based on these results, organizations will have a better grasp of how to optimize the use of social technologies in business and which age groups are better suited for managing specific platforms based on the purposes studied, thus adding to the literature in the field

“So what if ChatGPT wrote it?” Multidisciplinary perspectives on opportunities, challenges and implications of generative conversational AI for research, practice and policy

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistinguishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts for organisations, society, and individuals. Offering multi-disciplinary insight into some of these, this article brings together 43 contributions from experts in fields such as computer science, marketing, information systems, education, policy, hospitality and tourism, management, publishing, and nursing. The contributors acknowledge ChatGPT’s capabilities to enhance productivity and suggest that it is likely to offer significant gains in the banking, hospitality and tourism, and information technology industries, and enhance business activities, such as management and marketing. Nevertheless, they also consider its limitations, disruptions to practices, threats to privacy and security, and consequences of biases, misuse, and misinformation. However, opinion is split on whether ChatGPT’s use should be restricted or legislated. Drawing on these contributions, the article identifies questions requiring further research across three thematic areas: knowledge, transparency, and ethics; digital transformation of organisations and societies; and teaching, learning, and scholarly research. The avenues for further research include: identifying skills, resources, and capabilities needed to handle generative AI; examining biases of generative AI attributable to training datasets and processes; exploring business and societal contexts best suited for generative AI implementation; determining optimal combinations of human and generative AI for various tasks; identifying ways to assess accuracy of text produced by generative AI; and uncovering the ethical and legal issues in using generative AI across different contexts

“So what if ChatGPT wrote it?”:Multidisciplinary perspectives on opportunities, challenges and implications of generative conversational AI for research, practice and policy

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistinguishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts for organisations, society, and individuals. Offering multi-disciplinary insight into some of these, this article brings together 43 contributions from experts in fields such as computer science, marketing, information systems, education, policy, hospitality and tourism, management, publishing, and nursing. The contributors acknowledge ChatGPT’s capabilities to enhance productivity and suggest that it is likely to offer significant gains in the banking, hospitality and tourism, and information technology industries, and enhance business activities, such as management and marketing. Nevertheless, they also consider its limitations, disruptions to practices, threats to privacy and security, and consequences of biases, misuse, and misinformation. However, opinion is split on whether ChatGPT’s use should be restricted or legislated. Drawing on these contributions, the article identifies questions requiring further research across three thematic areas: knowledge, transparency, and ethics; digital transformation of organisations and societies; and teaching, learning, and scholarly research. The avenues for further research include: identifying skills, resources, and capabilities needed to handle generative AI; examining biases of generative AI attributable to training datasets and processes; exploring business and societal contexts best suited for generative AI implementation; determining optimal combinations of human and generative AI for various tasks; identifying ways to assess accuracy of text produced by generative AI; and uncovering the ethical and legal issues in using generative AI across different contexts

The IT-business partnership: exploring a troubled relationship

[Abstract]: Managing the business relationship between information technology (IT) and business professionals is critical to the success of an organisation. For the IT group to add value to the business, a healthy IT-business relationship is absolutely essential. Unfortunately though in many organisations, the IT-business relationship is riddled with problems. This paper first explores the troubled IT-business relationship, and then explores the troubled IT-business relationship though the application of a model to identify essential ingredients that are lacking in the IT-business relationship. Data is collected from interviews and a questionnaire administered to eleven IT and twenty-one business professionals in five Australian organisations. With knowledge of ingredients that are lacking in the IT-business relationship, practitioners can structure and facilitate actions leading to a more effective IT-business relationship, a healthier work environment, and ultimately greater success within the organisation

IT culture: its impact on communication and work relationships in business

[Abstract]: Establishing an effective relationship between business and information technology (IT) professionals is essential for organizational success in today's competitive global economy. Despite many attempts to improve the IT-business relationships, tensions still exist. The cultural differences between business and IT have recently been blamed for these tensions. However, academic research on IT culture is lacking. This paper discusses and compares seven widely reported models for assessing organizational culture. From this, an appropriate model is selected and applied using a multiple case study approach to explore the culture of the IT group in five Australian organizations

An investigation of the effect of information technology (IT) culture on the relationship between IT and business professionals

[Abstract]: The 'cultural chasm' between business and information technology (IT) professionals and the importance of their developing and sustaining a healthy partnership has received attention in the IT literature. This study applies existing theories of culture and inter-group relations from the organizational behavior discipline to investigate how and why the IT culture affects these relationships. Insights as to how tensions in the IT-business relationship can be minimized by managing the IT culture are revealed