Quality Assurance Driving Factors as Antecedents of Knowledge Management: a Stakeholder-Focussed Perspective in Higher Education

Similar to many other types of organisations, the successful development of higher education institutions generally depends on proactive multi-stakeholder management strategy. As a social responsibility of universities, quality assurance (QA) of higher education is already an established research domain. However, the issues that serve as driving factors in higher education’s quality are acknowledged in this vast knowledge stream in a dispersed way. An objective of this paper is to provide a quick snapshot of the major QA driving factors in higher education. Another objective here is to discuss the significance of these existing QA driving factors in higher education as prospective antecedents of knowledge management among the key stakeholders in the higher education sector and beyond. An inductive constructivist approach is followed to review the relevant QA driving factors from the extant scholarly views. A number of relevant factors are précised from the literature that would be instrumental to uphold quality in higher education. The discussion demonstrates that these factors are also significant to transfer and share knowledge between the key stakeholders not only for universities, but also for businesses, governments and other organisational stakeholders. The paper proposes a framework of the QA drivers’ application for meaningful knowledge transfer between diverse stakeholders and clarifies the framework’s managerial implications. This conceptual framework specifies different scenarios and perspectives of QA drivers’ application in the global education sector. The academic novelty is based on the inductive approach applied in the paper. QA practitioners will be able to follow these factors as steering phenomena to effectively assure quality, in relation to their multi-stakeholder relationships in higher education and beyond

Social media and sensemaking patterns in new product development: demystifying the customer sentiment

Artificial intelligence by principle is developed to assist but also support decision making processes. In our study, we explore how information retrieved from social media can assist decision-making processes for new product development (NPD). We focus on consumers’ emotions that are expressed through social media and analyse the variations of their sentiments in all the stages of NPD. We collect data from Twitter that reveal consumers’ appreciation of aspects of the design of a newly launched model of an innovative automotive company. We adopt the sensemaking approach coupled with the use of fuzzy logic for text mining. This combinatory methodological approach enables us to retrieve consensus from the data and to explore the variations of sentiments of the customers about the product and define the polarity of these emotions for each of the NPD stages. The analysis identifies sensemaking patterns in Twitter data and explains the NPD process and the associated steps where the social interactions from customers can have an iterative role. We conclude the paper by outlining an agenda for future research in the NPD process and the role of the customer opinion through sensemaking mechanisms

Social media marketing in European Hospitality industry: a possible evaluation model

The development of new technologies has had a significant impact on the purchasing behavior of customers. Especially social media have changed the way people interact with each other and with companies. In fact, recent research confirms that user-generated content is a key element in travel information search processes and in actual purchasing decisions of customers. Hotel business is now taking advantage of introducing the use of social media into their marketing programs, trying to create a customized relationship with consumers. The aim of this study is to investigate the usage of social media among European hotels. Quantitative and qualitative research methods have been combined to develop an evaluation model that identifies the items useful to comprehend the way in which hotels interact with customers on social media. The evaluation model is the result of the analysis of Facebook pages of the top ten European hotel groups brands (MKG Hospitality, 2012) and of semi-structured interviews to main managers of international hotel chains. This paper is a first step in our analysis of social media strategies in the hospitality industry. The intention, in a second step of the study, to apply it to a sample of Italian and Swedish hotels following a cross-cultural perspective

Investigating Social Media Marketing in the Hospitality Industry: Facebook and European Hotels

Social media have changed the way people interact with each other and with companies. In fact, recent research confirms that user-generated content is a key element in travel information search processes and in actual purchasing decisions of customers. Hotel business is now taking advantage of introducing the use of social media into their marketing programs, trying to create a customized relationship with consumers. The aim of this study is to investigate the use of social media among European hotels. Quantitative and qualitative research methods have been combined to identify a group of items useful to comprehend the way in which hotels interact with customers on social media. Results show that European hotels are still in the first steps of development of a social media strategy that presents a moderate level of integration among different media. They are considered a useful instrument to promote the hotel brand but potentiality of customer engagement is still undervalued

Customer feedback and data collection techniques in software R&D: A literature review

In many companies, product management struggles in getting accurate customer feedback. Often, validation and confirmation of functionality with customers takes place only after the product has been deployed, and there are no mechanisms that help product managers to continuously learn from customers. Although there are techniques available for collecting customer feedback, these are typically not applied as part of a continuous feedback loop. As a result, the selection and prioritization of features becomes far from optimal, and product deviates from what the customers need. In this paper, we present a literature review of currently recognized techniques for collecting customer feedback. We develop a model in which we categorize the techniques according to their characteristics. The purpose of this literature review is to provide an overview of current software engineering research in this area and to better understand the different techniques that are used for collecting customer feedback