Use of Social Software in E-Business: A Cross-Sectional, Cross-Country Study

Social Software (SoS) is a term commonly used to describe a group of web based services that have capability to connect, disseminate information, network or blog. The popular SoS has created environments to attract millions of users and a favorable environment for businesses to exploit the benefit of having access to the users by adopting it as a business support tool. Studies indicate that SoS is being used by businesses for engaging with the general public, enhancing customer interaction and crisis communication. This paper analyses the status quo of the SoS use of enterprises from six countries and various industries in the context of e-business. The reported findings show that the surveyed enterprises mostly use the established SoS like Facebook and Twitter to engage with the customer but that there are also significant differences in SoS usage by country, industry and enterprise ranking

Power symbols in office workspace: impact on creativity as microfoundation of the dynamic capabilities of the firm

Purpose – to analyse the role of artefacts in creativity as a microfoundation for dynamic capabilities. Design/Method/Approach. This conceptual study aims at identifying core aspects of the physical workspace towards power representations and power symbols and delineates impact factors on creativity and its possible implications on the dynamic capabilities of the firm. Findings. We suggest that creativity, believed to be a core aspect for innovation, is a microfoundation and one of the most critical elements of dynamic capabilities to sustain and foster the evolutionary and entrepreneurial fitness of the firm. Practical implications. While it has been shown that hierarchies and power symbols affect the creative performance within a firm, research on the role of physical space as representation of power and its effect on creativity is still limited. Focusing on artefacts might help firms to evoke creativity and, thus, increase innovativeness and dynamic capabilities of a firm. Originality/Value. In fast-paced, globally competitive business environments, sustainable advantage requires unique and difficult-to-replicate dynamic capabilities. Analysis of microfoundations of dynamic capabilities usually goes only one level deeper, e.g. to the concepts of creativity and innovativeness. We made a further step and analyzed artefacts influencing these and other microfoundations. Paper type – conceptua

Comportamiento del usuario en Oficinas Inteligentes y Sostenibles (SSO)

Smart and Sustainable Offices (SSO) require synergies between technologies and users behaviors. The sociotechnical approach considers users’ motives, attitudes, cognitions and behaviors when designing work environments. This note will describe those phenomena in office environments. It will also present a set of tools to assess those phenomena and will provide guidelines to improve them.Las oficinas inteligentes y sostenibles (SSO) requieren sinergias entre las tecnologías y los comportamientos de los usuarios. El enfoque sociotécnico considera los motivos, las actitudes, las cogniciones y los comportamientos de los usuarios al diseñar entornos de trabajo. Esta nota describirá esos fenómenos en entornos de oficina. También presentará un conjunto de herramientas para evaluar esos fenómenos y proporcionará pautas para mejorarlos

Cultural difference on the table: food and drink and their role in multicultural team performance

Multicultural teams are increasingly common and provide a challenge to achieving the integration associated with greater effectiveness. The vague and abstract nature of many definitions of culture can make the difficulties in acknowledging and addressing difference challenging. This longitudinal study of a multicultural team follows the anthropological roots of cultural studies to focus on the material role of food and drink in team development. In an empirical, ethnographically oriented study of a culturally diverse work team over time, we explored the ways that food and drink acted as boundary objects in the processes of integration, differentiation and cultural adaptation and negotiation. By employing the lens of material culture, with its sensory nature and its associations with identity, we also highlight the complexity of cross-cultural interaction, with its possibilities of cooperation, learning, difficulties and resistance, and suggest that food and drink allow a grounded discussion of culture, accommodation and difference. We contribute to the multicultural team literature, emphasizing the roles of materiality, constrained choice and complexity, as well as how these are translated into performance by the generative mechanisms of agency in context. We also identify some specific contributions to practice arising from this research

A media symbolism perspective on the choice of social sharing technologies

The emergence of social sharing technologies, including blogs, microblogs, personal social networking sites, social bookmarking, and forums, has diversified the media through which information content can be shared. This study anchors on the concept of media symbolism to theorize about social sharing technologies. Our theorization is validated through a set of social sharing data, containing focus group interviews and more than 1 million observations on the content sharing behavior of online users. The results indicate that individuals prefer microblogs and social bookmarking, which are more open to accessing shared content from third-party sources, to share commercial contents

Occupant productivity and office indoor environment quality : a review of the literature

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature to draw an understanding of the relationship between indoor environmental quality and occupant productivity in an office environment. The study reviews over 300 papers from 67 journals, conference articles and books focusing on indoor environment, occupant comfort, productivity and green buildings. It limits its focus to the physical aspects of an office environment. The literature outlines eight Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) factors that influence occupant productivity in an office environment. It also discusses different physical parameters under each of the IEQ factors. It proposes a conceptual model of different factors affecting occupant productivity. The study also presents a review of the data collection methods utilised by the research studies that aim to investigate the relationship between IEQ and occupant productivity. The study presents a comprehensive discussion and analysis of different IEQ factors that affect occupant productivity. The paper provides a concise starting point for future researchers interested in the area of indoor environmental quality

Motivating Social Sharing in e-Business: Focus on Age or Gender?

The ubiquitous usage of Social Media Networks makes them an increasingly important tool for businesses operating solely or partly online. They can support traffic generation, especially when guiding members from their Social Networking Service (SNS) towards the e-business website. In this work, we explore the question about how sharing motivation models need to be designed to provide an efficient sharing trigger for the e-customer considering its age and gender. Based on data collected online in two countries with a developed digital culture (N=409 as a whole sample and n= 134 for online sharing customers), we examine self-reported and experimental scenario-based motivations for sharing e-business content. Our findings indicate that while gender of the e-customer is irrelevant for the sharing behaviour, the customer age plays an important role and needs to be considered when designing a sharing model based on sharing buttons for SNS