Why Zlatan Ibrahimović is Bigger Than Manchester United: Investigating Digital Traces in Co-branding Processes on Social Media Platforms

The purpose of this study is to examine the co-branding activity on social media platforms, particularly in regard to company-employee relationship. We conducted a case study of co-branding on Instagram involving the soccer club Manchester United and the soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimović. We performed sentiment and emotional tone analysis, assessed intersection of the audience and illustrated non-verbal communication used by social media users. We demonstrated how the soccer club failed to capitalize on co-branding activity as measured through consolidating the audience, generating consistent emotional response, and creating a coherent message. This paper contributes to social media management research by illustrating the difficulties associated with co-branding between personal and corporate brands as well asynchronous communication. Further, our use of digital traces and computational analysis illustrates how access to social media can illuminate research activities and provide insight about online communication

Digital innovationshantering : en undersökning av digital spårningsdata i onlinemiljöer

Firms and individuals are interacting online on an unprecedented scale. These interactions may lead to new digital products, services and practices, all of which are manifestations of digital innovation. This process relies on records users leave on various digital platforms which carry information about their activities – digital trace data. The data is generated on a massive scale, yet is just data until it is confronted with meaning – its value remains latent. Digital trace data is agnostic about future use, it carries records of interactions with digital artifacts and is available to wide numbers of actors to reinterpret them as sources of innovation and value creation. Online communities where data is generated can be sources of innovation, but are also extremely vulnerable. Digital trace data are not finitely expendable but may be used and passed along to any other individuals, partners, customers, or suppliers. To remain competitive, firms increasingly need to manage dynamic interactions of online community members, confront digital trace data with meaning, and facilitate innovation that is decentralized and requires heterogeneous knowledge resources. This dissertation explores how digital innovation can be leveraged in the context of online communities. It is based on four empirical investigations in the context of firms interacting with online communities that are rich with digital trace data. Collectively, these studies illustrate the potential utility of digital trace data generated by online communities for digital innovation, and suggest possible strategies for effective management of digital innovation for value creation. The dissertation contributes to both theoretically and empirically oriented discourses on the use of digital trace data. Specifically, it does so by providing propositions for dealing with digital trace data through platform design, community sociality, and narration for digital innovation

Digital innovationshantering : en undersökning av digital spårningsdata i onlinemiljöer

Firms and individuals are interacting online on an unprecedented scale. These interactions may lead to new digital products, services and practices, all of which are manifestations of digital innovation. This process relies on records users leave on various digital platforms which carry information about their activities – digital trace data. The data is generated on a massive scale, yet is just data until it is confronted with meaning – its value remains latent. Digital trace data is agnostic about future use, it carries records of interactions with digital artifacts and is available to wide numbers of actors to reinterpret them as sources of innovation and value creation. Online communities where data is generated can be sources of innovation, but are also extremely vulnerable. Digital trace data are not finitely expendable but may be used and passed along to any other individuals, partners, customers, or suppliers. To remain competitive, firms increasingly need to manage dynamic interactions of online community members, confront digital trace data with meaning, and facilitate innovation that is decentralized and requires heterogeneous knowledge resources. This dissertation explores how digital innovation can be leveraged in the context of online communities. It is based on four empirical investigations in the context of firms interacting with online communities that are rich with digital trace data. Collectively, these studies illustrate the potential utility of digital trace data generated by online communities for digital innovation, and suggest possible strategies for effective management of digital innovation for value creation. The dissertation contributes to both theoretically and empirically oriented discourses on the use of digital trace data. Specifically, it does so by providing propositions for dealing with digital trace data through platform design, community sociality, and narration for digital innovation

Managing Innovation Networks : Exploring Coopetition Dynamics in Innovation Ecosystems

Companies increasingly rely on external partners when starting their innovation initiatives. Emergent innovation ecosystems of heterogeneous actors proved to be successful in leveraging combined competence for the creation of the new ventures. However, constantly changing environment of simultaneous competition and cooperation – coopetition, presents a challenge for the ecosystem management. Drawing on the network orchestration and coopetition research, I analyze management practices and coopetition dynamics in the digital creative industry in Northern Sweden. Based on the analysis, I offer two main contributions. First, I provide a detailed account of innovation ecosystem orchestration within the digital creative industry, including its chronological evolution and the challenges related to it. Second, the application of coopetition notion to the innovation ecosystem context brings forward tensions that should be further scrutinized in order to develop better management practices for such innovation networks.

Online discourse on remote work challenges during the pandemic – trace data study and future directions

The COVID-19 pandemic led to governments imposing restrictions on mobility and socialization of people. These restrictions pushed organizations to hastily adopt remote work. As pandemic evolved unpredictably, there was uncertainty surrounding duration and conditions of remote work. This forced workers to continuously adjust to deal with emergent challenges. This context provides a natural setting to study an impact of prolonged remote work at scale. We explored online discourse on Reddit about remote work during the period from January 2020 and January 2022. We used topic modeling of trace data to inductively understand the discourse, and categorize it into seven themes. This was followed up with preliminary qualitative analysis of top posts in each theme. We identified three research directions for the future work

Resourcing Digital Competence in Product Development: A Computational Study of Recruitment at Volvo Cars

Competence renewal is an intrinsic part of digital transformation. However , digital competence is generic competence – it is function-agnostic and not tied to the specifics of a firm’s product portfolio. It typically does not fit established institutional structures. Therefore, it is particularly complicated for product-developing firms to develop digital competence, since functional decomposition and profound specialization prevent necessary knowledge mobility. We adopt a resourcing perspective to analyze how Volvo Cars identified, engaged, and deployed human resources to balance supply and demand for digital competence. Our study relies on over 5000 published job postings, which we compared with the European Skills, Competences, and Occupations (ESCO) framework on the basis of natural language processing. While broadly confirming the idea that digital competence spread from IT departments into mainstream operations, our study also demonstrates asymmetry in the resourcing environment, reflecting tension between emerging and existing structures. Our study also reveals a tendency to close digital competence deficits through external recruitment rather than internal hiring, and by creating new positions rather than replacements