Social media platforms as economic organisations: reconstructing the evolution of TripAdvisor’s operations

Social media platforms have gradually become embedded in the digital economy. During this process, their original identity as sites that exclusively facilitated content sharing and user networking has changed significantly. The so-called “social media” literature has traditionally centred on user’s capabilities to networking, sharing content and building community. The “digital platforms” literature has focused on the rules, conditions and governance of resource exchanges between multiples sides of a platform. The “ecosystem literature” has focused on understanding the emergence of a complex web of commercial relationships that prompt value creation. Meaningful as they are, current literature tends to treat technology as a black box by overlooking the ways it moulds perceptions, attitudes, relations, and actions. This study fills this gap by critically examining the role of data and technology in social media platforms. It argues that social media form part of the digital economy by developing both technological and organisational capability to exploit data systematically. The thesis advances these ideas through the study of TripAdvisor from its creation in 2000 through 2019. It uses qualitative analysis complemented with digital methods. The analysis reveals several stages in TripAdvisor’s evolution. Each stage is closely related to TripAdvisor’s capabilities and strategies for procuring, producing and exchanging data with its ecosystem. The thesis develops a general framework that contributes to uncovering the technological, organisational, and economic complexities involved in the evolution of social media. It explains the structural transformations of social media platforms and their current embeddedness in webs of relationships, characteristic of the digital economy. The thesis suggests that the platform’s identity is the result of an intricate interplay of strategies, technology, actors, relationships and practices that influence and reinforce one another

Metodología instrumental de ingeniería de requerimientos para proyectos de desarrollo de software en empresas de tamaño mediano

La Ingeniería de Requerimientos es de reciente data en nuestro país, existen varios estudios internacionales que enfatizan ésta área de la producción de software como la más trascendental en cuanto a la eficiencia y eficacia del proceso. La presente tesis genera un marco teórico, basado en revisión bibliográfica, para analizar, incorporar y formalizar buenas prácticas en el ámbito de la Ingeniería de Requerimientos. Mediante acopio de información, se determina el nivel en que se encuentran los procesos consustánciales a la Ingeniería de Requerimientos en la empresa donde se desarrolla la tesis. De la confrontación del marco teórico con el diagnóstico se elabora un modelo que cumple los dominios de estudio del desarrollo de requerimientos. Con los insumos señalados se desarrolla una metodología instrumental para los procesos definidos en las etapas de desarrollo de requerimientos, un conjunto de instrumentos que apoyan el modelo de Ingeniería de Requerimientos, que permitan reconocer las necesidades de los clientes, y a su vez apoyen el mejoramiento continuo de la metodología instrumental. Concluye con un Plan Estratégico que permite instalar la innovación en los procesos de Ingeniería de Requerimientos a la empresa.The Requirements Engineering has a recent date in our country. It exists several international studies that emphasize this area of the software production like the most important one in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of the process. The present thesis generates a theoretical frame based on bibliographical revision in order to analyse, to incorporate and to formalize good practices in the field of the Requirements Engineering. By means of information storing, the level is determined in that are the consubstantiates processes to the Requirements Engineering in the company where the thesis is developed is determined through information storage. Through the confrontation of theoretical frame with diagnosis, it is elaborated a model that meets the study domains of the requirements development. Using the addressed inputs it is developed an instrumental methodology for the processes defined in the requirements development stages, a group of instruments which support the Requirements Engineering process models that allow to recognize the clients needs as well as supporting the continuous improvement of the instrumental methodology. It concludes with a Strategic Plan that allows installing the innovation in the Requirements Engineering processes to the company