Systems Development Methodology for Mobile Commerce Applications

There are several systems development methodologies including traditional and agile methodologies being utilized in current systems development. However, it could be argued that when developing mobile commerce applications, suitable development framework should be investigated as these applications are utilized in different contexts from fixed ecommerce applications. This study identifies suitable system development methodology framework for mobile commerce applications. In order to achieve this aim, the practitioners from seven organizations were asked to provide information about their development methodologies by answering the questions regarding mobile commerce application development. The questions were opened and aimed to explore practitioner’s perspectives on the development methodologies. From the practitioner’s perspectives, it was found that there were several development methodologies being used in mobile commerce application development and these can be classified into two different development frameworks which are heavyweight/traditional and lightweight/agile methodologies. The suitable methodology framework for mobile commerce application development thus was identified.

Social Media Impact on Holiday Travel Planning

The impact of social media on the travel industry is predicted to be tremendous, especially on its holiday travel segment. Although there is a plethora of studies concentrating on the role and impact of social media in travel related decisions, most of them are medium and community specific, or focus on a specific stage of the decision making or the travel planning process. This paper presents a comprehensive view of the role and impact of social media on the travel planning process: before, during and after the trip, providing insights on usage levels, scope of use, level of influence, and trust. The study was conducted through an online structured questionnaire on a sample of 346 members of an online panel of internet users from Russia and the other Former Soviet Union (FSU) Republics who had been on holidays in the previous 12 months. Findings reveal that social media are predominantly used after holidays for experience sharing. It is also shown that there is a strong correlation between level of influence from social media and changes made to holiday plans. Moreover, it is revealed that user-generated content is more trusted than official tourism websites, travel agents, and mass media advertising.

Comparing Effectiveness of E-Learning Training and Traditional Training in Industrial Safety and Health

In response to the demanding change in work environments, most companies not only depend on traditional training, but also on e-learning and emphasizing it in safety and health. The benefits and cost effectiveness of the benefits of e-learning training are trusted. Nevertheless, accidents still happen at the workplace. This has become an issue to be studied, especially on the effectiveness of e-learning training in comparison to traditional training. In this study, a framework to measure comparative effectiveness between these two learning environments was developed based on Kirkpatrick’s four-level evaluation model and a case study was applied to test all the levels of the framework. These four levels include participant reaction, learning, achievements, behavior of employees, and results. The interview results indicated that there is no difference in the rating of the effectiveness of the two training methods based on Kirkpatrick’s model.

E-Commerce Adoption by Micro Firms

This paper discusses the next stage of Internet usage by micro-businesses in the tourism sector, namely e-Commerce. Motivations for e-Commerce adoptions are examined and the perceived barriers are investigated. Moreover, experiences of the adopters are explored to identify the benefits gained and problems encountered. A qualitative approach is used and a pilot study conducted. In-depth face-to-face interviews with semi-structured questionnaires were conducted with twenty case studies, with a mix of e-Commerce adopters and non-adopters. The Critical Incident technique was used to encourage business owners to identify their experiences with this new business method. Preliminary results show that there are a number of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that reinforce business owners’ decisions in adopting the e-Commerce method. The findings have implications for researchers and policymakers. The diversity of small firms has led to the need to tailor policy initiatives and training programmes. In addition, this study is replicable in other small business sectors that face the next step of development in Internet usage.

Segmenting Brand Value Perceptions of Consumers in Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are emerging as a promising new channel for electronic marketing and brand-related activities. However, like Second Life. This paper examines the spectrum of perceptions of consumers of four major real-life brands (Armani, Dell, Mercedes and Hublot) that have established operations in Second Life. A survey was conducted using an avatar survey bot (n=1,039). Using the FIMIX-PLS procedure (Ringle et al., 2009), an axiological measurement instrument for brand value and formative modeling techniques, the authors identify segments of consumers with different perceptions of value for each brand. The analysis shows a clear difficulty in establishing ‘emotional’ rapport with consumers in Second Life.

Predicting the Usage Intention of Social Network Games

Social network sites (SNSs) are new communication channels with which people can share information. The main functions of SNSs, such as MySpace, Facebook, and Orkut, consist of displaying a user’s social contacts, enabling people to view each other’s social networks and search for common friends or interesting content. Social networks are also connected to gaming and it is quickly becoming one of the most popular categories of applications on SNSs. The goal of this project is to gain insight into the factors that affect user intention to use a social network game. The study uses an extended technology acceptance model and focuses on combining personal innovativeness, personal involvement, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation to explain usage intentions for social network games. The proposed model was tested with data collected from potential users of a social network game. A multiple regression analysis and MANOVA analysis were then conducted to identify the key causal relationships. It is expected that personal innovativeness and personal involvement will have positive effects on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and ultimately influence usage intentions with regard to social network games.

Consumer-to-Consumer Internet Auction Models

Internet auctions have become an increasingly common method for exchanging goods and services across the world both among consumers themselves, as well as between businesses and consumers. These Internet auction mechanisms have the scope of incorporating procedures of much greater complexity and variety, and they exhibit characteristics and properties that are quite distinct from conventional auctions. In this paper, the authors provide an experimental study of the performance characteristics and operational behaviour of a number of online auction models, including the fixed time forward auctions, the Vickrey auctions, and models with soft close variable auction times. These online auction models are studied through systematic simulation experiments, based on a series of operational assumptions, which characterize the arrival rate of bids, as well as the distribution from which the private values of buyers are sampled. Suggestions for efficient online auction design and procedures for improving auction performance are given, and the behaviour of the average auction income and average auction duration are quantified and compared.

Examining the Online Wine Tourism Experience of California Wineries

Online wine tourism is boosting the level of competition among wineries and wine regions around the world. This paper presents and extends a proven framework for examining the strategic orientation of winery web sites. By treating winery web sites as intensive information environments this paper shows how they can have a strategic impact on perceptions. Using a modified AIPD framework and statistical analyses, the authors show how certain California wineries are able to fully project the wine tourism experience online while targeting strategic perception goals that are effective at building virtual brand equity and boosting winery visitations at the same time. The result of this research indicates that it is possible to measure and evaluate both the web experience and the strategic perception aspects of winery web sites.

Factors Affecting the Success of Online Branding

Online branding has become a crucial part of companies’ activity since the mid-90s, when internet expansion began. As internet activity starts playing bigger and greater roles in sales and marketing communications, online branding becomes more important. However, the challenge for organisations today is to advance their online business activities. To address this challenge, organisations need to understand the critical success factors for building an online brand. This paper discusses this issue proposes 9 critical factors classified into two categories and validated empirically through a sample of 150 university students. The significance, importance, and implications for each category are discussed and then recommendations are made.

Creating Competitive Advantage by Using Data Mining Technique as an Innovative Method for Decision Making Process in Business

Competitive advantage is at the heart of a firm’s performance in today’s challenging and rapidly changing environment. One of the central bases for achieving competitive advantage is the organizational capability to create new knowledge and transfer it across various levels of the organization. Traditional methods of data analysis, based mainly on human dealing directly with the data, simply do not scale to handle with large data sets. This explosive growth in data and databases has generated an urgent need for new techniques and tools that can intelligently and automatically transform the processed data into useful information and knowledge. Consequently, data mining has become a research area with increasing importance. Organizations of all sizes have started to develop and deploy data mining technologies to leverage data resources to enhance their decision making capabilities. Business information received from data analysis and data mining is a critical success factor for companies wishing to maximize competitive advantage. In this study, the importance of gaining knowledge for organizations in today’s competitive environment are discussed and data mining method in decision making process is analyzed as an innovative technique for organizations.