Information and Its Conceptual Perspectives

Information has attributes/positivist concepts that some authors use to better understand it. Others are critical about information subjectivism. This article discusses conceptual perspectives of information. The aim is to study the concepts of information from some areas of knowledge of the social sciences, cognitive and business looking to propose a concept of information in the field of information science. The methodology of the study is formed by bibliographical research. It is concluded that the concept of information is still in full development. The concept of information depends on the perception of information. Although this is not something that shocks, raises some interesting questions and research opportunities. For example, as we get the information.

Virtual Communities and Social Networking in Franchising

Franchising has been a popular approach to growing a business. Its popularity continues to increase, as we witness an emergence of a new business model Netchising or Online-to-Offline, combining the Internet for global demand-and-supply, virtual communities, and social networking processes and the international franchising arrangement for local responsiveness. In this article, we show that building up a good “family” relationship between the franchisor and the franchisee is the real essence of franchising, and proven working knowledge is the foundation of the “family” relationship. Specifically, we discuss the process of how to make big data and business analytics meaningful for virtual communities and social networking in franchising. The process consists of business challenges, data foundation, analytics implementation, insights, execution and measurements, distributed knowledge, and innovation.

Ensuring Privacy of Participants Recruited via Social Media

Researchers worldwide are increasingly looking to recruit research participants via social media (particularly @Facebook and @Twitter) because they appear to offer access to a wider range of research participants and afford inherently convenient tools for recruitment. In Australia, the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research, together with the federal Privacy law and a number of state-based privacy statutes, provide support and guidance for this novel approach. This article offers a preliminary analysis and discussion of this trend from an Australian perspective, illustrated by an enquiry into the ethical challenges posed by social media-based recruitment, conducted in an Australian university in 2015. Leximancer™ was used as an analytical tool and the content from social media sites used for a small number of research studies conducted up to 2015, taken in conjunction with the various national human research ethics guidelines, offered a means of understanding how ethical challenges of privacy and anonymity can be addressed for responsible social media-based research.

Artificial Neural Network Research in Online Social Networks

Artificial neural networks are a machine learning method ideal for solving classification and prediction problems using Big Data. Online social networks and virtual communities provide a plethora of data. Artificial neural networks have been used to determine the emotional meaning of virtual community posts, determine age and sex of users, classify types of messages, and make recommendations for additional content. This article reviews and examines the utilization of artificial neural networks in online social network and virtual community research. An artificial neural network to predict the maintenance of online social network “friends” is developed to demonstrate the applicability of artificial neural networks for virtual community research.

Women in STEM Workplaces and Computer-Mediated Communication

As women have the potential to bring unique perspectives to the workplace, the under-representation of women in STEM occupations is a severe limitation to global advancement through research and innovation. Workplace utilization of computer-mediated communication (CMC) may impact common barriers faced by women in STEM, such as stereotypes, a “chilly” workplace climate, lack of social support and mentorship opportunities, and work-family conflict. As organizations shift further into the use of virtual communication, it is essential to take advantage of CMC as a way to facilitate gender equality in the workplace while simultaneously mitigating barriers workplace CMC may present for women in STEM. The potential implications of workplace virtual communication, virtual teams, e-mentoring, cyber incivility, and telecommuting for women in STEM careers are discussed.

A Cultural Approach to African Management Philosophy

Despite acknowledging the existence of indigenous management capabilities and skills in Africa, management practice in precolonial African societies was seen by the colonizers as primitive management. Africans have ways of exercising power and authority at the workplace, ways of motivating and rewarding people to make them work harder. Neither the institutions nor the political structures put in place by the colonizers acknowledge these indigenous knowledge structures, but much of them have survived in the traditions and cultural values of the African people. However, unlike in Europe and most parts of Asia, the attempted modernization or Westernization after independence has completely neglected the indigenous sociocultural knowledge and tried to transplant western management theories and models to traditional African societies. This article draws attention to the relevance of cultures to management philosophy with the purpose of contributing to a culturally appropriate practice of management in Africa. It has been shown that the different management theories in the form that they have been developed in the West reflect western philosophical thoughts which may not fit culturally in Africa management practice. However, in developing theories and building models of management theories in Africa, it is unlikely to pay Africans to throw away all that the West has to offer. Rather, the approach to appropriate management theorizing is to reflect on assumptions of Western management theories, compare Western assumptions about sociocultural values with African cultural values to rebuild the theories and models. The use of anthropological and philosophical concepts in this context will help in the development of appropriate management practice.

The Interdisciplinary Nature of Information Science

This article presents the conceptual evolution of inter-disciplinarily, trans-disciplinarily, and discipline, under information science from a theoretical framework. The text is a research whose primary purpose is to analyze scientific research developed in the context of interdisciplinary information science with participation in more than one area of knowledge. Using the concepts presented and those that contemporary authors studied in different areas, for composition of a conceptual framework that presents itself. The results of the research have enabled profiling of research in the area, about the use of different approaches and concluded that different forms and levels of interaction are found in information science. It is therefore concluded that the concepts have changed and that caused significant changes in their meanings. These changes lead to an ongoing re-evaluation and updating, in the context of information science and its implications, because it is an interdisciplinary science.

Exploring Potential Factors in Sticker Use Among Japanese Young Adults

In text-based communication, people can now use not only emoticons and emoji, but also graphical symbols called stickers. This study focused on the use of stickers in text-based communication. A questionnaire asking subjects to individually rate the perceived usefulness of 25 features of stickers was prepared and used in a survey targeting 211 Japanese college students. The authors then explored potential factors in the roles of stickers. The study revealed three potential roles of stickers: “easy transmission of subtle nuances and nonverbal cues,” “abundant and versatile expressions that can be substituted for text messages,” and “changing the topic, flow, or rationale of the interaction.” The authors examined the effects of gender and text messaging dependency on these roles. Results showed significant effects of dependency in all roles, but effects of gender were seen in only “abundant and versatile expressions that can be substituted for text messages.”

Online Self-Identities, Social Norms, and the Performance of Self in Real-Life

Social networking sites (SNSs) first emerged as online public spaces where individuals could share user-generated content, communicate, and connect. As individuals became more and more invested in online sociality, SNSs diverged into niche platforms that largely govern online sociality, shape social norms, and control user agency. SNSs' impact on individuals' self-identity and performance in both online and real-life settings has been researched and contested. However, this research reveals the affordances of SNSs, which allow users to both experiment with different self-representations and learn the social norms of real-life social situations by being able to mimic the actions and behaviors performed in corresponding SNSs. Because online networking is pervasive in society today, the advantages for connectivity and engagement must be revealed. This research aims to begin this conversation by analyzing two popular SNSs: Facebook and LinkedIn.

Using Social Media to Target Customers for Green Technology Use

Global warming is now a real threat to life on earth, and more research in information systems are needed to increase the use of green technology (GT) to contribute to sustaining the environment. The aim of this quantitative study was to investigate how social media (SM) can be used to target customers for increased GT use. Surveys from 99 respondents who used SM and wanted GT within the United States were studied. The study's integrated sustainability framework revealed that firms should be innovative, extend green culture to customers, include green practices in business processes, and increase green market share. Surveys were collected from people in public and online. Microsoft Excel and SPSS were used for statistical analysis. Analysis showed customers who used less than four social media accounts, want insurance deals annually, use affordable GT monthly, and use pricy GT monthly are the best customers to target for GT use. This study could contribute to positive social change by providing knowledge of the best customers to target for more GT use to combat global warming.