Biruta Sloka

Use of Social Network Site´s Profile for the Employment Seeking Process

This paper investigates the use of social network site´s profile to present individuals to potential employers. Prestige is an important issue of social capital theory, social network sites members present their knowledge and skills to other members to have a benefit. The results of the survey of 440 people about their behaviour for the employment seeking process on social network sites are presented. The paper provides the analysis of reasons to present themselves in social network sites and defines the risks for organisations who use social network site´s profile to evaluate candidates. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate and explain the behaviour of individuals on social network sites for the employment seeking process and to test if the theoretical mechanism of the social capital theory can explain the operation of social network sites.

Factors Influencing the Choice of Higher Education Establishment for Marketing Strategies of Higher Education

Abstract The world-wide competition of higher education programs makes education institutions to seek for most efficient ways to attract students. The presented academic research is devoted also to the issues on motives and influencing factors for the choice of study programs. The methods applied in the current paper are as follows: analysis of scientific publications, focus group discussions, surveys of possible future students. For the evaluation of different aspects of choice a scale of 1-10 was used. For the data analysis of the survey descriptive statistical analysis, cross tabulations and correlation analysis, as well as analysis of variance (ANOVA) and factor analysis were applied.

Your social network profile reveals you

Purpose This study aims to evaluate the fears of individuals on their profiles’ sharing in social network sites (SNSs), regarding its advantages and disadvantages. The researched issues are related with the employment seeking process. The concern of this study is the deviation observation between the fears acquired by the business and private social media members. Design/methodology/approach This study included an online survey with 236 respondents and calculated indicators of central tendency or location parameter, correlation coefficients and performed analysis of variance. Findings The result indicated and revealed the hidden danger and opportunities among social network members’ profile. This result addressed the need to consider the issue of user’s fears in reengineering the practical use of SNSs by organisations. Research limitations/implications Interesting for further research would be to transfer this research from the employment seeking process in other research fields to generalise the results more accurately. Originality/value The contribution to the research field is to compare different SNSs and to explain the reasons to use SNS profiles to support organisations by their decisions for a valuable strategy. This study provides an insight in use and behaviour of SNS members that support researchers to understand the behaviour of SNS members regarding their profile under consideration of the employment seeking process.

Strategic Partnerships for the Development of Competitive Labor Force Through Vocational Education and Training

Establishing closer links between education, training and the world of work is a high level EU policy priority and increasing in the focus of academic research. Constant skills’ upgrading of the workforce to promote employability requires innovative approaches at national, regional and local level and demands new forms of strategic partnerships. This sets new tasks also for public administrations involved in vocational education and training (VET) provision. In Latvia VET reform is ongoing, with gradual changes in VET governance through increased involvement of social partners. It is important to evaluate the existing institutional mechanisms for co-operation among the social partners and, if necessary, improve them or develop new ones. A research was carried out in Latvia in 2014 among the top and medium level public administrators regarding the approaches to the development of competitive labor force by the VET system. A parallel analogous research was carried out among the employers. The aim of the research was to learn the opinions of the respective target groups, make a comparison between their opinions regarding research relevant issues and to identify the key challenges for public administrations in VET for improved decision making in the training of competitive labor force.

Successful Creation and Communication of Human Resources Strategies in Germany

Human resources strategy is very important for companies and need to be accepted by the employees. The human resources strategy is responsible for the success of the company. This paper investigates the opportunities to involve employees in the human resources strategy creation and to communicate the human resources strategies via different communication channels. The paper compares the different opportunities to present the human resources strategy e.g. online based and offline based channels and compares by the different options to involve employees in the creation of human resources strategy.

Differences in the Exchange of Contents of Different Countries in Social Network Sites

Theglobaltoolsocialnetworksites(SNSs)dependonlocalissues.ThepapercomparesLatvia(LV), Hungary(HU),UnitedKingdom(UK)andGermany(GER)toidentifysimilaritiesanddifferences inthekindofcontentwhichisforwardedtoprivateSNSs.Theresearchevaluatesiftheglobaltool SNSsdependonlocalissuese.g.thecountryoforiginofthemember.Theinfluenceofthecultural backgroundontheintensitytoexchangeinformationisexploredinthepaper.Theresearchhasbeen doneviaasurvey,surveydatawereanalysedwithindicatorsdescriptivestatistics,ANOVAtotestthe differencebetweenthecountriesandcorrelationanalysistoanalysecorrelationbetweenfactorsof socialcapitalandthekindofcontentpublishedinSNSs.FurtherthepaperusesWarpPLSasamethod toestimatetheinfluenceoftheuseofSNSsontheexchangeofcontenttoinvestigateresultsinthe analysedcountriesandSNSsdeeper.Thetestedstatementinthepaperisthatthereexistdifferences incontentofSNSandmutuality’sbetweenanalysedcountries.Theresultof theresearch is that therearedifferencesintheuseofSNSandcontentofSNSbetweentheanalysedcountries.Itisnot possibletotransfercommunicationstrategiesormarketingstrategieswhicharesuccessfulinone countrytoanothercountrybecausethedifferencesbetweenthecountriesareimmense.Especially bigdifferencesonanalysedaspectsarebetweenGermany,theUKandthenewEuropeanUnion(EU) membercountries-LatviaandHungary.

The Trust of the Information from Employer Rating Platforms

Employerratingplatformsareanimportantsourceofinformationforpotentialcandidatestocollect andprovideinformationabouttheemployer.Theinformationisbeneficialanddifferenttoofficial company information.The research investigates the reasons touseemployer ratingplatformsby individuals.Trustisimportantfortheexchangeofinformationanduseofemployerratingplatforms. Theanalysisofempiricaldataobtainedinsurveyhasbeendonewithindicatorsofcentraltendencyor location.ForempiricaldataanalysisitusedANOVA,t-testandSpearmancorrelationcoefficientto investigatethesignificanceofdifferencesinevaluationsbetweendemographicgroups.Theresearch hasbeendonebyasurveyof514participantswhoarelivinginGermany.Theresearchprovidesthe resultthattheuseofemployerratingplatformsdependsondemographicfactors.Themainresultis thatpeopletrustemployerratingplatforms.Theyareawarethattheycanbemanipulatedwiththe informationatemployerratingplatforms. KEyWoRdS Employer Rating Platforms, Human Resources Management, Social Capital, Social Networks

The Review of Internet Marketing Use in Latvia's Companies.

Development of new technologies and increasing competition require new solutions in business applications in internet marketing and advertising. The paper deals with issues related to advertising activities in internet marketing. There were presented both theoretical findings and empirical analysis of the survey conducted among Latvias companies. The survey was carried out with the assistance of telemarketing company (telephone interviews) among companies selected from Register of Enterprises LURSOFT. The analysis of survey results compared companies responses depending on the company size and turnover changes during the last three years. Various statistical indicators were used for this analysis: indicators of descriptive statistics, cross tabulations, Kruskal-Wallis test and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The results indicate that there are a lot of challenges in the better use of internet advertising activities. The companies could become more competitive by more competitive and efficient application of internet marketing.

Revealing Employer’s Name in Social Networks

Abstract The research investigates the question of the importance of mentioning the name of the employer in online and offline social networks. The exchange of information is an important part of social networks and social capital theory. Companies can use the networks of their employees to recruit new hires and to check habits and interests of likely new employees. To do that, the employee has to mention the name of the company in these social networks. The paper compares different real social networks used by family and friends and private and business social network sites (SNSs) as online social networks and compares the differences between men and women. The empirical research has been done by a survey. The survey data are analysed using the main indicators of descriptive statistics, frequency, t-test and cross tables. The results of the research reveal that real social networks are more accepted than virtual social networks. The difference in use of social networks between genders is confirmed.

ROLE OF INTERNET MARKETING FOR EXPORTING AND NOT EXPORTING COMPANIES (RESULTS OF RECENT COMPANY SURVEY IN LATVIA)

The aim of current paper is to analyse the role of internet marketing for exporting and non-exporting companies. Methods used in research: scientific publications studies, survey of companies in Latvia. The survey was conducted from November 2014 to March 2015. The company register data base LURSOFT is used for survey sample creation. A systematic sampling was applied in the survey to guarantee a random selection of units included in the sample. For the analysis of the survey data – descriptive statistical analysis, cross tabulations, Mann-Whitney U test are applied. The companies’ survey results show that exporting companies and non-exporting companies do not use internet marketing properly, the half of companies home page use only as a business card. About 32% of exporting companies and about 19% of non-exporting companies does not sell the products/services on the internet, but customers can order the product in home page. Products/services sell both on the Internet and at points of sale about 25% of exporting companies and about 26% of non-exporting companies. Theoretical findings and empirical research results indicates that internet marketing could be used more efficient in companies to promote and develop expert. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.10.16282