Claudio Vitari

The Effect of Brand on the Impact of e-WOM on Hotels’ Financial Performance

ABSTRACT Travelers increasingly consider electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) from online review platforms when making their accommodation decisions. Theory predicts that e-WOM increases sales, but little is known regarding the role that branding plays in the relation between e-WOM and hotels’ financial performance. This study relied on financial data (including Revenue per Available Room—RevPAR—and sales profitability) and 34,164 online customer reviews gathered from TripAdvisor (as a proxy for e-WOM) based on panel data from 221 hotels, including not-branded and branded chain hotels in France from 2005 to 2013. The results show that the volume of reviews has no effect on RevPAR growth for branded chain hotels and a positive effect on RevPAR growth for not-branded chain hotels. In addition, the direct effect of the valence of online reviews and its interaction effect with the yearly and cumulative volume of online reviews on RevPAR growth and sales profitability is shown to apply to not-branded chain hotels but not to branded chain hotels. This study contributes to the e-WOM literature by revealing the role of a brand in e-WOM’s impact on hotel financial performance. Based on our results, managers of branded chain hotels should know that they might find it difficult to leverage e-WOM to achieve higher RevPAR growth and greater sales profitability, as their economic advantages derive from their brand instead of e-WOM.

The success of Expert Recommending Services and the part played by organizational context

Knowledge Management (KM) practice includes services designed to reduce the difficulty of sourcing knowledge, that is, getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time. The phenomenon addressed in the study reported in this paper is a specific type of KM service – the Expert Recommending Service (ERS) – which contributes to achieving the difficult objective of getting the right expert to the right people at the right time. The findings of the study identify the dimensions of ERS success in different organizational contexts and the organizational characteristics that influence ERS success. Research contributions of the study are therefore two-fold. On the one hand, our results show that, among all the organizational characteristics, being aware of others, and specifically of others’ knowledge domains, influences ERS success. On the other hand, our results suggest that ERS success can be significantly measured by employing the following dimensions: Quality, Use, Satisfaction, Individual Net Benefit, and Organizational Net Benefit. We also propose a set of recommendations for practitioners to help improve the success of their ERS, taking into account the informal expert recommending processes, improving the accessibility of all personnel to knowledge about their colleagues and considering the organizational characteristics, in particular awareness, before launching new ERS.

Bank Strategies and the Internet: An Interpretation of the Banking Industry Based on the Italian Retail Market

Abstract The introduction of innovative information and communication technologies (ICT) in conjunction with economic and legislative changes has substantially intensified competition in the banking industry. Consequently, Online Financial Services have developed greatly in terms of both quality and quantity. The banking industry scenario is characterized by a high level of uncertainty: a number of strategies seem to differentiate the financial institutions and it is debatable what variables banks should use to make their Internet-based activities more effective. This study aims to provide an interpretation of the Internet-based development of the banking industry starting from the identification of clusters of banks with similar strategies. The literature analysis has suggested the methodology of strategic grouping and has led to the identification of three main strategic variables: the amount of bank charges, the number of bank services available online and the number of distribution channels used. Data were collected through an extensive empirical study on a selection of 95 banks within the Italian retail market. The research outcomes provided support to the classification of the surveyed banks into five strategic groups that present specific characteristics and strategies.

DDGS Affordances for Value Creation

The world is changing, and is changing thanks to the data. New opportunities for business action and service creation are emerging from the massive availability of real-time digital data. We characterize these opportunities proposing a framework rooted in the Technology Affordance theory studying the dynamic interactions between people and organizations, and the technological artifact. This approach provided encouraging results in understanding the dynamic nature of IT based innovation.

Societal Responsibility of Business and Information Systems

In this chapter, we present the development of the (CSR) corporate social responsibility as a factor of development of the use of the IS. First, we examine in detail how companies can seek to optimize the (positive or negative) externalities associated with ICTs in their lifecycle. Then we insist on the fact that businesses appear increasingly forced to act in order to communicate. Finally, we discuss the potential offered by ICT and SID in terms of preserving the environment and social progress. The IS are then used in a resolutely proactive approach towards CSR.

Business Model in the IS Discipline: A Review and Synthesis of the Literature

Although the Business Model (BM) concept provides a convenient unit of analysis in the business practices, BM research in the Information Systems (IS) field emphasizes blurriness and divergences in its structure. With this paper we provide a clarification of the BM concept and update Al-debei and Avison [1] analysis on the BM literature. Using a structured methodology, we review the titles and the abstracts of 108 articles from IS literature and examine a significant subset of 49 articles. Our work contributes first, to formalize the concept of BM as instanced in IS domain and organizes BM studies around two different frameworks. Second, it highlights the BM research streams and their current states of the art. Last, it discusses the current limitations of the BM studies and offers the basis for future research.

Investigating the Impact of Digital Data Genesis Dynamic Capability on Data Quality and Data Accessibility

A huge amount of data is created recently in digital forms. Due to the frequent technological changes and developments that are happening, organisations need to constantly match with market changes. Therefore they need to develop dynamic capabilities based on digital data, in order to reach valuable outputs. Specifically, this study examines whether the development of the Digital Data Genesis dynamic capability in firms leads to valuable outputs: data quality and data accessibility. We empirically test our model using a questionnaire-based survey answered by 125 sales managers. Results suggest that firms able to develop dynamic capabilities based on digital data obtain higher outputs in terms of data quality and accessibility. Managerial implications of our results are finally offered.

The development of the DDG-capability in firms: An evaluation of its impact on firm financial performance

We examine whether firms that develop the Digital Data Genesis dynamic capability show higher performance. Using detailed survey data on the capabilities developed by companies by the usage of digital data and firm financial performance of 96 firms, we find that the firms that develop the DDG dynamic capability have levels of ROA, ROS and revenue growth higher than others do. Our results provide one of the first empirical evidence on the direct link between DDG dynamic capability and firm financial performance

Articles in French III: Un Cadre d'Analyse pour l'Evaluation des Systèmes de Gestion de Contenu (SGC)

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Un cadre d’analyse pour l’évaluation des Systèmes de Gestion de Contenu (SGC) Claudio Vitari, Aurelio Ravarini, Florence Rodhain