Gabriele Piccoli

Knowledge management in academia: A proposed framework

While the concepts of organizational learning and knowledge management are essential in industry, relatively little attention has been devoted to how these same concepts can be applied to higher education. Despite the ready availability of the Internet and the World Wide Web, and the increasing familiarity of faculty and students with these tools, many universities seem reluctant to release their firm hold on learning paradigms that predate the information revolution by centuries. We believe that the necessary infrastructure is largely in place to begin to fundamentally reengineer knowledge creation and delivery based on principles of knowledge management and organizational learning.In this article we first introduce a model of knowledge creation and delivery that can be implemented by teams of students and faculty members in universities. We demonstrate, through description of a practical application of the complete knowledge creation and delivery cycle, how the theoretical model can be implemented and how the entities involved interact in the cycle. Finally, we describe the product of one cycle implementation, a Web-Based Virtual Learning Environment designed for an introductory Information Technology course for undergraduate business students.

Digital data streams: Creating value from the real-time flow of Big Data

There is no escaping the Big Data hype. Vendors are peddling Big Data solutions; consulting firms employ Big Data specialists; Big Data conferences are aplenty. There is a rush to extract golden nuggets (of insight) from mountains (of data). By focusing merely on the mountain (of Big Data), these adventurers are overlooking the source of the revolution—namely, the many digital data streams (DDSs) that create Big Data—and the opportunity to improve real-time decision making. This article discusses the characteristics of DDSs, describes their common structure, and offers guidelines to enable firms to profit from their untapped potential.

The Effect of a Multichannel Customer Service System on Customer Service and Financial Performance

Customer service is an important competitive lever for the modern firm. At the same time, the continuous evolution and performance improvements in information technology (IT) capabilities have enabled the utilization of multichannel service delivery strategies. Our research focuses on IT-enabled customer service systems (CSS) and their effect on firm performance. Previous studies have failed to find a consensus on the effect of a new self-service channel on the firms performance. We argue that the embedded assumptions underpinning the previous research are responsible for these mixed findings. Consequently, using archival data from 169 hotels affiliated with a hotel chain, we designed a longitudinal multichannel study to resolve some of these inconsistencies. Our results illustrate that when firms implement an IT-enabled self-service channel to complement their existing customer service infrastructure, they experience an early negative effect on financial performance due to the disruption of the service processes. Thus, the multichannel CSS generates a positive effect only when the new process becomes a stable part of the organizational procedures. Our findings suggest that researchers evaluate the effect of a technological initiative after the new business process has been stabilized and consider that an additional IT-enabled self-service channel rarely operates in isolation.

Triggered essential reviewing: the effect of technology affordances on service experience evaluations

This paper responds to the recent call for understanding the nature and consequences of the digital mediation of everyday experiences. We do so in the context of online opinion sharing. We propose that the unique design features of mobile computing devices and the intention and purpose of their users, meld into a technology affordance we label: Triggered essential reviewing. We empirically investigate the effect of this technology affordance on opinion characteristics (i.e., timing and length), and outcomes (i.e., opinion valence and content). We find that triggered essential reviewing engenders opinions that cover a narrower range of aspects of the experience and that it produces a negative evaluative bias—a bias that mitigates over time. Our work makes two contributions to the application of affordance theory in Information Systems. First, it shows the importance of IT design in studying experiential computing. While not taking a deterministic view of technology, we validate the notion that different technology designs produce a variation of effects around a predictable central tendency. Second, it empirically demonstrates that the affordances of embodied digital experiences have an effect on actual behavior as well as on the outcome of the experience itself.

Automatic Prediction of Future Business Conditions

Predicting the future has been an aspiration of humans since the beginning of time. Today, predicting both macro- and micro-economic events is an important activity enabling better policy and the potential for profits. In this work, we present a novel method for automatically extracting forward-looking statement from a specific type of formal corporate documents called earning call transcripts. Our main objective is that of improving an analyst’s ability to accurately forecast future events of economic relevance, over and above the predictive contribution of quantitative firm data that companies are required to produce. By exploiting both Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning techniques, our approach is stronger and more reliable than the ones commonly used in literature and it is able to accurately classify forward-looking statements without requiring any user interaction nor extensive tuning.

Electronic Commerce: Markets and Users

This chapter provides an analysis of electronic commerce markets and users. Here we describe the tools necessary to find, assess, select and interpret the wealth of available information that characterizes electronic markets and the Internet user population. We begin with an introduction to relevant Internet statistics as well as the quantitative and attitudinal measures commonly employed. Next, we portray the past, current, and future Internet user populations. Finally, the major advantages and disadvantages of different estimation techniques are highlighted, and the major producers of Internet statistics and forecasts are identified. Here our emphasis is on the reliability and trustworthiness of reported research results.

Uncovering the digital “x” phenomena in the IS field: A text analysis approach

As digital computers permeate an increasing number of activities, the term digital is associated with more processes, entities, and objects (e.g., digital economy, digital natives). This trend reflects in Information Systems research, with “digital” appearing before existing research concepts (e.g., digital infrastructure), often substituting for “IT”. In this study, we contribute to the delineation between digital “x” and IT “x” research by investigating the degree of usage of the terms and uncovering the most widespread digital “x” constructs. Using text analysis techniques, we can analyze a broad set of journals and a long time period. Early results, based on 17 years of MIS Quarterly publications, confirm the increasing use of the term digital. Conversely, digitize and digitalize, the two main forms of the term digital, are rarely used and do not show any significant increase in usage over time. While preliminary and not concluding, our results confirm the increasing popularity of the term digital. However, a limited number of digital “x” terms appear to connote novel constructs and the bulk of the research does not address the socio-technical process of digitalization that is central to the IS discipline. We discuss the implications of our early results and provide a research agenda.

Zoorate: Certifying Online Consumer Reviews to Create Value

Zoorate was born from the ambition of the cofounders to develop a web portal for aggregating product reviews. From the seeding concept of matching reviewers by affinity, their core product, Feedaty, had evolved into a full-fledged platform for aggregating and certifying consumer feedback. Specifically targeting online sellers and merchants, by 2017 Zoorate had signed up more than 1,000 customers, constantly growing its client base since the product launch. Supported by the strategic partnership and synergies with its shareholder 7Pixel Srl, the firm appeared to have finally set sail for success. However, several challenges lay ahead. The main competitors were becoming stronger internationally, increasingly challenging Feedaty’s value proposition. How should they efficiently grow their primary product, Feedaty? How should they deal with strong international competition beginning to gain traction in Italy? Should they continue to consolidate their Italian presence or expand abroad? These were difficult questions, the answer to which would ultimately determine the future of the startup they had built.

The Impact of IT-Enabled Customer Experience Management on Service Perceptions and Performance

While information systems have been a catalyst for strategy in the hospitality industry for almost three decades, Customer Experience Management (CEM) has received substantial research attention as of late. CEM calls for the transformation of customer interactions, enabling an unprecedented scale and scope of service personalization. Such a transformation is theorized to benefit hospitality firms through increased service perceptions and loyalty. The work empirically addresses these questions by evaluating an IT-enabled CEM strategy in seven hotels. The work provides three contributions: first, it shows that IT-enabled CEM significantly increases customer preference elicitation during the service personalization process. Second, it demonstrates that tailored customer experiences translate into higher customer service evaluations and comfort perceptions of the hotels. Third, it shows that IT-enabled CEM improves disintermediation from high-cost distribution channels to low-cost direct channels.

TRIPBAM: Leveraging Digital Data Streams to Unleash Savings

TRIPBAM pioneered automated clustered rate monitoring in the hotel industry. After capturing a traveler’s reservation, TRIPBAM software scrutinized the digital data stream of changing room rates and notified users of any potential savings. While TRIPBAM could successfully discover savings for its many customers, its executives focused on the challenge of turning TRIPBAM into a resilient, viable business going forward. Many questions awaited a clear answer. Was the consumer space the one that had the greatest potential or should the firm focus exclusively on the corporate market? How could TRIPBAM protect its early advantage from its inevitable imitators? Both the consumer and business opportunities looked wide open even though each side presented distinct challenges to growth. To achieve profitability, TRIPBAM needed to not just grow the user base but also seek a unique position in the market to defend against the increasing number of startups entering their space. The case provides substantial data and information for students to step in the shoes of TRIPBAM’s executives and provide some answers to the above questions.