Jialin Hardwick

Trust formation processes in innovative collaborations: networking as knowledge building practices.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the practices and processes of trust building and use in collaborative networking for product innovation and to compare face to face with virtual networking.Design/methodology/approach – Guided by a literature review and preliminary participant observation, 16 open ended interviews collected data about the processes in 11 small biotech firms. These data were inductively analysed by the constant comparative method to develop explanatory themes.Findings – Trust was seen as a requirement for successful collaborative innovation, but the paper identified how different dimensions of trust are located in the trust building processes. Trust works by creating a platform of confidence that fosters flows of information and the exchange of tacit knowledge. Two types of trust relationships, the technical and the social, work in different ways to produce different, but complementary, types of trust. Virtual environments suit technical trust building but are less suited ...

Innovation in small business: comparing face‐to‐face with virtual networking

Purpose – The paper aims to better understand the process of networking by small business with their customers to achieve innovations. In particular the relative roles of face‐to‐face and virtual interaction are to be investigated.Design/methodology/approach – Initially a week of participant observation was undertaken then 17 in‐depth interviews were conducted and analyzed. The biotechnology sector was used for the sample.Findings – Networking interaction could be categorized into stages. A deepening of the relationship developed on two fronts: increasing exchanges of technical information but necessarily supplemented by increased sharing of social information to facilitate tacit knowledge exchanges. As the relationship continued to develop, virtual modes could be used in an increasing capacity. The paper developed a stage model and identified the role of face‐to‐face and virtual exchanges at each stage.Research limitations/implications – Generalizability is unproven. However the issues appeared typical o...

Mobile Phone Purchases and the Consumer Decision-Making Process: The Role of Facebook Online Advertising

Facebook has been one of the popular social network sites (SNS) in recent years. With an increasing number of consumer groups using SNS, an understanding of how it is perceived by consumers and consumer attitudes and behaviours towards its advertising becomes useful for businesses, in particular for those mobile phone companies that encounter consumer tastes in favouring technologically innovative products. Furthermore, greater attention needs to be paid to the function of online advertising in terms of influencing the purchasing process. The study in this chapter contributes to our understanding of consumer behaviours towards SNS advertising, by revealing that consumers response variously to Facebook advertising in the mobile phone purchase decision making process. The differing behavioural segments identified, show that Facebook advertising impacts on the pre-purchase stages of the consumer decision making process in mobile phone purchasing, a process analysed in this paper. In addition, Facebook advertising has the potential to influence other stages in the buying decision making process. Furthermore, our findings show that whilst social networking amongst peers is recognized as a key determinant of online engagement, formal networking enabled by technical mechanisms on Facebook can also be a key reason for using the site.