Jonathan P. Allen

Responding to Online Reviews: Problem Solving and Engagement in Hotels

Using online reviews in the co-creation of the service experience remains an attractive but elusive goal, based on case studies of how four high-end hotels in the western United States respond to customers’ reviews posted on TripAdvisor. Chosen specifically because they represent two divergent approaches for responding to reviews, the two sets of hotels provide a springboard for further study of how hotels can interact with customers through social media. Two of the hotels regularly responded publicly to guest comments, whereas the other two almost never posted answers to guest complaints—even though they monitored and reacted to those complaints. A comparison of management styles from the two sets of hotels was disparate in the following three areas: perceived accuracy of online reviews, internal communications style, and the approach to using online reviews for management purposes. First, hotels that responded frequently considered posted reviews to be an honest gauge of consumer sentiment, whereas nonresponders believed that reviews represented only extremely positive or negative views. Second, frequent responders had a collaborative communication style that involved regular meetings and consultations, whereas the infrequent responders (IRs) met only as needed. Some of the IRs also typically relied on an external corporate manager to handle social media, whereas the frequent responders commonly used internal staff. Finally, while all the hotels viewed posted comments as one mechanism to identify and solve customer problems, only one hotel went beyond that to make customer reviews a part of a strategic approach to an ongoing relationship.

Broadband and mobile opportunities: a socio‐technical perspective

The growth of broadband connectivity expands what can and might be transmitted across the World Wide Web and Internet. Coupled with the increasing levels of mobile Internet connectivity, broadband may allow for a new round of changed patterns in the ways computers are used. Direct effects models of the deployment, use, value and futures of broadband connectivity are unlikely to cope with the social and technological complexity of broadband. A socio-technical theoretical perspective, with its emphasis on the complex relations among social and technical aspects of a phenomenon, can provide useful insight into the potential societal impact, institutional effects and changes to individual work and life behaviours that may arise from the increasing level of bandwidth available. This paper provides a brief overview of broadband and mobile technologies from a socio-technical perspective, organizes and surveys relevant literature and focuses on emerging issues with broadband connectivity where research will help shape policy, strategy and the use of broadband networks.

Alternate reality gaming

Millions update the state of the game on the way to a common conclusion, in one case to help the Operator regain control of a spaceship and bring her crew back to the future.

Information systems as technological innovation

Information systems (IS) are technology‐based innovations. Argues for the need to develop an approach to IS research based on studies of technological innovation in the social sciences. While research on the adoption and diffusion of innovations has become a popular approach to implementation and use issues in IS research, IS research projects should be aware of both the strengths and limitations of traditional approaches to technological innovation, and should consider building upon newer approaches that address these limitations. Identifies alternative assumptions about the innovation process that are developing across a range of technological innovation studies, and offers examples of how these ideas can be used in IS research.

Redefining the network: enrollment strategies in the PDA industry

Theories of sociotechnical change seek to understand technology as both material and social artifacts. Actor‐network theory (ANT) offers an approach to sociotechnical change that has been criticized for emphasizing a micro‐level analysis of political strategies at the expense of larger social and cultural processes. This paper presents an approach to sociotechnical change that links the enrollment process of ANT with broader social practices, through the concept of inclusion in multiple technological frames. Inclusion in different technological frames is used to explain the sources of enrollment strategies in the early personal digital assistant (PDA) industry. Two case studies of PDA evolution (Psion, led by David Potter, and Palm, led by Jeff Hawkins) are used to illustrate the link between enrollment strategies and inclusion.

Value conflicts for information security management

A businesss information is one of its most important assets, making the protection of information a strategic issue. In this paper, we investigate the tension between information security policies and information security practice through longitudinal case studies at two health care facilities. The management of information security is traditionally informed by a control-based compliance model, which assumes that human behavior needs to be controlled and regulated. We propose a different theoretical model: the value-based compliance model, assuming that multiple forms of rationality are employed in organizational actions at one time, causing potential value conflicts. This has strong strategic implications for the management of information security. We believe health care situations can be better managed using the assumptions of a value-based compliance model.

Open source communities of competitors

operating system did not evolve from an existing code stream there was little to no corporate participation. The code base and community practices were simply not mature enough for integration into commercial products. As the community matured, corporations began to realize its value and started contributing toward the advancement of both corporate and open source initiatives. Linux distributions (e.g., RedHat, Ubuntu, SuSe) evolved to ease installation and ongoing management. Server vendors (e.g., IBM and Hewlett-Packard) joined to drive stability and performance enhancements into the kernel. Such involvements improved both the development economics and community maturity, reinforcing the motivations for corporations to Throughout the 1990s, corporations involved in the design of software services viewed open source participation with skepticism. However, over the past 15 years, corporate participation in open source communities has expanded rapidly. It is no longer unusual for Fortune 500 companies to have full-time staff dedicated to leveraging open source for corporate profit. Corporate participation in open source communities has raised interesting and complicated questions about how the requirements of volunteer and for-profit contributors evolve in collaborative environments. The Linux community offers a classic example of an evolution toward corporate participation in open source. Linux began as a student project. Its earliest community members were largely veteran Open Source Communities of Competitors

Open source deployment in local government: Rapid innovation as an occasion for revitalizing organizational IT

Purpose – This paper aims to present a theory of the perceived outcomes of open source software adoption for an organizational IT department.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is an interpretive case study of three open source pilot projects in local government, based on interviews with IT management, IT staff, and users. Data analysis based on constructivist grounded theory is used to generate theory about the perceived organizational outcomes of open source adoption.Findings – Open source adoption is perceived as an occasion for rapidly developing effective new business applications, even in the context of shrinking IT resources and a poor relationship between IT and the rest of the organization. IT management and staff see the potential to improve their strained relationship with users, and improve their image of themselves as product developers and explorers. Disruptive project strategies, that keep open source adoptions outside of normal resource allocation processes, are consistently associated...

The State of Risk Assessment Practices in Information Security: An Exploratory Investigation

Risk in Information Systems Security can be defined as a function of a given threat sources exercising a particular vulnerability and the resulting impact of that adverse event on the organization. Risk management is the process of identifying and assessing risk and taking steps to reduce it to an acceptable level given the costs involved in doing so. The major activity within risk management is the risk assessment process. The objective of this research is to assess the current state of practice in conducting risk assessments for information security policy management. Results from an exploratory survey of U.S. headquartered firms indicate that increased frequency of conducting risk assessments, the use of quantitative measures of likelihood of loss, and more complete asset inventories correspond with higher levels of user satisfaction and perceived usefulness, although many companies choose not to engage in this level of practice or to only go part way. Additionally, respondents reported substantial difficulty in identifying threats and estimating loss, indicating that much can be done to improve the current state of practice.

How Web 2.0 communities solve the knowledge sharing problem

Contemporary knowledge management research assumes that people are reluctant to share their personal knowledge for the benefit of others. Yet in certain Web 2.0 communities, there is an abundance of knowledge sharing, not a scarcity. This paper explores a new approach to studying peer-based knowledge reproduction that examines the detailed socio-technical practices of knowledge sharing in the Web 2.0 world.