Julia Heidemann

A Critical Review of Centrality Measures in Social Networks

Social networks are currently gaining increasing impact in the light of the ongoing growth of web-based services like facebook.com. One major challenge for the economically successful implementation of selected management activities such as viral marketing is the identification of key persons with an outstanding structural position within the network. For this purpose, social network analysis provides a lot of measures for quantifying a member’s interconnectedness within social networks. In this context, our paper shows the state of the art with regard to centrality measures for social networks. Due to strongly differing results with respect to the quality of different centrality measures, this paper also aims at illustrating the tremendous importance of a reflected utilization of existing centrality measures. For this purpose, the paper analyzes five centrality measures commonly discussed in literature on the basis of three simple requirements for the behavior of centrality measures.

Big Data - A Fashionable Topic with(out) Sustainable Relevance for Research and Practice?

When looking at the words of Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, thinking of Big Data seems natural. Big Data – a dictum which currently seems to be on everyone’s lips – has recently developed into one of the most discussed topics in research and practice. Looking at academic publications, we find that more than 70 % of all ranked papers which deal with Big Data were published within the last two years (Pospiech and Felden 2012) as well as nearly 12,000 hits for Big Data on GoogleScholar across various fields of research. In 2011, more than 530 academic Big Data related publications could be counted (Chen et al. 2012). We find more hits for “Big Data” than for “Development aid” in Google, and almost daily an IT-related business magazine publishes a Big Data special issue next to a myriad of Big Data business conferences. In Gartner’s current Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies (Gartner 2012), Big Data is right on the peak of its hype phase, and according to this source a broad adoption is to be expected within the next five years. Big Data provokes excitement across various fields such as science, governments, and industries like media and telecommunications, health care engineering, or finance where organizations are facing a massive quantity of data and new technologies to store, process, and analyze those data. Despite the cherished expectations and hopes, the question is why we face such excitement around Big Data which at first view rather seems to be a fashionable hype than a revolutionary concept. Is Big Data really something new or is it just new wine in old bottles seeing that, e.g., data analytics is doing the same type of analysis since decades? Do more data, increased or faster analytics always imply better decisions, products, or services, or is Big Data just another buzzword to stimulate the IT providers’ sales? Taking the traditional financial service industry, which currently cherishes huge expectations in Big Data, as an example, the collection of massive amounts of data via multiple channels for a long time was part of the business model to customize prices, product offers, or to calculate credit ratings. However, improving financial services by exploiting these huge amounts of data implied constant updating efforts, media disruptions and expensive acquisition and processing of data. Hence, more data resulted in expensive data management, in higher prices for products or services as well as in inconvenient processes regarding the customers’ data entry. Hence, instead of the traditional universal banks that focused on a data-intensive business model, direct banks with a higher grade of standardization and IT support as well as a focus on (very few) key customer data often enough have become more successful. Focusing solely on pure IT-based data acquisition, processing and analysis to save costs on the other side is virtually impossible in industries such as banking due to an intense personal contact. Besides, neither in the financial service industry nor in other industries do more data automatically lead to better data, better business success, better services, better decisions, or (more) satisfied customers. Above all, Big Data brings a lot of still unresolved challenges regarding the volume, velocity, variety, and veracity of data, which should not be underestimated. Often enough, more data even lead to a certain amount of “data garbage” which usually is more easily and better recognized and managed by employees rather than by analytics software (veracity). Additionally, the management of various sources of data such as from, e.g., mobile applications, online social networks, or CRM systems is far from trivial (variety). The high data traffic brings along the challenge of archiving, retrieving, and analyzing huge amounts of data in real-time (volume and velocity). Unsurprisingly, nearly every second Big Data project is canceled before completion (Infochimps 2013). And as if these challenges were not enough, we additionally see a myriad of different legal privacy restrictions in different countries turning into one of Big Data’s most serious challenges.

Online Social Networks – Ein sozialer und technischer Überblick

ZusammenfassungOnline Social Networks wie Xing.com oder Facebook.com gehören zu den am stärksten wachsenden Diensten im Internet. Im Jahr 2008 nutzten geschätzte 580 Mio. Menschen weltweit diese Angebote. Entsprechend schnell haben sich Online Social Networks innerhalb weniger Jahre von einem Nischenphänomen zu einem weltweiten Medium der IT-gestützten Kommunikation entwickelt. Insbesondere aufgrund stark wachsender Mitgliederzahlen entfalten Online Social Networks eine erhebliche gesellschaftliche und wirtschaftliche Bedeutung. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es Ziel dieses Beitrags, Begriff und Eigenschaften, Entstehung und Entwicklung sowie Nutzenpotenziale und Herausforderungen von Online Social Networks näher zu untersuchen.

Valuation of online social networks taking into account users' interconnectedness

Online social networks have been gaining increasing economic importance in light of the rising number of their users. Numerous recent acquisitions priced at enormous amounts have illustrated this development and revealed the need for adequate business valuation models. The value of an online social network is largely determined by the value of its users, the relationships between these users, and the resulting network effects. Therefore, the interconnectedness of a user within the network has to be considered explicitly to get a reasonable estimate for its economic value. Established standard business valuation models, however, do not account for these aspects sufficiently. Thus, we propose an economic model for the valuation of online social networks, which takes into account the users’ interconnectedness within the network. Furthermore, we analyze different centrality measures, which can be used to quantify users’ interconnectedness in online social networks and propose a measure which is based on the PageRank-algorithm. Finally, the practical application of the model is illustrated by an example of the European online social network XING.com.

The Optimal Level of CRM IT Investments - An Economic Model and its Application at a Financial Services Provider

In light of the growing relevance of customer-oriented business strategies IT investments in the field of Customer Relationship Management have increased considerably. However, firms often could not realize sufficient returns on these IT investments. One major reason for this failure seems to be the lack of appropriate approaches to determine the economic impact of such investments ex ante. Therefore, we develop an economic model to determine the optimal level of Customer Relationship Management IT investments. Using this approach, firms can evaluate, to what extent investments in Customer Relationship Management IT are reasonable. One major result is that in most cases the “all or nothing strategy” pursued by many firms does not lead to the optimal level of investments. To illustrate the practical utility and applicability of the approach, we provide a real world example of a German financial services provider.

Special Interest Networks — eine Fallstudie am Beispiel von Netzathleten.de

ZusammenfassungenOnline Social Networks haben sich innerhalb weniger Jahre zu einem globalen Phänomen mit enormer gesellschaftlicher und wirtschaftlicher Bedeutung entwickelt. Neben allgemeinen Online Social Networks, die eine breite Masse von Nutzern adressieren (z.B. Facebook.com), hat sich eine Vielzahl von zielgruppenorientierten Special Interest Networks gebildet, die bisher kaum untersucht wurden. Im Rahmen einer Fallstudie wurden die Nutzer von Netzathleten.de charakterisiert und ihre Motivation für die Nutzung analysiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich Special Interest Networks hier zum Teil erheblich von allgemeinen Online Social Networks unterscheiden: So stellt etwa neben dem Identitäts- und Beziehungsmanagement insbesondere die Informationssuche ein zentrales Motiv für die Nutzung dar.

Berichterstattung über Frauen in Führungspositionen — eine Analyse der DAX 30-Unternehmen

ZusammenfassungDer vorliegende Beitrag untersucht vor dem Hintergrund der aktuellen Diskussion um eine Frauenquote in Deutschland die Geschaftsberichterstattung uber Frauen in Fuhrungspositionen der DA X 30-Unternehmen insbesondere im Hinblick auf die im Mai 2010 geanderten Anforderungen der Regierungskommission Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex. Auf Basis einer Analyse der Geschaftsberichte der DA X 30-Unternehmen insbesondere fur das Geschaftsjahr 2010 zeigt sich, dass zwar nahezu alle Unternehmen grundlegende Aussagen zu diesem aktuellen Thema treffen. Allerdings nennen beispielsweise fur das Geschaftsjahr 2010 nach wie vor 30,0% der Unternehmen keine konkreten Ziele fur eine angemessene Beteiligung von Frauen im Aufsichtsrat in ihrem Geschaftsbericht und entsprechen damit nicht den Anforderungen des Deutschen Corporate Governance Kodex in seiner aktuellen Form.AbstractRegarding the current discussion about quota for women in leadership positions in Germany, the present article analyses the business reporting about women in leadership positions of the DAX 30 companies with respect to the changed requirements of the Government Commission on the German Corporate Governance Code in May 2010. Based on an examination of the annual reports of the DAX 30 companies particularly for 2010, it can be shown that almost all companies make basic statements about this current topic. Nevertheless, 30,0% of the companies do still not mention concrete targets concerning the appropriate representation of women in the supervisory board within their annual reporting and thus do not meet the requirements of the German Corporate Governance Code in its updated version.

Soziale Netzwerke im Web - Chancen und Risiken im CRM von Unternehmen

Fur soziale Netzwerke im Web existiert eine Vielzahl verschiedener Bezeichnungen, zum Beispiel Online Social Network, Online Community, Digital Social Network oder auch Social Networking Sites. Weitestgehend gemein ist den vielfaltigen Definitionen die Auffassung, dass soziale Netzwerke im Web eine besondere Form von Gemeinschaft sind, bei denen die Kommunikation der Mitglieder durch eine Internetplattform unterstutzt wird. Die Verbindung der Mitglieder wird durch ein gemeinsames Interesse oder Bedurfnis erreicht, das auch ohne die unmittelbare physische Prasenz der Mitglieder ein Gemeinschaftsgefuhl der Akteure ermoglicht [3, S. 263]. Im Rahmen dieses Beitrags werden soziale Netzwerke im Web (im Folgenden kurz: soziale Netzwerke) in Anlehnung an Boyd und Ellison als „web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system“ verstanden [4, S. 211]. Dabei steht das „Networking“ im Sinne des Aufbaus und der Pflege von Beziehungen im Vordergrund. Auf diese Weise entwickelt jedes Mitglied sein eigenes soziales Netzwerk. » Viele Unternehmen haben soziale Netzwerke als vielversprechendes Medium fur sich entdeckt. «

Quantifying Users’ Interconnectedness in Online Social Networks – An Indispensible Step for Economic Valuation

Online social networks have been gaining increasing economic importance in light of the rising number of their users. Numerous recent acquisitions priced at enormous amounts have illustrated this development and revealed the need for adequate business valuation models. The value of an online social network is largely determined by the value of its users, the relationships between these users, and the resulting network effects. Therefore, the interconnectedness of a user within the network has to be considered explicitly to get a reasonable estimate for the economic value. Established standard business valuation models, however, do not sufficiently take these aspects into account. Thus, we propose a measure based on the PageRank-algorithm to quantify users’ interconnectedness in an online social network. This is a first but indispensible step towards an adequate economic valuation of online social networks.

Kundenintegration in Geschäftsprozesse von Finanzdienstleistungsunternehmen

ZusammenfassungenDie Integration von Kunden in Geschäftsprozesse gewinnt in jüngster Zeit auch bei Finanzdienstleistungsunternehmen insbesondere aufgrund des veränderten Kundenverhaltens und des verstärkten Einsatzes neuer Technologien zunehmend an Bedeutung. Für viele Unternehmen bleibt jedoch oftmals unklar, welche spezifische Rolle der Kunde dabei einnehmen und wie die Kundenintegration in Geschäftsprozesse tatsächlich ausgestaltet werden kann. Vor diesem Hintergrund zeigt der vorliegende Beitrag innovative Formen der Kundenintegration bei Banken und Versicherungen auf und kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass Kunden auch dort sinnvoll in Geschäftsprozesse integriert werden können.