Julian Bühler

Cryptocurrencies as a Disruption? Empirical Findings on User Adoption and Future Potential of Bitcoin and Co

In this paper, we examine cryptocurrencies as a potentially disruptive sort of payment method. Due to its relative importance, we focus in particular on Bitcoin. Through an inductive, exploratory interview approach with 13 individuals in three distinct groups, the determinants usability, usefulness, and subjective norm that could make Bitcoin a game-changer are explored. The results reveal that most stakeholders consider perceived ease of use still rather low, with perceived usefulness varying according to the user group. The notion of Bitcoin as having much future potential as a payment method is confirmed across all interviewees. Interestingly, the underlying concept of a blockchain is also seen as a potential revolutionary way to create a more just society based on open platforms and open data. However, the reasons of why Bitcoin is actually a disruption to existing solutions varies widely.

Customer is King? A Framework to Shift from Cost- to Value-Based Pricing in Software as a Service: The Case of Business Intelligence Software

With a shift from the purchase of a product to the delivery of a service, cloud computing has revolutionized the software industry. Its cost structure has changed with the introduction of Software as a Service (SaaS), resulting in decreasing variable costs and necessary amendments to the software vendors’ pricing models. In order to justify the gap between the software’s price and the incremental cost of adding a new customer, it is essential for the vendor to focus on the added value for the client. This shift from cost- to value-based pricing models has so far not been thoroughly studied. Through literature review and expert interviews, a conceptual model for customer-centric SaaS pricing, especially Business Intelligence & Business Analytics tools, has been developed. The model has then been initially validated by discussions with the top five software players in this realm and builds a strong basis for further theoretical inquiry and practical application.

Big Data, Big Opportunities: Revenue Sources of Social Media Services Besides Advertising

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other players in the social media world have been on the rise during the last couple of years. In contrast to their popularity, their underlying business models are vague and often only linked to advertising. In this explorative study we identify new revenue sources for social media service providers besides advertising. Based on three use cases with Facebook, Tencent, and LinkedIn, we identify three possibly fruitful ways to extend existing social media business models. Subsequently, a survey with 301 respondents changes perspectives on the user’s willingness to pay in order to identify usage-related differences evoked by cultural and external circumstances. Four derived hypotheses lead the way to avenues of further research especially in terms of Big Data analytics with new e-commerce trends like Facebook’s Buy Button.

How pricing of business intelligence and analytics SaaS applications can catch up with their technology

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of software pricing, following the advent of cloud-based business intelligence & analytics (BI & A) Software. A value-based conceptual software model is developed to ignite and structure further research. Design/methodology/approach – A two-step research approach is applied. In step one, the available literature is screened and evaluated, and this is followed by ten semi-structured expert interviews. With that input, a conceptual software pricing model is designed. In step two, this model is validated and refined through discussions with representatives of the five leading business intelligence suites. Findings – The paper sheds light on the value perception of customers and suggests a clear focus on the interaction between customers and vendors, and less on technical issues. The developed customer-centric, value-based pricing framework helps to improve pricing techniques and strategies. Research limitations/implications – The research ...

Name it as you like it? Keeping pace with social media something

Social media has emerged over the last decade and consequently has accompanying information systems (IS) research. In this paper, however, we argue that researchers cannot keep pace with the rapid changes this topic engenders. This claim is substantiated by a database built from 28,283 articles published in either top IS journals, i.e., ELMA, BISE, and all AIS basket journals, or IS conference proceedings, i.e., ICIS, ECIS, AMCIS, WI, HICSS, and PACIS. We derive a set of 13 keywords that have been used to describe what we call the ‘social media phenomenon’. The results are transformed into a four-phase model and a taxonomical categorization, which provides an exhaustive overview of social media terms and trends and reflects the main research issue facing academia: The fact that the versatile social media phenomenon in its current phase is dominated by just two terms—“social media” and “social network”—or imprecise “such-as-Facebook” analogies.

Should We Disable the Comment Function on Social Media? The Impact of Negative eWOM on Consumers’ Trust in Fashion Presentations

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has attracted a great deal of attention in both academia and practice in recent years. Our empirical study investigates the relation of negative comments and consumers’ trust in fashion presentations focusing on clothing. It is a product category characterized by a lot of online conversation and opinion sharing, but is surprisingly under-researched regarding eWOM. We calculate a multiple regression model moderated by consumers’ social media experience to identify the impact of a dichotomous eWOM stimulus. We find that negative comments referring to a fashion presentation cause a significant decrease of trust. However, the more experienced a user is in dealing with social media services such as Facebook or YouTube, the weaker this effect will get. These findings contribute to the existing academic discourse about the impact of negative eWOM.

The Impact of Social Media on Cause-Related Marketing Campaigns

Traditional offline media channels have always served as a reliable backbone for all kinds of marketing campaigns. But with the emergence of new digitally-driven ways of communication, other contenders arise. Very prominent and fostered by ongoing technological advantage are social media services. In this empirical study, we analyze the interplay between two traditional offline channels, print and point-of-sale (PoS) advertising, and two leading social media services, Facebook and YouTube. These channels were used by the brand Volvic during a recent cause-related marketing (CRM) campaign. It supports local supply of drinking water in Ethiopia, and serves as the basis for our investigations. We developed an online survey and asked 114 participants for their perception of four alternating campaign displays. Based on the communication model of Te’Eni, we then calculate an ordinal logistic regression and results reveal that Facebook and YouTube can add significant value to CRM campaigns.