Mihaela Vorvoreanu

Motives for reading and articulating user-generated restaurant reviews on Yelp.com

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to examine why and when restaurant consumers use and contribute user-generated reviews. This research is needed to determine the relevance of user-generated restaurant reviews in the current marketplace. Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology is based on a quantitative approach, and focused on current Yelp.com users as its population. Questions focused on the amount of usage, motives for usage, level of trust, users’ tendencies to seek novelty in restaurants and motives for contribution. Findings – Users tend to trust the reviews on Yelp.com and engage in the community aspects of the platform. Yelp.com users also are altruistic in their motivation for contributing reviews to Yelp.com. Yelp.com users who access it tend to act on the information found within the reviews. Originality/value – Research articles have focused on user-generated reviews in the past; however, few have examined motivations of using and posting restaurant reviews. The value of...

Website Experience Analysis: A New Research Protocol for Studying Relationship Building on Corporate Websites

ABSTRACT This article introduces a new research protocol for studying organization-public relationship building on organizational websites. The research protocol, Website Experience Analysis (WEA), and the experience-centered perspective it has emerged from are explained. Data from a study grounded in the experience-centered perspective is presented to illustrate this novel approach to the study of online relationship building. Nine corporate websites were examined by 45 students who then answered questions about their website experience addressing key dimensions of organization-public relationships. The data illustrate the implications and utility of WEA for online public relations research and practice.

Designing discovery experience for big data interaction: a case of web-based knowledge mining and interactive visualization platform

The exponentially growing data in every aspect of human lives is offering both opportunities to gain unprecedented insights and challenges for designing efficient discovery experiences. To respond to the challenge of dealing with big data, our work is designing a web-based, knowledge mining and interactive visualization platform that allows users to interactively synthesize, mine, and visualize large-scale data. In this paper, we extend the classic information retrieval concept of information seeking to more general insight discovery behavior. Our approach is to focus on users insight discovery workflow rather than data per se. User interviews were conducted to extract workflows and specific requirements to inform and direct design decisions.

Structural Equation Model of Building Information Modeling Maturity

AbstractFor the implementation of building information modeling (BIM), an incompatible development among various aspects of a business can lead to different levels of BIM maturity (BIMM) or even project failure. Therefore, it is important to identify key causal factors of BIMM. This research develops a structural equation model of BIMM through three-step multivariate analysis. It starts with exploratory factor analysis to identify three key BIMM factors, which are further tested with confirmatory factor analysis. The causal relationships among the three factors and BIMM are then proposed and validated with structural equation modeling. This research has both practical and theoretical contributions. Practically, the proposed model can be used by practitioners to initiate and evaluate their BIM implementation. Theoretically, the result provides empirical evidence for the multidimensional nature of BIMM and insights into the causal relationships among the factors. Specifically, the factors of process managem...

Portfolio Mining

Portfolio mining facilitates the creation of actionable knowledge, catalyzes innovations, and sustains research communities.

Social media adoption in disaster restoration industry

Purpose – This research aims to investigate the current patterns of social media adoption for marketing in the restoration industry and analyse the strategies used by those restoration companies that have adopted social media. Social media marketing has been proven as a cost-effective way to engage new customers, and especially useful for small businesses. The disaster “restoration industry” is the special sector of general contracting that serves both commercial and residential property owners in terms of restoring their disaster-affected property. The restoration industry is characterised by small-business domination and constant need of new customers to survive in the market. Many restoration contractors have started adopting social media for marketing. However, goals and social media marketing strategies have not yet been clearly articulated. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected through a systematic content analysis (CA) of sample restoration companies’ Facebook and Twitter posts over a 3...

Advancing UX Education: A Model for Integrated Studio Pedagogy

The rapid growth of the UX profession has led to an increased need for qualified practitioners and a proliferation of UX educational programs offered in both academia and industry. In this note, we present the design and initial evaluation of a new studio-based undergraduate program in UX--the first of its kind at a large, research-intensive US university. The program includes several curricular innovations, such as an integrated studio pedagogy in which six topical strands are interwoven across two types of studios. These studios are interconnected and span five semesters of the undergraduate experience. We present the curriculum model and the foundational principles that informed its design. We describe the two types of studios and their interconnection, and present early evaluation data showing that students are building valuable skills. The program described in this note provides a trailblazing model for UX pedagogy at the undergraduate level.

Teaching and Learning in a Social Media Ecosystem: A Case Study

This in-depth case study of a social media learning ecosystem in higher education used mixed-methods to evaluate a strategic, pedagogy-driven integration of social media in college courses. In-depth qualitative and quantitative analyses suggest that the strategic integration of social media into instruction benefited students and positively affected the key outcomes of learning, motivation, teacher relationship, and career success.

A Qualitative Assessment of Yelp.Com Users’ Motivations to Submit and Read Restaurant Reviews

This article presents a thematic analysis of Yelp.com users’ motivations to read and articulate user-generated reviews. This study’s purpose was to identify factors of usage, trust, influence, and contribution of restaurant reviews on Yelp.com. This study found that information search reduction and community membership were the greatest factors encouraging Yelp.com use. Respondents reported trusting Yelp.com due to the community aspects of the website and felt they were able to sort out biased reviews easily. Lastly, the primary reasons for contributing reviews to Yelp.com were altruistic in nature, for example, helping other users make good purchase decisions and rewarding good businesses.

Comparative content analysis of professional, semi-professional, and user-generated restaurant reviews

ABSTRACT This study examines the content of professional, semi-professional, and user-generated reviews. By comparing these three review types, this study was able to identify characteristics and factors unique to each type of review. Although, the amount of discourse in a particular factor varied, food is clearly the most important review factor regardless of review type. Semi-professional reviews emphasize atmosphere and décor more than both newspaper and user-generated reviews, while price factors were more prevalent in semi-professional reviews and user-generated reviews than in newspaper reviews. Understanding the varied structures of review types provides guidance for both restaurateurs and review users.