Steven Kilroy

Towards a general research framework for social media research using big data

The increasing adoption of cloud computing, social networking, mobile and big data technologies provide challenges and opportunities for both research and practice. Researchers face a deluge of data generated by social network platforms which is further exacerbated by the co-mingling of social network platforms and the emerging Internet of Everything. While the topicality of big data and social media increases, there is a lack of conceptual tools in the literature to help researchers approach, structure and codify knowledge from social media big data in diverse subject matter domains, many of whom are from nontechnical disciplines. Researchers do not have a general-purpose scaffold to make sense of the data and the complex web of relationships between entities, social networks, social platforms and other third party databases, systems and objects. This is further complicated when spatio-temporal data is introduced. Based on practical experience of working with social media datasets and existing literature, we propose a general research framework for social media research using big data. Such a framework assists researchers in placing their contributions in an overall context, focusing their research efforts and building the body of knowledge in a given discipline area using social media data in a consistent and coherent manner.

Perceptions of high-involvement work practices and burnout: the mediating role of job demands

This study examined the impact of perceived high-involvement work practices on job demands (role conflict, role overload and role ambiguity) and burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation). The study was conducted in a Canadian general hospital. Findings from structural equation modelling (N = 545) revealed that perceived HIWPs were significantly and negatively related to job demands and burnout. Role conflict and role overload have a significant positive association with emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. Finally, role conflict and role overload partially mediate the relationship between perceived HIWPs and burnout. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings for our understanding of how HIWPs influence the job demands and burnout of employees.

Evaluation of peak detection algorithms for social media event detection

We evaluate the effectiveness of three peak detection algorithms when applied to collection of social media datasets. Each dataset is composed of a years worth of tweets relating to a topic. The datasets were converted to time series composed of hourly tweet volumes. The objective of the analysis was to identify abnormal surges of communication, which are taken to be representative of the occurrence of events relevant to the topic under consideration. The ground truth was established by manually tagging the time series in order to identify peaks apparent to a human operator. Candidate algorithms were then evaluated in terms of the precision, recall, and F1 scores obtained when their output was compared to the manually identified peaks. A general-purpose algorithm is found to perform reasonably well, but seasonality in social media data limits the effectiveness of applying simple algorithms without filtering.

Innovation, leadership and staff engagement: insights from CEOs

Global competition, economic uncertainty and ongoing technical innovation and change are now a constant reality in organisational life (Coetsee and Flood, 2013). The ability of organisations to be creative and innovate has become a source of competitive advantage and performance. Organisations need not only be able to generate novel ideas (exploration) but be able to convert ideas into improved procedures, practices and products (exploitation). In this chapter, we regard management innovation as the generation and implementation of a management practice, process, structure or technique (Birkinshaw et al., 2008) and we address changes in what managers choose to innovate and how they do it (Hamel, 2006). The adoption of innovation and organisational change are closely linked, as change reflects differences in organisational conditions or behaviours. Change can therefore be viewed as a consequence of the adoption of innovation (Wischnevsky and Damanpour, 2006). Implementing successful innovation and change, whether at the level of the individual, team or organisation, requires effective leadership. This is especially important during innovation because leaders influence the introduction of new ideas, set goals, solicit resources and create a culture for innovation and acceptance of the change.

Employee 'words' on high involvement work practices, value congruence and burnout

This article examined the impact of perceived high involvement work practices (HIWPs) on person-organization value congruence (P-O fit) and long term burnout. The study was conducted in a Canadian ...