Paralanguage and social perception in computer‐mediated communication

It is widely held that computer‐mediated communication (CMC) filters out many of the social and affective cues associated with human interaction with consequent effects on communication outcomes and the medium's suitability for interpersonal tasks. The relationship between paralanguage and social perception in CMC in different social contexts is investigated in two experiments. In Study 1, it was hypothesized that there would be significant differences in subjects’ perceptions of anonymous communicators as a function of the paralinguistic content of the electronic mail messages they received. Subjects read three sets of messages containing different types of paralinguistic cues and a fourth set of control messages. They also completed a set of person‐perception rating scales in respect of each message sender. The hypothesis was supported for both novice electronic mail users and for experienced users drawn from a large telecommunications organization. In Study 2, subjects participated in group discussions over a CMCS under four conditions, manipulated in a 2 × 2 between‐subjects design. The salience of the task group was either high or low, and subjects were either de‐individuated (physically isolated and visually anonymous) or individuated (physically copresent and visually identifiable). From social identity theory, it was hypothesized that de‐individuated subjects for whom group identity had been made salient would evaluate users of paralanguage more positively than when group salience was low, in accordance with a social attraction response associated with perceptions of group identity. The hypothesis was supported. The results suggest that paralanguage is one means by which social information is communicated in CMC and that the meaning of paralinguistic marks is dependent on the group or individual context that is pre‐established for the communication. The studies, therefore, question earlier assumptions that the social context is dramatically reduced or eliminated in this medium. The implications of contextual effects for the use of CMC by work groups in organizations are discussed.     

Nonverbal cues in computer‐mediated communication,and the effect of chronemics on relational communication

Computer‐mediated communication (CMC) has been described as lacking nonverbal cues, which affects the nature of interpersonal interaction via the medium. Yet much CMC conveys nonverbal cues in terms of chronemics, or time‐related messages. Different uses of time signals in electronic mail were hypothesized to affect interpersonal perceptions of CMC senders and respondents. An experiment altered the time stamps in replicated e‐mail messages in order to assess two time variations: (a) the time of day a message was sent and (b) the time lag until a reply was received. Results revealed significant interactions among these variables, and the task‐orientation or socioemotional orientation of the verbal messages, which affected perceptions of communicators’ intimacy/liking or dominance/submissiveness. Findings extend recent theories regarding social attributions and the adaptation of social cues in CMC behavior.     

Perceptions of facilitators of a keypad‐based group support system

Organizations are using Group Support Systems (GSSs) to improve the quality of group meetings. Keypad‐based GSSs are a widely used form of this technology, yet there has been little research on their use and effects. This paper reports the findings of a survey of facilitators of a particular keypad GSS. Facilitators indicate that keypad technology improves the quality of meetings for a variety of tasks in a range of group settings and cultures. The findings are in general agreement with field studies of workstation‐based systems.     

Marketing as auto‐communication

In contemporary culture, marketing has defined itself as the beneficial institution par excellence, concerned primarily with the needs of society and its members. Through elaborate systems of communication, the marketing institution claims to link organizations with markets and publics and, thus, to foster openness and sensitivity to different voices. Against this image, this paper demonstrates that although marketing‐oriented organizations are heavily engaged in external communication activities, they often communicate primarily with themselves. Marketing may, in other words, be described as a system of auto‐communication, that is, a set of self‐referential communication practices through which the organization recognizes and confirms its own images, values and assumptions; in short; its own culture.     

A microcomputer‐aided support environment for Xerox quality improvement teams: A case study

Although successful total quality management (TQM) emphasizes the role of teams, the quality literature does not provide a clear picture of the conditions that enable high‐performance teamwork. This case study describes the impacts of a microcomputer‐aided support environment implemented to support quality improvement teams (QITs) at Xerox. The support environment, called the Quality Support Center or QSC, was proposed and implemented explicitly to aid Xerox QITs in intensifying quality practice. The QSC features a comprehensive software tool kit, which, in conjunction with human facilitation, is designed to support correct use of Xerox structured meeting and quality processes and tools and facilitate team coordination over time. Impacts—realized from implementing solutions proposed by QITs using the QSC, as well as impacts on the work of QITs—have been substantial and far‐reaching, indicating that use of the QSC has contributed significantly to the business bottom line and quality intensification. The contribution of contextual enablers to these impacts is assessed using Hackman's [1] influential model; QSC software is described as reinforcing and augmenting these contextual enablers. Practical implications of this study stem from its documentation of the impacts of use of the QSC in the award‐winning TQM environment of Xerox. This study contributes to theory development as well by mapping features of the Xerox TQM environment on to the Hackman model. The mapping suggests the relevance of frameworks drawn from group research for modeling contextual enablers of high‐performance teamwork in TQM settings, especially as the need for theory in assessing QIT performance enablers has been emphasized [2].     

Computer‐based data and organizational learning: The importance of managers’ stories

While many organizations are investing large amounts of money to provide computer‐based data to their managers, little is known about how, or even whether, managers use these data to learn about the business environment. This issue is explored by examining how grocery product managers use supermarket scanner data to learn about changes in the marketing environment. Managers’ stories play a central role in the four‐step process used by one product management organization as it learns from analyzing computer‐based data. First, a manager examines the data and looks for unexpected results—findings that contradict one or more of her stories about the marketing environment. If something is found, the manager carries out a relatively unstructured, multistage process to make sense out of the unexpected result. This process can be viewed as a dialogue between the result and a set of tools at the manager's disposal (including analyses of computer‐based data). Next, the manager tells the story to share her insights with peers and superiors, developing a common understanding. Finally, the manager creates an official story, which is used to “sell”; new marketing approaches to people outside the product manager organization—the sales force and supermarket buyers.     

Sustainability accounting for companies: Catchphrase or decision support for business leaders?

“Sustainability accounting” and related terms are being used with greater frequency at academic conferences and in corporate practice. This raises the question of the relationship between accounting and sustainability and the role of accounting for sustainability, as well as what could be understood by sustainability accounting. The paper reviews the literature on sustainability accounting from an information management perspective and distinguishes different interpretations of sustainability accounting.     

Is online-to-offline customer care support essential for consumer service?

Customer satisfaction is the main pillar for convenient and profitable retailing. The retail sector continuously tried to develop new strategies to improve consumer satisfaction. It is impossible to provide each service directly to the consumer by the retailer. In this direction, the retailer establishes customer care to provide the best service to consumers. Consumer care can provide promotional or prevention services, increasing the consumer's satisfaction level. This study is developed to show the impact of retailers' customer care service for an offline-to-online retailing strategy. The demand is consumer support, advertisement, and selling price dependent. For maintaining consumer service, some free home delivery policies are offered, when consumers ordered more than a certain percentage of the amount. Finally, the total profit of this O2O retailing system is calculated by the classical optimization technique. Some special cases are discussed in the numerical section to prove the impact of customer care services. Numerical results prove that customer care support enhances the profit by 48.20%, whereas investment in the advertisement and home delivery strategy helps the retail industry to earn 44.80% and 16.74% more profit, respectively. Finally, from this study, it is clear that customer care activities are essential to increase the profit of the retailing sector.     

Company support for employee volunteerism: Does size matter?

This article examines the relationship between company size and support for employee volunteering. Based on organizational ecology and organizational stages theory, the study hypothesizes that larger versus smaller companies demonstrate greater formalization and codification of their support for employee volunteering. Similarly, larger versus smaller companies use employee volunteering efforts more strategically; this finding is consistent with a need to justify decisions. These outcomes in turn impact the nature of volunteering and the organizations benefiting from such programs. Survey data from a size-stratified sample of 990 randomly selected Canadian businesses indicates that large companies support employee volunteerism in a more formalized and strategic manner than small companies. This behavior includes having formal policies and programs, as well as exercising greater influence over the causes which benefit from employee volunteering. Additionally, large companies are more likely to tie other forms of charitable support to employee volunteering. The article discusses how the more formalized approach of large companies may impact society.     

Full‐life‐cycle economics: An evaluation methodology for information technology projects

This article presents a methodology for the examination and evaluation of proposed information technology projects. Through an examination of successes and failures in estimating project costs and benefits, a number of weaknesses have been identified. The areas of “hidden”; costs and intangible (or at least difficult to quantify) benefits have been particularly difficult to estimate. The methodology presented here seeks to retain the strengths of older methodologies, while addressing these identified weaknesses. This methodology, while not a substitute for good judgment, provides a framework for the standardization of economic analysis. As such, it provides both management and clients with a better basis for decisions regarding investments in information technology.     

A Study of Community Events Held by Not‐for‐Profit Organizations in Australia

This research questions the role and purpose of community‐based events hosted by not‐for‐profit organizations (NFPs), particularly charities. Followed by a review of the relevant literature, open‐ended interviews were conducted with managers of several Australian charities. The findings identify the key themes of strategic tension, stakeholder engagement, competitive pressures, event structure, event analysis, and review which are likely to be of importance to managers of NFPs who are involved in community events.     

A‐pool: An agent‐oriented open system shell for distributed decision process modeling

An agent‐oriented open system shell, A‐Pool, for distributed decision process modeling in the Internet domain is presented. Unlike most decision support systems, A‐Pool provides a testbed for modeling and understanding the cognitive aspects of distributed decision processes themselves rather than for domain‐specific problem solving. This is achieved with a pool of virtual agents and a pool of cognitive maps of the agents at each A‐Pool node. The virtual agent scheme extends object‐oriented programming to the Internet domain and supports different communication and collaboration protocols with virtual communities, virtual sessions, and virtual conferences. The cognitive map scheme supports perspective sharing and various conflict integration and resolution strategies through cognitive map composition, derivation, and focus generation. Thus each A‐Pool node provides an architecture for modeling interdependencies and for ensuring global coherence; in addition, the communication is asynchronous and the control is distributed, allowing a large degree of autonomy and the examination of various thoughts and social protocols involved in strategic planning in an open system environment. Basic ideas are illustrated with a running example.     

Going Public and the Sale of Shares with Heterogeneous Investors: Agent‐Based Computational Modelling and Computer Simulations

In this paper we use agent‐based computational modelling and computer simulations to examine the interrelationship between different selling strategies for going public. A great deal of recent empirical evidence suggests that to maximise the revenue raised from the shares sold in the public offering, it is fundamental to choose the appropriate design for the sale which, in turn, reflects the final ownership structure. This literature establishes that the market for shares is segmented and, particularly, that firms manage the sale of shares with the purpose of discriminating between relatively small and passive investors and applicants for large potentially controlling blocks. One of the key questions in this area, then, is: How and to what extent should this heterogeneity among potential investors influence the firm's strategy for selling shares? Here we attempt to address this question from the standpoint of using agent‐based computational modelling and computer simulations. Results show that the design of the sale is an important determinant of the performance of the negotiation process through which the firm is sold. A sequential sale beginning with an initial public offering of dispersed shares, followed by a negotiated sale of a controlling block is, in general, more effective than other alternative selling strategies. Changing the negotiation protocol itself can act as an effective way of impacting upon the revenue raised and the length of the process. The interrelationship between the method of sale and the performance may also depend on the degree of cognitive accuracy that characterises the negotiating agents' mental representations of their physical and social environment.     

Money in the real and the virtual world: e‐money,c‐money and the demand for cb‐money

Electronic money seems to become a new form of means of payment, not only for the Internet. It therefore will compete with other means of payment as central bank money and credit cards. There is an extensive literature on the technical and security aspects of the several forms of electronic money, but only a few papers on the economic aspects exist. In this paper, a Lancaster approach to the demand for means of payment is employed to scrutinize closer the relationship between electronic money and central bank money and credit cards. It is shown that in a two characteristics world of liquidity (acceptability) and security, there is a place for electronic money. Furthermore, it is shown that at present none of the existing monies has the potential for being a dominant means of payment. However, if the network externality problem of electronic money can be solved, electronic money may supplant the others. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Industry group： China＇s cotton planting area down 11.34% for 2009

Cllina is a major player in the clothing market for decades. As a member of WTO, China＇s sales haVe witnessed a dramatic increase. This is mainly due to the increased business from the west. When doing business with China,     

Easy-to-use multilingual communication over the internet—facilitating “E-Business” for the Hotel Industry

Here's one way that consumers and hotel operators may communicate meaningfully with each other even though they don't speak the same language.     

Innovation and re‐innovation: A role for the user

Various models of the innovation process, from the “traditional” to the more recent, are examined in this paper which focuses on the implications for the role of the user in the innovation process. The author points out the need for greater recognition of the importance of users as active participants in the innovation process. In many industrial sectors user‐need specification and product development involve more than simply a passive role for the user and innovatory success is associated with active user involvement in product specification, design and development.     

Interactive Multiple‐Criteria Methods for Reaching Pareto Optimal Agreements in Negotiations

The common features of two interactive methods that can be used in multiple-party negotiations over continuous issues are studied. One method is based on finding jointly improving directions to the parties to move along and the other on making constraint proposals to the parties. The history and the related literature on the subject is briefly surveyed in order to position the methods within the field. The basic similarities and differences together with the possibility to use them jointly are studied from the point of view of single negotiation text concept. Potential application areas including facilitation agents in distributed artificial intelligence are suggested.     

Fine‐Tuning of Health Insurance Regulation – Unhealthy Consequences for an Individual Insurer

This paper sheds light on some unexpected consequences of health insurance regulation that may pose a big challenge to insurers' risk management. Because mandated uniform contributions to health insurance trigger risk‐selection efforts, risk adjustment (RA) schemes become necessary. A good deal of research into the optimal RA formula has been performed. A recent proposal in Switzerland has been to add ‘Hospitalization exceeding three days during the previous year’ as an indicator of high risk. Applying the new formula to an individual Swiss health insurer, its payments into the RA scheme are predicted to increase substantially, reaching up to 13% of premium income. Its mistake had been to implement Managed Care successfully, resulting in low rates of hospitalization. The expected risk management response is to extend hospital stays beyond three days, contrary to stated policy objectives.     

The Impact of Smokers' Group‐Membership and Activist Gender on Tolerance for Smoking,Receptiveness and Perceived Susceptibility to Anti‐Smoking Messages,and Likelihood of Anti‐Smoking Activism

Using two experiments we demonstrate that people have lower tolerance for smoking and higher anti‐smoking activism likelihood when in‐group versus out‐group members smoke. The likelihood of anti‐smoking activism toward in‐group smokers was greater for men than women. Moreover, as social distance declined, men showed greater anti‐smoking message receptiveness, message susceptibility and activism likelihood, whereas, women displayed no significant differences in tolerance for smoking, message receptiveness, message susceptibility, and activism likelihood. Open‐ended responses indicated generally negative cognitive reactions to smokers, yet a broad unwillingness to confront them. While feelings of personal relevance and caring facilitated anti‐smoking activism intentions, beliefs in the freedom of personal choice and polite interpersonal interactions hindered these intentions.