Making it Personal in a call centre: electronic peer surveillance

This paper analyses a form of electronic surveillance in a call centre that was not automatically performed through or by information and communication technology but required the active involvement of peers to provide feedback on each other's work by using an online reporting tool. Increased surveillance led to a tightening of control over certain aspects of work as advisors modified their call‐handling practices. But surveillance was simultaneously undermined by technical and bureaucratic control linked to existing information systems, which affected the ability and availability of peers to perform monitoring. Electronic peer surveillance was also unable to provide objective information or unobtrusive control as performing and evaluating surveillance became a highly political and contested process. Various forms of resistance arose, which were not always directed at management, but were instead manifest through increased animosity between teams.     

电子商务网站在线评论对手机销量影响的实证研究

采用数据抓取方法获取京东商城在线评论数据,使用SPSS软件对数据进行多元回归,通过评论数量、负面评论、评论长度和评论时效性4个维度,研究了在线评论对电子商务网站产品销量的影响,并按照品牌的热门程度将产品分类,进一步分析了品牌对负面评论和评论时效性是否具有调节作用。研究发现,评论长度、评论时效性对销量具有显著的正向影响,而评论数量、负面评论和产品价格对销量具有显著的负向影响。在品牌的调节作用下,评论时效性的影响力减弱,而负面评论对销量的影响则增强。根据研究结果,提出改善电子商务网站在线评论机制的针对性建议。     

Why do off‐shored Indian call centre workers want to leave their jobs?

Employee turnover is a major problem in off‐shored Indian call centres. Agents who service Western customers often face hostility and racial abuse because of who they are and where they are located. A substantial part of job‐related training focuses on teaching employees to manage their identity and modify their accent. Based on a sample (n = 211) of Indian call centre workers servicing international customers, we explore these issues and investigate how they affect employee turnover intentions. The study utilises Taylor and Bain's (2005) distinction between factors particular to the Indian context and those more generic to the call centre labour process to better understand the drivers of turnover. We found that a number of distinctive factors including accent modification difficulty, stigma consciousness, racial abuse and perceived favouritism were associated with turnover intentions. The study also revealed that certain job‐related factors related to intentions to leave, including routinisation and poor promotional opportunities.     

A framework for big data analytics in commercial social networks: A case study on sentiment analysis and fake review detection for marketing decision-making

User-generated content about brands is an important source of big data that can be transformed into valuable information. A huge number of items are reviewed and rated by consumers on a daily basis, and managers have a keen interest in real-time monitoring of this information to improve decision-making. The main challenge is to mine reliable textual consumer opinions, and automatically use them to rate the best products or brands. We propose a framework to automatically analyse these reviews, transforming negative and positive user opinions in a quantitative score. Sentiment analysis was employed to analyse online reviews on Amazon. The Fake Review Detection Framework—FRDF— detects and removes fake reviews using Natural Language Processing technology. The FRDF was tested on reviews of products from high-tech industries. Brands were rated according to consumer sentiment. The findings demonstrate that brand managers and consumers would find this tool useful, in combination with the 5-Star score, for more comprehensive decision-making. For instance, the FRDF ranks the best products by price alongside their respective sentiment value and the 5-Star score.     

Smart TV and the online media sector: User privacy in view of changing market realities

Smart TV and online media enable precise monitoring of online media consumption, which also forms the basis for personalised recommendations. This new practice challenges EU policy in two respects. Firstly, the legality of monitoring individual media consumption and using personal data of users is primarily addressed under data protection law. Secondly, tracking of viewing behaviour and personalisation of media content can also affect individuals’ freedom to receive information, as well as the realisation of media policy objectives such as media freedom and pluralism, implications that so far are not reflected in media law and policy, or only marginally. This article addresses the increasing reliance on personal data and personalised services in the audiovisual and online media sector and queries the appropriateness of the legal status quo in light of implementation and enforcement actions in Germany and the Netherlands. The analysis concludes with a call for media policy makers and regulators to pay more attention to the issue of ‘smart surveillance’ of media users, and develops a number of concrete recommendations on how to accommodate the specific privacy concerns of media users.     

‘Mental mobility’ in the digital age: entrepreneurs and the online home‐based business

Home‐based online business ventures are an increasingly pervasive yet under‐researched phenomenon. The experiences and mindset of entrepreneurs setting up and running such enterprises require better understanding. Using data from a qualitative study of 23 online home‐based business entrepreneurs, we propose the augmented concept of ‘mental mobility’ to encapsulate how they approach their business activities. Drawing on Howard P. Becker's early theorising of mobility, together with Victor Turner's later notion of liminality, we conceptualise mental mobility as the process through which individuals navigate the liminal spaces between the physical and digital spheres of work and the overlapping home/workplace, enabling them to manipulate and partially reconcile the spatial, temporal and emotional tensions that are present in such work environments. Our research also holds important applications for alternative employment contexts and broader social orderings because of the increasingly pervasive and disruptive influence of technology on experiences of remunerated work.     

Induced innovation and agricultural development

Dr Ruttan reviews the five general models in the literature on agricultural development: the frontier, conservation, urban- industrial impact, diffusion and high pay-off input models, and finds them lacking. He outlines a model of agricultural development which treats technical change as endogenous to the development process, rather than as an exogenous factor operating independently of it. This leads to an emphasis on the strong relationship between technological and institutional change and a call for institutional innovation that will result in a more effective realisation of the new technical potential.     

Organizational learning through post–project reviews in R&D

Post–project reviews are one opportunity to systematically improve performance in subsequent projects. However, a survey reveals that only one out of five R&D projects receives a post–project review. Post–project reviews – if they take place – are typically constrained by lack of time and attention as well as lack of personal interest and ability. They focus mostly on technical output and bureaucratic measurements; process–related factors such as project management are rarely discussed.
In this paper we review the role of post–project meetings as a tool to improve organizational learning at the group level. Based on 27 in–depth interviews with R&D managers carried out between 1997 and 2001, we categorize four classes of learning impediments. These difficulties are not easily resolved, as is illustrated by examples from Hewlett–Packard, DaimlerChrysler, SAP, Unisys, the US Army, and others. We propose a five–level post–project review capability maturity model, identifying some of the key capabilities that need to be in place in order to advance to the next process maturity level. Most companies reside on the first or second maturity level. Our conclusion is that many companies give away great potential for competence building by neglecting post–project reviews as a tool for systematic inter–project learning.     

Voices from higher up the ladder: exploring the team leader role in call centres

This paper focuses on an under‐researched employee category in the call centre literature—the team leader. The paper, drawing on data from nine Australian call centres, finds that the team leader role is integral to the effectiveness of call centres, yet it is a role that consists of considerable complexity and contradictions. The research demonstrates the critical role performed by team leaders: coach, mentor, trainer, performance evaluator, communicator and supervisor. It also shows team leaders as being far more positive about many of the features of the call centre work environment compared with those on the front line. However, there does appear to be a need for greater acknowledgement of their challenging role, the contradictions that are inherent in the job and the need, in many cases, for increased support being made available to assist.     

Enabling ‘managed activism’: the adoption of call centres in Australian,British and US trade unions

This article examines how trade unions in different country settings have utilised call centre technologies. Rather than viewing union call centres as simply a means of service delivery, our research suggests they can also enable a more strategic approach to workplace organising. We explore the implications of union call centres for debates on servicing and organising models of trade unionism.     

Skew and heavy‐tail effects on firm performance

Research summary : Most strategic management studies adopt an average‐centered view that uses the central tendency to explain between‐group variation in performance (i.e., performance differences between business units, firms, industries, and countries). In this study, we explain within‐group variation using a variance‐centered view that focuses on the peripheral characteristics of performance distributions as defined by skew and heavy tails (i.e., variance and kurtosis). Drawing on performance feedback theory, we hypothesize that successful firms tend to develop a positive skew in their performance distributions, which we call a “positive skew effect” in this study, and that heavy tails moderate this effect. Our analysis of the performance of a group of foreign affiliates provides general support for our hypotheses at both the firm and segment (industry and country) levels. Managerial summary : Managers of multi‐business firms use various approaches to improve the aggregate performance of their business units. Some expand the range of upper performance outliers (exploration) or reduce the range of lower outliers (downsizing); others improve the performance of current business units (exploitation). We find that firms with superior performance tend to have a balanced mix of the three approaches. We also find that segments (countries and industries) with higher mean performances provide environments that facilitate the entry of productive firms and the exit of unproductive firms and provide environments in which incumbents can further improve their performance by learning from others. We observe that successful firms and segments have a positive skew in their performance distributions, which we call a “positive skew effect.” Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Drivers and barriers to cross-border e-commerce: Evidence from Spanish individual behavior

This paper explores the determinants of the individual's decision to perform cross-border e-commerce (CBeC). The European Union (EU) is especially interested in the promotion of CBeC because it is an important tool in its strategy to achieve the Digital Single Market in Europe. In this paper official data is used from a representative survey of 16,209 individuals on ICT usage by households and individuals that was carried out in Spain by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) for the year 2016. Using a standard neoclassical utility maximization framework, and logistic regression techniques, the results show that being a male is positively related to the probability of practicing CBeC. Education is positively and significantly related to the probability of being involved in CBeC with EU countries. Computer and Internet Skills are significant and positive factors in explaining CBeC (either with EU countries or with the rest of the world). The variable “how often the consumer sees other customer reviews before buying online”, has a positive effect. Foreign nationality also increases the likelihood of using CBeC. To promote CBeC in Spain measures towards developing digital skills, Internet trust and use of online information reviews of goods and services are discussed.     

Student perceptions and performance in online and offline collaboration in an interior design studio

Competence in collaboration is one of the critical abilities that interior design majors are expected to develop during the course of their education; however, few students are competent to collaborate with others online. The purposes of this study were to identify student perceptions and performance in online collaboration compared to those of offline collaboration and to explore the way students collaborate online. A total of 29 junior interior design students participated in the study. After finishing each online and offline collaborative project, they completed a survey. The findings show that students are more satisfied with offline collaboration and perceive offline collaboration as more effective than online collaboration; however, no significant difference was apparent in student performance online and offline. In addition, the findings show the need to provide appropriate online interface for design collaborations. This paper includes lessons learned and recommendations to promote both online and offline collaboration in a design studio.     

Prices,Locations and Welfare When an Online Retailer Competes with Heterogeneous Brick‐and‐Mortar Retailers

This study proposes a novel spatial model in which an online retailer competes with heterogeneous brick‐and‐mortar retailers. Consumers are assumed to be non‐uniformly distributed along an urban‐rural line, and online transactions provide savings in transportation costs at the expense of distaste costs. Among other results, we show that the surviving brick‐and‐mortar retailers eventually move toward densely populated (urban) areas after the entry of the online retailer. Consumer welfare, the policy of not taxing online business, and the socially optimal number of retailers are also analyzed.     

携程的反击

这家占据OTA（在线旅游代理）市场半壁江山的巨头正尝试改变玩法，蜕变形象，以争夺更多的想象空间。     

Signaling Quality: An Examination of the Effects of Marketing‐ and Nonmarketing‐Controlled Signals on Perceptions of Automotive Brand Quality

When introducing new products to market, firms often leverage marketing signals in an effort to increase perceptions of product quality. While prior research mostly focuses on marketing‐controlled signals that firms can directly influence to affect consumer perceptions of product quality, the proliferation of nonmarketing‐controlled signals in the form of third‐party product reviews introduces a new layer of complexity to a consumer's inference process. Given the fact that propagation of marketing signals and third‐party reviews has made the marketplace more interactive, it is no longer diagnostic to analyze the impact of various quality signals on consumer perceptions, separately. The purpose of this study is twofold. There has been extant research on the individual effects of marketing‐controlled signals on quality perception, but research providing a simultaneous examination of multiple signals is scarce. The first purpose is to examine interaction effects between various marketing signals on consumer perceptions of quality. Firms may be able to control the communication strategy of internal signals (e.g., price, advertising), but third‐party signals are external to the firm, and hence are often perceived as being more credible and less biased than marketing signals. Despite the popularity of third‐party product reviews, there is scarce empirical research about how they impact perceptions in the presence of marketing‐controlled quality signals. Thus, the second purpose is to examine the interaction effects between marketing signals and independent third‐party reviews on perceived product quality. This study advances existing models of market signaling to account for the potential interactions between various types of quality signals. Hypotheses are tested using a longitudinal data set comprising all car brands that have existed in the U.S. automotive industry between 1990 and 2007. The automotive industry provides an ideal context for the analyses as quality is an indispensable yet not easily discernible attribute of cars. Furthermore, consumer perceptions of the quality of new vehicle introductions can have a profound effect on product performance. Data are compiled from various secondary sources, including Harris Interactive's Equitrend, Consumer Reports, and TNS Media Intelligence, among others. Econometric techniques are used to estimate the empirical model. Findings show that effects of quality signals are codependent such that third‐party quality ratings reduce the effectiveness of pricing and advertising, whereas they enhance the credibility of warranty signal. Furthermore, warranty positively interacts with price and advertising. It is also demonstrated that car sales in the previous period and the country of origin of the car brand significantly impact perceived quality. Overall, the research findings can help car manufacturers better understand how their initial product configurations and marketing strategies impact the perception of new vehicle introductions.     

When Public Utilities <Emphasis Type="Italic">Like</Emphasis> to Talk on Facebook

As the leading social media tool, Facebook is increasingly becoming an important channel for two-sided stakeholder communication in the energy sector. Even though public utilities more and more all relying on such virtual communication, little is known regarding the communication-related factors and their interdependencies. This study aims to reduce this research gap by analysing correlations between a public utility’s specifications, communication interactivity, the resources spent and the outcome of the Facebook conversation. In 2016, an online questionnaire was sent to German, Austrian and Swiss utility companies. The empirical data of the 139 utilities that responded fully support relationships between the communication interactivity and the invested resources as well as the outcomes of a communication. In this way, the results provide new insights for scholars and practitioners into the Facebook conversations of public entities.     

Friending the taxman: On the use of social networking services for government eID in Europe

The provision of identities online continues to be a fiercely debated topic in policy circles, with proposals emerging for public sector organizations to leverage pre-existing social networking services for their own identity management purposes. Within the broader context of private sector organizations springing up as identity providers, this article explores — from a socio-legal perspective — the merits and drawbacks of using social networking services for government eID in Europe. It then reviews the present and future European policy environment concerning official use of social networking credentials. We focus specifically on legislative measures currently being proposed in the EU to facilitate the Identification, Authentication and Signature policy, within the scope of the ongoing Electronic Signatures Directive revision process and the launch of the proposed Electronic Trust Services Regulation.     

Entrapped by the ‘electronic panopticon’? Worker resistance in the call centre

This article presents a thoroughgoing critique of Fernie and Metcalf's perspective, that the call centre is characterised by the operation of an 'electronic panopticon' in which supervisory power has been 'rendered perfect'. Drawing on evidence from a telecommunications call centre the authors analyse the significance of emerging forms of employee resistance.