Making sense of new technology during organisational change

This article examines how employees interpret the use of various social media and web 2.0 technologies by managers of an organisation during a merger process. The article explores the way in which managers use technology to give sense to the merger process, the corresponding sensemaking of employees and also how employees make sense of the use of technology itself. The findings show that new media enables the sharing of emotional sense about organisational processes between managers and employees and places employees with different levels of involvement with the process and at different points in the organisational hierarchy on equal footing. In spite of this, employees view the use of technology negatively and feel mastered by the technology itself. In discussing these unintended consequences of the use of this technology, the article further discusses the paradoxes that emerge from using new technology to give sense during organisational change.     

‘I didn't feel like I was alone anymore’: evaluating self‐organised employee coping practices conducted via Facebook

The long‐term fracturing of the labour movement has led to increased attention to employee coping practices under new management practices and labour processes. However, the literature caters little for the recent rise of employees taking to social networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook, to find ways to cope with the pressures of contemporary employment. To explore the self‐organised coping qualities of SNSs, interviews were conducted with front line workers, employed by a large anti‐trade union US retailer, who contribute to a self‐organised Facebook group set up as a place for fellow employees to deal with collective employment‐related problems. The main findings suggest employee self‐organised Facebook groups represent an important development and extension to the coping practices available to individual and groups of employees. The main implication of the findings is that Facebook groups appear to strengthen and widen the options for employee resilience in an age of continuing trade union retreat.     

Social media affordances: Enabling customer engagement

Despite the acknowledged importance of social media for customer engagement, our understanding of this phenomenon is limited and new theories can help shed further light on the unique features of social media in the tourism context. Our work contributes to the literature by adopting an affordance perspective that leads us to identify three distinctive social media affordances for customer engagement in tourism: persistent engagement, customized engagement, and triggered engagement. Our work also extends prior research on customer engagement by examining the process of recognition (proprioception, exteroception and coperception) through which organizations engage customers in social media.     

浅议自媒体视域下高校学生管理工作创新思考

近年来,随着网络技术的飞速发展和移动互联工具在大学生中的迅速普及,"无网不在"、"每日必网"迅速成为90后大学生基本的生活方式,学生管理工作受到更加严峻的挑战。本文通过对自媒体平台工具差异化比较研究,结合高校的具体情况,提出了运用自媒体工具推进学生管理工作创新的具体举措。     

品牌社交媒体广告内容对消费者社交媒体参与度的影响

基于参与度理论与社交媒体特点定义消费者社交媒体参与度与它的四个维度：意识、产生情感、产生理性思考、认同。建立社交媒体广告内容分类标准，收集二手数据后使用方差模型分析品牌社交媒体广告内容对消费者社交媒体参与度的影响。结果显示社交媒体广告内容类型显著影响消费者社交媒体参与度，新产品内容效果最好，其次是促销、游戏/抽奖、社会责任内容。此研究结果不仅可丰富消费者行为视角的品牌社交媒体广告相关理论研究，也可为品牌设计社交媒体广告内容营销提供管理建议。     

How virtual brand community traces may increase fan engagement in brand pages

Brand pages in social media are a great way to foster consumer gathering around a brand, but it can be challenging to keep fans engaged and coming back to see updated content. Brands with millions of fans on Facebook have seen organic reach fall below 2% of their base. In this article, we describe how the creation of virtual brand communities can help brand managers increase fan engagement. We suggest the steps, conditions, advantages, and limitations involved in nurturing a brand page as an online social gathering that assumes some of the characteristics of a virtual brand community. The results of our study show that a brand page can have some of the characteristics of a virtual brand community—topical information exchange, identity communication, and establishment and internalization of cultural norms. We also show the importance of having celebrities among fans in order to foster social interactions and legitimate social practices on brand pages.     

Reaching audiences through travel vlogs: The perspective of involvement

Travel vlogs are popular, but how audiences get involved while watching remains unclear. This study explored audience involvement along with expressions of travel intention. A systematic sampling procedure was developed, filtering 132 ‘highly involving sessions’ from 25 videos in Bilibili, a Chinese video-sharing platform. Qualitative analyses were applied, and the findings were threefold. Firstly, a five-category video content typology was highlighted, including frame aesthetics, video editing, fandom, humour, and tourist experiences. Secondly, bullet comments were deconstructed into six dimensions through examining concepts of ‘audience involvement’. Lastly, to address possible patterns of travel intention linked to the video content types, three propositions were made. This work serves as an exploration of audience involvement in the travel vlog phenomenon, an elaboration of travel intention expression in this context, and a method of assessing tourist-generated videos through bullet comments. Practical implications were discussed.     

自媒体时代加强物流专业大学生的思想政治教育研究

本文主要通过对自媒体时代下加强物流专业大学生的思想政治教育的重要性进行阐述,引导物流专业大学生的思想政治教育的特点,提出自媒体时代下针对物流专业大学生的思政教育面临的机遇、挑战,最后提出相应的对策。     

Pinning and Promotion: How Local Television Stations Are Using Pinterest for Branding and Audience Connectivity

Over the past decade, social media have become an increasingly important component in the ways broadcasters communicate with their audiences. A relative newcomer to that mix is the social network Pinterest, which enables followers to post photos and other types of visuals based on topics of interest. A content analysis examined how 85 local television stations are using that social network for promotion and branding. Results showed that, rather than promotion, use of Pinterest primarily revolves around lifestyle content, including postings by stations and interactivity by followers.