Business Organizations and Collaborative Web: Practices, Strategies and Patterns Kamna Malik U21Global Graduate School, Singapore Praveen K. Choudhary HCL Technologies, India
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Editorial Advisory Board Mark Esposito, Grenoble Graduate School of Business, France D. P. Goyal, MDI Gurgaon, India Jeffrey Henderson, Grenoble Graduate School of Business, France Wing Lam, U21Global Graduate School, Singapore Vijay V. Mandke, NIIT University, India Lukas O. Ritzel, IMI University Centre / Prasena, Switzerland K. S. Subramanian, IGNOU, India Lloyd C. Williams, Institute of Transformative Thought and Learning, USA
List of Reviewers James Braman, Towson University, USA Rommert J.Casimir, Tilburg University, Netherlands Vatcharaporn Esichaikul, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand Mark Espistos, Grenoble Graduate School of Business, France Arhlene Flowers, Ithaca College, USA D. P. Goyal, MDI Gurgaon, India Jeffrey Henderson, Grenoble Graduate School of Business, France Ronan Jouan de Kervenoael, Sabanci University, Turkey and Aston University, UK Wing Lam, U21Global Graduate School, Singapore Lukas O. Ritzel, IMI University Centre, Switzerland Eva Soderstrom, University of Skövde, Sweden Malathi Sriram, SDM Institute for Management Development, India R. Todd Stephens, AT&T Corporation, USA Jakub Stogr, Charles University, Prague Lloyd C. Williams, Institute of Transformative Thought and Learning, USA
Table of Contents
Preface . ...............................................................................................................................................xiii Section 1 Towards Collaborative Web Chapter 1 Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications and its Business Implications................................................................................................................... 1 Pankaj Kamthan, Concordia University, Canada Chapter 2 Web 2.0: Integration Model with Electronic Commerce....................................................................... 18 R. Todd Stephens, AT&T, USA Chapter 3 Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy........................................................................ 31 Julie Vardhan, Manipal University, Dubai Section 2 Collaborative Applications in Business Chapter 4 Collaborative Journalism: Networks, News Media and the Public Sphere........................................... 48 Saayan Chattopadhyay, University of Calcutta, India Chapter 5 Using Virtual Communities to Involve Users in E-Service Development: A Case Study..................... 61 Eva Söderström, University of Skövde, Sweden Jesper Holgersson, University of Skövde, Sweden
Chapter 6 Emerging Web Tools and Their Applications in Bioinformatics........................................................... 76 Shailendra Singh, PEC University of Technology, India Amardeep Singh, Punjabi University, India Chapter 7 Collaborative Web for Natural Resources Industries............................................................................. 90 Nikhil Chaturvedi, SAP Asia Pte. Ltd., Singapore Chapter 8 Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites for Rural Production Using Multi Criteria Analysis.............................................................................................................. 102 Z. Andreopoulou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece T. Koutroumanidis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece B. Manos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Chapter 9 Online Grocery Provision Resistance: Understanding Urban (Non)Collaboration and Ambiguous Supply Chain Environments ..................................................................................... 120 Ronan de Kervenoael, Sabanci University, Turkey & Aston University, UK Burcin Bozkaya, Sabanci University, Turkey Mark Palmer, University of Birmingham, UK Chapter 10 Applying Game Mechanisms to Idea Competitions............................................................................ 144 Florian Birke, Technical University Braunschweig, Germany Maximilian Witt, Technical University Braunschweig, Germany Susanne Robra-Bissantz, Technical University Braunschweig, Germany Section 3 Organizational Aspects of Collaborative Web Chapter 11 Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization Supported by Multi Agent Architecture.................... 165 Paolo Renna, University of Basilicata, Italy Chapter 12 The Influence of Collaborative Web on Knowledge Management, Organizational Structure and Culture in Knowledge Intensive Companies . .............................................................. 184 Kathrin Kirchner, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany Mladen Čudanov, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Chapter 13 Virtual Reality and Identity Crisis: Implications for Individuals and Organizations.......................... 202 Archana Tyagi, University of Business and International Studies Geneva, Switzerland Section 4 Blending Real and Virtual Worlds Chapter 14 Virtual Worlds for Collaborative Meetings.......................................................................................... 221 Arhlene A. Flowers, Ithaca College, USA Kimberly Gregson, Ithaca College, USA Chapter 15 Collaborative Virtual Business Events: Potential and Challenges . .................................................... 245 Roma Chauhan, Institute for Integrated Learning in Management, India Ritu Chauhan, Jamia Hamdard, India Chapter 16 Augment Your Business Reality with New Age Web Tools................................................................ 261 Lukas Ritzel, IMI University Centre, Switzerland Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 282 About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 313 Index.................................................................................................................................................... 319
Detailed Table of Contents
Preface . ...............................................................................................................................................xiii Section 1 Towards Collaborative Web The Web is fast evolving as a strong collaborative medium, with more and more individuals adopting it in their personal and social life. This trend is so pervasive that it is imperative for business organizations to integrate collaborative web Web tools into their businesses. This section, with the help of three chapters takes the reader through different dimensions that need to be considered for weaving the collaborative web Web with business for better business and economic growth. Chapter 1 Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications and its Business Implications................................................................................................................... 1 Pankaj Kamthan, Concordia University, Canada This chapter provides a conceptual characterization of multiple directions of web Web evolution, relationships between these directions, and their implications towards business organizations. The consequences of a commitment to these directions are considered with the support of examples and/or empirical studies as appropriate. Chapter 2 Web 2.0: Integration Model with Electronic Commerce....................................................................... 18 R. Todd Stephens, AT&T, USA In a few years, having a standard Electronic Commerce site will be as passé as having an information only site today. Organizations must progress to the next level in order to have a viable business model in the future. In this chapter, the author takes a look at how organizations can integrate Web 2.0 technology into their current electronic commerce environment. This chapter reviews several different examples where organizations have added Web 2.0 to their environment and are succeeding in transforming themselves.
Chapter 3 Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy........................................................................ 31 Julie Vardhan, Manipal University, Dubai The objective of this chapter is to highlight recent advances in our several understandings which underpin the creation of knowledge, the iterative knowledge loops, the knowledge economy itself, and the range of technologies used by the entrepreneurs leading towards knowledge diversification, specialization, and optimization, resulting into growth of the overall economy. Section 2 Collaborative Applications in Business This section outlines the collaborative applications of the current form of webWeb, and also provides a brief peek into the future growth and directions of development of the next generation of webWeb. The set of seven chapters included in this section is a distillate of research and experience of the authors in diverse set of industries and functional domains. Chapter 4 Collaborative Journalism: Networks, News Media and the Public Sphere........................................... 48 Saayan Chattopadhyay, University of Calcutta, India Referring to the mainstream and alternate news media industry, this chapter argues that the notion of collaboration does not hinge only between a professional and an amateur, or trained reporters and common citizens, or perhaps more commonly, different kinds of media— rather it is a much greater transformation since it is a collaboration between society and technology with its palpable economic implications. The author points out the emergence of network entrepreneur and also the reconfiguring media and journalistic practices. Chapter 5 Using Virtual Communities to Involve Users in E-Service Development: A Case Study..................... 61 Eva Söderström, University of Skövde, Sweden Jesper Holgersson, University of Skövde, Sweden This chapter drives motivation from the issue of involving the end users for development of useful and sustainable e-services. With the help of a case study in the travel industry, it explains how new technological advancements and phenomena, primarily virtual communities, can be used as a main source of end user requirements. Chapter 6 Emerging Web Tools and Their Applications in Bioinformatics........................................................... 76 Shailendra Singh, PEC University of Technology, India Amardeep Singh, Punjabi University, India
This chapter gives a brief overview of the emerging field of bioinformatics bioinformatics and explains the need for collaboration in its broad research based activities. While sharing the web Web tools commonly used by scientists and researchers, the authors establish the need of collaborative tools to support their work. Chapter 7 Collaborative Web for Natural Resources Industries............................................................................. 90 Nikhil Chaturvedi, SAP Asia Pte. Ltd., Singapore This chapter focuses on the petroleum and mining industry – a resource intensive industry where collaboration across the entities in the value chain is very high and can be positively affected by the webWeb. Drawing from his first hand experiences in this industry, the author explains the extent of collaborative web Web and also the unleashed potential that still needs to be realized. Chapter 8 Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites for Rural Production Using Multi Criteria Analysis.............................................................................................................. 102 Z. Andreopoulou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece T. Koutroumanidis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece B. Manos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece This chapter takes an account of the website features to be facilitated while designing a collaborative website for e-commerce purposes in rural sector. With the help of qualitative and quantitative analysis of content characteristics, this chapter proposes a methodology aiming to optimize their websites. The retrieved websites are classified in groups aiming to identify the optimum group of websites, which can be used as a benchmark by other companies in the sector. Chapter 9 Online Grocery Provision Resistance: Understanding Urban (Non)Collaboration and Ambiguous Supply Chain Environments ..................................................................................... 120 Ronan de Kervenoael, Sabanci University, Turkey & Aston University, UK Burcin Bozkaya, Sabanci University, Turkey Mark Palmer, University of Birmingham, UK This chapter investigates the resistance by online retailers, logistic firms, and urban planners in the development of supply chain infrastructures for online grocery provision. Drawing upon twenty nine in-depth interviews with experts in online retail, logistics, and urban planning within an urban metropolis in an emerging market, the authors report different ways (ideological, functional, regulatory, and spatial) in which collaboration is resisted in online retail provision. Chapter 10 Applying Game Mechanisms to Idea Competitions............................................................................ 144 Florian Birke, Technical University Braunschweig, Germany Maximilian Witt, Technical University Braunschweig, Germany Susanne Robra-Bissantz, Technical University Braunschweig, Germany
With the help of a study carried out to analyze various idea competitions, this chapter proposes the use of game mechanism for generating / accumulating ideas in organizations. Based on theoretical insights, analysis of 18 cases and three interviews, this study demonstrates the actual occurrence of game mechanisms and their effect on the motivation of participants. Section 3 Organizational Aspects of Collaborative Web Mass adoption of collaborative web Web tools by individuals is resulting in increasing individual empowerment and more dynamism in business relations leading to severe implications for business organizations. This section, with the help of three chapters, brings forth some implications and recommendations to enable organizations relook their plans, policies and controls and move towards more open structure and culture that accommodates the changing individual and social behavioral patterns. Chapter 11 Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization Supported by Multi Agent Architecture.................... 163 Paolo Renna, University of Basilicata, Italy The focus of this chapter is on the development of a multi agent architecture to support a network of enterprises that collaborate in a co-opetition relationships environment. The research concerns the investigation of a life cycle of the network in which the partners change dynamically. In particular, the enterprises that participate in the network can exit or continue to participate, while the enterprises that operate outside the network can evaluate to participate in the network. A simulation environment is proposed that allows business users to evaluate the proposed approach in a co-opetitive network to support the plant’s participation decision. Chapter 12 The Influence of Collaborative Web on Knowledge Management, Organizational Structure and Culture in Knowledge Intensive Companies . .............................................................. 184 Kathrin Kirchner, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany Mladen Čudanov, University of Belgrade, Serbia In this chapter, the authors explore the influence that the collaborative Web tools have on knowledge management, organizational structure, and culture of knowledge-intensive companies. As a result of interviews and surveys done in Serbia, the authors report that with collaborative webWeb, organizational structure, culture, and knowledge management change is perceived among employees, and that employee’s loyalty changes from company orientation toward virtual community orientation. Chapter 13 Virtual Reality and Identity Crisis: Implications for Individuals and Organizations.......................... 202 Archana Tyagi, University of Business and International Studies Geneva, Switzerland
Identity has become one of the most important issues for human development and adjustment in today’s turbulent times. Virtual reality has recently emerged as an effective tool to extend a healing space for an alternative identity. The focus of this chapter is on the challenges faced by the young generation, which is struggling to understand its identity. Thereon, an attempt has also been made to link the organizational identity with the individual identity. Section 4 Blending Real and Virtual Worlds The ongoing trends towards miniaturized devices, touch based and more natural interfaces, and collaborative processes, are enabling many new forms of convergence. The convergence of real and virtual worlds is one such pre-dominant form that forward looking business organizations need to earnestly explore. This section helps the reader peep into the futurist trends and applications where the real and virtual worlds of business converge and augment each other. Chapter 14 Virtual Worlds for Collaborative Meetings.......................................................................................... 221 Arhlene A. Flowers, Ithaca College, USA Kimberly Gregson, Ithaca College, USA Whether businesses will make use of virtual worlds for meetings, training, and events is not just an academic question. This chapter covers the evolution of technology for virtual meetings, a theoretical analysis of tele-presence in virtual meetings, case studies of companies utilizing virtual worlds as meeting venues, and practical considerations for conducting virtual meetings and events. Chapter 15 Collaborative Virtual Business Events: Potential and Challenges . .................................................... 245 Roma Chauhan, Institute for Integrated Learning in Management, India Ritu Chauhan, Jamia Hamdard, India In addition to saving time and cost, virtual business events enable knowledge on demand, so crucial for the end users. This chapter delves into the opportunities and challenges of rich interactive virtual business events, particularly virtual exhibitions and conferences. With the help of examples of available services and usage patterns, the authors highlight the associated challenges for the end users, organizers, and developers. A blended form of real and virtual business event is suggested as a workable business proposition. Chapter 16 Augment Your Business Reality with New Age Web Tools................................................................ 261 Lukas Ritzel, IMI University Centre, Switzerland This chapter peeps into the emerging trend of Web 3.0. Particularly focusing on augmented reality (AR), this chapter takes the readers to a futuristic tour with the help examples of a number of futuristic applications where the boundaries between real and virtual worlds get blurred.
Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 282 About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 313 Index.................................................................................................................................................... 319
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Preface
“It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) – those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” Charles Darwin Collaboration is the key to survival. Just like individuals and mankind, business organizations also depend on collaboration for survival and growth. The concept of departments, committees, teams, meetings, feedbacks, conferences, et cetera, which are so fundamental to any organizational structure, culture, behavior, and performance, all point to the importance of collaboration. With globalization of economies and growth of information and communication technologies (ICT), the boundaries and scale of collaboration have moved from the intra-organizational to inter-organizational level. Two way people-people or business-business collaborations have given way to multidirectional collaborations involving multi-agents; primarily, individuals, organizations, technologies, and communities. Employee ownership, multi-partner global supply chains, collaborating competitors, and engaging customers are all imperative for the sustained growth of an organization today. The past two decades have witnessed a drastic shift in the way business is conducted. Levels of hierarchy have reduced. Business processes have gone leaner. Continuous learning and innovation have become the norm rather than the competitive advantage. Though economic and legal reforms have been a significant contributor to globalization, it is due to ICT that such scales have been manageable. ICT has been instrumental in increasing the demand as well as supply of products and services by bringing together the buyers and suppliers from across the oceans and time zones. A key result of all such changes is the rise in entrepreneurial growth of business and competition, thus raising the bar of service and excellence and redefining the form and conduct of organizations. Business has gradually become e-business, and World Wide Web has become the playfield for business organizations. Over these years, Web has evolved from read-only environment to a strong collaborative medium where users have access to a wide range of tools and resources. To mark the distinct stages of this evolution, many researchers agree with the versioning of Web; with Web 1.0 broadly representing the read-only Web; Web 2.0 representing the read-write Web or social Web; and Web 3.0 representing the Semantic Web and related developments moving towards intelligent Web. Though intelligent Web is still in fancy, wiki, blogs, tagging, social networking sites, and many such forms of collaborative Web tools have already paved their way into our lives on personal and business front. Individuals today spend a significant part of their day on the Web and social networks. Search engines, wikis, and blogs have brought in a paradigm shift from the culture of knowledge ‘management’ to knowledge ‘co-creation.’ While the earlier form of Web was first adopted by business organizations and entrepreneurs, and gradually accepted by individuals; the new age Web technologies have witnessed individuals as first adopters,
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with business organizations following the suite. The evolution of open source and social networking trends are forcing organizations to collaborate and rethink the way they innovate, create and execute their strategies, products and services. The making of Barack Obama (Nations, 2010) and Coke (Carlson, 2009) as the popular brands on Facebook and IBM saving huge money by hosting its virtual meetings over Second Life (Virtual World News, 2009) are the cases in point that highlight the fact that collaborative Web holds the potential for competitive advantage for individuals as well as organizations. The McKinsey survey (2009) reported the increasing use of blogs, podcasts, wiki, Web videos, really simple syndication and social networks resulting in innovation, better marketing, reduced time and cost thus improving the efficiency and effectiveness of internal as well as external collaborations and leading to emergence of networked organization. Virtual team interaction, customer’s surveys and feedback, talent hunt, knowledge sharing, and advertising are some of the areas where business organizations have started utilizing these tools. As a result, new forms of agile and learning organizations are evolving. Enormous speed, flexibility, knowledge, and connectivity resulting from this evolution offer immense potential to change the competitive landscape of individuals, business organizations as well as nations. As embracing this change is becoming increasingly important as well as feasible for businesses, this change is also enabling more and more individuals to become virtual entrepreneurs in their own ways. An employee, rather than spending the whole life in the silos of an organization, can today reach out globally as an individual seeker or provider of knowledge. Every individual is a potential writer and publisher today. Imagine, an employee spending a part of its office time to exercise its freedom of voice over blogging, or adding to the collective wisdom of a consortium, or strengthening his/her professional network over, say, LinkedIn. Should businesses see this act as loss of productivity or an indirect gain in collective wisdom and growth? Should business policies control employees’ access to such community building or should they capitalize on the new technologies as well as the surplus abilities of the internet generation? In what way can these technologies generate more value for business? These and many such questions confront the organizations today as they experiment with the opportunities and challenges offered by the changing form of the Web. It demands a different set of culture, organizational structure, and policies to reap out such benefits while controlling the side-effects. For example, while most forward looking organizations today create blogs to get customer feedback and also to propagate ideas and product knowledge, they face the challenges of managing 24x7 spontaneity and quick redress expected by the bloggers. They also lack the systems and processes required to manage such a large pool of gathered knowledge. The organizations desire that their employees get accustomed to new age work styles but then balancing productivity and organizational loyalty often become the conflicting issues. One can get a glimpse of such imbalances by looking at the statistics of bloggers who have been fired from their jobs. This obviously indicates a confusing situation for both – individuals as well as organizations because both are today operating on the no man’s land where the etiquette, ethics and rules are not well defined. Business and IS policy makers are yet to find ways to manage that thin line difference between individual versus business goals. This book aims to explore the practices, strategies and emerging patterns with respect to use of such new generation technologies in business organizations. To remain focused, we have restricted our explorations around collaborative nature of business and the potential or actual use of emerging Web technologies therein. However, we refrain from any attempt to bring out the distinction between various versions or names given to such technologies. For the purpose and context of this book, we prefer to use the term collaborative Web to encompass all technologies that have evolved after the initial read-only
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Web environment or Web 1.0. Simply said, collaborative Web allows its users to communicate, with each other as well as with other technologies, and communicate intelligently towards creation of better products, services and knowledge thus leading to business and economic growth. Though, we believe that any research is less likely to generate a structured model for use of Web due to the inherent unstructured nature of the business environment, the situation certainly warrants an initiative to identify and bring together the evolutionary multiple threads characterizing the changing business patterns. This edited book is an endeavor to bring forth such multiple threads, identify the current practices and future possibilities of making collaborative Web as a tool for business. It also presents the opportunities and challenges confronting organizations in the light of such emerging trends. The book presents a set of sixteen chapters grouped into four sections. A brief outline of the sections is included here. A detailed sectional preview has been provided at the beginning of each section. Section 1. Towards Collaborative Web sets the tone of this book. It is agreeable that the conventional business wisdom cannot be applied to use new tools and techniques without first understanding the nature of such technological changes. Thus, it is imperative to start with an understanding of the characteristics of Web today and appreciate the need for embedding collaborative Web into the business model. Three chapters grouped in this section together bring out the evolution of Web and e-business and suggest the integration of the two to have sustainable organizations and economies. Real life examples have been sprinkled appropriately to provide glimpses of changing business needs and formations. Section 2. Collaborative Applications in Business portrays a diverse set of business applications of collaborative Web. With the help of seven chapters, this section showcases the tools usage in information intensive industries notably in journalism and Web-services as well as in resource intensive industries such as oil and natural resources and agricultural sector. These chapters, with the help of examples collectively illustrate a generic pattern that collaborative Web tools and technologies have already started penetrating into the core business processes of different industries, affecting their collaborative value chains. Though, the adoption of these tools is still in small pockets, there is increasing clarity that they hold the potential to make a significant contribution to improvise business collaborations. Section 3. Organizational Aspects of Collaborative Web highlights the fact that there are far reaching effects of collaborative Web on the structure and culture of business organizations. Online ways to collaborate have introduced speed and dynamism in business relations; as a result the external as well as internal business partnerships are getting more dynamic and fluid. Employee loyalties are shifting from organizations to virtual communities. With the help of three chapters grouped in this section, we aim to sensitize the organizations, business managers and of course researchers to think through the risks of this fast emerging trend. Some strategies to convert these risks into opportunities are also covered. Section 4. Blending Real and Virtual Worlds brings home the essence of making judicious choice of tools and technologies for next generation businesses. Each of the three chapters included in this section illustrates the use of virtual reality for making business collaborations more human and sensory. Real life examples have been included to illustrate the options and usage patterns in conducting virtual meetings and business events. This section prompts the readers to go a bit creative and augment their business reality with virtual one thus creating a business world that is seamlessly collaborative. The flow of the sections, moving from section 1 to section 4 clearly establishes the increasing degree of collaboration across the value chain and also increasing pervasiveness of collaborative Web technologies across the value chain. Students, practitioners and researchers can draw hints from this flow to strategize their business models which are more collaborative and seamlessly connected. IWhen we first set out with the theme of this book around a year ago, the most commonly heard and read stories about
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the use of collaborative Web for business processes were around internal communication, marketing and customer feedback. With the help of this project, our implicit target was to delve deeper into identifying specific business processes and their linkage with the collaborative Web, while understanding the related implications for individuals, organizations and society. Thanks to our chapter contributors who joined us from different industries, professions, and geographies and helped us in compiling a piece of knowledge to showcase diverse applications and effects of collaborative Web. Well balanced on academic rigor and practical insights, this work also aims to set future directions for strategists, managers, academicians, researchers and students in any area of business and management. Dear reader, we hope that our carefully selected set of chapters adds more practical insights, improves your understanding of the subject, and also gives you future directions for research and experimentation. We will be privileged to receive your feedback to take this subject knowledge forward in the best interest of theory and practice of Web-enabled businesses. Kamna Malik U21Global Graduate School, Singapore Praveen K. Choudhary HCL Technologies, India
REFERENCES Carlson, N. (2009). Coke has no idea how it got 3.3 million fans on Facebook. Silicon Alley Insider. Retrieved August 11, 2010, from http://www.businessinsider.com/coke-has-no-idea-why-its-so-popularon-facebook-2009-3 McKinsey Quarterly. (2009). How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0: Global survey results. Retrieved August 11, 2010, from http://mckinseyquarterly.com/Business Technology/BT Strategy/How companies are benefiting from Web 20 McKinsey Global Survey Results 2432 Nations, D. (2010). How Barack Obama is using Web 2.0 to run for President. Retrieved August 11, 2010, from http://webtrends.about.com/od/Web20/a/obama-Web.htm Virtual World News. (February 27, 2009). IBM saves $320,000 with Second Life meeting. Retrieved August 11, 2010, from http://www.virtualworldnews.com/2009/02/ibm-saves-320000-with-second-lifemeeting.html
Section 1
Towards Collaborative Web
OVERVIEW One may disagree on the stages, names, version numbers and definitions assigned to various forms of web, but what is equivocally acceptable about today’s web is its growing collaborative nature. While Wikipedia is reshaping the publishing industry, youtube is a great example of new wave in media and entertainment industry. Customers today have someone to listen to them and help them; and people with innovative ideas can find some takers, thanks to company blogs and virtual communities. This trend is pervasive and forceful to the extent that business organizations of this era cannot afford to ignore this. There is a large pool of web technologies and related software services available; what organizations need as the first step is to relook their business model and make web-enabled collaborations an intrinsic part there in. This section, with the help of three chapters takes you through different dimensions that need to be considered for weaving the collaborative web of business for better business and economic growth. Chapter 1 by Pankaj Kamthan is based on the premise that unless the nature of the product is understood, its true potential cannot be exercised. The chapter identifies and elaborates eight unique characteristics in the developmental environment of Web Applications viz. Computing EnvironmentNeutral, Domain-Specific, Human-Centered, Information Interaction-Intensive, Model-Driven, Open Environment-Based, Pattern-Oriented, and Quality-Sensitive. It then moves on to discuss the implications of these characteristics on users and towards different aspects of business organizations including transfer of knowledge and management. In chapter 2, R. Todd Stephens takes a look at how organizations can integrate Web 2.0 technology into their current electronic commerce environment. . The author highlights that the standard e-commerce focusing on conduct of business transactions will be soon as passé as an information-only site. To sustain themselves, organizations need to move to the next level of creating networks as an intrinsic part of their business model. This chapter runs you through the prominent technological developments such as wiki,
blogging, social networks, social tagging, mash-ups and user oriented content; and shares real life examples and reminds that integration strategies for these technologies should follow bottom-up approach. Chapter 3 by Julie Vardhan draws our attention towards the linkage between knowledge, entrepreneurship and growth of economy. It highlights recent advances in several understandings which underpin the creation of knowledge, the iterative knowledge loops, the knowledge economy itself and the range of technologies used by the entrepreneurs leading towards knowledge diversification, specialization and optimization resulting into growth of the overall economy. Some of the recent knowledge based growth models have also been shared, illustrating the effects of innovation in creation of new frontiers and firms and more specifically on firms exploiting new age web technologies.
1
Chapter 1
Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications and its Business Implications Pankaj Kamthan Concordia University, Canada
ABSTRACT The Web has been changing since its inception. In particular, the evolution of the developmental environment of Web Applications has been multi-directional. This chapter provides a conceptual characterization of such technical directions, relationships between these directions, and their implications towards business organizations. The consequences of a commitment to these directions are considered with the support of examples and/or empirical studies as appropriate. The challenges faced by Semantic Web Applications and Social Web Applications are briefly outlined.
INTRODUCTION The Internet, particularly the Web, has opened new vistas for many sectors of society and over the last decade has played an increasingly integral role in our daily activities of communication, information, and entertainment. The use of the DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch001
Web has changed people’s behaviors, in some cases indispensably and even irreversibly. It is evident that conventional business practices that apply to one product cannot be simply mapped to another without first understanding the nature of the product, and the same applies to Web Applications. This chapter identifies and elaborates unique characteristics in the developmental environment of Web Applications. It also
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Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
considers the implications of these characteristics on users and towards different aspects of business organizations including transfer of knowledge and management. The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. First, the background and related work is presented. This is followed by an exploration of a list of characteristics that uniquely posit the nature of Web Applications. Next, challenges and directions for future research are outlined. Finally, concluding remarks are given.
BACKGROUND In this section, the basics of Web Applications that are relevant for the rest of the chapter are provided. The people who have a stake in a Web Application are outlined, and previous work on characterizing Web Applications is discussed.
Basic Terminology Related to Web Applications For the sake of this chapter, a Web Application is defined as a Web Site that behaves like an interactive software system specific to a domain and typically requires a non-trivial infrastructure for development. This infrastructure may include a disciplined and systematic development process, a team with high-level of knowledge and skills, deployment of additional software on the clientand/or server-side, and a schedule comprising of several weeks or months from inception to completion. The use of a Web Application has evolved from its origins in the mid 1990s. It has been shown in empirical studies (Weinreich et al., 2008) that, instead of merely seeking information, users now also expect to be able to interact with a Web Application to carry out certain tasks. This in turn has had an impact on how Web Applications are perceived, developed, and managed.
2
For the sake of this chapter, Web Engineering (Mendes & Mosley, 2006) is a discipline concerned with the establishment and use of sound scientific, engineering and management principles and disciplined and systematic approaches to the successful development, deployment, and maintenance of ‘high-quality’ Web Applications.
Stakeholders of Web Applications A stakeholder is a person who has interest in a Web Application for some purpose. For the sake of this chapter, the stakeholders of Web Applications are broadly classified into producers and consumers. The producers are responsible for server-side concerns of a Web Application; the consumers are receivers on the client-side of a Web Application. For example, business executives, project managers, and software engineers belong to the category of producers; beginner and advanced users belong to the category of consumers. It is possible to devise more sophisticated stakeholder classification schemes based on other criteria. For example, stakeholders could be classified based on their degree of influence (Alexander, 2005) on a Web Application. However, doing so is beyond the scope of this chapter. It is evident that the stakeholders of Web Applications are diverse. For example, there can be anthropological differences, cultural differences, and differences of personal preferences among stakeholders. These can be relevant to the development of Web Applications that aim to target a diverse audience.
Related Work on Characterizing the Development of Web Applications In this section, a chronological account of previous work related to this chapter is presented. A model for characterization of Web Applications has been given (Lowe, 2002). However, details of individual characteristics are not given and the discussion is relatively dated.
Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
It has been noted that Web Applications vary in a number of ways from traditional software including uncertainty of the domain, often shorter time-to-market, and rapid changes in technologies (Lowe, 2003; Ziemer & Stålhane, 2004). However, the arguments are often based on perception rather than social and technical reality. It has been pointed out that different types of Web Applications vary along the lines of their nature, form, purpose, and development (Selmi, Kraïem, & Ghézala, 2005). However, the treatment is relatively dated. The variations between conventional software systems and Web Applications have been pointed out (Mendes & Mosley, 2006). However, the criteria focus on the development and underlying technologies rather than the stakeholders. Finally, a characterization from the viewpoint of basic elements of Web Engineering, namely project, people, process, and product has been proposed (Kamthan, 2009a). The approach taken in this chapter is an alternate, although not necessarily orthogonal, to this work.
AN ANTHOLOGY OF SALIENT CHARACTERISTICS IN THE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT OF WEB APPLICATIONS The following characteristics, based on the observations and experience of the author over a number years, identify the pivotal directions of evolution in the developmental environment of Web Applications: [C-1] Computing Environment-Neutral, [C-2] Domain-Specific, [C-3] Human-Centered, [C-4] Information Interaction-Intensive, [C-5] Model-Driven, [C-6] Open Environment-Based, [C-7] Pattern-Oriented, and [C-8] QualitySensitive. Figure 1 depicts [C-1] − [C-8], and their interrelationships of dependencies. The presence of an arrow in the figure signifies that the source ‘relies-upon’ the destination. The interest in this
chapter is in a confluence of [C-1] − [C-8]. It is the contention of the author that [C-1] − [C-8] are relevant; however, there is no claim that they are sufficient. These characteristics and their implications are discussed in some detail in the subsequent sections.
[C-1] Computing EnvironmentNeutral In the last two decades, there has been a proliferation of computing devices and user agents with diverse configurations. In particular, there has been an influx of computing devices such as notebook and tablet computers that vary considerably in their options for data input/output, screen capabilities, memory, disk space, and processing power. Indeed, if forecasts are any indicators, it is likely that the non-stationary devices will outsell stationary devices in the coming years. It is not practical for a typical user to change the underlying device or user agent to suit the demands of different Web Applications. It is expected by the users that the same services are available on an array of devices (related to [C-3]). Therefore, it has become ever more important for Web Applications to be perceived as being neutral to the volatility in the computing environment. In the past decade, there has been notable progress in this direction. The current initiatives such as the W3C’s Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity are a step forward. The producers of Web Applications have been confronting the challenge by providing dynamic delivery of resources based on an assessment of the clientside computing environment. This assessment, for example, can include recognizing the device and personalizing according to user preferences. In particular, it is effective to produce and archive a single, normative representation of information that, upon request, can be transformed to multiple presentations of information, tailored according to environmental needs including specificities of device types, operating systems, and user agents.
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Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
Figure 1. The characteristics of evolution of Web Applications and their interrelationships of dependencies
The proliferation of information technologies such as the Extensible Markup Language (XML), the Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT), and the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) has played an important role for bringing this to a realization.
Challenges In general, a commitment to computing environment-neutrality is not free of cost. In order to achieve computing environment-neutrality to an acceptable degree, any advantages specific to, for example, hardware or software optimization, must be sacrificed. To check device variability, particularly that on mobile devices, the devices themselves and/or device simulators need to be acquired. The aim of minimizing (ideally, eliminating) dependency of a Web Application on user agents can require more time and effort on part of producers, not least due to the fact that the user agents are themselves prone to change. This variability also places extra burden on acceptance testing.
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[C-2] Domain-Specific There are different types of Web Applications addressing different domains (Arrue, Vigo, & Abascal, 2008; Deshpande et al., 2002). The nature and underlying goals of an organization can be reflected in a Web Application that is domain-specific. Indeed, domain-specificity has been central to Web Applications for e-business: the actual information (including the advertisements, if any), style of expressing information, and presentation of information are all in the direction of the domain. The notion of a Web Portal has been instrumental in the proliferation of domain-specific Web Applications. For example, a Web Portal of skin care products is identifiably different from a Web Application connected to a bank’s information system. The interaction design in general and presentation design in particular, including typographical decisions, should reflect the differences between Web Applications pertaining to different domains.
Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
There is increasing support for domain engineering in the development of Web Applications. For example, the information of the underlying domain is critical to the user models and the usage models (related to [C-3]). There are design patterns (Van Duyne, Landay, & Hong, 2007) that also suggest that the genre of a Web Application be specified at the start of development (related to [C-7]).
Challenges There can be undesirable side-effects of domainspecificity. The language used in a domain-specific Web Application, including terminology, may be acceptable to regular users; however, it may alienate new users if appropriate steps are not taken. These steps could include general introduction and provision of context-sensitive help.
[C-3] Human-Centered There are number of reasons due to which humancenteredness of Web Applications (Nielsen & Loranger, 2006) needs to be reflected throughout development and during operation. The consumers of interactive systems such as Web Applications are heterogeneous. Indeed, users can vary in a number of ways including age, mental and physical ability, educational background and skills, culture, gender, geographical location, goals, personal preferences, and temperament. This diversity must be acknowledged, embraced, and subsequently acted upon. The variations in the technological background and skills of consumers are especially relevant. There are consumers of Web Applications such as digital natives (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008) that were born at the time digital technologies were taking shape and/or have grown up with digital technologies. These digital technologies include those that underlie the current non-stationary computing devices as well as the Internet in general and the Web in particular. In contrast, there are also consumers of Web Ap-
plications such as digital immigrants or digital laggards that, by law or economic necessity, are required to use the Web. It is increasingly been acknowledged that the mere existence of a Web Application is neither necessary, nor a sufficient condition for its utility to a user. It has become important for the producers to consider the value a Web Application provides to a user throughout the development process and highlight the services it provides to a user upon delivery. Indeed, value and service can be dominant factors on which the success and failure of a Web Application is measured, and ignoring any of them can adversely impact the bottom-line of the business that owns that Web Application. The shift of focus on technologies to focus on people in the past decade has had an impact on how Web Applications should be viewed, namely a consideration of only technical aspects is insufficient in providing the quality of service expected from Web Applications by their consumers. The acknowledgement of the significance of the role of humans has led to a variety of changes at all levels of development of Web Applications. The process models for development of Web Applications have become more human-centric (Kamthan, 2008a; Kamthan, 2008b). The formulation of concrete user models such as personas (Pruitt & Adlin, 2006) and elicitation of user requirements has become an imperative. There has been an influx of a number of approaches for developing interactive systems in general and Web Applications in particular such as include activity-centered design, contextual design, empathic design, and so on. The acknowledgement of a user’s context, inception of personalization (related to [C-2]), and use of recommender systems are some of the prime examples of human-centeredness of Web Applications.
Challenges There are possible side-effects of human-centeredness of Web Applications. An emphasis
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Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
on the users and their environment may lead to over-attention and dependence on the data derived from ethnographic studies and user feedback, both during and after development. An initiative for personalization usually comes at the cost of privacy, and providing a priori guarantees to users of the appropriate use of the data submitted by them can be a challenge. There is also the potential for the use of the Web for persuasion (Weinschenk, 2009) that can adversely impact the credibility of a Web Application (Fogg, 2003).
[C-4] Information Interaction-Intensive The ‘invisibility’ of a computer was posited more than two decades ago (Norman, 1998). By treating information as a ‘first-class’ concern, the Web has acted as a catalyst in this regard. The Web has placed yet another layer between a human and the computer’s operating system interface, namely that of an information interface (Pirolli, 2007). The structural, behavioral, and creational aspects of information directly affect the consumers of Web Applications. It is likely that, among the consumers of Web Applications, the digital natives are the most exposed to and accustomed to the presence of information interfaces (related to
[C-3]). Therefore, attention and commitment to information interfaces is imperative for understanding the nature of Web Applications. The study of information interfaces belongs to the discipline of human-information interaction (HII). HII relies on a number of cognate disciplines (Albers, 2008) such as cognitive psychology, social psychology, human factors, human-computer interaction, information science, and technical communication. The structural, behavioral, and creational aspects of information interface design usually make use of patterns (related to [C-7]). Figure 2 illustrates multiple interfaces: the information interface of an abstract Web Application, the user interface of the user agent, and the user interface of the underlying operating system. Figure 3 illustrates an information interface created by viewing a Portable Document Format (PDF) document in the Mozilla Firefox user agent: the interface elements on the top belong to the user agent and the interface elements on the bottom belong to the Adobe Reader plug-in. It makes use of a number of information design, presentation design, and search design patterns (Van Duyne, Landay, & Hong, 2007).
Figure 2. The information interface in the hierarchy of human-to-machine interaction
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Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
Challenges The presence of information interfaces presents new development challenges. For example, a consumer may have to deal with multiple different interfaces within the same Web Application or across different Web Applications. This could be prohibitive in the absence of any contextsensitive help. The challenge increases if there are features across interfaces that are same or similar in presentation but different in functionality, or same or similar in functionality but different in presentation. For example, accessibility and usability issues of the search interface provided by a Web Application are not necessarily identical to that of a general-purpose search engine or to that provided by a user agent being used to access that Web Application.
[C-5] Model-Driven The interest in the development of Web Applications has steadily moved from concrete to abstract artifacts that can be achieved by conceptual model-
ing. There are a number of advantages of modeling including creating an environment for discussion across project team, early cost estimation, exploring and experimenting with design alternatives, identifying stakeholders, minimizing attention at the level of transient technologies, and so on. The assortment of desirable models includes a problem domain model, user model (such as user role, user profile, and/or persona), usage model (such as a use case model and/or a task model), and macro- and micro-architectural design models. The design models can be refined further to include specific aspects of design such as structure and behavior, usually using design patterns (related to [C-7]). Table 1 lists some early conceptual models in the development of Web Applications and their potential uses. The interest and initiatives towards modeling Web Applications has gradually increased over the past decade (Rossi et al., 2008). Initially, there were modeling approaches specific to Web Applications such as the Object-Oriented Hypermedia Design Method (OOHDM), UML-based Web Engineering (UWE), W2000, and the Web Mod-
Figure 3. An example of an information interface for a Web Application
Table 1. The potential uses of early conceptual models in the development of Web Applications €€€€Conceptual Model Type
€€€€Potential Use(s)
€€€€Problem Domain Model
€€€€Requirements Elicitation and Specification, Glossary
€€€€Stakeholder Model
€€€€Project Management Plan
€€€€User Model
€€€€User Requirements Elicitation and Specification, Acceptance Testing
€€€€Use Case Model
€€€€Cost Estimation, Behavioral Requirements Elicitation, Test Case Specification
€€€€Task Model
€€€€Interaction Design Description
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Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
eling Language (WebML). Now there are a number of extensions of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for Web Applications in form of UML profiles (Rossi et al., 2008), each often focused on one of the possible views of the application. The availability of open modeling environments (related to [C-6]) can help in that endeavor.
Challenges The adoption of conceptual modeling, in spite of its usefulness, is not automatic. The organization’s process maturity and availability of resources can affect the degree of commitment, if at all, to conceptual modeling. In general, the knowledge and experience in conceptual modeling are rare, and therefore expensive. The proposed UML profiles for Web Applications tend to have different goals, and a ‘standard’ is yet to emerge.
[C-6] Open Environment-Based It would not be an overstatement to assert that, in the absence of an open environment, a widespread acceptance of the Web would not have been possible. Indeed, the architecture of the Web (Jacobs & Walsh, 2004), and the entire technological infrastructure that supports it, is based on an open environment. The availability of open resources, for both the producers and the consumers, has played a critical role in the success of Web Applications. The support software that is of primary concern to the producers and the consumers of Web Applications has been open. The classical exemplars on the client-side include the NCSA Mosaic and Lynx and on the server-side include the NCSA Web server. These were followed by the introduction of the Apache Web server and then the formation of the Apache Software Foundation, followed by the ascent of the Mozilla Project. The Open Source Software (OSS) has made an indispensable contribution to the development of
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Web Applications. The ‘family’ of OSS clients, servers, and content management systems has flourished, and there does not appear any sign of decline in growth. The relationship between the Web and OSS is symbiotic (Kamthan, 2007). Indeed, Web has become the de facto platform for the development of OSS. There are a number of OSS foundries such as SourceForge that have been set up as Web Applications, and have been instrumental in dissemination of OSS.
Challenges In spite of the prevalence of OSS, their quality is still an open issue. The stability of OSS is not guaranteed: there are open source projects that have become dormant or have been discontinued after relatively short period of time. A commitment to such OSS can therefore impact the velocity of development of a Web Application. As open source projects are voluntary efforts, timely customer support can be an issue, especially for new initiatives.
[C-7] Pattern-Oriented The reliance on conceptually reusable experiential knowledge is crucial for the development of Web Applications. In the past couple of decades or so, one form of such knowledge, namely patterns, has been found useful. For the sake of this chapter, a pattern is defined as an empirically proven solution to a recurring problem that occurs in a particular context (Buschmann, Henney, & Schmidt, 2007; Kamthan, 2010). There are benefits of patterns for both the producers and the consumers of Web Applications. If used appropriately, patterns contribute to business values such as reduce cost, reduce time to market, increase quality to market, and increase product lifetime (Elssamadisy, 2007). The use of patterns for HII leads to information interfaces that are
Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
familiar to the users of Web Applications, and it is known that familiarity contributes to usability. In recent years, a systematic approach based on patterns, for orienting the development of (Mobile) Web Applications aiming for ‘high-quality’, has been realized (Kamthan, 2008a; Kamthan, 2008b; Kamthan, 2008c). In particular, it is expected that models during the analysis and design phases are based on patterns. The deployment of tools can become crucial in a ‘large-scale’ use of patterns (related to [C-6]). Table 2 illustrates the role of patterns in the development of Web Applications based on some Web Engineering process. The relationship between the Web and patterns is symbiotic (Kamthan, 2008a). Indeed, Web has become the de facto platform for dissemination of patterns. There are a number of pattern collections available on repositories such as the Hypermedia Design Patterns Repository, the Portland Pattern Repository, and the Amsterdam Collection of Patterns that have been set up as Web Applications, and continue to serve the pattern community.
Challenges In spite of the advantages emanating from a commitment to patterns, there are certain limitations. There may be insufficient development experience in new domains. Therefore, even though desirable, there may not be any patterns for such domains. For example, even though the aware-
ness of accessibility in the development of Web Applications has increased over the past decade, there is currently a scarcity of stable and mature accessibility patterns. The selection of patterns is non-trivial due to a number of reasons including the absence of a ‘standard’ for pattern description. It is expected that the use of patterns can aid quality; however, in general, the relationship between quality and patterns (Kamthan, 2009c) is equivocal (related to [C-8]). Finally, studies pertaining to the return on investment (ROI) of patterns are yet to be seen.
[C-8] Quality-Sensitive There are different views of quality. For the sake of this chapter, these views include, but are not limited to, conformance to authoritative sources (such as standards), economical benefits, and consumer satisfaction. There are a number of reasons for paying attention to quality during the development of Web Applications. For example, a corporate trainer may want to use a Web Application for classroom demonstration without being interrupted by unsolicited pop-ups on unrelated topics; a senior citizen with low visual acuity would like to use the Web for banking from home but may be concerned about readability of text and entrusting others with personal information; a person with epilepsy would like to use the Web to look for travel destinations for her upcoming vacation without being confronted with animations; and
Table 2. The relationships between patterns and models in a process for the development of Web Applications €€€€Web Engineering Process €€€€Web Application Quality Model €€€€Conceptual Models
€€€€Is-Sensitive-To
€€€€Web Application Quality Model
€€€€Is-Visible-In
€€€€Conceptual Models
€€€€Is-Supported-By
€€€€Patterns
€€€€Depends-On
€€€€Web Application Stakeholder Model
€€€€May-Use
€€€€Patterns
€€€€Lead-To
€€€€Web Application
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Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
so on. Therefore, the needs pertaining to quality of the consumers of Web Applications should be a ‘first-class’ concern for the producers (related to [C-3]). There are other reasons for a commitment to quality. In general, a lack of quality has negative implications resulting in a ‘loss to society’ (Akingbehin, 2005). The success of a Web Application as perceived by its stakeholders is also often intrinsically related to its quality (Pertet & Narasimhan, 2005). The purpose of a quality model is to lend an understanding of quality. In general, a quality model provides a decomposition of quality into a number of attributes, relationships between those attributes, and means of quantifying those attributes. The recent quality models for Web Applications (Kamthan, 2008a; Kamthan, 2008b) have emphasized a number of quality attributes that are relevant to stakeholders including accessibility, credibility, legality, maintainability, privacy, reliability, security, and usability. These models also underscore the interplay of quality and patterns (related to [C-7]). The movement in quality engineering of Web Applications has been from technical to social concerns. There was early awareness of the significance of maintainability, reliability, security, and usability, followed by attention on accessibility, legality, and privacy, and in turn followed by credibility. This could be explained by the pervasiveness of Web Applications. The users are spending increasingly more time on the Web, and increasingly depending on the Web for routine activities. There have also been notable efforts in this area by commercial vendors like Adobe Systems, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems to ensure that their products are sensitive to quality concerns of end-users. In particular, the support for accessibility in products such as Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader has increased over the past decade.
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Challenges In spite of the evident significance of quality assurance and evaluation, it is not free of cost. The infrastructure required for setting up a dedicated quality engineering program, including laboratories, may not be within the budget of certain academic institutions and small-to-medium-size enterprises (SME). The number of engineers for testing Web Applications has improved over the years; however, experts in heuristics evaluation of accessibility or usability are scarce and not inexpensive. There are a few free-to-use tools for evaluating, say accessibility, credibility, and usability of Web Applications; however, guidance for their appropriate use may not always be freely available, if at all. Finally, a Web Application can be a complex system, and a single quality model may not be sufficient. Indeed, as shown in Table 3, there is a need for multiple quality models for a Web Application, each emphasizing a specific aspect of that Web Application.
Remarks The characteristics [C-1] − [C-8] apply only to the Surface Web, not the Deep Web. It is important to note that, apart from those discussed above, certain characteristics, such as EthicallyAware, Law-Abiding, Standards-Conforming, or Value-Added, are among the desirable potential candidates. However, currently these can not be unequivocally seen as perceived directions for the evolution of Web Applications. For example, the pervasiveness of information technology in general, and the Internet and the Web in particular, has given rise to new ethical dilemmas (Tavani, 2004). However, the current commitment of organizations towards an ethicsaware Web Applications is unclear.
Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
Table 3. A selected collection of different quality models in the development of Web Applications €€€€Type of Quality Model
€€€€Examples
€€€€Conceptual Model Quality Model
€€€€Domain Model Quality Model, Use Case Model Quality Model
€€€€Specification Quality Model
€€€€Requirements Specification Quality Model
€€€€Information Quality Model
€€€€Text Quality Model, Two-Dimensional Graphics Quality Model, Animation Quality Model
€€€€Design Quality Model
€€€€Navigation Design Quality Model, Presentation Design Quality Model
€€€€Implementation Quality Model
€€€€Data Quality Model, Source Code Quality Model
Implications of Characterizing the Development of Web Applications for Business Organizations The characteristics that reflect relatively stabilizing invariants in the evolution of the development of Web Applications need to be identified and explored for a number of reasons, including their implications on business organizations.
Implications for Knowledge Transfer In general, an awareness of the directions in the evolution of the development of Web Applications could be useful for corporate trainers who are involved in curriculum development related to Web Engineering at their respective organizations. For example, instead of the conventional focus on technology-oriented courses (Krunić et al., 2006) under the label of ‘Web Design,’ or the like, it could open new vistas for curriculum design. The potential topics for courses include Conceptual Modeling of Web Applications (related to [C-5]), Open Source Web Applications (related to [C-6]), Quality of Web Applications (related to [C-7] and [C-8]), and User-Centered Web Applications (related to [C-3] and [C-8]), to name a few. In these courses, basic concepts of Web Applications and services to consumers become primary, and technology, albeit important, becomes secondary.
Implications for Management The Web has become a ‘first-class’ medium for a number of industries. This has had a notable impact on business decision making and organizational practices, especially those industries that are committed to Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) electronic commerce (E-Commerce). Project A characterization of Web Applications is relevant to technical leaders who are involved in planning their future information technology policies at their respective organizations. There is a constant drive in industry to gain a competitive edge through a number of means such as by improving existing workflows, finding avenues of reusable knowledge, eliciting new directions for personnel training, and so on. An understanding of the avenues being pursued in the engineering of Web Applications could help charter new paths for these directions. Process In the early days of the Web, the organizations followed an ad-hoc or essentially linear approaches towards the development of ‘large-scale’ Web Applications. However, taking into consideration the working habits of the people involved (related to [C-3]) and following an evolutionary approach towards development are being recognized as increasingly relevant to the underlying process
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Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
environment. This trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. The organizations have come to embrace agile methodologies such as Extreme Programming (XP), Lean Development, and Scrum. Indeed, empirical studies (Clutterbuck, Rowlands, & Seamons, 2009) have shown some success in doing so. However, transition to agility is not automatic, depends intrinsically on an organization’s culture, and comes with a price. For fruitful development, an organization must seek a balance on the rigidity-agility spectrum.
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS In this section, two directions of evolution of the Web (Murugesan, 2010), namely the Semantic Web and Social Web are considered, and their implications for producers and consumers of Web Applications are briefly outlined.
Towards a Characterization of the Development of Semantic Web Applications The Semantic Web has emerged as an extension of the current Web that adds technological infrastructure for better knowledge representation, interpretation, and reasoning (Hendler, Lassila, & Berners-Lee, 2001). It has promised a new era of Semantic Web Applications, especially those that can make implicit knowledge explicit and reason with it. The attention on the Semantic Web has reinforced the significance of the separation of the representation and presentation of information. This, in turn, has positive implications towards accessibility/usability and maintainability. For example, multiple user-supplied style sheets can be associated with a single source of representation, and multiple target presentations can be generated from a single source of representation. Indeed, a better representation of knowledge opens new possibilities for Semantic Web Ap-
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plications with ‘intelligent’ user interfaces (IUIs), especially those of adaptation and personalization. The representation of knowledge in form of ontologies holds the promise of more precise and relevant searching as demonstrated by experimental search engines like CORESE, SWSE and Swoogle.
Challenges The apparent benefits of the Semantic Web come with certain challenges. Even though there have been many advances towards enabling the technical infrastructure of the Semantic Web in recent years, there is much to be done in addressing the human and social concerns (Kamthan & Pai, 2005). In particular, the learning curve and requisite skills expected by the underlying technologies, especially by knowledge representation languages; the cost-benefit ratio in the production of large, domain-specific ontologies; quality assurance and evaluation of ontologies; performance of reasoning with these ontologies over the network; and usability of query formulations on devices with restricted capabilities, are some of the unique challenges for a broad acceptance of Semantic Web Applications. For example, the Web Ontology Language (OWL) is one of the key layers of the Semantic Web technology ‘stack.’ OWL recursively depends on a number of other technologies for its definition, all of which need to be learned for a thorough understanding and subsequent optimal use.
Towards a Characterization of the Development of Social Web Applications The Social Web, or as it is more commonly referred to by the pseudonym Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005), is the perceived evolution of the Web in a direction that is driven by ‘collective intelligence,’ realized by information technology, and characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects.
Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
It has spawned a new era of Social Web Applications (Bell, 2009), and opened new vistas for collaboration among globally distributed participants. The Social Web celebrates the human involvement in the evolution of the Web. If the Web leveled the playing field between large and small businesses, the Social Web, to certain extent, levels the playing field between producers and consumers. Indeed, Social Web applications like Del.icio.us, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and YouTube, are but a few examples of the phenomenon where a consumer becomes a co-producer, or a prosumer, in a social network. In this sense, the Social Web itself is an environment for the development of (Social and/or Semantic) Web Applications. For example, there are Social Web Applications that can be used by members of a project team to communicate with each other, collaboratively develop conceptual models listed in Table 1, and disseminate process artifacts (Kamthan, 2009b).
Challenges The apparent benefits of the Social Web (Kamthan, 2009b) come with certain challenges. A systematic process for developing Social Web Applications has yet to emerge. The Social Web Applications, particularly those labeled as Rich Internet Applications (RIA), can place demands on the client-side that could be perceived as severe. The conventional user interface metaphors for desktop and Web Applications are not sufficient for Social Web Applications, and innovation in that direction is desirable. For example, conventional applications have dialogues between human and computer; in Social Web Applications, this model has to be extended to dialogues between humans, in some cases groups of size greater than two. The Social Web has brought forth issues related to quality, specifically of legality, privacy, and security, not encountered previously. The Social Web applications will need to address new technical and social requirements to be viable.
For example, the reuse of information in mashups (Ogrinz, 2009) raises the issues of the rights of the original author and appropriate attribution by its users. The ease of involvement in social networks has led to a proliferation of participants on services such as Facebook and MySpace; however, at the cost of privacy if not configured and controlled adequately. If surveys are any indicators, the digital natives are likely the most frequent users of and/ or participants in the Social Web Applications. The ease of publishing information has led to a new group of contributors, including digital natives; however, lack of adequate knowledge and/ or experience of protecting information have also increased potential threats to security. The Social Web has also blurred the lines between the roles and responsibilities of a producer and a consumer with respect to the corrective and perfective maintenance of a Web Application. For example, the contributors of information in the role of prosumers may not have adequate training in discerning the quality of information that they contribute to Social Web Applications such as Wikipedia. This raises the issue of believability of the information presented to a consumer in general and of the credibility of Web Applications in particular (Fogg, 2003). For example, the potential for the distribution of inaccurate medical information from unqualified sources has particularly had an acute impact on the user perception of health-related Web Applications, and is not likely to improve by inviting unmonitored end-user development.
Remarks The development of Semantic Web Applications and Social Web Applications reflects machineoriented and human-oriented extension of conventional Web Applications, respectively. It is relatively early to characterize this new generation of applications. In doing so, the characteristics [C1] − [C-8] are deemed necessary but not sufficient.
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Towards a Characterization of the Developmental Environment of Web Applications
For the sake of argument, consider the case of Social Web Applications. It is likely that Social Web Applications need to move from genericity to specificity (related to [C-2]). For example, there are generic social networking applications like Facebook, but also means for creating community-specific social networks using systems such as Ning. Furthermore, to be inclusive, the Social Web Applications need to commit to universal design (Chisholm & May, 2008), and therefore to accessibility and usability (related to [C-8]). However, given a group of participants in a Social Web Application, there is also a need to consider the sociological impact that entails from the computer-mediated communication among participants themselves. This is not completely addressed by [C-1] − [C-8].
CONCLUSION The characteristics presented in this chapter aim to provide an understanding of the state-of-the-art in the development of Web Applications. They also highlight technical and social challenges that are likely for both the producers and consumers of Web Applications. In the past decade, there have been numerous advances towards enabling the technological infrastructure of the Web in lieu of addressing the technical challenges. However, there is much to be done in addressing the social challenges. The Web continues to grow at an alarming pace, and the dependence of the society on it continues to increase. It can be anticipated that there will be new generation of Web Applications, possibly unique in some ways. It is likely that the [C-1] − [C-8] presented in this chapter will remain relevant for the foreseeable future. However, in order to characterize sustainable development that provides value to both the producers and consumers of these ‘new’ Web Applications, they may need to evolve accordingly, both in terms of their emphasis and their granularity.
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REFERENCES Akingbehin, K. (2005). A quantitative supplement to the definition of software quality. The Third ACIS International Conference on Software Engineering, Research, Management and Applications (SERA 2005), Mt. Pleasant, U.S.A., August 11-13, 2005. Albers, M. J. (2008). Human-information interaction. The Twenty Sixth Annual ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (SIGDOC 2008), Lisbon, Portugal, September 22-24, 2008. Alexander, I. F. (2005). A taxonomy of stakeholders: Human roles in system development. International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, 1(1), 23–59. doi:10.4018/jthi.2005010102 Arrue, M., Vigo, M., & Abascal, J. (2008). Supporting the development of accessible Web applications. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 14(16), 2699–2719. Bell, G. (2009). Building social Web applications: Establishing community at the heart of your site. O’Reilly Media. Buschmann, F., Henney, K., & Schmidt, D. C. (2007). Pattern-oriented software architecture, volume 5: On patterns and pattern languages. John Wiley and Sons. Chisholm, W., & May, M. (2008). Universal design for Web applications: Web applications that reach everyone. O’Reilly Media. Clutterbuck, P., Rowlands, T., & Seamons, O. (2009). A case study of SME Web application development effectiveness via agile methods. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation, 12(1), 13–26. Deshpande, Y., Murugesan, S., Ginige, A., Hansen, S., Schwabe, D., Gaedke, M., & White, B. (2002). Web engineering. Journal of Web Engineering, 1(1), 3–17.
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Elssamadisy, A. (2007). Patterns of agile practice adoption: The technical cluster. C4Media. Fogg, B. J. (2003). Persuasive technology: Using computers to change what we think and do. Morgan Kaufmann. Hendler, J., Lassila, O., & Berners-Lee, T. (2001). The Semantic Web. Scientific American, 284(5), 34–43. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0501-34 Jacobs, I., & Walsh, N. (2004). Architecture of the World Wide Web, vol. 1. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. Kamthan, P. (2007). On the prospects and concerns of integrating open source software environment in software engineering education. Journal of Information Technology Education, 6, 45–64. Kamthan, P. (2008a). A situational methodology for addressing the pragmatic quality of Web applications by integration of patterns. Journal of Web Engineering, 7(1), 70–92. Kamthan, P. (2008b). A methodology for integrating patterns in quality-centric Web applications. International Journal of Information Technology and Web Engineering, 3(2), 27–44. doi:10.4018/ jitwe.2008040103 Kamthan, P. (2008c). Towards high-quality mobile applications by a systematic integration of patterns. Journal of Mobile Multimedia, 4(3/4), 165–184. Kamthan, P. (2009a). A model for characterizing Web engineering. In Khosrow-Pour, M. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology (2nd ed., pp. 2631–2637). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Kamthan, P. (2009b). A methodology for integrating the social Web environment in software engineering education. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 5(2), 21–35. doi:10.4018/jicte.2009040103
Kamthan, P. (2009c). On the symbiosis between quality and patterns. The Third International Workshop on Software Patterns and Quality (SPAQu 2009), Orlando, USA, October 25, 2009. Kamthan, P. (2010). A viewpoint-based approach for understanding the morphogenesis of patterns. International Journal of Knowledge Management, 6(2), 40–65. doi:10.4018/jkm.2010040103 Kamthan, P., & Pai, H.-I. (2005). An experience in ontological representation of Web application patterns for the Semantic Web. The First Workshop on Semantic Web Enabled Software Engineering (SWESE 2005), Galway, Ireland, November 6, 2005. Krunić, T., Ružić-Dimitrijević, L., Petrović, B., & Farkaš, R. (2006). Web design curriculum and syllabus based on Web design practice and students’ prior knowledge. Journal of Information Technology Education, 5, 317–335. Lowe, D. (2002). Characterisation of Web projects. The Eighth Australian World Wide Web Conference (AusWeb 2002), Sunshine Coast, Australia, July 6-10, 2002. Lowe, D. (2003). Web system requirements: An overview. Requirements Engineering, 8(2), 102–113. doi:10.1007/s00766-002-0153-x Mendes, E., & Mosley, N. (2006). Web engineering. Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/3-540-28218-1 Murugesan, S. (2010). Web X.0: A road map. In Murugesan, S. (Ed.), Handbook of research on Web 2.0, 3.0 and X.0: Technologies, business, and social applications (pp. 1–11). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Nielsen, J., & Loranger, H. (2006). Prioritizing Web usability. New Riders Publishing. Norman, D. A. (1998). The invisible computer: Why good products can fail, the personal computer is so complex, and information appliances are the solution. The MIT Press.
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O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. O’Reilly Network. Ogrinz, M. (2009). Mashup patterns: Designs and strategies for using mashups in enterprise environments. Addison-Wesley. Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives. Basic Books.
Weinreich, H., Obendorf, H., Eelco, M., & Herder, M. (2008). Not quite the average: An empirical study of Web use. ACM Transactions on the Web, 2(1), 5:1-5:31. Weinschenk, S. M. (2009). Neuro Web design: What makes them click?New Riders. Ziemer, S., & Stålhane, T. (2004). The use of trade-offs in the development of Web applications. International Workshop on Web Quality (WQ 2004). Munich, Germany. July 27, 2004.
Pertet, S. M., & Narasimhan, P. (2005). Causes of failure in Web applications. (PDL Technical Report PDL-CMU-05-109). Carnegie Mellon University, USA.
ADDITIONAL READING
Pirolli, P. (2007). Information foraging theory: Adaptive interaction with information. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:o so/9780195173321.001.0001
Brajnik, G. (2001). Towards Valid Quality Models for Web Sites. The Seventh Conference on Human Factors and the Web (HFWeb 2001), Madison, U.S.A., June 4-6, 2001.
Pruitt, J., & Adlin, T. (2006). The persona lifecycle: Keeping people in mind throughout product design. Morgan Kauffman.
Casteleyn, S., Daniel, F., Dolog, P., & Matera, M. (2009). Engineering Web Applications. Springer Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-92201-8
Rossi, G., Pastor, O., Schwabe, D., & Olsina, L. (2008). Web engineering: Modelling and implementing Web applications. Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-1-84628-923-1
Constantine, L. L., & Lockwood, L. A. D. (2002). Usage-Centered Engineering for Web Applications. IEEE Software, 19(2), 42–50. doi:10.1109/52.991331
Selmi, S. S., Kraïem, N., & Ghézala, H. H. B. (2005). Toward a comprehension view of Web engineering. The Fifth International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE 2005), Sydney, Australia, July 27-29, 2005.
Costagliola, G., Ferrucci, F., Gravino, C., Tortora, G., & Vitiello, G. (2004). The Impact of Accessibility and Usability on the Development of Web Applications. International Workshop on Web Quality (WQ 2004), Munich, Germany, July 27, 2004.
Tavani, H. T. (2004). Ethics and technology: Ethical issues in an age of information and communication technology. John Wiley and Sons. Van Duyne, D. K., Landay, J., & Hong, J. I. (2007). The design of sites: Patterns for creating winning websites. Prentice-Hall.
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Graham, I. (2003). A Pattern Language for Web Usability. Addison-Wesley. Hasan, L. R., & Abuelrub, E. (2006). Criteria for Evaluating Quality of Websites. The Sixth IBIMA Conference on Managing Information in Digital Economy, Bonn, Germany, June 19-21, 2006.
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Lynch, P. J., & Horton, S. (2009). Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (3rd ed.). Yale University Press. Ricca, F., & Tonella, P. (2006). Detecting Anomaly and Failure in Web Applications. IEEE MultiMedia, 13(2), 44–51. doi:10.1109/MMUL.2006.26 Ross, M. (2002). Quality in Web Design for Visually Impaired Users. Software Quality Journal, 10(4), 285–298. doi:10.1023/A:1022185920401 Sampaio, A., Vasconcelos, A., & Sampaio, P. R. F. (2004). Towards Reconciling Quality and Agility in Web Application Development. International Workshop on Web Quality (WQ 2004), Munich, Germany, July 27, 2004. The following publications advocate a systematic and/or disciplined approach towards the development of ‘high-quality’ Web Applications from a user’s perspective:
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Accessibility: The usability of a product, service, environment, or facility by people with the widest range of capabilities. The concept of accessibility addresses the full range of user capabilities and is not limited to users who are formally recognized as having a disability. The usability-oriented concept of accessibility aims to achieve levels of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction that are as high as possible considering the specified context of use, while paying particular attention to the full range of user capabilities within the user population.
Information Scent: An information scent is a cue to a person (namely, the information seeker) in an information environment that indicates that the information environment has the information the person seeks. Model: A simplified description with respect to some goal of an entity from a particular viewpoint. Pattern: An empirically proven solution to a recurring problem that occurs in a particular context. Quality: The totality of features and characteristics of a product or a service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. Semantic Web: An extension of the current Web that adds technological infrastructure for better knowledge representation, interpretation, and reasoning. Social Web: A perceived evolution of the Web in a direction that is characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects; driven by ‘collective intelligence;’ and realized by information technology. Universal Design: The design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. Usability: The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use. Web Engineering: A discipline concerned with the establishment and use of sound scientific, engineering and management principles and disciplined and systematic approaches to the successful development, deployment, and maintenance of ‘high-quality’ Web Applications.
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Chapter 2
Web 2.0:
Integration Model with Electronic Commerce R. Todd Stephens AT&T, USA
ABSTRACT In this chapter, the author takes a look at how organizations can integrate Web 2.0 technology into their current electronic commerce environment. The success of the Internet can be seen within any organization, but customers are asking for more interaction with the enterprises they do business with. In a few years, having a standard electronic commerce site will be as passé as having an information only site today. Organizations must progress to the next level in order to have a viable business model in the future. Web 2.0 provides the basic technology for creating a network of customers who are passionate about the company’s product offering. This chapter reviews several different examples where organizations have added Web 2.0 to their environment and are succeeding in transforming themselves.
INTRODUCTION Small, medium and large organizations are being transformed from an old business model built around the command and control aspects of information management to a new one where collaboration and social networking are the esDOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch002
sential components in defining a long-term business value. When researchers speak of Web 2.0 applications, they tend to focus on the technology aspects of the environment. However, the real impact of integrating Web 2.0 technologies is in the transformation of the organizational business model. The following sections of this chapter will focus on defining Web 1.0 with electronic commerce followed by a basic definition of Web
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Web 2.0
2.0. This will then be followed by examples and discussions on the different business utilizations of Web 2.0 technology.
Background While the web itself is about twenty years old, businesses are still implementing technology into the fabric of the business model. The background section will focus on defining the building blocks for the framework including defining the basic components of Web 1.0 which focused on the online marketing presence and the business transaction. The Web 2.0 section will focus on defining the basic building blocks of customer interactions.
Electronic Commerce Business Process Model Generally speaking, an end user will go through a defined process while engaging in an electronic commerce environment. Teo and Yeong (2003) described the consumer business model with five steps: need recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase and after purchase evaluation. Kotler (2003) proposed a framework that included the following activities in the buyer’s decision process: problem identification, search, trust building, evaluation of alternatives, choice and post-purchase behavior. From these and other models, we can develop our own model with six basic steps. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Recognize Needs Search for Available Products Evaluate Product Alternatives Decide and Choose a Product Execute Transaction Post-Purchase Activities
The process begins when a customer recognizes one’s need. This need could be for a product or service or simply the recognition of a companies
offerings. The recognition phase indicates the need for brand development which focuses on marketing and communications. This is especially true with organizations that have consumer based product lines. Companies spend millions of dollars each year to get the message out to the user community of their value proposition and brand. Once the customer recognizes the need then they need to have the ability to search for the right product or service. This may include customization options and bundling several products or services together in order to deliver a more focused solution. Generally speaking, the product offering is defined as the product catalog where specific information is provided to the customers such as color, size, use and any other descriptive metadata. Once a user has found the product, they will then move into an evaluation phase where they try to determine if the product is right for them. This may include color selection, size, model or any other components that fit with the individual’s life style. Many sites allow for a side by side comparison of products in order to review the different features. After evaluating products, customers then decide if a purchase it necessary. The purchase will result in a transaction which is then followed up with several support functions. Support functions might include help, online chat, documentation, quick start guides, etc.
Web 1.0 and Electronic Commerce The term Web 1.0 emerged from the research and development of Web 2.0. Prior to this, researchers commonly referred to Web 1.0 as Electronic Commerce or E-Business. Other researchers actually separate Web 1.0, meaning online presence, from electronic commerce. In this chapter, we will use the combination definition for simplicity and clarity. Where as, web 1.0 focused on a read only web interface (plus transactions), Web 2.0 focuses on a read-write interface where value emerges from the contribution of a large volume of users.
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Web 2.0
The internet initially focused on the command and control of the information itself. Information was controlled by a relatively small number of resources but distributed to a large number which spawned the massive growth of the web itself. Like television, the web allowed for the broadcasting of information to a large number of users. Initial web sites were built simply to communicate presence or provide information on the business itself. This component included information like marketing materials, investor relations, employment opportunities, and product information. While many organizations have succeeded in making progress towards an interactive web environment, their applications to date have still focused on an outdated Web 1.0 model, in which they take traditional offline activities and simply move them online. Most companies have taken advantage of the internet to find survey respondents, target a certain demographic or characteristic, and boost response rates – but few have taken advantage of the hallmark of Web 2.0: user-generated content (Freedman, Konwiser, Nielsten, & Van Ostern, 2008). Some researchers describe the integration of the business transaction as Web 1.5, indicating a separate phase of development. This altered the static information environment and transformed the web into an integral part of the business environment. The World Wide Web (WWW) was conceived at the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland. Berners-Lee, Cailliau, Luotonen, Figure 1. Web 1.0 and business (Source: Author)
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Nielsen, and Secret (1994) describe the web as “collaborative medium” which would allow information providers in remote sites to share ideas without boundaries. Most businesses have moved towards the web in order to take advantage of the capabilities of the electronic-commerce business model. Moving business functions from a traditional brick and mortar model to an electronic commerce model is not as simple as it might seem. Simply, Web 1.0 revolves around the digital enablement of transactions and processes within the organization, involving information systems under the guidance or control of the firm (Laudon & Traver, 2003). Electronic Commerce describes the process of buying or selling products, services, and information via computer networks. Web 1.0 emerged as major channel for the worldwide distribution of products, services and professional jobs. The first Electronic Commerce applications were in the form of electronic fund transfers or also referred to as wire transfers (Schneider, 2002). These applications evolved to transmit information of all kinds including business transactions. The basic definition of Electronic Commerce implies some form of transmission of information in order to conduct business (Barnard & Wesson, 2003). For this research, we are going to use the Web 1.0 model depicted in Figure 1. This model is composed of six basic areas which include the brand information, product or service elements, metadata, educational materials, product discovery and Electronic Commerce
Web 2.0
business functions. The industry box represents information that aids the end user to understand who, what and why the company is in business. A company’s brand can be one of the most valuable assets they have to control and monitor. The industry box includes the following components of an online environment: interface design (including style, color, and professionalism, logo, tag lines, and information content quality) and industry background information. The second and third boxes work together to describe the product or service that the company provides. The first defines the basic product while the second provides the metadata or structured information that describes that product or service. Barnard and Wesson (2004) include product descriptions, images, price, availability, options and relationships with other products. These two boxes define the basic product catalog for the organization. The fourth box defines the various methods of accessing the product information including search, product categories, and usage based classifications such as most popular. The fifth box describes the basic components of Electronic Commerce as described in the prior section. The final box focuses on the basic education of the user and may include online help, customer service, FAQ or any other education related function related to the product, service, industry or online environment. This model defines the majority of the Electronic Commerce environments online today.
Web 2.0 and Social Web Web 2.0 represents a shift in thinking in how people and organizations communicate. Sometimes referred to as sharing, collaboration, aggregate knowledge or community driven content and social software creates the foundation of collective intelligence (Weiss, 2005). Much of the Web 2.0 technology is difficult to nail down to an exact definition. The basic truth is that Web 2.0 emphasizes employee interaction, community and openness (Millard & Ross, 2006). O’Reilly
(2005) defined Web 2.0 as a platform spanning all connected devices. Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform delivering software as a continuallyupdated service that gets better as more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences. Along with these characteristics, Smith and Valdes (2005) added simple and lightweight technologies and decentralized processing to the mix. Web 2.0 technologies are changing the internet from a search and consume environment to a dynamic and interactive experience emphasizing contribution and collaboration (Murugesan, 2007). Web 2.0 is not a uniform concept, but a generic term or metaphor for new internet technologies and applications. It can be seen as a revival, intensification, renewal or even as a second generation of the internet in which user generated content has a central place. Web 2.0 has also been called the social web, because its content can be more easily generated by users, as well as the collective intelligence of users. Users are not the passive consumers of content, but co-producers. Interaction plays an important role in Web 2.0 to create shared information (Kool & Wamelen, 2008). Osimo and Burgelman state that Web 2.0 is about technology and attitude. Miller (2005) describes 2.0 applications as those applications that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform of services. While Web 2.0 has many and often confusing definitions most include the concepts of Social Networking, Weblogs, Wikis, Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Functionality, Social Tagging, Mashups, and User Defined Content.
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Web 2.0
Social Networking Millions of people are now using social networking sites to connect, share and track the activities of people with strong and weak ties. The emergence of these social network sites generally focus on specific user groups such as professionals or common interest communities (i.e. Linked In). Professional networking behaviors include maintaining contacts, socializing, engaging in professional activities such as attending conferences, participating in community groups, and increasing the viability for others (Dougherty & Forret, 2001). In Web 2.0, social networking also includes personal and group e-mailing, blogging and joining online social networks (Brown, Farnham, & Schwartz, 2009). Basically, social networks provide the opportunity for people to connect and communicate in a timely manner. Most social networks focus on a central repository to store information about the individuals and then utilize various methods to relate one individual to another. This relationship is the basis for the social network in which people can share information. The methods of creating a relationship vary from associated metadata, invitationS and related experiences like place of employment.
Weblogs or Blogs Weblogs or blogs have become so ubiquitous that many people use the term as a synonymous for a “personal web site” (Blood, 2004). Unlike traditional Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) web pages, blogs offer the ability for the nonprogrammer to communicate on a regular basis. Traditional HTML style pages required knowledge of style, coding and design in order to publish content that was basically read only from the consumer’s point of view. Weblogs remove much of the constraints by providing a standard user interface that does not require customization. Weblogs originally emerged as a repository for linking but soon evolved to the ability to publish content and
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allow readers to become content providers. The essence of a blog can be defined by the format which includes small chunks of content referred to as posts, date stamped, reverse chronological order and content expanded to include links text and images (Baoill, 2004). The biggest advancement made with Weblogs is the permanence of the content which has a unique Universal Resource Locator (URL). This allows the content to be posted and along with the comments to define a permanent record of information. This is critical in that having a collaborative record that can be indexed by search engines will increase the utility and spread the information to a larger audience. With the advent of software like WordPress and TypePad along with blog service companies like blogger.com, the weblog is fast becoming the communication medium of the new web.
Wikis A Wiki is a web site that promotes the collaborative creation of content. Wiki pages can be edited by anyone at anytime. Informational content can be created and easily organized within the wiki environment and then reorganized as required (O’Neill, 2005). Wikis are currently in high demand in a large variety of fields due to their simplicity and flexibility. Documentation, reporting, project management, online glossaries and dictionaries, discussion groups or general information applications are just a few examples of where the end user can provide value (Reinhold, 2006). The major difference between a wiki and a blog is that the wiki user can alter the original content while the blog user can only add information in the form of comments. While stating that anyone can alter content, some large scale wiki environments have extensive role definitions which define who can perform functions of update, restore, delete and creation. Wikipedia, like many wiki type projects, has readers, editors, administrators, patrollers, policy makers, subject matter experts, content maintainers, software developers and system
Web 2.0
operators (Riehle, 2006). All of which create an environment open to sharing information and knowledge to a large group of users.
RSS Technologies Originally developed by Netscape, RSS was intended to publish news type information based upon a subscription framework (Lerner, 2004). Many internet users have experienced the frustration of searching internet sites for hours at a stretch to find relevant information. RSS is an XML based content-syndication protocol that allows web sites to share information as well as aggregate information based upon the users needs (Cold, 2006). In the simplest form, RSS shares the metadata about the content without actually delivering the entire information source. An author might publish the title, description, date and copyrights to anyone that subscribes to the feed. The end user is required to have an application called an aggregator in order to receive the information. By having the RSS aggregator application, end users are not required to visit each site in order to obtain information. From an end user perspective, the RSS technology changes the communication method from a search and discover to a notification model. Users can locate content that is pertinent to their job and subscribe to the communication.
Social Tagging Social tagging describes the collaborative activity of marking shared online content with keywords or tags as a way to organize content for future navigation, filtering or search (Gibson, Teasley, & Yew, 2006). Traditional information architecture utilized a central taxonomy or classification scheme in order to place information into a specific pre-defined bucket or category. The assumption was that trained librarians understood more about information content and context than the average user. While this might have been true for the local library with the utilization of the Dewey Decimal
system, the enormous amount of content on the internet makes this type of system un-manageable. Tagging offers a number of benefits to the end user community. Perhaps the most important feature to the individual is the ability to bookmark the information in a way that is easier for them to recall at a later date. The benefit of this ability on a personal basis is obvious but what about the impact to the community at large. The idea of social tagging is allowing multiple users to tag content in a way that makes sense to them. By combining these tags, users create an environment where the opinions of the majority define the appropriateness of the tags themselves. The act of creating a collection of popular tags is referred to as a folksonomy which is defined as a folk taxonomy of important and emerging content within the user community (Ahn, Davis, Fake, Fox, Furnas, Golder, Marlow, Naaman, & Schachter, 2006). The vocabulary problem is defined by the fact that different users define content in different ways. The disagreement can lead to missed information or inefficient user interactions (Boyd, Davis, Marlow, & Naaman, 2006). One of the best examples of social tagging is Flickr which allows user to upload images and “tag” them with appropriate metadata keywords. Other users, who view your images, can also tag them with their concept of appropriate keywords. After a critical mass has been reached, the resulting tag collection will identify images correctly and without bias.
Mashups: Integrating Information Another Web 2.0 technology describes the efforts around information integration or sometimes referred to as “mashups”. These applications can be combined to deliver additional value that the individual parts could not deliver on their own. One example of mashups is HousingMaps.com that combines the Google mapping application with a real estate listing service on Craiglists. com (Jhingran, 2006). Other examples include
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Web 2.0
Chicagocrime.org who overlays local crime statistics onto Google Maps so that end users can see what crimes were committed recently in the neighborhood. Another site synchronizes Yahoo! Inc.’s real-time traffic data with Google Maps. Much of the work with web services will enable greater extensions of mashups and combine many different businesses and business models. Organizations, like Amazon and Microsoft are embracing the mash-up movement by offering developers easier access to their data and services. Moreover, they’re programming their services so that more computing tasks such as displaying maps onscreen gets done on the users’ personal computers rather than on their far-flung servers (Hof, 2005).
User Contributed Content One of the basic themes of Web 2.0 is user contributed information. The value derived from the contributed content comes not from a subject matter expert, but rather from individuals whose small contributions add up. One example of user contributed content is the product review systems like Amazon.com and reputation systems used with ebay.com. A common practice of online merchants is to enable their customers to review or to express opinions on the products they have purchased (Hu & Liu, 2004). Online reviews are a major source of information for consumers and demonstrated enormous implications for a wide range of management activities such as brand building, customer acquisition and retention, product development and quality assurance (Hu, Pavlou, & Zhang, 2006). A person’s reputation is a valuable piece of information that can be used when deciding whether or not to interact or do business with. A reputation system is a bi-directional medium where buyers post feedback on sellers and vice versa. For example, eBay buyers voluntarily comment on the quality of service, their satisfaction with the item traded and promptness of shipping.
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Sellers comment about the prompt payment from buyers or respond to comments left by the buyer (Christodorescu, Ganapathy, Giffin, Kruger, Rubin, & Wang, 2005). Reputation systems may be categorized in three basic types: ranking, rating and collaborative. Ranking systems use quantifiable measures of users’ behavior to generate ratings. Rating systems use explicit evaluations given by users in order to define a measure of interest or trust. Finally, collaborative filtering systems determine the level of relationship between the two individuals before placing a weight on the information. For example, if a user has reviewed similar items in the past, then the relevancy of a new rating will be higher (Davis, Farnham, & Jensen, 2002).
INTEGRATION OF WEB 2.0 INTO ELECTRONIC COMMERCE Earlier in this chapter, we defined the six basic steps of electronic commerce: recognize needs, search for available products, evaluate product alternatives, decide and chose a product, execute transaction and post-purchase activities. Other than the actual transaction, all of these activities can integrate Web 2.0 technologies. For example, a blog could be used as a tool to help users recognize needs and create demand. A blog could also be used to make product announcements of new features, new optionsor new bundling packages. While at the same time, it can help in post-purchase activities by publishing tips and techniques about how-to advice. Integrating Web 2.0 technologies into the various steps would simply reflect the marketing and branding strategy. The goal should be to ensure a common experience across the entire value-chain. The following section will review specific examples of how organizations have completed this integration.
Web 2.0
Examples and Discussion While the model represents an ideal environment, researchers want to see how organizations are actually deploying the web technology and the business value that is delivered. Returning to the six steps of the proposed model, the recognition phase is an ideal phase to leverage Web 2.0 tools within the business to build brand awareness. Twitter is a micro-blogging tool that allows individuals to send broadcast messages to anyone and allows you to follow others who have similar ideas (Kwak, Lee, Park, & Moon, 2010). These messages are limited to 140 characters but do allow organizations to monitor the brand message from their customer base. Companies are using Twitter as a marketing channel, much like an extension to their corporate blogs. They will post about corporate accomplishments and distribute links that take people back to corporate web pages, press releases and other promotional sites. Other organizations are leveraging Facebook and LinkedIn to enhance their branding message. Organizations like AT&T, Coca-Cola and Intel are leveraging social tools in very unique ways. One organization that stands out in the leveraging Web 2.0 technology is the Blendtec organization. Blendtec does a wonderful job at leveraging YouTube to showcase their products quality and strength. YouTube is a Web 2.0 service for sharing videos. The “Will It Blend” marketing program showcases the product blending everything from guns to the iPhone (Blythe & Cairns, 2009). The program is entertaining, innovative as well as informative. All of which make these advertisements some of the most watched videos on the internet. In the search component, we introduced new technologies such as the end user tagging and tag clouds. One organization that is leveraging this technology is Snooth (http://www.snooth.com/) which is a social environment for wine experts. Snooth allows users to tag specific wines with a variety of tags such as fruit, spices, Smokey, bramble fruits, leather, black, cool and menthol.
Users can then click on these tags to view other popular wines with the same tag classification. Tags offer a unique method of locating specific wines that fit the customers taste and preferences. Snooth also utilizes a controlled vocabulary for wine classification to go along with the free form of tags. Here, end users can classify the wines by location, type, color and variety. The evaluation stage allows organizations to integrate Web 2.0 in a variety of ways. Crutchfield (http://www.crutchfield.com) is an electronics retailer that has leveraged the online environment since the 1980’s. Originally a catalog retailer, Crutchfield has moved online and now added several Web 2.0 components to their environment. Each product in the catalog can be rated and commented on by the customer. The company only asks the user to create an account in order to provide the feedback. The end result of this capability is to allow new customers to evaluate products based on these ratings and feedback. The indirect benefit of utilizing this type of technology is to showcase buyer intent. Amazon.com, for example, integrates a feature that utilizes the user behavior. The “Customers also bought” or “Popular Books” leverages the behavior of the customer and in turn utilizes this information to provide another base for evaluation. None of this capability would have been available with just the online catalog a few years ago. The final area reviewed is the support area and like the first area, here also many organizations are leveraging Web 2.0. Dunkin Donuts sells donuts, coffee and other bakery items. The company utilizes Facebook, social applications, iPhone applications, twitter and a variety of other technologies in order to support the customer. The company has also used Facebook to run a sweepstake where the result was to increase their fan base by 800,000. The bottom line for the organization is to create attention, fun and communications with the customer community. Another example is Starbucks which primarily sells coffee around the world. They recently
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Web 2.0
launched “My Starbucks Idea” which is a Web 2.0 platform that allows customers to present ideas on new products, better service, advertising and customer support. Additionally, customers can vote for and rank ideas. This allows the community to communicate what’s important to them to Starbucks. So far, over 70,000 suggestions have been submitted and the top idea received 95,000 votes and over 1,000 comments. In the end, the company has saved in product development and reduced costs by implementing some of the ideas presented through the social media technology (Bailey & Horvitz, 2010). As described in the background section, more and more organizations are looking toward Web 2.0 to get closer to the consumer and build communities around the product or service. In many enterprises, the customer is confined to a limited role in the process of development, delivery, and innovation of the business model. Businesses no longer have 20 years to manage the growth cycle and lock out competitors due to intellectual property rights. Take the Apple iPhone as an example. Within three weeks of the product’s release, hackers disabled the AT&T network connection requirement and made changes to the hardware so that the iPhone could be connected to any network. Within three months, China was able to produce the MiniOne which worked on any network and could run more applications (Dartford, 2007). Tapscott (2006) indicates that a power shift is underway in which only those organizations that can harness mass collaboration will survive. As these examples showcase, we are moving toward a more open and collaborative electronic commerce environment. In order for businesses to invest the resources in developing social software, the business value must be easily identified. Developing and engaging the community is important but if the result fails to deliver an increased value to the business then resources may have been better served in other areas. Other business models may depend on advertising or click-thru rates which can be greatly enhanced with Web 2.0 tools. Much
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has been written about viral marketing which is basically any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Organizations can leverage this medium to drive their value and brand message to a large number of users fairly quickly. The key here is the ability to tap into the enthusiasm of the consumers so that they are encouraged to become producers. Each of these organizations focused on created communities to enable this synergy which then can be translated into real business value.
CONCLUSION Without a doubt, Web 2.0 technologies will continue to be integrated into the core web application. In 1968, Mel Conway (1968) devised the “Conway Law” which states that the structure of systems will reflect the structure of the organization that develops it. Since the majority of organizations are built under the command and control, centralized and authoritative model, the ability to incorporate collaborative technologies will be limited at best. Integrating these technologies into established business models implies approaching the problem from bottom-up rather than from top to down. The concepts of Electronic Commerce are well over ten years in maturity. While Web 2.0 technologies are still in their infancy, there is still plenty of room for growth. Additionally, we should see the plethora of new technologies and new integration methodologies like web services and cloud computing. Services offered within the Web 2.0 framework are now part of the internet’s evolutionary history. This implies that if a firm wants to be on the internet, it has no choice but to find an appropriate role for these technologies (Benjamin, Birkland, & Wigand, 2008).
Web 2.0
REFERENCES Ahn, L., Davis, M., Fake, C., Fox, K., Furnas, G., Golder, S., et al. Schachter, J. (2006). Why do tagging systems work? Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems. Montreal, Canada: The Association of Computing Machinery.
Boyd, D., Davis, M., Marlow, C., & Naaman, M. (2006). Social networks, networking & virtual communities: HT06, tagging paper, taxonomy, Flickr, academic article, to read. Proceedings of the seventeenth conference on Hypertext and hypermedia. Odense, Denmark: The Association of Computing Machinery.
Baoill, A. (2004). Conceptualizing the weblog: Understanding what it is in order to imagine what it can be. Interfacings: Journal of Contemporary Media Studies, 5(2), 1–8.
Brown, P., Farnham, S., & Schwartz, J. (2009). Leveraging social software for strategic social networking and community development at events. Communities and Technologies 2009. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University.
Barnard, L., & Wesson, J. (2004). A trust model for e-commerce in South Africa. Proceedings of the 2004 annual research conference of the South African institute of computer scientists and information technologists on IT research in developing countries. Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa.
Christodorescu, M., Ganapathy, V., Giffin, J., Kruger, L., Rubin, S., & Wang, H. (2005). An auctioning reputation system based on anomaly detection. Proceedings of the 12th ACM conference on Computer and communications security. Alexandria, VA: The Association of Computing Machinery.
Benjamin, R., Birkland, J., & Wigand, R. (2008). Web 2.0 and beyond: Implications for electronic commerce. ICEC 2008. Innsbruck, Austria.
Cold, S. (2006). Using really simple syndication (RSS) to enhance student research. ACM SIGITE Newsletter, 3(1), 6–9. doi:10.1145/1113378.1113379
Berners-Lee, T., Cailliau, R., Luotonen, A., Nielsen, H. F., & Secret, A. (1994). The WorldWide Web. Communications of the ACM, 37(8), 76–82. doi:10.1145/179606.179671 Blood, R. (2004). How blogging software reshapes the online community. Communications of theACM, 47(12), 53–55. doi:10.1145/1035134.1035165 Blythe, M., & Cairns, P. (2009). Critical methods and user generated content: The iPhone on YouTube. Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems. Boston, MA: The Association of Computing Machinery.
Conway, M. (1968). How do committees invent? Datamation, 14(4), 28–31. Dartford, M. (2007). China’s iClone. Polar Science, 8(7), 15–16. Davis, J., Farnham, S., & Jensen, C. (2002). Finding others online: Reputation systems for social online spaces. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Changing our world, changing ourselves. Minneapolis, MN: The Association of Computing Machinery. Forret, M., & Dougherty, T. (2001). Correlates of networking behavior for managerial and professional employees. Group & Organization Management, 26, 283–311. doi:10.1177/1059601101263004
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Gibson, F., Teasley, S., & Yew, J. (2006). Learning by tagging: Group knowledge formation in a self-organizing learning community. Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Learning sciences. Bloomington, IA: The Association of Computing Machinery. Hof, R. (2005). Mix, match, and mutate. Business Week Online. Retrieved October 1, 2006, from http://www.businessweek. com/@@76IH*ocQ34AvyQMA/ magazine/ content/05_30/b3944108_mz063.htm.
Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2006). E-commerce: Business, technology, society. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Lerner, R. (2006). At the forge: Creating mashups. Linux Journal, 147(10). Miller, P. (2005). Web 2.0: Building the new library. Ariadne, 45(1), 5–6. Murugesan, S. (2007). Understanding Web 2.0. IT Professional, 9(4), 34–41. doi:10.1109/ MITP.2007.78
Hu, M., & Liu, B. (2004). Mining and summarizing customer reviews. Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. Seattle, WA: The Association of Computing Machinery.
O’Neill, M. (2005). Automated use of a wiki for collaborative lecture notes. Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education SIGCSE ‘05. St. Louis, MO: The Association of Computing Machinery.
Hu, N., Pavlou, P., & Zhang, J. (2006). Can online reviews reveal a product’s true quality? Empirical findings and analytical modeling of online wordof-mouth communication. Proceedings of the 7th ACM conference on Electronic commerce. Ann Arbor, MI: The Association of Computing Machinery.
O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved July 17, 2006, from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/ news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Jhingran, A. (2006). Enterprise information mashups: Integrating information simply. Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference on very Large Data Bases. Seoul, Korea: The Association of Computing Machinery. Kool, D., & Wamelen, J. (2008). Web 2.0: A basis for the second society. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance. Cairo, Egypt: The Association of Computing Machinery. Kwak, H., Lee, C., Park, H., & Moon, S. (2010). What is Twitter, a social network or a news media? Proceedings of the 2010 international World Wide Web conference. Raleigh, NC: The Association of Computing Machinery.
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Osimo, D., & Burgelman, J. (2007). Web 2.0 for e-government: Why and how. 4th Ministerial eGovernment Conference. Lisbon, Portugal: AMA. Reinhold, S. (2006). Wikitrails: Augmenting wiki structure for collaborative, interdisciplinary learning. Proceedings of the 2006 international symposium on Wikis WikiSym ‘06. Odense, Denmark: The Association of Computing Machinery. Riehle, D. (2006). How and why wikipedia works: An interview with Angela Beesley, Elisabeth Bauer, and Kizu Naoko. Proceedings of the 2006 international symposium on Wikis Wiki-Sym ‘06. Odense, Denmark: The Association of Computing Machinery. Schneider, G. (2002). Electronic commerce. Florence, KY: Course Technology.
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Smith, D., & Valdes, R. (2005). Web 2.0: Get ready for the next old thing. Gartner Research Paper. Stamford, CT. Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. (2006). Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything. New York, NY: Penguin Group. Weiss, A. (2005). The power of collective intelligence. netWorker, 9(3), 16–23. doi:10.1145/1086762.1086763
ADDITIONAL READING
Coleman, D., & Levine, S. (2008). Collaboration 2.0: Technology and Best Practices for Successful Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World. Cupertino, CA: Happy About. Farmer, R., & Glass, B. (2010). Building Web Reputation Systems. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Freedman, J., Konwiser, E., Nielsten, E., & Van Ostern, C. (2008). Market Research: Web 1.0 in a Web 2.0 World How can we listen instead of asking questions?Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth—Glassmeyer/McNamee Center for Digital Strategies.
Azua, S. (2009). The Social Factor: Innovate, Ignite, and Win through Mass Collaboration and Social Networking. IN, Lebanon: IBM Press.
Funk, T. (2008). Web 2.0 and Beyond: Understanding the New Online Business Models, Trends, and Technologies. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Bell, A. (2009). Exploring Web 2.0: Second Generation Interactive Tools - Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis, Networking, Virtual Words, And More. Seattle, WA: Createspace.
Hsieh, M., Kao, Y., & Yuan, S. (2008). Web 2.0 Toolbar: Providing Web 2.0 Services for Existence Web Pages. Asia-Pacific Services Computing Conference, 2008. APSCC ‘08. Yilan, Taiwan: IEEE.
Bernoff, J., & Li, C. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Jones, B. (2007). Web 2.0 Heroes: Interviews with 20 Web 2.0 Influencers. New York, NY: Wiley.
Brown, P., Farnham, S., & Schwartz, J. (2009). Leveraging Social Software for Strategic Social Networking and Community Development at Events. Communities and Technologies 2009. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University. Casarez, V., Cripe, B., Sini, J., & Weckerle, P. (2008). Reshaping Your Business with Web 2.0: Using New Social Technologies to Lead Business Transformation. Columbus, OH: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. Christakis, N., & Fowler, J. (2009). Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. New York, NT: Little, Brown & Company.
Kotler, P. (2003). Marketing Management (11th ed.). Englewood cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. McAfee, A. (2009). Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Murugesan, S. (2007). Understanding Web 2.0. IT Professional, 9(4), 34–41. doi:10.1109/ MITP.2007.78 Peilin, W., & Shaohua, H. (2008). Web 2.0 And Social Learning in a Digital Economy. Information and Communication Technologies: From Theory to Applications, 2008. Damascus, Syria: IEEE.
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Powell, J. (2008). 33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Financial Times Press. Shirky, C. (2009). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York, NY: Penguin Group. Shuen, A. (2008). Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Smith, D. & Valdes, R. (2005). Web 2.0: Get ready for the next old thing. Gartner Research Paper. Stamford, CT. Surowiecki, J. (2005). The Wisdom of Crowds. Harpswell, ME: Anchor. Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. (2006). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. New York, NY: Penguin Group. Teo, T., & Yeong, Y. (2003). Assessing the Consumer Decision Process in the Digital Marketplace. Omega: The International Journal of Management Science, 10(31), 349–363. doi:10.1016/S03050483(03)00055-0 Weiss, A. (2005). The power of collective intelligence. netWorker, 9(3), 16–23. doi:10.1145/1086762.1086763
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Collaboration: Collaboration is a term used to describe technologies that allow multiple individuals to communicate without requiring a physical presence. Their tools differ from Web 2.0 in that they may or may not have social capabilities. Electronic Commerce: Electronic Commerce is the integration of business transactions with the online environment. Reputation Systems: A reputation system leverages the social metadata in order to rank or rate individual value to the network. The idea is that as someone contributes more or produces higher quality information, their reputation is enhanced. Social Networking: A social network is a collection of individuals and the connections between them. These connections create a network of relationships in which value can be found. Taxonomy: Taxonomy is a term used to describe a classification system. Taxonomy is the method of ordering information based on the metadata and correlating relationships. Web 2.0: Web 2.0 is the term used to describe technologies that allow for a many to many conversation in the online environment. That is, many people can create content and many people can consume the information.
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Chapter 3
Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy Julie Vardhan Manipal University, Dubai
ABSTRACT Come any age, it is the ecclesial and axiomatic belief that the only sustainable resource of comparative or competitive advantage is the knowledge and knowledge applications. In the current scenario, there is growing evidence, interest, and belief that knowledge will provide an unbeatable cutting edge to the entrepreneurs who want to establish and lead their business in this period. The challenge is that the realm and concept of knowledge is still complex, and its transfer and relevance to entrepreneurship is yet to be fully discovered and established. The objective of this chapter is to highlight recent advances in our several understandings of such forces that underpin the creation of knowledge, the iterative knowledge loops, the knowledge economy itself, and the range of technologies used by the entrepreneurs leading towards knowledge diversification, specialization, and optimization resulting into growth of the overall economy. In this chapter, contemporary explanation of growth, knowledge-based growth, and finally, an entrepreneurially driven growth model will be explored. Growth will be researched not only in terms of knowledge economy, but also in terms of knowledge, and economy in specific. Some of the recent knowledge based growth models also focus upon, namely, the effects of innovation in creation of new frontiers and firms, and more specifically, on firms exploiting various web technologies and business frontiers, inter-industry, and cross platform avenues. The chapter conceptually demonstrates the importance of knowledge as driver of growth, and concludes with the entrepreneurial leadership as the locus and paradigm of growth. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch003
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Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND
“That knowledge has become the resource, rather than a resource, is what makes our society postcapitalist.” What Peter Drucker in 1993 said about knowledge is that it is the only reliable source of competitive advantage, holds true and buoyant even in this period of economic downturn. Knowledge should be given a strategic importance by all firms run on entrepreneurial scales. It has been well acknowledged understanding that expanding the level of entrepreneurial activity has increasingly been more important for the economic well being of any country. In the current scenario, there is a growing interest that knowledge may prove to be the cutting edge to the entrepreneurs who want to establish their business in the period of downturn. Yet the realm of knowledge is complex and its relevance to entrepreneurship is yet to be fully developed. In this chapter an attempt has been made to draw on the literature from knowledge, knowledge economy and entrepreneurship and provide an understanding of how knowledge can be considered as the most important resource for entrepreneurs. First the concept of knowledge and entrepreneurship would be reviewed separately and then it would be integrated to come up with the concept of knowledge entrepreneurship towards the growth of the economy. To remain competitive in today’s market it requires rapid response to changes in the market based on sound business decisions. This is a challenge to entrepreneurs, who in this age need to take the help of technology to remain competitive. The main objective of this chapter is hence to highlight the recent advances in our understanding of the forces that underpin the creation of knowledge, the knowledge economy and further development of knowledge by the entrepreneur leading towards growth of the overall economy.
Of Knowledge and Knowledge Economy
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If we consider the economic evolution over the ages, we can find the civilization beginning with the agriculture based economy. Gradually, it moved up to the industrial age which brought in great shift in the economy with the concepts of mass production, global trading, franchising, branding, customization and so on. With the onset of internet, came the information age, where the clients and customers had easy access to information and knowledge. So it was difficult for any entity to remain isolated from competition. Through evolution, the present age has been rightly called the Knowledge Economy which is about the organizations’ sustainable ability to utilize the readily available resources to create value for the organizations as well as for the society. The rise in information accessibility and technology during the last decade has helped economies move from physical resources towards resources which are knowledge based. But it is not just IT which has helped economies move towards knowledge but also the organization which has adapted more innovative approach towards its gainful processes and through intellectual sprawls. It is much about innovative approaches, investment and excellence through learning and knowledge sharing which has helped in the process of globalization and leading to what we call the Knowledge Economy. And so, the Knowledge Economy is fundamentally different from the preceding Industrial Economy or the Agrarian Economy because its core value is related to bytes, not bits—in the form of customized, applied information or more specifically custom knowledge. With the dramatic increase of available knowledge resources and with almost unlimited capacity of databases (Rifkin, 2000), the critical question has become: what should be selected and what should be ignored which means majority of
Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
the modern day organizations are operating in a knowledge based economy gaining competitive advantage over each other through knowledge based resources available in common domain.
The Notion of Knowledge The notion of knowledge has attracted numerous definitions, discussions and attributes. At the outset, it needs to be clarified that though knowledge and information may be used interchangeably there is a marked distinction between the effects that information and knowledge casts. While information is relatively readily available, easily codified, transmitted, and received, the custom application of the information by the seeker can be said to constitute knowledge. Knowledge is therefore much more structured information that needs greater efforts to codify, transmit and interpret because part of it is tacit (Polanyi, 1966). The present economy is challenged by lack of custom knowledge along with an overflow of information. The process of selection and reflection is of vital importance to organizations as this would generate the differentiating factor between entrepreneurial successes in Knowledge Economy. As Geiger and Schreyögg (2006) argue, that since this selection will ultimately be inevitable, it is therefore better to manage it in a reflexive manner based on arguments rather than by hidden mechanisms. Seen this way, knowledge management would certainly have to foster the emergence of information and innovation, but would also ensure the quality of the generated knowledge. From the overwhelming stream of information the knowledge should then be structured and codified so as to make it relevant or needed knowledge for the purpose of innovation (Stehr,1994) To sum up these theories, knowledge can be said to be that resource which gathers information, churns them to find the best and the most relevant and needed knowledge and through this lead to innovation. [Information → Knowledge → Innovation]
This brings us to the concept of innovation. “Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for different businesses or different services.” This definition of innovation by Drucker (1985) sums up the importance of innovation to entrepreneurship. The knowledge can therefore be said to be the trigger for innovation which is carried on by entrepreneurs. Knowledge can be classified in different ways according to its discourse or application so that we may have social knowledge, scientific knowledge, technical knowledge, entrepreneurial knowledge, tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. For the purpose of our present study we shall concentrate on entrepreneurial knowledge. Entrepreneurial intention is formed through rational and analytical thinking in social, political and economic contexts and through instinct and holistic thinking based on individual backgrounds, personalities and abilities (Bird, 1988). The entrepreneurial knowledge is a combination of all the inherent knowledge and skills of the entrepreneur along with an enabling environment whereby the entrepreneur is able to seize the business opportunity. Before we delve further into the relationship between knowledge and entrepreneurship we must review in the next section as to who is considered to be the entrepreneur.
How to Define an Entrepreneur? Entrepreneurship is a complex exuberance and entails a wide range of practices and parameters. Some believe that entrepreneurship must involve risk-taking individuals who start new ventures that are innovative and experience rapid growth. Others may only focus on the idea that entrepreneurship is about starting new ventures. We begin with the theory on entrepreneur given by Schumpeter (1942), “The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumer goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets….this
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process incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one”. He called this the ‘creative destruction’ which is a unique attribute of the entrepreneurs who effectively translate ideas and dreams into creation of goods and services to society. Ever since the work of Schumpeter(1934), entrepreneurship has been regarded as a primary channel of economic growth and creation of wealth. Schumpeter considered the entrepreneurs as the main vehicle to move an economy forward from static equilibrium and by inducing processes of creative destruction, challenging existing structures and changing economic equilibrium. While Schumpeter called the entrepreneurs as creating economic disequilibrium, Kirzner (1992) claimed that the entrepreneurs created economic equilibrium by using the resources and his abilities to create the much needed equilibrium in the economy. Knight (1921) proposed the role of the entrepreneur as someone who had the ability to transform uncertainty into a calculable risk. Peter Drucker through his various associations with entrepreneurs, calls the entrepreneurs not as risk takers which is the generally held belief, rather says that they are better decision makers as they know which risks to avoid and which risks to trade-off, and further which risks to buy-in. Lazear (2005) defined the entrepreneur as someone who specializes in taking judgmental decisions about the coordination of scarce resources. In Shane and Venkataraman’s seminal paper (2000, p. 218), entrepreneurship is defined as: “…the nexus of two phenomena: the presence of lucrative opportunities and the presence of enterprising individuals”. Shane and Venkataraman suggest that it comprises the analyses of “how, by whom and with what effects opportunities to produce future goods and services are discovered, evaluated and exploited”. To take the dominant concepts forward from the various definitions of entrepreneurship we can say that they all revolve around the individuals having the ability to identify and exploit oppor-
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tunities, elicit the required information and use the selected knowledge base to form their own enterprise. Knowledge seems to be one critical underlying determinant of the characteristics of the entrepreneur. We can call the knowledge which is most required by the entrepreneur to achieve his objectives as the “entrepreneurial knowledge”knowledge which is relevant to the functioning of the market forces and the economy, with respect to entrepreneurs’ enterprise. The information is widely available in any given economy, but its proper utilization depends on a large number of macro-micro factors. Taking this institutional aspect one step further, Acs et al. (2004) argue that the exploitation of knowledge depends on the broad spectrum of institutions, rules and regulations, or, in their terminology, on an economy’s knowledge filter. The knowledge filter is the gap between new knowledge and economic knowledge or commercialized knowledge (Arrow, 1962). The greater the knowledge filter, the more pronounced is this creative gap between new knowledge and new economy – crystallizing into what is commercialized/ customized knowledge economy. It can therefore be suggested that entrepreneurs are catalysts building equilibrium in the economy within the time-opportunity-creativity continuum - building a perfect epitome of information and knowledge that has eventually earned them distinction, and helped them in delivering the enablement and creating the value for the total of society and economy, and on occasions to state as well.
THE KNOWLEDGE PROCESSES AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP We shall enumerate upon the studies conducted by selective author gallery on their views on entrepreneurship, and the characteristics of entrepreneurs to understand better entrepreneurship relative to knowledge. Hayek (1949) found that a key feature of market economy is the partitioning of knowledge among individuals. Knowledge plays
Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
an important role across economic variables and its agents. Hence knowledge constitutes one fundamental source of entrepreneurial opportunity. As mentioned earlier there have been contributions made by Schumpeter in the field of knowledge and entrepreneurship but it can be inferred indirectly. It was Schmitz (1989) who developed a model where an increase in the proportion of entrepreneurship leads to the growth of the economy. Shane and Venkatraman (2000) presented the nexus between opportunity and agency, whereby opportunities are not singular phenomena, but are idiosyncratic to the individual. This means that the individual having unique attributes can take up the process - these unique attributes can then build up the knowledge in the given stream. Since knowledge is the differentiating attribute for entrepreneurs who through their knowledge can create innovative products, ideas, processes or the businesses itself, we can consider the Timmons Model (Timmons, Zacharakis and Spinelli 2004) of entrepreneurship here, according to which an individual having certain characteristics can muster the required resources and the opportunity to create a new venture. Timmons analyzed more than 50 studies on the characteristics of entrepreneurs and found a consensus around the following general characteristics: commitment and leadership, determination, opportunity obsession, tolerance of risk, ambiguity and uncertainty, creativity and innovation, self reliance, ability to adapt, and motivation to excel. The innovation process and the new start ups are all driven by the entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs introduce new products and newer processes in an economy. In the process, incumbent firms are forced to innovate in order to withstand the pressure generated by new firms. As a result entrepreneurship has a rejuvenating effect on economies. According to this model, the entrepreneur is the locus for creation of wealth in any given society. Over the years, over several years, it results in the growth of the total of society and economy.
The Variables in the Growth Model For the purpose of our deliberations, we consider the Growth Model as given by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) (Bosma and Levie, 2009). The GEM model (Figure 1) is an insightful and comprehensive framework showing the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship, efficiency enhancers, basic requirements and how these help in creation of new businesses. These new businesses, once established, grow, have more branches, more resources, create more opportunities, more spiraling dependencies and provide more returns which results in growth of the economy. Considering all other variables in the GEM Model as given during a certain time period in an economy, we can see that it would be the entrepreneur who is at the locus for bringing about the change and introducing dynamics of growth through his attitudes, activities and aspirations – given any economy. The motivating factors within more factor-driven economies, where the institutions, infrastructure, basic education and health are the major concerns of the economy, are the entrepreneur’s basic necessity of survival and where entrepreneur is aware of his aspirations and limitations of the economy, and operates much in local economy. The motivating factors within more efficiency driven economies, where better education and training, goods and labor market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological enablement, enabled export-import regulations, single window clearance systems, R&D transfer, government entrepreneurship programs, commercial and legal infrastructure and institutions are available, are entrepreneurs advanced necessity to excel, and where entrepreneur is aware of greater facilitations and also countering limitations. The challenge entrepreneur lives is inclined more towards state machinery and clauses governing economy and less towards society and state as a whole. On contrast, the innovation driven economies are the best design
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Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
Figure 1. The revised GEM model (Source: Bosma and Levie, 2009)
and best configuration of the entire state, societal and economic facilitations to administer, enforce and enable entrepreneurial growth, and where entrepreneurs [for example Google, Apple, MS et al] live in a tradition of abundance and pride, with the necessity to go beyond the horizon, beyond expectations, and the challenge they live is equally inclined towards society, economy and state.
Information Technology and Collaboration – Web 2.0 and Google Perspective The Knowledge Economy marks a profound shift in mass appeal - mass returns whereby customers become collaborators with their trusted partners
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and with other customers to create experiencerich, money-rich engine. The entrepreneur in this economy must be able to encompass the information that businesses create and apply, as well as the wide spectrum of increasingly convergent and linked technologies that process those experiences and knowledge. Once again, to remain competitive in today’s market it requires rapid response to changes in the market based on sound business decisions. This is the challenge to entrepreneurs. Available information is often concealed, incomplete, inconsistent or out of date. When information is available, it is incessantly difficult to chart and graph key performance indicators for trends, or to drill down and understand what is behind and ahead of those numbers. Finally, it is often a dream to access all information related to one’s
Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
own domain or access the custom knowledge. The new age technology, Web 2.0 technologies provide solutions to these challenges to the entrepreneur. The importance of information technology as a competitive advantage has rightly been compared to that of Porter’s competitive advantage by Kollmann, T. (2006). According to him, initially it was important for the companies to either focus on quality of the products or price to gain a quality leadership or cost leadership among the competing firms in the market. But in future, the source of competitive advantage would be through having information leadership in terms of better information, better processes to transfer the information and better knowledge to use the information in the most appropriate way. The growing relevance of IT and the expansion of electronic data networks have created a new commercial/ business dimension that can be called the network economy or the Net Economy. Information transfer has become faster with technologies such as the internet/ WWW, mobile telecommunications and interactive television (ITV). If we take the example of Google, the new company in the Knowledge Economy had been started independently, and is an example of an innovative company…how this
ultimately leads to value creation can be shown through figure 2. The term “Web 2.0” is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive contributions to the website’s content, in contrast to websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, socialnetworking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis and blogs. Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of “Web 1.0” to provide “Network as platform” computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. The Web 2.0 era is all about services, not only software. Using the web as a platform, Google is among the leaders providing services using Web 2.0 core competencies like AJAX, controlling data sources and online applications. Taking further the example of Google, it can be seen how they have now integrated collaborative web based technol-
Figure 2. Adapted from Kollmann, T. (2006)
37
Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
ogy to foster innovation and ultimately growth. Some of the services offered by Google are: Google Maps [http://maps.google.com], along with Gmail and Google’s word processing, spreadsheet and calendaring applications are great examples of Rich Internet Applications, another core competency of Web 2.0. The Sidewiki [http://www.google.com/ sidewiki], another of its services can also share entries through the users Google profile, Blogger, Facebook, or Twitter. The free Google Custom Search [http://www. google.com/ cse], launched in October 2006, was “among the top two widgets on the web” The Subscribed Links service [http://www. google.com/coop/subscribedlinks], again only available to signed-in Google account holders, may be one of the most useful of Google’s custom search capabilities. The service appears to be designed for high-volume data providers and for websites whose contents change frequently. With the introduction of iGoogle [http://www. google.com/ig] in May 2005, the whole of the Google experience can be personalized through a portal-based webpage. There are a number interactive applications and blocks of content which can be added. In late 2007, Google began testing a new product with a strong personal and social networking context. Calling it “knol”, a word Google coined to mean “unit of knowledge”, it [http://knol.google. com/k] enables anyone with a Google account to create a webpage on any topic (within the terms of service). The chief differences between writing and editing a Knol page and a Wikipedia one is that Knol offers a better online editor and keeps the author very much in charge of the content. Knol began with what Google calls a “moderated collaboration” With the launch of Google Wave in 2009, it can be the beginning of a convergence of several Google service offerings into a single, unified product and the cross fertilization of other Google services with Wave technology. Various Google Wave developer resources indicate that “Develop38
ers can enhance their existing web applications by embedding Google Wave directly in their application, allowing you to seamlessly integrate communication and collaboration” [http://code. google.com/apis/wave/guide.html]. “Ads by Google” is found on any website whereby revenue can be earned by enabling Google to place contextually targeted ads on their website. Google AdSense also enables companies to advertise to large numbers of internet users using a basic AdWords campaign at an affordable price. This is named as Long Tail effect. Another core competency of a Web 2.0 company is the ability to “harness the collective intelligence”. One way Google does this is through its pagerank search algorithms [http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/PageRank]. Google determines the true value of a link on the web, through its link structure. It’s not just about a page being there and people clicking on it, it’s about who links to this page and how those sites are useful or related to people. Their approach to pagerank has made Google the top search engine on the web. Another way they harness collective intelligence is through their purchase of Blogger.com. Google owns one of the largest free blogging sites on the internet and it’s well known that blogs help increase a site’s pagerank dramatically. Though Google had been founded as a business founded on searching the web, it is transforming itself into a real time collaborative web experience from any kind of platform. Through its many products and services, Google as a brand is coming to symbolize not just a search experience, but the experience for anyone using the web through any type of online device (Mattison, 2010). Google’s “technological advantage” comes from its incremental innovations, information collection from customers and collaborators, research for the correct processes to be implemented and finally the value addition in terms of the effectiveness of the search engine. Google’s technology has emerged from a series of continuous improvements and continuous outreach in the lives of businesses and people.
Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
Google as an example also subscribes to the idea of cornucopia - the traditional symbol of abundance, described by Hisrich and Peters (2002). The value and growth begins with the individual entrepreneur and his knowledge in the base technology, the synthesis of the knowledge and social needs, and then ends with products or services available for mass consumption in the marketplace with a ripple effect on regions, then nations and eventually the world economy.
Measuring the Metrics in Knowledge Economy To integrate the concepts of Knowledge with entrepreneurship we can show the relation as given in figure 3. While a number of studies have been conducted from the organization’s point of view showing the utilization of scarce resources by these organizations to create a profitable output, we shall consider the work of Penrose (1959), who considered that internal factors that drive the long-term growth of a firm are assumed to be unutilized resources. Such resources through the entrepreneur’s knowledge can be changed to utilized resources. This again brings us to the concept of entrepreneurship as the characteristics of an individual to create value for the society by exploiting opportunities and utilizing the resources optimally. Knowledge again seems to be the driver for the several characteristics mentioned by Timmons,
Zacharakis and Spinelli (2004), especially to do with opportunity and risk. The entrepreneur faces tons of information – social, economic, commercial and technical. He has to select the required, relevant information to consider the opportunity available to him. According to Knight, the entrepreneur has to deal with uncertainty and only through his knowledge base, he is able to decide upon which areas to take risks, which to avoid and when to evade. With the availability of the new technology, it is again up to the entrepreneur to select the right means to reach his business objective. For the purpose of the present study, we shall take up the Knowledge Economy Index (KEI) as given by the World Bank to understand the correlation between KEI and ICT of UAE, the G7, India and Singapore. As mentioned in the KEI index there are broadly four variables to measure it, namely education, the use of ICT, innovation and institutional and economic regime. The application of knowledge – as manifested in areas such as entrepreneurship and innovation, research & development, software & design, industry and banking and in people’s education and skills levels–is now recognized to be one of the key sources of growth in the global economy. The KEI includes what is known as the four pillars of the Knowledge Economy framework: •
An economic and institutional regime to provide incentives for the efficient use of
Figure 3. Process of Growth in Knowledge Economy
39
Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
existing and new knowledge and the flourishing of entrepreneurship; An educated and skilled population to create, share, and use knowledge well; An efficient innovation system of firms, research centers, universities, consultants and other organizations to tap into the growing stock of global knowledge, assimilate and adapt it to local needs, and create new technology; Information and communication technology to facilitate the effective creation, dissemination, and processing of information.
• •
•
It was designed by the World Bank for 146 countries to allow for a cross-country comparison on these variables. The variables, both actual and relative have been normalized on a scale of 0 to 10 relative to other countries in the comparison group. As an example we can see in Table 1, the KEI of UAE, the comparison group being all countries. The examples have been taken as representing a country according to the division of the economies by the GEM Model. Thus we have India as a factor driven economy, UAE as an efficiency driven economy and Singapore and G7 representing the innovation driven economies.
Table 1. KEI of UAE. Source: Knowledge Economy Index, 2009, World Bank United Arab Emirates Group: All Countries
S.No.
Index
1.
Knowledge Economy Index (Average of 3, 4, 5, 6)
6.73
2.
Knowledge Index (Average of 4, 5, 6)
6.72
3.
Economic Incentive and Institutional Regime
6.75
4.
Education
4.9
40
5.
Innovation
6.69
6.
ICT
8.59
Further, if we represent graphically (figure 4) the relation between KEI and ICT, it shows how the KEI is related to ICT and conversely how better ICT can generate growth for the whole economy. A comparative table showing the KEI of UAE with G7 countries, Singapore and India has been shown in Table 2, which highlights the challenges ahead for these countries to come to the standards of those of developed countries in the G7. The entrepreneur can take the help of Web 2.0 resources such as weblogs, social networking sites, podcasts, video and VoIP that are enabling real-time, rich interaction among individuals around the world at virtually no cost other than time (assuming computer and access). The advantages to the business would be as follows. 1. It would help in collaborating and streamlining business processes between customers, employees, and partners. The end result is the availability of many new applications that manipulate and deliver previously unavailable data and trends. No longer confined to the desktop, these web-based applications are available from any browser equipped computer. 2. Enable secure and remote access from anywhere with an internet connection so that there would be low software costs and little to no set-up cost. 3. Would have the flexibility of dynamic user interfaces and enhancing value. Google is the premier example of this approach. Every user who follows a Google search to a website refines the pagerank search process to provide more accurate search results for the next user. Amazon encourages customers to write online reviews of its products. All these companies have used the collaborative web in making the users active participants which adds value and credibility to the company or researcher.
Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
Figure 4. KEI and ICT Index comparison of 4 countries
Table 2. Comparative KEI of UAE with G7 countries, Singapore and India. Source: Knowledge Economy Index, 2009, World Bank KEI
Economic
Innovation
Education
ICT
Country
recent
1995
recent
1995
recent
1995
recent
1995
recent
1995
G7
8.72
9.12
8.15
8.82
9.19
9.3
8.75
9.13
8.8
9.22
Singapore
8.44
8.49
9.68
9.67
9.58
9.05
5.29
6.23
9.22
9
UAE
6.73
6.48
6.75
7.46
6.69
6.59
4.9
4.27
8.59
7.62
India
3.09
3.56
3.5
3.47
4.15
3.7
2.21
2.56
2.49
4.5
4. Social Networking sites like LinkedIn offer services that allow users to build personal profiles and create contact lists. Users can then enter the names of people they wish to contact and the software looks for relationship chains linking them to their targets. This allows users to leverage the power of personal relationships to meet potential customers or partners. 5. Blogs allow business executives to create direct channels of communication with customers, employees and partners. Most of the well known companies and their senior managers have their own blogs. 6. Wikis support online communities and teams, allowing all members to create, edit and access information on topics of interest. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, allows content to be added or edited by any registered user.
Effective collaboration with customers, employees, and partners provides 360-degree visibility, allowing an organization to see what is happening along the entire value chain. Customers provide valuable information on their needs and how well products and services meet End User requirements. Employees and partners provide information that supports improved business processes. Web 2.0 technologies support deeper collaboration, and thus better information gathering, than ever before possible. Entrepreneurs succeed better in this technology enabled environment. Sustainable Development can be made by countries that can be equated with entrepreneurial entities by pursuing coherent strategic approaches to building their country’s capabilities to create, access, and use intellectual and technological capital as characterized by the Knowledge Economy. The Challenge Lives for the Entrepreneur!
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Entrepreneurship and Growth in Knowledge Economy
CONCLUSION An intelligent entrepreneur equipped with relevant technological infrastructure, methodologies and applications know-how will help himself in identifying, assembling the right processes, and the right people across the globe to overcome any business challenge and set sail on the opportunities. This chapter attempts to bring out conceptually the relationship between information, knowledge, technology, innovation, new ventures and how all of these through the drive and insight of the entrepreneurs bring about growth and creation of wealth. The information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the world wide web are hallmarks of technology leverage. The exploration of these interdependent variables of knowledge and entrepreneurship in this chapter is expected to provide a better understanding of the role of technology, information and knowledge in the knowledge economy leading to competitive advantages attributable to entrepreneurs and beneficial interests enjoyed by its potential clients and society as a lasting beneficiary. This is unequivocally supported by the KEI parameters. The importance of knowledge to entrepreneurship and to the knowledge economy is only an attempt to relate these and various concepts to each other and accelerate the beneficial results for the society, economy and state as a whole. Multilateral efforts, governments at all levels, legislation and industry platforms are foundations to these entrepreneurial enterprises and in the context of entrepreneurial Knowledge Economy.
Limitations and Future Research Directions The burgeoning agenda among thinkers and policy makers related to knowledge generation, its funding, research and development and commercialization leading to the benefit of entrepreneurs
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is confirmed by the fact to enact and establish a number of legislations and institutions which are in force and operating as of today, the world around. While the subject is of living importance, for the present study the scope excluded statistical research and analyses of secondary resources between economies and economic variables and, at times, may not endorse the strict assumptions or representation of the published literature. The discussion on the dependent or interdependent variables of knowledge and entrepreneurship in this chapter is expected to provide a better understanding of the role of knowledge in the knowledge economy leading to comparative or competitive advantages attributable to entrepreneurs. It does seem to be a promising endeavor to further explore the challenge through future research on each of the variables. The future research should be based on, governmental and multi lateral bodies statements, industry forum statements, ministerial programs, statistics, computing methods et al. It should be based on larger audience and larger cross reference of the materials on the entrepreneurship and technology, and illustrating how mutual benefits [among entrepreneurs, industry, governments, and society in general] could be translated into policy and framework agreements for the well being of all entities.
REFERENCES Acs, Z., & Audretsch, D. (Eds.). (2003). Handbook of entrepreneurship research: An interdisciplinary survey and introduction. Boston, MA/ Dordrecht, The Netherlands/ London, UK: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Arrow, K. (1962). Economic welfare and the allocation of resources for invention. In Nelson, R. (Ed.), The rate and direction of inventive activity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Bird, B. J., & Jelinek, M. (1988). The operation of entrepreneurial intentions. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 13(2), 21–29. Bosma, N., & Levie, J. (2009). 2009 executive report. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Retrieved July 21, 2010, from http://www.gemconsortium. org/download/1279710182340/ GEM%20 2009%20Global%20Report%20Rev%20140410. pdf Drucker, P. (1985). Innovation and entrepreneurship: Practice and principles. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Drucker, P. (1993). Post-capitalist society. Geiger, D., & Schreyögg, G. (2006). Coping with the concept of knowledge: Toward a discursive understanding of knowledge. In Baum, J. R., Frese, M., & Baron, R. A. (Eds.), The psychology of entrepreneurship. Psychology Press. Hayek, F. A. (1949). Individualism and economic order. London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hisrich, R., & Peters, M.P. (2002). Entrepreneurship (5th ed.). New Delhi: McGraw-Hill Publishing. Kirzner, I. (1973). Competition and entrepreneurship. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Kirzner, I. (1992). The meaning of the market process. London, UK: Routledge. Knight, F. (1921). Risk, uncertainty and profit. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Kollmann, T. (2006). What is e-entrepreneurship? – Fundamentals of company founding in the net economy. International Journal of Technology Management, 33(4), 322–340. doi:10.1504/ IJTM.2006.009247 Lazear, E. P. (2005). Entrepreneurship. Journal of Labor Economics, 23, 649–680. doi:10.1086/491605
Mattison, D. (2010). Time, space, and Google. Searcher, 18(4), 20–31. Polanyi, M. (1966). The tacit dimension. New York, NY: Doubleday. Rifkin, J. (2000). The age of access: The new culture of hypercapitalism, where all of life is a paid-for experience. The Putnam Publishing Group. Schmitz, J. (1989). Imitation, entrepreneurship, and long-run growth. The Journal of Political Economy, 97, 721–739. doi:10.1086/261624 Schumpeter, J. (1911/34). The theory of economic development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schumpeter, J. (1942). Capitalism, socialism and democracy. New York, NY: Harper and Row. Schumpeter, J. (1947). The creative response in economic history. The Journal of Economic History, 149–159. Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25, 217–226. doi:10.2307/259271 Stehr, N. (1994). Knowledge societies. Sage Publications. Timmons, J. A., Zacharakis, A., & Spinelli, S. (2004). Business plans that work: A guide for small business. McGraw Hill.
ADDITIONAL READING Acs, Z. (1996). Small Firms and Economic Growth. In Acs, Z., Carlsson, B., & Thurik, R. (Eds.), Small Business in the Modern Economy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
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Audretsch, D., Keilbach, M., & Lehmann, E. (2006). Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ acprof:oso/9780195183511.001.0001 Baumol, W. (1968). Entrepreneurship in Economic Theory. The American Economic Review, 64–71. Baumol, W. (1990). Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive and Destructive. The Journal of Political Economy, 893–921. doi:10.1086/261712 Bessant, J., & Tidd, J. (2007). Innovation and Entrepreneurship. England: John Wiley and Sons Ltd. Brown, T. E., & Ulijn, J. M. (2004). Innovation, entrepreneurship and culture: the interaction between technology, progress and economic growth. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, Mass., USA: E. Elgar Pub. Casson, M. (2002). The Entrepreneur: An Economic Theory. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Entrepreneurship in American Higher education, a report from the Kauffmann Panel on Entrepreneurship curriculum in Higher Education. Retrieved July 21, 2010 from http://www.kauffman.org/ uploadedfiles/entrep_high_ed_report.pdf Ferreira, J. J., Marques, C. S., & Fernandes, C. (2010). Decision-Making for location of new Knowledge intensive businesses on ICT sector: Portuguese evidences. International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 1(1), 60–82. doi:10.4018/jeei.2010010104 Gibb, A. (2002). In Pursuit of a New ‘Enterprise’ and ‘Entrepreneurship’ Paradigm for Learning: Creative Destruction, New Values, New Ways of Doing Things and New Combinations of Knowledge. International Journal of Management Reviews, 4, 213–231. doi:10.1111/1468-2370.00086 http://www.e2conf.com/downloads/whitepapers/ ent2-10_TWwhitepaper.pdf
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http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2007/february/173496-2.html http://www.gemconsortium.org/national_reports. aspx McClelland, D. (1961). The Achieving Society. New York: Free Press. McDonald, R. E. (2002). Knowledge entrepreneurship: linking organisational learning and innovation. University of Connecticut. Porter, M. (1990). The Competitive Advantage of Nations. New York: The Free Press. Senge, P. (1993). The fifth discipline. London: Random House. Sternberg, R. J. (2004). Successful Intelligence as a Basis for Entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 189–201. doi:10.1016/S08839026(03)00006-5 The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Web 2.0: Top 25 Applications http://www.avivadirectory.com/ entrepreneur-apps/ Tywoniak, S. A. Knowledge in Four Deformation Dimensions. Retrieved from http://org.sagepub. com/cgi/content/refs/14/1/53 Vardhan, J. (2010). Entrepreneurial Spirit and Innovative Culture: Drivers for Creation of Wealth. Paper presented at the 4th Middle East Quality Congress, Dubai. Web 2.0 and Entrepreneurs Source: http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 Websites of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education: www.worldbank.org/kam
Section 2
Collaborative Applications in Business
OVERVIEW While it is nearly impossible to outline the complete usage and implications of the web in its current form, given the degree of diversity and complexity of usage of web, it is very interesting to see completely new and uncharted territories of web based applications and their impact on business. As there are and could be very many implications of business web, this section of the book tends to outline the collaborative applications of the current form of web, which also provides a brief peek into the future growth and directions of development of the next generation of web. The following set of seven chapters is a distillate of experience of the authors, in their respective fields, which is as diverse as journalism to bioinformatics to petro chemical industry. The first chapter although set in the Indian context by Saayan Chattopadhyay on collaborative usage of web in journalism, provides a global perspective on the emergence of a collaborative web based platform that embraces participatory, networked, hyper-mediated journalism. What Saayan argues is that as social dynamics of journalism is changing, the newer aspects of web technology are actively fostering collaborative journalism. Indeed, we are all aware of the usage of popular social sites like Twitter being actively used by news networks and TV anchors to drive what is being often being called “citizen journalism”. The second chapter in this section, authored by Eva Söderström and Jesper Holgersson illustrates a case study on E Services and on how new technological advancements and collaborative phenomena, primarily virtual communities, can be used as a main source of eliciting end user requirements. The authors analyze the data through a robust methodology which shows that end user requirements can be effectively elicited using internet and web based tools as illustrated in this chapter. The third chapter by Shailendra Singh and Amardeep Singh comes from a new emergent industry of Bio- informatics as compared to the previous few. The chapter outlines the details of Bio- informatics
industry, usage of various web based tools that are typically used for this industry. The chapter illustrates a case study to show case the usage of these tools in this industry. What makes this chapter interesting is the fact that an industry so much dependent on constant research, is able to collaborate in research using web based tools and also there is huge potential of utilizing the web based tools in this industry across geographies and diversity. The fourth chapter in this section by Nikhil Chaturvedi, provides a perspective of not only the petroleum and mining industry and potential of internet in this traditional industry, but also points out the huge potential of collaboration of the supply chain across this industry. What Nikhil is able to point out in this chapter, is that leading organizations in this industry like petroleum super-majors and large mining companies have already started utilizing web for some near real-time and batch-mode interaction with the external entities. Nikhil goes on to point out that the collaborative web has tremendous potential to further enhance the operational efficiencies in this industry, even though the actual usage of web at this stage is very nascent. The next chapter by Z. Andreopoulou, T. Koutroumanidis and B. Manos comes from a completely different background and geography. The authors have created an interesting scenario of adopting ecommerce in a rural background. Indeed, since the sector of rural production holds difficulties while adopting e-commerce models, the authors’ aim of this chapter is to present a methodology aiming to optimize the conceptual content model used in collaborative e-commerce websites promoting rural production. Interestingly, we editors found a striking similarity in the pattern of usage of internet usage in the rural back ground in India. There has been a significant case of usage of the concept of e-commerce in rural scenario as illustrated by the “e-Choupal” concept pioneered by company ITC. The case study illustrated by Prof C K Prahalad points out in “Fortune at the Base of the Pyramid”: ‘The e-Choupals, information centers containing a computer linked to the Internet, represent an approach to seamlessly connect subsistence farmers with large firms, current agricultural research, and global markets.’ Sixth chapter in the bouquet of interesting chapters illustrating the usage of web in the diverse business scenarios paints the picture of another country Turkey, of usage of online grocery system in the city of Istanbul. In fact, this chapter by the authors Ronan de Kervenoael, Burcin Bozkaya, Mark Palmer shows the typical issues and concern that arise in the implementation online grocery system. The chapter illustrates the different patterns of resistance facing and deployed by online retailers, logistic firms and urban planners, in the case of online grocery logistic within an emerging market metropolis like Istanbul, and the role they play in supporting and preventing collaboration. Authors tend to prove that online practices in retail business like grocery in the emerging large scale metropolis like Istanbul, still have difficulty achieving the potential objectives, since the last mile digital revolution leading to multi-actor integration and multi-product sourcing provision in supply chain management (SCM) will take a significant amount of time to become a reality. The last chapter in this series by Florian Birke, Maximilian Witt and Susanne Robra-Bissantz from Germany, provides the next dimension of the web utilization, which is across companies and product and service value chains in terms of increased innovation potential. This is a unique research by the authors, where in they have deduced that utilization of gaming theories is a very powerful tool to increase collaboration and increase innovations in the online world of competitions. The authors argue that with online sites like Wikipedia, it is increasingly plausible to explore one possible approach to transfer the positive motivational effect of games to idea competitions. The authors have corroborated their thoughts with a detailed studies of 18 cases and three interviews, that this study demonstrates the actual occurrence of game mechanisms and their effect on the motivation of participants in online competitions and chances
of organization to utilize these results to achieve much greater success in their employee collaborations and innovation results within and across the organizations with their end users and consumers. The critical aspect of why we editors chose the above chapters in this section was an attempt to showcase, a very diverse emergent pattern of usage of web in different industries. What was clearly visible is that firstly across all industries, practitioners and academicians are trying different ways to use web to improve their business efficiencies through multi– stakeholder’s collaboration. Although it is visible that the benefits due to collaborative web are not commensurate in the brick mortar industries due to last mile issues or depth penetration of internet in those industries, as compared to more information based industries, there is still a large scale usage across all sectors. Additionally, the section illustrate that there is a very positive pattern of usage of collaborative web in newer economies like Turkey, Greece and India apart from developed nations like Sweden.
48
Chapter 4
Collaborative Journalism: Networks, News Media and the Public Sphere Saayan Chattopadhyay University of Calcutta, India
ABSTRACT Journalists’ responsibility has an intrinsic relation with the economic and socio-political institutions within which they work. To bring the notion of collaboration into the discussion of journalism and news media organization— irrespective of whether it is technological or social— would thus broaden its conventional intention of studying the social dynamics by which news is produced within key social institutions, and ultimately to propose a method for correlating the changing facets due to collaborative Web with established theories of the relationship between discourse, professional practices, and economic endeavors. What this chapter argues is that collaboration does not hinge only between a professional and an amateur, or trained reporters and common citizens, or perhaps more commonly, different kinds of media; rather, it is a much greater transformation since it is a collaboration between society and technology with its palpable economic implications. In this context, this chapter attempts to understand the emergence of “network entrepreneur” and his/her engagement with the multiple discursive and institutional networks. By referring to various mainstream and alternative news media organizations in India and beyond, this chapter questions in what way news media and journalistic practices are reconfiguring to accommodate a more collaborative platform that embraces participatory, networked, hypermediated journalism. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch004
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Collaborative Journalism
INTRODUCTION In the past decade and a half, we have begun to witness a radical change in the organization of information production. Enabled by technological change, we are beginning to see a series of economic, social, and cultural adaptations that make possible a fundamental transformation of how one constitutes the information environment one occupies as autonomous individuals, citizens, and members of cultural and social groups. A string of changes in the technology, economic organization, and social practices of production within this environment has created emerging opportunities for how we produce, disseminate and exchange information, knowledge, and culture. The transformation brought about by the collaborative networked information environment is deep-seated that brings fundamental structural changes. It points to the very basis of how liberal markets and liberal democracies have coevolved for almost two centuries. At present there are more than 60,000 titles registered as newspapers in India; almost 9,000 of these are being published on a regular basis. Besides, there are more than one hundred national television channels and hundreds of local channels, as well as large number of private radio stations especially in the metros (Audit Bureau of Circulation, 2006). Parallel to this, within the ambit of what is popularly known as “new media” there is consistent development that presently rivals the traditional media segments as well. Most of the established media organizations have already stepped in to the new media sector, with web and mobile services. Websites like indiatimes. com, manoramaonline.com, hindutantimes.com, rediff.com, in.com, merinews.com, oneindia.in, sulekha.com have created a niche for themselves. Indian media have outperformed the overall Indian economy; they are expected to be over US$18.6 billion by 2010. Nonetheless, in keeping with the corporatization of journalism, web journalism in India has essentially become an
extension of the already established news media business, predominantly producing, among other things, market-friendly soft stories and popular syndicated content. However, disagreements continue to unfold regarding which website deserves to be acknowledged as news website, with different interested parties each staking their respective claim. This controversy stems primarily from disagreements over how best to define what constitutes a news site as distinct from other related types of sites. Much of the early, experimental work was conducted by newspaper companies placing their news reports online, thereby blurring – some might say remediating – traditional categories. Somewhat crudely, I suggest that Indian news media sites can be categorized into four different groups. The first group consists of the sites that are primarily Web extensions of the existing print media publication or news agencies: timesofindia. com, manoramaonline.com, hindustantimes.com, hinduonnet.com, indianexpress.com, tehelka. com and ptinews.com. The second comprises sites that are similar extensions of the recognized news broadcast media: ibnlive.in.com, ndtv.com, timesnow.tv, zeenews.com and aajtak.com. The third is the purely online news sites, which, besides Google and Yahoo! India news services, include merinews.com, india-newsbehindnews.com, indiatogether.com and indianews.net. The fourth is the news portals, which are relatively popular in terms of traffic ranking: rediff.com, indiatimes. com, sify.com, oneindia.in, 123india.com and so on (Chattopadhyay, 2010, p. 293). Within this perspective, in this chapter I examine a particular intersection of the emerging collaborative practices within the domain of web journalism and the more pervasive changes being perceptible in socio-economic sphere. These changes have most visibly affected the journalistic practices or the production of news both by individuals and by cooperative efforts in a wide range of loosely or tightly woven collaborations. However, the social significance of such col-
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laborative engagement and its allied economic consequence can never be overemphasized. In this changing scenario, this chapter questions the predominant world view that predictably and rigidly disassociates the natural/social from the technical; and the individual from the technology. New media do not just provide a new voice; rather, they provide the ability to fabricate new linkages of institutions, individuals and machines. These new linkages can be witnessed across the domain of online journalism, in the open source community and in a variety of other collaborative journalistic practices as well. What this chapter seeks to argue is that the notion of collaboration does not hinge only between a professional and an amateur, or trained reporters and common citizens, or perhaps more commonly, different kinds of media— rather it is a much greater transformation since it is a collaboration between society and technology with its palpable economic implications. As the networks become “simultaneously real, like nature, narrated, like discourse, and collective, like society” (Latour, 1993, p.6); and the human beings emerge as “Homo Sapiens Technologicus”, the collaboration entails far reaching implications that not only questions the given categories of modernity but also reconstitute them. Hence, it is not only individualistic isolated communicative nodes rather a complex negotiation of linkages that engenders the hybridity of this medium and calls for new practices, strategies and patterns.
COLLABORATION FOR A NEW PUBLIC SPHERE? Jürgen Habermas introduced the concept of the public sphere as a sphere which mediates between society and state, where the public organizes itself as the bearer of public opinion, accords with the principle of the public sphere – which once had to be fought for against the arcane policies of monarchies and which since that time has made possible the democratic control of state activities
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(Habermas, 1989, p.136). It is first of all a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens. A portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body (Ibid.). He also contended that this bourgeois public sphere went into decline after the consolidation of the bourgeois hegemony. However, the scholar chiefly credited for introducing the “public sphere” notion into the media debate was Nicholas Garnham. He suggested that a market allocation of cultural resources, combined with the destruction of public service media, threatened “public communication”, which he argued, lay at the heart of the democratic process (Garnham, 1986, p.37). Garnham pointed to a string of negatives associated with this process of commercialization, namely, a growing focus on privatized domestic consumption built around the television set, the creation of “information rich” and “information poor” sectors and the replacement of “national” cultural spheres with an international media market (p.38). Certainly, Habermas like Garnham and other cultural interventionists were deeply concerned at the growing commercialization of the media; hence naturally, at heart, the “public sphere” issue seems to be about creating alternatives to one-dimensional, narrowed, manipulated or closed communication. It is important to note, the two crucial shifts that mark the most advanced economies of the world today. The first shift, is towards an economy centered on information— that includes financial services, accounting, software, science and news— and cultural, comprising of films, music production and also news. The second move is towards a communication environment built on inexpensive processors with high computation capabilities, interconnected in a pervasive network—the phenomenon we associate with the Internet. The collaborative environment, which seems to be the center of new practices, strategies and patterns for news media organizations,
Collaborative Journalism
is only possible because of these shifts. And echoing Benkler, I assume that it fundamentally reshaped the notion of public sphere: “from the mass-mediated public sphere to a networked public sphere” (Benkler, 2006, p.10). Although, whether it offers a “platform for better democratic participation; as a medium to foster a more critical and self-reflective culture” (Ibid., p.2) is a position that I may find difficult to concur. However what is more crucial for this study is to identify the very ambivalent nature of this collaborative environment. On one hand, the linkages of various communicative nodes are much more perceptible in the domain of news media on the web; on the other hand, these nodes remain as individualistic and as discrete as possible. For instance if we consider the citizen journalism section in Indian news websites like ibnlive.in or merinews.com the reports, photos and videos come from locations which are generally known, if not the hometown of that particular citizen reporter. What he reports is something that he personally finds interesting or amusing, which is directly opposite to the “assignments” that the professional journalist are assigned to cover. It is his “private”, personal involvement to something or some event that— if he finds the opportunity— he attempts to make “public”. Similarly, the controversy involving an Indian Minister of State and an active Twitter user, who ran into trouble for a message he posted on the social networking site in which he commented sarcastically in response to a query “tweet” from a journalist, points to this very aspect. The minister’s remark was meant as a humorous private and personal reply, as he himself mentioned later, but the underlying reason for the political commotion ensuing from his “tweet” was the clear and rigid distinction between the public and the private, that the minister’s comment somewhat deviated. What I wish to suggest is that although the technology is increasingly adapting to the collaborative, participatory environment but the collaboration between the public and the private remains distant. Such collaboration would entail
a breakdown of these distinctions and perhaps while attempting to create a new public sphere we might have ended up creating a new private sphere.
JOURNALISM 2.0: NEW PRACTICES, STRATEGIES AND PATTERNS Irrespective of whether it is a new public sphere or a private sphere, the notion of collaboration undeniably remains at the heart of the debate regarding the possibilities of new technologies, particularly the web, to facilitate new forms of participation in economic and public life, to reform political debate and citizenship and to rekindle the institutions of democracy. Although, since the inception of the internet the utopian visions of the internet was instrumental in this sense of optimism centered on participation and politics. But it has been reinvigorated recently through the discussion around, what is popularly being termed as Web 2.0. In this post-broadcast, digital collaborative media era, the notions of journalism and journalists are also transformed - defined by new alignments of productive and distributive power and media consumption and use; hence, necessitating, perhaps too admiringly, an expression: “Journalism 2.0”. The term obviously connotes a sense of “up gradation” from the older practices and concepts. Then what are the transformations brought about through this new-fangled practices of journalism? Certainly there are some structural changes, which have affected the patterns of the news media organizations in the twenty-first century. To what the extent print/broadcast and web journalism should be integrated continued to be at the center of industry discussions all through the late 1990s and into the new millennium. The rising influence of the web on national news reporting and the continuing pressure online technologies brought to bear on newsroom operations compelled more newspapers to mull over how to best integrate their print newspaper and online news services
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(Compton, 2010; Allan, 2006; Noack, 1998,). Here it is imperative to recollect how in the last few years almost all the established print and broadcast news media organizations in India have integrated new web based content and services ranging from microblogging, “citizen reporting” sections and the option of commenting on the reported stories by readers in their sites. Indeed, it was becoming increasingly evident that the success of the typically smaller online operations was necessarily dependent on tapping the talents and newsgathering resources of the vastly larger print newsroom (Paul, 2000). Perhaps that is why, even small and mid segment local newspapers in India, like Aajkaal or Sangbad Pratidin in Bengali language also have their own websites; and which is usually available in vernacular languages. However, in developed countries, after some experimenting, newspapers that had established stand-alone new media divisions began reversing course and looking to integrate their online section with the mainstream, offline news section. In 2008, Gannett Co., a leading international news and information company that publishes 85 daily newspapers in the USA, including USA Today, acquired Ripple6, Inc., a leading provider of social media services and went through a restructuring of its business and subsequently in 2009 Gannett’s online network, ended up with more than 100 digital communities and a combined reach of approximately 25 million people that amounted to ten percent of its revenues (Connell, 2008). There exist a considerable number of approaches to the study of the necessity for collaboration between the online and offline news media. In their research on managing emerging technologies, Day and Schoemaker (2000) found that one of the fundamental mistakes that companies make when establishing an innovative venture, like launching a news site, is to ignore the connections and possible collaboration between it and the existing parent operation. Clark (2001) and Zollman (2000) asserted that integration or collaboration offers synergies that facilitate marketing and financial
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advantages other than assisting in improved journalistic practices. However, such collaboration entails, as I have earlier mentioned, certain structural changes; but what are the stages through which these structural changes are initiated in the news media organizations? Drawing upon Everett M. Rogers’ influential scholarship on diffusion of innovations, Lawson-Borders applied it to study media organizations and new technology, while developing the following trajectory: the first stage, known as the “agenda-setting” points to the early period, when media companies recognized the implications of the Internet and the growth of the personal computer; the second stage, designated as “matching” refers to the consequent formation of online divisions to exploit the potential of the world wide communication network; the third stage, “redefining/restructuring” refers to the infamous dot.com “bust” in early 2000, when web media organizations retrenched and economized online resources; and the fourth stage, “clarifying”, points to the growing importance of “convergence,” as journalists start being familiar with delivering news through multiple new media technologies. In the fifth stage, known as “routinizing”, which is particularly pertinent for this study, the innovation becomes an ongoing part of the organization’s activities. Finally, the fifth stage is “still unfolding for media organizations as they deliberate over strategies and best practices to propel the organizations into the future” (Lawson-Borders, 2003, p.93). What kinds of emerging strategies and practices are we witnessing? The notion of journalism 2.0 sees the Internet as allowing enthusiastic communities and individuals to come together and provide more value for a given news and information site. Here I hasten to remind that the initial reports of 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack first came through social networking sites and blogs. Mere moments after the first shots were fired, Twitter users in India and particularly in Mumbai were delivering almost instant eyewitness accounts of the situation. Furthermore, it is suspected that at
Collaborative Journalism
the height of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the Indian government attempted to shutdown the Twitter stream people were using to disseminate news and information, amid fears that it could be used by the terrorists to help them evade capture (Beaumont, 2008). I am not, of course, suggesting that Twitter, Facebook Myspace and other social media are in a position to replace the mainstream news media yet; however, there can be little doubt that they offer a potent collaborative communication platform that is emerging even in a developing nation like India. An analogous emerging practice is “crowdsourcing” that effectively demonstrates how a large group of unpaid, non-professional but committed individuals can outperform a small group of experienced and paid professionals. Crowdsourcing is a relatively new term, coined by Jeff Howe in a 2006 article for Wired News. It is quite similar to “distributed,” “collaborative” or “open-source” reporting and many scholars and professionals use the terms interchangeably. It is often referred as “pro-am journalism” a portmanteau of “professional” and “amateur”. The focus of crowdsourcing is usually ongoing production of information while distributed reporting or “opensource” reporting relates more closely to a specific and fixed-time project, such as responding to a specific query or reporting on a specific subject. The online version of Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, cannot keep up with Wikipedia in terms of updating articles and information. And Microsoft, with all its resources, has struggled to keep pace with the development of the Firefox browser, a project powered by volunteers collaborating together under the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation (Briggs, 2007, p.47). Rediff.com, like “Yahoo Answers” includes a specific link “ask users” with every news story, where the reader can ask any question related to the article or otherwise to other users of the site who may provide the answer. And not to mention, most of the websites of established Indian news media
organizations include citizen report sections that in effect depends on crowdsourcing. The practice of news reporting has adapted and changed significantly to make use of the possibilities of the new media environment. For instance, the notion of “micro-reporting”, sometimes also referred as “hyper-local” reporting takes into consideration events and developments normally neglected by mainstream media. Hence, the news and information pertaining to small towns and remote locales, which hitherto did not receive adequate coverage, are being reported on a regular basis. Likewise, the notion of distributed reporting is a form of transparency for a news organization. Traditionally, readers learn about stories a news organization is working on only when the articles are finished and published. “While it is customary to keep a story idea secret to prevent the competition from running with the idea, the distributed reporting model requires a news organization to go public with a story idea early in the reporting process. The reason? To allow readers to assist in the reporting of the story” (Briggs, 2007, p.48). In addition, the nature of the news story has changed considerably beyond the “push-pull” concern of the early online reporting. Instead of being a singular article, the news story, nowadays, has become a thread that involves multiple authors often yielding multiple related articles. The readers are actively involved even before the publication of a particular news report, as they ask questions, write comments and supplement information through the interactive, participatory web media. Besides, the readers also collaborate in the promotion and dissemination of the news report through the concept of “peer-recommended news” as certain services like emailing the news, RSS feeds or social bookmarking are becoming ubiquitous. Hence, collaborative media do not just provide a new voice; rather, they provide the collaborative potential to fabricate new linkages of institutions, individuals and machines. Such transformations have also ushered in new patterns of production, which Yochai Ben-
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kler (2006) identifies as “nonmarket production”. There is a large number of individuals— often comprising of artists, scientists, politicians, businessmen, and professionals belonging to various sectors— who contribute to Wikipedia, citizen journalism sites, blogs, social bookmarking sites or post comments in news-sites— who are collectively producing works of clear economic value but are, for the most part, not participating in an economic market as such. As Benkler (2006, p.3) notes, “these new patterns of production—nonmarket and radically decentralized— will emerge, if permitted, at the core, rather than the periphery of the most advanced economies. It promises to enable social production and exchange to play a much larger role, alongside property- and marketbased production, than they ever have in modern democracies”.
ACTOR-NETWORK THEORY: SOCIETY, TECHNOLOGY AND JOURNALISM What this collaboration has in stake for society? It is clear that these changes may seem minute, isolated and perhaps trivial but if one looks at the macro level then it may unravel certain notions that go beyond media and journalism and affects how society itself is constituted. To this end we can constructively draw insight from the body of sociological work known as STS (science, technology, and society), or, more specifically, “actor-network theory” (ANT). One of the basic insights of sociologists such as Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, and John Law, is that what we understand as “the social” consists of much more than purely human actors. Humans are thus intricately networked with machines, software, texts, objects, databases and so on. “What we call the social is materially heterogeneous: talk, bodies, texts, machines, architectures, all of these and many more are implicated in and perform the social” (Law, 1994, p.2).
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To put it more simply, actor-network theory as explained by Bruno Latour (1992) attempts to analyze a series of negotiations, which explains the progressive constitution of a network in which both human and non-human actors take on identities according to established strategies of interaction. Actors’ identities and qualities are defined during negotiations between representatives of human and non-human “actants”. What they term an “actant” can be anything endowed with the ability to act, including people and material objects. Actors and actants, both terms are, however, occasionally used interchangeably and “actor” and “network” are mutually constitutive. An actor can not act without a network and a network always consists of actors. Journalism, especially in the new media environment, as a network of actors can therefore be extended to include a whole series of objects, artifacts, and technologies. This development can be seen as a hybrid collectivity of human and nonhuman components, and thus we can sidestep the mistake of understanding it as constituted purely by one or the other. This, I suggest, permits us to realize the complexity of web journalism as it visibly collapses the rigid categorizations that are pivotal in the understanding of modern journalism. The list of different technologies and objects one may incorporate in this actor-network of web journalism is potentially endless. However, certain artifacts and technologies like the digital imaging devices, internet, mobile phones are of particular importance, but what must be recognized— as actor-network theorists argue— is their agency or active status. In attempting to move away from static properties and the purity of divides and distinctions, Latour (1993) argues that the agency of technologies and artifacts does not lie in the essence, in the ‘nature’, of an object, but is an effect, an outcome of a set or series of relations. This notion of relational agency means that the internet, digital cameras, or digital communication devices are only an agent inasmuch as series of associa-
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tions are made and subsequently held together. This active status of these new media devices is an effect of these relations and associations. As Bruno Latour (2005, p.247) remarks, “The question of the social emerges when the ties in which one is entangled begin to unravel; the social is further detected through the surprising movements from one association to the next; those movements can either be suspended or resumed; when they are prematurely suspended, the social as normally construed is bound together with already accepted participants called ‘social actors’ who are members of a ‘society’; when the movement toward collection is resumed, it traces the social as associations through many non-social entities which might become participants later; if pursued systematically, this tracking may end up in a shared definition of a common world, what I have called a collective; but if there are no procedures to render it common, it may fail to be assembled; and, lastly, sociology is best defined as the discipline where participants explicitly engage in the reassembling of the collective.” Hence, consistent with a world view that habitually and steadfastly separates the natural from the mechanical and the actor from the action, naturally journalists and those who study journalism routinely separate news and newsmakers, reporters and audience, press and politics. Nevertheless, as I have earlier stated, these categorizations are starting to disintegrate in practice. As new media technologies increasingly occupy the ambit of journalism, they necessitate a new trajectory of theorization, like actor-network theory with which to comprehend the production and circulation of public discourse and for the role of what Latour and others might call socio-technical hybrids in the process. Web journalism in turn offers actornetwork theory not only a new site at which to observe the close readings of social life, but a new professional domain in which to develop the implications of its studies of science and technology
for the study of media, discourse and governance. “Like scientists, journalists have long collaborated in the production of social order. And like scientists, they have done their work in relation to economic and political institutions that their work in turn has helped shape” (Turner, 2005, p.322).
NETWORK ENTREPRENEUR AND COLLABORATIVE JOURNALISM IN INDIA This collaboration of multiple discursive and institutional networks also entails an entrepreneurial aspect. Over the last decade, news media and journalistic practices are reconfiguring to accommodate a more collaborative platform that embraces participatory, networked, hypermediated journalism. While, the traditional newsroom is going through an organizational restructuring, as I have mentioned earlier, the conventional news organization and its business interests are gradually shifting towards this presumably more prospective segment. It is noteworthy to mention here, one such collaborative news media initiative in India— NewsRack.in. Developed by Subramanya Sastry, a web developer, the site lets users specify certain filtering rules which are used to select relevant articles from incoming news feeds. The selected articles are then classified into various categories. The users create their own profile on NewsRack and save news stories under different categories. They also have an option to browse public news archives prepared by other users. To a certain extent, NewsRack has an advantage over the news aggregator of Google or Yahoo. Although it is simple to search for general news on the Google, but when it comes to subject-specific news items it is not all that competent. Google displays a handful of categories in which all news is classified; whereas, in NewsRack the categories are defined by users so, there is no limit on the number of categorization for any news item.
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The scheme of NewsRack complicates the traditional understanding of journalism and news. In journalism and much of journalism studies, “actors” generally come in three categories: sources, journalists and reader/viewer; albeit all of them are human but the members of any one group might at times be members of the others; however, they are treated as analytically divergent. Each one acts as a link in a chain— sources disclose information, journalists collect and package it as news, and readers receive and consume it. Information itself moves through a series of representations although reasonably unaffected. This framework in turn endorses what Michael Schudson (2003) has called the “information-based model of citizenship”, in which citizens are supposed to act rationally at the voting booth on the basis of the news and information journalists have delivered to them. NewsRack, and its founder Subramanya Sastry along with other volunteer-contributors, in contrast serve as news gatherer, news source, and audience member all at once. Their engagement confuses the analytical categories on which traditional journalism studies have long depended. However, considered along the framework of actor-network theory, Sastry and all the others who contribute in the filtering and archiving of the news in various categories —and of course his web site—can be seen to represent and form a part of an actor-network. These “actors” and “actants” do not merely deliver news through the web site; on the contrary, they and the network in which they collaborate translate it into something new. Collectively they constitute a hybrid, an actor-network of news which, as Latour (1993, p.6) claimed of all networks, simultaneously “real, like nature, narrated, like discourse, and collective, like society”. In this perspective we may consider Subramanya Sastry, as what Ronald Burt would term a “network entrepreneur” and his site emerges as a form of actor-network. Being a network entrepreneur, Subramanya Sastry negotiates between mul-
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tiple discursive and institutional networks and his website translates a range of news stories produced within that network and put into further circulation. In that way, Subramanya Sastry assembles NewsRack not as something like a newspaper or television news channel— that is, an independent account of events and information— rather, more like a sphere for public discussion. This discussion, nonetheless, predominantly permits network members, who may or may not be a representatives of the press but they collectively classify, organize, filter and disseminate news which are coming from established news media; hence together it can be seen to construct new linkages of institutions, economy, individuals and technology. A more institutionalized form of such effort is the first Indian website wholly devoted to citizen journalism, merinews.com. Founded by Vipul Kant Upadhyay, merinews.com clearly states, “People to People (P2P) interaction is of paramount importance and rather inevitable. Emanating from the need to empower democracy by providing a media to the people of the country to communicate with one and all, www.merinews. com is an effort to provide one such platform to interact and express. It is a news platform for collective wisdom, ’Of The People, By The People, For The People’”. Merinews.com, like the celebrated South Korean citizen journalism site, ohmynews.com, is based on the concept of participatory, collaborative journalism which “transcend beyond the limitations of conventional media and allows citizens of the country to report, read, write, comment and debate news, views - happenings they find significant” (Merinews, 2010). The site does not simply offer new conduits for the dissemination of news; rather these networks and their human collaborators, collaborate in the creation of new socio-technical formations. New media do not just offer professionals like Vipul Kant Upadhyay and Subramanya Sastry a new medium; rather, they
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offer them the ability to foster new networks that can be witnessed across the world of web journalism, open source reporting, crowdsourcing, and in a variety of other journalistic practices and emerging technologies. A similar effort is idishoom.com, which is the only media movement of its kind in India that is essentially run by voluntary citizen editors and reporters, who as responsible and concerned citizens have created idishoom as a platform to raise a collective voice against social inequities and injustice. Over the last three years idishoom. com has been receiving considerable popularity especially among the urban youth of India and now claims to have over two million subscribers. Another, such collaborative initiative, Instablogs is a news ecosystem bringing bloggers, citizen journalists and traditional media together. Founded in 2005 by Ankit and Nandini Maheshwari, originally, the plan was to launch a global-local network of fifty news-based blogs but presently it features “a diverse community of news reporters, business owners, college students, housewives, artists, parents, and more in different countries and regions” (Instablogs, 2010). Considered in this way, several Facebook or Ning communities or other social media “groups” can be conceived as similar but informal instances of collaborative journalism that not only stand to address the political world but also points to emerging entrepreneurial aspects. Notwithstanding the fact that “nonmerket production” dominates collaborative peer-production project till date but we merely need to recognize that the material conditions of production in the networked information economy have transformed in ways that enhance the relative significance of social sharing and exchange as a modality of economic production (Benkler, 2005, p.92).
CONCLUSION This chapter is an attempt to investigate the nature of the claims that speak of the ways in which the users of online news are reconstituting the paradigms which have traditionally governed journalism and journalists. What counts as journalism in the networked, open-source society is open to negotiation, with fluidly changing points of convergence and divergence between its practice in the mainstream and in the margins. If a modern understanding of journalism assumes a distinct division between individuals, institutions and technology and their respective forms of agency, the collaborative journalistic practices on the web allow to recognize the socio-technical hybrids that are becoming increasingly widespread in journalism within a networked new media environment. In the process, collaborative journalism not only blurs traditional categories of analysis, but raises a series of critical social questions about the relationship between economy, society and journalism, to the extent it is possible to discern that notions of “authority” and “credibility” are in flux, with certain longstanding reportorial principles seeming tired, if not anachronistic, since in the last few years, numerous journalists have appeared on the web whose collaborative work straddles the line between professional and non-professional journalism and whose positions bridge multiple institutions. However, there is also no reason to believe that industrialized and institutionalized communication will be entirely superseded by new communication technologies. Perhaps, a more probable situation is that the Internet will itself become another site for institutionalized communication. Although websites in India no longer rely on NRI (Non-resident Indian) traffic and a large number of news-sites are now substantial profit-making ventures but still there are several issues that the emerging collaborative culture has to confront. The journalists and news-mediacollaborators in India need to tackle not only the
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increasing institutionalization of the collaborative space and practices under the influence of global capital, but they also need to mull over the more elementary problems, like the paucity of online information in native languages, shady political intervention, and not to mention, infrastructural inadequacy in rural areas. It can not be denied that predominantly, “information-rich elite” has access to enormous quantities of information as well as to the capability of actively sharing ideas and information on the Internet. The “information poor”, on the other hand, remain passive and dependent and tend to draw on only from the hegemonic mainstream communication system, namely, the (mass) products of the culture industry (Louw, 2001, p.66). They remain either virtually excluded from the global communication system, as is the case with most rural Indians or only have access as passive recipients to mass-produced messages in the form of free-to-air, state owned television or radio channels like Doordarshan and All India Radio. Nonetheless, much can be gained from considering the relative strengths and limitations of collaborative journalism especially its implication in the emergence of new socio-economic formation. Do the new collaborative media technologies necessarily create new ‘spaces’ for communicative dialogue or debate? If it does then what is the nature of those spaces; for instance, is the notion of a new private sphere a more feasible proposition than a new public sphere? What possibilities can be discerned for opposing the established discourses of global network capitalism with nonmarket production? In what way, journalism and news media is constituted as a socio-technical network and how should we interpret the modality of these networks and traditional institutions? Presumably, the struggle between the forces for discursive closure and emerging autonomy and open-endedness will remain an attribute of human existence amid emerging technology for the imminent future; but how these struggles of the future, play themselves out remains to be seen.
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REFERENCES Allan, S. (2006). Online news: Journalism and the Internet. Berkshire, UK: Open University Press. Audit Bureau of Circulations. (2006). NRS 2006: Key Findings [Press release]. Retrieved April 3, 2010 from http://www.auditbureau.org/nrs2006. htm Beaumont, C. (2008). Mumbai attacks: Twitter and Flickr used to break news. The Telegraph. Retrieved November 27, 2008 from http://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/ 3530640/Mumbai-attacks-Twitter-and-Flickrused-to-break-news-Bombay-India.html Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Briggs, M. (2007). Journalism 2.0: How to survive and thrive. J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism & the Knight Citizen News Network. Bruns, A. (2008). Merinews: Citizen journalism in India. Snurblog. Retrieved March 27, 2008, from http://snurb.info/node/790 Burt, R. (2000). The network entrepreneur. In Swedberg, R. (Ed.), Entrepreneurship: The social science view (pp. 281–307). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Chattopadhyay, S.(20092010). Online journalism: The changing media ecology from an Indian perspective. In Tunney, S., & Monaghan, G. (Eds.), Web journalism: A new form of ctizenship? (pp. 289–305). Eastbourne, UK: Sussex Academic Press. Clark, S. (2001). Looking at the present: The current status of journalism on the Internet. Paper presented at 2001 Online Journalism Symposium, a project of the Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Compton, J. R. (2010). Newspapers, labor and the flux of economic uncertainty. In Allan, S. (Ed.), The Routledge companion to news and journalism (pp. 591–601). New York, NY: Routledge. Connell, T. (2008). Gannett acquires social media provider Ripple6. Press Release. Retrieved November 13, 2008, from http://www.gannett.com/ news/ pressrelease/2008/pr111308.htm Day, G. S., & Schoemaker, P. J. H. (2000). A different game. In Day, G. S., & Schoemaker, P. H. (Eds.), Wharton on managing new technologies (pp. 22–39). NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Garnham, N. (1986). The media and the public sphere. In Golding, P., Murdock, G., & Schlesinger, P. (Eds.), Communicating politics: Mass communications and the political process. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press. Habermas, J. (1989). The public sphere: An encyclopedia article. In Bronner, S. E., & Kellner, D. M. (Eds.), Critical theory and society: A reader (pp. 136–142). New York, NY & London, UK: Routledge. Howe, J. (2006). The rise of crowdsourcing. Wired Magazine, 14(6), 69–76. Instablogs. (2010). Instablogs tour. Retrieved February 20, 2010, from http://www.instablogs. com/tour/ Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Law, J. (1994). Organizing modernity. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. Lawson-Borders, G. (2003). Integrating new media and old media: Seven observations of convergence as a strategy for best practices in media organizations. The International Journal on Media Management, 5(2), 93.
Louw, P. E., & Chitty, N. (2000). South Africa’s miracle cure: A stage-managed TV spectacular? In Malek, A., & Kavoori, A. P. (Eds.), The global dynamics of news coverage and news agendas. Stamford, CT: Ablex. Merinews.com. (2010). About us. Retrieved February 9, 2010, from http://www.merinews. com/aboutus.jsp Murdock, G., & Schlesinger, P. (Eds.). (1987). Communicating politics (pp. 45–53). Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press. Noack, D. (1998). Crossfire: Print vs. online newsrooms. Editor & Publisher, 131, 38–41. Paul, N. (2000). Integrating old and new media newsrooms. Cyberjournalist. Retrieved July 26, 2000, from http://www.cyberjournalist.net/ integrating-old-and-new-media-newsrooms/ Schudson, M. (2003). Click here for democracy: A history and critique of an information-based model of citizenship. In Jenkins, H., Thorburn, D., & Seawell, B. (Eds.), Democracy and new media (pp. 49–60). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Turner, F. (2005). Actor-networking the news. Social Epistemology, 19(4), 321–324. doi:10.1080/02691720500145407 Zollman, P. (2000). The key question: Integration or independence. Online Technology. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from http://www.newsandtech. com/issues/ 2000/04-00/ot/04-00_zollman.htm
ADDITIONAL READING Bruns, A. (2005). Gatewatching: Collaborative online news production. New York: P. Lang. Fenton, N. (2001). New Media, old news: Journalism and democracy in the digital age. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Greenspan, A. (2004). India and the IT Revolution: Networks of global culture. London: Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230510371 Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture. London: New York University Press. McLuhan, M. (1995). Understanding media. London: Routledge. (Original work published 1964) Poster, M. (2006). Information Please: Culture and politics in the age of digital machines. London: Duke University Press. Rossiter, N. (2006). Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions. Rotterdam: NAI. Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. London: Penguin. Staiger, J., & Sabine, H. (2009). Convergence, media, history. New York: Routledge. Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything. New York: Penguin. Terranova, T. (2004). Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age. London: Pluto Press.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Actor-Network Theory (ANT): Actor-Network theory’s methodology involves scientific
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realism, social constructivism, and discourse analysis in its central concept of hybrids that are simultaneously real, social, and discursive. Developed as an analysis of scientific and technological artifacts, ANT’s theoretical distinctiveness derives from its refusal to reduce explanations to either natural, social, or discursive categories while recognizing the significance of each. The modern constitution or world view uses one dimensional language operating in the framework of opposite poles of nature and culture. Knowledge and artifacts are explained either by society (social constructionisms) or by nature (realism). In order to transcend this dualism a second dimension is needed. Through Actor-Network theory, it is possible to understand the simultaneous construction of culture, society and nature. Citizen Journalism: Citizen Journalism refers to the practice of reporting news events by members of the public without professional training in journalism or affiliation to established news media. That information can take many forms, from blogs, contribution in citizen journalism sections of news media to podcast or webcast. It can include text, pictures, audio and video. Public Sphere: The public sphere is the arena within which debate occurs; it is the generation of ideas, shared knowledge and the construction of opinion that occurs when people assemble and discuss. According to Habermas, it is a network for communicating information and points of view. The public sphere is where ideas and information are shared. Media theorists have used Habermas’ public sphere to explain the importance of communication for the processes of democracy. For Habermas, the public sphere was most constructive when not influenced by commercial interests or state control.
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Chapter 5
Using Virtual Communities to Involve Users in E-Service Development: A Case Study Eva Söderström University of Skövde, Sweden Jesper Holgersson University of Skövde, Sweden
ABSTRACT Thriving in the Internet era requires both Internet presence and careful development of the e-services provided using this technology. However, one major problem is how to involve the end users of the eservice(s), something which is necessary if the e-services are to be useful and sustainable. This chapter presents a case study on the e-service development process using a major player in the travel industry as the case. The main focus is on how new technological advancements and phenomena, primarily virtual communities, can be used as a main source of end user requirements. Virtual communities are both of strategic and practical relevance and even cause a need to redefine the term “user participation.” E-services constitute a major trend for private as well as public organizations and should address Internet technology advancements when being developed.
INTRODUCTION The Internet enables companies to interact with customers as never before, learning ways DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch005
to improve service, develop new products and fine-tune marketing strategies (Hofacker, Goldsmith, Bridges, & Swilley, 2007). An e-service is an artifact for electronic delivery of services and is one major trend in recent technological
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Using Virtual Communities to Involve Users in E-Service Development
developments. For example, it is used to boost e-government adoption, externally to citizens and businesses as well as internally for increased efficiency of work processes. In the private sector, the focus thus far has been on the more technical aspect usually termed “web services”, which are software applications, or one technical implementation of an e-service. However, the concept “e-service” is much more than simply technology. It encompasses the entire chain from developer to user. Until recently, development of e-services has been developer-driven and focused on automating manual processes within organisations (Asgarkhani, 2005). There has been little or no consideration to the users of the e-service (Andersen & Medaglia, 2008; Anthopoulos, Siozos, & Tsoukalas, 2007; Melin, Axelsson, & Lundsten, 2008). At best, user needs are guessed instead of thoroughly analyzed by the developing party (Jupp, 2003). The development of these services poses somewhat different challenges and perspectives compared to traditional information systems development, as will be demonstrated later in the chapter. It is therefore highly important to investigate and analyse the conditions under which e-services are being developed, as well as how users can actively contribute to this process. Internet technology has become a rising star for eliciting or gathering input into the e-service development process, where input primarily refers to user preferences, desires, complaints and requirements. The new developments and innovative uses the Internet has brought is an unexplored source of valuable information as far as e-service development is concerned. Our primary focus is the role of virtual communities in this scenario, and we will demonstrate the usefulness of said communities using a real-life industry case. In order to set the stage, background information on e-services and user participation in e-services development will first be discussed. The latter includes four identified problem areas in the said development. The primary internet technology of interest, Virtual Communities, will
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be explained next, before the case study itself is introduced with its associated research methodology. The case ends with a section on solutions and recommendations, before the chapter concludes with future work and conclusions.
BACKGROUND E-services are used in many different settings and there is no commonly agreed definition (Rowley, 2006) but there are some general characteristics applicable for most e-services. Firstly, e-services are based on electronic interactions between a service provider and a service consumer (Javalgi, Martin, & Todd, 2004; Liao, Chen, & Yen, 2007; Rowley, 2006). Secondly, e-services are intangible, inseparable and heterogeneous (Edvardsson & Larsson, 2004; Javalgi et al., 2004; Johannesson, Andersson, Bergholtz, & Weigand, 2008; Järvinen & Lehtinen, 2004). The creation of some kind of value is also stressed by many authors (Edvardsson & Larsson, 2004; Hultgren, 2007; Preist, 2004) meaning that the e-service interaction must generate a positive outcome, either for the producer or for the consumer or most preferable, for both. In this paper we have chosen to view e-services as artefacts for the delivery of services electronically, i.e. e-services are viewed as applications making it possible to offer and use services via electronic communication channels, such as the Internet. We distinguish between two basic types of e-services; commercial ones and public ones. The outmost important difference between these is that public e-services (often described as egovernment services) are not based on the user’s ability or desire to pay (Henriksen, 2004). Public administrations do not seek profit but instead they are striving for cost reductions by increased internal efficiency and more efficient communication with citizens (K Axelsson & Melin, 2007; Charalabidis, Askounis, Gionis, Lampathaki, & Metaxiotis, 2006). Furthermore, public e-services must be targeted towards a wide spectra of users
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considering several aspects, such as different disabilities, geographical limitations, language issues etc. (Henriksen, 2004; van Velsen, van der Geest, ter Hedde, & Derks, 2009) whereas commercial e-services may be targeted in any direction. Additionally, e-government services must consider or are affected by, laws and regulations to a much greater extent than commercial ones (Hung, Chang, & Yu, 2006; Teicher, Hughes, & Dow, 2002). Many public e-services are unique, and are in many cases rarely used by citizens, for example, an e-service for applying for a drivers license (van Velsen et al., 2009). This means that the citizen must adapt to new e-services processes, which in turn requires that they are given support in how to use the service. This situation is different for private e-services, which often are similar and more frequently used. This means that the private e-service user generally finds it significantly easier to handle these types of e-services (van Velsen et al., 2009).
User Participation in E-Service Development User participation is a concept used in many different settings and most often, user participation refers to the involvement of end users in the development process of an information system (Cavaye, 1995). User participation in the development process may come in many forms. Nevertheless, the same general benefits from user participation will be accomplished, e.g. better information quality resulting in more consistent and accurate requirements and more realistic expectations on the upcoming system from the users point of view (Bjerknes & Bratteteig, 1995; Cavaye, 1995; Kensing & Blomberg, 1998; Matthing, Kristensson, Gustavsson, & Parasuraman, 2006; van Velsen et al., 2009). Development of e-services has traditionally been focusing on automating manual processes within organizations (Asgarkhani, 2005). Attention to the end user, i.e. the consumer, has in many
cases been neglected (Andersen & Medaglia, 2008; Anthopoulos et al., 2007; Melin et al., 2008). However the role of the user is now shifting towards more active user participation in various forms (K. Axelsson & Melin, 2008; Lindblad-Gidlund, 2008; Melin et al., 2008). The main arguments for this is that user needs are more likely to be met; meaning that not only the providing organization but also the user of a particular e-service experiences benefits when using the e-service (Andersen & Medaglia, 2008; Carroll & Rosson, 2007; van Velsen, van der Geest, ter Hedde, & Derks, 2008). By using the Internet and other electronic networks for communicating organizations today are trying to shift focus from internal user groups with distinct needs easy to target to a situation where the users are external with dispersed needs which are hard to target (Albinsson, Forsgren, & Lind, 2007). It is a challenging task as it is to target users for internal information systems development projects but it is even more challenging to target users of e-services aiming for external users, i.e. customers, citizens, other businesses. (K. Axelsson & Melin, 2008; Melin et al., 2008). (Holgersson, Söderström, Karlsson, & Hedström, 2010) have analyzed user participation in e-service development from a goal perspective. In doing so, they identified four problems or challenges when including users in development: (1) Identifying the user target segment, (2) Identifying the individual user within each segment, (3) Getting users to participate, and (4) Lacking adequate skills.
The Problem of Knowing the E-Service Market Segment An e-service should address a clear “target audience”, i.e. it should be clear for what purpose and for what user it is developed. The target service market segment for the e-service should therefore be identified and analysed (Holgersson et al., 2010). Depending on the degree of participation or the type of users developers have access to, different approaches should be selected. For
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example, an organization primarily seeking to attract new customers or do they wish to provide better e-services for existing customers? Is the organization commercial and aiming for higher revenues or is it a government striving for better services to citizens? In this sense, e-government services complicate things since they have to be offered universally to all citizens (Henriksen, 2004) and therefore have to be usable for many different types of users. Identifying new eservices for commercial reasons may call for the user innovation approach, whereas participatory design may be more suitable when developing basic e-government services. The motivation is that e-government workers may be less inclined to thinking innovatively than commercial users.
The Problem of Identifying Users for Development Efforts The decision of design approach is also steered by the amount of available resources to allocate to a development project. Users of both commercial e-services as well as e-government services are most often external (Albinsson et al., 2007). This will make it more complicated to find the appropriate users to participate with, compared to traditional information systems development inside organizational boundaries. Looking at e-government services, potential users of the e-services are scattered across different ages, genders, ethnic background, knowledge level, etc. It hence becomes difficult to choose a suitable group of users to work with. This is easier for commercial, private organizations, who target a more narrow/focused customer group (Holgersson et al., 2010). Finding lead users, a key part of the user innovation approach, may be even more complicated since not any representative user will do. User innovation often seems like an appealing design approach to choose, but in many cases, other design approaches must be considered due to the problem of finding the desired users.
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The Problem of Getting Users to Participate in E-Service Development It may be straight forward to get users residing in-house to participate in the design process, since they can be obligated to participate and may see the benefits more clearly (Albinsson et al., 2007). E-services for commercial as well as governmental usage pose greater challenges since participation must be based on free will, i.e. the users must be persuaded to participate which most likely will reduce the number of suitable participants. It should be noted that it is possible to command participation in primarily governmental organizations such as the military forces. However, this is not ideal, since voluntary participation does provide more creative results. Restricted user access may influence the type of interaction techniques used, that is type of seminars for eliciting requirements etc. This problem concerns degree of participation and is a crucial question to ask at this stage. If active user participation is sought, part of team or advisory participation could be suitable approaches.
The Problem of Lacking Adequate Skills E-services development is complex since e-service artifacts often inherit a complex architecture from back-office systems. Most often this complexity is invisible to the user and it cannot be required that they even should have such knowledge. Even so, user participation in e-service development increases the likelihood for mutual benefits (Andersen & Medaglia, 2008; Carroll & Rosson, 2007; van Velsen et al., 2008) since the user needs are more likely to be met. But in order to formulate requirements the user is required to have extensive knowledge of what it is possible to ask for. Hence, skill inadequacy is a fourth challenge important to address when letting the user participate in eservice development. The private sector has an advantage here, since they appear more inclined to follow the latest developments and trends than
Using Virtual Communities to Involve Users in E-Service Development
the public sector employees are. Of course, this is not a rule per se, but rather an observation.
Virtual Communities The rapid development of internet gives new opportunities to create virtual communities (VCs) in the cyberspace centered around offering communication and interaction between members sharing the same interests (Parsell, 2008). A VC can be seen as a group in which individuals come together around a shared purpose, interest or goal, where most depend on electronic communications to support interaction among members who are not physically collocated (Koh, Kim, Butler, & Bock, 2007; Lu, Zhao, & Wang, 2009). VCs are part of the web intelligence technology (Lu et al., 2009; Zong, Liu, & Yao, 2007) and is one type of knowledge network (Merali & Davies, 2001). As such, it highlights the importance of the link between social capital and knowledge resources for effective knowledge management (Merali & Davies, 2001). Thus far, most individuals think of VCs as on line social networks (OSNs) which mostly focus on maintaining social relations, e.g. Facebook, MySpace etc. (Fogel & Nehmad, 2009; Mislove, Marcon, Gummadi, Druschel, & Bhattacharjee, 2007) and to find and communicate with individuals sharing the same interests, e.g. discussion forums etc. However, research is ongoing about VC for intra-company discussion, knowledge sharing, etc. (de Moor & Weigand, 2007). Migrating offline communities into online VCs has the potential to greatly improve their efficiency and ability to support the sharing of critical information and knowledge in a timely fashion (Koh et al., 2007). Members in a VC have different reasons for participating. Yu, Jiang, & Chan (2007) mention four general categories of motives for user participation in VCs: 1. Altruism, which is the intent to increase the welfare of one or more other individuals
2. Collectivism, which intends to increase the welfare of a group or collective 3. Principlism, which holds some moral principles such as justice and fairness 4. Self-interest, which is the personal motivations Moore & Serva (2007) have expanded this categorisation into 14 categories, which more or less is a detailing of the ones mentioned above. This chapter is not focused on VC research per se, and the categorisation of four is therefore sufficient for our purposes.
USING VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES FOR ELICITING REQUIREMENTS WHEN DEVELOPING E-SERVICES The chapter explores e-services development, what makes it unique and how VCs can be used to involve the users of the said services in the development process without actively involving them as traditional approaches for user participation do. The aim is twofold: to identify suitable ways to work with users using VCs and to identify the challenges in this work. We will investigate these issues by using a real-life case study to both illustrate the points made and to identify new findings. As stated in the background, typical VC activities include information sharing and problem solving. Most of these activities take the form of posting and viewing opinions, questions, experiences, information and knowledge sharing within the VCs discussion forums. Hence, posting and viewing are fundamental elements in the ongoing life of any VC (Koh et al., 2007). However, it is important to highlight the fact that the posting activity stimulant is not necessarily the same as the viewing activity stimulant (Koh et al., 2007). This means that organizations can tap into discussions of VCs to learn more about their customers’ experiences, desires, needs and
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concerns (Hofacker et al., 2007). VCs provide a foundation for facilitating collaboration and learning among individuals, such as customers or citizens, separated by physical distance and organizational boundaries (Koh et al., 2007). For this chapter, learning to be made concerns how the desires and requirements of e-service users can be incorporated and used in e-service development. VCs have been studied extensively in many aspects for a long time, but little is yet known about how they can be utilized for these purposes.
membership services. These points can be used to purchase further travels and other services provided by partners. The e-services in focus in this chapter concern those e-services that are provided within the frame of the membership.
Research Methodology The data collection in the case study consisted of interviews (see table 1 for an overview) as well as extensive studies of project documentation with a major focus on the earlier project stages focusing on analysis and design. In the interviews, two senior IT architects with managerial functions were the primary target of interest, since they have an overview of the e-service development work and oversee all ongoing development projects. Both have significant, long-term experience from e-service development and are highly familiar with the development methodology and ongoing trends. Another respondent came from the marketing and customer relations department, and was a senior marketing manager with an “umbrella perspective” over customer issues. In addition, we followed one e-service development project and conducted interviews with four participants therein. Interview questions started with introductory questions to clarify for example roles and responsibilities, communication paths in development situations, the development methodology, requirements management, user participation and maintenance issues and technical questions of the eservice, etc. There were some variations in the
The Case Study Our case study is based on a real company and all the background information is genuine. The identity of the company is irrelevant and all actors will therefore be protected by anonymity. Furthermore, the travel industry is rather “tight” and any further information on geographical location, size and types of services offered may reveal the identity. Thus, the company from here on will be referred to as “Company X”. The case concerns private e-services rather than public egovernment services, since is intended to show how any organization - private or public - can use emergent phenomena to improve their e-services and the development thereof. Company X is an international company in the travel industry with branches in several countries and with services of different types offered and provided all over the world. It offers membership to its travelers, a membership which involves being rewarded points for travelling and using the Table 1. Interview respondents
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Participants
Role
Number of interviews
P1, P2
Senior IT architects
4 x 2 hours
P3
Project manager
1 x 2 hours
P4
System specialist
1 x 2 hours
P5
IT architect
1 x 2 hours
P6
Test leader
1 x 2 hours
P7
Senior marketing manager
1 x 2 hours
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exact interview question set-up depending on the role of the respondent. All interviews lasted about 2 hours and were documented via extensive notes that were sent to the interviewees afterwards for validation and to ensure correct interpretation of their answers. In addition, Company X made an extensive number of documents available for study. These were also included in the analysis. The data was analyzed by comparing answers and by searching for expressions concerning requirements elicitation, channels or media that is monitored or used during elicitation and development, along with motivations for why these choices were made.
The Need for a Modernised Solution One main concern in Company X is to continuously develop and enhance their customer support. They therefore launched a membership program some years ago, to keep and increase customer loyalty. One consequence, however, has been that the manual handling of member loyalty related services increased, which became very expensive. Furthermore, there was a need to increase the number of ways in which to make offers and to remove some limitations in the service structure. Online functionality in terms of an e-service was considered a highly suitable approach to address these problems, and it was decided that a new e-service would be developed. This e-service
would reduce the number of contacts made to the customer support center, and thereby relieve the strain on administrative functions. Communication with the users used to take place either via telephone to the customer service or via regular mail and other types of direct user contact. The before-picture is shown in figure 1. The desired solution should be generic enough to suit different member needs concerning the variety of services provided by Company X. Connections to surrounding systems, internal as well as external, had to be established, and appropriate follow-up procedures concretised. Company X determined that unless the e-service was developed, demands on the customer support would be continuous and Company X would fail to compete with other similar membership programs provided by competitors. Profitability and opportunities could thereby be lost. The e-service stores information about all members in the membership program, including track records of what they do and how they travel. When customers are to book for a specific service and pay using the points gathered, the booking is made in Amadeus which in turn communicates with the e-service. With the new e-service environment, the user (Company X’s customer) is supposed to work via a booking dialogue connected to the Amadeus e-Retail system. There, they can pay with their customer loyalty points or with money. Basically, the e-service offers
Figure 1. Communication patterns before the introduction of Internet technology
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the members several options for how to interact with company X when making various types of bookings. In addition, the e-service provides the member with additional information which is easy to access and monitor in comparison with other interaction alternatives outside the scope of the e-service.
E-Service Development with VCs VCs has provided X with new ways of working with users not previously possible, as is shown in figure 2. One major new channel is the monitoring of traveler VCs on the Internet in which company X and its membership service is discussed by community members. Such VCs are knowledgesharing communities and to some extent also problem-solving, since they can solve problems of certain areas through collaborative networks (Yu et al., 2007). Participation in this kind of VC is hence motivated by personal interest and by collectivism, since it helps this group of travelers to enhance their travelling and use of the membership points. Developers in Company X review the comments and discussions in the forum and records relevant points. These points (ideas, problems, loop holes, etc.) are brought forward to the relevant project group which evaluates them for possible action. After selection based on relevance, the results are passed on to the relevant organizational unit.
purpose, but rather as comments and feedback on existing services and needs for new services. These requirements are elicited by tapping into forum discussions and from analysing customer behavior. The customer department of Company X uses the forum/virtual community discussions a lot and thereby avoids overloading the customers with questions and queries. The customer behavior is by far the most important indicator of whether or not e-services are appreciated by the users or not, as well as how changes in these services affect the behavior.
Requirements Elicitation in Company X One basic aspect of requirements elicitation is that Company X rarely gathers new requirements, but often wants to check how their customers appreciate already existing things. Such things can be those that Company X wants to evolve or alternatively thoughts and experiences from new services. E-services have affected the development process, which is expressed by P4, “E-services have affected the rules, not so that they are more difficult to keep track of, but in that it is simpler to test them. But the same requirements still need to be gathered”. Requirements are, accordingly, elicited by: •
Basic View of User Participation in Company X The users of the e-services provided for the membership program are the members themselves. However, they are, with a few exceptions, only passive users and do not actively take part in the e-services development. Furthermore, the developers are users of the e-services too. Quoting P3, “Many of the consultants in Company X are frequent users themselves, and it has so far been enough”. In many cases, requirements are not gathered from a requirements elicitation
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•
Large member studies, focusing on appreciation and experience. These studies are made via email or online via the Company X web portal. One sample question is,” what do you think of the possibility to use the membership points for booking hotels?” Directed membership studies outside of the border of the more general ones. These studies are made towards smaller customer segments that use an already implemented service. For example, one upcoming study will concern whether or not the members/ users like the new hotel booking service, what they do not like, and so on.
Using Virtual Communities to Involve Users in E-Service Development
Figure 2. Communication patterns after the introduction of Internet technology and e-services
•
•
Online inquiries directed at selected customer segments concerning different aspects of the membership program. Focus groups, which are only rarely used since Company X considers it difficult to gain new and useful knowledge this way. “The way you ask the question determines the answer you will get” (quote Company X). This quote emphasises the difficulties in arranging valuable focus group sessions.
Studies can consist of tests, as highlighted by P7, “We do tests where we have both groups and control groups. These groups get different information, and then we monitor their behavior. These are all real, live tests”. The e-services are provided via the Internet portal of Company X. In addition to the inquiries and studies for requirements elicitation, other issues, ideas and problems are identified by tracking member actions on the web pages. This consists of following a logged-in user in terms of where clicks are made, where they run into problems and in particular if the users fail in their tasks and log out. If a certain number of users terminate their actions on the same page, this will be subject to review and analysis in order to identify the problems and take corrective
action. Because of this tracking, which is stored in the customer database, Company X knows its users well. Quoting P7, “We follow up behavior, for example via customer inquiries and the like. We know our customer segment and know approximately what they want and what they want to do”. It should be noted that the goal of using VCs in Company X is not to elicit primarily new requirements but rather to provide a complementary way of finding requirements in an otherwise highly complex elicitation process.
How Does Company X Communicate with Its Users? One important aspect to consider is that Company X’s membership program includes a well-defined set of customers, with – seen from the membership program point of view – a well-defined interest. The users are focused on travels and how they as customers can obtain and use membership points. Many of these customers travel a lot and are active in various VCs where the different aspects of the membership are discussed. Quoting P7, “With the Internet and the sites, we have access to customers and competitors directly. All information is there if you just look”. Even though there is a willingness
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to include users more, this is still identified as problematic, as in the quote by P4, “More active user participation is problematic, since you do get in a lot of questions that really do not belong to the project. It is difficult to focus on what really shall be done”. According to Company X, these customers are extremely knowledgeable about the membership program. The extensive and encompassing customer database enables Company X to easily identify suitable customers in defined spectra. There are, in other words, no problems in identifying the customer segments, since they only have one that is well-defined and since the database contains all the information necessary for this task. In cases where customers participate in some form of activity, there is rarely a problem to motivate participation, hence the challenges of identifying target groups and users within these target groups as well as getting the users to willingly participate (Holgersson et al., 2010) are no problems for Company X. The reason is that the customers, who generally are on the top levels in the membership program, are genuinely interested by the program and the services associated with it. In summary, Company X communicates with its users in the following ways (see also figure 2): • • • •
Online surveys Threads in virtual communities/discussion forums, such as Flyertalk Dedicated virtual communities/discussions forums, such as Facebook In rare cases Company X gives some customers a phone call
Figure 2 displays the various ways in which Company X communicates with its customers, and the entrance of Internet technology has certainly affected the ways in which communication takes place. Contrasted to figure 1, the number of contact points has certainly increased given the new technology. This, coupled with the extensive customer database, has dramatically increased the knowledge Company X has about its customers.
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In the case of VCs, Company X should be seen as an “early adopter”. Ali-Vemas & Luukkainen, (2008) and Rogers (2003) have defined five types of adopters: innovators, early adopters, early and late majority and laggards. The travel industry and hence Company X, often constitutes the early adopters of new technology (Azzara, 2002; Murphy & Stoyanova, 2003), at least in the case of e-services – or rather the more technical aspect of web services. One key point is that early adopters demonstrate the value of adoption through their own commitment (Boh, Soh, & Yeo, 2007). This is a strong characteristic for Company X and is essential not the least since the travel industry is such a competitive market.
How Does Company X Get the Users to Participate? Company X does not, with only a limited amount of exceptions, actively involve users when developing e-services. The customers seldom come up with new revolutionary ideas but they are very good at providing feedback. Still, there is a desire to include them more, “One would like to include the users more in the development projects, but the external ones are difficult to get to participate. Internal ones are a different matter” (P1 and P2). However, the fact that the target group members themselves are genuinely interested in the membership program for their own personal reasons is one important point to make. The result is that the customers are more willing to answer questions and contribute with informatio, but Company X is nevertheless reluctant to contact these users too often given that they know of their busy schedules, rather than it being the customers who object to participation. Furthermore, Company X would like to involve the users more, but in specific parts of the development process. Quoting P3, “If we are to include users, it will need to include usability testing for identifying mistakes”. It is often Company X itself that monitors different VCs and the like, which means that
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the customers often do not need to be enticed to participate. They already participate in the forum due to their own free will and Company X takes part of their opinions and the information they leave without users even noticing that they in fact participate in development. Based on the discussions and threads of interest brought up in the VCs, new features can be developed and improvements to existing e-services can be made. Furthermore, the large customer database with its huge amount of information about the customers, their behavior, preferences, etc. coupled with tracking user behavior, is a valuable input to e-services development and enhancement. Both communities and the customer database can be thought of as implicit inclusion of users in the development of e-services. Users provide input, but not through direct contact. There is, however, one part of the development process where a selected user group participates, as quoted by P6, “The interaction designer has used small usability tests for adjustments”. Normally, such tests are only used when the development concerns great changes or large new features. There are also several ideas of how, and for what task, users could become more involved, as illustrated by the quote from P5, “…we have had two consultants without specific Company X knowledge. They thus know how people who work think, but perhaps we should have had more external dialogue tests. Picking out some selected membership program users in such tests would be great in an ideal world”. However, there are also ideas on including users earlier in the process, primarily during requirements elicitation as a complement to the VC monitoring and customer database. Quoting P5, “What the user needs to be part of is for all the functionality, which is natural”.
Solutions and Recommendations E-service development is flourishing but the conditions and circumstances surrounding development have changed with the new ways of communicat-
ing using internet technology, such as VCs. For example, the ways in which knowledge can be gained on customer/user behavior vary to a much greater extent nowadays. The main interest in this paper has concerned the growing role of VCs in the development of e-services. It is no secret that user participation has a positive influence when developing e-services and VCs can be utilised to tap into customer or citizen, ideas, opinions, requirements, desires and so on. This information is critical to really getting to know the users, their behavior and preferences. It can then be utilised for developing e-services of higher quality and of greater usability, without the same extent of user participation as in traditional development. Our study shows that the “tapping” of information is of great importance, but in addition, Company X can provide feedback and ask for more information. They, thereby, are able to detail requirements and desires, which is important for the quality of the results. This extra round of inquiry is rarely even possible when using for example traditional questionnaires, in particular when these are anonymous. Internet technology and VCs have hence provided more refined ways of elaborating on the elicited requirements. The knowledge about the customer segment is great in organisations developing e-services because of the VCs and the expanded use provided by internet technology. The result is that users are influential, without necessarily participating directly in the development process. As a consequence, we need to change the way user participation is perceived in this setting. The new perception, or perspective, must encompass that users can have influence beyond traditional requirements elicitation, in which interviews, questionnaires, and observations are commonly used. New internet technology and the increasing role of VCs where users themselves participate and share knowledge actively bring increased user knowledge – without direct communication between them and the e-service developers. It may therefore be valid to consider this as user influence
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and not participation. Face-to-face meetings can never be replaced solely by the Internet; rather, the Internet is a valuable complement to the same. Our intent with presenting the case study is not to state general validity of our claims in all other settings. Instead, it should be interpreted as an illustration of how a company that wants to be in the forefront can use the novel technologies to gain knowledge and thus to develop better services and products as a consequence. Daring to look outside the box is a prerequisite for being an early adopter of new technology, even if it means challenging the perceptions of industry as well as academia.
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS By incorporating the new internet technology developments, users can influence e-service design without directly participating in their development, and sometimes not even being aware of their influence. We do not advocate that VCs should be the only tool for eliciting user input, but rather recommend it to be used as one more source in addition to for example actual user involvement. The extent to which users should be directly involved in development is a challenging “balance act” for all organizations, and VCs can assist to avoid overwhelming users with requests for input. However, the ways in which VCs are used must be carefully planned and tuned to the needs at hand. They can provide a valuable information source coupled with other means, such as the extensive customer knowledge database in Company X, online user surveys, online bulletin boards, and so on. Separately, they may only provide one piece of the puzzle, but taken together, they may show pretty much the entire picture. Still, much is unknown in this area. Future work includes a more in-depth look into VC research and use findings therein for a more detailed analysis of for example motivational aspects of participating in VCs. Such research may
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provide valuable insights into how VCs can be used for knowledge-gathering activities to support e-service development. Therefore, additional case studies are needed in which various forms of VCs are reviewed and tested in order to elicit eservice requirements. The ways in which e-service developers can utilize and even organize and steer VCs for this purpose need to be included as well. Comparative studies between public and private organizations may furthermore provide essential insight into whether similar user participation advantages can be drawn for public VCs as for private ones. Another potential and valuable route is to draw on knowledge management and e-learning technology to enhance learning ability, knowledge gained and knowledge lost from development to use of the e-services.
CONCLUSION This chapter has explored the strategic use and practice of using VCs for the development of e-services and the importance of such sources in this process. The use of VCs requires awareness, strategic planning, and the right tools in order to be successful, considering the vast flora of VCs available, and the difficulty to choose which information in the VCs to incorporate. They constitute a new way of communicating and collaborating with users of e-services and enable developers to create usable and useful e-services without straining too much on the users’ limited available time. However, since there is a tendency to use VCs and similar technologies instead of involving users directly, the term “user participation” will need to be redefined. We are speaking of user involvement without participation,and both research and practice should reflect and investigate these changes. Internet technology developments of recent time provide opportunities not previously possible and if used properly, consciously and strategically, they can be tools that provide competitive advantages. The case presented in
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this chapter provides one such example. To the best of our knowledge, there are no similar case studies focused on how VCs can be used in eservice development. There are studies on VCs, motivations for participating in them, their role in creating social structures and so on. But none of them are taking the focus that we have presented in this chapter. There is a need for additional and comparative studies, covering both private as well as public organization, which will be part of the future work. Finally, in the travel industry and others of equal degrees of competitiveness, having the “edge” can be a make or break thing. The importance of the matter thus becomes clear and deserves further attention.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Company X: An international company in the travel industry with branches in several countries and with services of different types offered and provided all over the world. E-Services Development: The process of creating, evolving and enhancing e-services E-Services: E-services are artefacts, based on electronic interactions between a service provider and a service consumer, for the delivery of services. E-services are intangible, inseparable and heterogeneous and imply creation of value Requirements: Desires, needs and concerns from end users or consumers which are incorporated with organizational requirements when developing e-services. User Participation: The involvement of end users in the development process of an information system or e-service User: The consumer or end user of an e-service. Most often, the term user refers to individual consumers but commercial organizations as well as public authorities may also be users. Virtual Communities: A group in which individuals come together around a shared purpose, interest or goal, where most depend on electronic communications to support interaction among members who are not physically collocated.
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Chapter 6
Emerging Web Tools and Their Applications in Bioinformatics Shailendra Singh PEC University of Technology, India Amardeep Singh Punjabi University, India
ABSTRACT Bioinformatics is an emerging area of interest for many researchers and scientists. It has unlimited applications in many areas. The most important application of this is to know about genes, et cetera. But nowadays, research has also started in the emerging areas of network security and threats using bioinformatics. In the present scenario, we are highly dependent on Internet. The Web has invited different people from different backgrounds to work together sitting at far places. And to fulfill the needs of the interested and involved people, lots of Web based tools have been developed, and many others are being developed. In this chapter, the area of bioinformatics has been introduced along with its applications, Web, developed Web based tools, and a case study of one such tool.
INTRODUCTION TO BIOINFORMATICS Bioinformatics is the study and analysis of biological information using computers and statistical techniques. It is the science of developing and utilizing computer databases and algorithms to accelerate and enhance biological research. Bioinformatics is taken as more of a tool than DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch006
a discipline for the analysis of biological data. From information technology point of view, bioinformatics is the use of IT in biotechnology for the data storage, data warehousing and analyzing the bio-molecular sequences. The knowledge is required from other branches of science and engineering like biology, mathematics, laws of physics & chemistry, computer science & engineering and IT to analyze biological data. Bioinformatics is not only limited to the analysis of biological data, but in reality it is being used to solve many biological
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problems like various disorders in human beings and to find out how living things work. Bioinformatics has emerged out of the need to understand the code of life, DNA (Mount, 2001). Enormous DNA sequencing projects have been evolved and added in the growth of the science of Bioinformatics. The fundamental molecule of life (DNA) directly controls the fundamental biology of life. It codes for genes which in turn code for proteins that decide the biological makeup of humans or any living organism. The variations and errors in the genomic DNA define the possibility of developing diseases or resistance to disorders. The ultimate goal of bioinformatics is to reveal the assets of biological information hidden in the crowd of sequence, structure, literature and other biological data and to use this information to enhance the standard of life for mankind.
APPLICATIONS OF BIOINFORMATICS Bioinformatics is being used in various areas and the applications are limitless (Bosu, 2009). This is possible not only by having collaborative efforts of different people from different background but also widely using web based tools and Internet. There are constantly new research projects and studies being mdone on this amazing new line of DNA analysis. Scientists are now using bioinformatics to detect genetic abnormalities in different species. This is also creating breakthroughs in the medical community. Applications of Bioinformatics have allowed doctors to conduct genetic testing in unborn babies to predict and find any signs of certain genetic disorders and conditions. Some of its applications are listed below: •
DNA Identification: The identification of DNA profile of a person can help the investigators in identifying criminals, ascertaining family associations, protecting rare
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species, matching organ donors, and for security. Analysis of Gene Expression: The analysis of gene expression is very important for the understanding of disorders in humans and other species. A chemical and physical change in a living being is not caused by a single gene but the mutual effect of many genes. Understanding the function of many genes on a particular condition will, in due course of time, present a genetic basis for many diseases. Analysis of Gene Regulation: The regulation is the sequence of events that begins with an extracellular event and leads to a change in the activity of proteins. The analysis of gene that promotes and regulates the activity of genes and proteins helps us to understand the behavior of species. Risk Assessment: The deep and intense research on human genome can help us to assess individual risk exposure to toxic elements as resistance to external agents that varies from person to person. It can also help to reduce the likelihood of heritable mutations. Human Migration: The understanding of human and other genomes will help us to understand the human evolution, inheritance, traits, and disease carriers. The study of genome comparison across organisms can help to understand similar genes with associated disease. Adapted Medicine: The development in the field of pharmacogenomics will change the prospect of clinical medicine. It shows how an individual’s genetic inheritance affects the body’s response to drugs. At present, some drugs disappear from the market because a small percentage of the clinical patient population shows unfavorable affects to a drug due to sequence variant in their DNA. As a result, many potentially
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life-saving drugs never make it to the marketplace. At present, doctors have to use trial and error to find the best drug to take care of a particular patient as those with the same clinical symptoms can show a wide range of responses to the same treatment. In the future, doctors will be able to analyze a patient’s genetic profile and recommend the best available drug therapy and dosage from the beginning. Crop Development: The study of comparative genetics of the plant genomes has revealed that the organization of their genes has remained more conserved over evolutionary time than was previously believed. These findings imply that information obtained from the model crop systems can be used to suggest improvements to other food crops. Arabidopsis thaliana of water cress and Oryza sativa of rice are examples of available complete plant genomes. Molecular Medicine: The human genome will have deep effects in the fields of biomedical research and clinical medicine. Every disease has a genetic component. This may be inherited or a result of the body’s response to an environmental stress that causes alterations in the genome (e.g. cancers, diabetes). The completion of the human genome means that we can search for the genes directly associated with different diseases and begin to understand the molecular basis of these diseases more clearly. This novel knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of disease will enable better treatments, cures and even preventative tests to be developed. Drug Development: At present, all drugs in the global market target only about five hundred proteins. More specific medicines that act on the cause of the disease can be developed with an improved understanding of disease mechanisms and using com-
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putational tools. These extremely specific drugs assure to have fewer side effects than many of today’s medicines. Antibiotic Resistance: Scientists have been examining the genome of various species that causes the bacterial infection among hospital patients. They have discovered a region made up of a number of antibiotic-resistant genes that may contribute to the bacterium’s transformation from a harmless bacterium to a scary attacker. The discovery of the region could provide helpful markers for detecting pathogenic strains and help to prevent the spread of infection in wards. Waste Cleaning: Scientists and researchers are trying to gather the knowledge about those bacteria that can be used to clean the waste automatically without spending too much time and money. They are also interested in this organism because of its potential usefulness in cleaning up those waste sites that contain radiation and toxic chemicals. Climate Change: The level of carbon dioxide emission is increasing very rapidly and causing global warming. It is mainly due to the extensive use of fossil fuels for energy and is responsible for global climate change. The Department of Energy, USA launched a program to decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide levels with the help of the study of the genomes of microbes. Alternative Energy Sources: The researchers and scientists are studying the genome of the various microbes that has an unusual capacity for generating energy from light. The Reality of Bio-weapon Creation: The scientists have recently built few viruses using entirely artificial means. They could do it by using genomic data1 avail-
Emerging Web Tools and Their Applications in Bioinformatics
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able on the Internet and materials from a mail-order chemical supply.. Improve Nutritional Quality: The scientists have recently succeeded in transferring genes into rice to increase the levels of vitamin A, iron and other micro-nutrients. This work could have a deep impact in reducing occurrences of blindness and anemia caused by deficiencies in Vitamin A and iron respectively2.. Grow in Poorer Soils and Drought Resistant: The work has been done in developing cereal varieties that have a greater tolerance for soil alkalinity, free aluminium and iron toxicities. These varieties will allow agriculture to succeed in poorer soil areas, thus adding more land to the global production base. Research is also in progress to produce crop varieties capable of tolerating reduced water conditions.
EMERGING APPLICATIONS While some of the work that bioinformatics has created is under scrutiny, other areas are taking off in the world of science and discovery. The doors are opening for scientists to be able to find new applications at all times. The emerging applications of Bioinformatics in the field of network security are as below: •
Recognition of Network Threats: Bioinformatics has many interesting applications outside of biology not only including automatic voice and handwriting recognition, but also in computing systems security. The tools and techniques of bioinformatics are now being applied to the problem of recognition and characterization of computer network threats (Kozakiewicz, et. al., 2007).
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Network Intrusion Detection: There have been several researches utilizing bioinformatics techniques for host based intrusion detection systems that detect anomalous behavior on each host by monitoring sequences of user commands or sequences of system calls invoked by applications.
Applications of bioinformatics have been helping to bridge the gap between what was once thought of as a far off possibility and a near reality in the study of human genome, comparison of genetic information in other species, network security, and in lots more areas (Shenbagarathai, 2007).
WEB Web is a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange. One of the important functions of the web is to offer web services to its user. In simple terms, a web service is an application or business logic that is accessible using standard internet protocols. Web Services can convert an application into a web-application that can publish its function or message to the rest of the world. There are basically two types of web services i.e. simple and complex. For simple web services, only simple data types are sent or received as arguments and values that are returned from methods. For more complex web services, Web Services Deployment Descriptor (WSDD) is provided to configure the ability to send and receive more than simple types (Hoon, 2005). Web services have two types of uses i.e. reusable application components and connect existing software. In reusable application components, web services can offer application-components like: currency conversion, weather reports, or even language translation as services. In connect existing software, web services can help to solve the interoper-
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ability problem by giving different applications a way to link their data. With web services, you can exchange data between different applications and different platforms. The major reasons for using web services are to gain: •
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Interoperability: Interoperability among distributed applications that span diverse hardware and software platforms. Web services allow companies to connect with each other based on business considerations as opposed to underlying infrastructure requirements. The benefit comes in the form of enhanced user experience as a much wider variety of services are offered to customers. One of the most attractive aspects of the web services is that there is a significant amount of additional technological investment in the application server technology. Therefore, the companies can begin taking advantages of the web services. Accessibility: Accessibility of applications through firewalls using web protocol because web services are accessed using standard web protocols e.g. XML, and HTTP. The diverse and heterogeneous applications on the web can automatically access web services, solving the ever-present problem of how different systems communicate with each other.
CHALLENGES IN BIOINFORMATICS In the beginning, bioinformatics was applied to the creation and maintenance of a database to store biological information. Development of this type of database involved not only design issues but the development of complex interfaces whereby researchers could both access existing data as well as submit new or revised data. The most critical task in bioinformatics involve the
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analysis of sequence information. Computational Biology is the name specified to this process, and it involves the following: • • • •
To find the genes in the DNA sequences of various organisms To develop various methods to predict its structure To group protein sequences into families To align similar proteins and generating phylogenetic trees
Bioinformatics is a promising and innovative field of research in the 21st century. The key challenges to Bioinformatics basically all relate to the current flood of raw data, aggregate information, prediction of bimolecular structure and evolving knowledge arising from the study of the genome and its manifestation. Some of these challenges are described as below: 1. One of the key challenges in computational biology is prediction of three-dimensional bimolecular structures from DNA, RNA and amino-acid sequences and the first problem in this is that the search space of the problem is too huge because of the vast range of possible conformations of even relatively short polypeptides and second is that the primary sequence may not fully specify the tertiary structure. 2. Data from biological research is proliferating rapidly and there is a need of advanced data storage and analysis methods to manage it. 3. The other challenge is that the massive amounts of protein sequence data are produced by modern large-scale DNA sequencing efforts such as the Human Genome Project. Despite community-wide efforts in structural genomics, the output of experimentally determined bimolecular structures (protein structure) —typically by timeconsuming and relatively expensive X-ray
Emerging Web Tools and Their Applications in Bioinformatics
crystallography or NMR spectroscopy—is lagging far behind the output of protein sequences. So there is need for a method that can predict the protein secondary structure in less time than in the X-ray crystallography or NMR spectroscopy. 4. The other key challenges are that a number of factors exist that make protein structure prediction a very difficult task. The two main problems are that the number of possible protein structures is extremely large, and that the physical basis of protein structural stability is not fully understood. 5. The fundamental challenge for genomics is to determine how gene variations are linked to a certain disease and, on a broader perspective, to determine how the interactions of genes vary with environment and lifestyle.
WEB IN BIOINFORMATICS As stated above one of the major challenges of bioinformatics is to manage, integrate, and analyze the numerous, voluminous and heterogeneous data that is growing rapidly from the current biological research. And also to develop lots of tools that can speedup the research work in bioinformatics area by collaborating people, tools, machines, and information. Numerous approaches have been proposed to deal with this challenge, including data warehousing and data-mining. But these approaches are not sufficient to integrate the data from multiple sources and these approaches go behind a user-to-computer communication model for data exchange, and do not facilitate a broader concept of data sharing or collaboration among users. One of the best solutions of this problem is to use the web technologies by establishing a social, collective and collaborative platform for data creation, sharing and integration for computer-to-computer data exchange as users
add value (Zhang et. al., 2009). This solution aims to simplify data integration, creation, to realize automatic analysis, to facilitate reuse, sharing of data, and discover new knowledge. Bioinformatics research has become increasingly data-intensive because of the completion of many genome sequencing projects and the abundance of genome-scale assays and analyses. According to the 2007 update for the Bioinformatics Links Directory, there are almost 1200 publicly web-accessible links including databases and web servers, that intend to collect, organize, visualize, integrate and analyze biological data (Fox et. al., 2007). For a certain task, researchers in the field of bioinformatics frequently need to consult many databases and web servers. However, the integration of heterogeneous datasets from dissimilar databases associated with multiple web servers is discouraging for researchers. It requires them to be capable at computationally ‘surfing’ databases to find the vital data. The challenge of decoding volumes of biological data from dissimilar sources underscores an imperative for greater data integration. Using collaborative web technologies, a global environment can be created that facilitates a collective, social and collaborative platform for automatic data analysis, data sharing and data integration. Web presents a revolutionary way of collecting and integrating online information and knowledge repositories. The social aspect of the web involves the participation and communication link of people located anywhere with similar interests, forming a social network. Almost all of the databases and tools of bioinformatics have been made available on the Web. The web browsers are becoming an essential tool of the experimental biologist. The reasons for this choice of technology are partly chance in that the growth in genomic technologies happened to occur contemporaneously with the growth of the Web.
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Collaborative Nature of Web The web supports collaboration through information sharing. Theoretically, it forms a global information space joining web pages and other multimedia resources worldwide through hyperlinks. People can collaborate by publishing their own web pages and by accessing web pages published by others. The use of HTML for information representation also differentiates the web from other Internet applications, and makes preparing and accessing information more sensitive. Even though it takes some endeavor for average users to learn to create web pages, the concepts of HTML and hyperlinks are not difficult to grasp. It is not over exaggerated to say that these factors mutually helped driving the web to what it is today. Web services is an enduring movement aiming at creating a new internet-based collaboration environment for software systems, by defining a common “workspace” where software systems can expose their functionalities and interact with each other using open, standardized protocols (Qu, 2008). Although the group targets primarily on system integration and business processes, it has the potential to extend the notion of collaboration further. In addition to just publishing and consuming web pages, people may also collaborate by creating and sharing services. Whenever a user needs to solve a problem, one can look for suitable services over the internet, customize and combine them to form useful assistant tools. Although more technically challenging, such notion of user centered service-oriented collaboration is also much more powerful, effectively turning the Internet into a universal operating system where people can log on and work collaboratively, anytime and anywhere. Because the same service can be reused in unforeseeable ways to build different applications, economically speaking, it also maximizes the class of problems solvable with duplicated development effort reduced.
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A well designed web framework considers four core features so that the system brings a lot of benefits to the organization (Abdullah, 2008). The four core features of web framework are: Infrastructure, Content and Portal; Collaboration and Learning; Social Capital and Expertise; Communities, Business intelligence. The collaboration of different people like businessmen, researchers and users under the umbrella of web has many of the key benefits of the Web and are also important for biologists like publishing is economically cheap, technically straightforward, innately distributed, decentralized, and resilient to change. From user’s point of view, accessing the web is simple, requiring no knowledge of specific query languages but enabling query by navigation. Now with the developments in the web technologies, the content provided by web sites on WWW may be read, write and execute.
Collaborative Needs in Bioinformatics Research The field of bioinformatics concerns development of software techniques and tools to assist biological research. One of the most well-known characteristics of bioinformatics is its interdisciplinary nature i.e. close collaboration among scientists with different background and expertise to ensure successful scientific investigations in bioinformatics. The key participants of bioinformatics such as mathematicians, computer scientists, software engineers, and so on, need to work together to perform complex data preparation, to develop efficient computational algorithms, and to set up suitable computing environment to achieve one of the important goal of the bioinformatics i.e. meaningful and timely data analysis. As decades of research have generated enormous biological data and related tools, however, conducting a scientific investigation today often requires significant effort just to prepare data and set up necessary computing environment. In case the data or tools are distributed, or participants come from differ-
Emerging Web Tools and Their Applications in Bioinformatics
ent organizations, additional cross-organization collaboration effort is needed. An emerging research topic in this field is Integrated Bioinformatics. It attempts to reduce the burden related to harnessing the heterogeneity, so that researchers can focus more on productive work. For example, many systems exist that join multiple, distributed databases each with its own database schema, in order to provide users with uniform query interfaces. These systems may further package various analysis algorithms and visualization tools so that researchers are able to conduct data exploration and analysis in the same place with minimal to moderate customization effort. It is not surprising to see that web services have also triggered a new wave of development of service-oriented bioinformatics systems (Chen 2006). However, most efforts remain focused on integration mechanisms at the server side. Although most bioinformatics systems provide end users with some degree of flexibility in query formulation or tool invocation, more involved transformation of data and combination of tools are handled by technical persons. As support for user-level collaboration remains proprietary, current development may fragment the bioinformatics field in an alarmingly rate, compromising the original goal of integration. One example of collaborative needs in bioinformatics research is the initiatives of the National Center of Biomedical Ontology. This center is eager to collaborate with the scientific community and to assist researchers in advancing their research3. It is believed that many areas of scientific investigation can be enabled by this Center’s technologies and methods, and a broad range of collaborating proposals will be welcomed that require the use of biomedical ontology as a core component of their research plan. As we know, that the rapid developments are taking place in the field of web as well as bioinformatics. Both are feeding the needs of each other and in future they will go together.
Need of Web Based Tools The first challenge faced by the people involved in the bioinformatics is the need to develop the intelligent web based tools that can efficiently provide storage of the collection of data. It is then their responsibility to provide simple and reliable access to this data. The data itself is insignificant before analysis and the complete volume present makes it impossible for even a trained person to begin to interpret it manually. Therefore, computer tools must be developed to allow the mining of meaningful biological information. In the present scenario, the developed tools will be more beneficial if they are web based because then any researcher can access the tools online and at the same time it also reduces the redundancy of information. Bioinformaticians have developed large collections of tools to make sense of the rapidly growing pool of molecular biological data. Biological systems tend to be complex and in order to understand them, it is often necessary to link many data sets and use more than one tool. Therefore, bioinformaticians have experimented with several strategies to try to integrate data sets and tools. Owing to the lack of standards for data sets and the interfaces of the tools, this is not a trivial task. Over the past few years, building services with web-based interfaces has become a popular way of sharing the data and tools that have resulted from many bioinformatics projects. With the development of human genome projects in the world, a mass of genetic information is generated. Now there are hundreds of different kinds of important bioinformatic databases in the world. Integration of bioinformatics databases from different countries has become an important issue in bioinformatics. With the explosion of online accessible bioinformatics data and tools, systems integration has become very important for further progress. Currently, bioinformatics relies heavily on the web. But the web is geared
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towards human interaction rather than automated processing. There are three vital biological processes around which bioinformatics tools must be developed: 1. DNA sequence that determines protein sequence 2. Protein sequence that determines protein structure 3. Protein structure that determines protein function
WEB TOOLS IN SEQUENCE, STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION CATEGORY Web based tools that have been developed are inviting the researcher and scientists to use it in their work. It is a collaboration of different people at a common platform. There are different types of web based tools available in the category of three vital biological processes (Jones, 2004). Some of the tools are as below:
Sequence Alignment Tools The common software tools4,5 used for general sequence alignment tasks include ClustalW6, TCoffee for alignment7, and BLAST8 (Basic Local Alignment Search tool), FASTA9 for database searching. With these tools, we can align two sequences, align multiple sequences, and perform phylogenic analyses. One reason we would do this is to determine which parts of the sequences are conserved from one species to the next. Another reason would be to see how much an organism has diverged from other organisms simply by comparing their DNA sequences (Perry, 2002). The more similar two gene sequences are to one another, the more closely the organisms are related. And the more dissimilar the two sequences, the
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farther the two genes are in relation. With these tools, we can compare sequences to determine how organisms have diverged possibly as a result of evolution. Following is the description of some of the sequence alignment tools: BLAST: It is an algorithm for comparing primary biological sequence information, such as the amino-acid sequences of different proteins or the nucleotides of DNA sequences. A BLAST search enables a researcher to compare a query sequence with a library or database of sequences, and identify library sequences that resemble the query sequence above a certain threshold. For example, following the discovery of a previously unknown gene in the mouse, a scientist will typically perform a BLAST search of the human genome to see if humans carry a similar gene; BLAST will identify sequences in the human genome that resemble the mouse gene based on similarity of sequence. FASTA: It is a DNA and protein sequence alignment software package. The original FASTP program was designed for protein sequence similarity searching. FASTA added the ability to do DNA searches, translated protein searches, and also provided a more sophisticated shuffling program for evaluating statistical significance. There are several programs in this package that allow the alignment of protein sequences and DNA sequences. FASTA is pronounced “FAST-Aye”, and stands for “FAST-All”, because it works with any alphabet, an extension of “FAST-P” (protein) and “FAST-N” (nucleotide) alignment. The current FASTA package contains programs for protein: protein, DNA, translated DNA, and ordered or unordered peptide searches. Recent versions of the FASTA package include special translated search algorithms. HMMER10: It is a free and commonly used software package for protein sequence analysis. It is used for sensitive database search using profileHMMs. The profile-HMMs are based on the work of Krogh and colleagues. HMMER is a console
Emerging Web Tools and Their Applications in Bioinformatics
utility ported to every major operating system including different versions of Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. HMMER is the core utility that protein family databases such as Pfam and InterPro are based upon. Some other Bioinformatics tools such as UGENE also use HMMER.
Structure Analysis Tools The common software tools11 used for structure analysis tasks include DaliLite, EMsearch, MaxSprout, Procognate etc. Several programs have been created that give scientists the ability to look at the three dimensional shape of proteins and nucleotides. Examining a protein in 3D allows for greater understanding of protein functions, as well as providing students with a visual understanding that cannot always be conveyed through still photographs or descriptions. We have found that the best to date 3D program is RasMol, originally developed by Roger Sayle. Following is the description of one of the structure analysis tool: MaxSprout12: It is a fast database algorithm for generating protein backbone and side chain co-ordinates from a C(alpha) trace. The backbone is assembled from fragments taken from known structures. Side chain conformations are optimised in rotamer space using a rough potential energy function to avoid clashes.
Function Analysis Tools The common software tools used for function analysis tasks include CluSTr Search, Inquisitor, Radar (Rapid Automatic Detection and Alignment of Repeats) etc. Following is the description of some of the function analysis tools: CluSTr Search: There are two ways to search the CluSTr database, the advanced search allows protein accession queries and the simple search allows cluster identifier searching of the databases. Inquisitor: The Inquisitor will examine your protein sequence and identify whether or not it
corresponds to a sequence in Integr8 (complete proteomes only) and the UniProt Knowledgebase. If the sequence is not identified, the Inquisitor will return details of the closest matches to your sequence, and will also return an analysis of the exact sequence submitted. The Inquisitor uses FASTA to find inexact matches, and InterProScan to analyse sequences. A status report will keep you informed of the analysis process. You can continue to use Integr8 while your Inquisitor job is running. Click on the ‘Status’ item on the left hand menu at any time to see the latest status of your currently running jobs. Up to 10 jobs can be submitted in a single session. RADAR: Many large proteins have evolved by internal duplication and many internal sequence repeats correspond to functional and structural units. Radar uses an automatic algorithm, for segmenting your query sequence into repeats, it identifies short composition biased as well as gapped approximate repeats and complex repeat architectures involving many different types of repeats in your query sequence.
CASE STUDY OF WEB BASED TOOLS A lot of web based tools have been developed in the field of bioinformatics to solve the problems of molecular biology e.g. analysis of sequences, prediction of structures, and exploration of functions performed. In this case study we will see how the developed web based tools have saved the invaluable time of researchers and giving them the opportunities to work more and more for the welfare of the mankind. The fast and fruitful development in the world and in technology is witnessing the applicability of the web based tools. The Biology Workbench13 is a web-based tool for biologists. This allows biologists to search many popular protein and nucleic acid sequence databases. Database searching is integrated with
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access to a wide variety of analysis and modeling tools, all within a point and click interface that eliminates file format compatibility problems. It is a free, web accessible suite of resources for working with molecular sequence and structure data. The idea of a “workbench” is to provide a single place to go for all the stuff—both raw materials and tools—you might need to do your work. It also provides users with access to many molecular data bases, analysis programs, and tools for managing and analyzing biological data. Three important features of the Biology Workbench make it particularly useful are: • • •
Figure 1. Predicted protein structure using biology workbench tool
It provides a unified interface to access a variety of tools and databases. It is online and can be accessed with a standard web browser. It is available at no cost to academic users.
Here we will show how these are beneficial to us. Now we describe the various case studies of how to predict structure of the given sequence and how to align them etc.
An Introduction to the Interface The use of this tool is fairly simple and does not require any specialized technical skills.
Toolsets Once you are logged on to the Biology Workbench you can see that the resources are organized into five main categories. Each is a collection of functions/scripts/programs for working with a partic. It has following tools: •
•
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Session Tools: These are used to manage sessions e.g. folders or directories, different places to store work. Nucleic Tools: These are used for working with nucleic acid data.
• • •
Protein Tools: These are used for working with amino acid data. Alignment Tools: These are used for working with sequence alignments. Structure Tools: These are used for determining structures.
CASE STUDY 1: To predict the structure of the given sequences using Biology Workbench: For this case study we have taken the following sequence from the RS126 datasets to predict the
Emerging Web Tools and Their Applications in Bioinformatics
Figure 2. Alignment of two sequences
The alignment of multiple sequences involves the following: • •
Running the ClustalW tool Importing an alignment
Steps 1. For the alignment some sequence data is needed in the session. Select the ClustalW tool and several sequences to analyze. 2. The ClustalW parameters page allows us to control many aspects of how the analysis is run and how the results are displayed. 3. Scrolling through the results we can see first a multiple sequence alignment, then a distance based tree, followed by a list of the pair wise alignment scores.
protein structure like helix, beta sheets, turns and loops of this sequence using structure tool from the toolsets of Biology Workbench. Sequence (seq_1acx:): APAFSVSPASGASDGQSVSVSVAAAGETYYIAQCAPVGGQDACNPATATSFTTDASGAASFSFTVRKSYAGQTPSGTPVGSVDCATDACNLGAGNSGLNLGHVALTFG For Structure prediction, firstly we have to add our sequence using protein tool and then again clicking on the option available in the protein tool i.e. PELE (protein structure prediction). And thus we got the structure of the sequence. So by using the Biology Workbench we have predicted the structure of this sequence as shown in figure 1. CASE STUDY 2: This case study shows the alignment of sequences using ClustalW web tool.
e.g. We have taken two sequences from dataset RS126. We can add them in the protein tools and by using ClustalW tool we can align them. Figure 2 exhibits the two sequences and the results are obtained by running the web tool:
CONCLUSION In present era, the research in the field of bioinformatics is gaining momentum because of its interdisciplinary nature inviting different people from different research areas. And this has created a need of a common platform where researchers and other people working in this area can share their views, findings etc. To fulfill this need of researchers and other people, web has emerged as a powerful platform that supports collaboration through information sharing. Bioinformatics has emerged out of the need to understand the code of life. The ultimate goal of bioinformatics is to reveal the assets of biological information hidden in the crowd of sequence, structure, literature and other biological data and to use this information to enhance the standard of life for mankind. Using
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web technologies a global environment has been created that facilitates a collective, social and collaborative platform for data automatic analysis and data sharing as well as data integration. The social aspects of web involves the participation and communication link of people located anywhere with similar interests, forming a social network. The Biology Workbench is a web-based tool for biologists and allows biologists to search many popular protein and nucleic acid sequence databases. Almost all of the databases and tools of Bioinformatics have been made available on the Web. The web browsers are becoming an essential tool of the experimental biologist. And now the development in the fields of Bioinformatics and web are helping each other.
Jones, N. C., & Pevzner, P. A. (2004). An introduction to bioinformatics algorithms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kozakiewicz, A., Felkner, A., Kijewski, P., & Kruk, T. J. (2007). Application of bioinformatics methods to recognition of network threats. Journal of Telecommunications and Information technology, 23-27. Lord, P. W. (2004). Applying Semantic Web services to bioinformatics: Experiences gained, lessons learnt. Mount, D. W. (2001). Bioinformatics: Sequence and genome analysis. New York, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
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Perry, W. L. (2002). JavaScript DNA translator: DNA-aligned protein translations. BioTechniques, 33, 1318–1320.
Abdullah, R. (2008). The development of bioinformatics knowledge management system with collaborative environment. International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, 8(2), 309–319.
Qu, X., Feng, J., & Sun, W. (2008). United access of distributed biological information database based on Web service and multi-agent. Proceedings of the Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC 2008),(pp. 4257-4260).
Bosu, O., & Thukral, S. K. (2009). Bioinformatics: Databases, tools, algorithms. Oxford University Press.
Shenbagarathai, R. (2007). Bioinformatics tools and applications. Current Science, 93(7).
Chen, J.-Y. (2006). Architecting a service-oriented collaborative Web. Proceedings of the Advanced International Conference on Telecommunications and International Conference on Internet and Web Applications and Services (AICT/ICIW 2006). Fox, J. A., McMillan, S., & Ouellette, B. F. (2007). Conducting research on the Web: 2007 update for the bioinformatics links directory. Nucleic Acids Research, 35, 3–5. doi:10.1093/nar/gkm459 Hoon, J. (2005). Integration service for biological information resources using agent service to Web service gateway. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual ACIS International Conference on Computer and Information Science (ICIS’05).
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Zhang, A., Cheung, K., & Townsend, J. P. (2009). Bringing Web 2.0 to bioinformatics. Briefings in Bioinformatics, 10(1), 1–10. doi:10.1093/bib/ bbn041
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Bioinformatics: Bioinformatics is the study and analysis of biological information using computers and statistical techniques. Biological Data: Data in Bioinformatics include sequences, methods, tools, algorithms, analyzed results, papers and involved people.
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Web Services: These services facilitate not only data integration, but also automatic analysis and data sharing.
ENDNOTES 1
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http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/ Press_Releases/PR_2002/Poliovirus.html, Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://www.riverdeep.net/ current/2002/04/042902t_gmfoods.jhtml, Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://www.bioontology.org/R01-and-R21Collaborations, Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, Last accesses Aug 11, 2010
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http://pbil.univ-lyon1.fr/alignment.html, Last accesses Aug 11, 2010 http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/clustalw2/. Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/t-coffee/index. html. Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi. Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/fasta33/index. html. Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://hmmer.janelia.org/. Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/structural.html, Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/maxsprout/. Last accessed Aug 11, 2010 http://workbench.sdsc.edu. Last accessed Aug 11, 2010
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Chapter 7
Collaborative Web for Natural Resources Industries Nikhil Chaturvedi SAP Asia Pte. Ltd., Singapore
ABSTRACT “Information is a strategic asset,” claimed the evangelists in the last decade of 20th Century. This paradigm has become a commonly known fact today. It needs no reiteration that everyone appreciates the significance of managing the information and knowledge in the organization. However, the philosophy has transcended organizational boundaries to take into its fold the entire stakeholder network of the organization. The Petroleum and Mining industries work along with various external entities for strategic planning, execution, and control purposes. These entities could belong to either the business or governmental realm. It is the collaboration with these external entities across the value chain that can be positively affected by the Web. Leading organizations like petroleum super-majors and large mining companies have already started utilizing Web for some near real-time and batch-mode interaction with the external entities. However, they have touched only the tip of the iceberg. The collaborative Web has tremendous potential to further enhance their operational efficiencies. Many of these enhancements are beyond our imagination today. However, some have already been visualized, but are yet to be implemented at a wide scale. The roles of these external entities span across various functions of the core value chain. This chapter focuses on collaboration in the core functions like geo-sciences, engineering, production operations, supply chain, transportation & logistics, equipment maintenance, materials management, sales and marketing, and environment health and safety (EH&S) etc. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch007
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Collaborative Web for Natural Resources Industries
INTRODUCTION This chapter aims to cover the following aspects: 1. Current status of web-based collaboration (encompassing both internet as well as corporate intranet) along different categories of companies like Oil super-majors, National Oil Companies (NOCs) and International Mining companies 2. Potential that web holds for enabling the core functions across the natural resources value chain 3. Insights into the technological aspects of collaborative web (or web 2.0) that can be leveraged by the natural resources companies 4. Potential contribution to collaboration by the industry data exchange standards like PRODML and WITSML (for Petroleum industry managed by Energistics) To maintain the focus, this chapter focuses on the core value chain operations and excludes other support functions like finance and human resources that are also undergoing significant collaboration with outsourcing service providers like BPOs. This chapter is based upon author’s experience in the operations, management and IT consulting related to the petroleum and mining industries.
BACKGROUND
1 represents the macro-view of the petroleum value chain. The Upstream petroleum segment covers the exploration, development and production of crude oil and / or gas. This segment has a plethora of business entities working together in a networked manner. For instance, many a times, the oil fields are co-owned by upto 3 or 4 companies in order to hedge the individual risk and gather resources and investments. The business interactions and transactions among these companies can be improved using the web. Several suppliers, vendors and oil field services contractors work with the upstream oil companies and this chapter later describes how collaborative web can increase the efficiency among these players. Figure 2 further details out the Upstream Oil & Gas supply chain and the various functions therein. The produced crude oil and/or Gas have to be processed, distilled and refined in order to obtain products like Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), Naphtha, Petrol, Diesel, Kerosene, Aviation Oil, Lubricants, Asphalt, Petrochemicals, Aromatics etc. This work is carried out in refineries and downstream petrochemical plants. These petroleum products are then transported through rail, road, marine or pipeline channels. The product movement from the refinery to the product terminals is termed as “Primary Distribution” and from the product terminals to depots / customers Figure 1. Value Chain of Oil and Gas Industry
The natural resources industries occupy a pivotal position among various industries, as the supply of raw materials and energy is fundamental to running operations across the industrial landscape. In this chapter, the term “natural resources” refers to the Oil & Gas and Mining industries. Let us understand the Oil & Gas value chain first. This information will help in better visualization of the processes and hence, appreciating the value of web based collaboration. Figure
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Figure 2. Overview of an Upstream Petroleum Value Chain
/ retail stations / lubricant depots / LPG depots etc. is termed as “Secondary Distribution”. The Downstream Petroleum value chain is pictorially represented in figure 3. Of all these sub-segments in the downstream petroleum industry, the refinery is the nerve center where the production of various petroleum products takes place. Figure 4 shows the various products that come out of a refinery. As mentioned earlier, these refinery operations are supported by complex inbound and outbound logistics processes as shown in figure 5. Mining industry has got some similarities to the petroleum industry in certain aspects like
Geo-technical operations, bulk transportation etc. Figure 6 shows the mining industry value chain wherein various external and internal entities like suppliers, customers, employees, contract miners, maintenance service providers etc. interact with the mining company in a business to business (B2B) mode. In the following sections, many of these interactions that can be supported through web based collaboration are explained. Over the decades, it has been observed that the recessionary trends are invariably preceded by high energy and mineral prices. These high prices, in turn, are caused not only by the demand surges but also by the high cost structures. Therefore, the natural resources companies are working aggressively towards enhancing “operational efficiency” and “cost reduction”. Collaborative web has an innate potential to facilitate these twinobjectives of the natural resources industries.
COLLABORATION ACROSS THE NATURAL RESOURCES SUPPLY CHAIN Petroleum industry supply chain is a highly complex network of several networks. As described earlier, the Oil industry itself involves several sub-industries like Upstream (Exploration & Pro-
Figure 3. Overview of a Downstream Petroleum Value Chain
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Figure 4. Products of a typical Refinery
Figure 5. Refinery Operations
Figure 6. Supply Chain in a Mining Company
duction), Midstream (Pipeline transportation, Primary Transportation, Refining) and Downstream (Secondary transportation, Marketing, Retailing). Each segment has multiple suppliers, customers, partners and regulators to collaborate with. The Natural Gas industry, likewise, has an equally complex value chain. It also involves some additional functions like Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) operations that encompass compression, liquefication, transportation and re-gasification processes. Another sub-segment of natural gas industry is Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) that involves its own operations like compression, distribution and retailing for automobiles and industrial purposes. The idea behind alluding to these segments and sub-segments is to highlight the vastness of this industry. Within every sub-segment, a host of product vendors and service providers exist who interact with the core oil & gas companies. This interaction encompasses flow of materials, finances and information. The labyrinthine of information flow can be handled efficiently through web-based collaboration among various players. The natural resources companies have traditionally operated in the “Supply-Push” mode. However, the dynamism in the market, increasing competition and demanding customers are driving these companies towards a “Demand-Pull” model. The Supply-Push factors are still important, as the production of crude oil, natural gas and minerals is significantly dependent upon geo-scientific and political factors. These push and pull factors need to be balanced and such optimized model requires highly efficient collaboration across the entire spectrum of resources supply chain. The web can play a significant role in attaining it. It can help the petroleum and mining companies to transform from company-centric planning to “collaborative supply-chain centric planning”. The implementation and utilization of collaborative-web for this balanced supply chain has been initiated by some natural resources companies, though a significant ground still needs to be covered.
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An important building block for successful supply chain collaboration is the availability of inventory information. It provides all the industry players with same inventory visibility. The supply and procurement decisions get positively impacted through this visibility. It, in turn, helps in better revenues due to lower opportunity losses and lower inventory carrying and holding costs. The inventory turnover improves, thus, creating higher return on investment.
Collaboration in the Oil Field Services Area Outsourcing Oil Field Services (OFS) operations have gained increased prominence in the petroleum industry for over last three decades now. The operations like geophysical surveying, drilling and well completion, materials & consumables supplies, offshore construction etc. are outsourced to specialist OFS companies. For instance, the steel pipe suppliers to the Upstream Oil & Gas companies have to deliver the pipes according to a certain customer-defined schedule. This schedule can be provided to the supplier through automated email notifications, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), B2B interface, web-based user interface etc. The option of suppliers accessing the supply schedule information by accessing the customer web portal has already gained popularity. The pipe suppliers can download the schedule, plan their production schedules accordingly and confirm the availability using Available-to-Promise (ATP) functionalities of their ERP/SCM systems. Once the delivery is received and quality tested, the supplier can download the goods receipt document copy and later the information on the payment status from the Oil & Gas Company’s website. OFS companies also provide a wide variety of materials to several petroleum companies. Initially, they were facing a dilemma of using multiple proprietary information systems provided by the petroleum companies. This used to pose a
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lot of problems, as the OFS companies’ employees needed to learn various systems. Over time, the OFS companies have developed or implemented ERP and SCM systems in their landscape and integrated them in the back-end with the applications of petroleum companies. This integration could be Application Programming Interfaces (API) or using web services or any other form of web-based collaboration. Through these integrated applications, the petroleum companies can achieve the visibility of various information elements like a comprehensive catalogue of materials (provided by OFS company or product vendor) with an option of mapping it against their own item / material codes. This collaboration can also help in increasing efficiency in handling goods receipts, warehousing, material requirement planning (MRP), cross-docking facilities, inventory accounting & control, providing shipping documents with full details of multiple ownership and customs processes etc. So, the petroleum companies get a comprehensive range of functions for effective management across the supply chain spectrum, right from the starting of a material requisition through to the final consumption. These OFS companies can also provide the information on the project completion status on their secured website and through proper access authorizations; the Oil & Gas companies can see the project progress status, costs incurred etc. on-line.
Collaboration in Contract Mining Area The mining companies have also adopted the contract mining concept. However, the data exchange with the contract miners is largely manual. There is a huge potential for efficiency improvement through bi-directional electronic transfer of information comprising mining schedules, stock transfer requisition, maintenance notifica-
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tions, production, costs and invoicing related information. An important constraint in the web-based collaboration with the contract mining companies is the inadequate automation and IT adoption. The mining industry has traditionally been a late adopter of information technology developments. Moreover, most of the mining contractor companies have inadequate financial and human resources to carry out the necessary IT automation. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the mining companies to help them in new technology implementation and adoption. This is similar to what automotive OEMs or discrete manufacturing companies have done in the field of “vendor development”. The procurement strategy in the discrete manufacturing industry is centered around vendor development and enablement, that in turn, benefits the OEM. A similar attitude is required for the mining companies, without which the ITbased or web-based collaboration will remain a pipe dream for the mining companies and they will not be able to achieve efficiency enhancement to the extent they need. As mentioned earlier, at present, the information flow between the mining company and contract miner is mostly manual. This leads to not only work delays, but also misinterpretations and need for data reconciliation later. Thus, web-based collaboration will help in improving both business efficiency as well as the customer-contractor relationship.
Collaboration in the Maintenance Operations and Spare Parts Inventory Management Most of the prominent Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) provides web-based catalogs wherein updated information on their equipment, spare parts and maintenance practices is available. Any updates or developments are also followed by emails or other forms of notifications to the customers using the equipment. Subsequently,
the maintenance staff of natural resources companies can download the details from the OEM website and implement them in their design and maintenance processes. The collaborative designing and project execution practices between natural resources companies and OEMs can be significantly improved through web based collaboration. The natural resources companies can share their project related designs and details with the OEMs through web channeling through shared folders and increase collaborative design efficiencies. Petroleum and Mining companies also outsource their maintenance operations to subcontractors. The efficiencies in this process can be enhanced by using web-based collaboration. For instance, for the maintenance of an oil product pipeline, the oil company can push the maintenance work orders along with the pipeline network diagram to the sub-contactor’s ERP system. Upon completion of the maintenance work, the job and costs related information can be pushed back by the sub-contractor to the oil company’s ERP system. In the downstream petroleum industry, the maintenance of retail stations (also known as petrol pumps, gas stations etc. in different countries) is an important responsibility, as any down time can lead to significant loss in revenue. There are three types of retail stations, namely, Company Owned Company Operated (COCO), Company Owned Dealer Operated (CODO) and Dealer Owned Dealer Operated (DODO). For the COCO type retail stations, the maintenance responsibility lies with the petroleum company. This is normally handled through the plant maintenance functionalities of the ERP system of the petroleum company. The latest technological developments in Condition Based Monitoring (CBM) and Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) have provided the engineering community with a lever for detecting the fault trends in advance and planning preventive maintenance. The notifications related to conditions can be automatically sent by the devices into the plant
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maintenance module of ERP and the maintenance orders generated thereof. This process can be enabled through web-based collaboration. The maintenance staff and engineers can get the condition based maintenance notifications through the web front-end of the ERP system and can carry out the subsequent activities like reporting etc. through it. Naturally, the next question that may arise in the reader’s mind is how much of it is actually being used and practiced by the petroleum companies. And the answer is, “to a limited extent”. As per author’s experience and interviews with oil industry executives, most of the oil companies do not have adequate automation at the retail stations to do automatic tank gauging, which is the primary piece of information for petroleum product terminals to supply automatically. Similarly, most of the retail stations do not have equipment and machinery with RCM capabilities to provide alerts and reminders on maintenance requirements. Hence, the technological concepts have not been rolled out fully into the field. Therefore, petroleum companies still have a great scope for improving the collaboration of maintenance and operations workforce using the ERP system and web-based collaboration, as mentioned above. Several petroleum companies still use ERP system only to raise the maintenance notifications and orders. The web-based collaborative features are yet to be widely adopted in the industry.
Collaboration with the Suppliers In addition to the supply side collaboration mentioned above, natural resources companies also collaborate through web in the area of sourcing and procurement. Several large International Oil Companies (IOCs) and National Oil Companies (NOCs) use the Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) applications to conduct web-based collaboration with suppliers. These SRM applications enable eProcurement wherein the suppli-
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ers can download the RFx documents from the website of the natural resources companies and then, submit their responses and proposals back on the website. The results of vendor selection can also be displayed on the company website. The eProcurement process may be pertaining to products (like raw materials, additives, spare parts, MRO items, consumables etc.) or services (like oil field services, maintenance services, catering, transportation etc.). As an extension to the vendor selection process, the petroleum and mining companies also conduct reverse auctions on their websites. The SRM solution helps in receiving bids from the suppliers online and evaluating the bids. And this web-based collaboration is simple for suppliers, as all they need is an internet browser to participate in this process. The end-objective of these petroleum and mining companies is to enable the desktop based procurement by the end-users themselves. The entire eProcurement system is evolving towards a state wherein all the product related information like approved vendor, price, minimum units of purchase, potential delivery schedules etc. are available to the employees first-hand on their desktops. Based upon their authorization limits, these employees can place the purchase orders to the vendors directly without the involvement of the procurement staff. This automation of purchasing transactions also serves the purpose of procurement function staff spending time in higher value added activities like researching for more vendors worldwide, vendor qualification and development, analyzing the spend performance and trends etc.
e-Market Places The eMarketplaces are a testimony to the internet based collaboration among various industry players. These eMarketplaces provide a platform to the petroleum and mining companies and their suppliers and customers to trade online. The reach for every market-player increases exponentially. Also,
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they help in improving the overall efficiency of the process by also providing ePayment and clearing services. Some of the leading eMarketplaces servicing Oil & Gas and Mining companies are Quadrem (www.quadrem.com), Gulf Oil & Gas (www.gulfoilandgas.com), Network International (www.networkintl.com) etc. These eMarketplaces have, so far, created a trend and achieved some success, but a great deal still needs to be done. Some improvements that they need are a greater number of market participants and increase in the volume of trading transactions. This will also improve the value that each market player can gain out of the marketplace. The eMarketplaces also need to innovate, continuously providing better services and reducing costs, e.g., for logistics related to the participants. The eMarketplaces also need to widen their reach by increasing the number of participants from Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). So far, due to the technological capability reasons (or the inadequacy of it) and the entry barriers, several SME organizations hesitate in participating in eBusiness through these eMarketplaces. In different modes of eProcurement, the item catalogs can be either supplier-managed or buyer-managed. This depends upon the item type. Normally, the standard items are buyer-managed. Items that are proprietary in nature or configurable items or unique items manufactured by a particular supplier are typically supplier-managed. However, the important factor is that the catalog management (however, mundane it may seem) is of great importance, as the effectiveness of the subsequent process steps depends upon it.
Collaboration with the Customers in Mining Industry On the sales & marketing side, various mining companies have long-term sales contracts with their customers. These contracts involve complex pricing mechanism, often based on the benchmark prices listed at exchanges like London Metal Ex-
change (LME), New York Mercantile Exchange etc. Some mining companies have interfaced their ERP systems with the information portal of LME, so as to automatically update the metal price at a pre-defined frequency (like daily basis). This web-based collaboration provides updated price that is then used in invoice calculation for the customers. Oil companies also use web for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with industrial as well as retail customers. Several oil companies have started running call centers or customer service centers that carry out customer facing activities. At present, the mechanisms include both web-based collaboration as well as manual interaction. However, the future policy is aimed at increasing the web-based collaboration component. This involves providing selective web portal access to their customers for order placement, query resolution, checking the status of their deliveries, payments, accounts receivable status, reward points redemption etc. Some oil companies also use web-based collaboration for Automated Stock Replenishment (ASR) process. The technological developments over the last few years have facilitated this efficiency enhancement. For instance, the Automated Tank Gauges (ATG) in the retail stations can automatically send information through web to the ERP systems of oil companies when the fuel level falls below the minimum stipulated inventory level. This triggers the process of creating sales order and other delivery documents at the oil company level and helps in faster replenishment of the fuel to the retail stations. Similar process is, now, being adopted by the commercial and wholesale customers also. The Lubricants and LPG businesses are based on a dealership model. The web-based collaboration model also applies to these businesses. The dealers can place their orders through the oil & gas company website, check their account balances and delivery status, download vital information on policies and schemes etc. From oil & gas
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companies’ perspective, several proactive measures are also possible. They can check the sales and inventory status at the dealer site. This also helps them in a first hand analysis of the inventory turnover rate, fast moving-slow moving products, performance of the dealer with respect to certain customer segments etc. This proactivity facilitated by web has made the oil & gas companies more productive and in realizing higher sales. Especially, the lubricants business is dependent upon providing the right product based upon the specific customer segment requirement. This leads to a wide range of product and hundreds of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs). Dealers can access and download information on the new product launches, product specifications and marketing schemes. In the normal course, it would have been fairly time consuming to provide all this information, thus resulting in sales opportunity loss.
Collaboration with the Governments and Regulators Improvement potential also exists in web-based collaboration for regulatory reporting to the Governments on the EH&S related aspects. The Petroleum and Mining companies need to comply with stringent EH&S regulations and also need to provide periodic reports. The adoption of adequate B2B technology in the industry ecosystem will help in making the EH&S reporting automatic, wherein the enterprise systems of natural resources companies can push reports to the governmental systems. Alternatively, the regulatory agencies can pull information from the websites of natural resources companies.
CHANGE MANAGEMENT EFFORTS REQUIRED FOR ENHANCING WEB BASED COLLABORATION The success of web-based collaboration requires significant change management efforts for cus-
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tomers to adopt the new methods. The customers need to be trained on the new web-based processes and sometimes, also supported in IT related infrastructure development. The popular perception among customers and suppliers is that natural resources companies push the web-based collaboration for their own efficiency gains and cost reduction. Therefore, it is also important for organizations to highlight the efficiency and benefits that customers achieve by using web instead of the manual interaction. For instance, it provides them with the option of seeing all the account related details and history on the screen rather than by hearing over the phone. Moreover, they can also download information, check product & services related offerings, read through the new policies & initiatives etc. that are not possible through phone conversations. The training, as mentioned above, is not restricted only to the information technology related aspects. Natural resources companies can use web to train their customers on products, services, company policies, initiatives related to business and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), warranty schemes etc. Web is a highly effective medium to disseminate the knowledge among the customer ecosystem in a far more efficient way. Oil companies have experienced that the level of new technology adoption varies based on the country or even region. In some of the technologically advanced countries, the customers have embraced the web based order taking in a more rapid manner than others. Consequently, the change management efforts need to be fine tuned.
TECHNOLOGY BEHIND WEBBASED COLLABORATION AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS Technologically, the inter-business collaboration can take place through one or more of the following mechanisms:
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• • •
•
•
•
•
Read-only or download access to authorized users (people-to-application) Write and update access to authorized users (people-to-application) Data output from one application in flat file or any other desired format that can be uploaded into another application Interfacing for data push or pull from one application to another within the enterprise (Application-to-Application A2A interface) Interfacing for data push or pull from one application to another outside the enterprise (Business-to-Business B2B interface) Collaborative folders for different entities to work in parallel (esp. in Project situations) Instant messaging and application sharing
Most enterprise software solutions (ERP, SCM, SRM, CRM etc.) have the flexibility to integrate with other applications for seamless data transfer.
Emergence of Web 2.0 and Social Networking An important trend that will have significant impact on business, in the years to come, is the emergence of Web 2.0. Its functionalities like chat, blogs, social networking, instant messaging etc. are spreading infectiously across the world. Natural resources companies, like many other industries, are formulating strategies on how to leverage this trend for business benefits. This is a very good platform that some companies in the high-tech and software industries have started leveraging to tap the community views and innovation. However, the natural resources companies need to expedite their efforts to utilize this benefit sooner rather than later. The Web 2.0 developments can help in establishing a community portal or a Wiki where customers, partners and other stakeholders can provide candid feedback on the company and its
products and services. This can also be a source for tapping ideas for innovation and process improvement. Natural resources companies can establish multiple “communities of practice” (CoP) pertaining to upstream, downstream, gas, lubes and other areas. Separate communities could also be formulated for different stakeholders like customers, suppliers, employees, NGOs etc. At present, there exist several challenges in achieving a fully developed and matured system with communities playing an important role in providing a feedback channel. Firstly, the natural resources companies have not created enough communities to get an all-round feedback. Secondly, the enrollments and participation in whatever communities currently exist is yet to be significant. Change management and promotional efforts towards a greater adoption of the CoPs is required. IT industry has started exploiting this concept better by having dedicated persons to manage the community websites and also making efforts towards membership generation. The collaborative web concept further extends into the usage of collaborative rooms (c-rooms) wherein internal employees and/or external stakeholders (with authorized access) can share documents in a real-time environment. It helps in generating efficiencies by converting the sequential work process to a parallel work process. Typically, natural resources companies use software like SAP cFolders, cProjects, Document Management system (DMS), Lotus Notes etc. for this kind of collaborative project work. Further, there are some new moves that are being planned for utilizing cloud for petroleum industry, where in a company like iStore (The Information Store), a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner has launched its flagship PetroTrek Digital Oilfield solution from SharePoint 2007 onto the cloud and has developed an entirely new approach for creating secure data mashups online. Indeed, iStore’s Digital Oilfield Online cloud platform claims to leverage the Software Services model significantly. The approach to the architec-
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ture enables on-premises data or applications to be mashed up with online, cloud-based applications and then provide data to fit the business purpose. This product claims to enable the petroleum companies to leverage and extend the capabilities of multiple on-site databases by remotely accessing and integrating it online. Conversely, companies can utilize the alternate cost structure of cloud-based data storage to significantly enhance their data management capabilities while they consume the data, in their onsite application or hand held devices (Digital Oilfield online, 2010). It is sincerely expected that in near future products like these and many more shall be utilizing cloud computing much more to deliver value across the supply chain of the oil industry. In fact, according to a recent survey by the Microsoft and Accenture across 275 Oil and Natural Gas industry folks, reveals a significant need for collaboration across industry as highlighted by the Microsoft official (Oil and Gas Workers Embrace Collaboration, 2010). “The survey findings were an eye-opener,” said Craig Hodges, Microsoft general manager, Manufacturing & Resources Sector. “More than threequarters of the respondents said they spend up to four hours a day collaborating with co-workers. Half said they need improved communications to coordinate multinational activities, to meet increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, and to better manage their changing work forces. Yet company policies actually stand in the way of the adoption of social media, a source of new collaboration tools our survey shows to be in strong demand.”
Industry Data Exchange Standards The petroleum companies have exchange agreements for trading or sharing the petroleum products across various locations. This necessitates the exchange of information among them. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, there is a significantly large
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quantum of data being exchanged by different oil companies with the customers and suppliers. The plethora of software applications and incompatible data formats running in the petroleum industry had created inefficiencies in the data interchange across various companies. Considering this, certain leading companies in the industry have established an association named “Energistics” (erstwhile, Petroleum Open Standards Consortium – POSC). Energistics (www.energistics.org) aims to develop vendor-neutral data exchange standards for the petroleum industry so as to reduce the heterogeneity, data errors and need for reconciliation. The data standards, so far, developed by Energistics are WITSML (Wellsite Information Transfer Standards Markup Language) and PRODML (Production Markup Language). WITSML covers the data pertaining to wells, completions and work over. PRODML covers the data related to oil & gas production. These standards play a role in standardizing the data management and transfer formats, thus facilitating the web-based collaboration.
CONCLUSION In summary, it is very clear that Information Technology has the potential of being a business enabler to create competitive advantage for the companies in this sector. Natural Resources companies have started moving on the path of utilizing web for collaboration with internal and external entities. What we have observed in the chapter earlier is that there is a significant potential to collaborate across various partners of the value chain of natural resources industry, be it with Government or regulatory bodies, collaboration across client and vendors in mining industry which is still in its nascent stage largely. While there are some companies who are attempting to leverage next generation of IT or Web 2.0 to meet their increasing global workforce coordination requirements,
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there is still a large chunk of business processes which are managed across multiple partners that warrant significant investments in IT. Obviously, there are clear benefits that are available for large scale operations companies in using collaborative web and also play significant data usage pattern improvement by using cloud. What remains to be seen is the focus that this industry puts in this area. Web-based collaboration, indeed, will get improved with various entities like customers, suppliers, employees, regulators, and government etc. over the next 3-5 years. Today, IT is just being able to bring companies on equal footing with limited improvements. However, in near future, given the tangible benefits that accrue due to this, we will surely notice a great deal of collaboration with various objectives of improving the operational efficiencies of the natural resources industries.
REFERENCES Digital Oilfield online. (2010). iStore’s solution overview. Retrieved on August 3, 2010, from http://www.istore.com/Azure.html Exchange, L. M. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// www.lme.com Gulf Oil & Gas. (n.d.). Retrieved from www. gulfoilandgas.com Microsoft. (2010). Oil and gas workers embrace collaboration. Retrieved on August 3, 2010, from http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2010/jan10/01-21globalenergy.mspx Network International. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.networkintl.com
NewYork Mercantile Exchange. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.cme.com Quadrem. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.quadrem. com
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning software application that integrates the data and processes of various business departments like finance & accounting, materials management, purchase, sales & distribution, logistics, production, equipment maintenance, human resources, real estate etc. International Oil Companies (IOCs): Oil & Gas companies under private sector National Oil Companies (NOCs): Oil & Gas companies with majority ownership from the Government Natural Resources Industries: Comprising industries like Mining, Minerals, Coal Bed Methane, Oil & Natural Gas, and Oil Sands etc. Oil Field Services: Outsource services provided by organizations to owner, operator oil companies (also encompasses products in addition to services) Oil Refining: The process of refining Crude Oil through processes like distillation, reforming, cracking etc. to produce several petroleum products like LPG, Petrol, Diesel, Aviation Turbine Fuel, Kerosene, Asphalt etc. SCM: Supply Chain Management, often with reference to SCM software applications being used by organizations for supply chain planning, optimization and execution Web: Short form for World Wide Web often referred to as Internet
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Chapter 8
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites for Rural Production Using Multi Criteria Analysis Z. Andreopoulou Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece T. Koutroumanidis Democritus University of Thrace, Greece B. Manos Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
ABSTRACT In this chapter, we will discuss the Website features to be accounted while designing a collaborative Website for e-commerce purposes, making the Website useful and attractive to revisit. Since the sector of rural production holds difficulties while adopting e-commerce models, the aim of this chapter is to present a methodology aiming to optimize the conceptual content model used in collaborative e-commerce Websites promoting rural production. The methodology approach concerns the retrieval of the relative Websites in the Internet. Qualitative and quantitative content characteristics are identified and discussed in the retrieved Websites to be used as criteria. Websites are further ranked according to 13 criteria using the multicriteria analysis method. Finally, the retrieved Websites are classified in groups concerning the above criteria and collaborative Web tools included, aiming to identify the optimum group of Websites. The optimum group can be used to benchmark the Web design of e-commerce Websites concerning rural production aiming to incorporate collaborative Web tools and become more appealing to Web users accustomed to the Internet culture.
INTRODUCTION The aim of this chapter is to present a methodology aiming to optimize the conceptual content
model for collaborative e-commerce Websites promoting rural production using the multicriteria analysis method of PROMETHEE II through the qualitative Website’s evaluation.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch008
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites
Internet is an exceptionally dynamic environment, continually developing and as it has become a major resource in modern business, many enterprises have already created their Web presence (Andreopoulou et al., 2008). E-commerce consists of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. It is an innovation that changes the traditional ways of doing business as it provides a new marketing tool and potential customers for a firm worldwide. It can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange, automated inventory management systems, and automated datacollection systems. It typically uses electronic communications technology such as the Internet, extranets, e-mail, e-books, databases, and mobile phones (Lefebvre and Lefebvre, 2002, Lefebvre et. al., 2005). To many small/medium enterprises (SME), e-commerce adoption seems to be a very prospective alternative to the way they do businesses. Enterprises and individuals have become more familiar to do business as and when they like, thus long-established enterprises in all areas of interest are continually searching for internetenabling their products and services (Krueger and Swatman, 2004). The perceived strengthening of a company’s competitive position may often be the justification for a company to adopt e-commerce (Loughlin, 1999). E-commerce not only stimulates European companies to economic growth and to an investment in innovation, but also it can increase industrial competition because nowadays everyone can access the Internet (Edwards, 2002). Business-toconsumer electronic commerce (B2C) is a form of electronic commerce in which products or services are sold from a firm to a consumer. It is evident that, if a commercial business-to consumer (B2C) Website is to successfully generate sales, that Website must have features that appeal to potential buyers (Blake et al., 2005).
Companies that provide products or services directly to customers are called direct sellers. These types of B2C companies are the most well-known. There are two types of direct sellers: e-tailers and manufacturers. a) E-tailers: Upon receiving an order, the e-tailer ships products directly to the consumer or to a wholesaler or manufacturer for delivery and b) Manufacturers: The manufacturer sells directly to consumers via the internet. The goal is an extended e-commerce adoption aiming to remove intermediaries, through a process called “disintermediation” -not a new idea as catalogue companies have been utilizing this method for years- and to establish direct customer relationships (Haag et al., 2004). On the other hand, B2B, or B-to-B e-commerce represents roughly 70–85% of total e-commerce activities OECD, 2004). This chapter discusses the special Website features that are necessary to be accounted while designing a collaborative Website for e-commerce purposes making the site useful and attractive to return to. Also, the perspectives and drawbacks concerning e-commerce adoption regarding rural production will be stated and will be presented the various stages of e-commerce adoption. Details will be presented about the adopted methodology using the multi-criteria analysis method of PROMETHEE II, and compared to other multi-criteria decision-making methods, aiming to optimize the conceptual content model of collaborative e-commerce Websites promoting rural production. The identified Website features to be used as criteria will be discussed with focus on the collaborative character of the Websites. The total ranking and grouping will be presented and the optimum group identified will be further described and will be discussed in comparison to the collaborative Web tools. Finally a case study of timber trade enterprises in Greece will be presented..
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DESIGNING A COLLABORATIVE WEBSITE FOR E-COMMERCE PURPOSES The way to build a successful Website is the keypoint that all enterprises considering initiatives in the Web have to face (Rosen and Purinton 2004). A business’ Website has been mentioned as a “business’ storefront” (Calitz and Scheepers 2002). It is evident that, if a commercial businessto consumer (B2C) Website is to successfully generate sales, that Website must have features that appeal to potential buyers (Blake et al., 2005). Some important factors to take into consideration for an enterprise while planning to set up an ecommerce Website can be the time needed for the development of the Website and also the costs. While aiming to design and develop an effective e-commerce Website, either Web-designers or enterprises should consider following worldwide accepted guidelines (Nielson, 2001). However, the international e-commerce literature has rarely addressed the measurement of customer perceptions of Website service quality in digital marketing environments (Wang and Tang, 2004). Among Website evaluation, usability of the Website is another primary concern. The usability of a user interface refers to the smoothness and easiness with which a user is able to interact with a system without ‘thinking’ about it. This implies that they can do so ‘naturally’ or without feeling ‘discomfort’, either physical or mental (Andreopoulou et.al., 2009). This is in line with the definition of usability offered by the International Organization for Standardization, which is: ‘‘the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments’’ (Hillier, 2003). But it’s not only usability that affects a Websites’ appeal and visits. Studies have identified a number of specific Website features (actual or perceived) that impact Website appeal. Among these Website features are: security, vividness and its correlated riskiness, approval by referent others, like family
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or friends, feature organization, quality of content, price, recognizability and/or desirability of brand, and time delay/download speed (Blake et al., 2005). Another important factor is the cultural context of the audience that needs to be taken into consideration. This is particularly important in the light of global e-commerce efforts where success of business is dependent upon the successful interaction with a multitude of imagined audiences via electronic means (Hillier, 2003). As it concerns the language of the e-commerce Website, Shea, Ariguzo and White (2008) argue that “one tipping point has already occurred – the majority of users on the internet today are non-native English speakers. The next tipping point, not too far away, is when non-native English speakers conduct the majority of e-commerce” and further discuss internet usage trends, including language and diffusion models. Since the primary measures of Website success are high levels of user acquisition and retention, only those sites that attract and maintain the desired target audience and build valuable customer relationships will have the potential for long-term success (Clarke and Flaherty 2003). Even private/ informational portals, to become successful, must entice busy employees to alter well-established informational search habits (Clarke and Flaherty, 2003). Other studies within Websites evaluation have analyzed the functions or roles played by specific Website features as they contribute to Website appeal, such as seven functions impacting customer loyalty to a Website: (1) customization; (2) contact interactivity; (3)‘cultivation’ (i.e. provision of information/incentives to extend customer purchasing over time); (4) ‘care’ (operationally, features that keep customers informed of the availability of preferred products and/or of the status of orders, or that minimize service description); (5) provision of a structure to facilitate exchange of opinions/ information; (6) product variety; (7) ‘character’ (i.e. text / graphics / slogans, etc. projecting an
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image or personality of the merchant). Other functions include navigability, communication utility, responsiveness, entertainment value, convenience and flow. Interactivity has been widely proposed as a force for site appeal (Blake et al., 2005). Connalen (1999) had claimed that since Web based applications execute business logic, the most important models of a Web-based system should focus on the business logic, not on presentation details. Moraga et al. (2006) in their study present a brief overview of some proposals for portal quality models. Social networking has been a part of the new internet culture for most of the net users and they are used to interact with collaborative Web tools. As e-commerce can be successfully conducted through email, instant messaging and social networking sites, e-commerce Websites provide a volunteer sign-up option to their virtual customers. Emails to inbox and text messages to cell phone are received from recipients that have already signed up at the Website aiming to be informed about one or more categories of products or services they are interested in. Nevertheless, email-recipients can preferably be removed from the mailing list of enterprises. Another key characteristic of a ecommerce Website is personalization, a Website feature where information is gathered and stored about Website visitors, the information is analyzed, and, when the visitors access the Website using some ID, the proper information is delivered. It constitutes a key technology especially for managing Website content (Chiu, 2001). The security of commercial transactions on the Internet is one major issue for internet clients and it is usually contemplated with commonly-used protocols, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS), included in most Web server products. They use the publicand-private key encryption system and include the use of a digital certificate.
E-Commerce Adoption and Rural Production We can all profit from numerous e-services provided through the WEB and new opportunities emerge concerning economic growth, better health, improved service delivery, learning through distance education models, and social and cultural advances (World Bank, 2003). E-services should be used as an important component in achieving sustainable development in rural areas and therefore it should be encouraged (EU, 2007). Enterprises dealing with rural production and located in rural areas, away from great urban markets, can be benefited from the enhanced communication between Web customers and enterprises provided by the internet using e-commerce Websites as a means. Since the implementation of e-commerce needs time to grow, in various research efforts, researchers have presented a 4 stages adoption model (Rao et al, 2003) that represents 4 different distinctive categories or adoption stages for an enterprise with varying strategic objectives and aspirations. Therefore, stages of adoption start from simple Web “presence” and gradually increase the deployment of ICT as to the total integration or transformation. The primary stage of adoption, which is «simple presence in the Internet», is defined as the stage that the enterprise seeks to guarantee its presence in the Internet and to be advertised. These kinds of Websites have no possibility for user-interaction. In further stages of e-commerce adoption, the Website beyond the presence of the enterprise in the Internet, gives the possibility to the potential client to search into the Website as well as the provision of useful links, and that is usually identified as the second stage of adoption. In the next stage, the enterprise allocates applications of e-commerce such as EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). Consequently the enterprises can exchange by electronic means their papers and credentials; they also have the possibility to provide alternatives to credit card methods
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of payment like cash on delivery, wire transfer, checks by post and fax orders. In this state, the whole management of supply chain is automated with a Supply Chain Management (SCM) system. Supply Chain Management (SCM) is also recognized by Subramanian and Iyigungor (2008), as a “core competitive strategy for businesses because a strong supply chain provides products and services to consumers faster, cheaper, and better”. In the final stage of total ICT adoption, where the value chain is optimized, as it gives its custumers the possibility for online orders and online payments, while they are simultaneously in position to check the stage of their order. An ERP system constitutes a complete proposal for the management of all operations of an organization and its major benefit of the adoption of an ERP system is the single technological platform, which allows the homogenisation of information and consequently leads to increased efficiency (Vlachopoulou and Manthou, 2006). Lefebvre et al. (2005), in their study on ecommerce adoption in SMEs, tried to identify and validate metrics for B2B e-commerce adoption, related benefits and to further validate the e-commerce adoption trajectories that were observed and their potential. A literature review on e-commerce adoption is also described in Hong and Zhu (2006). An extensive literature review concerning SME-eBusiness journal articles published between 2003 and 2006 is presented in Parker and Castleman (2007) where they broadly analyse the SME - eBusiness literature mainly based on the data collection methodologies, countries and e-business technologies, and also the primary research objective of each article. It is anticipated that e-commerce adoption in agricultural sector will probably require more time than it was expected, yet, concerning the obstacles for e-commerce adoption in agricultural sector, the special Website features and characteristics for agriculture are quoted in various studies as: a) behavior against change from the managers, b) lack of familiarity with the information tech-
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nology, c) location and organizational structure, d) differentiation of prices and transactions due to differences in place-distance, in the time of delivery and the quality of the order, e) desire of the customer to see, smell, process and taste the products, before he buys them, f) lack of trust, that is often a build out of human interaction, g) demographic characteristics and personality of the people of the agricultural economic sector, h) transactions in agriculture is more a way of life, i) internet access, connectivity characteristics such as cost, in relation to the distance, and the unequal growth of information technology locally, j) weakness of the farmers to see the returns they will have from the cost of transformation of the way they function, due to lack of information, k) especially, when it comes to the development cost of the right technological structure, we must separate the simple capability of query through the Internet and the practice of Internet Marketing, l) change in the current industry structure and m) increasing complexity of products sold in market places (Hooker et.al., 2001, Leroux et.al., 2001, Porter, 2001, Andreopoulou et. al., 2009, Andreopoulou et.al., 2009a).
METHODOLOGY Qualitative and quantitative content characteristics are identified in the retrieved Websites that are further ranked according to content characteristics/criteria using the multicriteria method of PROMETHEE II. Finally, the retrieved Websites are classified in groups, aiming to identify the optimum group of Websites concerning total and collaborative criteria achieved. The methodology approach concerns the retrieval of the relative Websites in the Internet using a hypertextual search engine with the aim of key words and their combinations. Initially, the collected Websites are evaluated as to their qualitative characteristics in order to examine the type of common characteristics that
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites
is found in the Websites. There are various material Website features introduced in the retrieved Websites, aiming to promote the rural production and the enterprise involved. These features are grouped and are further attributed to variables X1 to Xn that describe a group of common Website features or characteristics.
The Function of E-Commerce Website Features to Become Optimization Criteria A typical qualitative analysis and evaluation of the content introduced in the Websites promoting rural production for Greece identifies 13 different types of Website features and they are presented in Table 1. Yet, the number of features included could possibly vary according to the special thematic of the rural production and the relative penetration in the market. In general, promotional information about rural products and services (X1) is the basic content anticipated from customers from e-commerce Websites. Moreover, guarantee certificates and ISO about production can be most attractive to Web customers. Price-lists in the Website can be
really useful for the client, aiming to perform a market research, based on both rural products characteristics and prices (X2). Special offers in season products can also be appealing to customers. Thus, information about the carrier/owner of the enterprise (X3) is a very important factor as brand names found in a Website can be tempting and communication features, when included, allow the customer to directly communicate with the enterprise either online or physically, by telephone or fax, provided there is a physical enterprise in addition to the virtual on the Internet. Information about the policy of the enterprise about transaction found in the Website is another useful Website feature for Web customers, as locality in distribution places, order and payment policy are decisive factors for accomplishment of the transaction (X4). Various useful links in an e-commerce Website referring to other relative companies, firms, organizations, carriers, etc is an appealing feature for Web customers in their marketing research, as they can be informed more thoroughly (X5). Links included in the Website that lead to Websites concerning relative thematic, such as the local area information, the species of production, etc can be appealing for the Web
Table 1. Description of the criteria studied for a Website and attributed variable Variable
Criteria Achieved by the Website
X1
Information about the products/services
X2
Information about the current prices for the products/services
X3
Information about the carrier/owner/communication
X4
Information about transaction policies and local information
X5
Links to other relative companies, organisations, carriers, etc.
X6
Links to other relative elements and sources of information
X7
Enabled online transactions with traditional ways of payment,
X8
Enabled online transactions with also enabled online payment
X9
On line communities such as forums and chat rooms
X10
Additional topics with information on different categories of interest
X11
‘Code Access’ (Website areas where access is allowed only for members through codes or passwords)
X12
Third person advertisement,
X13
Personalization of the page, trace, safety
107
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites
customer and reinforce the informational role of the Website apart from being promotional (X6). On-line transactions include the communication of the customer with the enterprise with eordering through online order forms and usually follow on line confirmation of the order through the Website. Thus it is enhanced collaboration of the Website. Hence, online transactions can be fulfilled either with traditional ways of payment (X7), such as payment locally, on delivery, in the bank, etc or on line payment using additional e-banking features (X8). Another interesting collaborative feature identified within rural production Websites’ evaluation are online communities, forums, news groups and chat-rooms (X9) where Web users and regular Web site visitors of the specific Website use the possibility to communicate with each other their ideas, based on the emerging internet culture of social networking. That is also a challenging feature for Web users to become regular users. The effectiveness and usefulness of e-commerce Websites can be enriched when there are evaluated additional topics with information on different categories of interest, yet of interest to Web customers. These topics can be weather reports, news, stock market news, recipes and cooking proposals, etc (X10) that also constitute a key factor for Web users to repetitively visit the specific Website, to bookmark it and further become permanent users and consequently clients. The Website feature of code access refers to Website areas where access is allowed only for site-members through codes or passwords (X11). These mechanisms grant code permission to registered users, extend their security and allow them to access significant options, information and privileges, such as special offers, e-ordering, bonus, etc. Ordinary security methods provide rights to users based on their log-on credentials, which are mainly their password; moreover they define and restrict the directories and files an occasional user is allowed to access.
108
The Website feature of “third person advertisement” in an e-commerce Website provides additional information on products and services to Web users (X12). Banners, pop-ups and specific frames invite users to also buy other products and services or register to become members or receive information on emails, text messages, participate in gift raffles, etc. Finally, the Website feature of personalization of the page along with trace and safety features are enhanced options (X13) that aim to give special treatment to repeat Website visitors who buy and increase its sense of security. The Websites‘evaluation is further carried out through a quantitative analysis, in order to examine the presence or absence of n criteria in the collected Websites and evaluate the services/functions of the Websites, as it was previously described. A 2-dimentional table is developed that examines the existence of criteria for each case. Whenever a criterion i was achieved for a Website, the value 1 was attributed to the respective variable Xi aiming at justifying the relative function within the evaluation of the Website. Consequently, if that specific criteria i is absent, the value 0 is attributed to the variable Xi respectively. The study also included the total amount of criteria achieved in each Website and the number of present characteristics attributed to a new variable, named T. Variable T presents the number of characteristics/ achieved criteria that are achieved in each Website where T is a number between 1 and n.
Multi Criteria Analysis Method for Ranking and Grouping the Websites Further, the total ranking of the Websites is performed and the method used is the multicriteria analysis PROMETHEE II. That method applies a linear form of function using the characteristics of the Web pages as criteria. The PROMETHEE II method is part of the outranking relations theory (Brans and Vinke, 1985; Brans et al. 1986; Siskos
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites
and Zopounidis 1987; Brans et al 1987; Brans et al 1998, Zopounidis 2001). The PROMETHEE II methodology was selected in order to perform evaluation and ranking tasks, for the following reasons: a) because the estimated relation of superiority (of one Website over another) is less sensitive in small changes and that offers an easier analysis and discussion of the results (Zopounidis, 2001), b) the use of the superiority relation in the PROMETHEE II method is applied when the alternative solutions (Websites) have to be ranked from the best to the worst (Zopounidis, 2001), and c) the procedure of assessing and ranking complicated cases of Websites is proper for the application of the above methodology in the sense that it is closer to reality (Zopounidis, 2001). There exist two types of the PROMETHEE methodology, PROMETHEE I that ranks partially and also, PROMETHEE II, which performs a full and complete ranking, based on all of the input data. The PROMETHEE II methodology was applied in this project because an overall ranking was required. It is also important that our variables concern qualitative data and PROMETHEE II methodology can successfully deal with that prerequisite (Koutroumanidis et.al., 2004). Moreover, regarding the application of PROMETHEE II in the field of agriculture and environment, there are many recent research papers where the method is successfully applied in rural production issues (Koutroumanidis, et.al., 2002; Andreopoulou et.al., 2005, Polyzos and Arabatzis, 2006; Andreopoulou et.al., 2008, Andreopoulou et.al. 2009a). The PROMETHEE methodology fits better to the targets of the project even if it is compared to other well-established methods. Other multicriteria methodologies, such as the ELECTRE methods are methods of superiority that use the rule of majority inside a relation of superiority. The target in the ELECTRE is to determine an alternative Website, which is relatively “good”, based on a majority of criteria without being too
“bad” according to the rest of the criteria (Koutroumanidis et.al., 2004). Even so, this is not the objective of this project where the objective is the total evaluation of the Websites. The AHP method is another recognized and generally applied method (Koutroumanidis, et.al., 2004) although, according to Alphonce (1997), the ability of the AHP to analyze different decision factors without the need for a common numerate, other than the decision maker’s assessments, makes it one of the favorable multicriteria decision support tools when dealing with complex socioeconomic problems in developing countries. The PROMETHEE II method uses six types of general criteria with the corresponding criteria functions, in order to determine the superiority (outranking) between two alternative solutions. In our case, the aim was to determine the superiority of one Website over another. The general level test criterion was selected for this project, corresponding to a criterion function, which has an interval region for the determination of superiority (Brans and Vinke 1985; Roy 1991). The n collected Websites were examined in pairs as alternative solutions (ki, kj) with i=1,2,… ………n and j=1,2………n as to their supremacy, i.e. which of the two Websites excelled based on the criteria used. The function H(d), which was used to express superiority, was the following: P (vi, vj), outranking of Website vi, if d≥ 0 H (d) = { (1) P (vj, vi), outranking of Website vj, if d< 0 where P(vi, vj), P(vj, vi) are the functions of preference, and d is the difference between the values of each pair of Websites (vi, vj), for the criterion under evaluation. When we examined which of the two Websites (vi, vj) is superior, the superiority function H(d) was applied according to the value d (positive or negative) for each criterion. In this paper, we used the variables X1,….., Xn, which are the criteria
109
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites
described in Table 1. The variables are unambiguous and are marked with 0 and 1. For this reason, the function used is of linear form ρ=1. The multicriteria indicator of preference Π(vi, vj) which is a weighted mean of the preference functions P(vi, vj) with weights wi (for each criterion we have one weight) defined by the researcher, express the superiority of Website vi against Website vj after all the criteria have been tested. The values of Π(vi, vj) are calculated using the following equation (Brans et al 1987): k
Π (vi , v j ) =
⋅ Ρt (vi , v j )
∑W t =1
t
k
∑W
(2)
t
t =1
It should be mentioned that k=n is defined to be the number of criteria and Pi (vi, vj) the preference functions for the n criteria. The multicriteria preference indicator Π(vi, vj) takes values between 0 and 1. When two Websites (vi, vj) are compared, one is assigned two flow values: outgoing flow and incoming flow. The outgoing flow expresses the total superiority of Website vi against all other Websites vj for all criteria. The outgoing flow is calculated by the following equation (Baourakis et al 2001): Φ+ (vi ) =
∑ Π (v , v )
v j ∈A
i
j
(3)
In both cases, A is defined as the number of alternative solutions for Websites vi. The incoming flow expresses the total superiority of all other Websites vi against Website vj for all criteria. The incoming flow is determined by the following equation (Baourakis et al 2001) Φ− (vi ) =
110
∑ Π (v , v )
v j ∈A
i
j
(4)
The total net flow Φ for each Website vi is then estimated as their difference. The net flow for each Website vi is estimated by the following formula: Φ (vi ) = Φ+ (vi ) − Φ− (vi )
(5)
It is used for the comparison between the Websites in order to obtain the ranking, as each Website with a higher net flow is considered superior in ranking. Moreover, the total flows allow a further grouping of the cases using also the variable T. Finally, the variable T, representing the sum T of achieved criteria for each Website and the total net flow Φ for each Website is used for the classification of the Websites in groups. In the “optimum Group” are classified Websites that achieve the higher value of T, as representing the number of criteria t achieved and the higher total flows Φ. It is evident that these Websites present a “very high superiority” against the rest of the cases. This is identified to be the optimum group compared to all the other Websites concerning the existed criteria/ content Website features. Further, each group is also discussed in terms of collaborative criteria.
COLLABORATIVE WEBSITES OF TIMBER SMES IN GREECE As it concerns the timber SMEs in Greece, various enterprises, have a Website, with enhanced collaborative character. Recent research has revealed that Websites concerning forest products in Greece are still in the simple internet presence stage, a low e-commerce adoption stage, in a percentage of 34% (Andreopoulou et al., 2005). Within the same research, it is identified that 26% of these Websites are classified in the second stage of “interaction”. Further, 20% of the sites are classified in the third stage of “transaction” and, finally, only 20% of the retrieved Websites are classified in the final stage of “transformation”. Typology of
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites
agri-business in Greece provided similar findings concerning e-commerce adoption (Andreopoulou, et.al., 2008) as also in research concerning Websites that promote local regional development, usually through development agencies and their classification (Andreopoulou et.al., 2007). Regarding the application of PROMETHEE II, aiming to obtain ranking in the field of agriculture and environment, there are various research papers in Greece where the method is successfully applied (Koutroumanidis, et.al., 2002; Koutroumanidis et.al., 2004, Polyzos and Arabatzis, 2006) Moreover, assessment and ranking of e-commerce Websites and optimization of the conceptual framework is also presented in studies (Andreopoulou et.al., 2005, Andreopoulou et.al., 2008, Andreopoulou et.al. 2009, Andreopoulou et.al. 2009a). The adoption of collaborative e-commerce Websites promoting rural production within timber sector was studied for the case of Greece and the optimum group among the cases was identified to serve as a model while designing new Websites or updating existing ones. The Websites that were used for the research were collected from the Greek Internet with the use of proper search engines and key words concerning wood and timber trade, wood processing units, wood products, etc. The Websites represent commercial enterprises, usually SME in the wood and timber trade sector such as wood industries, wood processing and products units, timber trade enterprises, and wood products making use of e-commerce possibilities. There are registered 103 similar enterprises in Greece (National Statistics of Greece, 2001). Research through search engines on the Internet resulted in the retrieval of 44 Websites concerning enterprises in the Greek territory that trade timber, wood products, and/or wood processing etc. That represents a percentage of 42% among the total of similar enterprises in Greece that have already initiated e-commerce activities so far. Initially, qualitative analysis was performed in order to examine the type of common content that is
found in these Web pages; various Website features are necessary to be accounted while designing a collaborative Website for e-commerce purposes to formulate the conceptual content making the Website useful and attractive to return to. Then a quantitative analysis was carried out, in order to examine the presence or absence of common characteristics. There was a variety of material introduced in the retrieved Websites, aiming to promote the products and the enterprises. There were 13 Website features identified to be used as criteria. Additionally, a 2-dimentional table was developed and was used in order to examine the existence of criteria and evaluate the services/functions of the Websites, as it was previously described. For that purpose the values were attributed to variables X1 to X13, respectively. Whenever a criterion was achieved for a Website the value 1 was attributed to the respective variable aiming at justifying the relative function within the evaluation of the Website. The findings are presented in Table 2. The collaborative criteria represented by X9 to X13 have been highlighted. The achievement of each content characteristic in the retrieved Websites was analyzed and the total amount of content characteristics achieved in each Website was also studied. For each timber enterprise Website, the total number of present characteristics is attributed to a new variable; named T. Variable T presents the total of characteristics/achieved criteria 1 to 13 that are present in each Website. All of the cases of the retrieved Websites (100.0%) include detailed information about the products/services provided and that constitutes a key Website feature, as along with promotional informational material, guarantee certificates and ISO about production can be most attractive to Web customers. In a percentage of 90.9% of the timber Websites, there is identified promotional and informational material concerning the enterprise. Famous brand names are attractive and contact information features enhance online sales
111
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites
Table 2. Achievement of criteria/characteristics of the Websites (X9 to X13, shown in bold represent the collaborative criteria) URL
X1
X2
X3
X4
X5
X6
X7
X8
X9
X10
X11
X12
X13
T
Timbertrager.gr
1
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
6
Xylemporia.gr
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
3
Vernikoslines.com
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
Alfawood.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
Guhellas.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
7
Stassinopoulos-timber.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
4
Arbortimber.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
Fouras-messalas.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
Akritas.gr
1
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
6
Courva,gr
1
0
1
1
0
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
7
Mourikis.gr
1
0
0
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
7
Parke.gr
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
Shelman.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
5
Xylotomi.gr
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
0
0
0
0
4
0
0
0
0
4
Giotas.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
Topmaterial.gr
1
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
Al-co.gr
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
6
Xilodome.gr
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
Karabela.gr
1
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
Darmak.gr
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
5
Kollimenos.gr
1
0
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
0
1
1
8
Abex.gr
1
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
6
Kabawood.gr
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
12
Tsoukas-xyleia.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
Peristeropoulos.gr
1
0
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0
0
0
0
3
Tompoulidis.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
Gkanis.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
Eltop.gr
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
12
Papaderos.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
5
Gilas.gr
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
5
Nousiasbros.gr
1
0
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
5
Elaton.gr
1
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
6
Progresscom.gr
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
7
Timberwood.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
Wands.gr
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
12
Allwood.gr
1
0
1
1
1
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
10
0
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
0
3
Elvex.gr
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
Ntex.gr
1
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
continued on following page
112
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites
Table 2. continued URL
X1
X2
X3
X4
X5
X6
X7
X8
X9
X10
X11
X12
X13
T
Hithellas.gr
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
0
11
Xilia.gr
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
0
10
Gla.gr
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
1
0
1
0
8
Eco-bros.gr
1
0
1
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
4
Xylon.gr
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
7
Kastritsis.gr
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
as they allow the Web customer to easily communicate with the enterprise either online or physically. Information on transaction fulfillment and policy of the enterprise are found in 79,5% of the Websites. Locality in distribution centers, delivery policy, order fulfillment and payment policy are decisive factors for Web customers. The collaborative character of the Websites is enhanced with on line ordering forms and on line confirmation (50%), even succeeded via traditional ways of payment, on delivery, in the bank, etc However, only in the 18.2% of the cases the economic transaction can be fulfilled with on line payment using e-banking features. The “useful links” Website feature sometimes refer to other relative companies, firms, organizations, carriers, etc is found in 43.2%), an appealing Website feature for marketing research. Links included in the Website concerning relative issues, such as the local area information, carriers, the species of production are found in 34.1%, and is appealing for the Web customer because they strengthen the informational role of the Website apart from the promotional. Areas where access is allowed only for members through codes and passwords (code access) is identified in 15.9% of the cases and allow Web customers to access significant options, information and privileges, such as special offers, e-ordering, bonus, etc. In 29.5% of the Websites there is the possibility for personalization of the Website, a process where information is collected for regular Website visitors that buy from that
Website and they enjoy special treatment, additional information beyond their interests, etc, based on their prior data analysis. Yet, another interesting collaborative feature found in timber sales Websites is on line communities such as forums, news groups and chat rooms, which appear in 22.7% of the cases, allowing the enhanced collaborative character of the Website, as Web users are used in the new internet traditions. Third person advertisement is found in 20.5% of the cases, where banners, pop-ups and frame advertisement challenge visitors to furthermore purchase different products and services or to become members in advertisement lists, to receive information on emails, text messages, to win free gifts, to participate in raffles, etc. However, the less frequent Website feature that of current price-lists for the products or services of the enterprise, with 11.4%, although price-lists are useful for the Web customer, aiming to perform a market research, based on both rural products characteristics and prices. It is identified that the majority of the studied Websites (40.9%) achieve 3 to 4 criteria. These enterprises are really in a primal stage of e-commerce adoption, the stage of presence that ensures that the Website is accessible by Web users to only visit and interact with the interface in order to gain information. Additionally, 34% of the Website cases achieve 5, 6 and 7 criteria and they present an enhanced collaborative character. Finally, the optimum group derived from total ranking of the timber enterprises Websites using the multicriteria analysis PROMETHEE II is pre-
113
Optimizing Collaborative E-Commerce Websites
sented in Table 3. The same Table 3 also includes the total net flows estimated for each Website and it is used for the comparison between the Websites in order to obtain the ranking, as each Website with a higher net flow is considered superior in ranking. The total sum of achieved criteria T for each Website is also included in the table. According to these findings, the values estimated for total net flows Φ present a great spectrum of values between +13,242 to –9,740 and indicate a great difference concerning “superiority” between the first and the last case in the ranking of the enterprises’ Websites. Moreover, the total flows Φ of the enterprises’ Websites, as derived from the application of PROMETHEE II method, allow a further grouping of the cases and to generate 5 groups as described in the following section.
Discussion of Identified Groups The 5 groups of timber enterprise Websites that were identified are as follows:
Group-1: The “Optimum Group” In this group, six timber enterprises Websites are classified that achieve 10-12 criteria and they present a very high total flows (9,104 – 13,242) that present a “high superiority” against the rest Table 3. Total ranking of the Websites, sum of achieved criteria for each Website, total net flows and classification, in the optimum group-1 Total Ranking 1
URL of enterprise Wands.gr
T sum of Achieved criteria 12
Φ (total net flows) 13,24226409
2
Kabawood.gr
12
13,20479883
3
Eltop.gr
12
12,94066679
4
Hithellas.gr
11
11,551761
5
Allwood.gr
10
9,144272127
6
Xilia.gr
10
9,104408761
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of the cases. This is identified to be currently the optimum group compared to all the other Websites concerning the existed achieved characteristics T and net flows. These Websites also achieve criteria enhancing the collaborative character of the Website, such as online communities to promote communication among regular Website visitors (in 5 out of 6 enterprises classified in group-1), code access for improved privileges to users using ID, passwords, etc, third person advertisements through banners, etc to increase interactive character of the Website and variety, site personalization to give special treat to regular Website visitors who buy from the Website and additional information of interest for the Web customers. Consequently, they are more appealing to Web customers. 13.6% of the cases are classified in this group.
Group-2: The “Superior Group” In this group, seven timber enterprises Websites have been classified, that achieve 7-8 criteria and medium total flows (1,986 – 4,854) that present a “good superiority” against the rest of the cases. In group 2, 15.9% of the cases are classified. These Websites include mainly two collaborative Web tools, which is online communities and code access in most of the cases.
Group-3: The “Equilibrium Group” In this group, eight Websites of timber enterprises have been classified, that achieve 5-6 criteria and close to zero total flows (-0,989 – 0,845) that present an “equilibrium between superiority and lag” against the rest of the cases. In group 3 are classified 18.1% of the cases. They usually have only one collaborative Website feature that is personalization in most of the cases.
Group-4: The “Average Lag Group” In this group, eleven Websites of enterprises have been classified, that achieve 4-5 criteria and
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average negative total flows (-3,331) to (-1,072) that present an “average lag” against the rest of the cases. 25% of the cases have been identified in this group.
Group-5: The “High Lag Group” In that group are classified 11 Websites of enterprises that achieve 2-3 criteria and average negative total flows (-6,796) to (-4,538) that present a “high lag” against the rest of the cases. This group covers 25% of the cases. The Website Parke.gr, that only achieves 1 criterion, takes by far the last place in ranking with a very low total flow (-9,740) and present a “very high lag” towards the rest of the cases. That could possibly be identified as Group-6, including only 1 case, 2.2% of the cases. Groups 4 and 5 are mainly promotional informational Websites with total lack of collaborative characteristics, hence they do not allow the Web customers to collaborate and interact through the net. Both groups 4 and 5 represent 50% of the cases studied in this research presenting an average to high lag, meaning that half of the Websites present a lag, achieve few criteria, adopt no collaborative Web tools and occupy negative total net flows.
Solutions and Recommendations Through a methodology for qualitative Website evaluation, six Websites are classified in the optimum group-1, with 10-12 criteria and they appear to have a high superiority against the rest of the cases. These Websites can be used to form a conceptual content model while Web designing an enhanced collaborative Website for a rural production enterprise. The model can be a prototype while developing a Website for a rural production enterprise in its initial involvement in e-commerce activities aiming to expand from the physical store and acquire a virtual storefront. Moreover, the collaborative character of the Website should be enhanced while in the process of improving
an existing Website for e-commerce purposes. Websites classified in groups 4, 5 and 6 with the worse total ranking, few achieved criteria and no achieved collaborative Web criteria, should be optimized to become e-commerce Websites with a collaborative character promoting rural production, for enhanced online sales, increased number of regular Website visitors and Website members. Many Website design tools are available free on the Web; however, the Web designers should realize the necessity for introducing collaborative Web tools in their Websites aiming to reinforce repetitive Web visitors, who are yet accustomed to these Website features from everyday internet culture, portals and social networks.
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS E-commerce Websites have to adjust in the new “digital era”. Enterprises in the rural production sector, usually SME, have to contemplate their drawbacks while entering the internet and they need to improve their net appearance aiming to become more efficient and profitable. New internet marketing techniques should be incorporated in e-commerce Websites aiming to become more appealing to Web customers. Collaborative Website features should be introduced to the e-commerce Websites, as that is the emerging internet trend. If enterprise managers realize that their target audience requests applications such as e-mail, stock market information, newsgroups, free software downloads, searching capabilities, those applications need to be incorporated at this stage of Website design (Clarke and Flaherty 2003). Among the basic guidelines for identifying requirements throughout the process of designing a Website are the deep understand about the end users and the environment and context in which the e-commerce Website will be used.
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CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
The optimum group of e-commerce Websites that is identified is characterized by a number of informational, promotional and collaborative criteria achieved, therefore they represent currently the characteristics and Website features that should be incorporated while designing a model Website, given the specific rural production issue. The optimization process which is the finding of an alternative content model with the highest achievable performance under the given constraints by maximizing desired factors, in our case the collaborative Web tools is also cost-effective in the case of e-commerce Websites. Concerning the obstacles and drawbacks for e-commerce adoption in rural production sector, increased e-commerce adoption in agricultural sector probably will need more time than initially anticipated. Net users are highly accustomed to social networking, online communities, internet advertisement, etc and they enjoy the use of collaborative tools while accessing a Website on the internet. Collaborative Web tools should be incorporated to e-commerce Websites, especially as rural areas enterprises regarding rural production sector, being away from central markets, can be benefited from the client communication services provided by the Internet. The identification of the optimum group of ecommerce Websites through the above described multi criteria methodology in accordance to their collaborative Web tools included, will be a useful standard for benchmarking the conceptual framework while Web designing for rural production, either initially involved with e-commerce activities or to further update or expand their e-commerce activities in internet distribution of rural production, aiming to create a useful even more familiar Website to regularly visit.
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Subramanian, G. H., & Iyigungor, A. C. (2008). Information systems in supply chain management: A comparative case study of three organizations. International Journal of Business Information Systems, 1(4), 370–386. doi:10.1504/ IJBIS.2006.008955 Tang, Y.-S., & Wang, T.-I. (2004). Assessing customer perceptions on Website service quality in digital marketing environments. In Mahmood, M. A. (Ed.), Advanced topics in end-user computing, 3. Hershey, PA: Idea Group, Inc. Vlachopoulou, M., & Manthou, V. (2006). Enterprise resource planning (ERP) in a construction company. International Journal of Business Information Systems, 1(3), 339–351. doi:10.1504/ IJBIS.2006.008603 World Bank. (2003). ICT and millennium development goals. WB Group’s Global ICT Department. Retrieved from http://www.worldbank.org Zopounidis, C. (2001). Analysis of financing decisions with multiple criteria. Thessaloniki, Greece: Anikoula Publications.
ADDITIONAL READING Doumpos, M., & Zopounidis, C. (2002). Multicriteria Decision Aid Classification Methods. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Kalogeras, N., Baourakis, G., Zopounidis, C., & VanDijk, G. (2005). Evaluating the financial performance of agri-food firms: a multicriteria decision-aid approach. Journal of Food Engineering, 70(3), 365–371. doi:10.1016/j. jfoodeng.2004.01.039 Pomerol, J.C & Barba-Romero, S. (2000). Multicriterion decision in management: Principles and Practice. Operational Research. Management Science. Kluwer’s International series.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Collaborative Web Tools: Special software provided through the Web, allowing a group of net users to collaborate having access simultaneously to the same data, also groupware E-Commerce Website: A Website especially designed to serve the needs of an enterprise trading products or services through the Web E-Commerce: E-commerce, electronic commerce or EC, is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet Multicriteria Analysis: Statistical analysis where multiple criteria/variables are used concurrently Optimization: The procedure or procedures used to make a system or design as effective or functional as possible, especially the mathematical techniques involved, by maximizing desired factors and minimizing undesired ones Ranking: Relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either ‘ranked higher than’, ‘ranked lower than’ or ‘ranked equal to’ the second. Rural Production: Production from rural areas Timber Trade: Trade of timber or lumber Timber: Wood that is used in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction Web Design: The creation of Web pages, especially in terms of layout and presentation, the skill of creating presentations of content (usually hypertext or hypermedia) that is delivered to an end-user through the WWW Website: Evaluation: methods and techniques aiming to assess and evaluate a Website towards certain criteria and characteristics Website Feature: Specific characteristic of a Website either technical or content type
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Chapter 9
Online Grocery Provision Resistance: Understanding Urban (Non) Collaboration and Ambiguous Supply Chain Environments Ronan de Kervenoael Sabanci University, Turkey & Aston University, UK Burcin Bozkaya Sabanci University, Turkey Mark Palmer University of Birmingham, UK
ABSTRACT This chapter investigates the resistance by institutional actors in ambiguous supply chain environments for online grocery provision. Recent studies have shown that significant shifts in urban geographies are increasing consumers’ expectations of online retail provision. However, at the same time there is also growing evidence that the collaborative practice in online grocery provision within the urban supply chains is resisted. That these trends are found despite growing demand of online provision highlights both the difficulty of bringing geographically dispersed supply partners together and the problems associated with operating within and across ambiguous environments. Drawing upon twenty-nine in-depth interviews with a range of institutional actors, including retail, logistics, and urban planning experts within an urban metropolis in an emerging market, we detail the different ways that collaboration is resisted in online retail provision. Several different patterns of resistance were identified in (non-) collaboration notably, ideological, functional, regulatory and spatial.
INTRODUCTION There is no doubt that institutions are becoming more and more collaborative in nature. Col-
laboration, it seems, is the ‘thing to do’ for the contemporary institutions, as affirmed by the burgeoning supply chain literature on this specific topic. The thrust of the collaboration argument
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch009
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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is that the firm can “leverage benefits to achieve common goals” (Bowersox et al, 2000). Studies show that the shift from arm’s length supply chain relationships – defined by minimal information exchange, separate technological and functional systems – to long term collaborative relationships and is now well underway in practice and is equally well documented in the academic literature (Simatupang and Sridharan, 2005; Sheu et al.,2006). Empirically, moreover, collaboration within the supply chain has been proven to have many competitive benefits including: decreased inventory, reduced cost and improved customer satisfaction through increased delivery speed and flexibility (Chou et al, 2004). This collaboration allows firms to respond and adjust according to consumers’ expectations for food provision (Clarke, 2000; de Kervenoael et al, 2006). Within this research programme the meaning of collaboration, and its conceptualization within the supply chain literature, is now routinely taken to be self-evident, even deproblematized, rather than contradictory with individual strategy-making and bound with tensions and conflict. This view places an emphasis on what firms should do, rather than what firms actually do in practice when collaborating with partners. There is comparatively little evidence that firms resist supply chain market driving collaboration practice when shaping customers’ expectations and markets through market-driving behaviour (Jaworski et al., 2000). However, as Jarzabkowski and Wilson (2002) cogently pointed out, what strategists say they do (or write in all-embracing partnership mission statements, multi-lateral contracts, annual reports or company web pages) and what they actually do in practice whilst strategizing, may be substantially different. In addition the pejorative of resistance is usually negative; frequently interpreted as an unintended outcome, or failure to implement change successfully, or a misunderstanding of merits of fully appreciating collaboration. It is rarely seen as a dimension of market-driving behaviour, part of entrepreneurial deviance, or as an outcome of
dynamic and disruptive innovation, which shapes consumers’ expectations and defines environment boundaries of emerging markets. It is contended that resistance plays an integral part of collaborative supply chain practice; that is, market driving behavior is a contested practice that explores and maps out the market possibilities and, which in turn, shapes consumers’ expectations. We argue in this chapter that understanding the practice of resistance is an important dynamic in an institutional setting, not least because of its powerful effect on development of the places and spaces. Overall, whenever collaborative issues are examined within the supply chain literature, they are almost exclusively concerned with the ‘back end spaces’ and the ‘upstream activities’ with the effective integration of suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses and stores, rather than ‘front end spaces’ and the downstream hinterlands around consumer provision and consumption activities. The twentieth century legacy of policy makers and academics from the ‘de-industrialization problem’ – the so-called ‘rust belt’ phenomenon – has been a burgeoning body of research which is curiously at odds with the new industries, new emerging markets, new online firms and new online consumption practice driving and shaping the contemporary global marketplace (e.g. the culture economy). Traditionally, business academic research, and supply chain management scholars in particular, remain either enamoured by upstream industrial production-led manufacturing and supply chains, which are driven by selective bias arising from traditional path dependent research agendas, or, ontologically, research agendas that are prejudiced towards the so-called ‘elite knowledge industries’ (e.g. software, finance)1. If nothing else, the Western financial crisis during 2008 and the market contagion developing in its wake has shown the vulnerability and temporality of the so-called knowledge ‘based’ industries. Similarly, the consumer marketing literature has become rather narrow in its scope, dominated by the wholesale importation of ideas from (social)
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psychology, and is now relatively detached from its home provinces of food agriculture, distribution, retailing, and channels, from which the field emerged during the 1950s. Furthermore, from a supply chain perspective, research in the information and technology (IT) field has been usually limited to the technical challenges associated with data integrity and synchronization, user interface, scalability and standardization issues (Hsiao, 2003), neglecting the role of IT artefacts as potential sites of institutional work and the various ways that actors can recreate and reshape institutional processes through IT (see the Orlikowski and Yates, 1994 for an exception). More often than not, existing theories of food choice across a number of subject fields fail to consider the actual practice of consumption, the dynamic forces and the institutional constraints involved in developing provision, or the unintended outcomes of collaborative practice, beyond supplier chain integration, store choice and product price. At the same time, the institutional urban geo-demographics for online consumers, specifically in large metropolises and in the ambiguous environments of emerging markets, is changing rapidly. Ambiguous environments are defined as ones where there is a lack of clarity such that it is difficult to distinguish the central features of opportunities (Santos and Eisenhardt 2009). One aspect of this ambiguity can be seen in the privatization of public spaces and the creation of secured ‘cité’s within the city. Settlement areas from the traditional core city centres are shifting to wider urban areas, or regenerated areas, resulting in the transformation of the settlement structures from informal small dwellings to secured guarded luxury complexes (e.g. the so-called ‘gated communities’). Despite – or perhaps because of – a rather opaque form of urban planning and retail infrastructure development for new dwellings, which often emerges after the initial settlement is created (Punakivi and Saranen, 2001), the remits of the main actors, namely online retailers, logistic firms and urban planners are converg-
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ing, and are increasingly interconnected by the emerging local geography and consumption. Together, consumers’ trading-up expectations and the rapid development of new modes of dwelling are stretching the capacity of the online retail business operating models. Two operational models dominate the market – in-store picking and the distribution centre. Extant studies have now begun to question whether both models are operationally ill-equipped, individually, to account for the changing demography, growing choice and increasing expectations for online provision. Any analysis of the development of urban online grocery provision must accordingly account for the (non-) collaboration between these actors. The purpose of this chapter is therefore to identify crucial gaps in current approaches to traditional supply chain collaborative practice and to develop a more holistic perspective that fills the gaps. This new perspective proposes that an appreciation of the ways that actors resist collaborative practice is an essential part of understanding food provision. In order to achieve this, we develop an understanding of the issues online retailers, urban planners and logistic providers typically experience during the transformation of urban settlement infrastructures and, specifically, how they respond to the new demographic and lifestyle found in the gated communities around the world metropolis for online grocery provision. A triangulation of actor experiences is fundamental to understanding resistance practice that constrain, inhibit or prevent collaboration. The initial findings of twenty nine phone interviews conducted with experts (i.e. over 10 years of experience) in online retailing, logistics and urban planning are presented. Three gaps have been identified in the literature. First, published work has almost exclusively focused on the integration and operationalisation of ex ante and pre-selected trading partners rather than an ambiguous institutional setting whereby online retailers are compelled to deliver choice driven by expressed online consumers’ demands,
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but also latent customer needs. In doing so, we investigate the resistance within collaborative practice amongst supply chain partners. Second, there has been limited consideration regarding the potential contribution of urban planners as proactive regulators in shaping (non-) collaborations for online grocery provision. This chapter identifies important urban-related factors in the dynamics of (non-) collaboration within the supply chain that have been downplayed or neglected in much of the existing literature. Third, while online grocery services are discussed mainly in developed economies, there has been minimal analysis of the phenomena in emerging regions, which fail to take into account the creation of new management practice out of selective adaptation within emerging institutional settings. The chapter is organized as follows. In the first section we review the existing literature on resistance in the context of supply chain collaboration. A scenario model is then developed as the basis for priming our respondents on supply chain partnerships for urban online grocery provision. The empirical data is preceded by an explanation of the research methods. Finally, we discuss emerging theoretical contributions and policy implications of deepening collaboration among trading partners, in the specific context of emerging markets and for rapidly developing urban areas such as Istanbul.
LITERATURE REVIEW Supply chain collaboration has been accredited to several business performance enhancing dimensions – for example, lowering risk, time reduction and quality increment, dependability and global sourcing (Mentzer et al, 2001). Collaboration is costly however; firms must commit resources to redesign internal organizational and technical resource processes to advance and deepen this collaborative practice. From an operations perspective, particularly in multi-unit distributed firms,
global sourcing represents an important dimension of increasing choice and provision. Historically, the provision of goods has been operation supplyled and often organized in a linear fashion and driven in a sales orientated way. Along the supply chain a shift of power is occurring however; initially towards retailers as large-scale buyers and as the main gate keeping sourcing agents, but increasingly towards the online consumers as the ultimate buyers and users. Although supply chain collaborations have allowed greater information flow, disintermediation, flexibility and the breaking of inter-organizational boundaries to form extended organizations, choice is still restricted to what is on offer inside each store/organization. In effect, choice is determined by the retail buying department, whether on a regional, national or global basis. Regardless of the proactive supplier initiatives, this traditional paradigm does not necessarily reflect the emerging interests of online consumption. Arguably consumption-led choice pressures are now shaping and driving supply chains in ways that requires more mutual operational adjustment. In general, having a ‘good’ choice of product and innovative services, and a variety of lifestyle solutions tailored to individual consumers, constitutes an important dimension that influences consumption practice (Kirkup et al., 2004; Garling & Axhausen, 2003; Clarke, 2000; 2004; de Kervenoael et al, 2006). To a considerable extent, these studies debate “what constitutes choice …[and conclude that it]… is how different consumers themselves perceive and experience new …[and]… and existing retail provision” (Clarke et al, 2006, p28). Significantly though, consumer perceptions of what constitutes choice are changing and this bears directly on the nature of the supply chain collaboration. In addition to considerable regional variation, supply chain partners must be able to account for contexts in which both local and global choices are simultaneously important (the so-called best-of-both-worlds and hybridization trend), and to capture the complexity
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and mixtures of consumer choice across different institutional and cultural settings. Not surprisingly consumption-led choice pressures are fostering distinctive forms of online business challenges. New aspirational lifestyles are encouraging consumers to think about new food fashions, to seek variety and experimentation, to discover novel approaches for preparation, and ultimately go beyond traditional tastes and conventions. For example, food consumption immediately links to a range of issues: (i) health, food safety and food miles; (ii) lifestyle statements from variety (e.g. locally produced, seasonal items, fair trade, environmental concerns) and from depth of the range, not only based on price point but also on assortment possibilities (iii) social networks and the exchange of culinary ideas and practices with each other. Contemporary food consumption is therefore inherently complex social phenomenon, which cannot be simply framed as a ‘choice’ question. With this in mind, we frame it more broadly as ‘online provision’ and we define it as the operation management integration of handling, convenience, deal and collection point market opportunities that enable online shopping and realize online consumers’ expectations. The ensuing consumption-led activity and the associated business supply pressures involved has made collaboration even more arduous, yet even important for building provision. This form of collaboration has moved beyond the control of online retailers, requires decentralized and less hierarchical organizational structures and is dynamically (co-) created by online consumers. In turn, it is expected that online provision will result in a seamless flow (one consolidated delivery) rather than in a sequential fashion (multiple daily delivery for the same online consumer). At this point, some technical challenges need to be mentioned but remain beyond the scope of this chapter. These include data integrity and synchronization, quality of the automated interorganizational system, user interface, scalability, control, technology alignment and standardization
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(Hsiao, 2003). In this new demanding and competitive setting, this will require management commitment to collaboration from all trading partners and underpinned by openness to innovation and trust, as suggested in the supply chain literature (Lewis and Talalayevsky, 1997). Significantly, in an emerging market where foreign retail competition is less developed (i.e. Carrefour and lately Tesco are an exception, while Wal-Mart has not entered the Turkish market yet) retailers may find an innovation acceptable in principle but may decide not to adopt it at that point in time. Resistance to web-collaboration thus can occur at various levels, including (i) responsibility sharing, (ii) management execution, (iii) performance measurement, (iv) planning, (v) inventory policy, (vi) pricing, (vii) service level, and (viii) IT standardization. In many cases the decision to collaborate (or not) is not final, and thus the situation is similar to Greenleaf and Lehmann’s (1995) ‘‘delay”, as a form of resistance. In parallel, the technology literature bears directly on the issue, as Ram and Sheth (1989) has suggested. Here, resistance is a response based on a conscious choice (Szmigin & Foxall, 1998), defined by Ram and Sheth (1989, p.6) as ‘‘the resistance offered by …[individuals]… to an innovation, either because it poses potential changes from a satisfactory status-quo or because it conflicts with their belief structure.” A much debated aspect regarding online supply chain collaboration for online grocers relates to questions of access in any given territory (i.e. how many online retailers deliver in a given place?) and also who is ultimately responsible for the order? Attention is given to those questions precisely because of the characteristics of groceries (i.e. refrigeration, established brand preference, tactile / visual / odorous characteristics) and non-food items sold in supermarkets that require regular restocking. From this operational level, a unique set of resistance patterns are visible amongst supply chain partners. These include the consideration of (i) the usage of new technological tools such as
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RFID and global positioning system (GPS) tracking, (ii) regular outsourcing of the delivery function, and (iii) possible association and partnership collaboration strategies to widen accessibility and stock keeping unit’s (SKU) choices. At this level, disparities among supply chain partners must not to be under-estimated. This is neatly captured by the President of the Turkish Logistics Association who stated that “IT infrastructures in the domestic logistics firms were not strong. Usage of ERP, key performance indicators (KPIs) and advanced technologies in SCM programmes were nearly non-existent. Essential operation programmes like storage management, transport management and barcode systems were not used by most of the firms. Firms had to invest in upgrading technologies for all of their operations”. Yet, investment requires market confidence, visibility and often alliances (Yıldıztekin, 2005). Another important dimension of collaborative practice is the rhetoric which accommodates and constructs collaboration amongst partners. This is most visible in the rhetorical expressions between ‘partners’; for example “yours” and not “ours” and “it is the local regulation”, “you may not do this here”, “it is your role” that illustrate this boundary setting and spanning role (Pile and Keith, 1997). Rhetorical strategies are therefore used by individual partners to define and reinforce institutional boundaries – what Wainwright (2007) called the “entanglements of power”. Rhetoric is also important for confidence inducing cues, particularly in nascent market institutional settings, where there is a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity and where the act collaborating may induce confidence from ‘being there’ with others, together. For the three actors – retailers, logistic firms and urban planners – institutional supporting cues (i.e. voice within consortia, associations), leadership signals from press releases and media buzz surrounding news stories of market driving innovation resulting from collaboration are important. At the same time it is nonetheless easy to overlook the fact that economic possibilities and
rewards can stretch visions, resources and capabilities to a point where individual interests may resist collaborative practice. As Scherer (1980) explains, firms may compete for jurisdictional control by constructing barriers for entry and forging monopolistic and oligopolistic advantage in a particular technology or geographical market. In the management literature, resistance is characterized by Collinson (1994, p49) as a behavior that “challenges, disrupts or inverts prevailing assumptions, discourses and power relations.” Studies tend to portray resistance as a disrupting force whereby many potential trading partners are seen as non-participative, which, in turn, undermines, erodes, impedes the collaborative practice for driving a market agenda (Knights and McCabe, 2000; Fleming, 2005). Yet, frequently the most challenging aspect of resistance acts is the way that it can remain indirect, underground, underlying the strategic partner planning process of the firms (Prasad and Prasad, 2000). In this, resistance can remain covert and hard to untangle from the everyday institutional work of supply chain partners. Developing this conceptual connection, Haynes and Prakash (1991, p3) point out that resistance is bound up with domination and all those “behaviors and cultural practices by subordinates groups that contest hegemonic social formation, that threaten to unravel the strategies of domination”. Yet another important dimension of collaboration is that the operational models are often built on the outsourced business approach – in effect outsourcing logistics and delivery operations. From this perspective, the work by Oreg (2003, 2006) is insightful in that it identifies six drivers of resistance that may affect collaborative practice (i) reluctance to lose control, when the control is lost by changes imposed rather than being self-initiated; (ii) cognitive rigidity where trait of dogmatism affects individual’s approach to change; (iii) lack of psychological resilience which is the thought of change entailing a loss of face by admitting that past practices were
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faulty; (iv) intolerance to the adjustment period involved in change; (v) preference for low levels of stimulation and novelty indicates weaker need for novel stimuli; (vi) reluctance to give up old habits that constitutes a comfort zone, “familiarity breeds comfort”. Supplementing the above literature review on collaborative resistance, we now present a scenario model that departs from the dominant operational models. It therefore frames the basis of understanding the different ways that resistance arises from collaborative ventures in practice.
A SCENARIO MODEL FOR BUILDING URBAN ONLINE GROCERY PROVISION In order to analyze supply chain partnership collaboration, we develop a scenario model that is used to explore resistance towards collaborative practice in building urban online grocery provision. While the mathematical resolution of our proposed model and legal insurance aspects for partners remain beyond the scope of this chapter, this scenario model, or framework, is used as a way to prime our respondents in terms of the likely resistance faced by supply chain partners in the collaboration for online grocery provision. Scenario models are important social stimuli and are frequently used to elicit responses, particularly when there may be strategic response bias. The first part of the scenario model is a modern lifestyle requirement. This scenario model proposes a high demand for goods entitled ‘premium’ (e.g. organic fresh vegetable, fish, special occasion products), and which are typically not available from the supermarket range and must be retrieved from elsewhere in the supply network. That way, in order to accomplish this work there must be an enhanced collaborative supply chain partnering approach, whereby premium goods are acquired from (possibly different) vendors/suppliers at multiple locations in the supply network and
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delivered to each customer’s designated delivery address as one order. This scenario is particularly insightful not least because of the likely cynicism (which is a form of resistance) arising from the notion of premium choice within an emerging market. That is to say, individual partners may take a stand that online consumers, particularly in a developing market, are only interested in low price and will not be ready to pay extra. This part of the scenario model can leverage potentially higher profit margins from selling premium goods and a greater variety of goods. We extend the traditional models by including additional vendor and supply warehouse locations in our logistics network (Bozkaya et al., 2009). A customer who orders fresh fish, organic food, regional products, complementing boutique items or a specialty gift item is accommodated by rerouting the corresponding delivery truck to the area where these goods can be picked up and combined with the rest of the customer’s shopping bag(s). While this usually means additional cost on the logistics side (because of employing more trucks or running longer routes), we offset this cost by the improved profit margin obtained from selling the premium goods. We find that this can only be achieved if there is enough customer order volume. This result makes it even more important to consider delivering near-truck-load orders to large housing complexes (see the case of Istanbul in methodology). The second part of the scenario model proposes that any store may be used as the locus of provision. Traditionally, the proximity of the store (or hubs) is usually chosen for online grocery provision. This scenario model would further enhance flexibility within the system in terms of avoiding trolley picking in a particularly busy store and further integrate technology by accommodating specific events (e.g. road works, road accidents) that could potentially disturb the usual delivery route. It would also take into account congestion and non-equitable workload at different locations ensuring consistency in the service quality. Re-
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sistance may appear as tension between offline store managers fulfilling only part of a given order regarding, for example, responsibilities in case of returned products or customer complains. It is acknowledged that individual stores are often managed independently even if under the same group. The third part of the scenario model is the use of collection and delivery points (CDPs). Collection and delivery points permit users to return and collect their online shopping (Fernie and McKinnon, 2004; McLeod et al 2006). A collection and delivery point can be unattended (for example, the shared reception box concept) in the form of locker points, or attended usually located in service points. However, without control at the unmanned collection and delivery point, online supermarkets may deliberately resist this practice or pass the cost onto other partners. Traditional collection and delivery points have experimented with shops-in-shops formats, locations and sites at petrol stations, post offices, community centers, tobacconists, underground stations and schools. Here, resistance drivers can be psychological as in effect online retailers may be perceived by consumers as selling their products in another shop. Although this method has been heralded cost savings (e.g. mileage, environmental, time, capacity utilization) and the possibility of link shopping, it is still not making the most efficient use of the local terrain. This model scenario proposes that orders are consolidated from various providers, through the use of collection and delivery points, providing critical mass and worthiness for online consumers to be present at the final collection and delivery point. Resistance may be expressed as animosity from competitive rivalry interaction, as online supermarkets must effectively work with their competitors allowing online consumers to cherry pick products from different websites. This scenario model is essentially an extension of the traditional store picking grocery delivery model. In that model, when a customer orders
online, the goods are typically fetched from the store nearest to the customer’s delivery address and delivered to the customer. Mathematical models not only decide from which store to deliver to customers, but in what order, as well as determining which store(s) to convert from a traditional brickand-mortar store to a “click-and-mortar” store. For instance, Aksen and Altinkemer (2008) propose a model to solve a location-routing problem for companies who wish to operate on the Internet as an online retailer. This model determines which store(s) to convert into an online delivery sourcing store as well as the actual routing plan. Other models attempt to produce efficient solutions for online retailers in handling the online requests. For instance, Scott and Scott (2006) point out the vulnerability of a sourcing store to congestion due to online orders, and propose a mathematical model that aims to strike a balance between traditional shoppers and online customers. Campbell and Savelsbergh (2005) offer customers, incentives to choose more flexible time windows and reserve the right to accept or reject an online order for profit maximization purposes, given the order’s preferred delivery time slot. More recently, Zhu et al. (2010) attempt to seek logistics cost improvements by merging supplier-to-producer trips with producer-to-consumer trips, where the producer can interchangeably be considered as the online retailer in our context. This is one step beyond the traditional view of modeling and it is optimizing an extended part of the supply chain as a more integrated approach. Another part of the scenario model is the utilization of multiple trucks, or multiple fleets that may choose to synchronize their movements to complete the items on a customer’s shopping list. While most items are picked up from a store, others (premium ones) can be fetched from different vendors using multiple trucks. These trucks will then meet at what we call “transfer points” also regarded as collection and delivery points (CDPs) to consolidate items from multiple vendors into
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one delivery. Transfer points can be existing stores, large parking lots with secured rented space, or entrance of large housing complexes. Transfer points may be used for two purposes: immediate transfer of goods from one truck to another, and/ or storage, for a limited time period, partial orders delivered by one truck until the main delivery truck arrives and consolidates the order. Our scenario model accommodates both of these uses. The above problem settings can be recognized as variants of the well-known vehicle routing problem, which is studied extensively in the operations research and management science literature. Variants of the problem include the cases with or without delivery time windows, vehicle capacities, deterministic or stochastic order locations, split deliveries, and simultaneous pick-up and delivery among many others. We refer the interested reader to the surveys by Nagy and Salhi (2005, 2007), Parragh et al (2008a, 2008b) and Braysy and Gendreau (2005a, 2005b), as the details of these problems and the associated models are beyond the scope of this chapter.
METHODOLOGY The purpose of this chapter was to gather nuanced, institutional embedded insights, into the ways that actors resist collaboration between different supply chain partners. These insights were gathered from eliciting and triangulating the opinions of twenty nine experts (i.e. over 10 years in average of experience), including online retailers (n=15), logistic firms (n=7) and urban planners (n=7) in Istanbul (see the respondent profile in Table 1). Respondents were asked, through a 60 to 120 minutes semi-structured phone interview, their perceptions and understanding on the possible resistance patterns, forms and drivers faced when trying to develop online grocery provision through supply chain collaboration practice.
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The first set of questions was intended to define the general context and understanding of each respondent regarding issues within supply chain collaborative practice. As a subsequent starting point, a discussion of the challenges and opportunities to build and strengthen collaboration between the various actors was used, in conjunction with the scenario model as outlined above. The second set of questions was aimed at identifying and classifying different types of possible collaborative resistance patterns already identified in the literature (see Appendix: Survey Instrument). This formed the basis for probing each participant (see Miles and Huberman, 1994; Preissle et al, 1994 for an extended summary) and subsequently Yin’s (1994) pattern matching strategy was followed. The findings and analysis proceed concurrently with theorizing (Merriam, 1998). First, all interviews were transcribed and translated in English using standards back to back methodology. One author acted as a translator for all interviews to allow similar sentences and wording patterns to be consistent allowing greater interpretative validity. Translated interviews were checked for consistency by their respective respondent if they understood English. Specific efforts were made regarding the recording of extra noting reflections, anecdotes, examples and side remarks made by respondents to uncover potential more salient strategies of resistance not to corrupt message content. Second, each interview was analyzed separately as soon as it was conducted sorting material to identify similar sentences, wording, pattern of thinking and argumentation, justification and logic. Analysis of early interviews allowed later interviews to benefit from the preliminary insights into the data (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). The data were then analyzed as a whole. A peer evaluation of coding among authors was used whereby each emerging theme was discussed in depth in an iterative spiral process (Flint and Woodruff, 2001). The findings were then re-interpreted in view of
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Table 1. Respondents’ profile Company Profile Respondent Company Tesco Kipa
Title Manager
Age Range
Sector
Establishment year
35-40
Retail
1992
Dupont
Sourcing & Logistics Specialist
25-30
Retail
1992
Omsan Logistics
Specialist
25-30
Logistics
1978
Omsan Logistics
Specialist
25-30
Logistics
1978
Philip Morris
Analyst
30-35
Retail
1991
Şenpiliç Gıda Sanayi A.Ş.
Manager
30-35
Retail
1978
Borusan Logistics
Manager
40-45
Logistics
1973
Unilever
Logistics Manager
30-35
Retail
1953
Horoz Logistics
Strategy development&IT manager
30-35
Logistics
1942
Johnson&Johnson
Logistics Manager+Sales Manager
35-40
Retail
Bahçivan Gıda
Logistics Manager
40-45
Retail
1956
Düzey Pazarlama
Logistics Department Coordinator
30-35
Logistics
1975
Ekol Lojistik
Warehousing-Contract Logistics
25-30
Logistics
1990
Frito Lay Gıda Sanayi ve Ticaret
Manufacturing Plant-Logistics Manager
30-35
Retail
1993
Coca Cola
Brand Manager-Marketing Department
25-30
Retail
1964
Kaanlar Gıda Sanayi ve TAŞ.
Project and R&D Director
30-35
Retail
1978
Danone
Sales Specialist
30-35
Retail
1997
Nestle
Sales Development Manager
30-35
Retail
1927
Retail
1945
Retail
1980
Retail
1924
Taciroğlu-Peysan Gıda A.Ş.
Sales Coordinator
40-45
Altıparmak Gıda Sanayi ve Kolektif Şirketi
Project and Sales Deputee Manager+ Sales Coordinator
35-40
Elit Çikolata ve Şekerleme
Logistics Specialist
30-35
TNT
Internal
30-35
Logistics
2000
Bayrampaşa Municipality
Urban and zoning director
45-50
Urban Planning
-
Vektör
Urban planner
40-45
Urban Planning
2005
Bayrampaşa Megacenter
Executive director- structure inspector
40-45
Urban Planning
1984
Bayrampaşa Megacenter Operating Director
Çanta and Kınalı Municipalities Department of Science affairs ex-manager
50-55
Urban Planning
1984
Mukhtar
Mukhtar
40-45
Urban Planning
-
İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality
Urban planner
40-45
Urban Planning
İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality
Urban planner
35-40
Urban Planning
the theoretical background with a focus on flexibility and context. Variance among respondents, evolution and dependence on one another was sought. Constant themes, idiosyncratic situations and linkages between issues were made explicit. The findings presented here remain exploratory.
Institutional Setting Turkey, Istanbul One particular danger of exploring supply chain partnering from a macro level lies in “the possibility of eclipsing the situated practices through
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which identities and places are contested, produced and re-worked in particular localities” (Pile and Keith, 1997 p. 87). Regarding the macro retail infrastructure in Turkey, it has been reported that the number of hypermarkets and supermarkets has quadrupled between the years 1998 and 2008, increasing from 2,135 to 8,252 stores. Meanwhile, the number of small grocers declined 23 percent in the same period, from 155,000 to 113,000 stores (Hurriyet Daily News, 2009). Alongside this trend, the 2000s has seen a tremendous growth in Internet usage (a recorded 700 percent growth experienced between 2000 and 2007) and a rapid increase in online shopping activity across Turkey, but particularly within the urban areas. In 2008, for example, over 16 million users were online with total sales of USD 200 million (Aydin, 2007). From a socio-geographical distribution of consumers in Istanbul (see figure 1), the prime catchment individuals (e.g. time-poor, cash-rich) increasingly live in newly developed micro-concentrated areas around the city. The city currently has over 12 million inhabitants growing at a rate of 500,000 a year over the last 10 years. Planning has become a key issue to prevent the development of overnight dwellings in non-authorized areas. While Istanbul is split between Europe and Asia, traffic currently flows over two bridges with an average road speed below 30Kms and forecasted to be 21Kms within two years, greatly impacting logistic businesses. Social services such as schools, hospitals, public transport and police or basic utilities such as water, electricity, gas and sanitation networks are under-developed and under-funded. Daily delivery of goods and services is mainly unregulated, creating competing traffic with commuters and, at times, virtual gridlock. Cost of infrastructure maintenance and provision is not coordinated leading to exploitation of the system especially in areas regarding parking for business usage (i.e. triple lane parking of delivery vans and trucks at any time) and new road construction often driven through political lobbying rather than need (Tokatli and Boyaci, 1998).
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Still as in many metropolises both in emerging and developed economies, the restructuring of the city over the last ten years has led to the majority of dwellings in Istanbul following three main genres. The first type encompasses individual homes or apartments without any security or common/shared services. These are usually located in the old city centre; tend to be older, in small streets with little parking space and large amount of surrounding traffic. Yet, opportunities to serve and deliver online orders to these relatively heterogeneous consumers through collaboration in few large underground car parks are present. These underground spaces can potentially be used as drop-off points and short-term storage areas. The second group represents small complexes of 25-30 dwellings with security often classified as regenerated inner city areas in developed economies. The third group represents large complexes with up to 200 dwellings often located in land reclaimed from old industrial areas or located at the border of the city. Type two and three units have for the majority been built over the last 10 years. We contend that these two types represent a significant opportunity for collaborative market-driving supply chain innovation. In this respect, the chapter takes a stand that Istanbul as the most developed city in Turkey is not unique compared to, non-capital, major cities in Europe, especially Southern and Eastern Europe. Shared characteristics are: (i) most of the inhabitants in these units have recently relocated and often lack retail infrastructure in the immediate surrounding areas. Some of these complexes are outside the town in newly developed regions where the retailing structure is often poor, or simply does not exist; (ii) IT infrastructure are usually provided to all dwellings offering instant online access to online retailers. (iii) through the inherent security services provided in these types of dwellings, easily adaptable already built drop-off and storage infrastructure are present (e.g. security station at entrance); (iv) the critical mass for direct marketing can be reached if a minimum level of aware-
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Figure 1. Istanbul’s population density (2007) (Source: own, adapted from census data and primary data collection)
ness, information and training is provided by the retailers on site; (v) going deeper within the local environment, a breakdown of the type of dwelling structure and then tenants is possible allowing a clear segmentation and targeting; and (vi) local government authorities have difficulties in encouraging collaboration among the myriad of firms serving the city. Figure 2 exhibit an example of a city in Istanbul.
FINDINGS This section of the chapter outlines the different ways in which retail firms react and resist deepening collaboration practices. Our findings point to resistance patterns including: i) ideological resistance; ii) functional resistance; iii) regulatory resistance; and iv) spatial resistance. Initially emphasis was placed upon defining the perceived future collaboration opportunities for traditional online grocery and premium sourcing logistic in
the context of Istanbul as a growing metropolis. The boundaries around the roles of the three actors, namely logistics firms, online supermarket retailers and urban planners were explored. In the resistance spirit, respondents were asked to identify bottlenecks to collaboration. These views fully appreciate the fragmentary nature of collaboration and the need to reconnect with the reality of urban development. Each participant described their collaborative practices in the online channel, current achievements and relative challenges as a starting point for the discussion. Three key generic drivers
Figure 2. A typical city example in Istanbul
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to collaboration resistance emerged: (i) the rapidly developing impact of retail restructuring (e.g. internationalization of retailers) on collaboration needs, (ii) the need to re-visit the collaboration situations currently in operation between the different channels, retail formats (e.g. malls versus small business and traditional retail spaces such as markets), and urban needs (e.g. traffic, pollution, parking) including dwelling development (e.g. cités and privatization of the urban space) and (iii) the upgrading of logistic models through information communication techologies allowing greater collaboration with the final consumers to deal efficiently with the increasing number of fragmented deliveries, tractability, quality control and the usage of vehicles. In parallel with the market driving nature of online provision for food products were discussions linked to issues such as (i) collaborative responsiveness, (ii) collaboration to match supply and demand and, (iii) collaboration to clear stocks from a variety of sources. Barriers to access and to attain a common level of logistics collaboration ability and knowledge strongly influenced the current decisions to somehow delay further integration. That is, online grocery logistics collaboration was characterized by a struggle around action and change versus keeping the status-quo. This is a common theme across the respondents’ quotations: “We are at a crossroad in terms of logistic collaboration, pushing all the logistic systems from the various warehouses and consolidated shipments towards satellite micro-storage systems all over the city that need coordination.” (Logistic firm) “With the online channel you need a new view on micro collaboration, last mile logistic as well as a macro coordinated approach. Retail and logistic have a new intersect, online grocery is not only a cyber thing. We need new jobs/infrastructures to provide consolidated services, we have already seen many experiences from abroad and our
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brand equity is now dependent on collaborative logistic performance not our core service alone.” (E-retailer firm) “Urban regeneration is transforming rapidly, its focus is not only from a social services and citizen approach but towards integrating and facilitating the supply chain and logistics to create a collaborative win-win situation. Where and how people shop for food is rapidly changing. The delivery of constant small scale orders needs to be regulated standardized and consolidated,” (Urban planner) The interviews identified four specific patterns of collaborative resistance including, ideological, functional, regulatory and spatial resistance. In the following sections, we present each in more detail, their drivers and consequences for online grocery provision.
Ideological Resistance At the outset a set of barriers regarding roles and who ought to be the actors of changes in collaborative patterns were underlined. Firstly a gentrified approach to sectoral policy importance was presented. A fixed, traditional hierarchy was dominating the environment making transparent and open minded collaboration difficult. In particular, the online retailers were perceived to have most of the control and power. While, they were generally perceived to be only connected with and collaborating within their specific supply chain network (i.e. approved partners), as an addition online retailers were also described by our logistics firms and urban planners to operate in a variety of different (i.e. disjointed) ways offering sometimes contradictory collaborative practices. For instance, a range of responses to online logistic issues was described as ranging from active technological adoption, acquiescence, resignation and outright rejection of change. Hence, logistics firms were considered “only” as third party collaborators, while urban planners
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were only perceived as facilitators or inhibitors and non-proactive collaborators mainly for offline planning site. From an urban planning perspective, the lack of longer term standpoint and respect of (i) city traffic absorption capacity (e.g. double, triple parking on road), (ii) urban flow (e.g. delivery vehicles and peak time traffic over the Bosporus bridges) and (ii) urban space (e.g. pavements) made logistic delivery services a core problem and a hotly debated issue regarding wider investment and structural issues. A polarization was evident limiting collaborative opportunities, the value that could be derived from collaboration and creating a non-productive, skeptical, untrustworthy environment. That is, respondents suggested that a revaluation of the ideological bases of division and differences among trading partners was overdue. The intertwining of relations between roles and resistance drivers operates in an unstable set of processes that were fundamentally entangled in the power relationship among trading partners. The solution alluded to by our respondents were too often related to consolidation or takeover of one partner by another rather than explicitly working together and collaborating. Unfortunately, our sets of respondents failed to realize that they were both wrapped in the entanglement and resistance of the current power situation and themselves critically active entanglers. A number of quotations illustrate this theme: “Collaboration in logistic sector is condescended; qualified people do not prefer to work there. The salary policy, scarcity of qualified employees and the general low profits in the sector can be combined together as the main difficulties faced by us.” (Logistic firm) “Logistic firms lack attention to details, both regarding customer and product management (e.g. dairy items), they give us hard time and they have not reached our level of professionalism, collaboration can only be limited in such conditions.” (E-retailer firm)
“Shopping centers and small delivery vans are diffusing like fungi all over the city. Retail infrastructure diffusion should be done in a way that does not reduce the living standards of people. We need more adequate urban planning collaboration that is not only following populist policies.” (Urban Planner) “We need to achieve urban transformation rather than urban restructuring which is only aesthetic. We need to tackle infrastructural problems of suburbanization, control of city population growth and geographical environmental condition of the city between Europe and Asia, other partners such as online retailers and logistic firm must participate in a collaborative fashion.” (Urban Planner)
Functional Resistance Another important aspect of resistance to collaboration identified was functional. First, the importance of the online channel was seen as a Cinderella; that is, having limited recognition within the overall collaborative retail network. Increasingly, due to a lack of market visibility, where availability and affordability were no longer the fundamental growth drivers, functional resistance to invest further in the online channel was identified by all our respondents. Secondly, the recent dramatic changes experienced in logistic through technological applications were not acknowledged to be consistent, homogenous and widespread among the trading partners. These were described as delaying the ‘value added potential’ of collaboration in the logistics functions. Thirdly, a lack of trust among the trading partners in the reporting and recording of the day to day activities (i.e. collaborative processes) appeared to undermine potential new services and encourage resistance and to maintain the current status quo. The business model of some firms, involving non-official reporting of activities and the thriving black economy were described as skewing the competition, artificially driving price down
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to unsustainable level and therefore preventing long term capital investment in technology and collaborative relationships. In addition the biggest online retailer was also perceived as too strong hence leading the sector towards their chosen systems only. Here, respondents argued that too few actors were present in the market, which stifled the entrepreneurial business activity. No less important, many trading partners were perceived as resisting the cultural turn in the direction of a more formalized set of economic activities geared towards productive sustainable network of relations. Clearly, beyond day to day control activities, trading partners were described as lacking ‘forward thinking’ about the many best ways in which to enlist one another for long term collaborative organizational networks, as suggested in the following quotations: “Of course we deliver for the e-channel, but it has not reached enormous levels. The sales are not in a level where they can influence us towards more collaboration.” (E-retailer firm) “With the help of mobile phone and hand-held terminal we can track a lot, such as the position of the truck, information about product status, the instant temperature of the van, the speed, the door position, in collaborating with online retailers we can really influence service quality but do not get much for it as yet.” (Logistic firm) “Of course we are controlling a lot all the logistic activities as accomplishment in a professional manner is paramount. Collaboration with all parties is important. We are dealing with fresh food; they need the cooling system on all the time not just the last 30 minutes. Truck weight and cleanliness needs to be regularly checked. Which route planning do they use? Is it the shortest in Kms or in time unit?” (Logistic firm)
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“In Turkey, many logistics firms do not have general records and proper accounting standards. Some firms are active in logistics but it is all black economy and sometimes illegal activities. We need clearer rules and fairer competition with professional standards and management styles before we can start thinking about collaboration.” (Logistic firm)
Regulatory Resistance The ‘market rules’ were felt to generate considerable uncertainty in partnering at both micro and macro levels. The micro and macro ‘market rules’ were contentious market issues. This was particularly pertinent with micro issues such as alcohol sales online (and associated proof of age declaration), mixing of food and non-food products in vans (i.e. insurance issues), returns of unwanted/spoiled items, and payment issues. At macro level, concerns such as foreign trade regulations, European Union integration, transport logistic standards and taxation were mentioned. Here, the various actors were attempting to initiate institutional change via the expression of discontent. A general lack of understanding of the macro-level regulatory environment was perceived to lead to fear of collaboration. A lack of a strong lobbying consortium representing the various stakeholders was mentioned as crucially missing. It was apparent that there was a willingness to influence regulatory decision-makers to change policies. Strong personal linkages with the city planning and related departments were mentioned to be more influential than a collaborative approach. In another area, holding key information policy setting events on collaborative practices were mentioned as limited. In fact, many respondents were frustrated in their dealing with the city representatives and other trading partners in what they saw as a lack of willingness to engage in fundamental discussion and commit to action. Furthermore, because of the various financial crisis suffered by Turkey over the last
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10 years, logistic firm capitalization was also described as an issue. Regarding the other side of the coin, the online buying legal process was also described as inadequate with issues ranging from access (e.g. modern computers and broadband), consumer rights, payment security and type (e.g. credit card versus cash at the door), to fraud, as individuals noted:
Figure 3. Istanbul main supermarket retailer locations and 15-minutes coverage areas of Migros e-sourcing stores (Source: own, adapted from census data and primary data collection)
“The necessary regulations for a collaborative environment are not established for online retailing hence the costs are higher than they should be and collaboration limited.” (E-retailer firm) “Lack of consistency in the regulations and legislations put a barrier preventing the logistic sector to mature faster. This is especially true regarding the meaning of fair competition hence fair collaboration. ” (Logistic firm respondent) “Foreign investors do not consider Turkish logistic potential seriously as the legislation is limiting collaboration potential. Infrastructural problems are greater compared to Dubai for example, there should be revision on foreign trade regulation, taxation and industrial code organization.” (Logistic firm respondent) “We need to look at the collaboration problem differently, you could be sending three parcels to a customer and another firm can be sending again three parcels to that same customer but there is no system of integration or freight consolidation. These consolidations happen between countries not within city. Things need to change more alliances like airlines, different firms, one market.” (Logistic firm respondent) “Turkish shoppers find themselves in a wild online business environment without having enough shopping culture and experience to appreciate the details of the logistic services, they do not understand how hard it is to collaborate.”(Logistic firm respondent)
Spatial Resistance The three previous types of resistance to collaboration were tempered by reluctance and caution regarding possible effect of the spatial geographies of Istanbul in the minds of our respondents. As seen in Figure 3, for ‘Migros’ the biggest online grocer, most of its sourcing stores seem to be outside the densely populated districts. The old city centre geographies were not perceived to be conducive to modern collaborative logistic operations. The interviewees conveyed a sense that the collaborative challenges have become “how to do more within the given situation.” Spatial resistance was linked to the lack of collaboration and coordination between the various actors. The usage of vehicles, the links to traffic and wider systems were at stake. The local micro situations impacting the need for novel retailer logistics solutions were perceived to have become core to future business models. Not to create a series of parallel systems, what was required according to the respondents, was an integrative framework and a ‘joined up approach’ to give voice and allow both passive and active engagement. Added to this, an approach that binds together our three
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main trading partners’ processes, power and decisions was perceived as a pressing issue. Furthermore, as the city develops, areas of exclusion were described as appearing between distinct geographical areas (e.g. squatter neighborhoods, new social housing towers, empty no-man lands, large road interchange, industrial zones) but also within the newly developed ‘cités’ as they have a range of accommodations (one room to duplex apartments, and individual dwellings) hence household, populating these new spaces. As a consequence, transitions of population from one part of the city areas to another were also mentioned as important for volume creating collaboration. Alternatively, the local or geopolitical scale was mentioned as a central driver to a lack of collaboration. Areas adjacent to each other on a map were often separated in trading partners’ minds. In addition, how collaboration towards better logistics processes were to be applied was also described as dependent on the socio-political inclination of local municipalities. However, certain municipalities were mentioned as progressive, willing to collaborate and transparent, while others were criticized for rules-prone decisionmaking, myopic and short term focus and reward, arbitrary change in legislation and unseen bribery claims and counter-claim practice. “The big retailers control many store brands and formats but they cannot be organized sometimes in their internal operation in SCM. These affect collaborative efficiency and planning performance of logistic providers. For examples the shipment has to wait in front of the door, or we have to wait doing nothing also the retailer ought to have sufficient data and incentive to manipulate market fluctuations and spatial variability. In new areas there is nearly no retail presence at all, they are not planning just reacting. These areas are far and cost more for us.” (Logistic firm) “The city and customers’ needs change so fast, that in many areas we cannot judge and adapt
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the capacity. We cannot find many addresses or streets and shoppers find it hard to return goods as we are very busy and they do not know how to do it, like legal period.” (Logistic firm) “Istanbul is not homogenous, in certain areas we need multiples deliveries, we could have larger vehicles or collaborate with other firms may be? Others are just small pockets of consumers. This is a serious cost/profit maximizing problem we face.” (E-retailer) “The ability to deliver products in all locations is becoming increasingly complicated. In today’s Istanbul environment, certain areas are out of reach at certain time, there are empty zone (poor illegal housing development) vehicles get stuck empty in traffic not able to come back, making it hard to minimize the cost, collaboration may be a solution but we do not know where to start.” (E-retailer) “Effective retailing requires the planning of consumer needs taking into account the local environment in which they live to plan and forecast the conditions faced and provide a satisfactory solution. We are all aware of changing traffic flows, weather conditions, accidents, strikes and other aspects of a metropolis life. Retailers have collaborate better and provide adapted delivery solutions.” (Urban Planner)
DISCUSSION OF KEY FINDINGS AND CONCLUDING REMARKS As the scale and scope of new technology usage in online grocery provision increases, it is important to understand the interplay between the practitioners, technology and surrounding spaces. This chapter is therefore an important step in this respect. The experiences of online retailers, urban planners and logistic providers in driving online food provision and, specifically, how they respond
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to the new demographic and lifestyle found in the gated communities around the world metropolis, reveals several insights into market driving grocery provision behavior across ambiguous environments within an emerging market setting. Significantly, the findings identify several patterns of resistance in shaping online grocery provision, notably, ideological, functional, regulatory and spatial. At times this resistance is marked far less by open confrontation, than a passive and active (non-) willingness. Despite the competition among the actors for jurisdictional control and respective oligopolistic and monopolistic advantages, the findings suggest that considerable scale and scope for collaboration exist for online grocery partners. The exploratory findings have also shown the emergence and forming of ‘a group of trading partners’ that aspire towards change, are willing and on the cusp of formally getting together and getting organized for the purposes of collaboration. The question remains why there is inaction? From a policy perspective we emphasize three implications of this research. First, we identify, considering the degree and the manner in which resistance emerges, how policy makers need to reshape attitudes towards new types of collaborative practice. These are found not to be available within traditional supply chain settings, but require the use and leverage of the regulatory environment, in our case city planners. Second, there is a need to lead actors to question their previous commitments and attitudes, contest traditional collaborative practices, and drive structural change of the industry in relation to the geo-demographic spaces of the metropolis. The call for a reform and re-organization of collaboration does not imply a rejection of the current internal collaborative systems, rather it requires a rethink of the competitiveness of such systems in view of the new opportunities offered by the online business organization and within metropolises physical boundaries (Malik and Gojal, 2003). Finally, understanding the more subtle dimensions of col-
laborative resistance – beneath the obvious forms such as rejection, postponement and opposition – also provides an insight into where commitment towards collaboration processes ends and resistance to collaboration begins. As described by Laclau and Mouffe (1985) in a policy context, trading partners have to change from a ‘logic of difference’ to a ‘logic of equivalence’ whereby ‘chains of equivalence’ are created between different actors who seek to challenge established supply chain collaboration practice. In addition to policy implications, we identify a number of implications for the supply chain literature. Traditional supply chain strategies fail to take into consideration; i) the dynamic and subtle forms of collaborative resistance beyond outright rejection; ii) the importance and impact of the macro environment over micro daily collaborative practice; and ii) the multiple co-existing motives within and between trading actors not engaging in collaborative practice. Overall, what is initially apparent from the findings is that online retailers, logistic firms and urban planners need to develop a stronger sense of commonality, indeed community. This way they can challenge and contest the dominant institutionalized supply chain arrangements and offer alternative organizing logics for online grocery provision. Critical to that practice is the role of extra institutional entrepreneurs in bringing about market driving collaborative practice. The emerging conclusion is that extra-institutional collaborative practice is a significant market driving behavior in grocery provision – significant external factors such as urban planners, alongside other more immediate actors, need to act as agents of change and attempt to reconfigure the meaning system and ‘established’ institutional logics within emerging markets. Insights from the role of ideological, functional, regulatory and spatial resistance provide an important step in understanding extra-institutional collaborative practice, but more much work is needed in this area.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT This research is supported in part by TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) under research grant #108 K 345. The authors also acknowledge contributions of Ipek Kocoglu as research assistant. Part of this chapter was also presented at the European Institute of Retailing and Services Studies on Recent Advances in Retailing and Services Science conference, Istanbul, 2010.
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ENDNOTE 1
The “sticky places” hypothesis (see the work of Ann Marken in particular) was significant in advancing knowledge economy argument, which had been heralded as one solution to the twentieth century legacy of the ‘deindustrialization problem and which subsequently saw policy and academic research agendas champion the knowledge economy. However this “sticky places” hypothesis has been largely debunked by the almost entire collapse of the western banking system, the ensuring global recession during 2008 and 2009.
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APPENDIX SURVEY INSTRUMENT
General Instruments Ideological Resistance
What are the main collaboration difficulties faced in the logistics sector when dealing with online channel growth? Do you think logistics companies exert the necessary effort to reach the professional quality level of service? (Asked to e-retailers) How did urban planning and restructuring affected retailing in Turkey and especially in Istanbul over the last 10 years?
Sources Fosfuri and Ronde 2009 Scott, 1985 Oreg, 2003 Manki, 2003 Dholakia, 2000
Is there a consensus emerged on suitable control mechanisms regarding logistics collaboration in the context of an emerging metropolis? Functional Resistance
What is the impact of collaboration when using the online channel to your firm activities in terms of; • Quality of services • Price • Delivery to final consumer • B2B logistic between supplier and buyer
Van Dam et al., 2008 Oreg, 2006 Selwyn, 2003 Diamondstone, 2002
What type of logistics services do you use and how? (Ask all but logistics companies) How did urban planning and restructuring affected retailing in Turkey and especially in Istanbul over the last 10 years? Which are the regulations that need to be implemented but are not put into practice or that they are wrongly implemented considering the collaboration needs between retail restructuring, urban needs /infrastructure and logistics improvement? Regulatory Resistance
What are the key collaborative issues your firm faces in adapting to online retail restructuring in Istanbul and Turkey in general? • Big vs. small retailers • Power • Price • Legislations/regulations
Laukkanen, 2008 Van Dam et al., 2008 Russel and Russel, 2006 Manki, 2003
Does urban planning take into account how the retailing is restructured? How is online retailing collaboration restructuring if at all? What do you think should be done in terms of logistics restructuring with the purpose of adapting successfully towards better collaboration in SCM? Which are the regulations that need to be implemented in terms of urban restructuring and planning but that they are not put into practice at all or that they are wrongly implemented? Spatial Resistance
What do you think are the greatest challenges to collaboration that require to be sorted out in the near future? And why? • Legislation • Control technology • Education
Kragh and Andersen, 2009 Laukkanen, 2008 Wainwright, 2007
What kind of an affect do you think the 3rd bridge that is planned will have on urban and retail restructuring of Istanbul? Do you think the privatization of retailing areas and the increasing domination of foreign direct investment leads to the loss of many traditional collaborative traits of Istanbul business culture? Does the replacement of bakkals with chain stores, bazaars with shopping centers, create a transformation in customer profile? What do the urban planning centers do regarding this issue?
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Chapter 10
Applying Game Mechanisms to Idea Competitions Florian Birke Technical University Braunschweig, Germany Maximilian Witt Technical University Braunschweig, Germany Susanne Robra-Bissantz Technical University Braunschweig, Germany
ABSTRACT In these times of a collaborative Web, consumers actively participate in the creation, elaboration, and evaluation of new content. Portals like Wikipedia demonstrate how this collaborative and creative behavior can result in valuable outcome. Companies benefit, as well, from this active role of the consumer: Consumers generate, develop, and evaluate new ideas for products and services in idea competitions. A challenge of today’s idea competitions is that the recent “inflationary increase” partly results in a decrease of participation. The purpose of this study is to explore one possible approach to transfer the positive motivational effect of games to idea competitions. The transfer of playful elements from a game context to the model of open innovation is what we call “game-based open innovation.” Based on theoretical insights, analysis of 18 cases and three interviews, this study demonstrates the actual occurrence of game mechanisms and their effect on the motivation of participants.
INTRODUCTION A cultural change has happened on the Internet. The customers switched their behavior from individuals that only visit websites to users, who also generate content (Howe, 2008). This paradigm combined with tools such as web-blogs, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch010
wikis, online-communities and content sharing platforms is what today’s collaborative web is all about (Helfrich, 2008). Rich interaction technologies enable customers to participate in business internal processes, for example new product development (Füller, Mühlbacher, Matzler & Jawecki 2010; Reichwald & Piller 2009). Companies invite customers to be a part of those processes, because they hold
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important information concerning their wants and needs. Due to this fundamental shift (Chesbrough, 2003), the internal research and development is no longer the invaluable strategic asset that it used to be. In the old model of closed innovation, companies relied on the assumption that innovation processes have to be controlled by themselves – it was based on self-reliance. In these times of collaborative web “Customers are considered a valuable source of innovation” (Füller 2010, p. 98). The integration of active customers into formerly internal innovation processes is defined as open innovation (Chesborough 2003). Open innovation enfolds strategies and approaches that enable companies to transfer innovation from external sources to the internal research and development department more easily (Laursen & Salter, 2006). Idea competitions are one possible approach to open up the innovation process. Nowadays companies use them sometimes very successfully to generate, evaluate and benefit from the ideas of customers, regarding services and products. But their recent “inflationary increase” (Füller, 2009) partly results in a decrease of participation. The new challenge for organizers is to find proper incentives that will enthuse customers to participate in their competitions. A medium, which is pretty good in animating people to participate, are video games. They incentivize people with powerful mechanisms to play for hours (Reeves & Leighton, 2009). The integration of these playful elements into the model of open innovation is what we call “game-based open innovation”. This study will be concerned with the integration of game mechanisms into idea competitions as one mode of implementing game-based open innovation. The authors’ assumption is that playful elements are already part of today’s idea competitions, but the implementation appears to be unstructured and non-systematic. In order to integrate game mechanisms into idea competitions, we first need to identify the already occurring ones. Which game mechanisms occur in idea competitions?
To meet the requirements of a structured and systematic integration of game mechanisms into idea competitions, we need to identify their impact on human beings. Therefore our second research question is: Which motives of participants could be triggered by the occurring game mechanisms? If it is possible to motivate people with game mechanisms to participate in an idea competition it could also be possible to motivate them in long term. Do game mechanisms have the ability to motivate the participants continuously? The overall purpose of this study is to establish knowledge about the use and the integration of game mechanisms into idea competitions. Thereby section 2 Idea Competition will be concerned with the question what idea competitions are and why they could need help from game mechanisms. Section 3 Motivation to Participate will clarify why people are participating in idea competitions instead of spending time otherwise. Accordingly section 4 Game-based Open Innovation proceeds with a literature review about games and their definition, as well as the introduction of game-based open innovation as a model for the integration of playful elements into the model of open innovation. At last, this chapter will provide definitions and examples for game mechanisms. In section 5 Game Mechanisms in Idea Competitions: A Case Study will grant an insight into the results of our studies. With the aid of qualitative methods: one case study and three interviews of professionals, we try to clarify the research questions shown above. Section 6 Conclusion will provide concluding remarks and perspectives for further research.
IDEA COMPETITION Idea competitions are one possibility to integrate customers into early stages of the innovation process (Walcher, 2007). These competitions, which are arranged privately or publicly, ask single persons or groups to hand in contributions for a special theme within a fixed period of time. The
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assessment of contributions is carried out under certain assessment-criteria, which were predefined by an assessment-committee (Reichwald & Piller, 2009). Companies like Starbucks, BMW, Toyota and Intel use idea competitions in the collaborative web partly very successfully to generate, evaluate and benefit from the ideas of customers. But not just companies and affiliated groups arrange them. In fact universities, federal ministries and even social verbena do. For example the German federal ministry for education organizes the project “OFFIES 2020+1”with the aid of a few German universities. This idea competition will lead to concepts on energy efficiency in the domain of mobility and living. Another example is “AppQuest 2010”2, which is arranged by the dpunkt.verlag3. In this competition the hosts are looking for the best submitted application for a famous mobile phone. The submissions will be implemented under the themes “World Cup 2010” and “iCampus”. On the web portal of LogoTournament4 the founder Tyler Quinn provides a way to arrange an idea competition for almost everyone. In this design competition, companies and freelancers are looking for new logos (Walcher, 2007). Generally an idea competition is carried out under a specific theme or at least in a certain domain. If a theme is highly specific, the hosts are usually looking for attendants who are members of the corresponding domain. For instance the organizers of the “AppQuest 2010” competition are looking for students with the ability to implement an application. When task specificity is low, the targeted group is not generally restricted, for instance the “LogoTournament” competition. Another determining characteristic of an idea competition is the period of time the contestants have for their creative performance. Thereby the duration depends on the elaborateness of the solution. To find a winner, an idea competition provides an assessment-committee, which mostly consists of experts in the domain of the organizer. With
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special assessment-criteria, they try to measure creativity, newness, adequateness and the quality of the implementation of the detected solution. The incentives for a user to contribute are usually efficiency-oriented and range from money rewards (LogoTournament) to non-cash prizes like digital camera, a voucher for the German Railways (OFFIES 2020+) or just the mentioning of the winners’ names on a website (Walcher, 2007). Idea competitions are applicable in a wide range of missions (Ernst, 2004). They range from continuously open platforms to concentrate actions with the purpose to solve specific problems (Reichwald & Piller, 2009). Within the implementation the organizers utilize functionalities and mechanisms of the Web 2.0. With this, they try to foster interaction and collaboration of the participants by providing comment functionalities as well as rating mechanisms. However, the recent “inflationary increase” (Füller, 2009) of idea competitions partly results in a decrease of participation. An organizer has to find right incentives to let possible participants choose its competition instead of others’.
MOTIVATION TO PARTICIPATE One of the biggest challenges in the field of open innovation is to motivate customers to contribute and divulge information (West, 2006). If managers wish to successfully shepherd their organizations into a time, where consumers are active and productive (Firat & Venkatesh, 1995), they must learn to effectively understand and deal with human motivation. Out of many theories in the field of work motivation, Herzberg (1966) motivator – hygiene theory and Maslows (1943) need – hierachy theory have been the most influential ones in recent decades. Herzberg distinguishes in his theory two categories of motivating factors, which are responsible for human behavior. (1) Motivator factors: this category enfolds every factor, which has something to do with the activity itself such
Applying Game Mechanisms to Idea Competitions
as responsibility, autonomy and satisfaction. (2) Hygiene factors: has something to do with the environment and their variables as rewards and the general condition of the participation. According to Herzberg, the hygiene factors are the crucial ones, because if they are insufficient, people participating in the activity will get de-motivated. Contrary to that, the absence of motivator factors has no negative effect. In fact the satisfaction through the activity is rising with the amount and intensity of those factors (Amabile, 1993). In summary one can think about hygiene factors as basic requirements for activities to attract people to participate and motivator factor as valuable addition. Maslows theory suggests that certain needs are more important than others, akin to the relation between hygiene and motivator factors. He differentiates between five different need categories. Ordered from most to less important: (1) Physiological: as breathing, food, water; (2) Safety: security of body, resources, family, health; (3) Love/belonging: for example friendship, family; (4) Esteem: self-esteem, confidence, respect; (5) Self-actualization: as morality, creativity, problem solving. Before a participant will care about top-level needs, he will first take care of needs that are on beneath-layers of the pyramid. When those needs get formalized and attached to an activity they will result in incentives for people to participate in that activity. According to the basic model of motivation psychology (see Figure 1), motivation is the result from the interaction between a situations’ incentives and the motives of the involved person (Schattke & Kehr, 2009). Motives are thereby defined as individual preferences for certain incentive categories and subcategories (McClelland, 1989). This implies that not everybody responds to an incentive in the same way. There are two big incentive categories (Hars & Ou, 2002): (1) Internal incentives: this category contains for instance altruism and hedonism. Altruism is a social behavior, in which an individual takes a loss of its own benefit to ben-
Figure 1. Model of Motivation Psychology. (Adapted from Kehr & Schattke, 2009, p. 122)
efit another one (Lenzen, 2003). This means that a person has more costs than benefits in its activity. Hedonism is defined as a mindset in which individuals enjoy what they are doing, because they are feeling fun and excitement (Lakani & Wolf, 2005). (2) External incentives: are the anticipated benefits and the need for the specific results (e.g. a certain product). As an instance for a specific result, one can take a kite-board5, it was produced by a surfer who wanted to jump even higher than others (Reichwald & Piller, 2009). Money is another example of an anticipated benefit. If one pays someone for an activity, the individual has an effective external incentive for the accomplishment (Alexy & Leitner, 2008). Hars and Ou (2002) are certain that internal incentives are more important than external, because they do not have to be recompensed. But Kehr and Schattke (2009) detected in a literature review that the authors found external incentives responsible for the participation in open innovation projects. The outcome of this is a mixture of internal and external incentives, which are needed to motivate people (Schattke & Kehr, 2009). This mixture has to fit the motives of that person otherwise the person will not be motivated to take part in a competition. Hereby a distinction is drawn between three different types of motives (McClelland, 1987): (1)
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Figure 2. Flow Corridor. (Adapted from Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 351; Walcher, 2007, p. 163)
Motive of Achievement: This motive is all about a personal measure of success. People with a distinct motive of Achievement will try to reach or exceed this measure (Rheinberg, 2006). It is based on the proud and satisfaction of the self accomplishment (Brunstein & Heckhausen, 2006). (2) Motive of Affiliation: This type is about the positive relationships of human beings. A person with a distinct affiliation motive like to get in contact with new people, cooperate with them and try to foster the relationship (Sokolowski & Heckhausen, 2006). (3) Motive of Power: This motive is all about prestige and reputation. Persons with a distinct power motive are seeking for influence and if this pursuit is crowned with success they will maintain it (Schmalt & Heckhausen, 2006). For instance a person with a more distinct motive of achievement as affiliation will rather finish the submission for an idea competition (internal incentive), in order to have the possibility of winning the competition (external incentive), than spending the afternoon with friends (Schattke & Kehr, 2009). Every human possesses each of these motive types in different degrees. If the combination of internal and external incentive is just right designed, the participant will find himself in a condition, which is marked by concentration, enjoyment and high productivity
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(Schattke & Kehr, 2009). That means the person gets incentivized by the action itself. This action will feel like fun and the person would like to do it more often (Schattke & Kehr, 2009). This condition is labeled as “flow”. It occurs when a person has just the right skill to accomplish something difficult. A person, which is in the state of “flow” will get sucked into the activity and will lose the sense of time (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). According to Csikszentmihalyi (1975) there are three important requirements for flow. First, the challenge has to fit the self estimated skills of the participant as illustrated in figure 2. If the challenge is beyond the skills, the customer would feel anxious and overstrained. When the self estimated skill level is higher, a person would feel bored and under-challenged. Secondly, the competition has to define clear goals for the challenge that helps the person to concentrate on the activity step by step. Thirdly, by providing instantly feedback the participant will recognize if a goal is reached or what needs to be done to reach it. The conclusion is that idea competitions have to provide incentives for each of the three types of motives to activate customers as participants.
GAME-BASED OPEN INNOVATION Concept Games are pretty good in leading a player into the state of flow by providing mechanisms that immediately show the player which action brought an advantage and what needs to be done, to reach an overall goal (Reeves & Leighton, 2009). Games also can “skillfully match challenges and skills, creating just enough uncertainty about an accomplishment that attention is required but not so much that flow is precluded or interrupted” (Reeves & Leighton, 2009, p.183). Thereby a game is defined as “[…] a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in
Applying Game Mechanisms to Idea Competitions
a quantifiable outcome” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 80). One basic element of this definition is the Player: A game includes one or more participants to play actively. Those participants are called players. The number of them in a game depends on the game type (Single- or Multiplayer-Game). Conflict: All games contain artificial conflicts between a player and the system or between players. They can range from cooperation to competition. Rules: A crucial element of games are their rules, those are defining the game-space in which the dynamic of play can happen. In chess for instance you are not allowed to do more than one move per turn. If you would be allowed to do so, the game would be pointless. Quantifiable outcome: In the end, every game has a quantifiable goal or outcome (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). What stands out is that games are not so different to idea competitions. Comparing characteristics of the two definitions reveals similarities. The player of a game is the participant in a competition. An artificial conflict occurs from the interaction between the participants and the urge to win. Rules of a game define the game-space and in competitions it is the solution-space, which is defined by them. The quantifiable outcome is what the contestants win, if their idea is selected. If the organizers could use these similarities to transfer playful elements out of games to idea competitions, then participants could feel the same enjoyment and pleasure, as they feel in games. A special game category in which players are developing characters and relationships, strategies and tactics for collective actions and sophisticated communication between players are Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMO’s). Examples that are pretty famous would be World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment), EVE Online (CCP), EverQuest (Sony Online Entertainment) and Star Wars Galaxies (Sony Online Entertainment) (Reeves & Leighton, 2009). We think that MMO’s are the game category with the most potential, when it comes down to transfer its playful elements to idea competition. A good reason
for that is that one of the basic infrastructures of MMO’s, the player community and communication mechanisms are already transferred to the none-gaming context. New collaborative tools and technology will help to integrate playful elements to idea competitions. This integration of playful elements into the model of open innovation is what we call “game-based open innovation”. We think that the boundaries between innovating in terms of open innovation and playing will continue to melt down, because flow plays an important role for both activities. As far as we know no one has proposed, as we do here, that games could provide a way to bring adequate incentives and thus more emotional experiences, higher attention, more creativity and flow into the process of innovation.
Modes of Implementation There are two ways to implement game-based open innovation: Either one creates a game for open innovation or one includes game mechanisms into existing instruments of open innovation. In this study we will concentrate on the way to realize game-based open innovation with the aid of game mechanisms. Since the earliest days of video games, designers try to incentivize people to play their games instead of others. In the course of this competition they invented powerful mechanisms that aided them to create a market that is worth more than $10 billion dollars as one of the largest existing entertainment category (Reeves & Leighton, 2009, p. 18). In literature you can find a few different definitions for game mechanisms (Hunicke et al., 2004; Kim, 2009; Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). Hunicke et al. define them as “[…] the various actions, behaviors, and control mechanisms afforded to the player within the game context. Together with the game’s content (levels, assets and so on) the [mechanisms] supports overall game play dynamics” (Reeves & Leighton, 2009, p. 243-244). The bottom line is that games provide players the possibility to shape their own play experience with
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the aid of game mechanisms. Contrary to Hunicke et al. and Reeves, we think that game mechanisms can not only be integrated into games, but also in any other functional software. Furthermore we think that game mechanisms can be seen as mechanisms, which affect and incentivize people. Thus, we label game mechanisms in the following way: Game Mechanisms are the various actions, reactions and processes, designed for an activity, in order to advance playfulness. In interaction with the activity-context, game mechanisms represent incentives, which trigger motives and thereby drive behavior. The main components of this definition are: •
•
•
•
Action, Reaction: This component describes the interaction between the participant and the system as well as the interaction with other participants. In a game, every action has an outcome, which demonstrates the participant that he did something. Processes: Game Mechanisms are also processes, which are triggered by the system to make the activity fun and compelling. Activity: Because we are sure that game mechanisms can be used much broader than just in the game context we have chosen the term activity instead of game. Incentives, motives and behavior: These ingredients build a connection to the basic model of motivation psychology. If persons are incentivized by the situation it triggers their motives and will result in motivation and certain behavior.
In the following text, we want to introduce a few game mechanisms, which we found in online games such as World of Warcraft (WOW), EverQuest and so on. To provide a general understanding of the possible usage of those mechanisms in idea competitions, we will make a few examples
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of the occurring game mechanisms in functional software as well as partly in the real world.
Points, Levels and Leaderboard Things that a player can earn in games are points. They give the game a meaning and make it easier for players to understand which action brings an advantage. Points can occur in different types like redeemable points, social points or system points. Redeemable points are points which have a certain value in a game, like a virtual currency or vouchers. A player would earn those points by e.g. selling his gathered items to other players at an auction house or to a vendor. Social points6 are given by other players to evaluate the player’s actions. They usually occur as a countable amount. System points are given by the game system for certain activities. For example, a player earns experience points by beating beasts in the forest. Each beast brings him one step closer to the next level. A Level is a different kind of view on points, there are also others like leader boards. Levels can help the player to advance in a game step by step. For instance, a player’s avatar7 is not capable of using certain items till he achieved a predefined level. Besides, levels are indicators for other players to draw conclusions about the progress of a player. In result, levels show the progress and the competitive ability of a player. Leaderboards are a way to see how good they are doing compared to other players. To give an example, every player wants to be the best in his guild8, thus the players will try as hard as they can, to make more and more points. A good example of the transfer of these game mechanisms to functional software and the real world is the Nike+ workout program9. With this program, Nike was able to motivate over 13,500 people to run over 200 Million Miles by adding points to their run through the neighborhood. The interesting thing is that people are participating even though it results in a loss of their spare time. One reason could be that they are just having fun doing it (Kim, 2009; Reeves & Leighton, 2009)
Applying Game Mechanisms to Idea Competitions
Bragable Achievements Bragable achievements are a way for the participants to share their accomplishment with others. By sharing those achievements with others, they try to convey power and influence. A player in the World of Warcraft would have a bragable achievement when he finds a unique item that just a few people possess. One Example for the bragable achievement game mechanism in functional software would be the game “Farm Ville” by Zynga on facebook. In this game, the player has to cultivate a farm. If he will manage to enlarge his farm, a little screen pops up. The player is asked if he would like to show this achievement to his friends.
Collections This game mechanism builds on the human urge to collect. In the real world there are a lot of examples, which fit this mechanism, for example the collecting of trading cards or stamps. One part of this mechanism is the power of completing a set (Kim, 2009). For instance there are plenty armor sets in WOW which make the player stronger. Each item would not unfold its whole strength until the player is wearing the complete set. So the player will spend a lot of time looking for the missing pieces.
Feedback Feedback is every output or information, which is granted to the player after taking an action. It can appear as real-time feedback or as feedback over time (Kim, 2009). Real-time feedback means the direct response of the system. For example the player clicks with his mouse on the ground and the avatar will instantly move to that position. Feedback over time gives the player the ability to overview an aggregation of his previous actions. Therewith the player can self-estimate its own skills. Another kind of feedback is social
feedback. This is given by other players. For example in WOW, a player can give another player a compliment about his avatar. A good example for the use of “game” feedback in real-life is “The fun theory”10 project of Volkswagen11. In a subway station in Stockholm, they try to incentivize people to use the stairs instead of the escalator by adding a different acoustic feedback (real-time) to every stair. The outcome of this was a huge piano and the amount of people who uses the stairs raised by 66%.
Exchange Exchange is a mechanism, which is often described as taking turns. In chess, it is the back and forth of the player during a game. But it can also stand for a social interaction as trading or gifting. Thereby one differs between two kinds of exchanges, explicit and implicit exchanges. Explicit exchanges are marked by the character of reciprocity. If a player trades an item with another player in World of Warcraft, the other player has to give him something in exchange. The opposite applies for implicit exchanges. If it is an implicit exchange, like gifting, the other player does not have to give him something back, but social pressure could induce him to do so. Let us take eBay12 as an example for the integration of this mechanism into functional software. If you buy something on eBay and you evaluate the seller, then it does not imply that the seller has to leave you an evaluation as well (Kim, 2009).
Social Bonds Social bonds are mechanisms to force the feeling of a belonging to a group of other people. Thereby the player gets incentivized by the social engagement of the community. To give an example, the player is a member of a guild, and now he plays with other people two times a day at a certain time. In a guild everyone fulfills a specific duty. If someone is missing, the guild is unable to fin-
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ish certain quest. On a social media platform like facebook, this mechanism can appear as friendship between the users.
Character Customization This mechanism is a way to let the player identify itself with the virtual avatar and to separate itself from other players. In World of Warcraft you can customize your character to fit your personal preferences. The moment the player starts playing WOW, he has to choose between ten different races and nine classes of characters. A good example out of the functional software world is MySpace13. On MySpace everyone can design its own profile pages to get an individual touch and to share what is important for them with other people. The examples shown above are illustrating the applicability of game mechanisms in functional software. These examples14 will help us to identify game mechanisms in idea competitions in the next section.
GAME MECHANISMS IN IDEA COMPETITIONS: A CASE STUDY This section will first introduce you to our research method. Then it will provide an overview of cases analyzed in this study. Ensuing we will identify game mechanisms that appear in those cases and will have a look on the motives they trigger. In the last section we try to find opportunities for a constant motivation. This chapter’s purpose is to find answers to our overall research questions stated in the introduction section.
Research Method As we pointed out earlier that, as far as we know no one has proposed, as we do here, that video games could provide a way to bring adequate incentives and thus more emotional experiences, higher attention, more creativity and flow into
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the process of innovation. Thus the purpose of this research is to develop theory, not to test it. Building theory from case studies is an appropriate research strategy for this purpose (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). Thus we used a multiple case study in combination with expert interviews. To guarantee a variety of cases, we conducted a webbased search on platforms like Google15, openinnovators.net and openinnovators.de. Thereby we have attached great importance to the fact that the selected competitions are not just announcements, in fact we looked for cases that were completely or at least partly performed online. Another criterion of this research was the actuality of the competition respectively that the competition is still up and running. This offered the chance to slip into the position of the participant. At the end we had an amount of 18 cases, which covered different domains. Even though 18 cases limited the ability to make claims and universal theories, it carries enough potential to come up with assumptions about structural similarities. The second part of this qualitative approach was to have three interviews with experts. All three were part of a department, which organized one of the idea competitions in our case study. The experts had to answer round about fourteen questions concerning the purpose of the competition, usage of certain functionalities and specifics of their competition. The interviews lasted approximately thirty minutes and allowed us valuable insights into the structure of idea competitions.
Illustrating Cases In this case study we analyzed the following idea competitions: All competitions except four were initiated by companies (see Table 1). They were looking for solutions to certain problems, proposals for improvement of products or services, a new design for a product or an innovation under a specific theme. To find a solution or an idea, the participants of eight idea competitions had an unlimited
Applying Game Mechanisms to Idea Competitions
Table 1. Selected idea competitions of this case study Name
Organizer
C1
AppQuest
Dpunkt.Verlag
C2
Call All Innovators
Nokia
callingallinnovators.com/
C3
Connected Drive
BMW
www.hyve-special.de/bmw/index1.php
C4
Dreamheels
Dreamheels
www.dreamheels.com/ www.enlightened-jewellery-design-competition.com
C5
Enlightened
Swarovski
C6
Ideastorm
Dell
C7
Innocentive
InnoCentive Inc.
C8
Contest 2010
IPv6 German Concil
C9
Logo Tournament
Quinn Venture inc.
Website http://... www.dpunkt.de/veranstaltungen/appquest2010/
www.ideastorm.com/ www.innocentive.com/ www.ipv6council.de/contest2010/ logotournament.com/
C10
Mach’s mit
BZgA
C11
My Starbucks Idea
Starbucks
C12
netStar Award
Uni. Duisburg-Essen
C13
OFFIES 2020+
TU Munich
www.save-our-energy.de/
C14
Sapiens
TU Munich
www.sapiens.info/
C15
Smellfighters
Swirl
C16
Style your smart
Daimler AG
C17
Vision 2050
Henkel
C18
Your Rail
Bombardier
timeline, ten of eighteen were restricted. Twelve of all had a community built in their portal. The amount of participants ranged from 272 (Smellfighters, C15) to 7750 (LogoTournament, C9). Innocentive (C7) was an exception with over 200,000 participants. The monetary compensation in the analyzed idea competitions ranged between $250 (LogoTournament, C9) and 30.000€ (Call All Innovators, C2). Therefore ten competitions had cash prizes as main incentive. Only five had the implementation of the idea and two non-cash prizes as main incentives.
Types of Game Mechanisms The purpose of this case study was to identify game mechanisms and to reveal their use in idea competitions. In total we found thirteen different kinds of game mechanisms in twelve out of eighteen competitions. The appearance of mecha-
www.machsmit.de/ mystarbucksidea.force.com/ www.netstart.de/index.php?id=award
www.smellfighters.com/ www.smart-design-contest.com/ www.henkel.com/ yourail-design.bombardier.com/
nisms had a total amount of 62, which exceeded our expectations. The three most appearing game mechanisms were: Exchanges (Comments) in ten, Social Feedback (Social Points) in nine and leader boards in eight cases. Within the implemented community, the competitions had possessed mechanisms that let participants evaluate and comment on the ideas of others. This constant evaluation, which originated by participants was part of ten out of eighteen competitions. To foster creativity, eleven competitions offered inspiration, nine in shape of text, four with the aid of pictures and three in the form of examples. Table 2 offers an overview of game mechanisms found in the course of this study.
Activated Motives In the last section we identified several game mechanisms in idea competitions. In a next step,
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Table 2. Identified game mechanisms in analyzed cases Game Mechanism
Cases
Appearance
Leaderboard
C4, C6, C7, C9, C11, C15, C16, C18
8
Badges
C9, C11
2
C4 - C6, C10, C11, C13 - C16, C18
9
€€€€€€€€activity points
C4, C9, C15, C16, C18
5
€€€€€€€€# of comments
C4, C6, C15, C18
4
€€€€€€€€# of evaluations
C5, C6, C15, C16
4
€€€€€€€€# of ideas
C4 - C6, C9 C15, C16, C18
7
€€€€€€€Idea Status
C6, C11, C14
3
€€€€€€€Simulation
C4, C5, C16, C18
4
Social Feedback €€€€€€€€Social Points Points
Real-time Feedback
Level
C14
1
Collection
C11
1
€€€€€€€€Comments
C3 - C6, C9 - C11, C14 - 16, C18
10
€€€€€€€€Bulletin Boards
C5, C15, C16, C18
4
Exchanges
Table 3. Game mechanisms assigned to the triggered motives Identified game mechanisms in idea competitions Not identified game mechanisms in idea competitions
Motive of Power
Motive of Achievement
Motive of Affiliation
Leaderboards Badges Social Feedback
Points Collection Real-time Feedback Levels
Exchange
Bragable Achievements
Set
Character Customization Social bonds Gifts
this study is concerned about the question: Which motives could be triggered by game mechanisms? To clarify this question, we need to assign the found game mechanisms, with regards to literature review about the basic model of classic motivation psychology, to the three motive categories (see Table 3). In order to assign these mechanisms to the motive types, we focused on the basic characteristics of each one of them. The motive of power stands for prestige, reputation and influence. We decided to put leaderboards in this type, because
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they present a way to compete with other participants. Participants will feel power and might when they are on top of those boards. In idea competitions, leaderboards can appear as a list with a number of users that generated the most ideas in the challenge. Bragable Achievements can be the first place on a leaderboard. The participant wants to share and brag about it with others. In this moment, the participant feels like he reached an important goal for his reputation. Not just the army uses badges for excellent attainment, games do this as well. Hence they are
Applying Game Mechanisms to Idea Competitions
symbols for prestige and reputation. In idea competitions, they can appear as an indicator that someone produced his first idea or his tenth idea et cetera. If a participant gets comments (Social Feedback) to an idea, which points out that the idea is very good and better than others, the participant would feel like he has outmatched the others. Participants with a distinct motive of achievement will love to see each progress they made in the course of a competition. Therefore the mechanism of points, is a good instrument. If the organizers will reward the right actions with points, they will lead the participants through the competition without giving them explicit rules. For instance, points could be given for good qualitative comments that helped the participants in improve their ideas. As well as points, a collection can be an indicator for achievements in a competition. Components of a collection, for example, could be all ideas a participant submitted in different categories of an idea competition. As soon as a participant has submitted an idea in one category he will be anxious to also create ideas in the other categories to complete the whole set. Through real-time feedback, a participant gets the possibility of learning and improving his abilities during a competition. Real-time feedback also provides the chance for implementation of a trial and error process. Positive relationships between human beings are incentives that trigger motives of affiliation. Exchanges are a main part of social interaction; consequently they are dedicated to the affiliation motive. In an idea competition an exchange could be a conversation of two participants in a chat channel as well as leaving a comment on the idea of another participant. Maybe it is even possible to divide the created idea into parts to share them with other participants. The participant, who decides to split his idea to contribute it partly to other participants, will do an implicit exchange in the form of gifting. Social bonds are mechanisms to force the feeling of the belonging to a group of
Figure 3. Tendency of triggered Motives
other people. A good example of an idea competition would be the possibility in finding friends. Character customization is a way for participants to present themselves to the community. In idea competitions it could happen as profile customization, hereby it has to go further than just adding a picture to a standard profile. The assignment of those game mechanisms to motive types is at this moment based on assumption. An empirical analysis will follow in further studies, because it would have gone beyond the scope of this study. We have noticed that the motive of achievement was the most activated one with an amount of eight different game mechanisms. Furthermore eight of twelve competitions (amount of cases with game mechanism) possessed more game mechanisms that triggered the motive of achievement than the motive of power or affiliation. To point out this relation we created a graph (Figure 3) that shows the tendency of idea competitions concerning the triggered motives. We will now take a look at one example to clarify the statements of this graph. Let us take the competition “Style your Smart” as an example. In our research we found two game mechanisms that triggered the motive of power, four for the
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motive of achievement and two that triggered the motive of achievement. Thereby we noticed that the motive of achievement preponderates. Hence we are looking for the middle line in the motive of achievement section. Since the amount of affiliation game mechanisms is four, we choose the fourth circle from the inside. Now we have to compare the amount of game mechanisms that trigger the motive of power with those, which triggered the motive of affiliation. In this case both motive types are triggered by two mechanisms, which mean that the dot is at the right place (Motive of Achievement section – middle line – forth circle from the inside). If the ratio would have been one power to two affiliation game mechanism we had to move the dot on the forth circle one line further into the direction of the motive of affiliation. Our assumption is that the organizers had a different point of view on the implementation of these mechanisms. That would explain the increased application of game mechanisms that activates the motive of achievement. In our case study we found that eight cases are including the game mechanism leaderboard in their community portal, but just one labeled it with the term “leaderboard” and put it on the front page (C11). In the other cases it was just a filter option of a participants’ list. We think that game mechanisms can only enfold their whole potential, if participants will get the sense behind it. That is also the estimation of the experts. One of them told us that some of the implemented functions, for example the improvement of an idea through comments do not happen that often, although the comments’ functionality was integrated because of that. During further analysis, we encounter parts of game mechanisms like “narrative play” and “profile customization”. Narrative play means that the participant is led by a story through the process of idea creation. The story is hereby a possibility for the participants to get into the theme and get inspired by it at the same time. In 90% of cases, the parts of “profile customization” were not more than the possibility to add a picture to a profile. The
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bottom line of what the experts said was that a lot of companies held idea competitions in the internet not just to generate knowledge about new products and solutions, but also to get a basic understanding for the adoption of Web 2.0 functionalities as well as the adoption of tools for open innovation. As a result, the integration of game mechanisms in idea competitions of today is partly “non-systematic” hence they trigger predominantly just one motive type instead of all three.
Opportunities for Continuous Motivation Our understanding of continuous motivation comprised of two desirable modes of participation: more active participation and repeated participation. A more active participation describes that the amount of actions a participant takes is higher than usual. Under repeated participation, we understand a recurring attendance that can appear in the actual competition as well as in the following. One opportunity to obtain constant motivation could be the flow theory. In the state of flow, the action will feel like fun and the person would like to do it more often (Schattke & Kehr, 2009). The state of flow is emerging from the right design of external and internal incentives. In this case study, we found ten competitions that included Social Feedback in the form of Social Points to use the community as a pre-selector of ideas and solution. Participants had to rate on ideas with one to five stars or with a thumb up and thumb down rating. Because of that, the organizers had a lower quantity of ideas to verify. A strong resemblance to this was the approach to involve the participant in previously internal processes of the internet presence. On the ideas portal Sapiens (C14), we found the Level game mechanism. Participants with an active attendance, good ideas and comments could advance in their status from a “SAPien” to a “seniorSAPien”. With the new status, they were able to write articles in the integrated news blog.
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In addition there were also attempts to integrate the participant in support and assistance processes. The LogoTournament (C9) for example provides a forum where users can share their experience, find an answer to a specific question or just get in contact with each other. This is exactly what the exchange game mechanism is all about, social interactions. As a summary, game mechanisms can provide internal incentives (in this case altruism) that motivate the participants to appear as assistants of previously internal processes of the idea competition as well as of the internet presence behind it. They are supporting other participants by answering certain questions about the idea competitions. In our opinion the transfer of formerly internal dues to a participant results in an incentivizing social engagement that offers an opportunity for continuous motivation. One expert told us that they especially try to provide incentives that motivate participants to interact, discuss and collaborate in the idea competitions to increase the quality of the submission and to create a certain connection to the platform or rather the community behind it. Thereby he is certain that the social motivation, which results out of the community feeling is at least as much important as the winning of prizes. The LogoTournament (C9) also provides evidence in this context. With a minimum cashprize of $250 and a maximum of $800, they are not at the top of the monetary rewarding board. Nonetheless they have managed to get one of the largest communities with an estimated amount of 7750 participants in this case study. Money as an external incentive could be suppressed by a virtual external incentive like the game mechanism Points. A competition that possesses points is Smellfighter (C15). Through a so called “Activity Counter” almost each and every action was rewarded with action points from a single point for the vote of one idea to twenty points for the submission of an idea or a challenge. Even though, with 272 participants, this competition had the smallest community in this case study, they managed to
generate the amount of 2404 comments, 4066 messages and 3440 evaluations. One of the experts said in relation to the rewarding of actions with points that they try to foster a feeling of guiltiness if one is less active than others. Furthermore another expert told us that the activity counter could also be used as a measure for appreciation. That means that the participants would be directly or indirectly biased by the amount of points the will get for a dedicated action. The outcome is that a game mechanism can provide internal and external incentives. If organizers can provide them in right combination, participants will be continuously motivated to participate in their competitions.
CONCLUSION Summary, Results and Managerial Implications A cultural change has happened on the Internet. The customers switched their behavior from individuals that only visit websites, to users, who generate content (Howe, 2008). In these times of collaborative web “Customers are considered a valuable source of innovation” (Füller 2010, p. 98). Idea competitions are one possible approach to open up the innovation process. The inflationary increase of idea competitions results in a need for incentives that motivates the user to participate. Accordingly, we identified two different types of incentives (internal / external) that are responsible for the motivation of humans. To create motivation they need to trigger three different motive types (Motive of power, achievement and affiliation) and they have to reach a certain level to attract people. If an organizer will find the right designed combination of internal and external incentives, it will lead the participants into the state of flow.
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Characteristics of this condition are for example: concentration, curiosity and enjoyment. Activities that are pretty good in activating the feeling of flow in a participant are games. Through the similarities of games and idea competitions, we draw a connection to transfer mechanisms from the game context to an idea competition. The process of implementing playful elements into the model of open innovation has been classified as “game-based open innovation”. Accordingly, we have introduced our definition of game mechanisms as follows: Game mechanisms are the various actions, reactions and processes in an activity, which advance playfulness. In interaction with the activitycontext, game mechanisms represent incentives, which trigger motives and drive behavior. We had a look on their appearance in online games, functional software and the real life. Through these consolidated findings we were able to start our research. With an explorative case study of 18 cases and three qualitative interviews, we found answers to our three research questions. We… •
•
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…detected 62 appearances of game mechanisms in the eighteen analyzed cases, which was more than what we expected. Thereby the most occurring types were: Exchanges with ten, social feedback with nine and leader boards with eight times. …found that all three motive types were trigger, but not nearly with the same degree. The motive of achievement was the most triggered one with an amount of eight different game mechanisms. Furthermore eight of twelve cases (amount of cases with game mechanism) possess more game mechanisms that triggered the motive of achievement than the motive of power or affiliation. The outcome of this was that game mechanisms indeed are parts in idea
•
competitions of today, but that they are non-systematically integrated. Hence they triggered predominantly just one motive type instead of all three. …managed to attest game mechanisms as incentives for motivation. Hereby we posed evidence that game mechanisms can take effect as internal incentives as well as external incentives. In combination with statements about the feeling of flow, we found that it is possible to motivate participants continuously.
Limitations and Challenges In the course of our study, we have dealt with a new attempt to improve the model of open innovation by adding playful elements to it. Thereby we encountered challenges of gamebased open innovation and limitation of this study that deserves consideration. One way to realize game-based open innovation is to integrate game mechanism into an already existing instrument of open innovation. Our study was the first step for the realization, by revealing game mechanisms that can be transferred from games to idea competitions and that they are able to incentivize people. The upcoming challenge for researchers is now to identify more of these mechanisms and to transfer them into the context of an idea competition. New combination of existing web tools are needed to create game mechanism that really feel like games. As far as we know, this study was the first to propose game mechanisms as incentives for certain types of motives. To have a measurement for comparing their effect on one of the motive types, we decided to count the occurring mechanisms instead of measuring their efficiency because this would have gone beyond the scope of this study. Knowing about the fact that game mechanisms are internal incentives that drive behavior, we need to make sure that they drive the right behavior. If you find volitional activities in your idea competi-
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tion, then you are able to attach game mechanisms to them to foster their usage. From a research perspective, we think that this study holds many exciting opportunities for further research.
Dahan, E., & Hauser, J. (2002). The virtual customer. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 19(5), 332–353. doi:10.1016/S07376782(02)00151-0
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Hars, A., & Ou, S. (2002). Working for free? Motivation for participating in open-source projects. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 6(3), 25–39.
Lenzen, M. (2003). Evolutionstheorien in den Natur- und Sozialwissenschaften. Frankfurt/Main. Germany: Campus Verlag.
Helfrich, M. (2008). Community generated innovation. In Zerfaß, A., & Möslein, K. M. (Eds.), Kommunikation als Erfolgsfaktor im Innovationsmanagement (pp. 367–371). Wiesbaden, Germany: Gabler. Herzberg, F. (1966). Work and the nature of man. Cleveland, OH: World. Howe, J. (2008). Crowdsourcing – how the power of the crowd is driving the future of business. New York, NY: Crown Business. Hunicke, R., LeBlanc, M., & Zubeck, R. (2004). MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research. Paper presented as part of the Game Design and Tuning Workshop at the Game Developers Conference, San Jose, CA. Retrieved from http://algorithmancy.8kindsoffun.com/ MDAnwu.ppt Kim, A. J. (2009). Putting the fun in functional: Applying game mechanics to functional software. Google Tech Talks. Retrieved from http://www. youtube.com/ watch?v=ihUt-163gZI Lakhani, K. R., & Wolf, R. G. (2005). Why hackers do what they do: Understanding motivation and effort in free/open source software projects. In Feller, J., Fitzgerald, B., Hissam, S., & Lakhani, K. R. (Eds.), Perspectives on free and open source software (pp. 3–22). Cambridge, MA.
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Schmalt, H. D., & Heckhausen; H. (2006). Machtmotivation. In J. Heckhausen, & H. Heckhausen (Ed.), Motivation und Handeln (pp. 211-234). Berlin, Germany: Springer. Sokolowski, K., & Heckhausen, H. (2006). Soziale Bindung: Anschlussmotivation und Intimitätsmotivation. In Heckhausen, J., & Heckhausen, H. (Eds.), Motivation und Handeln (pp. 193–210). Berlin, Germany: Springer. doi:10.1007/3-54029975-0_7 Walcher, D. (2007). Der Ideenwettbewerb als Methode der aktiven Kundenintegration. Theorie, empirische Analyse und Implikationen für den Innovationsprozess. München, Germany: Gabler. West, J., & Gallagher, S. (2006). Challenges of open innovation: The paradox of firm investment in open-source software. R & D Management, 36(3), 319–331. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9310.2006.00436.x
ADDITIONAL READING Moon, J. W., & Kim, Y. G. (2000). Extending the TAM for World-Wide-Web context. Information & Management, 38, 217–230. doi:10.1016/S03787206(00)00061-6 Ward, M. (2007). When work becomes a game. BBC news. Retrieved December 5, 2009, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7030234. stm
attendance that can appear in the actual competition as well as in the following. Flow: Is a condition in which a person gets incentivized by the action itself. Game Mechanisms: Are the various actions, reactions and processes in an activity, which advance playfulness. In interaction with the activitycontext, game mechanisms represent incentives, which trigger motives and drive behavior. Game: “[…] Is a system, in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 80). Game-based Open Innovation: Is the integration of playful elements into the model of open innovation. Idea Competition: Which are arranged privately or publicly, ask single persons respectively groups to hand in contributions for a special theme within a fixed period of time. The assessment of contributions is carried out under certain assessment-criteria’s, which were defined by an assessment-committee (adopted from Reichwald & Piller, 2009,). Open Innovation: “[…] A paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths, to market, as the firms look to advance their technology” (Chesbrough, 2003, p. xxiv).
ENDNOTES 1 2
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Continuous Motivation: We define continuous motivation as either more active participation or repeated participation. A more active participation describes that the amount of actions a participant takes is higher than usual. Under repeated participation, we understand a recurring
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Reference: http://www.save-our-energy.de/ Reference: http://www.dpunkt.de/veranstaltungen/appquest2010/ A German publisher for IT- books Reference: http://www.logotournament.com Kite-boards: Piece of sport equipment in the domain of Kite-Surfing Social points are pretty near to social feedback the difference is that they occur as a countable amount
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A avatar is a virtual image of the player (Castronova, 2001) A Guild is a coordinated group of avatars in World of Warcraft Nike+ is initiated by Nike a famous manufacture of sport- goods Reference: http://www.thefunfactor.com Volkswagen is a german manufacturer for automobiles eBay is one of the biggest online auction houses
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MySpace is a social network which holds a lot of customization potential Inspired by the presentations of Amy Jo Kim (2009) and the book of Reeves & Leighton (2009) Searches on Google.de leads to a number of 255.000 results for ‘Ideenwettbewerb’ (ger. for Idea Competition) and to 44.400.000 for the term ‘Idea Competition’.
Section 3
Organizational Aspects of Collaborative Web
OVERVIEW There are two clear trends visible today. One is the increasing number and reducing duration of business partnerships forcing organizations to get more interactive, dynamic and agile in order to make the best of an association. Such partnerships quite often connect competitors as collaborators. The other trend revolves around individual empowerment churning out of the mass adoption of collaborative tools by individuals. As a result, we are witnessing a steep increase in the number of bloggers, tweeters, social networks and virtual communities. Open-source culture and free tools have enabled the freedom of voice. The possibility of an individual’s idea getting sold has increased. At an individual and social level, this trend is exciting but its ramifications for organizations are severe. The issues of lost productivity and organizational loyalty are already being felt and documented. The conventional structures and management controls cannot be adequate to hold back this motion which, to an extent, is irresistible. It is compulsive that they relook their plans, policies and controls to give way to open structure and culture that accommodates the individual and social behavioral patterns. Chapter 11 addresses the first trend, wherein Paolo Renna draws attention to the emergence of informal networks formed by clusters as a new but significant feature of contemporary industrial economy. The chapter investigates the life cycle of business networks in which the partners change dynamically. A multi-agent architecture is proposed to support a network of enterprises collaborating in co-opetitive relationship. A simulation environment is proposed that can help business users decide when to enter into or exit from a partnership. Chapter 12 by Kathrin Kirchner and Mladen Čudanov takes a look inside knowledge intensive companies and questions the influence of collaborative web tools on knowledge management, structure and culture of organizations. Knowledge intensive organizations are characterized by diversity of knowledge which is distributed across project teams, communities of practice and individuals. With the
help of structured, in-depth interviews of business managers in knowledge intensive companies, the authors conclude that collaborative web does affect the structure, culture and knowledge management of an organization. Their findings also suggest that there is a shift in employees’ loyalties from that of company to virtual communities. Though the context of this study is based in Serbia, the implications presented in this chapter are undoubtedly universal. In Chapter 13, Archana Tyagi pitches the organizational impacts from the psychological perspective. It is grounded in the fact that organizational identity and individual identities have a reciprocal relation. Using the concept of “Identity”, this chapter explores the identity management and identity statuses to understand the real and virtual identity. It reminds us of the issue of identity crisis and the associated potential challenges in the real world. The chapter then moves on to discuss about the space extended by virtual reality for manifestation of an alternate identity. The author suggests that experimenting with multiple identities teaches us to be more tolerant, flexible, empathetic and social which is an integral part of the human growth. Hence, understanding the role of collaborative web in the formation of a healthy identity should be clear sighted with immense potential of self expression and communication leading to better alignment between individual and organizational identities.
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Chapter 11
Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization Supported by Multi Agent Architecture Paolo Renna University of Basilicata, Italy
ABSTRACT The emergence of institutional or informal networks, formed by cluster groups appears to be a major new feature of the contemporary industrial economy. The focus of this chapter is the development of a Multi Agent Architecture to support a network of enterprises that collaborate in a co-opetition relationships environment. The research concerns the investigation of a life cycle of the network in which the partners change dynamically. In particular, the enterprises that participate in the network can exit or continue to participate, while the enterprises that operate outside the network can evaluate to participate in the network. A simulation environment is developed to implement and test the proposed Multi Agent Architecture. The simulation tool allows to evaluate the proposed approach in a co-opetitive network during the operational activities. The simulation results show that the proposed approach is a very promising tool to support the plant’s participation decision.
INTRODUCTION Nowadays, the costs of cooperation and communication among the enterprises are reduced drastically, this condition encourages the enterDOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch011
prises to establish relationship among them. The collaboration among enterprises is necessary to obtain a competitive advantage in the actual business environment characterized by global competition, frequent introduction of new products, large fluctuations in product demand, etc. Several investigations have been discussed on inter-firm
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relationship (Song and Panayides, 2002; White, 2005; Janssen, 2008). The importance of interfirm relationship is supported by several studies, among them Lavie (2007) finds an increase from 32% to 95% for the percentage of corporations in the US software industry that engage in alliances between the beginning and the end of the 1990s. The co-opetition paradigm seems to be the most promising approach to establish efficacy and efficient relationship among enterprises. Co-opetition concept was expanded upon by Brandenburger & Nalebuff (1996a; 1996b); it is a model in which firms engage in simultaneous cooperation and competition with each other to create maximum value. Several examples of co-opetition have been developed in recent years. In the 90s GM and Ford, the major American car-makers, established an e-procurement platform for procuring basic components. The joint venture between Toyota and PSA Citroen-Peugeot, established in 2002, is another very relevant example of co-opetition in automobile industry. The two companies agreed in building a common plant in Czech Republic and using common components for the production of three new separately-owned city cars. In Italy, in 2002, the two biggest motorcycle companies, Aprilia and Piaggio made an alliance for joint-procurement, though competing in the final market. In ICT industry, the Simian is a joint-venture among the main mobile wireless telephones manufacturers in the world: Nokia, Ericsson, Panasonic, Samsung, Siemens AG, and the leading company in the mobile digital computing, Psion. (Psionhas sold its own shares in 2004). The phenomenon of co-opetition in R&D activities and co-promotion is also very common in pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. The development and rapid expansion of World Wide Web technologies allowed the acceleration of applications that can support e-collaboration for business to business applications. These tools allow enterprises geographically dispersed to cooperate in order to better respond to business opportunities. Multi Agent technology has been
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considered as an important approach for developing distributed architecture (Shen, 1999). In particular, the multi agent technology can be used to structure the framework for dynamic collaborative web tools. The main motivations to adopt a multi-agent platform concern especially: •
•
•
The dynamicity of the system- enterprises can evaluate the possibility to enter or leave with the needed intelligence of software components. The scalability of the system - enterprises have different system to integrate and the environmental condition can be affected by rapid change. The naturally distributed environment.
In this context, the “multi agent technology” can be viewed as a framework at high level of abstraction (knowledge level) to support and implement the features of a collaborative distributed environment. Collaborative web applications support the development of sophisticated multi agent architectures with high intelligence that improve the performance level of decentralized approaches. The contribution of this chapter concerns the following issues. The first issue concerns the design of the Multi Agent Architecture able to support transaction, information sharing and collaboration among the enterprises that participate in a co-opetition network. In particular, to form a functional perspective, the architecture is described by using the class diagram formalism, while its dynamics are specified by UML activity diagrams. The second issues concerns the development of strategies performed by the generic firm. In particular, the firms have to take the following decisions: •
if the generic firm participates in the network, it applies a periodic review of the advantages / disadvantages obtained by
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•
the participation in order to make a decision regarding the participation (continue to participate or exit); a generic firm that doesn’t participate in the network evaluates if the participation can be opportune to improve its profit.
Therefore, the research regards a dynamic network in which the partners can change during the life cycle of the network. Finally, a discrete event simulation environment has been proposed to implement the multi agent architecture and to test the proposed approaches in dynamic conditions. The simulation results allow to evaluate the real value added by the network to the participants. The rest of the chapter is structured as follows: section 2 presents an overview of the literature on dynamic alliance among firms; section 3 describes the multi agent architecture proposed; the agents’ interaction and the strategies performed by each agent are illustrated in section 4. The developed simulation environment and simulation results are respectively presented in sections 5 and 6. Finally, conclusions and further research paths are drawn in section 7.
LITERATURE OVERVIEW Many authors addressed the problem of evolutionary dynamics of strategic alliances investigating case study and proposing theoretical framework. Royer and Simons (2009) investigated the impact of reputation on alliance creation and the influence of expectations of partner behaviour on alliance failure and longevity. An experimental study with 120 chemical manufacturing project managers picks up on current perceptions of reputation of each manager and pre-existing relationships within the industry in the Asia Pacific Region. The researchers identified the formation of over 500 alliances and investigated the conditional effects of ‘expectation matching’
and “expectation mismatching” on alliance duration. In real life inter-firm alliances, probably more emphasis is placed on the reputation of the whole entity (i.e., the corporate reputation). This however is difficult to model in an experimental setting. Therefore, they had chosen their approach as a starting point for understanding the impact of reputation on alliance formation on an individual level. However, this research is a first analysis for further investigation on this issue. Jiang et al. (2008) presented a theoretical framework for understanding the evolutionary dynamics of strategic alliances using an integrated process model. They analyzed the conceptual characteristics and antecedents of the stability of strategic alliances. Their analysis suggested that in the partner selection stage, complementarity of partners’ resources, partner reputation and prior ties may be key attributes. This perspective has important implications for managerial practice. First, firms should choose those organizations with complementary resources and good reputation as partners. Further, if they had previous cooperative experience with a partner in which the alliance performed well, they could consider collaborating with the same partner again, and by doing so they could ensure the existence of a reciprocal, favorable and stable alliance relationship. Li et al. (2009) modeled and simulated the evolution of complex adaptive supply networks (CASNs) based on complex adaptive system and fitness landscape theory. Then, a case study of the evolution of the low voltage equipment apparatus supply network in the emerging Chinese market has been explored to validate the findings from the simulation and develop a better understanding of the general principles influencing the emergence, adaptation and evolution of CASNs in the real world. Based on the simulation and the case study, they proposed some propositions about the factors and principles influencing the evolutionary complexity of CASNs. The external environment factors and firm-internal mechanisms appear to be the dominant forces that shape the
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gradual evolution of CASNs. Factors in the external environment, such as government regulation, market demand and market structure appear to have a long-term impact on the evolution, while a firm’s strategies, product structure, technology, and organization appear to be the internal factors that exert an immediate influence on the evolution of CASNs. Among these factors, cost and quality considerations appear to be the primary forces that influence the structure complexity, centralization and formalization of CASNs. Pathak et al. (2003) introduced a multi-paradigm dynamic system simulator based on discrete time and discrete event formalism for simulating a supply chain as a complex adaptive system. Simulating dynamic supply chain networks over extended periods using the multi-paradigm dynamic system simulator allows observing the emergence of different structures. The simulator was implemented using a software agent technology, where individual agents represent firms in a supply chain network. In this paper, the authors presented an example scenario run on the simulator and shared the preliminary results. This multiparadigm tool provides a valuable investigation instrument for real-life supply chain problems. Pathak et al. (2007) investigated how supply chains, or supply networks evolve, and adapt over time. To study this complex phenomenon, they identified some primary topological structures that supply networks may form. Then, to investigate the evolution of such structures, a theory-based framework was developed that combines aspects of complex adaptive systems theory, industrial growth theory, network theory, market structure and game theory. This framework specifies categories of rules that may evoke different behaviors in the two fundamental components of any adaptive supply networks. The framework was implemented as a multi-paradigm simulation utilizing software agents and it joins discrete-time with discrete-event simulation formalisms. This methodology allows the spontaneous generation of network structures so that it is possible to ex-
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amine the potential factors behind the evolution of different supply networks topologies. Using data and parameters extracted from 80 years of the U.S. automobile industry, they have been able to “grow” a wide range of SN topologies and preliminary results show that certain environmental and firm-level factors may impact the eventual evolution of such structures. More recent contributions organize in a framework different kinds of co-opetitions. Garraffo (2002) defined a typology co-opetition and showed how such a strategy may contribute to the value creation or construct a framework to measure intensity and diversity of co-opetition in order to provide some guidelines for building up co-opetitive relationships (Luo, 2007). The papers presented above, even those which explicitly study co-opetition issues, focus on analyzing inter-firms relationships within co-opetition frameworks. Kupke and Lattemann (2008) investigated Deutsche Börse AG case study. The case study shows that the DBAG is successful in contractual collaborations with smaller exchanges and clearing institutions as well as all mergers with smaller firms are successful. They are not successful in the other clusters, in particular in alliances with bigger or same-sized companies. Li et al. (2009b) proposed an evolution model of supply networks in order to understand the general principle of supply network evolution. The paper conducted a multi-agent simulation on the evolution model, and disclosed that the supply network emerges and evolves from firms’ dynamic interaction under the dynamic environment. Dominated by the environment and firms’ internal mechanism, the evolution is highly sensitive to the initial condition, and it is path-dependent and difficult to predict precisely. Although the dynamics of environment are different, a supply network enjoys the stable structure in different environments. Higher level of structure stability and fitness of the supply network are achieved when the firms in the supply network adopt the long-term collaboration strategy rather
Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
than the short-term strategy. Finally, a China case is explored which validates the self-organization evolution of supply networks. Several authors addressed the decision problem on entering in an alliance. Doz et al. (2000) examined the creation of R&D firms consortia to uncover the formation processes underlying the formation of cooperative inter-firm networks. They identified an emergent process by which environmental changes and shared views among participants facilitate network formation, and also an engineered process in which a triggering entity actually recruits potential members. Together, the identification and elucidation of these two processes provide us with insights into the formation of networks. Baum et al. (2000) utilize a unique data set on biotech start-ups to examine the role of start-ups’ network composition on their innovative performance. Their findings suggest that the structure of their network of ties and the identity of their partners can have a significant influence on their performance. They used these empirical findings to reflect on some implications that may help managers of start-ups. In marketing literature and in agricultural economics, there are some examples of game theoretic approaches, for instance, in analyzing effects and results of joint advertising or copromotion in presence of competition among partners (Krishnamurthy, 2000; Bass et al., 2005; Isariyawongse et al., 2007). Park and Zhou (2005) focused on the decision of a firm to enter an alliance from the perspective that this decision is assumed to be primarily based on the competitive pressure in the market. They, therefore, adopt a strategic game form setting and perform simulations. Some papers focused on the aspect of exiting the alliance during the life cycle alliance behavior (Arend and Seale, 2005; Phelan et al., 2005). They argue that modeling an alliance as a prisoner’s dilemma neglects the exit option that is available to partners. They proposed a game in which alliance
partners have three strategies at their disposal: commitment, opportunism and exiting. From the analysis of the literature, is it possible to extrapolate some useful highlights: •
•
•
the most part of the researcher have proposed frameworks to build and manage coopetition networks. These studies analyzed the requisites to form a network and the motivation to obtain a long-term collaboration among enterprises. some authors addressed the problem of decision to participate in a network. In this case only the enter option is considered. the option of an enterprise to enter or leave a network was not investigated using the information of the cooperation protocol among the partners during the operative activities of the network.
This research overcomes the previous studies in the following issues: •
•
•
it utilizes a Multi Agent Architecture as a framework for the considered network in order to manage all the activities of the enterprises and the life cycle of the network. it has developed a coordination protocol among the partners of the network based on negotiation approach. the generic enterprise decides to enter or leave the network using the information of the network (the real benefits that the network can provide to the generic enterprise).
Moreover, a simulation environment is developed in order to test the proposed approach and to evaluate their real added values.
MULTI AGENT ARCHITECTURE The electronic co-petitive network considered in this chapter has the objective to share capacity
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Figure 1. Class diagram
among the partners. Each partner operates in a regional market in which the customers put in some orders. Therefore, the enterprises that have an excess of capacity can provide them to the enterprises that have an over-loaded situation. The cooperation allows the enterprises to share capacity and therefore to reduce the needs of capacity investment and to react to the market fluctuations. The environment context consists of a set of plants located in different regional markets in which customers input orders. The network connects a set of plants together by an electronic marketplace managed by an independent third party. The class diagram of figure 1 shows the agents that compose the framework developed. As the reader can notice, the architecture consists of two principal agents: Plant Agent (PA) and Mediator Agent (MA). The PA is composed of three agents: Decision Support Agent (DSA), Request Capacity Agent (RCA) and Capacity Offering Agent (COA). The PA performs the following activities: •
•
170
Participate or leave a network; the PA using the information and the model of the DSA decides if participate in a network or leave a network. Capacity offer state; if the plant is in under-loaded situation it can offer capacity to
•
the other plants of the network. Then, the plant activates the COA in order to negotiate the capacity to provide to other plants of the network by the MA. Capacity request state; if the plant is in over-loaded situation it needs capacity to satisfy its customers. Then, the plant activates the RCA in order to negotiate the capacity to acquire by the other plants of the network by the MA.
The MA is in charge of managing synchronization in RCA and COA system communication by using coordination mechanisms and coordinates the plants that enter or leave the network.
AGENTS’ INTERACTIONS The coordination approach of the electronic network used in this research is a negotiation model, first proposed in Renna et al. (2010), and here briefly described. The negotiation process is characterized by the following constraints (Negotiation constraints): • •
the negotiation is a multi-lateral one and it involves one to many agents; the negotiation is an iterative process with a maximum number of rounds, rmax ; after
Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
•
•
• •
that an agreement is reached or the negotiation fails; during each round (r) the COA can submit a new counter-proposal (N) to the RCA while, at r= rmax, it can only accept (A), reject (R) or ask for last counter proposal. Obviously, the RCA answers at generic round r, can be referred as (A ∨ R ∨ N)r ; the agreement is reached only if the RCA accepts the COA counter proposal at round r< rmax; in this case the agents sign an electronic contract; if there are multiple agreements, the first COA that satisfies the RCA sings the agreement. the agents behavior is assumed to be rationale according to their utility functions; the RCA does not know COAs’ utility functions and vice versa.
The common variables considered for the network formalization are: the market price of the kth product, the associated productive cost, related to the price by a mark-up strategy, the productive capacity of each plant and the quantity of each product required by the market. Specifically: price pk is the market price of kth product, for the generic pth plant; cos t pk is the production cost of kth product, for the generic pth plant. It is a function of productive and managerial costs. It also takes into account the efficiency of the plant and its relative geographical dispersion. It is obtained with a mark-up strategy; C pk is the productive capacity of kth product, for the generic pth plant; Rpk is the quantity of kth product required by the market, for the generic pth plant. For both approaches, agents are identified and classified in overloadedOG = {1,..., i,..., N } and under-loaded UG = {1,..., j,..., M } . Afterwards
each of them respectively compute the capacity it needs to produce a given product k, RC ik , or
the one it can offer,OC jk , to other plants of the network. The only variable all agents take into account is the price to pay to obtain -or make over- their capacity. The UML activity diagram of Figure 2 shows the agents’ interaction workflow. As the reader can notice three swim lines, corresponding to the above described agents, have been located in the diagram. Specifically, for the COA the following activities can be highlighted: • •
Wait: the agent is in its initial state of waiting for a proposal (from RCA); Evaluates proposal: the COA evaluates the proposal of the RCA in terms of required capacity and offered price. At the first round the COA communicates the amount of capacity it is willing to offer (the minimum value between the one requested by the RCA and its own unused capacity). Subsequently, the COA communicates to the RCA if it accepts or refuses the proposed price to exchange the promise amount of capacity. Then the COA evaluates the proposal of the RCA by a threshold function given by (1):
r − 1 k val jk ,r = price kj − (price kj − cos t jk ) ⋅ ⋅ M ij r − 1 max
(1)
being M ijk = min(RC k ,OC k ) i
j
(2)
Expression (1) computed by the COA is a threshold level. Starting from the market price value, during the negotiation the variable r increments and the threshold level decreases until the value of production costs. In this case the generated profit is null. At this point, the following expression is checked:
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Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
Figure 2. Negotiation Activity Diagram
k ,r
valik ,r ³ val j
(3)
•
If (3) is verified, the jth plant supplies the requested capacity of the ith plant: they reach an agreement and each ones can update their available capacity. •
172
Updates threshold level: if the COA refuses the price submitted by the RCA, it updates the threshold level for the next round of negotiation (increases the value of r in expression (1)); if the algorithm reached the last round, the COA simply quits the negotiation. Updates capacity: if the negotiation reaches an agreement, the COA updates the
Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
capacity it owns. In case no more capacity resources are available, it quits, otherwise it goes in its Wait state.
• •
The RCA performs the following activities: Proposal elaboration: the RCA elaborates a proposal in terms of price and amount of capacity to acquire, and transmits this information to the MA. The submitted price is obtained by the following expression:
•
r − r k = priceik − (priceik − cos tik ) ⋅ max ⋅ M ij r − 1 max
•
k ,r
vali
(4)
Expression (4) computed by the RCA starts with a price equal to production costs: the generated profit is the same obtained when the products are produced by its own plant. During the negotiation the price is increased upto the value given by the market price. In this case the generated profit is null. • •
•
Wait: the RCA waits for counter-proposal by the COAs. Counter-proposal computation: if the COA refuses the proposal and the negotiation is still running, the RCA computes a new counter-proposal (increases the value of r in expression (4)). Otherwise (i.e. it is the last round of negotiation), the process ends with no agreement. Updates capacity: if the negotiation reaches an agreement, the RCA updates their information; if the acquired capacity is exactly as the required one, it quits, otherwise it computes a new proposal for the residual capacity it needs.
•
Wait: the MA is in its initial state of waiting for a proposal (from the RCA). Computes raking list: the MA computes a ranking list among all the plants that requested capacity. The way it does it depends on several variables; in this research, the ranking is done favoring first plants with high need of capacity, allowing them to better satisfy the customers’ requests. Transmits proposal: the MA transmits the proposal computed by RCA, at the ranking list of COAs. Wait: the MA is in state of waiting for the counter-proposal by all the COAs. Transmits counter-proposal: the MA transmits the counter-proposal of the COA to the RCA.
After having uploaded all the necessary values, the generic ith plant that does not reach the entire capacity it needs is again inserted in the ranking list. At this point the negotiation starts again. To avoid a deadlock, the agent that does not reach any agreement at the end of the negotiation process is removed by the ranking list.
Agents’ Interaction of the Decisional Approach Figure 3 shows the activity diagram that involves the Decision Support Agent and Mediator Agent when the generic plant evaluates if participates or leave a network. The Decision Support Agent works through the following activities: •
The MA performs the coordination activities between COA and RCA. •
Periodic evaluation: the generic plant applies a periodic strategy to evaluate if it participates or leaves a network. Therefore, the process to evaluate the state of the plant is activated between two sets of periods (Tp). Decision model: the DSA makes the decision by a decisional model. Two cases
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Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
Figure 3. Participation Activity diagram
have to be described: if the plant participates in the network or the plant operates alone. If the plant operates alone, it evaluates if the participation in the network can improve the performance. The information used by the generic i-th plant is: unsatisfied customer demand (UDi) and the variability of the demand (VDi). The plant can gain benefit from the network, if the customer demand has high variability and the unsatisfied customer demand is limited. This condition means that the plant i-th is characterized by some peak of demand, but no increasing trend of customer demand (in this last situation, the plant needs to invest in capacity). Moreover, the high variability of customer demand causes that in some periods, the plant have excess of
174
capacity that it can sell to the other plants in the network. Therefore, the environment condition in which the plant can gain high benefit is the following: IF UDi IS LOW AND IF VDi IS HIGH In this chapter, it is proposed to have two thresholds values to define the conditions LOW and HIGH. In particular, the LOW condition is defined as ThrUDi and HIGH as ThrVDi (generic plant i-th). Therefore, “UDi IS LOW” is verified when UDi < ThrUDi and “VDi IS HIGH” is verified when VDi>ThrVdi.
Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
Updates network composition: the MA analyzes the proposal submitted by the plant and updates the composition of the network. Sends network information: the MA transmits the technological and protocol information to participate or leave the network.
In case the plant participates in the network, the decision concerns the possibility to continue the participation or leave the network. The information that the plant uses is: the profit gained by selling capacity to the other plants of the network (exchprofi) and unsatisfied customer demand (UDi). The environment condition that leads the decision to leave the network is the following:
•
IF exchprofi IS LOW AND UDi IS HIGH
The above Multi Agent architecture is generic and it can be easily re-configured for introduce other requirements.
The above rule means that the plant i-th gains a low profit selling capacity to the network (exchprofi) and the unsatisfied customer demand is high with the chance of reducing its market share. The low value of profit can be caused by the production costs of the plant that are incompatible with the other plants of the network and the plant does not reach agreement during the negotiations. Further, in this case two thresholds values are proposed to define the conditions LOW and HIGH. In particular, the LOW condition is defined as ThrExchi and HIGH as ThrUDi (generic plant i-th). Therefore, “exchprofi IS LOW” is verified when eschprofi < ThrExchi and “UDi IS HIGH” is verified when UDi>ThrUDi. •
• •
Sends request to participate/leave: the generic plant sends the decision to participate or to leave the network based on the above two cases described. Wait: the plant waits for the answer of the Mediator Agent. Updates state: after the answer of the Mediator Agent the plant updates its state (participate or leave the network).
The Mediator Agent performs the following activities: •
Wait: the MA is in the initial state of waiting for a proposal to enter/leave from a plant.
•
Decisional Parameters Computation The parameters used to make the decision by the generic plant are computed as follows. The value of unsatisfied demand of the plant i-th (UDi) is computed as average of the unsatisfied demand during the Tp periods of the periodic review policy. Then, the index UDi is the ratio between the unsatisfied demand and the capacity of the plant in order to obtain a value between 0 and 1. The VDi is computed as square root of variance of the customer demand observed during the last Tp periods. Therefore the value is between 0 and 1. The exchprofi is computed as the average amount of exchanged money for buy or sell capacity during the last Tp periods. In order to obtain a value minor of one, the exchprofi is divided to the potential turnover, to be more precisely, the amount of invoice if all the capacity is sold.
SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT A distributed simulation environment has been developed based on the proposed Multi Agent Architecture to simulate the electronic co-opetitive network. It consists of a simulation environment, developed by using Java development kit package, able to test the functionality of the proposed approaches and to understand the related advan-
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Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
Table 1. Plants’ characteristics Parameter
Values
C pk
100
pricepk
8
cos t pk
6.4
In order to reduce the computational time, just one product typology has been considered (k=1). Moreover, the plants’ characteristics are equal for all plants to evaluate only the effect of the customer demand on the performance of the network. Table 2 reports the threshold levels for each parameters used by the plants to decide the participation in the network. The meaning of the threshold levels is the following: the threshold ThUDi concerns the acceptable limit of unsatisfied demand fixed to 10% of the capacity; the ThVDi is related to the variability of customer demand fixed to 5% of the capacity; finally, the ThExchi is minimum value of exchange acceptable to participate in the network, this is related to the potential profit of the plant. Several customer demand typologies have been considered, however in all of them the customer demand, at the beginning of the simulation, has a value comparable to the plants’ capacities. Table 3 reports the customer’s demand for each simulated case. Furthermore, because of the random input and in order to guarantee a statistical validity of the results for each run, the number of executed replications guarantees, for the output performance measures, that the length of confidence intervals (95% level) of the mean among replications is lower than 5% of the mean itself. The following performance measures have been considered to compare the proposed coordination strategies:
tages and/or limits. The modeling formalism adopted here is a collection of independent agents interacting via messages. This formalism is quite suitable for MAS development. In particular, each object represents an agent and the system evolves through a message sending engine managed by a discrete event scheduler. Specifically, the following objects have been developed: the DSA, COA, the RCA, the MA – deeply described in the previous section-, the Scheduler, the Model and the Statistical agents. The scheduler, model and statistical agents are developed to support the simulator used to test the proposed approach. The Scheduler agent is in charge of the system evolution by managing the discrete events of the simulation engine. Differently, Model agent is in charge of the agents’ interaction. Finally, the Statistical agent collects the output data -at the end of simulation- and it generates reports and statistical analysis. The simulation network replies 72 periods with a Tp of 9 periods. The plants’ characteristics are reported in table 1.
Table 2. Threshold values
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Parameter
Threshold
Value
UDi
ThUDi
10% of C p
VDi
ThVDi (average for period)
5% of C p
exchprofi
ThExchi (average for period)
0.55% of C p *( price p - cos t p )
k
k
k
k
k
Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
Table 3. Customer’s demand Customer’s demand
Distribution
Characteristics
No.1
UNIFORM [90-110]
Low variability
No. 2
UNIFORM [50-150]
High variability
UNIFORM [50-150]
Three plants have fluctuation of +/-10% over three periods and three plants have high variability
No. 3 No. 4
•
•
•
50% of plants with high variability and 50% with low variability
the total profit (TP) reached by the whole network; it has been computed as the sum of each single profit generated by all the plants of the network; the total unsatisfied demand (TUD): it is the difference existing between the quantity of products required by the market and the one the network has been able to satisfy. It could be considered as a customer performance; the unitary total unsatisfied demand (TUD*): it is the total unsatisfied demand computed by the following expression:
TUD * =
TUD number of periods • number of plants • average demand
(5) The index reported in expression (5) proposed a value that does not depend on the condition of the network (number of periods, customer demand and plants involved). •
•
the total unutilised capacity (TUC): it is the difference existing between the whole capacity of the network and the unallocated capacity; the participation index (PI): it is the ratio between the periods in which the plant operates in the network and the total periods (in this chapter 72). The PI index is computed for the network (PI of the network) as the ratio between the average of periods in which the plants participate to the network and the total periods.
SIMULATION RESULTS The simulations have been conducted defining four cases: 1. (case 1) when simulation starts, all the plants participate in the network; 2. (case 2) when simulation starts, all the plants don’t participate in the network; 3. (case 3) the plants collaborate in the network with no possibility to exit (this is used as the best benchmark); 4. (case 4) in the last case, the plants can’t collaborate (this is used as a worst benchmark). As the reader can notice, (see table 4) the participation in the network leads to low benefit for the plants because the increment of the profit is very low. The main benefit is for the customer that can reduce the total unsatisfied demand (TUD) significantly. It has been considered that the average TUD for unit of period and unit of plant related to the average customer demand is very low. Therefore, from the analysis of the plants’ decision during the activities of the network the following issues can be drawn: •
•
the markets in which the plants operate are very stable, therefore the benefit for the plants to participate is very low. the plants’ data decision shows how three plants decide to leave the network because the unsatisfied demand is very low and also
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Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
Table 4. Simulation results - Customers’ demand No.1 Case 1
Case 2
Case 3
Case 4
TP
68323.2 (+1.50%)
67312 (0%)
68520 (+1.79%)
67312
TUD
459 (-57.93%)
1091 (0%)
336 (-69.20%)
1091
TUD*
1.06%
2.53%
0.78%
2.53%
TUC
498 (-55.93%)
1130 (0%)
375 (-66.81%)
1130
PI Plant 1
72/72
0/72
72/72
0/72
PI Plant 2
45/72
0/72
72/72
0/72
PI Plant 3
72/72
0/72
72/72
0/72
PI Plant 4
54/72
0/72
72/72
0/72
PI Plant 5
36/72
0/72
72/72
0/72
PI Plant 6
72/72
0/72
72/72
0/72
PI of the Network
58.5/72
0/72
72/72
0/72
Table 5. Simulation results - Customers’ demand No.2
•
Case 1
Case 2
Case 3
Case 4
TP
66120 (+9.47%)
65324.8 (+8.15%)
66120 (+9.47%)
60401.6
TUD
1891 (-65.40%)
2388 (-56.30%)
1891 (-65.40%)
5465
TUD*
4.38%
5.53%
4.38%
12.65%
TUC
1875
2372
1875
5449
Profit 1
11202.4
11026.4
11202.4
10158.4
Profit 2
11042.4
10917.6
11042.4
9968
Profit 3
10369.6
10256
10369.6
9600
Profit 4
11630.4
11512
11630.4
10432
Profit 5
11468.8
11371.2
11468.8
10378
Profit 6
10406.4
10241.6
10406.4
9865.6
PI of the network
72/72
63/72
72/72
0/72
the exchange with the other plants of the network is very low. Finally, in case 2 (when in the initial state the plants operate alone) no one plant decides to participate in the network.
These results confirm that the proposed approach is suitable when the markets environment is quite stable, because in this case the network can provide limited benefits to the partners. In fact, in this context the plants (case 2) don’t decide to participate in the network.
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The second experimental class has been conducted with all the markets in which the plants operate with high variability. From the simulation results reported in table 5 the following issues can be drawn: •
when the markets are characterized by high volatility, no one of the plants leave the network and in case 2 (the initial state with no collaboration among the plants), all the plants decide to participate in the network.
Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
Table 6. Simulation results - Customers’ demand No.3 Case 1
•
Tp=3
Tp=6
Tp=9
Tp=12
TP
66179.2
66632
66750.4
66844.8
TUD
2090
1807
1733
1674
TUD*
4.84%
4.18%
4.02%
3.88%
TUC
1838
1555
1481
1422
PI plant 1
27/72
72/72
72/72
72/72
PI plant 2
66/72
72/72
72/72
72/72
PI plant 3
21/72
6/72
72/72
72/72
PI plant 4
72/72
72/72
72/72
72/72
PI plant 5
15/72
72/72
45/72
72/72
PI plant 6
66/72
72/72
72/72
72/72
PI of the Network
44.5/72
61/72
67.5/72
72/72
Moreover, in case 2, the benefits for the plants (total profit TP) are significantly high and the reduction of TUD is important.
This case can be viewed as the opposite situation of the experimental case 1. The third experimental class has been conducted with three plants characterized by a stable market (plants 1, 3 and 5) and three plants with high volatility market (plants 2, 4 and 6). Moreover, an analysis of the Tp it has been conducted by changing the number of periods between the plants’ decision. The simulation results show how the Tp parameter determines the decision of the plants (see Table 6). When the number of periods in which the parameter to decide is evaluated is high, no one of the plants leave the network. The reduction of Tp leads to an increase in the number of the plants that leave the network or the plants leave earlier during the periods observed. This is caused by the reduction of the information to evaluate the decisional parameters; therefore in a limited number of periods the plants exchange low capacity and this can caused the decision to leave the network. As the reader can notice, when Tp=3 the network was dissolved; after 62 periods
only one plant wants to collaborate. Then, Tp is a crucial parameter for the existence of the network. The fourth experimental class has been conducted with three plants that have a fluctuation (+/-10%) over three periods of the customer demand and three plants with high customer demand variability (see Table 7). The above simulation results confirm, also in this case, the comments of the third experimental class. In this case, three plants have fluctuation of the customer demand, so it is important to investigate the decision of each plant during the 72 periods for the case study 2 (the plants operate alone at period 0). The results of table 8 show that in case of Tp low(3) and high (12) the network is characterized by a reduction of average periods in which the plants participate in the network (PI network); this causes the reduction of the performance (TP and TUD). Therefore, Tp high can be opportune when the network is composed at early stage and allows to keep a stability, while when the network starts with low number of plants the Tp high postpones the decision to participate by the plants that operate alone.
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Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
Table 7. Simulation results - Customers’ demand No.4 Case 1 Tp=3
Tp=6
Tp=9
Tp=12
TP
64427.2
66070.4
66113.6
66113.6
TUD
2453
1426
1399
1399
TUD*
5.68%
3.3%
3.24%
3.24%
TUC
2933
1906
1879
1879
PI plant 1
24/72
72/72
72/72
72/72
PI plant 2
51/72
72/72
72/72
72/72
PI plant 3
57/72
72/72
72/72
72/72
PI plant 4
3/72
72/72
72/72
72/72
PI plant 5
63/72
72/72
72/72
72/72
PI plant 6
21/72
66/72
72/72
72/72
PI network
36.5/72
71/72
72/72
72/72
Table 8. Simulation results Customers’ demand No.4 Case 2 Tp=3
Tp=6
Tp=9
Tp=12
TP
64158.4
65524.8
65193
65070.4
TUD
2621
1767
1974
2051
TUD*
6.07%
4.09%
4.57%
4.75%
TUC
3101
2247
2454
2531
PI plant 1
0/72
42/72
36/72
24/72
PI plant 2
42/72
66/72
63/72
60/72
PI plant 3
60/72
66/72
63/72
60/72
PI plant 4
0/72
54/72
18/72
48/72
PI plant 5
63/72
66/72
63/72
60/72
PI plant 6
12/72
54/72
54/72
36/72
PI network
29.5/72
58/72
49.5/72
48/72
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH PATHS The chapter deals with the decision to participate or not in a network of enterprises. The network considered is an electronic co-opetitive network of plants that can exchange productive capacity among them. Then, a Multi Agent architecture implementation is proposed to support the network.
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The proposed multi agent architecture is able to support and automate the workflow among the enterprises involved. Moreover, the architecture developed is a valid tool to support the development of the collaborative web infrastructure. The architecture designs the functional prospective: function and intelligence of each agent; and dynamics prospective: the activities of the agents and the interactions among them. The simulation environment, based on the developed architecture,
Dynamic Co-Opetitive Network Organization
suggests how to evaluate the real value of coopetitive tools in e-business environment The decisional methodology proposed is based on three types of information processed by the plants: one is the degree of volatility of the customer demand computed by the variance of the demand distribution; the second is the level of customer demand unsatisfied and the last is the level of exchange with the other plants of the network. The evaluation of these parameters is computed by the plants with a periodic review policy. The simulation environment developed allows investigating the interaction between the operational activity of the plants (satisfaction of customer orders) and the decisional activity about the participation in the network. Concerning the specific problem of participation in the network, the following conclusions can be drawn: •
•
•
The two opposite cases analyzed (all the markets quite stable and all the markets with high fluctuations) are used as a benchmark to evaluate the proposed approach. The simulation results show that the proposed approach works according to these opposite cases. Further simulations conducted show the crucial importance of the Tp parameter in the periodic review policy. In particular, if the number of periods of Tp is excessively low, the decision of the plants is related to limited observations and it can lead to the dissolution of the network. Otherwise, if the Tp is characterized by high number of periods, the information used is old and this leads to a static composition of the network. Moreover, Tp high can postpone the entrance of new partners in the network, because the old information is as a barrier to entrance in the network. At strategic level, this research shows that:
•
•
Multi Agent System is a suitable approach to implement a distributed architecture both for the activities of the network (capacity exchange) and for the decisional activities. The Architecture can support the electronic co-opetitive network of enterprises in several activities. Discrete event simulation is a powerful tool to test approaches and highlight the real added value of these approaches in a electronic co-opetitive network. This tool reduces the risk related to the ICT investment and agent based technology.
Future research paths concern several problems to be deeply investigated. The threshold levels used in this research can be improved following two issues. First issue is about the use of fuzzy logic to implement the decision of human managers on the choice of the level of the parameters used to take the decision. The other issue is the use of a proper learning algorithm to adapt the threshold level to the changes in market environment. Another important issue to investigate is the possibility to participate in several networks and therefore a competition among networks. The Multi Agent Architecture and discrete event simulation tools presented in this chapter can be promising methodologies to develop these further research paths.
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Baum, J., Calabrese, T., & Silverman, B. (2000). Don’t go it alone: Alliance network composition and startups’ performance in Canadian biotechnology. Strategic Management Journal, 21(3), 267–294. doi:10.1002/ (SICI)1097-0266(200003)21:3<267::AIDSMJ89>3.0.CO;2-8 Brandenburger, A., & Nalebuff, B. (1996a). Coopetition: A revolution mindset that combines competition and cooperation. New York, NY: Harper Collins Business. Brandenburger, A. M., & Nalebuff, B. J. (1996b). Co-opetition. New York, NY: Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. Doz, Y., Olk, P., & Ring, P. (2000). Formation processes of R&D consortia: Which path to take? Where does it lead? Strategic Management Journal, 21(3), 239–266. doi:10.1002/ (SICI)1097-0266(200003)21:3<239::AIDSMJ97>3.0.CO;2-K Garraffo, F. (2002). Types of coopetition to manage emerging technologies. EURAM Second Annual Conference – “Innovative research in Management”, Stockholm, 9-11 May. Isariyawongse, K., Kudo, Y., & Tremblay, V. J. (2007). Generic and brand advertising in markets with product differentiation. Journal of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization, 5(1). Janssen, M. A. (2008). Evolution of cooperation in a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma based on recognition of trustworthy and untrustworthy agents. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 65(3/4), 458–471. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2006.02.004 Jiang, X., Li, Y., & Gao, S. (2008). The stability of strategic alliances: Characteristics, factors and stages. Journal of International Management, 14, 173–189. doi:10.1016/j.intman.2007.09.002
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Krishnamurthy, S. (2000). Enlarging the pie vs increasing one’s slice: An analysis of the relationship between generic and brand advertising. Marketing Letters, 11, 37–38. doi:10.1023/A:1008146709712 Kupke, S., & Lattemann, C. (2008). The lifecycle of alliancing capability in a coopetition environment. In Proceeding of 3rd EIASM COOPETITION Workshop Madrid, 7.-8. März 2008. Lavie, D. (2007). Alliance portfolios and firm performance: a study of value creation and appropriation in the U.S. software industry. Strategic Management Journal, 28(12), 1187–1212. doi:10.1002/smj.637 Li, G., Ji, P., Sun, L. Y., & Lee, W. B. (2009b). Modeling and simulation of supply network evolution based on complex adaptive system and fitness landscape. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 56, 839–853. doi:10.1016/j.cie.2008.09.039 Li, G., Yang, H., Sun, L., Ji, P., & Feng, L. (2009a). The evolutionary complexity of complex adaptive supply networks: A simulation and case study. International Journal of Production Economics. doi:.doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2009.11.027 Luo, Y. (2007). A coopetition perspective of global competition. Journal of World Business, 42, 129–144. doi:10.1016/j.jwb.2006.08.007 Park, S., & Zhou, D. (2005). Firm heterogeneity and competitive dynamics in alliance formation. Academy of Management Review, 30(1), 531–554. Pathak, S. D., David, M. D., & Gautam, B. (2003). Multi-paradigm simulator for simulating complex adaptive supply chain networks. Proceedings of the 2003 Winter Simulation Conference, Washington, (pp. 808-816). Pathak, S. D., Dilts, D. M., & Biswas, G. (2007). On the evolutionary dynamics of supply network topologies. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 54(4), 662–671. doi:10.1109/ TEM.2007.906856
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Phelan, S., Arend, R., & Seale, D. (2005). Using an iterated prisoner’s dilemma with exit option to study alliance behavior: Results of a tournament and simulation. Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory, 11, 339–356. doi:10.1007/ s10588-005-5589-3 Royer, S., & Simons, R. (2009). Evolution of cooperation and dynamics of expectations – implications for strategic alliances. International Journal of Strategic Business Alliances, 1(1), 73–88. doi:10.1504/IJSBA.2009.023652
Shen, W. (2006). Issues in developing agent-based collaborative design and manufacturing systems, In Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Information Systems Analysis and Synthesis, Orlando, FL, July 31-August 4. Song, D. W., & Panayides, P. M. (2002). A conceptual application of cooperative game theory to liner shipping strategic alliances. Maritime Policy & Management, 29(3), 285–301. doi:10.1080/03088830210132632 White, S. (2005). Cooperation costs, governance choice and alliance evolution. Journal of Management Studies, 42(7), 1383–1412. doi:10.1111/ j.1467-6486.2005.00548.x
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Chapter 12
The Influence of Collaborative Web on Knowledge Management, Organizational Structure and Culture in KnowledgeIntensive Companies Kathrin Kirchner Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany Mladen Čudanov University of Belgrade, Serbia
ABSTRACT Knowledge-intensive companies are quickly changing, involving many people working in different activities. Knowledge in such companies is diverse and its proportions immense and steadily growing. The distribution of knowledge across project teams, communities of practice, and individuals is therefore an important factor. With collaborative Web, tools like wikis, blogs, or social networks are used for collaboration and knowledge sharing. In this chapter, we question what influence these tools have on knowledge management, organizational structure, and culture of knowledge-intensive companies. As a result of our interviews and surveys done in Serbia, we found that with collaborative Web, organizational structure, culture, and knowledge management change is perceived among employees and that employee’s loyalty changes from company orientation toward virtual community orientation. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch012
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
The Influence of Collaborative Web
INTRODUCTION Knowledge-intensive companies are based on their capability of making use of intangible, intellectual resources and assets (Styhre, 2000). Personnel are the most significant resource of such a company, whereas capital and equipment can be regarded as less important (Alvesson, 2000). Competencies of such organizations can be advanced by the development of inter-organizational collaboration (Wikström et al., 1994), whereas team organization is important (Blackler, 1995). Knowledge-intensive organizations have problems identifying the content, location and use of their knowledge (Rus &, 2002). For example, in knowledge-intensive business, software development is a group activity, whereas groups are divided geographically. They have to communicate, collaborate and coordinate in their group but also with software developers of other groups or even of other companies. Collaboration tools for knowledge management could help to share knowledge and collaborate in the software development field. With Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005) or Collaborative Web, companies explore new ways to cultivate and exploit knowledge sharing with customers, suppliers and partners (Mentzas et al., 2007). Web 2.0 has totally reinvented the vision of the web as a participatory space in which every user is invited to contribute in the context of online interactions. According McKinsey (2007), companies use tools like Wikis, Blogs or Social Networks because they are important for supporting their market position and for addressing customers’ demands. These web 2.0 tools can improve organizational and individual performance, but they also encounter several problems. This chapter aims to discuss the influence of collaborative web on knowledgeintensive companies, especially on knowledge, organizational structure and culture. Collaborative Web provides tools for knowledge creation and distribution that until recently
existed only within the boundaries of best organizations. These tools are available to open communities of interested parties at little or no cost, radically changing environment in which organizations do business. Revolution that internet related technologies had on business and other aspects of our world has been compared several times to the printing press (Builder, 1993; Badwen & Robinson, 2000) or, more modestly with the telegraph (Standage, 1998). Improvements in the nature of web continued to influence not only knowledge in the organizations, but also culture, processes, structure and even the nature of relationship between an organization and its employees. The benefits of collaborative Web for business have been studied (Aissi et al., 2002; Tredinnick, 2006; Chen et al., 2007) even before the dissemination of Web 2.0 (Cutkosky et al., 1996). Collaboration, described as sharing of common business goals by employees, should bring the organization out of all physical boundaries of departments, functions and levels of hierarchy (Malik & Goyal, 2003). In accordance with change management theory, a first surge of publications related to emerging concepts describing tangible benefits on business. As the concept matures, we believe that the research focus can be widened and aimed at research of influence that collaborative web has on other aspects of the organization, such as knowledge, structure and culture. Our main aim is to discuss the influence of collaborative Web on knowledge-intensive companies. The main body of organizational knowledge has resided within the organizational boundaries since the dawn of the first organization. The development of practical and economical technology to access vast amount of mainly explicit knowledge was one of the influence directions internet had on organizations. The dissemination of Web 2.0 concepts opened new qualitative improvements of influence of the web to the organizations. According to Forrester
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Research (Young, 2008), especially global and big companies use these new Web 2.0 tools whereas surprisingly half of smaller businesses are not even considering Web 2.0 applications. Kirchner et al. (2008) state, that open company culture and management support are facilitators for the success of these tools. With the development of a new tool that has similar effect on knowledge sharing such as printing press, organizations will not only change effectiveness and benefit economically from such concept, but will also change in nature. The description of change is a very complicated task, and therefore we have focused on several aspects of that change. An impact can be observed by different dimensions of the organizational structure, such as specialization, decentralization, departmentalization, coordination and control (Mintzberg, 1979). Cultural change can be observed by changes in dominant values, beliefs, rituals and attitudes. One of our hypotheses is that collaborative Web is changing the loyalty of the employees, from the company towards an informal union of practitioners.
BACKGROUND We decided to perform our study in knowledgeintensive companies in Serbia and neighboring countries. Serbian companies flourished through the “golden age” before SFR Yugoslavia was disintegrated (Sörensen, 2003), and afterwards had a steep decline in all economical indicators during the 1990s. The period of economic recovering began after 2000. Most of the companies from Serbia, regardless of size and industry, invested effort in making up for the loss. However, small and medium companies were more agile in acquiring new practices. Among these practices was knowledge management, which is accepted as a way to excellence, as most successful organizations use combined organizational and inter-organizational knowledge to be productive. Because of this in-
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teresting historical background we concentrated our work on the collaborative web influence in Serbian companies. To define collaborative Web, we first use the definition of collaborative network given by Camarinha-Matos et al. (2009) as a network consisting of a variety of entities (e.g. organizations and people) that are largely autonomous, geographically distributed, and heterogeneous in terms of their operating environment, culture, social capital and goals, but that collaborate to better achieve common or compatible goals, thus jointly generating value, and whose interactions are supported by computer network. Therefore we can define collaborative Web as system of internet based computer software and hardware resources aimed at computer-mediated communication, that enable such set of entities (organizations and people) to function like collaborative network. In most cases, free or relatively inexpensive internet services can comply with this definition of collaborative Web. Figure 1 gives connection between collaborative network as defined by CamarinhaMatos et al. (2009) and collaborative web. Collaborative Web can be created intentionally, with a closed domain of organizations and individuals that possess adequate ICT infrastructure, enabling them to interact and collaborate like a network. Corporate intranet services can be understood as collaborative web as defined before, with small caps “w”, in smaller scale, and with restricted number of users. Enterprise software solutions that have networking options (usually internet based) can also be perceived as smaller and internal kind of collaborative web. But overwhelming mass of examples of collaborative Web is represented by internet services. Some Web 2.0 features like wikis, Internet forums, (we)blogs and social networks have potential to enable collaborative network, and therefore can be seen as collaborative Web. We must stress that mentioned tools have potential to be used as enablers of collaborative network, but also could be
The Influence of Collaborative Web
Figure 1. Connection between collaborative network and collaborative Web
used in everyday leisure. On wiki, large number of autonomous geographically distributed and heterogeneous individuals and organizations can collaborate to jointly generate or record knowledge. In internet forums, similarly, described entities can collaborate to find solution of a problem. Forum for knowledge interactions among employees is presented as communication and collaboration tool for development of a knowledge support system for dynamic manufacturing networks (Hemila, 2010). Interactive blogs can also be viewed as a tool where collaboration of individuals can lead to mutually beneficial solution for involved parties. Using a collaborative blog, multiple users can publish posts, creating collaborative network that Christodoulou and Styliaras (2008) see as useful in digital art creation. Internet social networks, especially business oriented social networks, can connect interested parties, and using integration of external functionalities for communication and coordination can create network of resources that can be used to solve complex business problems. Collaborative networks represented by virtual organizations are connected to social networks (Pedersen, 2007; Hardy, 2009), boosted by internet social networks.
Influence on Knowledge Management After the first phase, in which companies started knowledge management initiatives with “traditional” tools like data bases or groupware systems, now the second phase of knowledge management has emerged where companies use collaborative Web tools including wikis, social networks or blogs. The use of Web 2.0 tools for knowledge management enable companies to reap large benefits compared with traditional KM systems. Employees can communicate with other team members inside their organization or business partners. Companies can reach much more customers and get valuable feedback while promoting products and services. The usage of collaborative web tools for knowledge management in companies has been examined in several papers (e.g. in Kirchner et al., 2008, Shimazu & Koike, 2007, McKinsey, 2007).
Influence on Organizational Structure Collaborative Web is, according to prior definition, one aspect of implementation of ICT in
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organizations. The influence of ICT adoption on organizational structure has been seen as cause of greater formalization (Bailey & Nielsen, 1992; Bovens & Zouridis, 2002;Sinkovics et al., 2004; Jean, 2007). The structure in such case becomes more centralized, and conflicts for power may emerge among managers. On the other hand some authors believe that ICT enables decentralization and flexible operations, but increase interdependence of actors and centralize power and knowledge. Authors such as Bitner et al. (2000), Forster (2000), Martin & Matlay (2001), Bielowski & Walczuch (2002), and Antonioli et al. (2009) describe how ICT shifts power towards lower levels of organizational structure, leading toward less formalized, flexible structures. This paradox has been discussed by Bloomfield & Coombs (1992), Groth (1999), Daft (2004) and Cudanov et al. (2009). Information and communication technologies in general expand the number of solutions that are available in organizational design, therefore enabling both decentralized and centralized alternatives. Collaborative Web as one example of ICT in organizations has some particularities, because its use is connected with team work and less formalized tasks and structures. Those tools also have strong incentive towards decentralization.
Influence on Organizational Culture Knowledge Management, e.g. while using collaborative Web tools, efforts often seem to conflict with organizational culture and therefore have limited impact on the organizations (Delong & Fahey, 2000). Effective knowledge management requires an organizational culture that fosters and rewards creation, use and sharing of knowledge (Davenport et al., 1998). Kayworth and Leidner (2003) discuss that effective knowledge management may be hindered by a lack of trust between people working in the same or in different teams. Organizational cultures that are highly formalized
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and depend on standard procedures, rules and regulations also hamper knowledge management. Employees from knowledge-intensive companies usually know collaborative Web software from their leisure activities, e.g. social networks like Facebook to stay in contact with friends. So it is easier for them to use these skills in their working environment for sharing business knowledge within their company. (Kirchner et al., 2008)
Research Method Based on our literature review, in this chapter the following research theme is being explored: How are collaborative Web tools like blogs, wikis and social networks used today in knowledge-intensive companies? How much do these tools influence organizational structure, culture and loyalty of employees? Therefore we used a three-step approach. First, we started a four week online discussion on elitesecurity.org, the major technological collaboration tool in Serbia (with more than 240,000 of registered users), that is used as a base for collaboration among software developers and other knowledge-intensive professionals in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro and neighboring countries. Second, we interviewed two Serbian highgrowth companies in knowledge intensive industries, namely in software development for sport betting and web portal development. Third, we developed a questionnaire, which was published online as well as sent by mail to Serbian knowledge-intensive companies. Following this approach, we used collaborative Web that enabled us to conduct discussion and information exchange while research is in progress rather then after its completion, which Pastore (2008) sees as one of the benefits of Web 2.0 driven platforms to scientific community.
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INFLUENCE OF COLLABORATIVE WEB ON ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CULTURE
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Online Forum Discussion on Elitesecurity.Org
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Forum discussion was very useful in perceiving general attitude of the community. That was used as pilot research that guided further, more conventional scientific approach. Our four weeks discussion gathered 6233 views and 118 responses. The main question was whether collaborative Web concepts that have been described e.g. as Web 2.0 features like wikis, forums, blogs, social networking are helping professional communities to connect more quickly, create sense of professional adherence, create and exchange knowledge, create informal conducts of acceptable behavior, socialize and even lead to community resembling medieval guilds. Next question was whether organizational structure, culture and knowledge management change in knowledge-intensive organizations by such phenomena or otherwise. One part of the responses was emotionally colored and aimed at criticism of a need for formal association – some kind of software engineers “guild hall” e.g. national software engineers association. Those responses aimed at possible bureaucratization and restrictions that such formal association could cause. Although a formal certification by association already exists e.g. in Canada, and is recognized by law in six provinces, community members expressed fear that power held by such an organization might be misused. Members involved in discussion expressed doubt that a formal organization could present cost effective means to select appropriate candidates for license. That could be caused by corruption that still plagues Serbian society (Svensson, 2005) and results in less confidence in formal institutions. However, system of designation of “Information system professional” functions in Canada, and grants titles to individuals with:
•
• •
Appropriate mastery of the CIPS Body of Knowledge (BOK); Adherence to the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct; CIPS Membership (Note: One can apply for the I.S.P. designation without being a CIPS member, but active membership must be held in order to hold and use the I.S.P. designation); Sponsorship by two relevant sponsors; and A minimum of 1000 hours of professional work experience during the 12 months prior to submitting the application.
On the other hand, during discussion it was agreed upon that in software engineering there is some kind of informal association, where a network of professionals has been developed, using collaborative Web features like forums, blogs and social networks. At least their own status in the enterprise can be affected by belonging to such network, as it was confirmed by examples. Some software engineers presented cases where they were interviewed on a job application by a person who was part of the same virtual community. Therefore he/she was already familiar with the applicant as part of that community, although they never met in person before. Usually such mutual link provides more information about the candidate for the reviewer and results in a more adequate selection process. On the other side some software engineers on senior positions described how they valued a person that was interviewed for the job by them, among other features, by the position of that person in specialized forums, blogs and professional social networks – all examples of a collaborative Web. Some software engineers described cases where the position in collaborative Web (e.g. being a moderator on a forum, blog author) resulted in invitations for a job position.
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Relation between Collaborative Intranet and Culture in Mozzartbet Two companies have been studied for the usage of collaborative Web. First is Mozzartbet, the major and fastest growing division of Stepanović & Šipka Corporation that is in sport betting business. Mozzartbet is a high-growing company, and its size has increased a few hundred times in the first eight years. Besides the development of software for sport betting, the company owns several betting shops, produces betting machines and publishes a weekly sports magazine. In the context of knowledge management, the IT sector is of major importance, because it is the source or target of most knowledge in the company. Among several tools for knowledge management, employees use wiki as a tool which allow users not only to have access to its content but also to change the content online (Raitman et al., 2005). In that context, Cress and Kimmerle (2008) describe wiki as a tool for collaborative knowledge building. Mozzartbet is using an open source solution, JSPWiki to develop their internal collaborative network. An active developer community has structured Mozzartbet’s knowledge in more than 1100 articles. Initially, in 2006, it was used as a good replacement for face to face discussions about trivial and common issues. Since most of the time was wasted in transfer of that knowledge to junior employees, wiki development was initially targeted to the description of knowledge concerning most used modules and functionalities of the software. Maintenance of knowledge in the wiki system is not formally obliged, and therefore some articles were not up to date with changes, so employees still, after four years of usage, tend to utilize direct communication as a first mean of acquiring knowledge, except if that knowledge is about important parts of the software system, or parts of the system maintained and developed by senior programmers who regularly update wiki. In practice, if a software developer or an administrator needs knowledge about something he or she
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knows that is developed by senior developers, or that is very important for the system, first choice is often wiki, otherwise developers, especially junior, tend to directly ask person they presume to have knowledge. In Mozzartbet, collaborative Web expressed by wiki has the most impact on organizational culture. We cannot construct clear conclusion whether culture caused creation of collaborative Web or collaborative Web sustained relaxed and academic organizational culture that existed since the beginning of the company, but evidently, relation between those two features exists. Software development and system administration department have strong organizational culture sharing relaxed, academic values, beliefs and behavior. Interviewed employees were sure that there is no significant personal conflict among employees of that department. On the other hand employees do not fear to express different attitudes about technical issues, where conflicts are common, but never deepened to personal feelings. In such a way, conflicts remain functional in the context of organizational goals. Collaboration in problem solving is spread through different processes in organizations, not only related to wiki. That made the departments more creative, more responsive to client needs, with higher employee job satisfaction, which is usual case in organizations in which functional conflict is a part of the culture (Jordan & Troth, 2002). Other features of culture in that department are low power distance between managers and non-managerial employees, relaxed general attitude, flexible approach to working time but strict approach to tasks, and a constant development of interpersonal relations among employees. Sport events between employees are regularly held, and employees often take part in excursions, extreme sporting events, social events etc. several times per year. All that resulted in a large number of friendships, even family relations among employees, most of the employees know each other quite well, they have studied together, worked together before or they had another way
The Influence of Collaborative Web
of interaction outside work. It could be hypothesized that there is relation between successful application of internal collaborative web and whole organizational culture of collaboration. One of the organizational cultural values is, however, problem for wiki application. Knowledge sharing practices are usually affected by cultural expectations such as what knowledge should be shared with the organization and what should be hoarded by individuals (Zheng et al., 2010), but in the case of Mozzartbet, orientation towards short-term results is much more significant an obstacle. Culture here points employees towards tangible short-term results instead of intangible long term benefits that are caused by maintaining wiki. Minor changes and updates in the code are therefore often not documented on wiki pages, and that overall decreases the level of confidence. So we can suggest relation of internal collaborative network success and culture oriented towards short-term results. Short term result orientation is connected to reward systems and performance measurement systems (Neely et al., 1996). If such orientation has negative impact on collaboration systems in the organization, top management should make effort in shifting the focus using mentioned factors. Currently, wiki updates are not connected to the reward system which is defined by top management. Senior software engineers, concerned for improving collaborative culture and knowledge management in the organization often suggest bonuses for employees that contribute to the development of collaborative intranet, but such advice is not always followed, although it is always given consideration. Also, a large time gap exists between such advice coming from senior staff to management and actual reward even if the advice is accepted. Therefore, junior developers see no direct connection between collaborative and knowledge sharing behavior and tangible rewards. This could be a guideline for implementing collaborative intranet, where motivation and rewards should not be left to informal means.
Relation between Collaborative Intranet and Culture in Infostud Second interviewed company, Infostud, was founded in 2000 and started as enterprise for current and future students. It was the first web site in Serbia where young people could get information about studies. After several acquisitions and fast paced growth, company now owns several leading Serbian web portals, among which www.infostud. com was the best known site in former Yugoslavia (Vidas-Bubanja et al. 2002). In 2008, Daily Mail and General Trust plc, a successful media group from UK, acquired 25% of the company, which was the first acquisition of a.com company from Serbia. Today company’s diversified portfolio covers, among other web sites, portals for job applicants and recruiting companies, life-long learning, college application and entry exams, second-hand car trade and vacation arrangements. Problems that fast-paced growth created for knowledge management in this organization were discussed in an interview with the co-founder Branislava Gajić, who witnessed growth from a family startup to a company with 35 web developers in eight years. To support knowledge creation and sharing, this company has in parallel developed an internal environment that could be understood as collaborative Web as defined and organizational culture that will support collaboration. Collaborative Web is represented by an internal web site, where employees interact, present ideas and can read procedures and work instructions, knowledge database with advanced search options, and internal messaging system. That requires organizational culture aimed at collaboration, so a reward system has been developed to support such values. A significant part of the budget was reserved for development of human resources and knowledge improvement, and it was even increased by 20% during financial crisis in 2009, as a clear message of values that management stands for. Estimation
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of management is that because of such culture and existing collaborative intranet resources, around 50% of existing knowledge is successfully shared within the company, even 80% within team and 20% with business partners.
Survey of Collaborative Web Influence on Structure, Culture and Knowledge Management To empirically see whether there is some perceived influence that collaborative Web has on employees, we have done a survey among employees in knowledge based industries (e.g. software engineering, business analysis, consulting, higher education, design). Overall we have gathered 100 responses. We are aware that the survey is not fully representative but it gives us a first insight into the use of collaborative Web tools in companies and the influence of them in Serbia. The survey consisted of a descriptive part, where respondents stated their kind of business, size of their company, the number of full time employees, average number of Web 2.0 features like forums, wiki, blogs and social networks employees use for the sake of job tasks and some comments. The term Web 2.0 was used instead of term collaborative network, because collaborative network as a relatively new term could confuse participants. Large number of interviewed personnel was working in software engineering/ development (26), education (15), marketing related professions (14) or high education (12). Total working experience ranged between six months and 30 years, with mean of 6.18 years. Regarding usage of Web 2.0 concepts that among other features enable collaborative Web, respondents have given 94 valid responses, resulting in a mean of 22.77 and a median of 6 uses per week, with standard deviation of 36.27. Figure 2 represents weekly usage of Web 2.0 features, given on x-axis in number of times respondents use those features per week on their workplaces in order to solve some business related issue. This
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axis uses logarithmic scale. Y-axis represents total percentage of users in our sample that use Web 2.0 features signified number of times. As could be seen on Figure 2, usage ranges from none to more than 140 times per week. Furthermore, we asked for the perception of how collaborative Web - represented in forums, blogs, wikis and social networks - influence structure, culture and knowledge management in the organization. The responses were different. On a scale between 0 and 5, where 0 stands for low influence, and 5 for very high influence, average influence of whole sample is shown in Table 1. Mean and median values are quite low, and could be explained as perception of interviewed employees in knowledge-intensive industries is that mentioned concepts have below moderate influence on organizational structure. Electronic ties of all sorts, including collaborative networks are found to be loosening the constraints of organizational structure (Faraj & Wasko, 2001). The influence of computer networks on organizational structure is already elaborated, and it is concluded that computer networks (including collaborative networks) enable new organizational forms (Alavi & Leidner, 1999). Perception of employees about influence of mentioned concepts on culture is higher than on structure, and respondents gave average grade of 3.01, with standard deviation of 1.32. This could be interpreted as perception that the mentioned Web 2.0 concepts have moderate influence on organizational culture. Most influence, as was expected, was perceived on knowledge management, where average grade is 3.17, with standard deviation of 1.14. We used a two-step cluster analysis (Banfield & Raftery, 1993) to find groups in data according to the usage of collaborative Web tools and the influence of these tools. Two-step clustering can handle different levels of measurement and finds automatically an adequate number of clusters. With our data, the algorithm found 2 clusters:
The Influence of Collaborative Web
Figure 2. Weekly usage of Web 2.0 features
Table 1. Mean and median analysis on whole sample How much do those Web 2.0 concepts influence structure N
Valid Missing
Mean Median Std. Deviation
•
How much do those Web 2.0 concepts influence culture
How much do those Web 2.0 concepts influence knowledge management
How much do those Web 2.0 concepts influence loyalty of employees
How is the loyalty of employees divided between enterprise and the profession
How often does respondent use Web 2.0 (forums, blogs, wikis, social networks) weekly
100
99
100
99
97
94
0
1
0
1
3
6
2.29
2.81
3.01
2.39
3.17
22.77
2.0
3.0
3.0
2.0
3.0
6.0
1.22
1.27
1.32
1.25
1.14
36.26
Cluster 1: “Collaborative Web Beginners” ◦⊦ more than 60% from IT related business (software development, software engineering), apart from that marketing, sales, personal management ◦⊦ use Web 2.0 tools 2 to 5 hours a week ◦⊦ extremely low structural changes ◦⊦ low cultural changes ◦⊦ low changes of knowledge management
◦⊦ ◦⊦
loyalty the same between company and community Comments, e.g.: “All employees in my firm are sitting in the same room. So I first ask the most experienced colleague sitting behind me, and then I use Google. I think this is a good practice because it encourages team communication.”
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•
Cluster 2: “Community-oriented Changers” ◦⊦ 50% higher education and research, 30% IT-based ◦⊦ 2 to 10 hours a week with Web 2.0 tools ◦⊦ Low to medium structural changes ◦⊦ Higher influence on change of culture ◦⊦ Medium to high influence on knowledge management ◦⊦ Loyalty changes towards community ◦⊦ Comments, e.g.: “Internet is a knowledge treasure; therefore it is of most importance to use it every single day.” “My boss is often out of office that’s why we communicate with messenger, and we have an in-house wiki knowledge base.”
With the two clusters, it can be found that employees in higher education companies like research institutes or universities as well as people from innovative IT companies use Web 2.0 tools and mention organizational changes (cluster 2), whereas employees from companies in cluster 1 don’t use Web 2.0 tools heavily. The comments people belonging to these two clusters gave are especially interesting to see the cultural and structural differences in both clusters. Whereas in the first cluster, personal communication inside the company is important, people assigned to second cluster like to use Web 2.0 tools, they sometimes work in virtual teams or are specialized in their work so that there is no one in company they could ask personally for help. Furthermore, looking at both clusters, it can be noted that the influence of collaborative web usage on organizational culture is higher than on organizational structure. If we discuss loyalty of employees, we can see the difference between the two clusters with lower and higher usage of Web 2.0 concepts. Employees traditionally regarded their companies as primary source of knowledge for everyday working problems. Collaborative Web has shifted that outside
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the company. Yan and Assimakopoulos (2005) describe China Software Developer Net, Internet professional community based on collaborative Web features that had more than 800,000 members in 2004 growing since then to more than six millions of members on December of 2009. That community is very similar to elitesecurity forum. If support for knowledge is shifted outside the company, we can presume that loyalty of the employees will shift from company towards profession. For example, some established professions (lawyers, doctors etc.) have high loyalty to profession, hold regular meetings and conferences, and sometimes are even more loyal to profession than to organization they are currently working for, somewhat like medieval guilds. Other professions, in contrast, do not have that sense of community with other colleagues from different companies (some manual workers e.g.). Our presumption is that external collaborative Web is shifting loyalty of employees from the company toward profession, which could be observed in the following table, with comparison of means of two groups. If we analyze perception about influence, we can discuss correlation between usage of Web 2.0 tools and perception of influence on structure, culture and knowledge management. Following this idea we have performed a regression analysis using total perceived influence as dependent variable and usage of Web 2.0 features and constant factor as independent variable. Although sum of residual squares is much larger than regression squares, pointing us to conclusion that model is not capable of explaining major part of variation in the dependent variable, and that model should be expanded with additional factors that help account for a higher proportion of the variation in the dependent variable. However, low value of significance for F statistics indicates that independent variable successfully explain the variation in the dependent variable. The results that are given in table 2 point us towards a conclusion of an existence of a positive correlation between the two selected variables.
The Influence of Collaborative Web
Table 2. Regression analysis for total perceived influence and usage of Web 2.0 features Model 1
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Regression
180.956
1
180.956
4.294
0.041
Residual
3834.936
91
42.142
Total
4015.892
92
If the amount of usage of Web 2.0 features has a positive effect on knowledge management, organizational culture and structure we can expect that organizations face a lot of changes if Web 2.0 tools are introduced in companies or are used more heavily.
Solutions and Recommendations Introduction of collaborative Web in knowledgeintensive companies is also the introduction of organizational change that should include changes in structure and culture. Mental models of the employees and organizational structure and culture significantly influence implementation and usage of groupware technologies (Orlikowsky, 1992). This study shows that according to the perception of the employees, there is also some inverse influence from usage of collaborative network on structure of the organization. Such bidirectional influence should be considered by the managers during the planned implementation of collaborative network in organizational tasks. Although during initial stages of such implementation, represented by Lewin’s (1958), unfreeze stage of organizational change structural changes are not necessary. Later stages of change demand that new forms of behavior need to be formalized and included as part of authority division, reward system and positions in organizational structure. That should result in flatter organizational forms, more relaxed control systems, incentives based on result rather than on activity and more freedom for employee initiatives.
In parallel to that, influence that collaborative network has on structure and vice versa needs to be analyzed in context of similar influences from and on organizational culture. There is certain interaction between information technologies in general and organizational change (Markus & Robey, 1988). Collaborative network and its usage in organization can itself be an artifact of the culture that supports values such as open minded approach, internal and external collaboration, continuous organizational learning, and pioneering usage of new technologies, not uncommon in knowledge-intensive companies. However, sometimes external factors like pressure from the competitors, demand for fast learning and interaction with environment can demand usage of collaborative network, while existing organizational culture as internal factor can hinder it. This study shows that employees perceive collaborative network influence on organizational culture as higher than on structure, but that factor is only one among numerous factors that influence organizational culture. Collaborative network introduction therefore should include a plan of structure and culture transition in order to increase chances for successful implementation. Also, knowledge management practices need to be adapted. Besides collaboration inside team or company, one of the most important principles of Web 2.0 is the concept of harnessing collective knowledge and collective intelligence, along with related concepts of user-generated content, “wisdom of the crowd” and collaboration. (Musser & O’Reilly, 2007)
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FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS With our research, we won a first insight in the usage of Web 2.0 tools in Serbian knowledgeintensive companies. With our two clusters, we found knowledge-intensive companies that started to use Web 2.0 tools and cannot state changes in culture, structure and knowledge management practices in their organization yet. The other group of companies uses collaborative Web tools more often and state changes in culture and structure of company. In our future research, we plan to analyze these phenomena in more detail. It is interesting to investigate the organizational culture and structure of companies before and with the usage of collaborative Web tools in both clusters and to evaluate the differences. We plan a more detailed questionnaire and more interviews with companies from both clusters.
CONCLUSION In our research work, we focused on knowledgeintensive companies in Serbia and surrounding areas. We examined how such companies use collaborative web tools and how this usage influences knowledge management, organizational structure and culture. Two clusters of companies could be found – one with starters in the field of collaborative web, who did not mention changes in structure and culture of the company. The other cluster contained community-oriented companies with cultural changes in their organizations. In this cluster, the loyalty of employees shifted from company-oriented to profession-oriented. These employees use collaborative web tools like blogs to discuss problems with people outside their company. The usage of collaborative web tools for knowledge management in companies is still at the beginning in Serbia, although it is often used in some of the interviewed companies. However
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changes in company cultures can be found and this development will continue with the duration of collaborative web usage. As could be seen from our research, an open communication culture in companies is very important for effective knowledge management. Therefore, company management has to encourage knowledge exchange between employees. Instead of resisting the sharing of knowledge, people should be motivated to publish and give their knowledge in order to become an expert. Collaboration, community of practice, dialogue between colleagues and the development of a knowledge-sharing organizational culture should address lack of trust, low mistake tolerance, closed corporate culture, internal competition and resistance to change. Organizations should take care of strong hierarchies, insufficient formal spaces to collaborate and inflexible company structures.
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Kim, D., & Kim, S. (2006). Framework for collaborative knowledge sharing and recommendation based on taxonomic partial reputations. In J. Lang, F. Lin & J. Wang (Ed.), 1st International Conference on Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management, 4092, 190-201. Guilin, China: Springer. Nonaka, I. (2007). The Knowledge-Creating Company. Harvard Business Review, 85(7/8), 162–171. Orlikowski, W. J. (1991). Integrated Information Environment or Matrix of Control? The Contradictory Implications of Information Technology, Accounting. Management and Information Technologies, 1(1), 9–42. doi:10.1016/09598022(91)90011-3 Rus, I., & Kindvall, M. (2002). Knowledge Management in Software Engineering. IEEE Software, 26–38. doi:10.1109/MS.2002.1003450 Sellen, A. J., Murphy, R., & Shaw, K. L. (2002). How knowledge workers use the web. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Changing our world, changing ourselves, 1, 227 - 234. New York, NY: ACM. Shimazu, H., & Koike, S. (2007). KM2.0: Business knowledge sharing in the Web 2.0 age. NEC Technical Journal, 2(2), 50–54. Tiwana, A. (2004). An empirical study of the effect of knowledge integration on software development performance. Information and Software Technology, 46, 899–906. doi:10.1016/j. infsof.2004.03.006 van Zolingen, S. J., Streumer, J. N., & Stooker, M. (2001). Problems in Knowledge Management: A Case Study of a Knowledge-Intensive Company. International Journal of Training and Development, 5(3), 168–184. doi:10.1111/14682419.00130
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Collaborative Web: Collaborative Web describes the social change in handling and using the internet as an information and collaboration platform that enables the direct interaction and communication between users inside and outside of organizations. Guild: A guild is an organization of craftsman in a particular trade. Many professional organizations today resemble the guild structure. Software communities sometimes develop a guild-like structure. Knowledge-Intensive Company: A knowledge-intensive company is based on its capability of making use of intangible, intellectual resources and assets. Personnel are the most significant resource of such a company, whereas capital and equipment can be regarded as less important. Knowledge Management: Knowledge Management involves practices and strategies used to identify, create, present and distribute of insights and experiences within an organization. This includes knowledge from individuals as well as knowledge embedded in organizational processes. Organizational Culture: It defines the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an organization. A change in organizational culture is often a long term project. Organizational Structure: Organizational structure describes the subordination of people that collaborate and contribute to serve a common aim within an organization. An effective structure should facilitate working relationships between people in the organization and improve the working efficiency. Web 2.0: The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration in the Web. It includes web-based communities, social networking sites, wikis, blogs and mashups.
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Chapter 13
Virtual Reality and Identity Crisis:
Implications for Individuals and Organizations Archana Tyagi University of Business and International Studies Geneva, Switzerland
ABSTRACT Identity has become one of the single most important issues for human development and adjustment in today’s turbulent times. Virtual world is changing the interface of identification and communication. Virtual reality has recently emerged as an effective tool to extend a healing space for an alternative identity. The focus of this chapter is on the challenges faced by the young generation, which is struggling to understand its “identity.” The exploration of identity in such virtual environments may be a search for a ‘unitary’ construct about the self (Erikson, 1968). In this paper, the concept of “identity” and “identity crisis” and the potential challenges identified in the real and virtual world are discussed at length. In today’s world people are pulled in different directions, thanks to the different kinds of societal demands from family, friends and society. It becomes difficult to find a uniqueness of one’s self and yet able to fulfill the norms and parameters set up by the society. Respect for diversity of self would go a long way in allowing people to be “uniquely themselves” while belonging to a community. Healthy “crisis” or exploration can afford people the opportunity to knowledgeably investigate choices in which there is positive meaning with regard to where they have come from, where they presently exist, and where they envision their future to be (International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, 2008). An attempt to explore the identity management and identity statuses has also been made to understand “real” and “virtual reality.” Identity crisis and psychosocial moratorium’s linkage (Erikson, 1963) to virtual reality have also been touched upon. An understanding of organizational identity with the individual identity. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch013
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Virtual Reality and Identity Crisis
INTRODUCTION “An identity is a set of meanings applied to the self in a social role or as a member of a social group that define who one is.”(Burke and Tully, 1977) In the present era, questions regarding one self areconstantly being asked and challenged. Issues of personal identity affect how we relate to others. However, identity in the online world is still poorly understood – both by the general public and scholars. As the internet becomes a central part of everyday life, these questions continue to rise in importance (Berman, Joshua and Bruckman (2001). In the present era questions regarding one self are constantly being asked and challenged. By reflexively adjusting one’s perception of self in reaction to society, people construct their individual identity (Boyd, 2001).The constant adjustment of one’s SELF, with the expectations of others and the societal norms plays an important role in building up an identity of oneself. The thought of gaining strength and support from one’s own identity is very crucial, for gaining inner strength. As Erikson argues, the construction of a single, unitary identity is achieved throughout the lifetime as individuals explore and then consolidate changes in how they define themselves (Grotevant 1998, quoted by Calvert 2002: 58). According to Calvert (2002), identity is often characterized in terms of one’s interpersonal characteristics, such as self-definition or personality traits, the roles and relationships one takes on in various interactions, and one’s personal values or moral beliefs. In psychology, identity is understood as a continual experience of the individual self; of that person’s uniqueness and authenticity, as well as the identification with life roles and the experience of belonging to bigger or smaller social groups (Vybiral et al, 2004). Identity plays an inherent role in defining our social interactions. In face-to-face communication, many physical cues exist with which we convey our identity and our intentions. These physical
cues take a different form in a virtual world. And hence it is important to understand the purpose and meaning of the term “virtual identity” so as to understand the gradual merging of the physical identity into virtual identity. In the words of Vybiral and his associates, (2004),”In the environment of the Internet, the individual is not present as a physical subject, but only as a “virtual representation”. Thus on the internet, we do not influence our own selves, but our virtual representations. A virtual representation does not have an identity in the psychological sense. It is a “cluster” of digital data, a set of data that is ordered in some way. This virtual representation often includes digitally recorded and stored information about “who we are “a name or nickname, history, and status within the given virtual society. Just as in real life there is a physical record of identity in the form of an identity card, birth certificate, passport, etc., there is a record of “identity” (this time in a non-psychological sense) or identification in the virtual environment. One such record is an e-mail address, which is recorded and stored. In a way, the e-mail address represents our identity in the Internet environment. It becomes our virtual representation. We then project part of our real ideas and feelings – parts of our many-sided “I” – into our virtual representation”. It is crucial to understand the role and interaction of identity in a virtual reality (VR). VR was originally conceived as a digitally created space that humans could access by donning sophisticated computer equipment (Lanier, 1992; Rheingold, 1991; Sutherland, 1968).Futurists heralded VR as an imminent transition in the ways humans would experience media, communicate with one another, and even perform mundane tasks. In the early nineties, pioneering scientists began considering new ways through which this groundbreaking technology could be used to study social interaction and other psychological phenomena (Bente, 1989; Biocca 1992a, b; Loomis, 1992).In subsequent years, “VR has continued to capture the imagination of scientists, philosophers, and artists for its
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ability to substitute our physical environment and our sensory experiences – what we understand as reality – with digital creations” (Quoted by Fox, J et al, 2009). VRconveys a different kind of interaction, with one’s own self leading towards an Identity, free from societal pressures. This chapter is intended to highlight the potential in various kinds of approaches, in relation to identity, identity crisis and psychosocial moratorium in employees, in real as well as in virtual environment. The research idea is to identify the implications of identity crisis and to chart out a new area of application for collaborative multiuser environments. In this progression; it becomes crucial to link individual identity crisis with the organizational/corporate identity crisis as well. The ultimate objective is to find ways, in which the virtual environment (VE) can act as a place for not only reinventing oneself but also to help in resolving real life crisis by using VR as a tool for learning and therapeutic purposes.
LITERATURE REVIEW Virtual Reality (VR) and its relation to understanding and resolving social sciences issues have been increasing day by day. As Biocca and Delaney (1995) noted, “VR is a medium for the extension of body and mind” (p.58).Given the ability to recreate both real and fantasy environments and the multitude of sensory experiences within each, VR presents the opportunity to explore many social and psychological phenomena – both those that occur in the physical world as well as novel experiences unique to VR (Fox, J et al, 2009). Social scientists are finding immense potential in VR not only as a medium of expressing oneself but also to interact with each other. One variable of interest is presence (also referred to as telepresence), the user’s feelings that the mediated environment is real and that the user’s sensations and actions are responsive to the mediated world as opposed to the real, physical one (Biocca,
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Harms, & Burgoon, 2003; Lee, 2004; Lombard & Ditton, 1997; Loomis, 1992; Riva, Davide, & Ijsselsteijn, 2003; Slater & Steed, 2000; Steuer, 1992;Wirth et al., 2007;Witmer & Singer, 1998). In a review of the research, Lee (2004) identified three different aspects of presence, including physical, spatial, or environmental presence (the feeling that you are in a particular virtual space; Lee, 2004), social presence (the feeling that another person is sharing the virtual space with you; Biocca et al., 2003), and personal or self presence (the experience of a virtual self-representation as an extension of the self; Ratan, Santa Cruz, & Vorderer, 2008). As VR has gained traction in the social sciences, innovative scholars have begun exploring its viability in the creation of novel stimuli, treatments, and learning environments for use outside of the laboratory. One of the most common applications of VEs is via virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET); Gregg & Tarrier, 2007; Parsons & Rizzo, 2008; Powers & Emmelkamp, 2008; Riva, 2005; Rothbaum, Hodges, & Kooper, 1997).Presently, research on identity is expanding to consider influences from the realm of the Internet (Mantovani & Riva, 1999; McKenna & Bargh, 1999; Riva & Glimberti, 1998; Turkle, 1984, 1995, 1997). In the realm of computer-mediated communication, identity becomes a much more ambiguous conception (Lu, 2007). Identity is a reference to a part “of a self, composed of the meanings that persons attach to the multiple roles they typically play in highly differentiated contemporary societies” (Stryker, et al., 2000). Identity development was conceptualized as the Internet user’s degree of commitment to a specific conception of self (Erickson, 1968). The concept of identity development has been widely studied by scholars from different disciplines, including the social psychological (e.g., Adler, 1974; Cote & Levine, 2002; Erikson,1950, 1963, 1968; Marcia, 1980, Tajfel, 1978; Waterman, 1992), communication (e.g. Brewer & Gardener, 1996; Martin & Nakayama, 1997; Ponterotto & Pederson, 1993), and critical studies
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(e.g. Althusser, 1971; Katz, 1995).By reflexively adjusting one’s perception of self in reaction to society, people construct their individual identity (Boyd, 2001 pg 22).In the present chapter, the basic aim is to understand the meaning of “identity” in today’s context and to ponder whether the world of VR is able to fulfill its role as a substitute of real life per se. The challenge is to understand the formation of identity and identity crisis not only in real life but also in VR. Understanding and resolving “Identity Crisis” in virtual settings has been one of the most important and critical concerns. Identity statuses are also discussed and psychosocial moratorium theory has been linked with the resolution of identity crisis.
can be a very safe and secure place to make a commitment towards one’s own original self. Identity management requires the awareness of both, what the individual is presenting and what previous information has been shared. In other words, people must have a sense of what they are presenting to others. Identity management requires the ability to properly understand the immediate context and harness the appropriate facet to present an acceptable face for a given situation. Thus, people need the ability to manage their facets as a way of managing their identity (Boyd, 2001).
Main Issues
Life is about having fun and taking risks, the same holds for virtual life too (Kokswijk, 2008). Technologically, VR is defined as- a technology that convinces the participant that he or she is actually in another place by substituting the primary sensory input with data received and produced by a computer … The “as-if” quality of virtuality becomes a pragmatic reality when the virtual world becomes a workspace and the user identifies with the virtual body and feels a sense of belongingness to a virtual community (Heim, 1998, p. 220-221). The 21st century is experiencing rapid shifts into a more highly mediated reality than ever before-virtual reality. This new environment has vast effects on society, so many of which cannot be understood in foresight; however, trying to understand such environments while they are sill relatively new will be beneficial to the understanding of where the notions of humanity are leading. Multi user dungeons (MUD), is a type of on line virtual environment, which is being used by the users, to portray their online identities in creative forms. In Life on the Screen (1995), Turkle describes how assuming different personal identities in a MUD may be therapeutic. It already seems, that the behavior of the identities in MUDs are very egocentric, prompted by both conscious and unconscious emerging needs (Dacko, 2003).
Identity Formation / Development / Management in Real Life Life is a challenge and leads towards a path, where everyone tends to learn and acquire the meaning with the help of their own failures, success and insecurities. Identity development is ultimately the result of a lifelong journey. Although identity development is most often associated with adolescence, each developmental stage offers opportunities for re-evaluation and modification (Wikipedia). Identity achievement during adolescence serves as a basis for our adult expectations and goals (Whit Bourne, 1987). Identity crisis is that aspect of human identity which many a time tends to follow identity formation, because of the turmoil it brings in the life of human beings. And if not resolved in time, may lead to painful dissociation. According to Erikson (1968) the most secure identities are the ones that enrich the relationship between the individual and society. Unfortunately, many times, a person is not free to explore and discover the ‘self’ in real life, since he/she is hankering after the acceptance and approval of the others. Exploration of the self many a times leads a person towards VR which
Identity Formation in Virtual Environments
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A virtual identity is a persona that is implied when communicating online. It is a perceived view of who you are when online. The online identity changes due to the fact that it is a visual medium with relatively small levels of truth, actually being described. Virtual identities are the online users published personality, physical description and the ability to improvise whoever you want to be (Kokswijk, 2008).Because a Web page can be continuously and easily revised, it is a medium ideally suited for the dynamic process of identity construction (Chandler, 1998). Fragmented, online social presentations provide even greater flexibility for the multi-faceted individual, as it allows them to walk through common spaces presenting different aspects of themselves rather than being required to maintain one persona per space, as is necessary offline (Reid 1998: 37). Researchers have found that those who have made a strong commitment to an identity tend to be happier and healthier than those who have not. Commitment with one’s identity tends to give a human being strong hold with one’s values and beliefs in life. And ultimately these values and beliefs become the ultimate foundation stone for the survival. Those with a status of identity diffusion tend to feel out of place in the world and don’t pursue a sense of identity. Over the past several decades, virtual environments such as the internet, Multi-User Domains (MUDs), and video games have provided a new context for identity exploration (Asgari & Kaufman, 2005).The anonymity of such environments gives people the opportunity to play with their identities and experience new ones. Ultimately it is important to create a virtual world of one’s own liking, with expectation and understanding. It is necessary, therefore, to explore the reasons and implications of creating virtual identity, in a virtual environment (VE). According to Bruckman(1992), “MUDs are a workshop for the concept of identity. Many players notice that they are somehow different on the net than off, and this leads them to reflect on who they
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are in real life. It helps people to understand the concept of identity and the ways in which we construct ourselves”. VR helps us in finding a safe world, where prejudices, stereotypes and false assumptions are missing. Identity formed in VR allows users to alter, develop and build a new safe platform to interact. A virtual identity is a projection of one’s dreams, fantasies, vision, unconscious self and desires. It helps in constructing an ideal virtual self, which might not be a true version of one’s real self. With the construction of a virtual identity many unfulfilled dreams and desires are also fulfilled. It’s been rightly submitted by McKenna and Bargh (1999), “people are turning to internet to meet important social and psychological needs” (p.2). Expressing identity is a strong self-motivator for using the net. And not getting swayed by the fear of peer/societal pressure is a big motivator for the people to use the net. People step through the screen into virtual spaces and express multiple aspects of their self (Turkle, 1995). They choose a name, character, and enter a world that not only identifies with that character on the screen, but acts for it. In such environments, especially roleplaying video games in MUDs, players can enact different roles and experience multiple identities. Through developing characters, they can play outside their “real” identity, and project their own values and hopes onto the virtual identity (Gee, 2003). Human beings, enabled by technology, have increasingly become the central observers and constructors of their own reality. VR is the contemporary and future articulation of the philosophical and psychological question of how we define (and create) reality (Jones, 2006). Like beauty, reality of one’s identity, lies in the eyes and in the perception of one’s self. Turkle (1995) sees potential for online worlds to function as a space for people to work out issues of identity through their avatar selves and their interaction with others. She found, in MUD, a variety of integrative and dissociative issues related to digital identity (1995). “The ambiguity of identity in
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virtual communities, and the relative security of knowing that our online selves cannot be easily traced to our physical selves, affords us the freedom to experiment with our identities” (Donath, 1998; Turkle, 1995). “One constructs a home page by composing or “pasting” on it words, images, sounds. One’s identity emerges from whom one knows, one’s associations and connections,” writes Turkle (1995).There is many popular virtual platforms available on the internet, where users tend to experiment with their identities. SL is one such virtual community, which has been entirely built by its residents and, therefore, is seemingly owned by them. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and as of 2007 was inhabited by a total of 7,914,938 people from around the globe (Linden Research, Inc, 2007). Residents of SL, often experiment with bridging their SL identities with their real life identities. SL, created by the California-based corporation Linden Lab, is a virtual world in which users can interact with each other in a three-dimensional setting (Ondrejka, 2007).They come to project their own values and desires onto the virtual identity of their avatar. VR creates a protected learning space in which the learner can take risks where real-world consequences are lowered (Gee, 2003; Turkle, 1995). The very mutability of our self-representations in online environments is a fundamental aspect of what it means to have a virtual identity (Turkle, 1995). It is Erickson’s (1968) understanding that an optimum achieved identity status is represented by a sense of continuity between what one has become in childhood and what one will become in the future. The quality of our understanding of life experiences, values and beliefs fosters a level of continuity that strengthens our fidelity towards a particular self-concept. Therefore, evidence of this continuity in online interactions among adolescents is relevant to the evaluation of the internet’s impact on identity development. Cyberspace enables us to “divvy up and present our self-representations into packages of various
sizes and content” (Suler, 2002’: 455).Presently, research on identity is expanding to consider influences from the realm of internet (Mantovani & Riva, 1999; McKenna & Bargh, 1999; Riva & Glimberti, 1998; Turkle, 1984, 1995, 1997). Erikson (1965) understood that one of the main psychological functions of identity is to provide a sense of inner self-sameness and continuity; to bind together a person’s past, present and future into a coherent whole. Pertinent to this continuity is the process of individuation or the ability to think and choose independently without fear of losing support from foundational relationships. Identity formation involves the individuation process and normally occurs between the age of twelve and twenty. Erikson (1968) was careful to point out; this stage of life is a time of searching for identity not necessarily achieving one. The inner search or “crises” takes place during a period of development called psychosocial moratorium or a time between distinct phases of childhood and adulthood. And looking at the involvement of internet in today’s life –the search for identity also happens online, which ultimately can be a means of gaining psychosocial moratorium. Before discussing and elaborating the concept of Psychosocial Moratorium, we will discuss, deliberate and elaborate the “Identity Crisis” and “Identity statuses” concept in depth.
Identity Crisis and Identity Statuses James E. Marcia (1966) introduced an identity status framework consisting of different levels of crisis and commitment related to an adolescent’s quest for identity. Marcia, whose influential framework launched a new paradigm with more than 300 empirical studies over the last few decades (Dunkel and Anthis 2001), proposed that identity is resolved by an internal, self-constructed and dynamic organization of aspirations, skills, beliefs and other factors. Such research has shed further light on how the development of self entails a complex, shifting process of negotiation
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during adolescence and early adulthood. From the dimensions of exploration and commitment, he derived four identity statuses: Achievement (exploration resulting in commitment), Moratorium (present exploration with the intention of achieving a commitment), Foreclosure (ascribed commitment with no exploration), and Diffusion (no commitment whether exploration has taken place in the past or not). Moratorium is the status of “crisis” or exploration, defined by the need to arrive at a self-definition, which is actively propelled by the individual. Mixed societal demands are particularly problematic for identity formation and its refinement at a time when one is seeking continuity or looking to find a sense of one’s uniqueness yet still fit within one’s societal parameters over time. In those instances in which one is part of a minority (e.g., by race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation) or if one has identifications with multiple groups (e.g., by being biracial), or if one is pulled by conflicting messages (e.g., those coming from the media and the family), an identity crisis is likely to emerge. Respect for diversity of self would go a long way in allowing people to be “uniquely themselves” while belonging to a community. The Healthy “crisis and the creative exploration of the self (Moratorium), can find a meaningful platform in the virtual reality.
Identity Crisis and its Linkage with the VR Expressing identity is a strong self-motivator for using the internet. People who feel important aspects of their identity are unexpressed due to fear of a negative reception, will often search chat rooms for role relationships in which to engage stigmatized aspects of their identity (Long & Chen, 2007). Building on the idea of Erikson, that in the search of identity achievement, adolescents are given permission to try out different things and different aspects of their personality, the internet is said to have become a new context in which adolescent identity exploration and construction
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is taking place (Calvert 2002). If the identity crisis stage is left without a successful resolution, the young adult may adopt a negative identity or a condition known as “role confusion” or the inability to choose a direction in life beyond one that is superficial at best. A positive resolution of the identity crisis results in the person gaining the virtue of fidelity which is “the ability to sustain loyalties freely pledged in spite of contradictions in value systems” (Erikson, 1964, p. 125). Waterman (1992) used “personal expressiveness” to describe one’s personal daemon or “true self”, based on the classical Greek understanding of expressiveness, meaning “those potentialities of each person which represent the greatest fulfillment in living of which each is capable” (p.58). Resolving of identity crisis through play method has been explained by Erikson in his book, Childhood and Society (1950). In Childhood and Society the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson writes about a four-year-old girl who was brought to him because of a bed-wetting problem, and by creating a toy situation, ultimately a safe place for the young girl, he was able to resolve the dilemma in the situation. In Erikson’s words: “The child indicates clearly that I will not get anything out of her. To her growing surprise and relief, however, I do not ask her any questions; I do not even tell her that I am her friend and she should trust me. Instead I start to build a simple block house on the floor. There is a living room; a kitchen; a bedroom with a little girl in a bed and a woman standing close by her; a bathroom with the door open; a garage with a man standing next to a car. This arrangement suggests, of course, the regular morning hour when the mother tries to pick the little girl up “on time”, while the father gets ready to leave the house. Our patient, increasingly fascinated with this wordless statement of a problem, suddenly goes into action. She relinquishes her thumb to make space for a broad and toothy grin. Her face flushes
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and she runs over to the toy scene. With a mighty kick she disposes of the woman doll; she bangs the bathroom door shut, and she hurries to the toy shelf to get three shiny cars, which she puts beside the man. She has answered my “question”: she, indeed, does not wish the toy girl to give to her mother what is her mother’s, and she is eager to give to her father more than he could ask for” (Erikson,1985, p. 49-50) Erikson states that “We offer her a toy situation so that she may reveal and commit herself in its “unreality” ” [Erikson, 1985, p. 52]. The virtual world of dolls and blocks created a safe space in which the little girl was able to express her feelings. Virtual worlds, whether they are made of blocks of wood or blocks of text, form a rich psychological play space. Many players notice that they are somehow different on the net than off and this leads them to reflect on who they are in real life. It helps people to understand the concept of identity and the ways in which we construct ourselves (Bruckman, 1992). And the peace, which the little girl was able to find in the imaginary “safe” world, is the same which human beings find by creating a safe place in the VR. It becomes a place where one can take risks; make safe assumptions and where blame games can be avoided. VR helps us in finding a safe world, where prejudices, stereotypes and false assumptions are missing. Identity formed in VR allows users to alter, develop and build a new safe platform to interact. And this safe platform encourages oneself to introspect and take a deeper look while exploring the identity issues.
Psychosocial Moratorium and Virtual Identity Ideally the moratorium allows individuals freedom from the daily expectations for role performance. Their experimentation with the new roles, values and belief systems results in a personal conception of how they can fit into society so as to maximize
their personal strengths and gain positive recognition from the community. Wallace (1999) claims that experimenting with identities is an integral part of human development, and considers this experimentation valuable for personal growth. It will be safer to say that virtual environments can provide a space called psychosocial moratorium that allows letting people take risks and freely project their creative self. Smahel (2005) has studied the role of virtual identity in the context of Marcia’s (1980) theory, on Czech Adolescents. Pertinent findings’ supporting our study has been obtained: •
•
•
Adolescents in the status moratorium use internet more often as a resource for selfexploration and clarification of their attitudes and values. Adolescents in the status moratorium experiment on internet more often with their identity (they impersonate other people more often etc.). Adolescents in the status moratorium more often break the norms and rules which are well-known from their real life.
Time in cyberspace reworks the notion of the moratorium because it may now exist on an always-available window (Turkle, 2003). It is a safe place to experiment with one self and take risks. Norms and values of the society, no longer play a hindering role. These spaces can contribute to the experience of self as a multiplicity of parts, the player can take risks, real-world consequences are lowered, and the development of identity is facilitated. Players have the opportunity to try, practice, develop their skills, and when they fail, try again. Psychosocial moratorium (Asgari & Kaufman, 2005) is a consequence-free period of experimentation that facilitates the development of identity. According to Gee (2005), video games are good at providing such space. They present players with simulated worlds where consequences of experiments are lowered. Players can try, prac-
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tice, and develop new skills. As Gee mentions, all learning in all domains needs identity work. It requires taking on new identities and forming bridges from one’s old identities to the new ones. The concept of virtual and real self identity will remain isolated if the identity of organizations is not touched upon.
Identity of Organizations It is crucial to understand and link individual identity with the organizations’ identity, as one tends to spend major part of one’s life in close alignment with the organization. Ashforth and Mael (1989) argued that individuals who identify with employing organization tend to choose activities that are congruent with organization’s identity. Under this perspective, organizational identification is a specific form of social identification where the individuals define themselves in terms of their membership in a particular organization (Mael and Ashforth, 1995, p.310). The organizational literature view trust as resulting from individual’s perception of the characteristics or qualities of certain groups or systems (Lee, 2004). Perceived trust plays an important role in organizational activities and processes such as, improvement of cooperation behavior, performance evaluation, goal setting, leadership, team spirit enhancement (McAllister, 1995; Jones and George 1998; Mayer et al., 1995), organizational commitment, and job satisfaction (Huff and Kelley, 2003). The relationship between individual and organizational identities is regarded as reciprocal, such that organizational identities can influence individual behavior, and individual behavior can influence organizational identity (Pratt & Foreman, 2000; Huemer et al 2004). Albert and Whetten (1985), suggested that organization identity consists of those attributes that members feel are fundamental to the organization, uniquely descriptive of it and persisting within it over time. In other words, organizational identity refers to what is central, distinctive and enduring in an
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organization, when considering its past, present and the future. Organizational identity is commonly seen as the property of a collective. In other words, organization’s identity defines a more or less shared and collective sense of “who we are as an organization”. In today’s scenario, it is necessary to understand the linking of identity of one self, with organizational identity. Or as Hatch & Schultz (2000) describe it: “Organizational identity, as the object of commitment and a sense of belonging, is seen as providing a cognitive and emotional foundation on which organizational members build meaningful relationships with the organization concerned”. Identification has been defined as an individual’s sense of oneness or belongingness within an organization. (Mael & Ashfort, 1992). The question of identification is relevant and current nowadays when organizations are going through constant changes.
Identity Crisis in Organizations It is important to mention here, the various types of identity crisis, which organizations generally suffer from in turbulent times. In the words of Jolton & Geisert (2009), Inside-out conflict, can be one of the major type of identity crisis, which organizations are facing. Inside-out conflict is when the image (brand) that the company promotes to the world (and its customers) is incongruent or vastly different from its internal culture and work experience. Another important source of crisis for organizations, in the words of Jolton & Geisert (2009), is that internal conflicts often stem from changes in leadership and strategy. A founder of the company may have created a very patriarchal, yet caring, internal brand where people are valued for what they know. Then the founder retires and is replaced by a professional manager, who sees that in order to compete, people need to be valued for their performance and creates a need for buckling down on expenses and frills. The caring, trusting identity becomes conflicted with the performance-driven hardnosed identity.
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This also results in the company hiring one type of employee who serves the needs of one identity, but who conflicts with another type of employee, who serves the needs of the other identity. Instead of working in tandem, they work in opposition. Identity crises faced by organizations are natural phases of business growth and development cycles. It is how they are managed that determines where the organization will benefit or suffer. It can be due to radical changes in the business environment, or it can be changes in leadership and values. But more often than not, it is just the fact that the leadership hasn’t invested any time or care into understanding who it is and the impact this has on the business. It is very important to keep the business goals aligned with the organizational culture- to maintain a healthy identity of its executives. In each case of identity crisis, the underlying opportunity is in learning more about who an organization is, what is in conflict and then working from this point to actively manage that identity. Resolving the underlying corporate identity crisis will not only unleash new energy, but will also bring the focus for the organization and the employees. But just as people are constantly evolving and changing, organizations do as well. Managing a corporate identity is an ongoing process. Like one’ self journey, it never ends, but can be a source of inspiration and strength (Jolton & Geisert, 2009).
Solutions and Recommendations: Resolving of Identity Crisis through VR In a virtual world, avatars are cultural representations of “real” people in the quest of a “virtual” identity. Cultural identity (CI), in cyberspace differentiates virtual identities, and helps situate avatars in a specific social structure (Hoffman, 1998). CI is the product of cultural beliefs and practices that one may not realize easily. VR, for many people may be an outlet that helps them escape their reality and helps them find ways to
cope with identity struggles through the safety of fantasy” (Jagodzinski, 2006). A player identifies with his/her avatar as an object, as avatars can be compared to empty shells that are filled with the player’s emotions, feelings, and state of mind. And it becomes a therapeutic ritual to fill in the canvas of life; with the help of VR, with different kinds of self created projected selves. As stated by Hampton (1999), “individuals do not enter into cyberspace as clean slates but bring with them aspects of their lives” (p.1578). Aggressiveness in SL, according to Jagodzinski (2006) is the “acting out of aggression towards the other through the imaginary and symbolic orders as the subject fends for itself and abject alterity” (p. 288). VR, then, enables its players to intensely transfer their “hidden” selves into their avatar. An avatar becomes a virtual counterpart that exists in the imaginative space and time, it becomes, “like a ghost - a guardian angel or devil - capable of magically acting through the will of the player” (Jagodzinski, 2006, p. 289). Virtual reality is therefore inherently good “in both experiential and transcendent senses” because it allows us to envision the world and recreate it beyond the bounds of our current conceptions of the real (Zhai, 1998, p. 153). We are capable of experiencing it as a new reality, since what we call reality now is constructed by the senses alone (Zhai, 1998). Virtual worlds, like other technologies, can have positive and/or negative psychological effects on the user. The exploration of identities online can be beneficial as well as potentially harmful (Jones, 2006). The main concern is of exploring and building a healthy identity through the avatars in the virtual world, with out carrying the crutches of prejudices and stereotypes and discriminations, of the real world.
Discussion and Future Implications Individuals are the main pillars of the organizations and ultimately they are the builders for the success and failures of any organization. In the
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words of Erikson (1968), it is important to help individuals in identifying with an identity, which not only maintains continuity with the past but also provides meaning for the present and gives direction for the future. Identity is a very broad and ambiguous concept, yet it focuses attention on critical questions about personal development and social relationships—questions that are crucial (Buckingham, 2008). VE in social scientific study is becoming a natural phenomenon of study. In everyday life, there are areas of identity that an individual can control, such as work roles, ideological values, and social relationships. However, there are many other dimensions that individuals have little control over, such as their biological sex, race, age, and other physical features, all of which are important in identity construction. In VEs, these areas can be controlled, making the exploration of identity more flexible (as noted by Asgari & Kaufman, Calvert, 2002). This flexibility of “creation” can give a sense of “achievement” to human beings and also provide them with a chance of gaining immense satisfaction. The word “crisis” has been seen as an “opportunity” by Erikson. If people are able to see the crisis taking place in real life as an “opportunity”, it will be a step towards the ultimate growth and enhancement. In addition to the role of VEs as a digital mirror to project images and identities, these environments can provide a space called a psychosocial moratorium that let people take risks. Psychosocial moratorium is a consequence-free period of experimentation that facilitates the development of identity (Asgari & Kaufman, 2005). This “working through” period of experimentation can lend support to everyone in their private and public life, in gaining an understanding of learning about different aspects of themselves. It is essential and important for the organizations to help individuals in understanding the process of self- reflection and self–definition, which ultimately helps them in resolving an identity crisis. The indulgence in virtual reality can help them in having the freedom of expression
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of thoughts. The online authorship of creation of blogs and homepages can be a way of encouraging the individuals to identify with their thoughts and trying to resolve the conflicts and crisis.SL, face book and twitter can be such few online spaceswhich help in expression of one self along with the social interaction and affiliation.
CONCLUSION Recent times provide some great examples of how in business, we never know what is going to come next. The same thing happens in real life as well. There has to be a level of adaptability and flexibility while one is still trying to be focused and well adjusted. We need to take advantage of unexpected opportunities, which we are presented with and be comfortable with the same. Online communities are a good place to learn to overcome the fear of unknown. As mentioned by Turkle (1995), in today’s world, people have to be flexible. Our professional lives depend upon being able to interact successfully, in team effort, with people who are very different from us. Many of us no longer live in isolated, stable communities, with shared values, but rather in large, fluid, cosmopolitan communities in which we come in regular contact with people whose background and values are very different from our own. In the past, stability of the self was a paramount virtue, but perhaps, in the modern world, flexibility, the ability to accommodate to diversity, is more important, and perhaps assuming roles online will help us to develop that kind of flexibility. Having different online identities can teach us how to be flexible, creative adults and more tolerant of diversity. Wallace (1999) claims that experimenting with identities is an integral part of human development, and considers this experimentation valuable for personal growth. He also states that experimenting with identities is not restricted only to the period of adolescence and describes what he calls a MAMA (“Moratorium – Achievement
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– Moratorium – Achievement”) pattern, in which adults repeatedly return to questions of identity, values and goals. And ultimately each individual has to find the unique answer pertaining to his own unique self. What is needed is an optimum level of adaptability and flexibility, while one is still trying to be focused and execute a strategy. To use an old phrase we need to “expect the unexpected”, and more than that, take advantage of unexpected opportunities with which we are presented. Hence we can see that experimenting with multiple identities teaches us to be more tolerant, flexible, empathetic and social which is an integral part of the human growth. Hence, understanding the role of collaborative web in the formation of a healthy identity should be clear sighted with immense potential of self expression and communication leading to better alignment between individual and organizational identities.
Bente, G. (1989). Facilities for the graphical computer simulation of head and body movements. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 21, 455–462. doi:10.3758/BF03202817
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Loomis, J. M. (1992). Distal attribution and presence. Presence (Cambridge, Mass.), 1, 113–119. Lu, K. (2007). Virtual identity and virtual community. Identity/eyedentity (ATOPIA no. 4 - 2/2004). Retrieved December 13, 2009, from http://www. atopia.tk/index.php?option=com_content&task= view&id=59&Itemid=58 Mael, F., & Ashforth, B. E. (1992). Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test of the reformulated model of organizational identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 103–123. doi:10.1002/job.4030130202 Mael, F., & Ashforth, B. E. (1995). Loyal from day one: Biodata organizational identification, and turnover among newcomers. Personnel Psychology, 48, 309–333. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1995. tb01759.x Mantovani, G., & Riva, G. (1999). Real presence: How different ontologies generate different criteria for presence, telepresence, and virtual presence. Presence (Cambridge, Mass.), 8(5), 540–550. doi:10.1162/105474699566459 Marcia, J. E. (1966). Development and validation of ego identity statuses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3, 551–558. doi:10.1037/ h0023281
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Pratt, M. G., & Foreman, P. O. (2000). Classifying managerial responses to multiple organizational identities. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 18–42. doi:10.2307/259261 Ratan, R., Santa Cruz, M., & Vorderer, P. (2008). Multitasking, presence, and self-presence on the Wii. In L. Moreno (Ed.), Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Workshop on Presence (pp. 167–190). Barcelona, Spain: Starlab Barcelona Reid, E. M. (1998). The self and the Internet: Variations on the illusion of one self. In Gackenbach, J. (Ed.), Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal implications. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Rheingold, H. (1991). Virtual reality. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Riva, G. (2005). Virtual reality in psychotherapy [Review]. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 8, 220–230. doi:10.1089/cpb.2005.8.220 Riva, G., Davide, F., & Ijsselsteijn, W. A. (Eds.). (2003). Being there: Concepts, effects, and measurement of user presence in synthetic environments. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Ios Press. Riva, G., & Glimberti, C. (1998). Computermediated communication: Identity and social interaction in an electronic environment. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 124(4), 434–464. Rothbaum, B. O., Hodges, L. F., & Kooper, R. (1997). Virtual reality exposure therapy. The Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, 6, 219–226. Slater, M., & Steed, A. (2000). A virtual presence counter. Presence (Cambridge, Mass.), 9, 413–434. doi:10.1162/105474600566925 Šmahel, D. (2005). Identity of Czech adolescents - relation of cyberspace and reality. Presented at 9th European Congress of Psychology, Granada 3-8th July 2005 Spain.
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Steuer, J. (1992). Defining virtual reality: Dimensions determining telepresence. The Journal of Communication, 42, 73–93. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1992.tb00812.x Stryker, S., & Burke, P. J. (2000). The past, present, and future of an identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63(4), 284–297. doi:10.2307/2695840 Suler, J. (2002). Identity management in cyberspace. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytical Studies, 4(4), 455-459. Retrieved on May 18, 2009, from http://www.springerlink.com/content/ l322287n68344640/
Waterman, A. (1992). Identity as an aspect of optimal psychological functioning. In Adams, G., Gulllotta, T., & Montemayor, R. (Eds.), Adolescent identity formation (pp. 50–72). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Whitbourne, S. (1987). Personality development in adulthood and old age: Relationships among identity style, health, and well-being. In Schaie, K. W. (Ed.), Annual review of gerontology and geriatrics (Vol. 7). New York, NY: Springer. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Identity development.
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ADDITIONAL READING
Turkle, S. (1997). Constructions of self in virtual reality. In Kiesler, S. (Ed.), Culture of the Internet (pp. 143–155). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Dorman, S. (2000). Implications of growing up digital. The Journal of School Health, 70, 420–422. doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2000.tb07232.x
Turkle, S. (2003). Technology and human vulnerability-a conversation with MIT’s Sherry Turkle. Harvard Business Review, 1–9.
Kushner, D. (2004). My Avatar, My Self. Technology Review, 107(3), 50–55.
Vybíral, Z., Šmahel, D., & Divínová, R. (2004). Growing up in virtual reality: Adolescents and the Internet. In Society, Reproduction, and Contemporary Challenges (pp. 169–188). Brno, Czech Republic: Barrister& Principal. Wallace, P. (1999). The psychology of the Internet. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Markley, R. (1996). Virtual Realities and Their Discontents. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mead, G. (1925). The genesis of the self and social control. International Journal of Ethics, 35, 251–273. Nakamura, L. (2002). Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge.
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Talamo, A., & Ligoria, B. (2001). Strategic identities in cyberspace. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 1, 109–122. doi:10.1089/10949310151088479 Turkle, S. (1995). Collaborative selves, collaborative worlds: Identity in the information age. Electronic collaboration in the humanities: Issues and options. Inman, J. A., Reed, Ch., Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2004. pp. 3-12. [Chapter] Turkle, Sh. (1996). Parallel lives: working on identity in virtual space. Constructing the self in a mediated world. SAGE Publications. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K.; New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press. Yee, N., Bailenson, J. N., Urbanek, M., Chang, F., & Merget, D. (2007, Feb.). The unbearable likeness of being digital: the persistence of nonverbal social norms in online virtual environments, Cyber psychology & Behavior: The Impact Of The Internet, Multimedia And Virtual Reality On Behavior. Society, 10(1), 115–121.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Identity Crisis: It is that time of life, when human beings start questioning and exploring the nature of their being. Identity Formation: The process of gradually forming a distinct personality of an individual. Identity: An individual’s knowledge of a distinct comprehension of having a unique self. Multi-User Domains (MUDs): Multi user dungeons or MUD as popularly called is a multi user real time virtual world, created only in text, in which the users feels immersed in an artificial space containing representations of data, programs and other users. Psychosocial Moratorium: The term Psychosocial Moratorium has been coined by Erikson (1959), to describe a period of free experimentation, before a final identity is achieved. The basic idea of using this concept is to give freedom to the individuals from the daily expectations from their role performance. Second Life: is a virtual world created by the linden lab in June 2003, which gives individuals freedom to explore and create an imaginary world of its own kind. Virtual Reality: is a computer simulated environment, which has been created to either depict a real world or an imaginary world.
Section 4
Blending Real and Virtual Worlds
OVERVIEW As we conclude this book with this last section, we would like to present to the readers some specific peek into the future, illustrated by a set of chapters spanning the less explored territories. Indeed, as the industry and market trends reveal, we are set on some real unknown cross roads. There are ongoing trends which relate to some very interesting phenomenon like blurring of social, personal and professional lives – most of us as individuals have experienced that. The future of hardware becoming increasingly fast, miniaturized and also with extremely high storage capacities, the focus is already more on convergence of hand held devices than other forms of computation like laptops and other computations. The release of products like i-Pads and enthusiasm that this has generated, is simple case in point. Another interesting trend is a movement from GUI based devices to more and more touch enabled and NUI or natural user interface devices. And of-course, user driven content and increased collaboration, that has been a continuing theme across our entire book. The first chapter in this set by Arhlene A. Flowers and Kimberly Gregson from U.S. provides us with the perspective of virtual meetings and their increasing penetration in the organizations and how companies are leveraging web to the full to enable their employees to work across geographies, time zones and with much greater productivity and far lesser costs. The chapter covers the complete aspect of evolution of technology for virtual meetings, a comprehensive theoretical analysis of tele-presence in virtual meetings, and case studies of companies utilizing virtual worlds as meeting venues, and of course a practical consideration for conducting virtual meetings and events. The next chapter by Roma Chauhan and Ritu Chauhan brings forth the opportunities and challenges associated with virtual business events. Conventionally, organizations have been spending a lot of time, cost and energies in planning and organizing business events such as conferences, road shows and exhibitions. With the advent of collaborative web tools, and particularly post recession, many of the fortune
500 companies have started extending their business events in the realm of virtual world. Though virtual conferences have been relatively well accepted in practice, there are larger issues of acceptance of virtual exhibitions. With the help of real life examples, the authors of this chapter suggest blending the face to face business events with virtual world based events as a way forward. Finally, the last chapter in this book, is dedicated to a totally new dimension of emerging web of user touch based, 3D technologies, which is termed as Augmented Reality (AR). AR as a concept explained by Lukas Ritzel in the chapter, is much more of a sensory internet, that leads to an entirely new experience of bridging the off-line with the on-line world. This chapter illustrates AR applications and the way it can alter our lives and business with the support of cyberspace for ever. With this in the background, we present to you the last set of three chapters which are focused on virtualization in general, with the impact on the same within the organization, across the value chain in terms of exhibitions and marketing campaigns and finally a completely new paradigm of “Augmented Reality” presented to us in the last concluding chapter. The future presents to us exciting picture of the potentially brave new world, where each one of us would perhaps interface around us with our virtual avatars and shall be able to accomplish many of the new things which we have not yet even imagined. Already the reflections of the same are visible in the semi-science fictional movies like “Inception”, after the earlier set of movies like Matrix I and Matrix II. We editors hope that these chapters provide a fitting end to this theme of Web 2.0 and collaborations and provide a completely new perspective to the future that is unraveling around us and will definitely transform the way we think, work and interact with and around ourselves in the very near future.
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Chapter 14
Virtual Worlds for Collaborative Meetings Arhlene A. Flowers Ithaca College, USA Kimberly Gregson Ithaca College, USA
ABSTRACT Whether businesses will make use of virtual worlds for meetings, training, and events is not just an academic question. Use of existing and newly developed virtual worlds is expected to grow for the near future among all age groups. International companies are entering a variety of virtual worlds to promote collaboration among their geographically dispersed workforce for training and meetings, as well as for business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications with internal and external audiences. These worlds provide engaging experiences that are enjoyable and memorable. This chapter addresses opportunities and challenges in conducting meetings in virtual worlds. It covers the evolution of technology for virtual meetings, a theoretical analysis of telepresence in virtual meetings, case studies of companies utilizing virtual worlds as meeting venues, and practical considerations for conducting virtual meetings and events.
INTRODUCTION The evolution from videoconferencing to internet technology, particularly in virtual worlds, has provided more affordable and efficient technology for organizations to “meet” and communicate from multiple locations for lectures, workshops, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch014
conferences, staff meetings, training, and other business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications. Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, are predicted to grow in popularity in the near future among all age groups (Gartner, 2007; KZero, 2009), because they let organizations create environments where people can interact in ways that work with existing work flows. They have opened up unique communication platforms
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for organizations to connect “face to face” with the online world’s growing number of residents through events, demonstrations, exhibitions, market research, online distance learning, and other collaborative platforms. Today’s virtual worlds emulate elements of experiences that were once considered pure fantasy–from the holodeck, an entertainment room with holographic simulations in Star Trek, to the metaverse, a futuristic virtual world in Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash from 1992. Teleporting is a reality in Second Life, where avatars can be beamed instantly to different locations. Collaborations for businesses, nonprofits, and governments can be realized with virtual face-to-face transactions in new threedimensional immersive worlds. In this chapter, we review technology from picture phones to virtual worlds used to facilitate collaboration in organizations with geographically distributed members. We then describe one particular virtual world, Second Life, which has been used for many types of meetings and events since its founding. Four case studies based on interviews with a variety of stakeholders describe elements of the process. We conclude with practical considerations on how organizations can select the most appropriate virtual world venue, provide the necessary training and resources for participants, establish guidelines for effective collaboration, address privacy and security issues, document and promote in-world activities, and utilize unique collaborative opportunities.
EVOLUTION OF VIDEOCONFERENCING TO VIRTUAL WORLDS MEETINGS Videoconferencing is defined as “an electronic form of on-line audio and visual communication which overcomes the problems of physical distance while reducing the need for travelling” (Panteli & Dawson, 2001, p. 89) and it has enabled people to meet visually without being physically
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present. These systems allowed for synchronous communication, similar to actual face-to-face meetings. The Picturephone was an early attempt by AT&T to help people meet virtually; it was introduced in 1956 and later showcased as the improved “Mod 1” Picturephone at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York at a futuristic Walt Disney company exhibit. In 1970, AT&T introduced a commercial application for the Picturephone, but the product was not a financial success because of its high cost, bulky size, small screen, and unfriendly user controls (AT&T, 2010a). In a collaborative AT&T project, NASA used early satellite transmissions for videoconferences and television feeds from astronauts (AT&T, 2010b). Affordable satellite technology in the 1980s created opportunities for conference facilities to use videoconferencing for global meetings with physically large and costly systems. The growth of personal computers and the commercialization of the internet opened the way for a variety of PC-based videoconferencing systems, such as IBM’s PicTel in 1991, Apple’s CU-SeeMe in 1992, and Microsoft’s NetMeeting in 1996. Many new developments provided higher quality images that were almost television quality for much less money (Carey, 2002). Journalists used videoconferencing on cell phones to report live from the front in Afghanistan in 2001 (Roberts, 2004). High-end telepresence systems introduced in 2007 claimed to improve quality by reducing jerky images, sound delays, and other annoying irregularities. However, these systems can cost over $300,000 for a room-based system (Stafford, 2008). Systems over the last few years have become smaller and portable, and some are even deskbased to work with the user’s own computer. More users with broadband connections to the internet have spurred innovations in webconferencing to share presentation slides and other files, write notes on a shared whiteboard, watch streaming video, conduct polls to solicit feedback, and
Virtual Worlds for Collaborative Meetings
Figure 1. Staff sharing documents and collaborating in a virtual office in ProtoSphere. (© 2010, ProtonMedia.com. Used with permission.)
record the meetings. As products improved, four categories of products developed: general business communication, collaboration tools, project management focus, and training tools (Winfield, 2004). Earlier systems were replaced with Adobe Connect, Cisco WebEx, Microsoft LiveMeeting, IBM Web Conferencing Service, and Linktivity MeetNow. These systems were more affordable and lighter, offering innovative features with higher-quality imagery and sound. However, some controls were still difficult to learn and some issues included delay in audio and the lack of the sense of actually being physically present at the virtual meeting. Malhotra (1998) observed that the discussions about the latest technology for videoconferencing were overly optimistic and asked if videoconferences and other new technology “are offering solutions as panaceas for the business challenges of the knowledge era” (p. 58). Researchers began to question the validity of industry claims about the beneficial effects of media richness on performance. Ferran and Watts (2008) found that videoconferences were more mentally challenging than face-to-face communication, so participants actually had decreased capacity for the content of the meeting. Discussions tended to be more hostile than meetings with similar people held face to face (Stuhlmacher & Citera, 2005). However,
videoconference attendees under time pressure had faster responses than face-to-face groups (Cabeller, Gracia, & Peiró (2005).
Meetings in Virtual Worlds A new type of system was being developed for virtual worlds, such as Linden Lab’s Second Life, ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere, Altadyn’s 3DXplorer, and Teleplace, Inc.’s Teleplace; they enable businesses, media, governments, and higher-education institutions to meet in mediated spaces (see Figure 1). A virtual world creates an environment in which people from anywhere around the globe can connect. This ease of travel without actual transportation expense and traveler fatigue makes virtual worlds convenient venues for businesses to meet with their clients and professional audiences. Although virtual worlds will not completely replace the need for people to meet face-to-face, “many marquee brands are experimenting and learning how to operate in this space” (Biba, 2007, p. 17). This technology lets organizations face the limitations (managing distractions and the learning curve in utilizing the technology), benefits (cost-savings of travel expenditures and time spent traveling), and logistics and constraints of any type of meeting whether
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in a physical or virtual space (agendas, protocol, and engagement of participants). A few studies have looked at the decisions made by organizations to host events and meetings in virtual worlds. Damer (2007) reviewed the history of a series of events hosted by the Contact Consortium from 1996 to 2004 in AlphaWorld, an avatar-based virtual world. Contact Consortium held its first Cyberconference in 1998, with most events in AlphaWorld (the original name for Active Worlds), and with smaller simultaneous events held in other virtual worlds. The venue was set up to mimic a real-world conference with exhibitors, speakers, and social events. AlphaWorld was chosen as the site of the event because the audience had experience in virtual worlds and the subject of the conference was virtual worlds. AlphaWorld allowed for user creation of content, such as the conference site and avatars, and the audience and speakers could attend from around the world. The virtual conference participants encountered a variety of problems due to the large number of users attending the event. Only a few avatars could be shown on the screen at any one time, although all attendees could hear the speakers. Objects showed up slowly on the screen and users found it hard to move their avatars.
The Evolution of Second Life from Personal to Business Users Second Life®, a virtual world created by Linden Lab in 2003, and other virtual worlds have changed the way people interact and meet online. Second Life is one of the latest internet developments that have presented new opportunities at the beginning of the 21st century for individuals, educational institutions, nonprofits, and corporations to communicate and collaborate in an immersive virtual environment. Second Life, an online three-dimensional virtual world imagined, created, and owned by its residents, offers a platform for communication, business, education,
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and organizational development to anyone who wants to try it. Since its inception, Second Life has grown dramatically with approximately 19 million registered users (Keegan, 2009), represented by customizable animated images known as avatars, in a virtual area that is the approximate land mass of the state of Rhode Island with approximately 2 billion square meters (Takahashi, 2009), where individuals, universities, charities, corporations, and government agencies have a dialogue with its inhabitants. Second Life compiles daily updated economic statistics on acres auctioned, land for sale, number of logged in users, resident transactions in its local currency (Lindens), total supply of Lindens, in-world business profits, and monthly customer spending distribution. Raw data files can be accessed at http://secondlife.com/statistics/ economy-data.php. Second Life residents are empowered to change their gender, appearance, race, age, and even the species of their avatars. Residents can take classes, make and sell virtual goods, attend events, drive a car, or fly a space ship. Second Life is designed to give residents control over every aspect of their in-world life; the world is as vibrant and alive as the residents are creative and involved (Ondrejka, 2004). An in-world economy functions with currency earned in-world that can be exchanged for dollars back into the real world. According to Linden Lab, the economy in Second Life totaled US$567 million in 2009, a 65% growth over 2008, and its virtual world residents earned US$55 million in gross resident earnings, representing an 11% growth over the previous year (Linden, 2010). In 2006, Second Life began to experience a steady increase in personal users (Nino, 2008), and also in business and corporate presence, with major household brands, such as IBM, Toyota, Sony, Kraft, and 1-800-FLOWERS. Just as residents are able to customize and build, businesses can access the same tools to engage in a dialogue and undertake specific activities
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with the residents in Second Life. The business world seemed to take notice of Second Life in 2006 starting with a BusinessWeek cover story and several sidebars (Hof, 2006) that extolled the opportunities for real-world corporations and inworld entrepreneurs. A series of positive articles followed in magazines, such as Wired (Wallace, 2006) and Fortune (Kirkpatrick, 2006). The media coverage focused on opportunity, creativity, and financial gain. Profiles featured Anshe Chung, a land owner who made US$1 million in Second Life, and Kermit Quirk, the avatar name of Nathan Kier, who invented a videogame in Second Life called Tringo (Andrews, 2007) that was licensed for the GameBoy Advance hand-held videogame console (Thompson, 2006), and the technology background of the Linden Lab founders (Colligan, 2006). Hemp (2006) questioned whether in virtual worlds, such as Second Life, businesses should market to the real person or to the avatar. The overall media message during this period seemed to be that businesses needed to be in Second Life right away. The positive press did not continue forever. Beginning in December 2006, a ValleyWag blog post from Clay Shirky kicked off a backlash against all the positive coverage (Shirky, 2006), criticizing the user statistics reported by Linden Lab and accusing the company of overestimating the user base to attract businesses. The negative publicity continued in 2007, starting with a Los Angeles Times article (Semuels, 2007), and quickly spread to other media including BusinessWeek (McConnon & Jana, 2007), Forbes (Rosmarin, 2007), and Wired (Rose, 2007)–the same magazines that provided the overwhelmingly positive coverage in 2006. Most of the negative coverage seemed to assume that companies’ time in Second Life has been ill-spent; some articles plainly suggested companies should get out while they still could. BusinessWeek (McConnon & Jana, 2007) listed all the companies that left Second Life in order to have more control. Organizations, such as AOL, American Apparel, and Wells Fargo, established
islands, hosted a few events, and then left, perhaps because the islands were not successful as an additional revenue stream. A public relations executive explained the situation when brands began leaving Second Life: “recent failures can be compared to the mistakes that led the dotcom bubble to burst in 2000–the firms that struggled were the ones that overspent too quickly without thinking the process through” (Devaney, 2008, p. 24). In the debates about the hype or relevance of Second Life, this virtual world represents “a glimpse into the future of online communication, interactivity and commerce” (Holtz, 2007, p. 19). However, a variety of for-profit companies, nonprofits, and educational institutions have begun to utilize Second Life for a different form of business-to-business and business-to-consumer communication–as a “place” to connect with audiences for lectures, workshops, and other applications. IBM, New Media Consortium (NMC), Northrop Grumman, MacArthur Foundation, the American Library Association, and other entities are a few examples. Second Life has been the site of weekly Science Friday sessions (an NPR radio program), weekly Metanomics presentations (virtual world economics discussions hosted by Cornell professor Robert Bloomfield), and special events for such conferences as BlogHer, SL Case Camp, and NetRoots. Second Life has developed a section on its Web site called, “Second Life Work,” which includes a list of companies working in Second Life, tips on how to work in-world, and how to conduct meetings in-world. The “Meetings and Events in Second Life” section covers virtual providers, such as the Alpine Executive Center, Rivers Run Red’s Immersive Workspaces™, and Virtualis™ Convention and Learning Center, as well as case studies, blogs, and media coverage. The IBM case study on its Academy of Technology ‘s Virtual World Conference and Annual Meeting in Second Life estimated that the return on investment was $320,000, comparable to “one-fifth the cost of a real world event” (Linden Lab, 2009c, p. 1).
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Figure 2. Virtual office collaboration among various users in ProtoSphere. (© 2010, ProtonMedia.com. Used with permission.)
Second Life compares its meeting capabilities to that of videoconferencing, stating that “video conferencing enables you to see your colleagues’ faces, but the quality of these meetings is often uneven and you still don’t get a sense of a shared environment—particularly helpful in training, simulation, and prototyping activities” (Linden Lab, 2009d, ¶ 5). Although Second Life is currently the most prominent virtual world for collaboration, other virtual worlds offering environments for businesses have emerged. Established in 2006, ProtonMedia, a provider of virtual world technology, developed ProtoSphere as “a secure, private virtual world environment for collaboration and learning” (ProtonMedia, 2010, ¶ 1). ProtonMedia has
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created immersive environments (see Figure 2) for such organizations as AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, National Defense University, Merck Inc., Chevron, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and TIAA-CREF. The 2010 Virtual Edge Summit also had sessions about virtual meetings conducted by InXpo, Unisfair, and ON24.
Telepresence in Virtual Meetings Past studies of consumers’ acceptance of technology have found a small number of variables involved in the acceptance process. The technology acceptance model (TAM) has often been used to examine users’ intentions to apply a technology. Davis (1989, 1993) and Davis, Bagozzi, and
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Warshaw (1989) identified two basic variables that have been included in most studies of TAM: perceived usefulness (i.e. something that will enhance job performance) and perceived ease of use (i.e. relatively free from effort) as positive influences on attitudes towards application of technology. Venkatesh and Davis (2000) extended the model, adding variables such as voluntariness of technology use, quality of the output, and how easily results can be demonstrated. A number of studies have looked at the role of fun or enjoyment in adopting technology. Venkatesh and Davis (1996) added measures of enjoyment to see if users having fun with the system were more likely to use it. Teo, Lim, and Lai (1999) introduced perceived enjoyment and Moon and Kim (2001) included perceived playfulness. In a study of individual user decisions to play online games, Hsu and Lu (2007) included flow and social use measures. Chung and Tan (2004) extended TAM with variables related to the user such as computer-using skills, personal innovativeness, and playfulness to the technology, such as whether a Web site was flexible, interactive, easy to use, navigate, and search. Shen and Eder (2009) examined users’ intentions to use virtual worlds for business and extended the model with three user variables that influenced perceived ease of use: computer anxiety, computer playfulness, and computer self-efficacy. They extended TAM by including a Second Life specific measure of perceived enjoyment by asking if the user had fun and found the experience enjoyable, and a more general measure of computer playfulness by asking if the user was typically imaginative and inventive when using computers. Perceived enjoyment had a significant and positive effect on the behavioral intention to use virtual worlds. Computer playfulness had a significant effect on perceived ease of use and an indirect effect on behavioral intention to use virtual worlds through perceived usefulness. All the extensions increased the variance explained over the original TAM. The attitude towards
technology was positively affected by perceived usefulness and pleasure, which in turn positively influenced attitude towards technology and the intention to adopt. Users want to know they will have fun using technology and that it is easy to use and useful. Owens, Davis, Murphy, Khazanchi, and Zigurs (2009) identified several components for a model of teamwork in virtual environments. The people on the team are one important component. They identified presence, defined by Steuer (1992) as a sense of being in an environment and now more broadly considered to include copresence, social presence, and telepresence as something that affects people on virtual teams. People get the feeling that they are together with others in a shared space and that they can work together with the other people. People experience a stronger sense of presence as the technology (i.e., screen resolution and virtual world interface) improves; enhanced technology allows for more realistic representations of avatars and a wider array of interactions. As with the research on TAM, this model of virtual teamwork focuses on the individual users and not on the people who made the actual decision to use the technology for teamwork. Sarker, Valacich, and Sarker (2005) proposed a model for technology adoption by small groups (TAG) as a process of discussion and consideration of existing attitudes towards technology to create what they call a “group valence” (p. 44) that takes into account factors such as pre-existing attitudes towards technology, the attitudes after discussion of the majority as well as of high-status members, and any conflict between members, along with characteristics of the technology itself, such as its utility and complexity that are similar to the TAM factors of perceived usefulness and ease of use. Leder, Maupin, Sena, and Zhuang (2000) discovered that TAM variables plus quality of information found explained use of Web sites relevant to their jobs.
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Case Studies on Organizations Conducting Virtual Meetings Companies are hosting virtual meetings and events for business-to-business and business-toconsumer applications. Consumers could enter a design contest sponsored by Coca-Cola, an event with Bruce Willis to promote a new Die Hard sequel, and events for customers and employees of technology companies, such as Sun Microsystems, Dell, Microsoft, and Cisco. Sports-related events were sponsored by Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. During the 2007 National Convention and Design Exposition, Autodesk held events on its island in Second Life for conference attendees. Educational organizations make use of virtual worlds for events and training. The International Society for Technology in Education used Second Life for networking and collaborative events during the 2007 National Education Computing Conference. The Idaho Bioterrorism Awareness and Preparedness Program worked with a group called Play 2 Train to simulate real-world, high-risk emergencies to provide no-risk training to program participants (Rittenberry, 2008). A number of benefits have been identified in studies of past events held in virtual worlds. An important benefit is cost savings. Intel saved $265,000 by moving its Embedded Channel Conference from a real-world hotel to a virtual world (Linden Lab, 2009e). There are no travel costs, no hotel or conference hall rentals, and no catering costs; employees do not lose productive work time traveling to meeting sites. Employees’ private lives are not disrupted by being away from home for several days at a time. Reuben Steiger, head of design firm Millions of Us, puts the cost benefit into perspective, “The advantage [virtual world meeting] has over the real world is cost, and the advantage it has over the Web is it’s like the real world” (Biba, 2006, p. 17). Recently, companies have come to realize that virtual meetings are environmentally friendlier,
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eliminating carbon emissions associated with flying or driving to the meeting site. Virtual world meetings bring with them elements of fun and surprise that increase engagement with the content. Collaboration is enhanced by the variety of communication tools in virtual worlds. Dave Elchoness, former chairman of the Association of Virtual Worlds, described virtual worlds as a “global hallway” in which “a chance meeting in the hallway or a drive-by into your office is what really gets ideas shared and work accomplished”(Greenfield, 2008b, p. 1). Several limitations have been identified, including people being distracted by events in their offices or real lives while attending virtual meetings and the often extreme learning curve associated with using virtual world software. Companies have had to overcome firewall barriers and incompatible hardware issues, as well. To be successful, virtual meetings and events need to overcome resistance from staff and some have only succeeded after receiving buy-in from upper level management. “Adopting social media in the corporate environment enabled greater communication and collaboration, but it only works with the buy-in of the CEO” (Ashling, 2007, p. 29). An interesting problem that several companies have had to deal with is developing protocols for virtual meetings including dress codes, security, agenda sharing and communication privacy.
Sense of Fun: Conference and Event Rental Spaces Companies that want to host an event in Second Life have several options. They can acquire an island for an initial fee and monthly payments, hire a designer, and build their own custom space. This is ideal for companies that plan to have recurring events, need to have the space for many attendees, or want to be able to close off the island for a private event. Using these sites lets a company take a slow approach to having virtual world events, so they can minimize their costs, check
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Figure 3. Sunrise at the Alpine Executive Center on the MeetingSupport Island in Second Life. (© 2008, Alpine Executive Center. Used with permission.)
out the risks, and help their employees navigate in the space. These sites usually provide tools to help participants interact with each other and with information. They have spaces for undertaking group projects, collaborating, and socializing. Many visual elements attract and hold participants’ attention when distractions are needed (Smith & Jainschigg, 2009). Here people talk within the same virtual space, unlike the disembodied voices of a phone conference or the faces in a different room on a videoconference. Several spaces like this in Second Life have been developed. One of the first was set up by the Crowne Plaza hotel chain on its The Place to Meet Island with several buildings resembling its real-world hotels; it was described as a “serene and private” island. Interested parties could rent space for events or meetings in those buildings. The island had two meeting rooms with streaming media and PowerPoint display tools, chairs and tables, and a choice of several real-world cityscapes as the view out the window, and a lounge for social events or casual meetings (Crowne Plaza, 2007). The hotel provided staff to assist with the meeting, just as they would in the real
world, including someone to greet visitors and direct them to the meeting room. Crowne Plaza hosted the invitation-only Leading Brands Summit on the Impact of Emerging Media to launch the island (Zimmer, 2007). Another such facility is Swiss-based group Vision’s Alpine Executive Center, begun in 2006, and still in existence in early 2011. The center is set up to look like a mountain resort with pine forests, snow-covered mountains, and even an ice dragon in the middle of a frozen pond (see Figure 3). A train helps visitors get around the island. Guests enter the resort lobby to pick up their nametags at a central registration desk. The goal was to create a site with a sense of place where attendees would feel as if they had been some place specific and with other real people. Having a space resemble an architectural style, rather than reproducing some specific place, gives people a sense of space, suggesting a style that they are familiar with. The space can help lead them through the event and trigger emotional responses. The center has traditional meeting rooms and spaces in rooms carved into the ice (see Figure 4). A variety of proprietary tools are made avail-
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Figure 4. Alpine Executive Center’s reactive sculpture artworks by Pol Jarvinen on exhibit in the Ice Caverns Gallery. (© 2008, Alpine Executive Center. Used with permission.)
able to meeting attendees, including support for brainstorming, categorizing, and voting. Events can be recorded to share results with others in the office or to review after the meeting. The center is designed to support the philosophy that fun is an important element to company events, making them more memorable with skiing, snowboarding, and ice skating, as well as with hot air balloons and an art gallery with rotating exhibits set up in ice caverns (Adams, 2009). Sometimes in-world events are held in lieu of real-world events. The center hosted a 24-hour technology product kick-off event for Unisys. An announcement was distributed to over 10,000 people on the company’s mailing list. While only several hundred people attended the Second Life events, thousands viewed it on the company’s Web site, continuing to promote the new product. The company gained exposure for less than $10,000, a price much smaller than a similar realworld event. Some events are only possible to host in a virtual world. The center hosted Hong Kong Net, an educational program with universities in Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and the United States, which was set up to investigate information technologies in a global environment.
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Students learned to work in multicultural teams while developing management and collaboration skills. Virtual worlds are ideal for fun teambuilding events. A department from Sun Microsystems rented the island for Employee Day with downhill ski races and other entertaining platforms. Using virtual worlds can add elements of fun and surprise to even dry topics, which can benefit from elements of entertainment, and even games (Alpine Executive Center, 2010).
Sense of People: Job Fairs An interesting use of Second Life for businesses is trying to recruit employees who use virtual worlds. Manpower Inc., an employment services company, set up Manpower Island in 2007 with tools to learn about real-world and virtual-world jobs. Career Builder. com, an online job site, set up at least 50 branded kiosks around Second Life with information and applications for jobs available in Second Life. TMP Worldwide organized the first virtual job fair in May 2007, a three-day event that it labeled Network in World with the tagline “in world interviews, real world jobs,” with companies including eBay, Microsoft, and
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Verizon (TMP Worldwide, 2007a). More than 750 people requested interviews and approximately 150 were selected and attended actual interviews (TMP Worldwide, 2007d). Because of the strongly positive responses from job seekers and firms, TMP held a second fair in August 2007 with different companies, including GE and Accenture (TMP Worldwide, 2007c). Fairs were set up by TMP Worldwide’s European branch for European companies. Electric Sheep Company set up four similar job fairs over two years for firms trying to attract MBA students (Gold, 2009). The goal in each case was to attract international applicants by demonstrating through the use of the virtual world that the company was forward thinking and technologically advanced in a cost-effective manner (Gold, 2009; Vong, 2009). In each case, the companies participated in the fairs because they wanted to reach an international audience to broaden the pool of applicants for positions at the firms. Using Second Life gave the firms an opportunity to brand themselves as innovative risk takers. They realized that the event would not attract hundreds of applicants, but they thought it would help them reach people who were using cutting-edge technology. The client of the Electric Sheep Company had tried using streaming video for interviews, but found the experience impersonal. The firms received positive media attention for their efforts in the virtual world, which they realized would help them attract more qualified employees in the future. The TMP events were structured similarly. To make sure things ran smoothly, TMP and the participating firms worked together to accomplish many of the same things they would with real interviews. Applicants were pre-screened and the companies invited only the most qualified for their job openings. TMP provided greeters at the landing site to make sure people had appointments and to direct them to the correct interviewer. TMP opened the island before the event, so potential applicants could practice using Second Life and dress their avatars in appropriate business attire.
Most applicants came and learned on their own instead of taking advantage of the provided training. TMP trained the company representatives and provided branded clothing for them to wear. Each company interviewing applicants received a branded area on the job fair island. Applicants were encouraged to explore the companies’ “creative and detailed in World settings” (TMP Worldwide, 2007b). They could meet one on one with applicants in a space set up like a traditional meeting room. Most of the conversations took place using the communication tools built into Second Life. The event also let firms brand themselves as fun employers. Many companies set up activities in their space for the job fair participants to use, such as a roller coaster branded with the company logo and colors, and another sponsored a parachute ride (Vong, 2009). According to a Second Life job fair organizer, companies involved in the fair found that the fun atmosphere lightened the often tense interview situations. Job seekers and interviewers reported that they were less nervous. Other companies wanted to showcase the firm and selected more business-like settings and events, instead of showing off the features of the virtual world (Gold, 2009). The overall response was positive. Employers and applicants felt engaged during the interviews and using avatars made it seem more human than a phone interview or even an interview with text chat and streaming media (Gold, 2009). Some participants specifically mentioned it was more engaging than using a videoconferencing system (Vong, 2009). Typing animations and on-screen indications of speech make it easier to tell who is talking. Three-dimensional space and avatars give a greater sense of presence than do other systems. These indications add to the sense of being physically together with the other attendees. Second Life gave them the flexibility to have two kinds of spaces: business-like meeting rooms with chairs and tables, and playful games for socializing. At the time, the companies knew the event would generate positive media coverage, which
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would make the impact of the job fair larger than just the people who attended. Although TMP Worldwide is still active in Second Life, it has not run another job fair because its clients felt that the media coverage would not be as extensive as the exposure generated during the earlier events.
Role of the Champion As with many businesses using virtual worlds, the Fenimore Art Museum, based in Cooperstown, NY, is in Second Life because of the efforts of one person. In this case, the vice president and chief curator of the museum was encouraged to experiment with the virtual world by the museum’s research librarians who heard about it at a conference in late 2007. Usually the champion comes into Second Life voluntarily (Smith and Jainschigg, 2009). These champions spend some of their own money and a lot of their own time to investigate. Sometimes they set up company-related events on their own initiative to bring other people into Second Life. This helps them bring more people in-world, because they can demonstrate both the fun and business-related elements. Executives hear about the events the individual set up, see the press attention, and come in-world to check it out for themselves, before getting the company more formally involved. Unlike the businesses involved in the other case studies, the museum does not have its own island in Second Life. The museum has exhibits in several spots to provide content and events to reach different audiences. This allowed the museum to be involved with several communities in Second Life, including an exhibit by a deaf artist in a site suggested by leaders of the deaf community, and exhibits on historically themed Sims. The museum has to be concerned about the institution’s image, and with the opinions of the owners of the images in the real-world museum about what kinds of content its images should be exhibited near. It now has a permanent space on an island owned by an established community
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with content guidelines. The images from the museum are displayed much like at the real-world museum, with notecards with information about the exhibit. The museum has security on the images, so that they cannot be copied. The images are for sale, however. One of the reasons to be in-world is to connect the museum with new audiences. Programming attracts viewers and builds support for the museum’s continued presence in Second Life, with events such as exhibit opening receptions, gallery talks, and lectures. The curator also visits other people’s exhibits and art events to build connections and support for his museum’s activities. The exhibits supplement real-world activities of the museum, as a low-cost way of gaining attention for the works the museum has gathered. The museum only pays rent for one of the four sites where images are exhibited. The museum has established a rich social media marketing strategy and its Second Life activities are one part of that strategy.
Focus on Security: IBM and Second Life Enterprise IBM has held a variety of business-to-business events to collaborate with developers (Borremans, 2007). IBM uses a variety of tools to bring its international workforce together, including phone and videoconferencing tools with shared whiteboards and facilities for recognizing who wants to speak next to facilitate discussion. However, when IBM wants more immersive interaction and for staff to work on large builds together, the company also uses many virtual worlds including Active Worlds, Unity, and Metaverse, a rudimentary one built inhouse. The virtual worlds create stronger memories of the events, because they evoke a sense of place for the attendees. Some of the tools require little hardware power, so more people can use them. However, not one is as flexible or allows users to be as creative as Second Life (Bishop, 2009). IBM has more than 5,000 employees in Second Life and has held a number of training exercises
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(Greenfield, 2008a); and operated at least 35 IBM islands in early 2010. The IBM Business Center in Second Life lets visitors consult with IBM concierges from around the world and contains nine areas, including meeting spaces, exhibitions, and a library (IBM, n.d.). IBM found that this virtual world helped connect its global workforce efficiently for meetings. An IBM consultant for its virtual business unit, launched in September 2006, said, “They are all shocked how real [interviewing avatars in-world] feels” (Wetzler, 2007, ¶ 15). IBM issued dress codes guidelines for its employees when they are avatars in Second Life. The company’s global director of 3D Internet and virtual business said, “…they need to be mindful of presenting professional images. That means that they wouldn’t want to show up at a business meeting ‘dressed as a fuzzy character’” (Kitchen, 2007, p. F04). Since Second Life Enterprise Beta was introduced in November 2009, at least 14 companies have been involved in testing this virtual world platform, formerly known as Nebraska (Linden Lab, 2009a), but IBM has been the largest test user (Linden Lab, 2010). It gave IBM privacy, security, and the ability to authenticate users– three things that the regular consumer version of Second Life does not do well at all. Second Life Enterprise Beta allows companies to run Second Life on their own servers, behind their firewalls for maximum security. Companies can host a number of islands simultaneously, enough to bring together 800 people simultaneously for events (Linden Lab, 2009b). They can assign whatever names they want, including connecting registration to company employee lists. They can introduce their own currency if they choose. Performance is enhanced and they do not have to work around Linden Lab’s downtime schedules. Existing behind the IBM firewall makes it easy for everyone at the company to access the virtual world. IBM employees can have team meetings on a Second Life Enterprise island. The IBM Technology Academy hosts the top 300 technical
experts in Second Life. Since many of the sessions were about virtual worlds, IBM decided to have events in such a world. IBM wanted social events and fun activities along with the business sessions, which the company was able to create in-world. The company saved money on travel and lost productivity. Its only cost was for building items on its enterprise server (Bishop, 2009).
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR VIRTUAL MEETINGS As in planning a real-world meeting, the major starting point is asking a few basic questions: • •
•
• • • •
What is the objective of the meeting? Is it informational or motivational? Who needs to attend the meeting? Are they external or internal audiences? Where are they located? Who will be running the meeting and serving as presenters? What is the total number of attendees? What are your set-up needs–displays, audio-visual equipment, staging, seating, and entertainment? How much interactivity will be needed? When does the meeting need to be held? How long will the meeting be held? How does the meeting need to be captured or recorded? What is the budget?
Having the answers to these core questions will help those responsible for planning meetings and events to address important considerations to hold a collaborative meeting or event in a virtual world: •
What are the technological skill sets of the people conducting or attending the event? Have they been in virtual worlds before, even for pleasure? Have they participated in videoconferences or webconferences?
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•
• •
Does the organization have a presence in any virtual world, such as existing islands in Second Life? Has the organization ever conducted any activities in a virtual world? How long will the set-up need to exist or will it be used on an ongoing basis? Is it a hybrid event, bringing elements of a real-world event into the virtual world?
Selecting the Best Virtual World Venue Selecting the best metaverse is a major decision, considering the evolving and growing number of virtual worlds and immersive software vendors entering the marketplace. Organizations can host events or meetings in an existing virtual world, adapt an existing 3D environment, or create their own. The increasing sophistication of the virtual platforms enables participants to communicate real-time by voice or text, emulate body language, exchange business cards and documents, track brainstorming with interactive whiteboards, stream in video, conduct surveys or even visual polling, and record sessions. Many virtual platforms have simulated a broad range of conference facilities, such as boardrooms, theaters, lounges, and exhibition halls, while others can replicate real-world locations. Service providers can plan and organize a virtual event from start to finish, including training participants, simplifying avatar selections, designing the agenda, providing in-world support in real time, and documenting and evaluating the events to best suit the organization’s needs. Large companies use a variety of tools to help their employees collaborate and innovate. One alternative to Second Life that more than 100 companies, including Second Life users Intel and Chevron, are using is Teleplace, which launched in 2007 (Teleplace, 2007a). Users can easily share documents inside the application and see who is editing the documents, watch videos together, and collaborate on projects. The result
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is a data-centered space to focus on collaborative work. Content can be imported to customize and brand the space. Avatars or users can appear on the screen in a video window with tools to see who is talking to enhance the sense of being in a shared space together. Events can be recorded to be shared with others (Teleplace, 2010). Security in terms of who visits the spaces created in Teleplace is not an issue. The spaces created using Teleplace are not open to the public and users have to be invited to attend. All communication is encrypted. Teleplace runs on computers behind company firewalls. Organizations using Teleplace include oil companies for training and collaborating (see Figure 5), the U.S. Navy Undersea Warfare Center for exploring whether virtual worlds can be used in operation planning and sailor training (Teleplace, 2010a), the Air Force for delivering training (Teleplace, 2009b), and Chevron for distributed training exercises (Teleplace, 2010a). ThinkBalm provided a list of immersive software vendors (Driver, E. & Driver, S., 2009). Current vendors include Altadyn’s 3DXplorer (www.3dxplorer.com), Forterra Systems (www. forterrainc.com), Immersive Workspaces (http:// immersivespaces.com), ProtonMedia (www. protonmedia.com), INXPO (www.inxpo.com), Teleplace (www.teleplace.com, formerly Qwaq), Unisfair (www.unisfair.com), among others. Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, provides resources to businesses wanting to work, meet, and collaborate in its virtual world. Second Life Enterprise Beta provides additional security, privacy, and control behind corporate firewalls for a fee. IBM, Intel, Northrop Grumman, and the New Media Consortium are a few examples of organizations using Second Life Enterprise Beta for events, meetings, and training simulations. Linden Lab’s CEO Mark Kingdon explained in an interview that “with very minimal set-up, a company can be holding or hosting virtual events in Second Life” with “more than 250 Solution Providers globally who are creating customized work and learning experiences for enterprises,
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Figure 5. Oil company employees in Teleplace collaborating and examining Gulf of Mexico storm data. (@ 2010, Teleplace, Inc. Used with permission.)
government agencies, educational institutions, and non-profits” (Lamont, 2009, ¶ 4). More information about working in Second Life and a directory of solution providers can be accessed from its Web site.
Providing Training and Resources for Participants In-world training is essential–and the extent of time to train would be dependant on the technological abilities of the participants. Many of our interviewees mentioned that they set up training sessions for meeting attendees and they conduct one-on-one training with any interested executives, particularly those presenting at the meeting. Attendees need to be comfortable navigating their avatars in virtual worlds, mastering such basics as walking, sitting, teleporting, and manipulating body gestures, as well as understanding how to communicate by voice or text, participate in activities, and share documents. Generational groups may have varying learning curves: “Gen X [1961 to 1976], the only generation to start out with analog technology and see everything go digital; and Gen Y [1977 to 1994], the first generation
to only know digital technology” (Goldenberg, 2007, p. 12).
Establishing Guidelines A panel of virtual world innovators conducted by Human Resources magazine in the UK all agreed that “virtual worlds need just as much control as real ones” (Crush, 2008, ¶ 16), addressing the value of setting up a structure for people to work within virtual worlds, a venue that may offer more freedom to people than they are willing to accept or function in successfully without guidelines. Smith and Jainschigg (2009) described a process they go through with companies to set up access and building controls, name controls, and avatar appearance controls before moving to discussing virtual presence and events. The physical appearance of the participants’ avatars needs to be considered. An avatar is a virtual extension of an individual’s physical self. Would staff take a conversation with a baby penguin or bouncing eyeball seriously or be overwhelmed by Beowulf or the grim reaper? Guidelines need to be established about dress codes and how much the avatars need to look like the real people in terms
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of sex, ethnicity, and other physical characteristics. Some service providers offer quick solutions to creating avatars, with a menu to select from, or can customize avatars with uploaded photos to resemble real-world people. As in the real world, the best meetings and events follow a clear agenda with set timings, logical flows and breaks, orientation and registration, pre-arranged presenters, easy-to-follow visual materials, engaging activities with interactive discussions, entertainment, food and beverage (most virtual meetings offer virtual refreshments), giveaways, and feedback and assessment mechanisms.
Addressing Privacy and Security For public events, Second Life is currently the largest in scale of residents to attract to a companysponsored event. Second Life is a “freewheeling virtual world, open to the public” (Lohr, 2007, p. C6) and losing some control is a reality, however. Griefers (troublemakers) can be a nuisance, but can be squelched easily. Second Life is “self-policing but the technology remains vulnerable” (Cane, 2007, p. 3). This led to Second Life Enterprise Beta for organizations seeking stronger privacy. Other virtual worlds providing business meetings and events also provide security measures. According to the vice president of business affairs for Second Life: “corporate gated communities in virtual worlds...will be the equivalent of corporate intranets on the Web” (Lohr, 2008, p. C6). Some companies have opted to create their own virtual environments. For example, MTV Networks, originally used Second Life, and later created Virtual MTV with the assistance of Makena Technologies as an online 3D experience for consumers to connect with the brand and its shows through events, games, and other activities.
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Documenting and Promoting Meetings and Events Documenting meetings and events held in virtual worlds can be beneficial for gaining media exposure, building relationships with employees and stakeholders, positioning an organization as innovative and embracing new technology, and adding original content to corporate Web sites. From a public relations standpoint, organizations can promote meetings and events held in virtual worlds by disseminating news releases to generate publicity in traditional media outlets, e-zines, and blogs, particularly outlets that contain editorial sections on technology. Second Life has its own in-world blogs, newspapers, magazines, and television and radio programs that cover news and activities held in this specific virtual world. One of the largest Second Life publications, The Metaverse Messenger (http://metaversemessenger.com), is a virtual newspaper published weekly in a PDF format. Treet TV (http://treet. tv/), an entertainment network covering in-world events, broadcasts live in Second Life and streams content onto the Web. The documented results of a meeting or event can be shared with employees and other stakeholders via an electronic or print newsletter or with another type of electronic communiqué with a link to the online content. News releases can be posted on a company’s Web site, along with screenshots and edited videos of virtual events and meetings. A case study or white paper also can be uploaded on the Web sites of the company and the service provider of the virtual world. Linden Lab, Teleplace, ProtonMedia, and other virtual service providers post in-depth case studies online about successful applications of organizations, from corporations to governments, utilizing 3D capabilities for collaboration.
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UTILIZING UNIQUE COLLABORATIVE OPPORTUNITIES A 3D virtual world can replicate the real world, simulate dangerous crises, or create worlds of fantasy and imagination that would be too challenging or expensive to conduct or stage in the real world. Companies can have their real-world offices, showrooms, training centers, or other facilities re-created into a virtual world that can be utilized by their employees, clients, customers, and other invited audiences. In today’s global economy, businesses benefit by having backup locations, such as virtual replications, to maintain operations and continue meetings when a blizzard or a volcano erupts and disrupts travel plans or a man-made crisis occurs that affects the transportation of people and cargo. The elements of surprise and fun can be fully realized in virtual worlds for creativity and unique interactions. Organizations can conduct virtual meetings where participants could enjoy social activities to climb a mountain, scuba dive in vibrant coral reefs, bungee jump off a majestic waterfall, ski a challenging slalom course, and then talk about their experiences at an exotic beachside resort--all during the same day without leaving their offices or homes. In addition, virtual worlds can open up new ways to interact with colleagues. Using virtual worlds lets people participate who would be unable to travel to a regular real-world meeting. IBM has a worldwide workforce with dispersed teams who meet virtually. That company has used Second Life for many collaborative events, including a virtual cultural festival for their employees with sessions to accommodate participation from employees in different time zones (Bishop, 2009). The consulting firm, ThinkBalm, has held events in a variety of virtual worlds to introduce businesses to the potentials of these worlds (Driver, 2009). The New Media Consortium has hosted a variety of events in Second Life to introduce educators to the possibilities of virtual worlds.
Virtual worlds also can be used for mixedreality events where people can be involved in the real world and in virtual worlds. Attendees in the virtual world can see and hear the real-life speakers and see the crowds. They can participate in conversations by having someone at the conference monitor the chat channel or by having screens at the real-world venue showing Second Life. The U.S. Air Force set up MyBase in Second Life, a virtual air force base where visitors can learn about the history of the Air Force and fly an airplane. The idea is to reach people who would have few opportunities to collaborate with members of the military and where service personnel can meet and undertake training (Knuteson, 2008). The Air Force made the decision in 2010 to give every member of the Air Force an account in Second Life. Using the virtual world is a way to encourage training and professional networking. The U.S. Navy has re-created many warships that people can tour in Second Life (Wright, 2010). Using virtual worlds lets tech-savvy young people experience the military and, concurrently, serves as a tool to increase recruitment (Thompson, 2010). “Second Life is ultimately a social networking tool that takes online interaction and collaboration to unprecedented levels, breaks down hierarchies, and eliminates geographic boundaries” (Gronstedt, 2007, p. 46).
CONCLUSION With corporate budgets being slashed and travel costs rising in an increasingly global workforce, along with the hassles involved in air travel, virtual meetings and events offer cost-effective solutions with significant savings in airfare, rental cars or mileage reimbursements, hotel accommodations, and food and beverage expenses. Another benefit includes less stress from the wear and tear of travel on the staff’s professional and personal lives. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions has a
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positive impact on the environment. Recording a virtual event is also much cheaper. For example, Stratus Technologies re-evaluated its real-world conferences in Las Vegas and hired Unisfair to create a virtual multilingual event. It resulted in attracting more than half of the attendees from international markets, drawing prospective customers who would not attend the real-world conferences, costing “about $100,000, a tremendous savings compared to the $1 millionplus price tag for the live events” (Bassett, 2009, ¶ 13). Virtual worlds offer unique employee and customer interaction with the organization, its brand and products or services in a world that replicates the real-world company or other locations, simulations of dangerous environments or fantasy experiences. Having backup operations in a virtual world also makes good business sense, because when a natural or man-made disruption occurs anywhere in the world, “the machinery of global capitalism slows down” (Gross, 2010, p. 46) and replicated environments can help keep a company functioning. The benefits outweigh the potential challenges, such as acceptance of technology, learning curve of staff, adequate training of staff and time allocations, bandwidth of computer equipment, security and privacy, buy-in from management, and cost of outsourcing expertise. Innovations will continue that will most likely create more photorealistic, lifelike virtual environments with simpler navigational tools and seamless, high-quality audio and visual capabilities for avatars to communicate. In addition, mixed-reality events, such as conference sessions held in both the real and virtual worlds, can increase participation and enable people in both worlds to interact. Virtual worlds can be more cost effective than most videoconferencing and webconferencing products, offering a greater sense of presence. Virtual worlds provide “an innovative tool for richer and more nuanced communication and collaboration among workers, industry partners and customers” (Lohr, 2008, p. 6).
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ADDITIONAL READING Carter, L. (2007). Event planning. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. Driver, E., & Driver, S. (2009, May 26). ThinkBalm immersive internet business value study, Q2 2009. Immersive internet analyst report series, issue #2. ThinkBalm. Retrieved January 29, 2010, from http://www.thinkbalm.com/2009/05/26/ thinkbalm-publishes-business-value-study/. Linden Lab. (2009). Solution provider directory. Retrieved January 30, 2010, from http://solutionproviders.secondlife.com/. Linden Lab. (2010). Working inworld. Retrieved March 3, 2010, from https://blogs.secondlife.com/ community/workinginworld. Rufer-Bach, K. (2009). The Second Life grid: The official guide to communication, collaboration, and community engagement. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc. Rymaszewski, M., Au, W. J., Ondrejka, C., Platel, R., Van Gorden, S., & Cézanne, J. (2008). Second Life: The official guide. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
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Streibel, B. J. (2003). The manager’s guide to effective meetings. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Avatar: Graphic representation of a realperson in a virtual world; digital persona. Beta: A version of software that is still being tested and examined for errors. Firewall: A technological barrier created to block unauthorized access of sections of a computer network. Griefers: Avatars in virtual worlds who act as troublemakers, such as making insulting comments or interrupting events.
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In-World: Being logged into Second Life or another virtual world. Island: Geography in Second Life. Companies can buy islands or rent space on them. In reality, each island is one server at Linden Lab running the Second Life software. Lindens: Official currency used in Second Life, named after Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, which can be exchanged for U.S. dollars through the Lindex currency exchange at a rate that changes periodically or a collective term for the employees of Linden Lab. Notecard: A text document in a virtual world. Service Providers: Companies that specialize in providing virtual world support. Also called solution providers.
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Chapter 15
Collaborative Virtual Business Events:
Opportunities and Challenges Roma Chauhan Institute for Integrated Learning in Management, India Ritu Chauhan Jamia Hamdard, India
ABSTRACT Virtual world’s immersive collaborative environment has brought immense potential for innovation and transformation within business processes. While online business transactions have been well in place and largely stabilized now, collaborative business events using the virtual world are an emerging and less explored area. This chapter delves into the offerings of rich interactive virtual exhibition and conference space to enable business events. In addition to saving time and cost, such offerings also enable knowledge on demand, so crucial for the end users. While virtual conference technologies can be carried out using audio or video and have been relatively high on usage, virtual exhibitions exercise the use of 3-D virtual worlds. Ideally, any effective business event needs to have an integration of virtual conferences and virtual exhibitions. The chapter brings out the services and usage trends available in this virtual space. Related challenges for the end users, organizers, and developers are discussed.
INTRODUCTION The beginning of 21st century has shown remarkable increase in the number of users operating in virtual reality. The cyber space has made this DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch015
world a small place to live in, it has narrowed the dispersed geographic locations. Virtual world is a synthetic environment offering unlimited scope of expansion to business organizations and learning institutes. The virtual reality can be used in multiple ways to enhance business goals such like training, events, trade shows, and conferences. In
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this chapter, primary focus will be on conduct of virtual conferences and exhibitions to meet the business goals. Manetta & Blade (1995) define Virtual Reality as “A computer system used to create an artificial world in which the user has the impression of being in that world and with the ability to navigate through the world and manipulate objects in the world” (pp. 35-39). With the evolution of World Wide Web and internet technologies the collaboration process over the web has improved. This has enabled rise in virtualization of business organizations with unimaginable scale and scope. It has transformed the way the firms in this contemporary era compete with each other. The collaborative enterprise driven by virtual economy will create millions of potential users in next few years. There has been lot of buzz about virtual events but is it a hope or hype for business organizations is the question that needs to be answered. The virtual worlds are used in multiple ways such as by individuals for gaming and entertainment. But the chapter focuses on professional use of virtual world by business organizations to facilitate their business functions. Gilbert (2008) states that “Numerous activities and forces are at work to help validate virtual worlds’ value proposition and to overcome the many barriers to mass participation.” Virtual reality is used by a number of organizations for key business processes like sales and promotion, building up external relations, training and recruitment. The virtual reality penetration in businesses is already in action and is supposed to take a giant leap in the coming years. According to Strategy Analytics (2008), “The forecast of virtual world adoption globally by broadband users shows that over the next ten years, there will be rise in about 22 percent of users who will get registered for one or more virtual worlds resulting in market approaching one billion registrants and an eight billion dollar services opportunity”. The dynamic digital advertising in virtual world can enhance the business prospects. The virtual world offers tremendous expression of excitement
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to the visitors. The major companies have started experimenting to see how it can be used to achieve their desired business goals. It acts as a low cost option for companies to hold meetings and conduct training sessions. The existence of virtual world over web is in two forms: public and private. The public virtual space is available to all and anyone can enter and do anything they feel like. On the contrary private virtual world offers more secure environment for business organizations which is within the firewall of their organization. Also, the private virtual world can be customized to meet the business requirement. This chapter elaborates on how collaboration in business world is influenced by virtual world and related technologies. This chapter also explains how companies in this new century use virtual world to shape their business. The chapter is organized as follows: the next section explains the background motivation. Further information about the companies into this business is covered explaining the reason why a company these days needs to make a shift towards virtualization. Virtual conference and exhibition concepts are explained, in the next section. The chapter also elaborates on the examples and vendors in virtual exhibitions space. A brief real world case is described for better understanding of the extent of virtualization. This case explores collaboration between an Indian company and a US based company to deliver “Virtual Experience Platform” (VEP). The challenges encountered by the end users, developers and organizers are also discussed.
BACKGROUND With the advent of technology, there is huge transformation in how business is conducted over the web. There is steep migration from traditional business of conference and exhibition to online SaaS (Software as a Service) model based conference and exhibition space.
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The world of virtual reality is cyber space where physical entities and imagination are recreated and redefined using technology for monetization. It’s a journey in cyberspace where people get an opportunity to extend their living, business and work as per their imagination. As a known fact, many conferences that happen across the globe are accompanied with exhibitions. While online conference business is penetrating widely into the market, it is quite unlikely that the exhibition domain lags behind. The modes of a virtual show appear to be endless ranging from chat to online webcast and monetizing it is a sheer challenge. Daily Times, India (2010) still sees virtual market an evangelical market, though the recession has helped businesses see their value. Shiels (2010), a BBC news reporter reported Sharat Sharan, founder ON24 as saying, “Think about all those savings from hotel rooms to airfares for attendees to meals and conference space. One of our biggest technology clients had a sales meeting earlier this year where they generally spend 5 million dollars. They spent a tenth of that by holding a virtual conference”. The end users of virtual exhibitions can be broadly classified into three levels based on their information needs: casual visitors, intentional visitors and specialists (Paterno, Fabio & Bucca, 1997; DiSilvestro, Alessandra, Garzotto, & Paolini, 1999; Callery, Bernadette & Thibadeau, 2000; Schaller, David & Bunnell, 2002). In order to accommodate the diversity of users, functionality of supporting customized information and adaptive presentations are expected in this system (Paterno, Fabio & Mancini, 1999). An early definition of virtual exhibition (VE) describes it as an online Web-based hyper-textual dynamic collections devoted to a specific theme, topic, concept or idea (Silver, 1997). A virtual exhibition is viewed as a dynamic platform which often undergoes change in terms of design, activity and content, including encouraging users to contribute towards it, thereby adding to its dynamism (Foo, 2008).
Douglas & John (2009) say that “The virtual worlds we want to focus on operate in much the same way as other digital environments with one important difference. While the architecture of these worlds is distributed across the Internet, the activities within these virtual worlds create a sense of shared space and co-presence which make real-time coordination and interaction not only possible, but a necessary part of the world” (pp. 37-49). There have been studies over 2009 recession which seems to be a probable reason for immense increase in the demand of such products. It seems to be a promising way for businesses to save cost. The global economic meltdown has made marketers and customers to look out for smarter time and budget saving alternatives. 6Connex (2009) point of view on recession and business scenario is something like “As a result, both marketers and customers have further embraced online technology as a key tool for efficiently gathering information, communicating, making purchases, and essentially doing more with less. Events are a major revenue stream and, it is one of the major tools for knowledge sharing across the globe. The basic thought is that events happen and they die out. Due to many hurdles such as geographical hindrances, time constraints, monetary aspects and many such barriers, one fails to attend a particular seminar. And the worst is that one can never have the charm of attending the same again. The reason behind leading companies acquiring virtual space is also due to the following factors: •
• •
Time and budget constraints are a growing concern for companies of all sizes, greatly reducing the feasibility of attending traditional tradeshows. In contrast, virtual events promise greater access to more information at nearly no cost to the visitor. Simple, one-click access to industry-leading speakers and technologies The freedom to view the information you want on your own schedule
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Figure 1. Event Digitization & Delivery Process [Source: Authors]
• •
Downloadable information you can save and review at your convenience No travel expenses or lost productivity
The following sections explore the challenges encountered in online space after closely visiting a company’s real time requirement to deliver the services. A study of the companies’ websites offering virtual exhibition space was conducted in order to closely understand the market and technology scenario.
VIRTUAL CONFERENCES & EXHIBITIONS Let us try and understand a virtual conference and a virtual exhibition which are very closely linked. The real world conference invites people from all around the globe to be present on the event premises in order to attend the event. The limitation that real world conference indicates is that the person needs to travel all over to attend the conference. While a virtual conference offers better interface to users saving their traveling time and expenses, the event on the web can be accessible free or on payment. Usually in business of paid virtual conferences, organizations integrate the concept of SaaS. It allows users to attain the conference in the form of an online service. Where the users subscribe to a license fee payment quarterly or pay per click type packages to access the data. Cohen (2008) says “In the new model of Virtual Worlds, the recent SaaS model means firms can obtain computing and data storage resources on demand. A firm will not have to spend money on
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software, computers, or data-storage facilities because it will access them using the new 3D Internet of Virtual Worlds”. A virtual conference is available in two ways: 1) Live and 2) On-Demand. The live conference is available on web within lag of fraction of seconds, which gives the feel of real time event. In comparison with live event, on-demand conference is delivered on the requirement of the user, which is definitely not live. The technology used for broadcast of video is very to that of video streaming. In case of live and on-demand event, the video buffering happens and the videos are downloaded from streaming servers. After the complete event processing, the processed event is finally broadcasted live or on-demand according to the requirement of the event organizer. In case of live event, the technical team needs to be present at event venue to perform the processing tasks on the spot in real time. Figure 1 describes the process of creation of virtual conference from initial capture state to final delivery to the user. The technology of video streaming is also used by virtual exhibition booths to broadcast live video when the exhibition happens. Contrary to conferences, a virtual exhibition is a showcase to present products which are otherwise showcased in real exhibitions. The issues related to video streaming are covered later in the chapter. As you walk into real exhibition, there are booths, specifically used for product marketing. Virtual worlds offer improved experience by providing 3-D interactive booths. These virtual booths provide chat facility and video streaming to the visitors. The streaming video process is similar for virtual conference and exhibition space.
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The combination of virtual conference and exhibition seems to have huge potential. The audience can attend the conference and exhibition without even leaving their home or office. The interactive immersive feature set offers excellent collaboration among visitors. They can post questions live and get answered. The virtual meetings held during conferences and exhibitions are used as employees’ time savers. Jamcracker (2008) reports following relevant facts and figures: •
•
•
•
•
According to Gartner, the SaaS opportunity globally is estimated to be around $19.1 billion by 2011. McKinsey reports that the proportion of CIOs considering adoption SaaS applications in the coming year has gone from 38% a year to 61%. By 2010, at least 65 percent of all businesses will have deployed at least one SaaS application. According to Springboard Research, the Market for SaaS in India is expected to touch US$ 165 Million by 2010 (over Rs 700 Crores). The virtual conference and event market is going to take huge leap of around $18.6 Billion over the period 2010-2015. Additionally, the virtual trade show market nearly doubled from 2008 to 2009 by “Virtual Conference & Trade Show Market Forecast 2010-2015” report by Market Research Media.
According to Market Research Media (2010), “By year 2010 virtual event acceptance will come to the level of maturity. By year 2015 appears to be promising year for corporations, conference organizers for wide technology acceptance. The virtual trade show and conference market will observe rapid boost in number of paying visitors”.
Real-Time Usage Pattern There are multiple vendors offering virtual conference services; a few to name are Virtualsoft Systems Limited (VSL), Sonic Foundry, ON24 and Cisco. In business of virtual exhibitions, pioneers are such like ON24, Unisfair and 6Connex (Johnson, 2010). According to Market Research Media (2009) the maximum hits that happened for virtual shows were for On24 virtual events with unique monthly visitors of 294,790. Following ON24 was Inxpo with 44,532 visitors, Unisfair with 38,615 visitors and 6Connex for 2,462 visitors. Figure 2 exhibits the daily traffic ranking statistics for three leading virtual event organizers - on24.com, webex.com and unisfair.com. On the whole, traffic rank of On24 and Webex in United States is 1,854 and 716 respectively. Traffic rank of Unisfair is at 2,059 in Cyprus. Webex taken by Cisco seems to be most popular world wide in terms of number of visitors on site. Comparing the traffic statistics of VSL with 6Connex,(Alexa Traffic stastics, 2010) it seems to fall in huge proportions. The traffic rank for VSL during May-July, 2010 is 9,718,009 and the percentage change is falling. The number of minutes the visitors spent on VSL during this period is 0.41667 minutes, which is very less in comparison to that for 6Connex (3.26000 minutes), according to Alexa traffic statistics as recorded on July 20, 2010. Following section delves deeper into the case of partnership between VSL and 6Connex to offer integrated services for holding virtual business events. The case description is based on the study of related websites and news items.
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Figure 2. Website visitors trend [Data Source: Alexa Traffic stastics, 2010]
VIRTUAL BUSINESS EVENTS: A CASE STUDY The Context As a part of its international expansion plans, 6Connex entered into a partnership1 with VSL, where VSL was supposed to deliver virtual conference part and 6Connex the virtual exhibition part. 6Connex, a wholly owned subsidiary of Design Reactor, is a pioneer in virtual experience technology. Its Virtual Experience Platform2 (VEP) enables businesses and individuals to connect and engage virtually anytime and anywhere using a 3D environment-like architecture for B2B or B2C social networking for a tradeshow. It is a new channel to build up sales, customer relationship and media distribution. The organizations are exploring this as a medium for corporate sales and services. The VEP booth catalog offers the current library of 20 booth designs with great look-n-feel. Booths range from 1 to 6 “nodes” in size and to twenty different colors and styles. It allows for a total of 400 booth variations to choose from. Many of the Fortune 500 companies3 such as Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, and Dupont are its listed customers.
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VSL4 provides the content packaged as a product in India and internationally. It has been into content capture, process and delivery of rich digital components (video, voice, text and graphics) to deliver synchronized, indexed, searchable and immersive environment in a multi window or multimodal format for conferences. The company’s business profile also includes online conference, e-learning and e-training. The company also offers conference content offline and online in form of Knowledge on Demand (KOD). The online conference content delivery over internet network helped the company to drive into this new space. As in Figure 3, Alexa traffic statistics for daily time spent on sites veplatform.com and ciscolive. com in three months time shows that the number of visitors are spending more number of minutes on ciscolive website. In virtual business events market space, Ciscolive and Webex Ex are already there; however it is worth noting that while Ciscolive is a hybrid event, webex is a conferencing tool without a support for 3-D exhibitions. Though, 6Connex is not a leader in the overall business events space but the technology and extent of effective virtual reality possible through its kind of solutions has far reaching potential.
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Figure 3. Time Spent (in minutes) [Source: www.Alexa.com]
VIRTUAL TRADESHOW LAUNCH Virtual trade shows are tailored to deliver rich content to the audience. The visitors enter the exhibition hall along with online badge allotted to them. A show has components of web conference, seminar and meetings. It provides interactive interface to users where they can simultaneously communicate live with others. In general, the tracking mechanism is provided to the booth owner to determine traffic flow to a booth. This methodology is favorable for the companies as they don’t have to organize road shows to connect with the audience; just access to virtual booth provides them with all the product information. Powered by VEP, the Biztech2.0 enterprise technology show is an example of everlasting “Virtual Experience’ leveraging the latest, cutting edge 3’D virtual technologies, videos and Web2.0. The show allows visitors to choose and attend conference session, visit booths, download exhibitor brochures and network with each other. The collaborative feature of chat allows online visitors to exchange ideas (Biztech2.0, 2010). Commenting on the initiative Surya Mantha, CEO, Web18, mentions, “The Internet today has evolved to such an extent that we can actually leverage a platform of this sort” (IBN Live, 2010). The vir-
tual experience provides a highly comprehensive interaction environment where experts can come and be part of virtual social gathering and spend a good amount of time exploring their environment, interact with other industry experts. Biztech trade show platform aims at bringing the IT buyers closer to the vendors, where the buyers can have a higher level of anonymity but at the same time access to a greater amount of information, without getting involved in travel of any kind. Ivor Soans, Managing Editor, Biztech2 comments, “This Virtual Experience Platform will redefine and revolutonise how Indian IT Leaders make use of conferences and trade expos and is the future of IT Leader networking and knowledgeenhancement for more informed, smarter IT buying decisions (Money Control, 2009).”
Features and Benefits The virtual shows in virtual market place are launched with interesting interactive features to excite and invite the visitors. A few of the Virtual Experience Platform’s noteworthy features (Design Reactor, 2008) are as follows. •
Beautifully rendered 3D hall and booth environments
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• •
• •
Customization of promotions, booth branding and content Ability to post a wide range of content, from video and audio, to downloads and live links Content recommendations for visitors based on personal preference Keyword search ability for all content, including video and audio
Other Features that can be described for virtual exhibitions are such as: • • • • •
•
•
•
•
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Interactive landing page for pre-registration and registration. E-Mail campaign organization for event organizers and booth owners Interactive halls Ad-Banners in halls for advertisement Schedule chat sessions text or video. The chat session can be multiple where a single user can talk with multiple visitors at one time. User booth representatives have list of visitors to their booth to initiate conversation with them. The chat behavior can also be recorded and monitored like number of chat invitations sent and accepted. Virtual event bag that contains downloadable content that can be used as a reference later by the visitor Tracking and reporting system for metrics and analytics of event. The data for each registered user is captured to analyse user tracking such as for how long was the visitor online, which booth was much crowded. Total number of attendees, registered users, number of video views, downloads in a event can be calculated. Live video feeds through streaming. The digital content of audio and video is monetizable. Semantic keyword based search
VIRTUAL BUSINESS EVENTS: CHALLENGES As listed in the previous section, virtual business event technologies undoubtedly bring along a new and innovative way for organizations to collaborate with stake holders. They also bring in value addition for business customers and individuals. However, just as any new technologies, virtual business event technologies also need time and experimentation to become more stable, acceptable and workable. While there are distinct benefits, there is skepticism also around their use; thus they are no better, no worse (Yu, 2010). E.g. while virtual events are cheap, easier to plan and possible to review; the networking opportunities are seen as limited in comparison with face to face events and serendipitous run-ins with customers as well as touch and feel of products seem to be missing. Based on our field observations and studies, we classify the following three categories of challenges associated with virtual business events.
End User’s Challenges Downstream Bandwidth Trade shows since decades have been a popular medium to communicate the business messages. But when running an online 3’D virtual trade show requires sufficient bandwidth to run live or on-demand video feeds, webinar and lot more. Chocking bandwidth, no speed, I’m out of bandwidth demo can’t be seen are few problems encountered by the audience. The primary requirement to smoothly run the show requires high speed internet access. The higher the bandwidth requirement, in proportion their will be increase in cost of downstream bandwidth. “A crucial parameter in network streaming is, of course, bandwidth. That is the amount of traffic generated by a stream, which strictly depends from our connectivity. It is directly proportional to the quality and resolution
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of images, therefore the general rule is: the more quality you need, the more bandwidth you need” (Jaromil, 2003).
The Missing Connectivity The virtual shows may be possibly popular through out the different business verticals but the question is: are they a replacement of real physical business? The virtual show connects business but they fail to connect the business emotionally. Jeff Molander, CEO of The Partner Marker LLC, a Chicago based software provider said that “There is no face to face interaction or ability to see someone’s emotional reactions and it’s distracting to stay at home or at the office and try to commit the time required of a virtual trade show” (Sandra, 2006).
Event Organizer’s Challenges Leads Generation To influence the customer and make an impression into his mind needs a company to be present in all the forms of the media. So, trade show looks like an obvious place to go for. But, the major challenge is to invite people to see and then finally buy the product. The lead generation can be explained as the number of individuals who conducted a badge swipe at a booth in the event. The cost of monetization of product needs to be anticipated. While some companies have eliminated physical events to reduce costs and carbon footprint, and to take advantage of the reduced costs of lead generation, there is no suggestion that going virtual will, or even should, entirely replace people meeting face-to-face in the real world (Virtual expo, 2010).
Digital Content Monetization The freedom to use digital content online is supposed to disappear with the adoption of
DRM Systems. The online events provide rich knowledge-on-demand to attract huge number of online audience. In the context of online events of conference and exhibitions, the digital content such as video, audio and PPTs are presented. It becomes very essential for organizers to protect their valuable monetizable content against free duplication. The online visitor is provided with legitimate privileges under valid copyright law. The digital content cannot be downloaded on system, it can only be played once or any number of times as per the payment to the content author or event organizer. The online visitor can access digital content on-demand on basis of models like pay per view or monthly subscription to access content. The user feels restricted in using the digital content as their restriction on making back up copies, transfer of file to CD, recording streaming content and exchanging. The content is subjected to geographic restrictions. For the author and organizer DRM seems to be a golden way but for users it can be tedious. The user needs to download and install certain software before use. From user perspective he pays a big amount to watch video in limited period of time say once in 24 hours. The service provider does not give right to produce back up copy. Handling the file compatibility on other portable devices is cumbersome. However, if badly applied, heavy handed and overly restrictive, DRM is more like a traffic jam – denying people access to the content they want and crucially denying rights-holders the revenue they want (Leeming, 2007). Security issues for consumers may for instance arise when DRM systems are in conflict with other software installed on a PC. Since most DRM systems need an Internet connection, e.g. for registration, they are relatively open for external attacks, but can be hardly controlled by consumers in this respect (Helberger, Dufft, Gompel, Kerényi, Krings, Lambers, Orwat and Riehm 2004).
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Developer’s Challenges Real Time SaaS Integration To leverage SaaS integration, the team needs to be skilled enough. To implement models like ‘pay per use’, ‘on-demand subscription model or license model needs to be provided on customer requirement’. For the re-shuffled project team it got basically time consuming and difficult to implement and deliver the project on time.
Upstream Bandwidth The delivery of live event requires sufficient bandwidth supply for uploading the content to streaming servers. The lower the upstream bandwidth more will be the required time to upload heavy multimedia content. Motorola (2008) in one of their white papers quoted that “Upstream bandwidth (faster upload speed) will become a more important differentiator for different service tiers.” The above mentioned issues can make project think tanks to revisit the project once more. They team before hosting a virtual event needs to sit together for brainstorming meeting to discuss on how to avoid issues encountered mentioned to provide satisfactory experience to visitors. The companies already in virtual conference business and wanted to penetrate in the virtual trade show market needs to closely plan the collaterals as the challenges in virtual conference and exhibition are almost similar. No doubt the virtual conference and exhibition space are different but the issues on their use are same. To reach wider audience does the project on initial stages require cutting down the cost of content monetization is the probable raised question in the mind of the event organizers? (Clarke, 2007) states that “People attend events for three reasons: 1) gather information/ gain knowledge; 2) network with others; and 3) for the location. For those who cannot afford the time or expense to attend a physical event in an exotic locale, a virtual event can deliver on these
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first two objectives as well as or better than physical events” (p.3). Despite of the mentioned fact there are series of challenges those needs to be revisited by companies while implementing virtual events in future such as: Will the virtual exhibition platform be able to challenge a real exhibition, How to market and draw enough audience to the virtual booths, How can the calculation on Return on Digital Investment (RODI) be done?, Which types of online video are more likely to engage consumers and hold viewers attention.
DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSION It is not uncommon for emerging technologies to have associated challenges. However, if the challenges are mismanaged or ignored, technology adoption can be a risky affair. According to Gartner hype cycle of emerging technologies, public virtual worlds, Web 2.0, online videos, and social network analysis belong to the segment of “Trough of Disillusionment” (see Figure 4). The cycle indicates that the technologies which enter this segment will more likely fail in meeting user expectations and will in short time become unfashionable in next two to five years of time. These technologies have high expectations but they are hyped. Organizations may use Gartner hype cycle as an aide for making investment decisions in emerging technologies. This cycle characterizes the typical progression of an emerging technology, from over enthusiasm through a period of disillusionment to an eventual understanding of the technology’s relevance and role in a market or domain (Fenn, Raskino & Gammage, 2009). Though business event technologies fall in the trough of disillusionment, with proper vision, strategies and implementation, organizations can turn technologies to their benefit. Given the benefits and increasing adoption, as presented in the earlier sections of this chapter, virtual business events are not worth ignoring. Reuter (2009)
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Figure 4. Virtual Technologies in the Trough of Disillusionment [Adapted from Gartner Hype Cycle (Carpenter, 2009)]
reports that 70% of the respondents are actively producing, considering or interested in pursuing virtual events. Their study shows that while most of the planners are not looking at replacing their physical events with virtual ones; they visualize the benefits of virtual events as a parallel channel to address new markets. As an example, Cisco runs its physical conference along with virtual event called Cisco Live, which has won Grand Ex Awards 2010 (Event Marketer, 2010). The hybrid model of technology adoption is an acceptable model as has been well proven by the prevalent approach to e-commerce implementation. It needs innovation and out of the box thinking to retrieve business value out of the available technology offerings. The current chapter is based on qualitative analysis of websites in this market and thus has its inherent problems. However, we believe that, with the help of market trends and offerings this chapter provides directions to business organizations for improved collaboration and business growth.
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS Research about virtual business events is an emerging area. Though the technologies related to virtual reality have been in place for quite some time, the knowledge and experience about their business use is quite limited. Further research work is suggested to conduct empirical analysis of users and service providers in the arena of virtual business events. More in-depth analysis of challenges as well as business benefits of virtual business events is required to support the investors and event organizers in the making of informed decisions.
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Jamcracker. (July 23, 2008). Launching India’s first SaaS marketplace [Newsletter]. Jaromil. (2003). A research on free video streaming technologies. Retrieved June 14, 2010, from http://korova.dyne.org/video_streaming.pdf Johnson. (2010). Trend alert: Connecting online and live experiences. Hybrid events—blending digital and physical experiences. Retrieved July 21, 2010 from http://www.gpj.co.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2010/03/Hybrid_Event_Marketing_ Briefing_Paper_2.23.10.pdf Leeming, R. (2007). Digital rights or digital restrictions management. EBU Technical Review. Retrieved July 13, 2010, from http://www.ebu. ch/en/technical/trev/trev_309-digital_rights.pdf Manetta, C., & Blade, R. (1995). Glossary of virtual reality terminology. International Journal of Virtual Reality, 1(2), 35–39. Market Research Media. (2009, February 3). How do virtual event software vendors fare online? Retrieved June 15, 2010, from http://www. marketresearchmedia.com/2010/03/02/how-dovirtual-event-software-vendors-fare-online/ Market Research Media. (2010, February 13). Virtual event market: Trends to watch. Retrieved June 15, 2010, from http://www.marketresearchmedia. com/2010/02/13/virtual-event-market-trends/ Marketer, E. (2010, May 4). Ex award winners announced. Retrieved July 12, 2010, from http:// www.eventmarketer.com/article/ex-award-winners-announced Money Control. (April 17, 2009). Virtual tradeshows: Coming to a browser near you! Retrieved June 15, 2010, from http://www.moneycontrol. com/news/business/virtual-tradeshows-comingtobrowser-near-you_393748.html
Motorola. (2008). Anticipating the bandwidth bottleneck. Retrieved July 21, 2010, from www. motorola.com/staticfiles/Business/Solutions/ Industr20Solutions/ServiceProviders/Telcos/_ Documents/static/Anticipating_the_Bandwidth_ Bottleneck_Copy.pdf Paterno, F., & Bucca, M. F. (1997). Task-oriented design for interactive user interfaces of museum systems. International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting, (pp. 23-31). Paterno, F., & Mancini, C. (1999). Designing Web user interfaces adaptable to different types of use. Museums and the Web. Retrieved April 20, 2010, from http://www.archimuse.com/mw99/papers/ paterno/paterno.html Reactor, D. (2008). Virtual experience platform v2.1, exhibitor manual (p. 2). Reuters. (2009, October 29). Champion exposition services releases findings from survey on use of social media and digital tools by associations [Article]. Retrieved July 15, 2010, from http:// www.reuters.com/article/idUS171422+29-Oct2009+BW20091029 Schaller, D. T., & Allison-Bunnell, S. (2002). How do you like to learn? Comparing user preferences and visit length of educational websites. Museums and the Web. Retrieved February 20, 2003, from http://www.archimuse.com/mw2002/papers/ schaller/schaller.html Shiels, M. (2010). Rise of the virtual conference. BBC News Retrieved July 20, 2010 from http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8608417.stm Silver, D. (1997). Interfacing American culture: The perils and potentials of virtual exhibitions. American Quarterly, 49(4), 825–850. doi:10.1353/ aq.1997.0038
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Yu, R. (2010, May 01). Companies turn to virtual trade shows to save money. USA Today. Retrieved June 12, 2010, from http://www.usatoday.com/ travel/news/2010-01-04-virtual-trade-shows_N. htm
ADDITIONAL READING Ardichvili, A., & Page, V., Wentling. (2003). Motivation and barriers to participation in virtual knowledge-sharing communitis of practice. Journal of Knowledge Management, 7(Iss: 1), 64–77. doi:10.1108/13673270310463626 Barfield, W., & Hendrix, C. (1995). The effect of update rate on the sense of presence within virtual environments. London: Springer London. Bartle, R. (2003). Designing Virtual Worlds. ACM Portal Online, New Riders Games. Benford, S., Greenhalgh, C., Rodden, T., & Pycock, J. (2001). Collaborative virtual environments. Communications of the ACM, 44(Issue 7), 79–85. doi:10.1145/379300.379322 Benjamin, P. C. J. (1998). Su, Yen C. & Zhang X. (1998). An internet based virtual exhibition system: Conceptual design and infrastructure, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Volume 35. Issues (National Council of State Boards of Nursing (U.S.)), 3-4(December), 615–618. Blach, R., Landauer, J., Rosch, A., & Simon, A. (1998). A highly flexible virtual reality system, Future Generation Computer Systems, Volume 14. Issues (National Council of State Boards of Nursing (U.S.)), 3-4(August), 167–178. Bricken, M. (1991). Virtual reality learning environments: potentials and challenges. ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, 25(Issue 3), 178–184. doi:10.1145/126640.126657
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Broll, W. (1997, November). Distributed Virtual Reality for Everyone -a Framework for Networked VR on the Internet, Virtual Reality Annual International Symposium. Cherny, L. (1999). Conversation and Community: Chat in a Virtual World. Stanford, CA: USA CSLI Publications. Chittaro L., Ieronutti L. (2004, May). A visual tool for tracing users’ behavior in Virtual Environments, Presented at conference on Advanced visual interfaces, Gallipoli, Italy. Dai, Q., & Kauffman, R. J. (2002). Business Models for Internet-Based B2B Electronic Markets. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 6(4), 41–72. Damer, B. (1997). Avatars! Exploring and Building Virtual Worlds on the Internet. Berkeley, CA, USA: Peachpit Press. Greenhalgh, C., Bowers, J., Walker, G., Wyver, J., Benford, S., & Taylor, I. (1999). Creating a live broadcast from a virtual environment, In International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, Proceedings of the 26th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, (pp. 375 – 384), ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. Hagel, J. (1999). Net Gains: Expanding Markets through Virtual Communities. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 13(1), 55–65. doi:10.1002/ (SICI)1520-6653(199924)13:1<55::AIDDIR5>3.0.CO;2-C Hertel, G., Geister, S., & Konradt, U. (2005, March). Managing virtual teams: A review of current empirical research. Human Resource Management Review, 15(Issue 1), 69–95. doi:10.1016/j. hrmr.2005.01.002
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IBM. (2007), Driving business value with 3D Virtual Datacenters, IBM Virtual Worlds Reports, Retrieved July 14, 2010, from http://www.ibm.com/ virtualworlds/dwnlds/3d-datacenter_brocure.pdf
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2009). Why Virtual Worlds Can Matter. International Journal of Media and Learning, 1(1), 37–49. doi:10.1162/ ijlm.2009.0008
Jarvenpaa, S. L., Knoll, K., & Leidner, D. E. (1998, March). Is anybody out there?: antecedents of trust in global virtual teams. Journal of Management Information Systems, 14(Issue 4), 29–64.
Warkentin, M. E., Sayeed, L., & Hightower, R. (2007). Virtual Teams versus Face-to-Face Teams: An Exploratory Study of a Web-based Conference System. Decision Sciences, 28(Issue 4), 975–996. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5915.1997.tb01338.x
Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Todd, P. A. (1996, December). Consumer reactions to electronic shopping on the world wide web. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 1(Issue 2), 59–88. Lester, P. (2006). Is the virtual exhibition the natural successor to the physical? Journal of the Society of Archivists, Volume http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t71343 5767~tab=issueslist~branches=27 - v2727, Issue 1 April 2006, 85 – 101. Mowbray, M. (2001). Philosophically Based Limitations to Freedom of Speech in Virtual Communities. Information Systems Frontiers, 3(1), 123–131. doi:10.1023/A:1011409906679 Poon, S., & Swatman Paula, M. C. (1999, January 4). An exploratory study of small business Internet commerce issues. Information & Management, 35(Issue 1), 9–18. doi:10.1016/S03787206(98)00079-2 Powell, A., Piccoli, G., & Ives, B. (2004, Winter). Virtual teams: a review of current literature and directions for future research. ACM SIGMIS Database, 35(Issue 1), 6–36. doi:10.1145/968464.968467 Roussos, M., Johnson, A., Moher, T., Leigh, J., Vasilakis, C., & Barnes, C. (1999). Learning and Building Together in an Immersive Virtual World. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press Journal, 8(3), 247–263.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Digital Rights Management: Digital Rights Management (DRM) System enables rules to safeguard original work (copyrighted) in digital environment. It protects the digital content unauthorized use such like copying from copyrighted offline digital media (CD/ DVD). Online it can be used to provide security in case of on-demand, pay per view services. Event Processing: The term is denoted to processing of a real time event to deliver it digitally. Example a conference happening in particular of country is available live or on-demand on internet globally using encoding, compression, streaming and broadcasting. Example: Events in virtual world like virtual conference, exhibition, learning, training and meeting. Knowledge on Demand: The concept explains providing digital content in form of video, audio etc as on requirement by the registered user. Software as a Service (SaaS): The computing concept allows software to be sold in form of online service to user. It operates on shared infrastructure and the cost of use is estimated on basis of usage. Video Streaming: It is transfer of digital content over internet in compressed form applied in case of videos. The user does not have to wait for complete file to be downloaded from server but it employs special servers known as stream-
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ing servers. The servers let users to view video with little buffering and view option. Example: As in case of YouTube video is downloaded and viewed through video streaming. Virtual Conference: The real time conference recreated using synthetic environment implemented using SaaS technology to facilitate immersive collaborative interaction in cyberspace. The objective is to participate remotely as delegate or speaker in session tracks. Virtual Event: The online web based event which is as immersive as real time event. The virtual event includes virtual conference, exhibition, training and learning. It gives an opportunity for users to connect, collaborate and communicate efficiently. Virtual Exhibition: The artificial 3-D immersive booth space as a digital version of an event for promoting a product or a service online. A virtual exhibition has realistic looking booth space for product and service demonstration. The registered users can login to browse and buy showcased stuff as desire.
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Upstream Bandwidth: The maximum rate at which the number of programs or files can be uploaded on internet server in bits per second. In contrary to downstream bandwidth which is number of bits downloaded per second from internet server.
ENDNOTES 1
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http://www.6connex.com/partners_directory.php, last accessed Aug 12, 2010. http://www.veplatform.com/, Last accessed Aug 14, 2010. http://6connex.com/customers.php, Last accessed Aug 14, 2010. http://www.virtsoft.com/, last accesses Aug 12, 2010.
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Chapter 16
Augment Your Business Reality with New Age Web Tools Lukas Ritzel IMI University Centre, Switzerland
ABSTRACT When Berners Lee invented the Internet, he for sure could not have imagined the beast he unleashed. Today, some years later, the Internet is the single most important tool of communication, leisure, and information gathering. With Web 2.0 and social networks becoming more and more mainstream, we must ask the question about what more is about to come. If ever we will look back and define the current moments in 2010 as Web 3.0, it will for sure be the talk of touch screens, 3D technologies, and most of all, the rise of Augmented Reality (AR). This more sensory Internet leads to an entirely new experience of bridging the off-line with the on-line world. It makes the use more human and easier to use because it simulates various aspects of needs and activities we would demand and use even if we were not computer freaks. This chapter talks about AR and its applications and the way it can change our lives and businesses with the support of cyberspace.
INTRODUCTION It was not so long ago that organizations viewed the web as a source of information overload or as a tool for those interested in passive game playing. Today organizations around the world realize that these conceptualizations were erroneous. On DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch016
the contrary, there is more creativity and active exchange of knowledge and information going on because of the web than ever before. The implications of Web 3.0 to organizational governance is the subject of this chapter where the author will look in detail at new trends and discuss some of the implications they will have on society and on the way we conduct business. In much the same way as wikis, Twitter, Facebook,
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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Second Life, and other Web 2.0 applications have been welcomed by new generations until they became mainstream and part of our lives; Web 3.0 technologies will have a similar impact on the future. No change is all good or all bad, and critics should be heard because they are the ones enabling us to see the downsides, driving all stakeholders to strive towards further changes. Evolution is a test -and- run approach that makes us move in a ‘Z’ shape between boundaries set by extremes. The lesser the critics are listened to, the farther – and the more dangerous – the extremes (ex: dot.com crash). The more the businesses and thinkers listen to those critics; the sooner the course-corrections can be applied. Isabelle Michelet, French thinker, and author, wrote to me in an email dated Dec 12 2009. “Yes, change is wide and deep and irreversible. But a lot of what is seen today looks like the rather extremist frenzy of novelty. For sure many adjustments will be made to find a new balance, and only when this new balance is found will we be able to say that we have really entered a mature Cybernetic Era.”1 This chapter focuses on the impact of change on business organizations, the way organizations need to change their business models and management paradigms to adjust to and make the best of these changes. The key question therefore is when and how should organizations change their ways? The next section builds the necessary background to understand the meaning and evolution of web from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0.
were three of the most important aspects of a Web 1.0 world. Still today, most web content is still only Web 1.0 style. Corporate Websites are a dominant feature of today’s Internet. One of the phenomenon which resulted from Web 1.0 was information overflow. But Web 1.0 has already had a huge impact on changing some aspects of how business has been done. Ecommerce opened up new markets and by using the internet channel made it available to reach anybody and anywhere. eBay and Amazon were among the first to profit from this new era. Amazon for example turned the publishing industry upside down bringing (e)books into the mainstream by killing retailer business. A further example is the Google ‘pay per click’ business model which reinvented marketing, making it much more targeted and measurable. Web 1.0 also provoked a rethinking of Human Resources Management (HRM). Suddenly new competencies were in demand and therefore new job titles became part of the average organization chart. On the wish lists of managers were job titles such as: PPC Salesman, Web Strategist, Googler, Virtual Trainer and Voice Over the Internet Recruiter. But then the Internet started to change. Users became more active, Prosumers (mix of Producers and Consumers) were ready to emerge. Inclusion replaced the passive consumption of the huge information available on the Web.
BACKGROUND
The term Web 2.0 was coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci in her article, “Fragmented Future” (DiNucci, 1999). But the term is closely associated with Tim O’Reilly because of the O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004 (Battele and O’Reilly, 2004). Some still argue that it is just a buzzword, while others see it as the start of a new web revolution. The most striking feature of Web 2.0 lies in user provided content and therefore the empowering of users through sharing, collabo-
Definitions of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 & Web 3.0 Web 1.0 The whole content is published on the web in a static manner. Hyperlinking web-pages, bookmarking and HTML language used for all websites
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rating, recommendation, tagging, trust and tribe building. This led to a totally new user behavior and once again changed the way business was done. O’reilly’s blogpage presents extensive information about Web 2.0 (http://radar.oreilly.com/ Web 2). Figure 1 presents the QRcode to access O’reilly’s meaning of web 2.0. Description of QR code (a 2-D barcode) and the way to access it is given in a later section in this chapter and also as an endnote2. The impact of Web 2.0 to HRM was visible in the rise of further new job titles such as Social Media Networker, Web 2.0 Marketing Manager, Trendwatcher, YouTube Communicator, Facebooker, Wiki Project Manager and Tagger.
Figure 1. QR Code for OReilly (http://oreilly.com/ web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html)
Web 3.0 The definition of what Web 3.0 is or will be is still undefined. There are different perceptions available. One basic definition which seems to be accepted by all is that it will be mobile, even more multimedia and most of all multi-device. There is much more to Web 3.0 and once again it will revolutionize the way business is done. Future managers will need to get a competitive advantage by adding new competencies to the corporate competencies’ dictionary and add new positions to their planned organizational workforce.
Technological Change and Its Integration into Reality The time when CEOs resisted change and declared that change was not needed is long gone. Where resistance to change could still be widely heard ten years ago, fewer voices were heard five years ago and today nobody seems to argue against change as an important driver for any business. Rather, the question CEOs ask relate to whether what is seen around us is mature, what is simply part of the novelty frenzy and will disappear or at least be significantly adjusted? Hence, to what exactly should the organization adapt, and to what should
it integrate? It takes time for any organization (and especially the big ones) to integrate change. It would be counterproductive to launch a change that, once it has been integrated, proves to have become obsolete already. Here the author is not talking about minute technological changes, but about the big mutations that result from these technologies’ integration into daily life. The “resistance” observed among CEOs today is not really a resistance to change but rather the fear of meeting the dot.coms’ fate … change, yes, but in which way? Once an organization decides to implement “change”, the question about how they actually want to execute it will certainly meet a lot of obstacles related to cultures, mental models, and traditions. As US economist Dr. James Fay explained, “In my way of thinking, everyone does not need to learn to fly an airplane in order to benefit from the speed of flying versus ground transportation. What I would like to see spelled out more clearly is how those who can’t fly an airplane or use the internet to the fullest extent are going to benefit from people who do know how to ‘fly’ the internet” (Fay, 2010).
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Dr. B. K. Passi, India adds, “A connected society and 21st century technologies and processes are enabling us to create decentralised and autonomous localities, pariwars (families) and communities with self-governance. These groups can move on along their path of social development and transformation, become part of consortia, promote creative and innovative industries and economy capable of offering wholesome work to individuals and groups, and create local and global communities that can influence and transform the existing individualistic and competitive world. Mass-collaboration and cooperation that helps in creating common wealth of resource becomes the basis for innovative and creative activities in a connected society. The new society has entirely different set of cultural and value system” (Passi, 2010). Old school academics and managers who try to preserve the traditional ways of doing business, and who react negatively to the use of Wikipedia as a reference tool or block access to social networks during work time, miss out on the huge opportunities which all these great tools provide. “Interdependence should be the synergy of multiple independences. The individual independence is for me fundamental in that it is the reflection of human craving for freedom.” (Passi by phone, 2010). On a positive note, it seems as if the companies of today have finally stopped fighting over the emergence and feasibility of social web, and now, convinced of its sustainable influence to business, are embracing it within their own company philosophies. For an international hotel school in Switzerland (IMI University Centre), Face-book as well as YouTube have become, after Google, the most important marketing tools. Many of the leading Swiss management schools recruit many of its new students for their MBA programs through social network sites like LinkedIn. It is important that businesses do more than just embed such new technologies into the organization. Instead, these technologies must be made a
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part of the overall strategy so as to leverage technology and people to achieve successful change. It seems as if this approach is not only the right one, but the only one which will help companies to stay competitive. Recent trends in what we call today Web 2.0, as well as what will follow, seems to make this task easier than in recent years.
THE SUCCESS OF WEB 2.0 Connectivity is essential for the success of Web 2.0. While the digital divide still exists, 89% of Americans with an income over US$75,000 per year presently have broadband (Leichtman Research, 2009). By 2013, it is estimated that there will be 635 million broadband users in 40 countries (IT Facts, 2009a). Wifi is available almost everywhere. The author was in Laos just four years ago, where it was almost impossible to get a decent internet connection. In 2010 there were more Internet cafés opening by the day and Wifi is now available at various hot spots in Laos. Today the former student community application, Facebook, is the world’s largest social website (Arrington, 2008), and its fastest growing user segment is that of 55-65 year old females (Smith, 2009). If Facebook was a country, it would be the world’s fourth largest in population, just after the US and still larger than Indonesia (Christoffer, 2009). Over twenty hours of video are uploaded to YouTube, one of the killer applications for Web 2.0, every minute (June, 2009). YouTube developed from a simple Web 2.0 database of videos to the world’s second largest search engine (Hill, 2008). The whole Web 2.0 wave has already drastically changed how marketing is done today and Web 2.0 marketing is the key to most current businesses, from fashion to education and even government. For example, in tourism the review features have dramatically changed how hotels and hospitality related services and products are perceived. Some hotel chains like Sheraton have spearheaded this change, putting the social feedback component
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dominantly on their homepage. Web 2.0 has helped to create “tribes.” (Godin, 2008). The tribes idea by Godin is a simple as well an old one, people are turned into a tribe by shared interest. The recent rise and acceptance of social networks has done its share to make “tribe” initiation and leading easier. If the interest is in an off-mainstream Marvel superhero like the “Silversurfer”; one will find it much easier to locate a virtual community and experts, who are more than willing to share and to network about this topic. Businesses have also been affected, when companies like Apple very successfully used the Internet to support a group of followers through digital means. Successful companies and their leaders normally do not have to create followers but rather become leaders and provide platforms for them to network. Just like with the ‘Mac-fans’; Steve Jobs did not invent the stylish multimedia computer users and digital designers but rather he became their leader. Some companies have been more and less successful than others in building tribes. Microsoft is no doubt a successful brand but has so far failed to create a “tribe” (Maffesoli, 1996). Just consider a visit to any computer fair, would you see more visitors proudly wearing a Microsoft hat or t-shirt or one with the apple logo? This then leads to more loyal customers. Now back to the Sheraton example, their bold move to place customer feedback and images right onto their homepage is exactly what we mean by building ‘loyal’ tribes rather than just a one-time good experience. Joel Cere, Co-founder VP Marketing Karmony Inc wrote on his blog (http://beyondpr.blogspot. com/) “The evolution to Web 2.0, for lack of a better term is about attitude and expectation. Whether it is technology that led to a change of attitude, or that a shift in our relation to the web led to new technology is an academic debate which I will leave to the more technically endowed. In the 90s, the web was driven by companies seeking to turn it into a giant shopping mall. Consumers are
now reclaiming the web for what it was intended for: a collective space bringing people together so that they could share experience and information. Just picture this: a collection of mega websites competing to attract eyeballs v. loose networks accessible by search engines, tags and connections where you can share information, engage in conversations and co-create. I am caricaturing here but the change is quite noticeable...”
Crowdsourcing It did not take a long time for the clever generation Y community to find ways to use this new collaborative web for business and money making. “Crowdsourcing” (Howe, 2006), is leveraging mass collaboration and is being enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business objectives, where the action of taking tasks traditionally performed by staff or contractors, are outsourced to a group of people (crowd) in the form of an open call or competition. The crowds have become active. The knowledge community has become active as content providers to Wikipedia and the like. Freelance photographers become providers to huge photo databases like iStockphoto, and can financially profit from it. Freelance writers become citizen journalists on the blogsphere as exemplified by a recent case in Iran, when freelance writers played a dominant role in decision making, replacing the traditional media (http://twitter. com/persiankiwi). Designers contribute very successfully to 99designs.com and create a flow of steady income. Finally, open source and cloud computing motivate and empower the developer community to add new codes and enhance existing ones and make them available for the active community. Web 2.0 services like the ones from Amazon Webservices (http://aws.amazon.com) enable, through clouds, scalable databases, web applications and tools and an almost total financial freedom for the hungry development elite to test
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Figure 2. QR Code for BIG BREAK (www.bigbreak.com)
their latest applications in real time. IBM recently launched their Developers’ Work site to support young entrepreneurs and developers, giving them a high capacity playground not only to discuss and exchange developers’ experiences and tips, but to really deploy their applications on high powered servers (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/). Such freedom can then lead to success. For example, the iPhone and its huge database of software, where users have created over 100,000 applications within the last 3 years which can now be downloaded and deployed through the iTunes apps store Apple website (Nov 2009) But the crowdsourcing phenomena does not stop at the developers or designer level. The new official tourism movie for New Zealand has currently been produced and selected through crowdsourcing on 100% Pure New Zealand’s site. See figure 2 for the related QR code.
THE SHIFT TO WEB 3.0 All these examples lead to a totally new way of using the collaborative web, making it more active than ever, transparent and accessible to an ever
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Figure 3. QR Code for More Details on Augmented Reality (http://augment-business-reality. wikispaces.com/AR_samples)
growing user community. This recent development has not only been triggered by those technologies already mentioned, or more user friendly programming tools like XMLS, Ajax, Eclipse and PHP, but is also a response to the changing mindset of the generations Y & Z, which all have a much more relaxed and positive approach to the social web. Moreover, current technologies change computing itself to become more human and from this, new GEN-minded users are not the only ones who profit. A more user-friendly Internet and its applications become more accessible to older generations who may still have a problem with keyboards and simple text on the web. Recent technologies once again have added a totally new level to the data gathered in the social web with geospatial and NOW (http://now.netapp. com/) as their added dimensions. The technology hype or buzz word of 2010, which has replaced Twitter, is called AR or augmented reality. Following section briefly describes AR. QR Code given in figure 3 provides more information on Augmented Reality samples collected by the author.
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THE RISE OF AUGMENTED REALITY, AUGMENTED VIRTUALITY AND THE SEMANTIC WEB Augmented reality (AR) is when technology recognizes what you are doing, and then enhances it. Specially augmented reality (whereby the digital world enhances the real world), and augmented virtuality (whereby the real world enhances digital worlds) technologies, with new applications, are presented at almost every technology fair today. Augmented reality is much more than just one new technology, but leads to a more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent internet experience. AR is simply the instrument to achieve this. The launch of Google’s goggle application with its innovative visual search engine has been seen as a mainstream example of this new trend, which actually started many years ago. AR (and all the different technologies which it represents) is not entirely new; it just seems as though the world has become more ready for it. In Europe in 2009 only one AR Development Conference took place. Now, in the first quarter of 2010, there were already five AR conferences in different European cities, sponsored by large companies like IBM. It would be simplistic to limit AR to the way Goggle is using it, but it’s not only about visual search. AR is about bridging the real world with the digital world, adding a totally new dimension and new possibilities to today’s world. Fundamentally, AR can actually lead to a better understanding of the world through experiences and overlay of digital information to the real world. Such new potential leads once again to change and a rethinking of factors such as digital content, socio-cultural trends and the new importance of mobile computing (the world in your hand). Today, the examples of AR are abundant. Some of the examples are discussed below.
Mobile Market The iPhone with its revival of touch screen and many other user-friendly innovations packed in their killer phone not only revolutionized the mobile phone industry but spearheaded a totally new understanding of human technology. It finally brought the Internet away from the PC at home and placed it in your hand. Today’s mobile phone industry is again innovative and over the last 12 month period, more changes have happened than over the last 3 years together. With Google’s Android and Symbian, the competition on the mobile internet market has well and truly been launched and winners are not yet clear (Gartner, 2010). Apple’s iPad adds to the trend of mobile computing and one can only guess what impact tablet computers with their touch technologies will have on various industries and consumer behavior. It is already expected that the iPad will save the publishing industry, doing for magazines what Amazon did for books.
Geo Recent developments in online mapping are showing that the times of traditional NASA streamed data down to earth may as well be counted and replaced by crowdsourced bottom-up data produced and created by the millions of tool using and camera enabled users out there. Those then may build the new real time and detailed virtual world which will be available through the internet to everybody. Such user-generated geo-data in combination with AR applications will enable many striking products to make their mark and certainly won’t stop the on-going discussions on privacy and copyright issues.
Gaming Nintendo’s Wii, with its totally new understanding of how gaming should be done has spearheaded a new development of how games can be more so-
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cial, more fun, more intuitive, and more emotional. It shows that gaming finally found its way into the heart of the female market. “What’s driving the Wii sales is the use of Wii by women, girls and families,” said Ubisoft’s senior brand manager, Ann Hamilton (2009). Sony’s Playstation reacted with their understanding of how augmented game playing should look like with its launch of interactive iPet. This is certainly only the beginning and will soon be followed by many more augmented applications, which will ultimately find their way into other categories like education and business. But for the end of 2010, another system (Natale by Microsoft3) is announcing again a new level of interactive gaming, this time without the need for a console. This project is bridging the virtual and real world gap even more and getting closer to the ideal human computer interaction where On becomes Off and Off becomes On.
Barcodes 2D barcode technologies like QR-codes (used within the text here), are already very popular in Japan, and as they move into other regions, these barcodes will merge with the world of print, and to the collaborative web. Not to say that this is in any way a latest technological advancement, since the Japanese company Denso invented those codes in 1994. While it is uncertain whether 2D barcodes will ever totally replace the traditional and much more limited bar codes used for products, there is however evidence of this transition. Roger Fischer, founder of Kaywa, mentioned on his company website that GS1, the organization behind the traditional barcodes, recently adopted the QR Code as one of the 2D barcodes (together with Datamatrix) to replace the traditional Barcodes. QR codes may very well be a transitional technology and later be replaced through more sophisticated tags like for example RFID (radio frequency identification tags) which can send signals active to a smartphone near bye. But for 2010 they are still very much in demand.
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Figure 4. QR Code for More Information on QR Codes by Sienceray (http://scienceray.com/ technology/industry/are-qr-codes-replacingbarcodes/)
The QR code in figure 4 leads the reader to a great information site on QR codes by Sienceray
Walk in or 3D Web The web, as already demonstrated by some “Firstmover” companies, is ready to become much more than just flash supported animated brochures, but will actually allow visitors to walk in places, which simulate real senses in a digital world. For example, HSV football, through a small plug-in HSV, provides its visitors with a complete 3D interactive experience to their arena. The latest arena website plug-in to follow into 3D is from St. Pauli as well a German football club based in Hamburg. Figure 5 contains the QR code for 3D Arena. This QR code will bring you to their homepage where you can test the 3D world they created (in German language only) Whole ecommerce solutions, like Interactive Kingdom (http://interactivekingdom.ch), will take such walks in the web to a totally new level - which is believed to soon replace the traditional websites
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Figure 5. QR Code for 3D Arena (http://enter3d. de/fcstpauli/)
as experienced today. Panoshop (http://www. shopalive.net/) allows companies to build their own 3D shops online and share it instantly with the online community. But the change to more interactive human interfaced technologies mashed up with social net Web 2.0 components does not simply happen to the developers, “techies,” and young entrepreneurs out there. As Andrew Pincon, US, Digital Workforce Education (2010) noted, mainstream companies like Manpower have long left the Web 2.0 worlds and are already well established in what we commonly would call the nextweb or Web 3.0 (Augmented Reality being only one component of this Web 3.0, Semantic Web being another). Manpower, Inc. (http://www.manpower.com/) convenes Avatar Thought Leaders in Second Life to discuss the virtual workforce of the future. According to the Chairman and CEO of Manpower, Jeff Joerres (2009), “Since we established our presence in Second Life two years ago, social networks have completely evolved the labor market. Now, every social network has some underlying current related to job searching or career development. We are seeing
Figure 6. QR Code for Manpower (http://marquette.edu/differencenetwork/feature_joerres. php)
the emergence of a flexible new model for virtual work, led by entrepreneurial, tech-savvy individuals who dictate when, where and how they work. We are focused on what motivates and interests this new breed of workers, giving us the ability to create practical solutions that help our clients attract, engage and retain winning talent.” The QR code in figure 6 will open up the speech from manpower CEO Jeff Joerres. Such examples demonstrate that it is not the most important issue to discuss if Second Life is the way to go, but to ensure that companies get themselves ready to compete within these new paradigms and get themselves ready for whatever will follow Second Life.
WHAT WILL WEB 3.0 BE? Two quotes to start with: The Economist Technology Quarterly newspaper in September 2009 stated4 that “Trying to imagine how AR will be used is like trying to forecast the future of the web in 1994”. In No-
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vember 2009, Juniper Research made a forecast for 2014 as “AR on the mobile to generate $732 million. 350 millionhandsets expected to be AR enabled” (Juniper Research, 2009). Though web 3.0 is not exactly defined but one can get some hints on the future of possibilities by looking at examples available around us. Following sub sections bring forth selected insightful examples and their related QR Codes and web links. Thereafter the downside and upside of the web 3.0 is discussed.
Figure 7. QR Code for a Documentary on New Design Ideas by Dale Herigstad (http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=L3k9wgdZBKo)
Some Insights AR Used in Advertising In 2009, the interactive media designer Dale Herigstad installed multiuser touch screens at the Cannes Lions advertising festival. These touch screens were very similar to the one he designed for the futuristic movie “Minority Report” which could identify delegates by their radio tags (RFID) and then projected relevant information about them on a screen. Herigstad stated: “We agreed the future would not be devices and keyboards, it would be gesture” (Interface Design, 2008). For the 2010 festival, more advanced technology is planned to be shown which will further demonstrate how interactive features and tagging can enhance the real world in advertisement Figure 7provides the QR code for a documentary on new design ideas by visionary Dale Herigstad (in German only).
A Window Shopping Experience Hugo Boss installed a very successful augmented reality wall in the windows of its outlets in London over Christmas (Black Magic, Sloane Square, London). Walk-by customers could experience an augmented window shopping experience through specially triggered cards (tags) on a specific card handed out to them. They were also given the
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chance to play virtual Black Jack on a screen in order to win a shopping voucher. Through the QR code in Figure 8, you can access a movie about this AR installation of Hugo Boss. As the agency SimonJohn, which stood behind this concept explained: “”I think it took us all by surprise the overwhelming positive response from their readers. They seem to relish the opportunity to interact with the technology. “ (SimonJohn, PR Hub, Dec 17, 2009)
Sixth Sense The internet gives us all access to a world of information. Web 2.0 enables us to become part of this new cyberbrain called the internet. The nextweb (Web 3.0) represents a new evolution of what we call the internet today. As Web 3.0 becomes part of our everyday tools, users become cyborgs of the web and its applications. TED movie on Sixth Sense by Pranav Mistry from MIT, November 2009 gives a good experience towards this. Follow the QR code given in figure 9 to experience a TED
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Figure 8. QR Code for a Movie About the AR Installation of Hugo Boss (http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=bag1HdO2fQY)
movie on Sixth Sense technology by MIT’s Pranav Mistry, the guru of augmented reality.
Sensory Web for the Non-Technicals Hardware and software merges more and more, helping to make the internet a full sensory experience involving our natural senses of touch, vision, hearing and smell. The touch screen has experienced a revival and opened up complicated tasks for a non-technical population. Readers can see more on augmented reality and its potential by visiting the pages from Layar (http://www.layar. com/), one of the leaders of this new technology (see figure 10 also).
AR Maps AR applications add information to the world around us. Watching some of the cutting edge technologies at 2009 & 2010 TED (www.ted.com) conferences provides insight into the potential extent of AR uses. Such sensory multimedia col-
Figure 9. QR Code for the Movie on Sixth Sense by Pranav Mistry (http://www.ted.com/talks/ pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html)
laborative technologies move into arts, education and business. Data mining will further our ability to both filter and group enormous amounts of data which will in turn, be accessible in new ways along the model of Wolfram, which looks at information in a semantic way. Because of the amount of data being fed by millions to the internet on social networking sites or wikis, mining technologies will usher in a new paradigm. A sample of the power of social content available on the internet empowered by new technologies is shown by microsoft’s powerful augmented reality maps which were presented during the TED 2010 conference by Blaise Aguera y Arcas (See figure 11 for related links).
The Downside In the near future, the world will become even more transparent. Providers of services and products cannot rely on their shiny glossy brochures and websites, governments cannot block media channels to keep the world blind. This transparency
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Figure 10. Qr Code to see Layar in Action. (http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64_16K2e08)
triumph will be rejected by some, and loved by others, but it is clearly here to stay. Critics will discuss the ramifications of Web 2.0 contents which stays on multiple servers around the world even if the user itself has long since died, or the problem with current applications which do not allow a user to be deleted (as stated on the official Skype support page: you cannot permanently delete a Skype name). Another problem seen by current critics is the issue of being “always online,” an addiction to being online and losing communication skills. During AR DevCamp in March, 2010, in Zurich, Dan Romescu from AugmentedCitizen. org asked for an international code of conduct for the augmented citizen. He demonstrated this call through a made up slide showing an augmented mashup, The case against augmented reality. Figure 12 exhibits a composition simulated by the author to visualize such a scenario of AR mashup with Web 2.0. Only recently has media started to cover more issues on understanding and providing answers to online privacy related issues in Web 2.0 (see
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Figure 11. QR Code for a Movie on AR Maps (http:// www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/blaise_aguera.html)
for example, recent media coverage of http:// pleaserobme.com). Dan Romescu (http://www. augmentedcitizen.org/) truly could make the point that such issues will be augmented through AR and raise the problem to a higher level. The QR code given in Figure 13 will guide you to the latest presentation slides on the topic of augmented citizen by Dan Romescu.
The Upside On the other side, this new freedom is very much in demand for today’s generation. Users now want to rate everything, from hotels, to professors and products, and add their personal anecdotes to news stories. Generation Y and Z are willing to share, and, as opposed to older generations, seem to accept that sharing your private data on social networks ultimately leads to the whole world knowing all about you. When signing up for a facebook account, users agree that all content belongs to facebook. In Human Resources Management, social media already plays a significant role where recruiters will first research about a
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Figure 12. A Scenario of AR Mashup
potential employee through the internet before having had a first interview. This same Generation of users also demands an internet that is more individualized to a micro-level that only a few years ago was unimaginable. All this will lead to a paradigm shift to a new species which will not only use all media, channels, and technologies, but will embrace them, live them, apply them and be utterly successful with them. Where multimedia and Web 2.0 brought the world into the office, classroom, and the house, the augmented and semantic web will take us into the world. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the hope is that AR will not just add even more of an information load to the existing cyberspace, but will actually help make the world more understandable. AR enables anybody to look at a range of mountains during a walk, through a mobile device equipped with a camera and receive additional information. But only, if the user then can connect to real-time information based on facts (for example Wikipe-
Figure 13. QR Code for Augmented Citizen (http://www.slideshare.net/search/ slideshow?q=augmented-citizen+romescu)
dia) or social media content (feedback, reviews, opinions) and layer it over the real time image,
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then users may achieve greater clarity in an ever growing and more complex world of things. This transition comes naturally since it bridges those two worlds, the world we live in and the abstract world of digital information available online. During a live demonstration of different AR applications to a crowd of students at ETH University in Zurich, the author experienced a novelty. A high percentage of non technical people not only had great fun but also demonstrated great ease in grasping those new applications almost instantly. No words needed to be exchanged to experience and come to an agreement on the added value and the edutainment value of applications such as Junaio, SwissPeaks, Mobilizy and games like Gbanga. The need for simplified, more natural technology which does just what it should has recently been studied in research done by Oxford University students. This research investigates the post-digital era and the current transition from an early phase ‘Co-digital’ - in which “a technology goes through as the user community appropriates it and influences its development” - towards a ‘Postdigital’ one, in which the ‘power of the technologies’ arises in the act of their colonization, or appropriation, by people into their lives … when they cease to be technology and become simply “stuff that works” (52 Group) The Internet (1995-1999) period was all about the great disorderly promise of “cyber-space” and “on-line shopping.” The Web 2.0 (20052009) period was the time it took to really figure out what to do with user generated content, rich web applications and social media. The Web 3.0 (2008-?) period, including augmented reality and virtuality, is where mobile technology and wireless broadband make the internet finally omnipresent and inescapable (Purves, 2009). This new world will increase transparency, further reduce privacy, enable constant access to edutainment so that in theory, anyone can easily know everything there is to know about anything and anyone from anywhere they are. Expect this not only to be enabled through
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Figure 14. QR Code for Buckland’s Visionary Designs of AR Applications (http://matthewbuckland.com/?p=1041)
your mobile phone but through almost any tool which is within reach. What this could look like has already been suggested by Matthew Buckland and Philip Langley on their blogpage. Figure 14 provides the QR code to the visionary designs of Matthew Buckland of how AR applications may look in the very near future. The success of AR in using intelligent data rather than just another amount of data overflow is supported by the development of new search engines being able to filter and group the enormous amount of flying, unstructured and unrelated data in current databases, internet and clouds, which will be accessible and usable in new structured ways. This idea of LinkedData is spearheaded by Tim Berners-Lee who envisions a Semantic Web where all those free-floating unrelated documents and statistical data available in cyberspace would become linked together in an “intelligent” web. Some success was achieved through semantic search engines like Wolfram Alpha, showing results superior to more traditional search engines. Still this endeavor seems to be much more com-
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plex than first thought and we will certainly need some more time to achieve this semantic web.
ANOTHER BUZZ OR A SERIOUS AGENT OF CHANGE? Why is AR important? This question was raised during 1st European Augmented Reality Business Conference April 23, 2010 Berlin (Arbcon, 2010). The world itself is becoming the universal and intuitive interface with mobile AR. This explosion of the interface into ambient space means an explosion of opportunities to interact, communicate, collaborate, and make transactions. It is imperative that business leaders do not block any of these new technologies within the workplace, because many new applications, once digested by the users, turn out to be advantageous for business. There are many examples to support this, but certainly one of the most recent examples is Twitter. None of the twitter brains ever imagined what a monster they had unleashed with their simple little mini blog in real time applications. It was only the users which came up with thousands of useful (and some less useful) applications. The author believes that by now businesses do have a pretty good idea of the opportunity for change brought about by the cybernetic revolution. Decision makers can analyze what is happening today and, after distancing themselves a little, may be able to estimate what will probably stay and what will need to be adjusted. Leaders now really have to wonder how to bring economic organizations from where they are (basically industrial-minded communities that use modern technologies without integration) to where they should be. Some serious scenario building must be done. So far, it was so important to convince people of the reality of change that we were content with just the vaguest descriptions of what the organization of tomorrow could look like. The problem is, now that people are convinced of the reality of change, they want more, and they
want solid scenarios and guidelines. The digestion of social media and what we call today the Web 2.0, is largely a “fait accompli”. Web 3.0. where technology becomes more human through augmented reality, augmented virtuality, and the semantic internet, is happening right now. Web 3.0 will, for once, not add just more to the existing palette of existing technologies and applications, but, once the hype has calmed down, will result in value- added applications which lead to a better understanding of a more and more complex world. The key message one should draw is that technology recently has become much more user friendly and allows a totally new audience to participate online and for once really have fun with technology which is sensory, bridging online and offline in a never before possible way (Ritzel, 2010a and Ritzel, 2010b). Figure 15 contains the QR code for an interactive presentation from a TEDx event in Switzerland on the sensory Web. Many of those already existing AR applications, through the linking and overlay of addiFigure 15. QR Code to Access an invited Talk on Sensory Web by the author at TEDx Event (http:// prezi.com/qem4oz8qb5vk/lukas-ritzel-ted-x-zugevent-may-27-2010-sensory-web-web30/)
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Figure 16. QR Code for view of an AR Research Project by BMW (http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=P9KPJlA5yds)
tional (mostly) tourism related information are very close to reality. This is achieved either through visual, geospatial or audio recognition. As previously stated, marketing is already heavily affected by such technologies but the interest of the sales and service industry is too powerful for it to be neglected and the author expects to have such applications popping up more and more over the next few months. During the first AR Development Conference in March 2010 in Zurich, the audience specifically came up with some great solutions and applications for AR in real life and business. Specifically in healthcare, it seems only to be a question of time before we have such systems to support a faster information share between healthcare staff and / or patients. In the business of knowledge, the essential question is to acquire fast access at the right time. Already in 2007, BMW did a concept piece on AR where a mechanic is in the process of replacing a part while wearing augmenting glasses which project detailed instructions to him whilst
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he works. Figure 16 gives the QR Code to link to a clipping of the AR research project by BMW. Looking, for example, at online fashion shopping, one can already see clear tendencies of how AR technologies can enhance the online shopping experience. During the last few years, very little has changed. Online shopping applications and websites allow us to select different clothes, change colors and eventually experience them in 3D. Then with the likes of Otto.de for Windows Vista, something fundamental changed and the actual online shopping GUI became a 3D interactive walk-in place itself. One could select a model, put selected clothes and accessories on and combine different pieces. But even this enhancement was still pretty far away from the real shopping experience. Only now, thanks to AR, online clothing shops like Tobi (www.tobi.com) can provide all shoppers with an almost real experience with their own image in real time and an easy user interface. Print a marker from the website, launch the AR dressroom application, allow the camera to be activated, cycle through hundreds of dresses, select and let the technology do the rest, overlaying the dresses onto a life video of you. If you are still not sure, you can make a snapshot and connect to Facebook and let your friends comment. Follow the QR code given in figure 17 to watch a presentation of AR shopping as provided by Tobi online shopping. To augment future realities, we can only imagine how many other possible mash-ups will be possible and how many other inputs will be adding enhanced reality to given problems. Recent developments demonstrate that once again we are at a borderline of a new exciting development. The core technologies behind AR are improving dramatically in their ability to work in any situation and connect with multiple data sources. This challenge goes along with enterprise mobility which is considered to be one of the most important ICT challenges of the next few months. The report by Research Berlekon and Frauenhof in-
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Figure 17. QR Code For an AR Shopping Experience (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn_ iPjGKd0M)
stitute in Germany supports corporate decision makers and IT executives in choosing a suitable solution for the central management of mobile devices. It describes key requirements for device management systems and defines adequate evaluation criteria. The mobile Internet will play a major role within companies in the months to come and augmented applications with it. The emergence of AR will significantly change many activities and will cause a series of far reaching changes to how business will be done, in a similar way as how Web 2.0 and social networks have already affected many industries and in some cases have almost reinvented them (tourism and music industry, for example). AR will only add on to companies who already did make use of the internet to their business advantage. Expectation will go beyond the mobile phone as a tool to augment reality. As we are now bringing the Internet away from the PC to the mobility of mobile phones, we may see in the near future that just about any tool can have the capacity to overlay real time information over
physical objects. Christine Perey, consultant and analyst of AR technologies added in email sent to me on March 8, 2010 “This could, I believe, significantly reduce the number of products which are returned to the manufacturer due to the customer feeling that it is too complicated to use it or simply because of misperception of the product itself. “ By enhancing many aspects of doing business, AR will be a particularly enriching experience for the customer. Technology has always done its part to make things easier, faster and more precise. Technologies with an AR edge will further help to create a more complete user satisfaction in getting customers engaged and enrich the relation between brands and customers. Through visualizations of concepts, new products and designs can be tested without huge investment and much faster than was previously possible. Furthermore, AR is great in helping to create awareness and attention. This helps further to create a strong bonding between customer and product. The fact that AR is truly mobile and is therefore constantly available, additionally leads to a closer relation between product and client. The augmented information can be called upon at the time and place it is needed. Even if both the real time and the virtual experience have already been in existence for a long time, only the fusion of both worlds leads to a new experience which is so much stronger than each of its separate parts. AR opens up new ways to experience products in a way never done before. The author remembers how mind-blowing it was to experience the explodes assembly drawings applied by Dorling Kindersley, which seemed to open a totally new universe and view of what had never been seen and experienced before on common products. AR has the very same effect and will have an even greater effect on how we all experience products, tools, scenery and even people. Mashing such factual enhanced information with user generated content will further add on value. Specifically on new products and services, where one cannot rely
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on public opinion, those taste neighbors common among vertical social networks like Last.fm (http:// www.last.fm)can make a huge difference to the perception and success of such products. There is almost no more a business, which does not extend to a digital level, through websites, presence in Web 2.0 and other digital means. Therefore a technology which finally helps to bridge the two worlds is clearly a value added proposition. Many of today’s existing AR applications play with this new way of reality getting its way to cyberspace and the other way around.
SOME BUSINESS MODELS POSSIBLE TO BE SEEN (OR ALREADY IN EXISTENCE AT THE VERY MOMENT) Experience complex systems: Augmented Reality will help to understand and experience complex systems which are difficult to be seen in reality, because they are too small, too dangerous, too expensive. This can be done in 3D, interactively and with the use of exploded views. Merge and Enhancement of Media: Be it TV, Cinema, Books or magazines; they all can be enhanced through AR added value. The author could as well imagine enhanced pop concerts and sporting events through AR applications. Facial Recoginition: As already covered, facial recognition mashed with social online available data can lead to interesting but as well scary scenarios. Shops could actually “scan” their visitors when entering their stores to know more about them (consumer behavior, likes and dislikes, network, purchase power even eventual danger factor). AR virals: Similar to viral videos through YouTube and the likes. Expect almost any “cool” brand to enhance their marketing through AR 3D models and toys. AR conferences: One step further to webcam conferences would be the AR 3D conference where
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companies can “invite” their boss model or trainers into their palm to deliver a corporate message. AR Tourism: Many samples have been embedded in this article already but be sure to expect many more to come, including, AR city guides, AR enhanced museums and shows as well as story telling buildings and perhaps even graveyards. AR guides: There are endless possibilities to guide anybody to anything - from the next subway to the closest Starbucks, or simply the next washroom from your present position at a foreign airport all seen directly through your AR browsers. AR training: AR Can be used to enhance simulations for the learning of complex tasks or ensure the automatism to perfection of your tee in golf. AR education: Course books can be enhanced through AR. See and experience math, chemistry and history through countless new AR applications as free download to your smart phone. Tablets could even have the same impact on education as Wikipedia did some years back. Imagine being in the zoo to see and experience the night active Wombat or scan right through the pouch of a mother kangaroo. AR Added Value: Try your new furniture in your own house through AR overlay. Experience your newly built house on your just purchased land or see yourself in this new designer dress right on the computer screen. AR safety apps: In any danger scenario, you can have your AR application ready to guide you on what to do for the best. Like in the case of a fire emergency, the arrows show you the fastest way out through the smoke. But because AR is such a new topic for business, there simply is not too much of business models and business available yet and even less success stories available.
CONCLUSION We are still at the very beginning of AR and nobody right now can say what it will have for an
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effect in our daily lives. It would be the same as if we would have expected Wales, Zuckerberg or Berners Lee to know what their applications and technologies once would have for an impact. But there sure are enough indications that there is still a lot to come and that business better get ready to be riding with the train. The question of course will as well be, who will be the major players in the AR market, will it once again be the big ones Microsoft, Adobe and Apple? Right now it’s a jungle out there. No standards and no killer AR application are visible. The problem is that for every AR application, the user will have to install a specific widget, add on or application to their device.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS The field of AR is promising but yet less explored; so quite naturally this field is pregnant with research issues. Extensive research is required to gain understanding, experience, insight and confidence in these technologies before we get them to use. For example, How different is are the new marketing channels such as Pay per click? What kind of new competencies are needed for new positions like PPC Salesman, Web Strategist, Googler, Virtual Trainer and Voice Over the Internet Recruiter? Out of the box strategies are required to move towards adoption of Facebook and/or Youtube kind of tools to be important marketing tool and what is their impact on the perception gained and thus build the brand (tribes)? How the iPad combined with the iTunes business model may help to save the wailing magazine industry?
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
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The author is thankful to Ms. Deborah Pincon for the extensive editorial support provided by her.
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Godin, S. (2008). Tribes: We need you to lead us. US: Penguin. 52group. (n.d.). Preparing for the postdigital era. Retrieved Aug 15, 2010 from http://docs.google. com/View?id=aqv2zmc9bgm_51ft65rbn2 Hill, J. (2008). YouTube surpasses Yahoo as world’s #2 search engine. TG Daily. Retrieved from http://www.tgdaily.com/trendwatchfeatures/39777-youtube-surpasses-yahoo-asworld%E2%80%99s-2-search-engine Howe, J. (2006). The rise of crowdsourcing. Wired. Retrieved Aug 15, 2010 from http://www.wired. com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html Joerres, J. A. (2009). Innovations, challenges and opportunity – locally and globally. The Difference Network: Thought Leadership at Marquette University. Retrieved from http://marquette.edu/ differencenetwork/feature_joerres.php
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Pincon, A. (2010). Interview with author. Purves, T. (2009). How augmented reality and the mobile Web changes everything. StayFresh07. Retrieved from http://stayfresh07.eventbrite.com Ritzel, L. (2010a). Sensory Web. Retrieved Aug 15, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sEqqjom6-BE Ritzel, L. (2010b). Sensory Web. An invited talk, presented at TED Conference held during Feb 9-13, 2010. Retrieved Aug 15, 2010 from http:// prezi.com/qem4oz8qb5vk/lukas-ritzel-ted-x-zugevent-may-27-2010-sensory-web-Web 30/ Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. US: Penguin Press. Smith, J. (2009). Fastest growing demographic on Facebook: Women over 55. Inside Facebook. Retrieved Aug 15, 2010 from http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/02/fastest-growingdemographic-on-facebook-women-over-55
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The Economist Quarterly newspaper. (2009). The next big bang. September. Retrieved Aug 15, 2010 from http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/technology-quarterly Todd, T. (2009). World war Wii: Ubisoft says Wii is for girls. The Gazette. Downloaded from http://communities.canada.com/montrealgazette/ blogs/inthegame/archive/2009/01/15/world-warwii-ubisoft-says-wii-is-for-girls.aspx
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Wolff, P. (2010). Blog entry to Skype Journal. Retrieved from http://skypejournal.com
ADDITIONAL READING http://augment-business-reality.wikispaces.com/ AR_samples
Michelet, J. (2009). La GPEC, une question de vie ou de mort. Paris: Eyrolles (Strategic workforce planning a question about life and death) QR codes augment this article with direct links to relevant additional information such as movies from the Internet. To use them, download a QR code reader from the Internet to your mobile device. Visit URL http://www. mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-software/ to find your device and sw. http://www.microsoft.com/uk/wave/hardware-projectnatal.aspx Quote Retrieved Aug 15, 2010 from http:// www.arbcon.eu/
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About the Contributors
Kamna Malik is currently an Associate Professor of Information Systems and Assistant Dean, Research at U21Global Graduate School, Singapore. Dr. Malik’s work profile is a good mix of practice, teaching, research and academic administration. She has a wide range of experience with leading business organizations and business schools in the region. She has been involved with management education for over 18 years and has conducted courses for many variants of management programs in face to face as well as pure online setting. Her teaching interests include strategic Information Systems, software design and quality, and e-business. Her research focus lies in enabling better use of information technology for improved business value. She has published books, edited books and research articles in the areas of Information Systems strategy, software quality, e-learning and collaborative Web. She is an active conference organizer and reviewer for peer reviewed journals. Praveen K. Choudhary is a BE and PGDBM (Marketing) from XLRI Jamshedpur, India. He has around 16 years of experience in industry, teaching, and consultancy. He has extensive experience in enterprise level process applications, QA, program management, consulting, and process definitions activities for QA – including post business acquisitions for international clients. An active guest faculty for many premier b-schools like IMT Ghaziabad and MDI Gurgaon, in the region, he has published one book titled “Software Quality – Practitioner’s Approach” published by Tata McGraw Hill, and several national and international papers in field of quality, operations and supply chain management. His broad academic and industry focus lies in next generation Web, e-commerce and supply chain management, bringing business value through process excellence, and quality enabling organization culture change. *** Zacharoula Andreopoulou holds a BS degree in Mathematics, a BS degree in Forestry and Natural Environment and a PhD degree in Forest Informatics, all from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where she is currently an assistant professor in the Laboratory of Forest Informatics and teaches courses on networks and Web services, databases, project management, and software programming. Her Ph.D. dissertation concerns the contribution of IT within forest service in Greece. Her scientific and research interests include networks, Web services and Web design, databases and project management in natural environment, sustainable development, and regional development applications. She is a co-author in books “Forest Informatics ‘I’ and ‘II,’” she has participated many international and domestic conferences, and her recent publications include papers in International Journal of Business Information Systems, Journal of Environmental Protection and Ecology, Mediterranean Journal of Economics, Agriculture and Environment, International Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies.
About the Contributors
Florian Birke studies Information Systems at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. His main focus is information management, Web technologies, and human computer interaction. In addition to his studies he worked for Siemens Transportation Systems in Braunschweig as well as in New York City, NY. His field of responsibility ranged from the supervision of an intranet Webpage to the process of designing and establishing an Information System. At the moment he is in the final stages of his studies and will finish it at the end of 2010. In his thesis, he will address virtual innovation communities, open innovation, and game-based open innovation. Burcin Bozkaya is a Senior Lecturer of Management Science at Sabanci University. He received his Ph.D. from Alberta University. Burcin research interests lie in operations research including: operations management, combinatorial modeling and optimization, heuristic algorithm design and optimization, transportation and logistics planning, Geographical Information Systems, and applications. This work has been published in European Journal of Management, European Journal of Operational Research and Interfaces. Saayan Chattopadhyay is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Baruipur College, Calcutta University. After a stint as a journalist, he is currently engaged in research and academics. He has published articles and book chapters in Sarai Reader, Senses of Cinema, Gyanpratha, Sussex Academic Press, among others. His research interests include, postcolonial journalism, new media, performative theory and masculinity studies. Nikhil Chaturvedi is a Director in the Industry Business Unit (IBU) – Mining & Mill Products at SAP Asia Pte. Ltd., Singapore. He is also the Global Lead for SAP Solution Management for Mining Industry. Nikhil is a Petroleum Engineer from Indian School of Mines and MBA from JBIMS, University of Mumbai. He is also a Certified Production & Inventory Management (CPIM) professional from APICS, USA. Nikhil has an experience of over 15 years and has been associated with the natural resources industries through engineering operations, business & IT consulting and SAP solutions related work. He is also the Committee Member for Society of Petroleum Engineers, Singapore chapter. Roma Chauhan is working as Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department, Institute of Management Education, Sahibabad, India. She has obtained her Masters in Computer Science from Jamia Hamdard, Hamdard University, New Delhi. Prior to joining academics, she worked with leading corporate giants in software project development. She has conducted multiple programming languages training sessions on different programming languages to impart improved technology absorption. Her approach is towards practical oriented, industry based learning and implementation. She has inclination towards research and has research papers published at national and international level in journals and conferences. Her research interests include semantic Web, Web mining, business intelligence, and technology enhancement to meet critical business requirements. Ritu Chauhan is pursuing her Ph.D. in computer Science from Jamia Hamdard, Hamdard University, India. As a keen academician and researcher, she has been involved with number of responsibilities such as development of curriculum in data mining and analysis for several data mining techniques at her university. She has contributed number of research papers in field of medical data mining. Her research
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About the Contributors
interests include statistical analysis of medical and spatial databases using data mining algorithms as well as developing data mining algorithms. As an author, she has published her research papers in leading conferences and journals at national and international level. Mladen Čudanov got his magister degree at Faculty of organizational sciences in 2006 and is finishing his PhD thesis. Currently he is in assistant position at Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade. He has been visiting for one semester as an assistant professor in joint programs of iVWA from Germany and Jiangsu College of Information Technology from Wuxi and Zhuhai City Polytechnics from Zhuhai in China. He has (co)authored 3 books and more than 40 journal and conference articles. He has consultant experience in more than 50 projects, some of which were in major companies of Serbia and neighboring countries. His major research interests are influence of ICT on organizational design, restructuring of business systems, and organizational change. Ronan de Kervenoael is a Lecturer of Marketing at Sabanci University and network Lecturer at Aston University. He received his Ph.D. from Sheffield University, UK. Ronan has a particular interest in choice and anti-choice investigating both consumers and within the supply chain actors through their everyday practice. His wider research interests lie under the umbrella of consumer behavior and retailing, the principal theme being the socio-spatial context of consumption. He is currently particularly interested in the Information Communication Technology change situation of emerging markets and associated strategies. This work has been published in Environment & Planning A, World Development, Journal of Industrial Relation, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, International Review of Retail Distribution and Consumer Research. Arhlene A. Flowers is Assistant Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications in the Department of Strategic Communication at the Roy H. Park School of Communications, Ithaca College, N.Y., where she teaches writing, public relations, and meeting and event planning. Her research encompasses virtual worlds, interactive marketing, visual literacy, social media application in crisis communications, and marketing to children. She also has two decades of industry experience in global public relations agencies and in-house marketing departments in New York City and Toronto. Born in Hawaii and raised in New York, Arhlene holds a Bachelor of Arts from New York University and a Master of Professional Studies from the New School in New York City. She is a member of the Public Relations Society of America, International Communication Association, and National Communication Association. Kimberly Gregson served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Television-Radio at the Roy H. Park School of Communications, Ithaca College, N.Y., specializing in game design and research methods, from 2002 to 2010. Her publications on virtual worlds, websites, and online communication have appeared in book collections and academic journals. She also has conducted classes, events, and research in Second Life. She received her Ph.D. in Mass Communication from Indiana University and an M.S. in Information Science from Indiana University-Bloomington, and a B.A. from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Jesper Holgersson is a PhD student at the University of Skövde and the University of Örebro. His main research area is focused on development of e-government services and how to incorporate consum-
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About the Contributors
ers into the development process. He has participated in several national research projects focusing on development and usage of Web services and e-services. Pankaj Kamthan has been teaching in academia and industry for several years. He has also been a technical editor, participated in standards development, served on program committees of international conferences, and is on the editorial board of a number of journals including the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning and the International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies. His research interests include Conceptual Modeling, Software Quality, and Web Engineering. Kathrin Kirchner finished her studies in computer science in 2000 and in adult education in 2006. She completed her doctorate in 2006 on spatial decision support systems for the rehabilitation of gas pipeline networks in Jena. Since then, she has held a post-doctoral research and teaching position in the Department of Business Information Systems at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Her research includes domains such as data mining, business process modelling, decision support and knowledge management. Previous work includes around 30 refereed journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers. Theodoros Koutroumanidis holds a BS degree in Civil Engineering from the Democritus University of Thrace, a B.S. degree in Mathematics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and a Ph.D. degree in Data Statistical Analysis from the Democritus University of Thrace, where he is currently a professor in faculty of Agricultural Development. He has nineteen publications of papers in international scientific magazines and eleven publications of papers in international conference proceedings. Additionally, he has thirty four publications of papers in domestic scientific magazines and conference proceedings. Furthermore, he teaches courses on Statistics, Applied Economic Statistics and Applied Econometrics while his scientific research interest include multicriteria analysis, ARIMA models, fuzzy logic models and cointegration analysis. Basil Manos is a Professor of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He holds a BSc in Mathematics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a BSc in Economics from the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki and a MSc from London School of Economics. He teaches and works in agricultural economics, farm and agribusiness management and regional planning. He obtained his PhD from the Department of Agricultural Economics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is a co-ordinator in various EU projects. His recent publications include papers in the European Journal of Operational Research, Regional Studies, Journal of Policy Modelling, British Food Journal, International Journal of Social Economics, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, International Journal of Business Information Systems. Mark Palmer is a Senior Lecturer of Marketing at Aston Business School, Aston University. His research explores the contested process of retail corporate strategizing and market development. This work draws upon the insights of consumers eschewing markets, stores and products, market and corporate divestment, interventions from institutional investors, and the resistance by consumer groups in markets. This work has been published in the Journal of Economic Geography, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Environment & Planning A, and the Journal of Strategic Marketing.
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About the Contributors
Paolo Renna is an Assistant Professor at Department of Environmental Engineering and Physics in the Engineering Faculty of Basilicata University (Italy). He took Ph.D. degree at Polytechnic of Bari in Advanced Production Systems. His academic researches principally deal with the development of innovative negotiation and production planning in distributed environments and manufacturing scheduling in dynamic environment. Several contributions have been presented on design multi agent architecture and test by discrete event simulation in Business to Business environment. Among his contributions, he is co-author of two research books about e-marketplaces and production planning in production networks. Moreover, he has developed coordination approaches in multi-plant production planning environment and innovative scheduling approaches in flexible and reconfigurable manufacturing systems. Lukas Ritzel is a Web Strategist and Lecturer for Bachelor’s program at IMI University Centre, Switzerland - one of the top international hotel, tourism, and events management schools Master program. He also lectures at Spanish Empresa University in Management, ranked among the top 10 worldwide and first in Europe. He has been TED x Speaker at second ever TED x event in Switzerland on the topic of sensory Web (http://www.tedxzug.com). He is an affiliate professor at Grenoble Graduate School of Business (http://www.grenoble-em.com) and has been evaluated outstanding professor by students in 2010 (Entrepreneurship Graduate Track). He is an honorary member of All India Association for Educational Research (http://www.aiaer.net/). His website www.imi-luzern.com has been voted among the top 100 Swiss business websites because of its innovative usage of Web 2.0 (http://www.anthrazit.org). Susanne Robra-Bissantz currently manages the Institut of Business Information Systems and its Information Management Group at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. She mainly passed her education (study of business management, doctoral thesis and habilitation in business Information Systems) at the university Erlangen-Nürnberg. In Braunschweig, she focuses her research on the role of information and Information Systems as a strategic asset for companies. Main fields are ITbased business communication, coordination, and cooperation with special interest in customer oriented e-services, e-service engineering, and cooperation systems with Web 2.0-technologies. In this area, she supervises about 15 Ph.D. students that work in different scientific and industry funded research projects. Amardeep Singh received his B.Tech. degree in computer science and engineering, his M.Tech. degree in computer science and engineering from Punjabi University, Patiala, and Ph.D. degree from Thapar University, Patiala in 2007. He is currently a faculty member of computer science and engineering department at University college of Engineering, Punjabi University, Patiala. His research interests include bioinformatics, DNA computing, and digital circuit testing. He has received several awards and recognition in teaching and conferences. He is member of various professional societies. Shailendra Singh received his B.Tech. degree in computer science and engineering from Harcourt Butler Technological Institute (H.B.T.I.) Kanpur, M.E. degree in computer science and engineering from Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, (T.I.E.T.) Patiala in 2003. He is currently a faculty member of computer science and engineering department at PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh. His research interest includes bioinformatics, natural language processing, and soft computing. He has received several awards and recognition in teaching and conferences. He is member of various professional societies. One of his projects entitled “DEEPTI” was featured by BBC.
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About the Contributors
Eva Söderström is an associate professor at the University of Skövde, Sweden. She earned her PhD in Computer and System Science from Stockholm University/Royal Institute of Technology in 2004, on the subject of B2B standards implementation. Her current research is focused on trust and standards for inter-organisational collaboration, through, for example, e-services and e-government services. She has led and participated in several national and international projects, and has published over 70 internationally reviewed publications. R. Todd Stephens is the Sr. Technical Architect of the Evolving Technologies for the AT&T Corporation. Todd is responsible for setting the corporate strategy and architecture for the development and implementation of the enterprise collaborative and metadata solutions. Todd has over 130 professional and academic publications including 3 patents, six patent pending filings, and he writes a monthly column for Data Management Review. Todd holds degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Columbus State University, an MBA degree from Georgia State University, and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from Nova Southeastern University. Archana Tyagi is a PhD in Psychology, D.M & S P (Diploma in Medical and Social Psychology (Clinical Psychologist) from C I P Kanke, Ranchi and MA from BHU (India). She has experience of nearly 18 years in the areas of teaching, management development programme, and research. She has been a professor of OB/HR in IMT-Ghaziabad (India) for nearly 15 years. She has presented papers in national and international conferences. She has publications in refereed national and international journals. She has conducted workshops and training programs for public and private sector organizations. She has written a book on Organizational Behavior publishes by Excel Publishers. She is currently based in Geneva and is associated with UBIS-Switzerland as an adjunct faculty in the area of OB/HR, since January, 2008. Julie Vardhan is currently Sr. Lecturer at Manipal University, Dubai. Since 2006, she has been associated full-time in the core academic field teaching Programs in Management including subjects such as Strategic Management, Organizational Behavior, Human Resources Management, International Marketing, Marketing Communications, Sales and Distribution Management, Services Marketing, Training, and Development. Prior to joining Manipal University, Dubai in 2008, she was Faculty Member at ICFAI, Lucknow, India. After completing her Graduate Hons. in 1996, and later MBA in 1998, she worked in the corporate sector for five years gaining rich diversified experience in national media, international bank, and trading companies, as well as academics. Her area of research interest includes advertising, experiential marketing, emotional intelligence, destination marketing, leadership and change management, and entrepreneurship, on which themes, she has attended numerous conferences and published papers. Maximilian Witt studied business management at the university of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Trinity College (Dublin) and University of Boston. After his studies, he worked at the University of ErlangenNürnberg as research assistant in an open innovation project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Technology and the EU. He is now Ph.D. student and research assistant at the Technische Universität Braunschweig (institute of Information Systems, in particular information management group) and part of a cooperation project together with Volkswagen. His current research focuses on open innovation, especially on how fun and enjoyment motivate customers to take part in open innovation.
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Index
A accessibility 7, 9-10, 12, 14, 16-17, 32, 80, 125 Actor-Network theory (ANT) 54-56, 60 Adapted Medicine 77 AdWords 38 alternative news media 48 altruism 65, 147, 157 Amadeus e-Retail system 67 Antibiotic Resistance 78 Application-to-Application (A2A ) 99 AR Development Conference 267, 276 Augmented Reality (AR) 261, 266-267, 269-281 Automated Stock Replenishment (ASR) 97 Automated Tank Gauges (ATG) 97 Available-to-Promise (ATP) 94 Avatar 150-152, 162, 206-207, 211, 215, 217, 225, 234-235, 243-244, 269
B Basic Local Alignment Search tool (BLAST) 84, 89 bioinformatics 76-77, 79-85, 87-88 biological data 76-77, 81-83, 86-88 Biology Workbench 85-88 biotechnology 76, 166, 182 Business-to-Business (B2B) 11, 74, 92, 94, 98-99, 103, 106, 117-118, 221, 225, 228, 232, 250, 258 Business-to-Consumer (B2C) 11, 103-104, 221, 225, 228, 250
C Capacity Offering Agent (COA) 170-173, 176 Citizen Journalism 51, 54, 56, 58, 60 Climate Change 78
collaboration 13, 18, 21, 26, 29-30, 36, 38, 41-42, 48, 50-52, 54-55, 60, 66, 73, 81-84, 87, 90-98, 100-101, 108, 120-126, 128, 130-137, 139, 141, 146, 165-166, 168-169, 178, 184-185, 187-188, 190-191, 195-196, 198-199, 201, 218, 221-223, 226, 228, 230, 236-238, 242-243, 246, 249, 255-256, 265 collaborative filtering systems 24 collaborative journalism 48, 55-58 collaborative network 186-187, 190-192, 195 collaborative Web 37-38, 40, 48, 81, 88, 90-92, 99, 101-103, 105, 114-116, 119, 144-146, 157, 166, 180, 184-196, 201, 213, 265-266, 268 collaborative Web beginners 193 collaborative Web tools 102-103, 105, 114-116, 119, 166, 187-188, 192, 196 collection and delivery points (CDPs) 127 collectivism 65, 68 communities of practice (CoPs) 99, 184, 218 community-oriented changers 194 company orientation 184 company owned company operated (COCO) 95 company owned dealer operated (CODO) 95 Company X 66-72, 75 complex adaptive supply networks (CASNs) 167168, 182 compressed natural gas (CNG) 93 condition based monitoring (CBM) 95 consumer business model 19 contemporary industrial economy 165 continuous motivation 156-157, 161 Conway law 26 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 98 crop development 78 crowdsourcing 53, 57, 59, 160, 265-266, 280 cultural identity (CI) 211, 213 customer relationship management (CRM) 97, 99, 239
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Index
D
G
dealer owned dealer operated (DODO) 95 decision support agent (DSA) 170, 173, 176 demand-pull 93 deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) 77, 80, 84, 88 digital content monetization 253 digital era 115 digital immigrants 5 digital laggards 5 digital rights management (DRM) 253, 256, 259 DNA identification 77 document management system (DMS) 99 drug development 78
game-based open innovation 144-145, 148-149, 158, 161 game mechanisms 144-145, 149-150, 152-159, 161 GEM model 35-36, 40 gene expression 77 gene regulation 77 global entrepreneurship monitor (GEM) 35-36, 40, 43 global positioning system (GPS) 125 Google 23-24, 36-40, 43, 49, 55, 152, 160, 162, 193, 262, 264, 267, 280 griefers 236, 244 growth 8, 20, 26, 31-36, 38-40, 42-44, 52, 77, 81, 103, 105-106, 130, 133, 168, 191, 209, 211213, 222, 224, 238, 240, 255
E efficiency driven economies 35 electronic business (e-business) 4, 19, 74, 106, 116, 118, 181, 196, 199 electronic collaboration (e-collaboration) 166, 218 electronic commerce (e-commerce) 11, 18-21, 24, 26-28, 30, 74, 102-108, 110-111, 113, 115-119, 160, 199, 242, 255, 258-259 electronic data interchange (EDI) 94, 103, 105 electronic delivery (e-delivery) 61 electronic government (e-government) 28, 62-64, 66, 73-75 electronic retail (e-retail) 67, 103 electronic services (e-services) 61-66, 68-75, 105 energy sources 78 enterprise resource planning (ERP) 94-97, 99, 101, 106, 119, 125 entrepreneurs 31-36, 41-42, 44, 74, 137, 225, 266, 269 entrepreneurship 31-35, 39-40, 42-44, 58, 199-200 environment health and safety (EH&S) 90, 98 e-services development 62, 64-65, 68, 71, 75 event processing 248, 259 evolution model of supply networks 168 eXtensible markup language (XML) 4, 23, 80
F factor-driven economies 35 FASTA 84-85, 89 firewall 228, 233, 244, 246 fitness landscape theory 167
320
H HMMER 84-85, 89 Human Genome Project 80 human-information interaction (HII) 6, 8, 14 human migration 77 human resources management (HRM) 262-263, 272 hypertext markup language (HTML) 22, 28, 38, 44, 58, 82, 89, 101, 117-118, 159, 199, 214-215, 238-243, 256-257, 262-263, 271-272, 279-280
I idea competition 145-146, 148-149, 155, 157-158, 161-162 identity crisis 202, 204-205, 207-208, 210-212, 215, 218 identity development 204-205, 207, 217 identity formation 205, 207-208, 214, 217-218 identity management 202, 205, 217 immersive collaborative environment 245 India 39-41, 48-49, 52-53, 55, 57-58, 60, 76, 245, 247, 249-250, 256-257, 264 inflationary increase 144-146, 157 information and communication technology (ICT) 15-16, 39-41, 44, 105-106, 118-119, 166, 181, 186-188, 197-198, 276 information and technology (IT) 1-3, 5-6, 8-14, 1921, 24-29, 31-40, 42, 48-58, 60, 62-72, 76-78, 80-86, 90-101, 103-106, 108-111, 113-114, 120-128, 130, 134-137, 145, 147-152, 154-158, 166, 168-177, 179, 181-182, 188-198, 201-207, 209-212, 215, 218, 221-222, 224, 227-234, 238, 240-241, 245-255, 259-270, 272-280
Index
information poor 50, 58 information rich 50 information scent 17 innovation 13, 26, 31, 33, 35, 38-40, 42-44, 52, 64, 73, 99, 103, 121, 124-125, 130, 139, 141, 144149, 152, 156-161, 196, 216, 245, 255 innovation driven economies 35, 40 innovation system 40 interactive television (ITV) 37 interface design 6, 21, 270 international oil companies (IOCs) 96, 101 InterProScan 85 in-world 222, 224-225, 230, 232-236, 238, 244 island 224, 228-233, 244 Istanbul 123, 126, 128-131, 135-136, 138
mobile telecommunications 37 model 2, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17-21, 23, 25-27, 31, 35-36, 40, 53, 56, 59, 74, 78, 81, 93, 97, 99, 102-103, 105, 111, 115-116, 118, 123, 126-128, 133, 138-139, 144-145, 147, 149-150, 154, 158, 161, 166-168, 170, 173, 176, 194, 198-200, 215-217, 226-227, 239-240, 243, 246, 248, 254-255, 262, 269, 271, 276, 278-279 molecular medicine 78 Mozzartbet 190-191 multi agent architecture 165-167, 169, 175, 180-181 multi agent technology 166 multicriteria analysis 102, 108, 113, 118-119 multicriteria analysis method 102 multi-user domains (MUDs) 205-206, 218
J
N
journalist 51
national oil companies (NOCs) 91, 96, 101 natural resources industries 90-92, 101 network economy (net economy) 37, 43 network entrepreneur 48, 55-56, 58 network intrusion detection 79 network threats 79, 88 news media 28, 48-53, 55-56, 58, 60 non-resident Indian (NRI) 57 notecard 244 nutritional quality 79
K key performance indicators (KPIs) 36, 125 Knol page 38 knowledge 2, 8, 11-13, 15, 17, 21-23, 28, 31-44, 49, 60, 64-65, 69-76, 78-82, 88, 90, 98, 121, 132, 142, 145, 156, 166, 184-201, 218, 223, 241, 245, 247, 250, 254-255, 258-259, 261, 265, 276 knowledge economy 31-34, 36-37, 39-42, 142 knowledge economy index (KEI) 39-42 knowledge-intensive companies 184-186, 188, 195-196 knowledge-intensive company 199, 201 knowledge management 15, 33, 65, 72, 88, 184201, 241, 258 knowledge on demand (KOD) 245, 250, 259
L Lindens 224, 244 liquefied natural gas (LNG) 93 liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) 91-92, 97, 101 London Metal Exchange (LME) 97, 101 long tail effect 38
M market rules 134 material requirement planning (MRP) 94 MaxSprout 85, 89 mediator agent (MA) 27, 29, 42-44, 59, 88, 138, 159-160, 170, 173, 175-176, 213 Migros 135
O object-oriented hypermedia design method (OOHDM) 7 oil field services 91, 94, 96, 101 oil refining 101 online grocery provision 120, 122-123, 126, 128, 132, 136-137 online social networks (OSNs) 22, 65, 75 open innovation 73, 144-149, 156, 158-161 open source software (OSS) 8, 15, 159-160 operationalisation 122 organizational change 140, 195, 198 organizational culture 141, 188, 190-192, 194-196, 198, 200-201 organizational identity 202, 210, 213-214 organizational knowledge 185 organizational structure 106, 184-189, 192, 194197, 201 original equipment manufacturers (OEM) 95 outsourcing oil field services (OFS) 94
321
Index
P participation index (PI) 110, 177, 179 pattern 8-9, 14, 16-17, 101, 128, 213, 249 people to people (P2P) 56 Petroleum Open Standards Consortium (POSC) 100 plant agent (PA) 15, 27, 29, 119, 170 portable document format (PDF) 6, 43-44, 159, 198, 213, 236, 238, 241, 256-257, 259 preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE) 102-103, 106, 108-109, 111, 113-114, 117 principlism 65 production markup language (PRODML) 91, 100 professional and amateur (pro-am journalism) 53 psychosocial moratorium 202, 204-205, 207, 209, 212, 218 public sphere 48, 50-51, 58-60
Q QR code 263, 266, 268-277, 281 quality 5, 8-17, 21, 24-25, 28, 30, 33, 37, 44, 63, 71, 75, 79, 94, 104-106, 118-119, 123-124, 126, 132, 134, 140-141, 146, 157, 168, 205, 207, 222, 226-227, 241, 252-253
R radio frequency identification (RFID) 125, 268, 270 rapid automatic detection and alignment of repeats (RADAR) 85, 198, 263 really simple syndication (RSS) 21, 23, 27, 53 reliability centered maintenance (RCM) 95-96 reputation systems 24, 27, 29-30 request capacity agent (RCA) 170-173, 176 requirements 5, 13, 15, 35, 41, 61-69, 71-72, 75, 80, 96, 100, 115, 145, 147-148, 175, 256, 277 return on digital investment (RODI) 254 risk assessment 77 rural production 102-103, 105, 107-109, 111, 115116, 119
S SaaS integration 254 Second Life 215-216, 218, 221-244, 262, 269 secure sockets layer (SSL) 105 self-interest 65 Semantic Web 1, 12-13, 15, 17, 75, 88, 198, 267, 269, 273-275
322
service providers 74, 91-93, 234, 236, 244, 255 sidewiki 38 simulation environment 165, 167, 169, 175, 180181 small-to-medium-size enterprises (SME) 10, 14, 97, 103, 106, 111, 115 social networking 14, 18, 21-22, 27, 29-30, 38, 40-41, 51-52, 99, 105, 108, 116, 189, 200-201, 237, 250, 271, 279 social web 1, 12-15, 17, 21, 264, 266 software as a service (SaaS) 246, 248-249, 254, 257, 259-260 spatial resistance 131-132, 135, 137 stakeholder 2, 90 stock keeping units (SKUs) 98 STS (science, technology, and society) 54 supply chain management (SCM) 94, 99, 101, 103, 106, 119, 121, 125, 136, 138-141 supply-push 93 sustainable development 14, 41, 105
T target service market segment 63 taxonomy 14, 23, 27, 30, 73 technology acceptance model (TAM) 161, 226-227, 240-241, 243 The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK ) 138 timber 103, 110-111, 113-114, 119 timber trade 103, 111, 119 total profit (TP) 173, 175-177, 179, 181 total unsatisfied demand (TUD) 177, 179 total unutilised capacity (TUC) 177 transport layer security (TLS) 105 Turkey 116, 120, 129-130, 134, 138-139, 141
U UML-based Web engineering (UWE) 7 unified modeling language (UML) 8, 117, 166, 171 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 39-41 unit of knowledge (knol) 38 universal design 14, 17 universal resource locator (URL) 22, 281 upstream bandwidth 254, 260 upstream petroleum 91-92 urban planning 120, 122, 133 usability 7, 9-10, 12, 14-17, 70-71, 104, 117
Index
user 3-7, 12-13, 17, 19, 21-25, 27, 40-41, 51, 61-75, 79-80, 82, 94, 104, 108, 122, 124, 146, 157, 185, 204-205, 211, 216, 218, 222, 224-225, 227, 233, 238-240, 246, 248, 252-254, 256257, 259, 262-264, 266, 272-277, 279 user innovation 64 user participation 12, 17, 61-66, 68, 70-73, 75
V video streaming 248, 257, 259-260 virtual communities (VCs) 27, 61-62, 65-66, 68-75, 207, 258-259 virtual community orientation 184 virtual conference 224, 245-250, 254, 257, 259-260 virtual economy 215, 246 virtual exhibition (VE) 204, 206, 212, 245, 247248, 250, 254, 258-260 virtual experience platform (VEP) 246, 250-251, 256-257 virtual identity 203, 206-207, 209, 215 virtual platforms 207, 234 virtual reality 202-204, 208, 211-218, 242, 245-247, 250, 255, 257-258 virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) 204, 216 virtual representation 203 virtualsoft systems limited (VSL) 249-250
W waste cleaning 78 wave technology 38 Web 2.0 198, 251 Web applications 1-17, 37-38, 88, 166, 201, 265, 274 Web design 11, 15-17, 102, 118-119 Web engineering 2-3, 7, 9, 11, 14-17 Web journalism 49, 51, 54-55, 57-58 Web modeling language (WebML) 8 Web services 24, 26, 62, 70, 73, 75, 79-80, 82-83, 88-89, 94, 197 Web services deployment descriptor (WSDD) 79 Website 37-38, 40, 49, 56, 94-97, 102-111, 113-119, 146, 250, 264, 266, 268, 276 Website feature 105, 107-108, 111, 113-114, 119 Wellsite information transfer standards markup language (WITSML) 91, 100 Wiki 22, 28, 38, 44, 99, 187, 190-192, 194, 263 World Wide Web (WWW) 15, 20, 25, 28, 37-38, 42-44, 56, 58-59, 82, 89, 97, 100-101, 116-119, 139, 142, 159-162, 166, 191, 198, 214-215, 217, 234, 238-240, 242-243, 246, 251, 255260, 266, 269-273, 276-281
323
