infonet-economy

We use variation in wind speeds at surfing locations in Switzerland as exogenous shifters of users' propensity to post content about their surfing activity onto an online social network. We exploit this variation to test whether users' social ties on the network have a causal effect on their content generation, and whether content generation in turn has a similar causal effect on the users' ability to form social ties. Economically significant causal effects of this kind can produce positive feedback that generate multiplier effects to interventions that subsidize tie formation. We argue these interventions can therefore be the basis of a strategy by the firm to indirectly facilitate content generation on the site. The exogenous variation provided by wind speeds enable us to measure this feedback empirically and to assess the return on investment from such policies. We use a detailed dataset from an online social network that comprises the complete details of social tie formation and content generation on the site. The richness of he data enable us to control for several spurious confounds that have typically plagued empirical analysis of social interactions. Our results show evidence for significant positive feedback in user generated content. We discuss the implications of the estimates for the management of the content and the growth of the network.

Kundenbedürfnisse verändern sich unabhängig von technologischen Entwicklungen. Diese Veränderungen müssen möglichst frühzeitig identifiziert und für das eigene Unternehmen genutzt werden. Doch den meisten Unternehmen gelingt es nicht, sich von den derzeitigen Bedürfnissen ihrer Kunden zu lösen: Sie sind „Customer-Driven“. Dieses Verhalten führt zwar zu marginalen Verbesserungen der eigenen Leistungen, kann aber nicht zu wirklichen Innovationen beitragen. Beispiele für Unternehmen, die trotz hoher Kundenorientierung Veränderungen in den Kundenbedürfnissen versäumt haben, sind der Automobilbauer Ford mit dem „Ford Edsel“, der trotz umfangreicher Kundenbefragungen zum Zeitpunkt seiner Einführung schon veraltet war, oder der Videogigant Blockbuster, der trotz regelmäßiger Kundenzufriedenheitsstudien den Trend zum Onlineverleih verpasst hat und in Konkurs gegangen ist. Um langfristigen Erfolg zu haben, sollten Unternehmen neue Ideen nicht mithilfe von bestehenden Kundenbedürfnissen entwickeln, sondern sich an latenten und zukünftigen Kundenbedürfnissen ausrichten –, in anderen Worten, sie sollten neue Bedürfnisse bei den Kunden wecken. Unser Beitrag zeigt fünf Prozessschritte auf, wie Unternehmen sich dieser Herausforderung des „Customer-Driving“ stellen können. Darüber hinaus werden im Umgang mit neuen Bedürfnissen verschiedene Typen von Unternehmen beschrieben und typengerechte Empfehlungen gegeben.

The digitalization of business processes generates massive amounts of available data sources. Having triggered great enthusiasm, without doubt, these developments are of particular impact. Whereas organizations aim to generate actionable customer insights from Big Data, researchers want to understand human decision processes and develop increasingly sophisticated models. Surprisingly, potential negative consequences of Big Data are widely unexplored. Addressing this research gap, the results from a controlled experiment with executives show that Big Data tends to lead managers to blindly trust respective recommendations for action. In a product and innovation management set-ting, managers were found to accept managerial outcomes derived by Big Data com-pared to market research or personal experience and also to contribute less their own ideas. Interestingly, this relationship seems to be particularly evident for top managers resulting in important implications for research and practice.

Digitalization has generated massive amounts of available data sources. Consequently, firms aim to exploit this additional value. Potential negative consequences of Big Data for companies have not been examined yet – neither in practice nor in research. Ad-dressing this research gap, the current investigation first uncovers unfavorable manage-rial outcomes and behaviors generated by Big Data. The results from an experiment (study 1) show that executives tend to blindly rely on Big Data even in a domain where this may be misleading (i.e., innovation management). Interestingly, this relationship seems to be particularly evident for top managers. A second study not only replicates the findings in a correlational setting but beyond sheds light on its mechanism. Big Data is found to activate executives’ promotion focus leading them to become less defensive and more reckless in their decision behavior. Implications for research and practice as well as limitations are further discussed.

Organizations encourage their managers to bring their whole selves to work, so as to give their very best. However, research has repeatedly highlighted managers’ difficulties in switching between nonwork and work identities. The present investigation supports these concerns by extensively showing that managers often decide against objective market research insights when they perceive this data as threatening to their nonwork identity. In three experiments, we find a nonwork identity bias deleteriously affecting sound decision-making. It is such that the more market research information conflicts with managers’ nonwork identity, the more managers decide against this information, causing them to make suboptimal decisions. We further find that a defensive mechanism triggers this bias. Following recent calls to minimize managerial decision biases at an organizational level, we further identify exchange relationships between managers and market research providers as a factor that can mitigate the bias, presumably because it helps managers to interpret market research insights less personally; in contrast, a communal relationship between managers and market research providers does not mitigate the bias. Implications of this last finding go counter to research celebrating the benefits of rapport, to resonate instead with emerging work on rapport’s potential to backfire.

Der Beitrag befasst sich mit der Art und Weise, wie Konsumenten Innovationen erfassen und beurteilen. Diskutiert werden nicht nur Einflussfaktoren, Probleme und Herausforderungen, die sich im Rahmen dieses Prozesses ergeben, sondern es werden auch Handlungsempfehlungen vorgestellt, mit deren Hilfe Unternehmen die Erfolgsaussichten von Innovationen verbessern können. Im Rahmen des St.Galler Business Innovation Modells ist der Beitrag somit im Bereich des Innovationsprozesses angesiedelt.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the perceived preferences of airline passengers in the short and long distant market. Since the emergence of low cost carriers as a successful business model in the short distant market, traditional network carriers face a strong price competition. To increase competitiveness, network carriers have to better respond to the demands of their customers and to identify the distinct service requirements of their customer segments to provide them with additional value. The aim of this paper is to determine these preferences that consequently lead to the choice of either business model. A standardized face-to-face survey was conducted with 209 air travellers at Zurich Airport. The contingency analysis reveals interesting differences regarding potential sources of additional customer value for different business models. As a theoretical contribution this paper adds to the existing literature on customer value components in the airline industry and adds data with the case of Zurich Airport. The results reveal interesting implications and explore ways for airline managers to increase future competitiveness by superior customer value creation.