Sozialer Einfluss in Chat-Gruppen: Geschlechtsspezifische Auswirkungen auf konversationale Partizipation und Kohärenz

This study examines gender specific differences in chat groups. It is assumed that men participate more in communication than women, that women will be perceived as less influential and will use different communication mechanisms to exert social influence. In addition, the effects of a coherence training for women will be evaluated. A 2 × 2 experimental design (topic, training) with gender as quasi-experimental variable was used to investigate 99 students in 33 triads discussing a career-choice dilemma via chat. Statistical analyses show that men participated more in the discussion and women were perceived as less influential independently from topic and training. Trained women communicated more coherently compared to untrained women. Analysis of communication mechanisms show that women differed from men in ways how to exert social influence. Practical implications as well as methodical limitations are discussed.     

Analyzing equity impacts of transit fare changes: Case study of Alameda–Contra Costa Transit,California

Many public transit agencies consider increasing fares when faced with budget shortfalls. This paper analyzes the Alameda–Contra Costa (AC) Transit District's five alternative fare proposals introduced for public discussion in March 2005. The proposals combined fare hikes, base fare reductions, eliminations of free transfers, and discontinuation of periodic passes. Using the agency's 2002 on-board survey data, the study assessed the impacts of individual fare proposals on different subsets of riders and evaluated if they were equitable; and estimated potential fare revenues, using alternative price elasticities to estimate changes in ridership due to changes in price. The analysis revealed that proposals that increased the cost of transfers or eliminated unlimited-use passes produced dramatically unequal impacts on certain riders. Proposals for flat fares per ride were found to be least equitable, even when the base fare was lowered, because lower income riders, youth, and minorities made more trips and transferred more frequently than their more affluent counterparts. Proposals that maintained existing pass instruments and allowed transfers for small fees were the most favorable. The paper demonstrates the utility of on-board surveys and details an approach that could be widely used for evaluation of equity in public transit and other areas.     

Warum Kunden in Online-Communities innovieren: Ergebnisse einer Motivanalyse

For companies, online communities (OCs) have become a potent means of rapidly and easily identifying user needs as a result of the social and technological changes within the Web 2.0. Some OCs even are suited ideally for integration into NPD as they frequently have innovative members. Despite their growing relevance, however, user innovation activities within OCs still are underexplored. The members’ motivations to innovate and contribute to OCs in particular are part of a young line of research requiring further investigation. This research provides an in-depth netnographic analysis of innovative, privately operated OCs dedicated to tangible consumer products. Most fundamentally, we differentiate 1) motives to join OCs, 2) motives to innovate, and 3) motives to publish innovations in OCs. This is the first study to categorize the motives of innovative OC members depending on the stages of their membership as well as situational factors. Our results support companies in understanding and classifying the members’ motives in independent customer OCs. This is a precondition for the development of specific incentives that stimulate innovative user activities in OCs and contribute to customer integration.     

An end to the wild west of social media research: a response to Axel Bruns

ABSTRACT

Current models of data access in social media research offer clear benefits, but are also fraught in a number of ways, including by posing risks to user privacy, being constrained in terms of reliability and reproducibility of results, and incentivizing questionable and in some cases unethical research practices. I argue that partnerships between academics and industry represent one potential option for improving this situation. While no panacea, such arrangements may be able to contribute to a more rules-based and less anarchic situation in social media research, placing greater emphasis on preserving user privacy and the reproducibility of results, rather than mainly on compiling large data sets. Due to a number of recent shifts, not just in research, but in the public discourse surrounding social media platforms and user data, we are entering an era of increased institutionalization and standardization in the study of online communication. This new environment appears poised to replace the ‘Wild West of social media research’ that we have witnessed in the past, in which academics compile huge troughs of data with few constraints, not always acting in the public’s best interest.     

Managing a crisis of confidence in Nigeria's banking and financial industry

An ongoing crisis of confidence in the banking and financial industry in Nigeria's emerging economy calls for using integrated marketing communications (IMC) in optimizing five potentially normative actions as a beachhead in procuring corporate benefits from three variables that predict significantly customers’ favorable impressions of business: satisfaction, trust, relationship commitment. The actions: (a) personalize the stakeholder experience, (b) integrate ethics into the workplace and into corporate communications, (c) participate in training sessions in applied ethics, (d) use brandstanding expansively and integratively, and (e) conduct rigorous outcomes assessment and disseminate its results promptly to stakeholders.     

School as haven: Transforming school environments into welcoming learning communities

This study investigated school factors that impact attendance. Interviews and focus groups with over 60 key stakeholders from five Maryland counties were conducted. Respondents indicated that despite individual, family, and community factors that contribute to non-attendance, students will attend a school that is intentional about creating a welcoming climate that is supportive and academically stimulating. Attendance can be improved when schools evaluated policies that may unintentionally deter student attendance, when students feel heard by school personnel, and when students are given opportunities to establish supportive relationships with caring adults in and out of the classroom.     

The risk climate and the delivery of child welfare services

The community is conceptualized as a “risk climate” in which the traditional child welfare services such as own-home services, foster placement, adoption and institutionalization are delivered. The community generates incidence of child welfare cases through the pressure of conditions, and affects prevalence by the extent of its response. Any method of allocating scarce resources should take variations in the risk climate into account in order to put resources where the problem is. This report presents an effort to achieve such a procedure through (1) a literature review to isolate variables related to child welfare service delivery; (2) a report of zero order relationships between these variables and outcome measures; and (3) the use of a multiple regression analysis to develop predictive procedures. The process developed is put forward as an equitable way of distributing scarce resources.