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on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Graziella Bonanno (Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza, Università della Calabria) |
| Abstract: | Are Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Research & Development (R&D) productive inputs or efficiency determinants? This is the topic of this paper which analyses a sample of 2691 Italian manufacturing firms over the period 2007-2009. The empirical setting is based on a production function estimated through the Stochastic Frontier (SF) approach. ICT and R&D are used once as inputs, once as efficiency determinants (Coelli et al., 1999). The results show that the rates of return of ICT and R&D investments are quite high (0.08 for ICT and 0.04 for R&D) when they enter into the model only as inputs. We also documented that ICT and R&D contribute positively to explain the efficiency scores. |
| Keywords: | ICT, R&D, Stochastic Frontier Approach, efficiency |
| JEL: | D22 D24 L69 O39 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clb:wpaper:201412&r=ict |
| By: | Giovanni Vaia (Dept. of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venice); Anna Moretti (Dept. of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venice) |
| Abstract: | In an over-connected world where ICTs dominate firms' development and evolution, outsourcing is an increasingly adopted practice by IT firms facing a third-generation of inter-firm interactions: after the IT and business processes' outsourcing, and then the offshore outsourcing, now we face a sourcing ecosystem tagged as human cloud, where the online work and virtual workers are the center of the new system. Notwithstanding some relevant contributions to the literature about IT outsourcing, still few is known about how coordination between client and supplier can achieve superior outcomes through the development of collaborative practices. In particular, the use of IT tools devoted to sociality as a coordination mechanism has been under-investigated. This research provides insights about how a company can change attitudes and behaviors of client and supplier thanks to an IT tool deputed to collaboration: the social collaboration system. Through an explorative case study, our paper provides two main contributions to the literature about IT outsourcing: i) we show how the adoption of a social collaboration system improves ITO governance and performance, providing further empirical evidence on the role of social mechanisms in ITO relationships; ii) we show how the introduction of a social collaboration system in outsourcing management can influence and change the building blocks of its life-cycle. |
| Keywords: | IT outsourcing, governance, social collaboration, relational view, outsourcing lifecycle |
| JEL: | L24 M55 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vnm:wpdman:777&r=ict |
| By: | Zheyin (Jane) Gu (University of Connecticut, School of Business, Marketing Department, 2100 Hillside Rd, Unit 1041, Storrs, CT, 06269.); Yunchuan Liu (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 415 Wohlers Hall, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, IL, 61820, (217) 244-2749) |
| Abstract: | We model consumer social networks as information collection media and examine two major issues: first, how consumers construct product fit signals based on product feedbacks collected from their social connections to assist with their purchase decisions, and second, how a retailer can benefit from setting up a digital platform and helping consumers collect more product feedbacks on social networks. Our analysis identifies two important structure features of consumer social networks that affect the outcome of consumer social learning: social group inter-connectivity and overall social connectivity. In particular, when the consumer social network is not well-connected, characterized by low social group inter-connectivity and low overall social connectivity, with more product feedbacks collected on social networks consumers are more likely to form informative prior beliefs about which product has a good fit. In contrast, when the consumer social network is well-connected, characterized by either high social group inter-connectivity or high overall social connectivity, more product feedbacks collected on social networks are more likely to constitute uninformative product fit signals and leave consumers uncertain about which product has a good fit. Furthermore, our analysis shows that a retailer's incentive to set up a digital platform and help consumers collect more product feedbacks on social networks depends on the supplier market structure as well as the structure of consumer social networks. In particular, a big retailer that carries horizontally differentiated products offered by competing manufacturers has incentive to facilitate consumer social learning on well-connected social networks and when without retailer assistance consumers still collect product feedbacks from a good number of social connections. The big retailer's activity of facilitating consumer social learning can also enhance total channel surplus. In contrast, a small retailer that carries product(s) offered by a single manufacturer has incentive to facilitate consumer social learning only on social networks that are not well-connected and when without retailer assistance consumers only collect a small number of social feedbacks. And the total channel efficiency suffers when the small retailer withholds from facilitating consumer social learning. Our result highlights the unique motive of big retailers to embrace the digital era when internet, mobile networks, and social media have profoundly changed consumers' shopping habits as well as the unique contribution big retailers bring in channel efficiency through their efforts of facilitating consumer social learning. |
| Keywords: | Consumer Social Learning, Social Networks, Retailing, Game Theory |
| JEL: | M31 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:1402&r=ict |
| By: | Martin Fransman (University of Edinburgh) |
| Abstract: | This report focuses on the changing models of innovation adopted by some of the largest and most innovative global ICT companies in the world, including Apple, BT, Google, Microsoft, Skype, Telefonica and Vodafone. One of the main contributions of this report is to demonstrate that, in order to understand these innovation models, it is necessary at the same time to understand the dynamics of innovation at sector level. Beginning with an analysis of the innovation process in the ICT ecosystem, the author drills down into the company global innovation ecosystems that have been created by these global companies. In addition, he explores some of the implications that proliferating company global innovation ecosystems have for government policy. He concludes that whilst innovation is changing the world, changing global circumstances are in turn transforming the innovation model in companies, both large and small, around the world. |
| Keywords: | innovation, ICT |
| JEL: | L1 L22 L63 L86 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc90726&r=ict |
| By: | Zhuoxin Li (McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, 2110 Speedway Stop B6500, Austin, Texas, 78712); Jason A. Duan (McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, 2110 Speedway Stop B6700, Austin, Texas, 78712) |
| Abstract: | Crowdfunding is a fast emerging internet fundraising mechanism for soliciting capital from the crowd to support entrepreneurial ventures. This paper empirically investigates the dynamics of investors’ backing behaviors in the presence of network externalities and a finite time window. The proposed model captures how investors dynamically update their expectations on the prospect of a project based on its current funding status and time progress. Model estimation shows that investors are more likely to back a project that has already attracted a critical mass of funding (positive network externalities). For the same amount of achieved funding, the backing propensity declines over time (negative time effects). These two opposing forces give rise to a critical mass of funding the project must attain on time to achieve successful funding by the deadline. Counterfactual simulations show that projects may fail to attain the critical mass because of unfavorable shocks in investor visits at the early stage of the funding cycle. We derive dynamic seeding strategies for project owners to maximize the likelihood of funding success. |
| Keywords: | crowdfunding; group buying; entrepreneurship; network externality; hazards model; Bayesian inference |
| JEL: | D12 C81 L26 L86 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:1409&r=ict |