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An increasing number of companies use social media such as micro blogs to promote celebrities in Internet communities. Companies may run their official micro blogs differently, which in turn leads to different public engagements on micro blogging sites. This study takes a perspective on the adoption behaviours of micro blogs in enterprises by looking at the relationship between media frame and audience frame based on the China Fortune 500 firms in 2014. The results show that the updates, active days and followings are associated with public engagement with the corporate official micro blogs. In particular, we found information overload from information updates. The marginal utility of the public engagement decreases as number of updates increases. The results also show that the daily variance of updates has a significant influence on the audience frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on social networking services (SNS) in China, which aim to help users start or sustain social networks on the Internet. It says that SNS swept the Chinese Internet Market in 2007 and its market value in that year exceeded 500 million Renminbi (RMB). It discusses the five categories of Chinese SNS web sites, including campus SNS, entertainment-oriented SNS, and business-oriented SNS, as well as the several SNS platforms launched by the top portal web sites in China such as Tencent.com. and Yahoo.com. It mentions that the majority of the Chinese SNS web sites have used word-of-mouth as a marketing strategy, which is said to be inexpensive and effective. It also discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by Chinese SNS.

Abstract: With the aim of identifying a mechanism that enables e-business technology to improve enterprise competitiveness, the authors conducted a case study of three large iron and steel manufacturing enterprises in China. This paper proposes the concept of application capability of e-business from a process-oriented perspective, and investigates the impact of the application capability of e-business on the relationship between e-business resources and enterprise competitiveness. The results show that e-business resources are necessary, rather than sufficient, to enhance enterprise competitiveness. We also found that an enterprise can use e-business technology to significantly enhance its competitiveness only when its e-business resources and application capability of e-business (particularly the core application capability) are efficiently and effectively synthesized. We conclude that differences in the enterprise application capability of an e-business eventually determine the effectiveness of an e-business technology. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Previous research on the factors that influence a business's participation in third-party e-markets identified a set of motivational and ability related factors. This paper explores further the question of the determinants of third-party e-market participation using a multiple case study research design. Data were collected from three companies in China. Our findings suggest that motivation and ability related factors might play both an enabling and inhibiting role in e-market adoption. However, we also found that these factors are limited to offer a complete understanding of participation in third-party operated e-markets. In particular, in the context of emerging economies and emerging e-markets where both contextual factors and the offerings of market-makers are crucial to an enterprise's decision to join and stay in e-market, the explanatory power of motivation and ability factors tend to be limited. The paper proposes an extended motivation-ability model to understand the drivers and inhibitors of participating in third-party operated e-markets. It further discusses the implications of the results of the study for both market and business decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates 74 Chinese corporate websites by examining their contents and functions to understand the business objectives. It found that business objectives of these websites mainly focused on publicity, and very little on online sales. Firms in banking and construction industries develop the highest quality websites, while firms in public services and retailing are the laggards. Chinese websites are ease to use with consistent information. The article also compared the findings in China in this study with those in the United States, Australia, and Singapore in similar studies. It found that industry characteristics were similar among nations while more complicated website functions were more popular among the firms of developed countries. The findings will contribute to the research of e-business by confirming the existence of innovators and laggards of Web technology adoption in model given in E. M. Roger, Diffusion of Innovations (The Free Press, New York, 1962), and help managers understand current status of Chinese websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]