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PurposeThis research focuses on the extent sharing economy transforms employability for women impacted by domestic and reproductive work. The authors explore the experience of mothers, of how digital peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms can affect their self-perceived employability and skills deterioration by unlocking human capital through technology acceptance.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a pragmatism-based approach incorporating using a single-case study research design with the Gioia methodology. It utilised a semi-structured telephone survey to collect data to explore the decisions around usage of a newly developed mobile P2P app, aiming to support employability among mothers. Analysis was conducted inductively using thematic analysis and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe study finds that mothers experience high rates of continued labour market attachment on a casual or part-time basis, difficulty in juggling family and work, and high levels of concern both about future employment/entrepreneurial opportunities and expected stress in balancing dual roles of carer and earner. While mothers are interested in using new sharing economy technologies to reduce skills deterioration and improve signalling, the authors find that there were both technology and non-technology related barriers. These included trust and security, life-stage mismatch, time poverty and limitation of service offerings.Research limitations/implicationsThis research was limited to mothers in one state in Australia and by the case study research design, the measurement model and the self-report nature of the data collection. Hence, the findings may lack generalisability in other contexts. It also limits the ability to make conclusions regarding causality.Originality/valueThis exploratory study contributes to research in the intersection between human resources (HR) and entrepreneurship by illustrating how sharing economy platforms can offer women a means to overcome the issues of signalling and skills deterioration in relation to aspects of human capital theory by developing new skills that may act as positive signals signal to potential employers or investors. Additionally, the social interactions between mothers, through technology adoption, can provide a basis for improving future self-employment or entrepreneurship and employability.

PurposeThe rise of digital transaction technology has been transformative for businesses however consumer attitudes to this technology can vary. The comparison of Australians, Chinese and Sri Lankans’ consumers salient attitudes toward payment methods at the Point-of-Sale (POS) provides businesses with insights into the factors impacting consumers' payment preference.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative methodology was employed for data collection from Australian, Chinese and Sri Lankan participants. A combination of focus groups and individual interviews were carried out with a total of 35 participants.FindingsResults indicate that factors of perceived relative advantage, perceived compatibility, perceived risk, perceived rewards, perceived situations and social influence impact consumers' payment preference at POS across all three countries, however the degree of impact varies in importance across the three countries.Practical implicationsIn the cross-cultural comparison of the consumers' payment preference, this research highlights the complex interplay of factors that shapes these payment preferences. The findings, given the growing digitization of transactions, provides banking and financial institutions with a foundational model that can be used to improve their services and business model.Originality/valuePrevious studies failed to distinguish between payment choice at the time of the transaction and payment preference which is repeated behaviour. This study is the first to compare the consumers' payment preference across Australian, Chinese and Sri Lankan consumers and responds to calls for additional research that generalises consumers' payment preferences across cultures.

This paper examined online sentiment, key themes and patterns evident in social media activity about digital entrepreneurship. It provides a snapshot-in-time, visual-first perspective on social media user-generated-content (UGC) to better understand the topic of digital entrepreneurship. Global data consisting of 31,017 publicly available UGC which used the #digitalentrepreneurship (hashtag) and the keywords ‘digital entrepreneurship’ were collected. A computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS), Leximancer, was used for an automated text-mining analysis. There is positive online sentiment surrounding digital entrepreneurship technology, ecosystem and industry, and one which promotes women transformation of digital entrepreneurship globally. Negative sentiment pointed out that future development and support of youth in digital entrepreneurship is needed. Digital entrepreneurs were identified as needing to focus on strategy, leadership, management, and social media platforms. A comprehensive perspective on the state of digital entrepreneurship in online UGC is provided. Insights into the challenges, issues, changes, success stories and key topics in digital entrepreneurship are highlighted. Future research is encouraged to adopt longitudinal and quantitative approaches, to provide further insights into the evolution of digital entrepreneurship. The paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by applying the Social Exchange Theory and the Social Media User Engagement Framework to better understand social media activity around digital entrepreneurship. The findings show that there are real challenges and issues to overcome but there are also changes occurring in digital entrepreneurship and social media users are keen to share and learn from digital entrepreneurship success stories.

This research focuses on the challenges in developing the cross-selling capability of a multinational European corporate bank operating in both the business and consumer markets. An extensive qualitative research design was carried out involving 50 interviews with chief financial officers (CFOs) and bank representatives from four European countries, eight workshops, and participant observation. The barriers to cross-selling experienced by the Bank are specifically: a lack of cooperation within organisational levels and units, non-existent information sharing among employees, underdeveloped internal services for cross-selling, resistance to change, and outdated CRM systems are identified as the five major internal challenges that banks have to cope with. Corporate customers however perceive that the five major challenges that inhibit the corporate banks’ ability to provide better services and to properly exploit cross-selling capability are: the lack of cross-asset management, inability to sell cross-asset services, fragmented organisational structure, the lack of sufficient internal marketing and communication, and lack of knowledge sharing. This study identifies ten major challenges—five that deal with the Bank’s internal personnel, and five identified by key corporate customers—that are essential to overcome to better address cross-selling efforts.

This paper aims to provide guidance when designing a call to action in a digital system with the purpose to create an intended feeling and user engagement. The paper is based on a test of four different simple call to action constructions. The users clearly prefer constructions that have a high explainability and feels intuitive. Hence, the design should have a high level of transparency and show the user straight away what it demands from the user and what the result of the action is. Furthermore, the design should have a high usability to make it clear how to use the call to action.

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to investigate the use of Twitter in business as a medium for knowledge sharing and to crowdsource information to support innovation and enhance business relationships in the context of business-to-business (B2B) marketing.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a combination of methodologies for gathering data in 52 face-to-face interviews across five countries and the downloaded posts from each of the interviewees' Twitter accounts. The tweets were analysed using structural topic modelling (STM), and then compared to the interview data. This method enabled triangulation between stated use of Twitter and respondent's actual tweets.FindingsThe research confirmed that individuals used Twitter as a source of information, ideas, promotion and innovation within their industry. Twitter facilitates building relevant business relationships through the exchange of new, expert and high-quality information within like-minded communities in real time, between companies and with their suppliers, customers and also their peers.Research limitations/implicationsAs this study covered five countries, further comparative research on the use of Twitter in the B2B context is called for. Further investigation of the formalisation of social media strategies and return on investment for social media marketing efforts is also warranted.Practical implicationsThis research highlights the business relationship building capacity of Twitter as it enables customer and peer conversations that eventually support the development of product and service innovations. Twitter has the capacity for marketers to inform and engage customers and peers in their networks on wider topics thereby building the brand of the individual users and their companies simultaneously.Originality/valueThis study focuses on interactions at the individual level illustrating that Twitter is used for both customer and peer interactions that can lead to the sourcing of ideas, knowledge and ultimately innovation. The study is novel in its methodological approach of combining structured interviews and text mining that found the topics of the interviewees' tweets aligned with their interview responses.

The global nature of business has increased the importance of students’ international experience during their studies at the university. Using interactive technologies the projects investigated ways to increase students’ motivation to take responsibility for the learning process by creating “real” international co-creation experience online. This paper presents learnings from two consecutive international collaborative teaching between Edith Cowan University, Australia, and Umeå University, Sweden, in 2017 and Edith Cowan University and the University of Rijeka, Croatia, in 2018. Feedback from the students showed they enjoyed working across cultures and academic discipline on simulated products and marketing campaigns. Issues raised included: the need to explicitly explain how all parts of project is going to work and how the students execute their role. Incorporation of a formal introduction process for the students in each location so all students have the same knowledge about each other. Furthermore, the provision of real-time opportunities to collaborate in lectures and the setting joint deadlines between the units are of importance. Despite some of the shortcomings of the project, it has provided a firm foundation for the refinement of ongoing collaborative teaching.

The growth of social media has impacted on people’s everyday life, precipitating the development of a new set of guidelines for designing applications (apps), creating heightened user engagement wi ...

The critical success factors that contribute to the successful implementation of electronic health (e-health) records are still not clear from the literature. Although many studies have been conducted on the successful adoption of technology, they rarely consider the context of adoption. Given that the health sector in most countries provides a complex environment for the implementation of technology, the context becomes highly significant. The authors use case studies from Slovenia and Australia to identify the factors impacting on successful e-health implementation. Although Slovenia has progressed much further down the road of e-health than Australia, the contextual factors were important in both cases. The systemic implications for research and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to describe the impediments to information technology (IT) adoption and possible solutions in the context of business relationships by drawing on case studies conducted in both Australia and Finland in the heavy manufacturing sector.Design/methodology/approachThe in depth case studies were conducted in the steel manufacturing industry in Finland and in the marine defence (shipbuilding) industry in Australia.FindingsThe findings indicate that doubts about the security of shared information, missing mutual benefits, incompatibility of IT systems, inadequate IT resources, uncertainty about the future directions of the relationship, information rich working routines, i.e. face to face communication, IT deployment not being part of the industry standard and investments not justified by the relationship seems to be the most significant impediments to IT adoption in heavy manufacturing in Australia and Finland.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper focuses on one industry sector using case studies. Further work could be conducted in other industry sectors to determine if the same impediments arise.Practical implicationsThrough the cases discussed an attempt is made to identify some of the impediments to IT adoption, strategies for overcoming them and by doing so, adding to the body of marketing knowledge on business relationships. For managers this paper provides some insights to manage IT adoption in the heavy manufacturing industry.Originality/valueAcross various industry sectors managers have adopted different types of IT tools to coordinate their relationships with their counterparts. However there has been little academic research in this area until recently, as the research has been focused on large firms in technology rich industry sectors. This paper broadens the discussion on IT adoption in the context of business relationships in industry sectors that have not been traditionally targeted.

Governments in developed nations are focusing increased attention on market orientation and striving to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction as part of the administrative reform process. This study centers on customer satisfaction at the local government (LG) level, using the break-up of the City of Perth, Australia, into new suburban LGs of Cambridge, Victoria Park, and Vincent. The study employs a mail survey on customer satisfaction to 1,500 residents across the three LGs. Findings suggest that by-and-large, customers are more satisfied with the new smaller LGs than with the former, larger LG. Conclusions are drawn, limitations noted, and future research directions outlined.

Within industrialized countries one of the main producers of wealth and prosperity has been ‘well coordinated and sustainable systems, capable of converting technological innovation assets into substantial levels of local industrial productivity and global competitiveness’, (Scheel, 2002, p. 356). One of the ways of achieving this has been through the establishment of regional clusters. At the time of this research, there was a belief within government circles in Western Australia that collaboration using information communication technology (ICT) would assist regional economic growth. Initial research in a multi-industry regional cluster showed a low level of ICT sophistication, therefore, the research focused on the relationships between the firms in the cluster and the use of collaborative e-commerce. The study was undertaken in a cluster located south of the city of Perth. The cluster had a number of unique elements including the dominance of high-priced and low-volume industrial manufacturing, a number of large multinational firms and the pre-eminence of large defense contractors. The drive behind the government-funded research was to find ways to facilitate greater collaboration using ICT between the firms in the regional cluster. It was perceived that there was a significant gap between the large firms and the lower tiers of middle-sized and small firms.

The transaction of business via the Web is becoming an imperative for organizations aiming at improving their competitiveness. The Web-based commerce applications allow organizations to access potential customers and suppliers via the Internet. Expected benefits include: expanded marketplaces, potential cost reductions, productivity improvements, customization of products and services, 24-hour trading and information exchange, and management (McIvor & Humphreys, 2004; Raisinghani et al., 2005). This expansion of Web based commerce has led to growing research into the impact of investments made by organisations in this field (Raisinghani et al., 2005).

Technology increasingly pervades the business world and society generally. According to Walters (2004, p. 219) “markets have globalized, technology has become all embracing, and relationships with suppliers, customers, and competitors are undergoing constant change.” These developments potentially raise considerable opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs)1 to enter into the global marketplace and form “partnerships” including alliances, networks, and collaborative commerce (c-commerce) (Jarrett, 1998). Though exemplars of c-commerce exist in Australia, it has not been widely adopted by SME’s. Generally, Australian SMEs have been slow to adopt any form of electronic commerce. The primary reason given for lack of adoption amongst many small businesses is that they see no real benefit in having a Web presence, that is they perceive their businesses to be too small, or they had not factored in the on going maintenance of Web pages (ABS, 2003; van Beveren & Thomson, 2002). Fear of the unknown and lack of skills have also been suggested as reasons why the uptake of technology is less for small businesses (Barry & Milner, 2002; Darch & Lucas, 2002). If firms have been slow to embrace e-commerce, then it could explain the slow uptake of c-commerce. This article looks beyond e-commerce and suggests framework to explain c-commerce adoption.