Social networking as an enabler of change in entrepreneurial Brazilian firms

Analysis of Social Media Impact on Opportunity Recognition. A Social Networks and Entrepreneurial Alertness Mixed Approach

This paper investigates the effects of social media on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. Combining the internal and external approaches of opportunity recognition, the study analyzes how social media influences the entrepreneurs in discovering new entrepreneurial opportunities. Structural equation modeling was used in this study, using the variance-based partial least squares (PLS)-structural equation modeling (SEM), on a sample of 354 entrepreneurs. We concluded that social media directly and positively influences entrepreneurial opportunity recognition while entrepreneurial alertness (internal approach) and social networks (external approach) partially mediates its indirect effects on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. The study contributes to the existing literature by bringing new insights into the entrepreneurial opportunity recognition process by focusing on a poorly represented factor in the literature, social media.

Knowledge management strategy: an organizational change prospective

Purpose

The most critical phase of a change process is change implementation and it is evident that the masterfully originated change process fails due to its poor implementation. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to profile how knowledge management (KM) strategies, personalization and codification, are helpful in successful change implementation by reducing employee cynicism and increasing the level of readiness for change.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 196 executives of National Bank of Pakistan at Time 1 (pre-implementation) and Time 2 (post-implementation) with the temporal research design. Multiple regression analysis is used to test the direct effect; Preacher and Hayes (2004) test is applied to measure the mediating effect and guidelines of Aguinis (2004) are followed for analyzing the moderating effect.

Findings

The result of the direct effect shows that both KM strategies have significant positive effect on successful change implementation. Further, mediation analysis proves that readiness for change partially mediates between KM strategies and successful change implementation. In addition, partial interactive effects of employee cynicism is observed between readiness for change and successful change implementation.

Research limitations/implications

The management should initiate steps to boost personalization and codification strategies at their optimal levels. This would ultimately be helpful to implement a successful change through developing readiness for change and reducing the employee cynicism regarding change.

Originality/value

The area of successful change implementation in the context of KM strategies was untapped, and is examined in this study.

Leveraging the Benefits of Fan Page

The popularity of Facebook has attracted attention from the small scale business in India and inspired a wide range of marketing activities aimed at utilizing this new platform i.e. brand fan page of Facebook. While using Facebook individuals like number of brands appearing on their news feed. The motivation for liking brands may be diverse for distinctive individuals. But whether liking a brand on fan page truly represents some emotional connection with the brand or not is still unexplored. This study aims to fill this gap by determining whether liking a brand on Facebook results into brand love or is it just a fad. Further, the paper attempts to find whether there exists a relationship between brand “liked” on the fan page and purchase intention, and if this in turn leads to positive word of mouth. A survey of Facebook users who engage with the brand of small scale companies by “liking” it was undertaken as part of the study. The five small scale companies were selected on the basis of their popularity on Facebook. Structural equation modeling was applied using the data collected from 311 survey respondents to arrive at relevant outcomes.