The Web 2.0 philosophy has brought new ways of using the web as a content repository and a sharing platform. Non-computer skilled people can now publish their own text, images, videos and/or sounds and take part in communities created around topics they like. It has also brought an opportunity...

Purpose - Focusing the attention on firm-hosted online consumers communities, this paper will analyze the managerial challenges that companies have to face to leverage consumers’ creative talent involving them in innovative collaboration processes. Methodology approach - A detailed case...

Recent Internet technologies and web-based applications, such as social software, are being increasingly applied in firms. Social software can be employed for knowledge management and for external communication enabling access to internal and external knowledge. Knowledge in turn constitutes one...

In recent years many companies have started integrating their customers into product and service development processes. This phenomenon is known as Open Innovation (OI). In OI research, especially the integration of customers into the early stages of product or service innovation has caught a...

User generated content published via weblogs (also known as blogs) has gained importance in the last years, and the number of globally available weblogs increases. However, a large fraction of these show low publishing activity and are rarely read. This paper is a quantitative analysis of...

The breakneck pace of digital technologies has created a dramatic shift in marketing campaigns to engage users through unique and innovative experiences. Focusing on the same grounds, this study relates the market engagement with users’ loyalty (UL) for Facebook social media. Market engagement...

Online communities provide a social sphere for people to share information and knowledge. While information sharing is becoming a ubiquitous online phenomenon, how to ensure information quality or induce quality content, however, remains a challenge due to the anonymity of commentators. This...

This paper documents what economists have learned about UGC and social media. A growing body of evidence suggests that UGC on platforms ranging from Yelp to Facebook has a large causal impact on economic and social outcomes ranging from restaurant decisions to voting behavior. These findings...