Purpose – As one rewinds the clock to the early days of the twenty‐first century, it can be quite surprising to realise how much the consumer landscape has changed from what it is today. This paper aims to introduce the special issue and attempts to take stock of the last decade and reflect...

Purpose – This study aims to understand how social network online communities affect information seeking behavior and decision making for apparel shopping. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical study was conducted using a developed research model that hypothesized the effects of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of customer relationship management (CRM) at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP). Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative interaction research methodology using case studies was used to conduct the research on the application of CRM at...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to emerging theory about the role of authenticity in social media use through discussion of a not‐for‐profit organisation's experiences of using social networking to communicate with potential stakeholders during a recruitment campaign ....

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore the role of the blogosphere in framing Alitalia's performance during its 2008 crisis. Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis was chosen as research method to investigate bloggers' perceptions of Alitalia's crisis. Five major Italian blogs...

Purpose – As developed countries experience a decline of manufacturing industries, national governments increasingly turn to innovation‐based cluster initiatives to secure the long‐term prosperity of a region. However, the mechanisms that help translate cluster membership into higher...

Purpose – This paper aims to look at what CRM 2.0 is and how it impacts customer insights. It will show how CRM 2.0's incorporation of social tools and strategies with traditional operational functions meets the demands of twenty‐first century “social” customers....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to speak of the importance of connecting people in the workplace. It describes the types of connections that foster employee development and engagement, and proposes methods and tools that help strengthen these connections. Design/methodology/approach –...

Purpose – The “digital divide” between the “haves” and the “have nots” in the developed world is now less about access to the web than it is about understanding how to actively participate in the networked society. The paper shows how people with the skills, time and confidence to...

Purpose – The paper's aim is to establish how world class manufacturing (WCM) was diffused to some small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises in the NW of England and the network of institutions involved ranging from the state to firms, and to iterate the results with Miller and O'Leary's work on...