THE ROLE OF FACEBOOK IN MARKETING: CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND EMPIRICAL TEST

The purpose of this research was to identify the relationships between ‘Facebook’ brand page users’ motivations, engagement behaviors and future behavioral intentions. For this purpose, a model of Facebook brand fan page user motivations, engagement and behavioral intentions was proposed. The model was tested via an online survey distributed to Facebook users in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A total of 504 usable surveys were considered for the data analysis. Following the exploratory factor analysis tests, four main motivational factors emerged; information, personal identity, leisure and social interaction. Then, the relationships between these four motivational factors and customer engagement and behavioral intentions were tested in a structural model. Model tests revealed that Facebook brand fan page users were most motivated by information needs in regards to stronger engagement with the fan pages and more positive intentions to buy products through these fan pages. Personal identity needs were also important reasons for customer engagement with brand fan pages on Facebook. Based on these results, practical recommendations were given to marketers and brand fan page administrators

EUROPEAN OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE – EFFECTIVE OR NOT? - Human development outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa with women’s empowerment as a conditioning effect

Aid effectiveness is one of the keys to achieving development and approaching sustainable development goals. Considering the limited field of research on the overall development outcomes of aid, this study examines the association between European Official Development Assistance (ODA) and human development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, in line with the importance of conditions for development, this study also seeks to investigate if the association between ODA and human development is contingent on the level of women's political empowerment. The empirical evidence on aid effectiveness is mixed, yet most research shows negative results. Many components affect aid effectiveness; therefore, it is a complex subject to study. Research on aid effectiveness is mainly restricted to outcomes in economic development, and studies that consider context often focus on, for example, democracy and corruption. Thereby, this study attempts to measure aid effectiveness, focusing on human development outcomes. Furthermore, this study highlights the importance of context and includes women's political empowerment as a conditional effect. This will be accomplished by utilizing a quantitative method with cross-sectional time-series analysis, including data from 2000 to 2020 retrieved from the Quality of Government and OECD. This study shows that there is a negative association between ODA and human development. Additionally, the results show that the association between European ODA and human development, conditional on women's political empowerment, is negative. However, this study implies a shift towards human development as a proxy for development and exploration of the relatively new interaction term on aid and women's political empowerment

Supporting Decision Makers with Knowledge Management Systems

This study compared the effectiveness of two knowledge management system designs in supporting individual decision makers in a predictive judgement task. The black-box versus white-box system design was varied to allow for automating versus informating support in cue weighting and combination stages of the judgement process. The main findings indicate that only the white-box system design was effective in improving decision makers’ performance through enhancing their knowledge and debiasing their judgement strategies. However, the study reveals room for further improvement and provides directions for future research

Credit bureaus between risk-management, creditworthiness assessment and prudential supervision

"This text may be downloaded for personal research purposes only. Any additional reproduction for other purposes, whether in hard copy or electronically, requires the consent of the author. If cited or quoted, reference should be made to the full name of the author, the title, the working paper or other series, the year, and the publisher."This paper discusses the role and operations of consumer Credit Bureaus in the European Union in the context of the economic theories, policies and law within which they work. Across Europe there is no common practice of sharing the credit data of consumers which can be used for several purposes. Mostly, they are used by the lending industry as a practice of creditworthiness assessment or as a risk-management tool to underwrite borrowing decisions or price risk. However, the type, breath, and depth of information differ greatly from country to country. In some Member States, consumer data are part of a broader information centralisation system for the prudential supervision of banks and the financial system as a whole. Despite EU rules on credit to consumers for the creation of the internal market, the underlying consumer data infrastructure remains fragmented at national level, failing to achieve univocal, common, or defined policy objectives under a harmonised legal framework. Likewise, the establishment of the Banking Union and the prudential supervision of the Euro area demand standardisation and convergence of the data used to measure debt levels, arrears, and delinquencies. The many functions and usages of credit data suggest that the policy goals to be achieved should inform the legal and institutional framework of Credit Bureaus, as well as the design and use of the databases. This is also because fundamental rights and consumer protection concerns arise from the sharing of credit data and their expanding use

Towards Understanding KM Practices in the Academic Environment: The Shoemaker`s Paradox

One area of omission in knowledge intensive studies is within higher education/research where there is the virtuous circle of teaching, research and consulting professional work. Using a model adapted from Handzic (2001) and a survey modified from Arthur Andersen (1998) the perceived importance and perceived implementation to faculty members is explored. The discrepancy between results of the two forced the researchers to confront their own biases. Guidance was sought from ethnographic accounts which allowed allows the researcher to state personal feelings in a confessional accompaniment to the formal findings

The KM Times They Are A-Changin’

This paper traces the changes in the development of the field of knowledge management (KM) over time, through a review of the representative literature and the author’s own research. The paper starts by going back to the origins of KM and reflects on three significant evolutionary stages termed fragmentation, integration and fusion. Following these reflections on the KM past, the paper speculates on the possible KM future. It identifies three emerging trends named extension, specialization and reconceptualization that point to several possible KM futures. The first two involve decentralisation and regeneration of prior KM interpretations, while the third trend signals a revolutionary next KM generation. Irrespective of the direction it may take, the evidence presented in this paper suggests that KM has a future, although it may not be without challenges

The KM Times They Are A-Changin’

This paper traces the changes in the development of the field of knowledge management (KM) over time, through a review of the representative literature and the author’s own research. The paper starts by going back to the origins of KM and reflects on three significant evolutionary stages termed fragmentation, integration and fusion. Following these reflections on the KM past, the paper speculates on the possible KM future. It identifies three emerging trends named extension, specialization and reconceptualization that point to several possible KM futures. The first two involve decentralisation and regeneration of prior KM interpretations, while the third trend signals a revolutionary next KM generation. Irrespective of the direction it may take, the evidence presented in this paper suggests that KM has a future, although it may not be without challenges