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Convivo is a VoIP system designed to provide reliable voice communication for poor quality networks, especially those found in rural areas of the developing world. Convivo introduces an original approach to maintain voice communication interaction in the presence of poor network performance: an Interface‐ Adaptation mechanism that adjusts the user interface to reduce the impact of high latency and low bandwidth networks. Interface modes facilitate turn taking for high latency connections, and help to sustain voice communication even with extremely low bandwidth or high error rates. An evaluation of the system, conducted in a rural community in the Dominican Republic, found that Interface‐Adaptation helped users to maintain voice communication interaction as network performance degrades. Transitions from full duplex to voice messaging were found particularly valuable. Initial results suggest that as users get more experience with the application they would like to manually control transitions based on feedback provided by the application and their own perceived voice quality.

Social network sites are becoming more visual-centric. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of visual social network sites as a marketing platform.

This paper comprises two experiments. The first experiment sought to examine the effect of social influence; while the second experiment examined the effect of image quality on the perception of quality and purchase intention.

The first experiment showed that social influence did not affect perceived quality or purchase intention. In the second experiment, a one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) adjusting for sport involvement showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups. Respondents in the experimental group reported higher levels of perceived quality (adjusted M=3.68) and purchase intention (adjusted M=3.23) when compared to the control group’s perceived quality (adjusted M=3.12) and purchase intention (adjusted M=2.17).

One of the limitations of this study is that it only examined the effects through a single social network site, i.e. Instagram. As there are other visual-centric social network sites, such as Tumblr and Pinterest, which operate slightly different from Instagram, it remains to be established how such effects vary across these social network sites.

The results suggest that social influence on Instagram is limited and marketers should invest in images of high quality when marketing on visual social network sites.

While there are many studies examining the effectiveness of marketing on social network sites, these studies have primarily focussed on earlier social network sites, such as Facebook. Newer social network sites that are more visual-centric, such as Instagram, are different from earlier social network sites and studied to a lesser extent. This study adds insights on the marketing effectiveness of visual-centric social network sites and deepens the understanding on marketing in general on social media.

Web site recommendation systems help to get high quality information. The modelling of recommendation systems involves the combination of many features: metrics of quality, quality criteria, recommendation criteria, user profile, and specific domain concepts, among others. At the moment of the specification of a recommendation system it must be guaranteed a right interrelation of all of these features. The purpose of this paper is to model a web site quality‐based recommendation system by an ontology network.

In this paper, the authors propose an ontology network based process for web site recommendation modelling. The ontology network conceptualizes the different domains (web site domain, quality assurance domain, user context domain, recommendation criteria domain, specific domain) in a set of interrelated ontologies. Particularly, this approach is illustrated for the health domain.

Basically, this work introduces the semantic relationships that were used to construct this ontology network. Moreover, it shows the usefulness of this ontology network for the detection of possible inconsistencies when specifying recommendation criteria.

Recommendation systems based on ontologies that model the user profile and the domain of resources to be recommended are quite common. However, it is uncommon to find models that explicitly represent the criteria used by the recommender systems, that express the quality dimensions of resources and on which criteria are applied, and consider the user context at the moment of the query.

The ability to develop and manage effective networks is a crucial entrepreneurial competence, allowing entrepreneurs to share experiences, ideas and knowledge to improve business performance. Despite growing recognition of the value of networks and networking, there has been little comparative research performed to explore ways in which male and female entrepreneurs develop and utilise networks. This chapter considers the development and use of networks in technology-based sectors, seen as important for wealth and employment creation, where women represent an underutilised source of entrepreneurial potential. An enhanced understanding of the issues surrounding male and female venturing, particularly within this sector, could offer opportunities to identify how levels of both genders’ entrepreneurial engagement might be increased. Also, if, for example, research identified that men and/or women network in ways which could limit enterprise development, this is of importance at both the micro and wider macro-policy levels. A qualitative methodology is used to explore the nature and dynamics of male and female entrepreneurial networks. Discussion of the findings focuses on the aspects of network quality where it has the potential to impact upon its value to the entrepreneur and his/her business. Patterns identified in the networks developed by male and female entrepreneurs are explored, and implications for policy and practice are considered.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the causal relationship between service quality dimensions and overall service quality, and to identify service quality gaps as experienced by the subscribers of the mobile services of Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC).

The seven modified dimensions of SERVQUAL, namely tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, network aspect, and convenience were used to measure customers' perceptions and expectations of mobile telecommunications services by drawing a sample of 220 respondents using stratified random sampling.

Overall service quality of mobile communications was perceived to be as below average by over half (52.7 percent) of the respondents, followed by less than one‐third (28 percent) who mentioned it as average, and about one‐fifth (19.3 percent) as above average. The highest service quality gap was reported with the added dimension of network aspect, while the lowest score obtained was for convenience. Finally, two regression models predicting overall service quality with reliability and network aspect dimensions were obtained.

The scope (geographical) of the study is limited to the subscribers of mobile services of Addis Ababa (capital city of Ethiopia).

Data representing customer perceptions and expectations with mobile services in delivering quality have been used to identify (in terms of quality gaps) areas needing improvement. ETC should concentrate on providing superior reliability, particularly, accuracy and dependability in mobile services. An extended focus on the items of network aspect dimension (transmission quality and network coverage) is also helpful in improving customers' perceived quality of mobile services.

Since most quality features in the SERVQUAL scale are related with customer handling, this study incorporated, and investigated further, the added two dimensions of network aspect and service convenience for their contribution to overall service quality of mobile communications.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the effects of structural and bonding attachment on brand loyalty. The authors identified network quality, network coverage and mobile number portability (MNP) as structural elements of attachment that affect brand loyalty. Similarly, the authors identify brand trust and social interaction ties as elements of bonding-based attachment that affects brand loyalty.

The authors employed a survey as the research design. There were 500 respondents who were customers of telecommunication network brands in Ghana. Data collected were analyzed using the partial least square approach to structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on SmartPLS 3.

The findings indicate that structural and bonding-based attachments affect the brand loyalty. Specifically, the authors found that network coverage, network quality, brand trust and social interaction ties have positive effects on brand loyalty while MNP has a negative effect on brand loyalty.

This study conceptualizes attachment from both structural and bonding perspectives, which are rare in the marketing literature. Thus, this study advances the conceptualization of attachment in the marketing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how knowledge spillover and access in a supply chain network enhance the credit quality in supply chain finance (SCF) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Drawing on network theory and a knowledge-based view (KBV) of SCF, this paper proposes a theoretical model and tests it using survey data from a sample of 248 SMEs in China.

The main finding is that both strong ties and dense ties within a supply chain network have positive effects on SMEs’ credit quality, and these effects are mediated by knowledge spillover and knowledge access. Interestingly, knowledge spillover is found to have a positive effect on knowledge access.

This paper is the first to investigate the relationship between supply chain network and supply chain financing from a KBV. The proposed model captures the complexity in the interaction among different attributes of supply chain networks (i.e. strong ties and dense ties), different aspects of knowledge transfer (i.e. knowledge spillover and knowledge access) and SMEs’ credit quality in SCF. The results not only show the importance of SMEs’ supply chain networks to SMEs’ credit quality but also contribute to the understanding of the KBV in SCF.

This paper aims to explore participants’ perceived benefits and costs that influence the quantity and the quality of voluntary participation in knowledge networks in a resources-constrained economy.

A conceptual model of perceived benefits and costs of knowledge sharing is designed on the basis of literature. The influence of perceived benefit and cost on perceived quantity and quality of knowledge sharing are assessed on the basis of a survey with 283 participants in a business context within a resource-restrained economy.

The results indicate that reputation, reciprocity and altruism are perceived to benefit quantity of participation, whereas reciprocity, altruism and knowledge self-efficacy are perceived to benefit the quality of participation in knowledge networks. Effort and time have a negative impact on both quantity and quality of participation in knowledge sharing.

This study provides insights into the factors that influence acceptance and use of knowledge networks and can thus influence business policies.

This exploratory study explores both perceived benefits and costs of participation in knowledge sharing in a resource-constrained economy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze user behavior toward multi-screen services by employing neural networks to predict overall customer satisfaction and to prioritize the factors that influence customer intentions.

Multi-screen experiences require a new approach incorporating multiple methods. A proposed multi-state analytic approach in which the research model is tested using structural equation modeling was utilized. The results were then used as inputs for a neural network model to predict multi-screen adoption.

The findings indicate that multi-screen quality significantly influences usability, which subsequently affects the adoption of the technology.

The policy and managerial implications of multi-screen development are discussed based on the models of acceptance and diffusion.

The emergence of multi-screen services as well as the simultaneous and sequential engagement of users with multiple devices throughout the day challenges the ability of marketers to develop effective communication strategies.

This study provides an in-depth analysis and heuristic data regarding user drivers, market dynamics, and policy implications in the one-source multi-use ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the function and issues of intra‐ and inter‐regional cooperation of international higher education in Asia and consider the possibility of East Asian integration as regionalization.

The research consists of two steps. First, by comparing with examples of regional networks and universities’ cooperation programs, it breaks down the current situation of regional cooperation. Second, it analyses the structure of those networks and programs.

Both regional education networks and universities’ cooperation programs develop in multi‐layers and in different phases, and they have a function of distribution of Asian higher education as public goods for regionalization. There are still issues such as immigration control relating to the people's and programs’ mobility, program language, financial and personnel affairs, as well as adjustments to be made in accreditation assessment, credit compatibility and quality assurance including curriculum setting. Retaining the autonomy of countries and higher education agencies in international cooperation is also the major issue in promoting these programs. However, such international cooperation produces the new forms of international higher education for human resource development.

Not all networks and programs can be examined, but the trend and characteristics of the cooperation in higher education can be highlighted.

The findings give significance to the “Campus Asia” concept which is now in preparation for realization by the agreement at the summit of China, Japan and South Korea in October 2009.

While integration and regionalization in East Asia has been discussed previously from the political and economic aspects, this paper responds to the subject from the socio‐cultural aspect by focusing on international higher education in Asia.