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Recent technological advances have led to the growing popularity of traffic-related social media platforms which facilitate drivers to easily share, consume and exchange traffic information instead of the traditional ways using TV or radio. By integrating the information systems success model, social capital theory and dedication-based commitment mechanism, the purpose of this paper is to examine the varying degree of effectiveness in maintaining user’s continuance intention between two different social media platforms for traffic information.

The data were collected through online questionnaires from two platforms. One is a multi-channel traffic information community that has been specialized in traffic information for many years and has adopted several kinds of social media to engage with its audience. The other is a community-based traffic application created to help people exchange and contribute traffic information with real-time navigation.

The findings show that the effects of satisfaction and affective commitment on continuance intention are stronger in the community-based traffic application while their antecedents play different roles in shaping satisfaction and affective commitment due to the nature and characteristics of these two groups.

This study will be the first attempt to understand what matters to users and what can retain users to routinely use a specific traffic-related social media platform in their daily lives. This is also one of the first empirical studies that examine both transactional and relational points of view on users’ continuance intention.

The study aims to analyze the relationship between tourists' satisfaction and their sense of belonging in a specific cultural destination by also investigating the moderating role of their on-site involvement, both offline (on-site activities at the destination) and online (social media activities). A further objective lies in exploring the relationship between tourists' sense of belonging and their adoption of environmentally responsible behavior while at the destination. Finally, the paper attempts to determine whether said behavior can predict tourists' pro-environmental behavior and recommendation intention.

To reach these objectives, a survey and a structural equation model, based on a sample of 647 visitors of an important world Heritage site UNESCO (i.e. Urbino), have been adopted.

Findings reveal a positive influence of sense of belonging on satisfaction and environmentally responsible behavior, which, in turn, influences pro-environmental behavior and Recommendation intention, thus triggering a virtuous process in the tourists' formation as responsible and loyal travelers. Moreover, results underline how the relationship between satisfaction and sense of belonging is significantly strengthened when tourists' on-site activity involvement increases. Conversely, the moderating role of social media involvement is not supported.

The present study offers important implications for different actors in the tourism sector, such as policy makers, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and tourism operators.

The present study explores the role of social media involvement, specifically during the tourist's holiday.

This study enriches the empirical evidence in the cultural tourism through an analysis focused on the tourists' perspective, especially by investigating the relationship between satisfaction and emotional constructs (i.e. sense of belonging) that are able to bring environmental and loyalty benefits to the destination. Moreover, although existing research has highlighted the positive influence of the tourists' involvement on their experience, there is a paucity of studies jointly analyzing the on-site and online activities in the sustainability field.

Social networking sites (SNS) follow the same diffusion pattern and are subject to the same phenomena as other technologies (e.g. QWERTY keyboard, Microsoft Office and VHS) that were subject to increasing returns. Since they may lock-in users, increasing returns significantly alter the way a technology is used and should be managed. The purpose of this paper is thus to verify if SNS are subject to increasing returns and, if so, to better understand their impacts in this context.

A research model that combines path dependency theory (PDT) tenets with the push-pull-mooring (PPM) model of information technology (IT) switching was developed and tested with data collected from 416 SNS users via a field survey. Participants were voluntary students at a North American university enrolled in a compulsory undergraduate course in business administration. Partial least square analysis structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to validate our research model and test our hypotheses.

Results show that SNS are subject to three forms of increasing returns: those stemming from device complementarity, learning and adaptive expectations. In addition, the findings show that increasing returns stemming from SNS use have the potential to lock-in SNS users by increasing their switching costs.

SNS users should be careful when using an SNS since such use can create a path that is self-reinforced and that can lock them due to the increasing returns it yields. SNS vendors/providers need to learn how to manage increasing returns if they want to foster continued use of their SNS and/or poach users from their competitors. Lastly, SNS regulators should revise or put in place new governance mechanisms since increasing returns, when properly leveraged, may undermine fair competition by allowing companies to lock-in users and lock-out competitors.

This study contributes to IS research by: (1) empirically demonstrating that increasing returns are present in the context of SNS use, (2) identifying increasing returns as key antecedents of user switching costs, (3) validating a theoretical framework that allows for the appraisal of PDT tenets in a variance model and (4) instantiating PDT tenets at the individual level.

“What’s happening?” around you can be spread through the very pronounced social media to everybody. It provides a powerful platform that brings to light the latest news, trends and happenings around the world in “near instant” time. Microblog is a popular Web service that enables users to post small pieces of digital content, such as text, picture, video and link to external resource. The raw data from microblog prove indispensable in extracting information from it, offering a way to single out the physical events and popular topics prevalent in social media. This study aims to present and review the varied methods carried out for event detection from microblogs. An event is an activity or action with a clear finite duration in which the target entity plays a key role. Event detection helps in the timely understanding of people’s opinion and actual condition of the detected events.

This paper presents a study of various approaches adopted for event detection from microblogs. The approaches are reviewed according to the techniques used, applications and the element detected (event or topic).

Various ideas explored, important observations inferred, corresponding outcomes and assessment of results from those approaches are discussed.

The approaches and techniques for event detection are studied in two categories: first, based on the kind of event being detected (physical occurrence or emerging/popular topic) and second, within each category, the approaches further categorized into supervised- and unsupervised-based techniques.

The past decade has witnessed a growing interest in vehicular networking and its myriad applications. The initial view of practitioners and researchers was that radio‐equipped vehicles can keep the drivers informed about potential safety risks and can enhance their awareness of road conditions and traffic‐related events. This conceptual paper seeks to put forth a novel vision, namely that advances in vehicular networks, embedded devices, and cloud computing can be used to set up what are known as vehicular clouds (VCs).

The paper suggests that VCs are technologically feasible and that they are likely to have a significant societal impact.

The paper argues that at least in some of its manifestations, the ideas behind VCs are eminently implementable under present day technology. It is also expected that, once adopted and championed by municipalities and third‐party infrastructure providers, VCs will redefine the way in which pervasive computing and its myriad applications is thought of.

This is a new concept for which a small‐scale prototype is being built. No large‐scale prototype exists at the moment.

VCs are a novel concept motivated by the realization of the fact that, most of the time, the tremendous amount of computing and communication resources available in vehicles is underutilized. Putting these resources to work in a meaningful way should have a significant societal impact.

The main goal of this paper is to introduce and promote the concept of VCs, a non‐trivial extension, along several dimensions, of the by‐now “classic” cloud computing. The paper shows that the concept of VCs is feasible as of today – at least in some of its manifestations – and that it can have a significant societal impact in the years to come.

The idea of a VC is novel and so are the potential applications that are discussed in the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate specific marketing mix activities and influencing factors in hotels coping with falling room demand derived from drug cartel-related risk and insecurity.

A case study research was carried out using semistructured interviews with key informants (hotel managers) in two neighboring destinations at the US–Mexico border, an area where criminal organizations' drug trafficking-related violence has impacted the hospitality industry.

The research identifies factors that are internal (market segment diversification, type of ownership, magnitude of investments) and external (tourism promotion organizations, media coverage, tourist flow volume) to the firms as they affect their marketing mix implementation.

The research developed a framework to better understand the use of marketing mix practices and influencing factors in criminal insecurity contexts, which could be further studied in other risk and conflict scenarios.

The pricing and communication tactics are employed more intensively, while product-service and distribution channel actions are used to a lesser extent. Greater emphasis should be placed on product-service, distribution and market segment diversification.

Considering the positive impacts that tourism and hospitality businesses have on local communities, it is recommended that the hotel sector works together with government and industry associations to improve the safety and security at tourism destinations.

The research extends the extant knowledge in hospitality crisis management by investigating the full marketing mix tactics in hotels at destinations stricken by cartel-related organized crime, an understudied context in the literature.

Social media.

Under graduate/Easy.

The case study presents a discussion on how the Delhi Traffic Police has used social media, Facebook in particular, to collaborate with the commuters on Delhi road to improve its traffic management. This case study can be as an example to illustrate the use of social media by a government department, to address operational and resources limitations. The case traces the start and evolution of the Delhi Traffic Police’s journey on the social media as the department responds to the inputs from the commuters on its Facebook page.

The case study is an illustration of a non-traditional application of a new technology by a non-business organization, the challenges it faces in its adoption and the solutions it provides.

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CSS 8: Marketing

A safe environment is critical for adolescents’ well-being. The purpose of this photovoice study is to explore reasons that make adolescents feel safe in their community.

This study was conducted in Florida through both online and in-person recruitment. After a training session on the ethical and technical use of cameras and a brief introduction of the photovoice methodology, six adolescents took photos (n = 66) in their community and discussed their photos guided by the revised SHOWeD framework. Abridged transcripts were used to match photos with corresponding discussions. Thematic analysis was conducted by the research team.

This study identified four main themes related to adolescents’ safe perceptions, including community protective factors (n = 22 photos) such as safe physical environments and community cohesion; family protective factors (n = 14 photos) including safe home and caring parents; traffic safety (n = 14 photos), such as proper road signs, seat belts for car safety and helmets and locks for bicycle safety; and public safety (n = 8 photos), such as emergency numbers, fire departments and police cars and officers.

Due to the limited number of participants, this study did not compare the similarities and differences of safety perceptions between adolescents living in high crime areas (urban communities) and those in low crime areas (suburban and rural communities). Future photovoice studies are recommended to further explore the influential factors associated with adolescents’ perceived community safety in urban and rural areas with different levels of crime rates to provide more evidence on targeted strategies for community safety promotion in each area.

By exploring the reasons for adolescents’ safe feelings in their community using photovoice, this study provides insights for future intervention programs to promote community safety for children and adolescents from the community, family, traffic and societal perspectives.

This photovoice study not only empowers adolescents to identify community assets related to their safe perceptions but also illustrates valuable insights for researchers and public health professionals for safety promotion.

This study has used a broad research question to explore the reasons that make adolescents feel safe, providing them the opportunities to express their opinions by photo taking and photo discussions. Moreover, rich information at the community, family and societal levels has been collected as related to factors contributing to adolescents’ safe perceptions, adding to the literature on community safety. In addition, this photovoice study has offered both in-person and online participation. Such combination not only provides adolescents with an opportunity to choose a participation method that works best for them but also adds to the photovoice methodology by extending the data collection from in-person to online.