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Financial measures, available aplenty, of returns on investments in information technology (IT) are deemed insufficient in terms of inclusion of intangible benefits. The purpose of this paper is to re-conceptualize the IT business value (ITBV) benefits by Gregor et al. (2006) after a contemporary evaluation.

IT experts have been administered the instrument to provide insight into the contemporary cogitation of ITBV benefits and factor analyses are employed to re-conceptualize the ITBV benefits.

Of the four ITBV benefits, the statistical analysis suggests that Informational and Transactional benefits need to be re-conceptualized. It is affected through a systematic linking of parameters – business strategy, objectives, information systems (IS) strategy, IS role and IS-business alignment profiles in that order.

Operational definitions of re-conceptualized ITBV benefits have been presented which may be operationalized into components.

The re-conceptualization provides managers with an enhanced understanding of ITBV in line with the alignment of IS with business objectives and strategy and guides managers to develop customized ITBV measures.

The study employs factor analyses to analyse the ITBV benefits. It proves that the changing face of IT, wherein it is looked at as a value creator, needs an all-encompassing and contemporary envisioning of ITBV benefits. It also suggests an advanced typology based on further insightful IS literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how small and medium‐sized travel agencies as business customers perceive the benefits and barriers of Internet use that related to the development of a positive relationships and loyalty with their service suppliers.

Relevant hypotheses were constructed and a self‐administered questionnaire survey was conducted in the travel industry. Factor analysis and regression analysis were used to test these hypotheses.

The major benefits of Internet use were interactional and transactional benefits. The main barriers of the Internet use were organizational weaknesses, poor IT infrastructure, mistrust of the Internet system and legal issues. While the benefits positively contributed to the service and social bonds, the barriers negatively impacted the development of these bonds. The interactional benefits play a major role to increase switching costs. The customer relationships and switching costs concurrently enhanced the customer loyalty.

Cross‐sectional data were used to explore customer relationships while these bonds are basically a dynamic phenomenon that evolves over time. The travel industry in one country was examined in this study. This limits generalization to other contexts.

Guidelines for practical solutions to reduce the barriers to create business customer value and strengthen customer relationships and loyalty through the Internet were proposed.

This paper improves the understanding of the impact of benefits and barriers of the Internet use on customer relationships and loyalty in the travel industry.

This study aims to expand the emerging body of literature on employer branding from the current employee perspective. It proposes that effective integrated communication helps an organization fulfill its employer value proposition or employment value proposition (EVP). A firm that fulfills its brand promise in terms of EVP will derive employee-based brand equity (EBBE) benefits. Integrated communication is effective when employees experience coordination and consistency in brand communication. This influences their perception of psychological contract fulfillment (in terms of EVP attributes), which results in positive employee behavior in the form of EBBE benefits.

The study draws insights from the signaling theory and psychological contract literature which is based on the social exchange theory. The literature on integrated communication, employer branding and internal branding was reviewed to propose the relationships between the variables of interest. Data was collected using a questionnaire survey on 520 employees from the information technology (IT)-business process management industry in India, which is a customer-oriented industry known for its exemplary employer practices.

The findings suggest that integrated communication effectiveness impacts the perceived fulfillment of EVP attributes and EBBE. Again, the fulfillment of the relational value dimension of EVP attributes partially mediates the relationship between integrated communication effectiveness and EBBE.

This study is one of the first to explore employees’ perception of integrated communication effectiveness and fulfillment in terms of EVP attributes as antecedents to EBBE.

An increased understanding of the capabilities needed for HR Analytics and how to build synergies from these capabilities is of practical and academic importance. Using the lens of Systems Theory, an explorative case study is performed in a multinational food distribution company that is building its HR Analytics Capabilities. In this study, the synergistic enablers and mechanisms have been examined in practice for the domain of HR Analytics and the BA Capabilities involved (clustered into Technology, Governance, Analytic Practices and Processes, People and Culture). Examples of (in)compatibilities, integration efforts, mechanisms and synergistic outcomes are given from the case organization. This study provides insights on how in practice the interaction between BA Capabilities can lead to synergistic relationships and synergistic outcomes and through what mechanisms and enablers this is being facilitated. The study contributes to HR Analytics and IS literature in terms of the use of synergistic enablers and mechanisms in practice.

The potential of information and communication technology (ICT) in improving knowledge work productivity is well‐documented in the existing literature. However, prior research fails to provide means for analyzing whether the potential can be realized in a specific organizational context. Thus, this paper aims to focus on the context‐specific analysis of the impacts of ICT services on knowledge work.

This paper uses a literature review and a case study conducted in a medium‐sized European teleoperator company. The case study examines the measurement process for capturing the knowledge work productivity impacts produced by a new ICT service used by the company.

ICT can be used to eliminate non‐value‐adding tasks or to make them more efficient. ICT can also improve employee welfare, for example, through transforming the content of work by deleting unimportant activities. The empirical study showed that, contrary to the view presented in the prior literature, it does not seem that difficult to measure the impacts of ICT on knowledge work productivity. A key point in the measurement is identification of case‐specific impact factors by examining the characteristics of the ICT service and the organisational setting.

The results of the paper will be useful for managers studying the impacts of ICT investments in their organizations.

This paper contributes to the prior literature on ICT and knowledge work productivity by explaining how the impacts of ICT can be analysed in a given empirical context. The specific novelty value of the study lies in the new knowledge concerning the identification of the impact factors.

The purpose of this paper was to explore the role knowledge sharing plays in both firm-sponsored (FS) and user-generated (UG) Online Brand Communities (OBCs) on Facebook. Branding through online mediums is an under-researched area that is slowly gaining attention in the literature. In some ways, action has come first as theory struggles to catch up with technological advances. Given that social sharing behaviours (i.e. online social networking) are arguably driving the strategic direction of marketers, it is important to understand the discourse that is being communicated. One such avenue is through participation in an OBC. While it is apparent that research is growing in the OBC area, there are still areas of interest that have gained little attention.

Data were collected using netnography, an appropriate yet under-applied methodological technique used to investigate the consumer behaviour of cultures and communities present on the Internet. Specifically, Facebook Pages relating to five OBCs based on the cruise-liner P & O Australia have been chosen for this case study.

Results indicate that in both the FS and UG OBCs, knowledge-sharing was seen to have an important influence on pre-purchase decision-making. It also acted as a mechanism for trust building and sharing brand experiences and as an important encouragement to developing a sense of community among community members. A particularly interesting outcome of this research was the way in which consumers have taken on an active role in co-creating brand identity, which seemingly illuminates the role of brand management in social media.

Given that this research was conducted with a real brand, with real customers, in a real OBC, the findings also point to some important practical applications. This study has found that the role of brands in their online forums is paramount, and as such, highlights the importance of effective brand governance. The rise of technology brings increased opportunities for a brand to reach out to their consumers. This study makes a further contribution by providing insights into how the consumer–brand relationship is shaped by the communication that occurs between consumers. To this end, consumers see it as the brand’s responsibility to monitor such online platforms, thus indicating the management of OBCs needs to be at the forefront of brand management practices.

This study represents one of the earliest investigations of brand communities facilitated by social media, specifically focusing on Facebook as the communication platform. Importantly, this study increases our knowledge of consumer interaction in social media, with an emphasis towards the role that knowledge sharing contributes to OBCs and the differences prevalent between FS and UG online communities.

This study examines how customer loyalty among DiDi users in China is affected by two types of online social interaction (transactional and interpersonal) and how the online interaction–customer loyalty relationship is mediated by three kinds of perceived benefits (functional, social-hedonic and safety).

This study empirically examines research hypotheses based on a questionnaire survey of 428 DiDi consumers.

The results reveal that transactional interactions significantly enhance customer loyalty among DiDi users via the partial mediating effects of customers' perceived functional, social-hedonic and safety benefits. By contrast, interpersonal interactions do not directly influence customer loyalty, and only social-hedonic benefits fully mediate the positive influence of interpersonal interactions on loyalty.

This study contributes to the theoretical development of interactive marketing management by examining how two types of online social interactions contribute to customer loyalty on sharing economy platforms by influencing the perception of benefits. It also provides useful managerial insights to help ride-sharing platforms design online social interaction functions that improve customer perceptions and loyalty.

This study aims to investigate the psychological mediating mechanisms through which omnichannel integration affects customer word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviors in omnichannel retailing.

Guided by prior omnichannel retailing studies, the authors identify taxonomy of customer WOM behaviors with three archetypes, namely, face-to-face WOM, online store WOM, and social media WOM. Then, the authors draw on social exchange theory (SET) to explain how omnichannel integration influences customer WOM behaviors through the mediating roles of perceived personal preference fit and perceived social relatedness. The authors empirically tested the model using structural equation modeling and multiple mediation analysis with a field survey of 335 omnichannel customers.

Perceived personal preference fit positively influences face-to-face WOM and social media WOM, whereas perceived social relatedness is positively associated with face-to-face WOM, online store WOM, and social media WOM. Furthermore, transactional integration and relational integration positively affect perceived personal preference fit, whereas relational integration has a positive effect on perceived social relatedness. Finally, perceived personal preference fit mediates the effects of transactional integration and relational integration on face-to-face WOM and social media WOM. Perceived social relatedness mediates the effects of relational integration on face-to-face WOM, online store WOM, and social media WOM.

The authors' study advances the omnichannel retailing literature by proposing a taxonomy of customer WOM behaviors in omnichannel retailing and identifying the mediating mechanisms through which omnichannel integration influences customer WOM behaviors.