Narrow Results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections between social media and quality management. Although the development of social media and web 2.0 has had a substantial impact on many management disciplines, the connections to quality management remain largely unexplored. The research question is: How do the advances in social media affect the theory and practice of quality management in industry and organisations? This paper is conceptual and is built on a review of research on social media marketing and management as well as quality management, and a conceptual analysis. Connections between quality management and social media marketing and management are identified and a framework is constructed. The research limitation is that this paper is conceptual and does not present any new empirical data. The implication is that it suggests a new framework for handling quality management and social media marketing and management built on previous research that will be useful for further studies. The framework developed in this paper will be useful for practitioners of quality management and/or social media marketing and management in clarifying the connections and implications of previous research. Although social media profoundly influence organisations and individuals alike, the amount of research on the connection of social media to quality management has hitherto been scant.

We investigate how citizens engage in storytelling on social media. We look at how citizens’ stories about a city’s industrial past are brought forward in a Facebook group. Institutional storytelling neglects parts of the city’s industrial area. We track how users establish a co-created counternarrative by means of sharing fragmented memories (posts) and how this narrative rests in parallel to the institutionalized narrative. Employing a case study approach, we applied a variety of qualitative methods, such as qualitative interviews and participant observation, as a means to investigate social media as a digital space for keeping memories alive. Consequently, we conducted a thematic narrative analysis of the data. Citizens use social media to tell their stories and share memories, and they value the opportunity to do so as provided by the Internet: First, users reminisce experiences connected to blue-collar work and the industrial past. Second, users acknowledge the benefits of post-industrial changes (e.g., less pollution) without devaluating the nostalgia. Third, users wish for the industrial past being included in institutional storytelling. Finally, the Facebook group is a space to vent about perceived conflicts of identity, here the elite, as included in the institutionalized narrative, and the working class, as glossed over. Our study provided theoretical insights on the notion of counternarratives, which get collected coherently when shared in a virtual space. These web-mediated narratives run parallel to institutionalized master narratives. In practice, governing bodies might benefit from these insights into class consciousness and storytelling and include citizens’ narratives in strategic communication.

In this paper, the potential uses of Web 2.0 technologies for the improvement of communication with library clients are examined. Wikis, blogs, RSS, mash-ups and other Web 2.0 tools and services can assist librarians in their efforts to present information online and better connect with their clients, especially the younger generations of Internet users. In three different studies we investigated (1) the familiarity of informatics students with Web 2.0 tools, (2) the computer literacy and Internet use by librarians in higher-education institutions, as well as their assessment of the potential uses of various Web 2.0 tools for interaction with the clients of their library, and (3) the use of Web 2.0 tools on the websites of public libraries in Croatia.

This paper summarizes the methodology and conclusions used on a master thesis that had the research aim of exploring how Web 2.0 and social networks are having an effect on users' information behavior. The method used for the collection of data was a semi structured interview, containing questions constructed according to the issues of Web 2.0 and social networks identified on the literature, along with typical features or characteristics of social networks. Purposive sampling was used to select the interview participants. The method for analyzing data was discourse analysis and a framework of categories was created to present the data in a certain order. This study identified various trends and tendencies in users' information behavior and some future directions for research were proposed. Findings of this type of study provide insights to users' information behavior in information systems, they could contribute to a better understanding of the users and to the design of such systems; this is relevant when it is necessary to build information systems from the point of view of users needs and behaviors, that is, by taking a bottom-up approach.

In order to more fully understand the cultural shifts in technology within and between generations, a sample survey of several public libraries in a rural university community will be analyzed. The following subjects will be addressed and compared on a generational level within this poster presentation: programming, technology—types and usage, and frequency and purpose of visits. A thorough analysis of the data in this case study will provide insight into the changing role of technology use among two distinct generations of library patrons.