Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) plays an important part in our everyday life. When seeking information online through eWOM, our attitude towards specific information is inevitably affected by a wide range of factors and motives. Identifying and studying how motivations to seek eWOM affect our attitude towards said information may play a role to help us devise strategies to deal with new products, services and technologies as they are released in to the wild and get exposure to consumers. The aim of this research is to develop a model to study how certain specific motivations may affect the attitude individuals hold towards eWOM information. This paper develops a set of hypotheses to help evaluate how motivations affects the information seeker's attitude towards the information. Future empirical research will test the proposed hypotheses to advance our understanding of the role of motivations when seeking eWOM information.
This paper presents the case of a regional government and academia working together to realise High Performance Computing Wales, a shared supercomputing infrastructure. The initiative aimed to support economic development through creation of a distributed supercomputing capability, a skills development programme, and an initial programme of collaborative research and innovation.From the perspective of Smart Specialisation, the study examines whether the economic development ambitions were achieved, and adds to the limited literature reviewing this aspect of High Performance Computing Centres.Using principles of public sector investment guidelines, the study presents for Smart Specialisation theory that such facilities can provide a general purpose technology. Further, from the perspective of practitioners, it highlights important steps in the appraisal, monitoring and evaluation of such initiatives.
The education sector is crucial to any nation committed to building future human capital. The Higher Education sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is at the centre of transforming the nation's future in a radical move to end oil-dependency. But this is only possible if universities make a decisive change and start working as learning organisations in all employee's levels. The present study investigates the direction of higher education in becoming learning organisations. We collected data from 840 staff members in 20 public Saudi universities. We designed a questionnaire exploring the seven dimensions of learning organisation found in the literature. Regression analyses were used to assess the impact of those dimensions on the organisational performance. Results showed that universities that adhered most to the learning organisation principles demonstrated a better organisational performance, particularly concerning research and knowledge performance. We recommend that universities should (1) use change agents to help transform effectively and meet rising demands and (2), promote continuous learning for all employees to increase productivity.
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