Einen kohärenten Text zu produzieren, stellt für Schreibende im Schreibprozess eine zentrale Aufgabe dar, bei der sie inzwischen durch KI-Systeme wie ChatGPT entlastet werden können. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, worin diese Unterstützungsleistung besteht. Präsentiert werden die Ergebnisse einer Pilotstudie zur Frage nach der Kohärenzbildung in durch KI-Systeme generierten Texten am Beispiel der Textsorten Instruktion, Zusammenfassung, Rezension und Kommentar. Ausgehend von basalen Schreibaufträgen wurden generierte Texte im Hinblick darauf untersucht, inwiefern sie in der Lage sind, Textkohärenzpfade und textgrammatische Standardmuster anzulegen bzw. umzusetzen, und durch welche Kohäsionsmarker sie sprachlich ausgestaltet werden. Dabei wird reflektiert, worin die spezifische Unterstützungsleistung digitaler Werkzeuge in Planungs-, Formulierungs- und Überarbeitungsprozessen besteht und wie in diesem Zusammenhang auch die unterschiedlichen Rollen Schreibender im komplexen Schreibprozess diskutiert werden können.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
ABSTRACT Purpose The United Kingdom’s European Union membership referendum, which marked the end of UK membership in the European Union, created much uncertainty amongst those British and European business practitioners who were accustomed to conducting trade with partners across The North Sea. This exogenous threat to business was subsequently compounded by another serious threat: the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowing that business-to-business (B2B) relationships are particularly important for the success of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and that exogenous threats in the business environment can threaten these relationships, the purpose of this study is to examine whether frequent contact and social exchanges between partners on a range of topics, during threatening times, are positively linked to the relationship qualities of trust, satisfaction, and commitment. Methodology/approach Guided by an explorative, expert interview with a Danish SME owner-manager (OM) who has a great deal of experience conducting business with UK partners, a questionnaire was developed to examine two variables which seemingly play central roles with regard to supporting business relationships during threatening times: contact frequency (how often partners are in contact), and contact scope (how often B2B partners talk together about topics which are social in nature). The questionnaire was administered to 193 Danish SME owners and managers who had British business partners at the time of the BREXIT referendum and the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings The questionnaire revealed a positive relationship between contact frequency and relationship satisfaction and commitment, as well as a positive relationship between contact scope and relationship commitment. However, no significant relationships were found between contact frequency nor contact scope, on the one hand, and the level of trust between business partners on the other. Research implications This study has underscored the usefulness of studying social exchanges, and not just information exchanges, as they are an important, relationship-strengthening aspect of B2B communication. Indeed, while the central role played by informational exchanges in building quality relationships, including trusting relationships, is well-documented, this study increases our understanding of the value of social exchanges to business relationship quality; in particular, their noteworthy link to B2B partners’ willingness to go to great lengths to maintain relationships during challenging times. Practical implications Our findings indicate that simply being in contact with B2B partners and speaking about topics that are not directly related to business is not, on its own, a sufficient means of establishing trusting relationships; however, it is nonetheless worthwhile to take the time to nurture personal relationships with B2B partners. Just a modest amount of contact is positively related to relationship satisfaction, as well as relationship commitment, which can be crucial when unforeseen and threatening times inevitably arise in the business environment. Contribution of the paper Besides enhancing our understanding of the value of frequent and social exchanges in terms of relationship quality, this paper also illustrates a useful means of studying social aspects of business relationships, which are notoriously difficult to study. This is accomplished via a questionnaire study in which respondents are asked to concretely reflect upon and report on the frequency and nature of their contact with specific B2B partners.
Purpose This paper aims to focus on management-led intervention strategies aimed at achieving stable mental well-being among academic staff in higher education institutions (HEIs) by reviewing and synthesising existing literature on varying intervention strategies to managing workplace stress and improving mental health. Design/methodology/approach Twenty-two peer-reviewed articles were identified through databases (PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, Business source complete, Academic search complete) and the application of the PRISMA guideline. A quality check was carried out on the selected articles, and a data extraction table was developed to aid the discussion. Findings Although the awareness of mental health is a global issue, there was minimal research evidence in managing stress and mental health among academic staff in HEIs through increased university management involvement. Most HEIs were more focused on corporatisation and student satisfaction while unconsciously neglecting its impact on the well-being of academic staff even though universities’ management portray staff welfare as priority. Research limitations/implications There is limited information measuring the outcome of various management-led mental well-being strategies in HEIs. Further research applying more robust study design rather beyond self-reported questionnaires and similar study designs is needed in this area. Practical implications Establishing routine mental health assessment, effective communication, continuous promotion of existing and available support is imminent to improve the mental well-being of academic staff by HEIs management. Originality/value This is the first systematic review that describes and synthesises the various mental health triggers, including workplace stressors, that affect academic staff in higher education institutions (HEIs) and summarises various possible management intervention strategies.
Sebastián García Méndez, Juan Camilo Gutiérrez, Youseline Garavito Hernández
This article presents a review of the literature regarding knowledge management, considering its importance in organizations, particularly in the hotel tourism sector, because of the complexity of the environments of this industry. For this purpose, a theoretical foundation was made, then the types of knowledge are referenced, later the presentation of the models and processes, and finally what is related to the hotel activity. In the same way, a series of conclusions are raised, tending the development of investigations, likewise, the use of temporal planes is required, to promote methodological rigor. The findings of this work indicate that knowledge management has great importance in the current context, as it contributes to the generation of a sustainable competitive advantage
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
Here we report the results of a large RCT conducted at the pan-African level that wants to shed light on the impact of peer effects on innovation and entrepreneurship. The experiment involved around 5000 entrepreneurs (some established, other just aspiring) from 49 African countries. All of those entrepreneurs completed an online business course, while only the treated ones had the additional possibility of interacting with peers, within groups of sixty, and in one of three different setups: (a) face-to-face, (b) virtually "within" (where interaction was conducted through an Internet platform in groups of entrepreneurs of the same country), (c) virtually "across" (where the virtually connected groups displayed a balanced heterogeneity across countries). After two and a half months, all participants were asked to submit business proposals. The ones submitted were then evaluated in a two-stage procedure. First, they were graded by a panel of African professionals; subsequently, the pool of highest-graded proposals were again assessed and graded by senior investors, who selected some for possible funding. Two outcome variables follow from this evaluation exercise: the (optional) decision of whether to submit a proposal, and the grades (1 to 5) obtained by the proposals that were submitted. Next, we outline our main results concerning the effect of the treatment on the two aforementioned outcomes - submission and quality (measured in the intensive margin) - as well as the combination of both of them that we call, for short, extensive quality. (1) Virtual-within interaction has a positive and significant treatment effect on the three dimensions: submission, intensive quality, and extensive quality. Instead, when interaction is face-to-face (thus also “within") only submission and the extensive quality margin are affected (positively so). (2)Virtual-across interaction yields no significant effect on any of the former three dimensions. (3)When effective on quality (cf. (1)), the treatment operates by shifting up, on average the evaluation grade of business proposals from low levels (grades 1 or 2) to high ones (grades 4 or 5). (4) The baseline quality of entrepreneurs has a positive effect on performance. However, the average such quality of the peers in one's own group has a negative composition effect on intensive quality. In fact, a similarly negative effect is also induced by peers' average experience level. (5) As a robustness test, the core treatment effects described in (1)-(2) are confirmed to remain essentially unchanged under a full range of control (baseline) variables, while the composition effects identified in (4) are found to survive a standard placebo test. As a second step in the analysis, we construct a social network in each group by defining the weigh of a directed link between two entrepreneurs as the amount of information (overall size of messages) written by one of them for which there is evidence that the other has been exposed to, then writing a subsequent message. Then, on the basis of the network structure so defined, we estimate the induced peer effects and arrive at the following conclusions. (6) In large countries (the only ones for which a sufficient number homogeneous groups can be formed), virtual-within interaction leads to positive and significant peer effects on submission and extensive quality, but not intensive quality. Instead, when entrepreneurs of large countries are exposed to virtual-across interaction, no significant peer effects arise in any of the three outcomes. (7) In the set of small countries, where only virtual-across interaction is possible, there are positive and significant peer effects on both extensive and intensive quality but not on submission. (8)Composition effects on network peers are weak, largely captured by (outcome-based) peer effects. (9) Results (6)-(7) are structurally robust to redefining the network links in the following two ways: (a) they are limited to involve less than a maximum communication lag, suitably parametrized; (b) they are two-sided, their weight tailored to the flow information channeled in both directions. A combined consideration of (1)-(9) reveals an interesting contrast between treatment and peer effects. For example, in view of (1)-(3), we may conclude that whereas some group homogeneity - or face-to-face contact - bring about positive treatment effects, the group heterogeneity induced by virtual-across interaction fails to deliver significant such effects on all three dimensions. Instead, (6)-(7) indicate that network-based peer effects deliver an intriguingly different pattern. For, under virtual-within interaction, we find that entrepreneurs' peers exert a significantly positive influence on submission (and the extensive margin) but not so on quality per se (in the intensive margin, while a some what polar behavior arises in small countries who undergo virtual-across interaction. This suggests that whereas homogeneity leads to peer interaction that is rather independent of peer performance, heterogeneity has peer performance play an important role (both in positive or negative terms, depending on the quality of that performance). Overall, this induces an effect of the treatment that is significantly positive under homogeneity (virtual-within interaction for large countries) but not strong enough to be significant under full-fledged heterogeneity (virtual-across interaction for small countries). The aforementioned contrast between the nature and implications of the treatment effects stated in (1)-(4) and the network peer effects in (6)-(8) is interesting and deserves further investigation. A possible explanation for it might hinge upon the positive role that homogeneity/familiarity may play as a source of encouragement (and hence participation), as opposed to the negative impact it could have in reducing the novelty of ideas and/or highlighting the fear of competition (thus dis-incentivizing information sharing and thus a genuine effect induced by peer performance). To gain a good understanding of these issues, however, one needs the help of theory as well as a detailed investigation of how communication actually unfolds in our context. Both lines of work are part of our ongoing research. Here, we provide a preliminary account of the latter, which is included in the final part of the paper. Our approach to semantic analysis relies on the machine-learning tools developed by the modern field of Natural Language Processing (NLP). This methodology is applied to the vast flow of information exchanged by entrepreneurs (over 140,000 messages) in order to identify, first, what have been the modes/categories of peer communication more prevalent in our context, e.g. business focus, sentiment/encouragement, target audience, etc. Then we use this information to understand what are the different patterns of communication most prevalent in our context, as captured by a corresponding set of conditional and unconditional distributions that show and how communication is associated to: (a)endogenous variables such as behavior or performance; (b) exogenous variables, such as treatment type or individual baseline characteristics. The main conclusions obtained so far can be summarized as follows. Messages are quite polarized in either the business or sentiment dimension, showing an inverse dependence in the (strong) FOSD sense between the respective distributions. Applying the same comparison criterion, we also find that highly performing agents use more business-focused messages, which are not only neutral in sentiment but also targeted to specific peers (rather than being general messages). Interestingly, however, the treatment arm (virtual-within or -across) has no significant effect on the type of communication, while baseline quality and a measure of ”motivation" do have an effect analogous to that described before for performance. Finally, we also rely on the message categorization induced by the NLP analysis to construct semantically weighted networks on two specific features/categories: business relevance and sentiment. Quite remarkably, the corresponding peer effects are found to be unaffected by either of these “semantic projections" of the social network. This suggests that, even though entrepreneurs' messages focus heavily on business issues, their communication displays a feature that is often observed in ordinary (non-virtual) interaction: there is a balance between business focus and a comparable amount of sentiment-laden talk. Keywords: Social networks, peer effects, peer networks, entrepreneurship, semantic NLP analysis.
Cet article propose une réflexion sur les conditions de rapprochements possibles entre chercheurs et communicateurs. Ces acteurs n’obéissent pas aux mêmes attentes, toutefois des « ponts » peuvent être érigés, théoriques et pratiques, entre eux. C’est ce que nous voulons étudier au travers de la communication publique et plus particulièrement de l’association professionnelle du même nom. Avec l’investissement d’un chercheur dans cette association, l’enjeu est de déterminer en quoi la communication publique peut représenter un espace de légitimation en partage pour ces acteurs dissemblables.
Communication. Mass media, Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
The objective of this article is to categorize the elements of integrated marketing communication, according to the assessments given by university students from Villavicencio - Colombia and Coatzacoalcos - Mexico. This is a quantitative study, whose hypothesis was contrasted with a sample of 1591 individuals. The data were processed using SPSS version 18 software. Based on the general concept of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), the variables are studied: direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations, advertising and online marketing. In addition, a comparative study was conducted based on the variables gender, age and country of origin. The results indicate that only the country of origin variable presents differences in attitudes towards integrated marketing communication tools among young people in Villavicencio and Coatzacoalcos. On the contrary, it is determined that gender and age variables do not influence young consumers’ attitudes towards marketing communications. This work contributes to the advancement of research on consumer behavior, as well as generating some implications that favor decision-making in the commercial area
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
Many research strands have a focal interest in writing as an object. Still, many representatives of these strands are not aware of the others’ existence, let alone their common ground. This paper shall serve to unveil some of the overlaps between two of the afore-mentioned research strands–or rather disciplines: Writing Research and Specialized Communication Studies. The authors outline some of the most prominent aspects concerning the evolution, the paradigms, the principles of modelling and main research lines of the disciplines, respectively, and compare them with each other. While Writing Research has been an acknowledged discipline for decades, this does not apply for Specialized Communication Studies: with its roots in LSP Studies and Translation Studies, from which it has evolved slowly but steadily, it has meanwhile become an own sphere of research, situated within the wider scope of Applied Linguistics. Today, one can claim that there is indeed the need for one independent discipline dealing with specialized communication in all its manifestations. On the basis of the afore-mentioned contrasting juxtaposition, the authors discuss what the common ground of Writing Research and Specialized Communication Studies is, where the disciplines differ, which approaches–if so–combine the two disciplines and how they may benefit from each other.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
In a report about social media presented by the Arab Social Media Influencer Summit (2015) it was mentioned that 86% of young individuals between the ages of 25-35 are involved in almost every social media website there is. Jordan registered the highest usage within the Levant are of Facebook and WhatsApp with a high usage and involvement among young citizens. The current research study aims at examining the role that social media marketing played among individuals in Jordan; precisely females and how it increased their impulsive purchasing of items through a social media platform. Through the quantitative approach, and using the questionnaire as a tool, the researcher distributed the tool on total of (400) female individuals forming a convenient sample of the study. The results of the analysis indicated that social media marketing had an influence on impulsive purchasing behavior among shoppers noting to the variable of variety seeking which presented through the social media platforms. The research however recommends a deeper investigation of how the impulsive and instant purchasing behavior was influenced by social media and the social media touched the behavior of the customer into a different scheme. Corresponding author: Mohammad Fahmi Al-Zyoud Email addresses for corresponding author: dr.m.alzyoud@gmail.com First submission received: 14th February 2018 Revised submission received: 16th April 2018 Accepted: 3rd May 2018 Introduction In today’s marketing sphere the communication setting has been transformed by the social media. Social media has turned out to be an effective vehicle for conveying women's' rights issues to the consideration of a more extensive open, arousing activity in the city of urban areas around the globe and urging arrangement producers to venture up responsibilities regarding gender equality. It has been suggested that social media has considerably impacted marketing communication and created ties between consumers and marketers. This evolution has brought many novel opportunities and potentials within the trade and commerce and increased the accessibility of a variety of products and brands. This has impacted how consumers make purchasing decisions. Social networking marketing is one of these eminent and novel marketing innovations that has turned consumers from observers into participants. It has made it possible for consumers and brands to be connected without limitation of location, means of communication and time. It has facilitated two-way communication and changed the consumers’ attitude from submissive contributors into lively manipulators and originators. The online platform offers consumers convenience as well as a large portfolio of opportunities from which consumers can select and have access to full information. It also allows consumers to access online store without restrictions and compare products of vendors internationally. Traditional business is characterized by constrained product availability, constrained closing and opening times, as well as physical location constrains; this is not the case with online shops as they are available around the clock as long as a consumer has an Internet access. The online business also accrues benefits such as absence of delivery efforts, and less social pressure. As noted by Dawson and Kim (2009) consumers tend to prefer online shopping to offline shopping because online shopping is associated with convenience. According to Dawson and Kim (2009), this convenience motivates consumers to engage in impulse buying when making purchase decisions. This trend has Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 2 December 2018 www.jbrmr.com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 136 motivated researchers to give attention to online impulse buying (OIB) (Park, Kim, Funches, & Foxx, 2012). Some researchers (Akram, Hui, Khan, Saduzai, Akram, & Bhati, 2017; Yu, & Bastin, 2010) have indicated that impulse buying process is controlled by emotions and that hedonics motivation influence consumers to engage in OIB behaviors. In addition, studies have suggested that impulse buying, and hedonic motivation are positively related (Zhou, Dai, & Zhang, 2007; Hausman, 2000). It is argued that hedonic consumers tend to purchase impulsively. According to Akram et al., 2017), hedonic motivation strongly influences OIB. Within the Jordan context, few studies have recognized the influence of social media marketing to enhance impulse purchasing. However, recent studies have mirrored the capability of social media to conquer any hindrance that frequently isolates grassroots ladies' activism from approach making forms. The blast of online networking and uncommon use by ladies of new innovations speaks to essential chances to bring sexual orientation equality and women's rights issues to the bleeding edge of both strategies making and media consideration. With the course of time, women appeared to be more involved in the world of social media; they began using it in many different ways and approaches to express their feelings, clarify their stand points and use its tools to mingle and socialize with other people. After the appearance of the e-commerce and involving social media in the process of purchasing and marketing; consumer behavior changed and took a new perspective. Customers who were influenced by the appearance of social media marketing were also women whose purchasing behavior also took a new route reaching a state of full satisfaction and involvement in the social media purchasing (Loiseau and Nowacka, 2015). Problem Statement Currently, when we talk about social media, we talk about women empowerment, also, we may talk about changing women's behavior (Loiseau and Nowacka, 2015). The change in the behavior among individuals in general and women in spectacular stemmed from the fact that social media is a now a platform in which every individual has the right and the openness to perform any activity according to their mood and need. With the appearance of social media as a marketing tool the shopping and purchasing behavior of individuals changed and the idea of purchasing became more apparent and usable among them. According to Dennis, Morgan, Wright, and Jayawardhena (2010), it was found out that marketing through social media can influence young women's shopping behavior, while Hajly (2013) indicated that the purchasing behavior changed dramatically ever since the appearance of social media websites as a platform for marketing. On the other hand, Chaiprasit (2014) noted to the fact that with the year 2020, no people would be going out to malls and markets for shopping, they all would be doing their shopping on the Internet and precisely through social media websites; the researcher added that the ease of use in addition to the trust of social media websites are among the main drivers that would change the behavior of female consumers from browsing to real purchasing intentions. Also, Nasir, Vel, and Mateen (2012) noted to the huge change that social media have had on the behavior of customers focusing on the idea that the shopping intentions of female customers has become more vivid after the entrance of social media in the world of marketing. According to Al-Zu'bi and Almajali (2015), the obsession of shopping has become the focus of many sectors including the marketing and the psychiatrics sector in Jordan. The authors argued that women are normally more attracted to shopping sprees, and with the prevalence of the social media marketing, they have become more interested in buying items from the comfort of their own homes. In an article within a local Jordanian newspaper in 2010, it was revealed that 47% of Jordanian citizens buy at least one item/month online. The article added that the percentage of male online shoppers is almost the same as women as both have discovered the idea of buying items from their own chair without the need to move from a place to another. From that point, the researcher intention from this study is to examine the influence of social media marketing on the impulsive purchasing behavior among female consumers in Jordan. The idea of shopping through social media platforms has changed the basics of social media into a marketing media in order to attract more customers through the usage of many of social media characteristics like uploading videos, pictures not to mention the role of the word of mouth in increasing the impulse towards buying more items. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 2 December 2018 www.jbrmr.com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 137 Questions, Objectives and Hypotheses Research Questions Based on the problem statement, the current research seeks to answer the following questions: R1What is the impact of social media marketing on impulse buying among female shoppers in Jordan? R2What are the characteristics of online shopping that influence females to shop online and through social media websites? R3How can the dimensions of impulse purchasing interact with social media marketing? Study Objectives This study was guided by three key objectives: To explore impulse buying behaviors among Jordanian female online shoppers and how it is influenced by social media marketing To examine the characteristics of online shopping and how they influence females to shop online through social media websites To examine the relationship between dimensions of impulse purchasing and social media marketing Main Hypothesis H: Social media marketing has a positive influence on impulse buying among female shoppers in Jordan Sub-Hypotheses Ha: Social media marketing has a positive influence on hedonic motivation among female shoppers in Jordan Hb: Social media marketing has a positive influence on website quality among female shoppers in Jordan Hc: Social media marketing has a positive influence on trust am
Julie Ann Stuart Williams, Joshua Schutts, Kristine Gallamore
et al.
This article examines a manageable approach that provides students with significant opportunities to write and improve their writing over time in an introductory quantitative business course. The study examines six elements of written communication skills, as evidenced by assessment data from memorandum assignments administered following pedagogical interventions throughout the semester in an operations management course. Results demonstrate that student performance of audience identification, action-oriented request, and punctuation improved. Interestingly, student performance of grammar slightly decreased. A follow-up analysis indicates that some writing mistakes were related to a lack of proofreading. This article also presents original memorandum assignments and suggestions for improvement.
The ability to establish a particular brand personality (i.e. a set of human personality traits that consumers associate with a brand) is a key component of fashion brand management and communication. A given fashion brand may use language that communicates different personality traits (e.g. glamourous, exciting, youthful, exotic) as a way to define its own personality and distinguish itself from other fashion brands. Based on a corpus consisting of company-produced texts collected from the websites and Facebook pages of over 100 fashion brands, this study aimed to determine which traits of brand personality emerge, which are the most frequent, and which nuances of meaning can be identified within them. This was accomplished by means of text analysis software that identifies statistically significant semantic domains to which conceptually-related lexical items are assigned. The analysis revealed 14 key semantic domains that were linked to various brand personality traits. Among the most prominent were Judgement of appearance: Positive, Time: New and young, Relationship: Intimacy and sex, and Unexpected, highlighting not only the traditional importance attributed to attractiveness, but also to sensuality and non-conventionality as desirable traits of fashion brand personality. Other distinctive traits that emerged as significant involved exclusivity (encoding the value of elitism) and iconicity (emphasizing high stature and uniqueness). The study offers insights into how fashion brands utilize web-based communications to convey brand personality. It also offers a useful methodology that fashion companies can adapt to ensure that they are effectively communicating the intended brand personality.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
This project is based on a corpus of English and German source and target texts, ranging from contemporary literature to scientific textbooks. We try to create a machine-readable and aligned corpus which will allow us to discover and categorize translation equivalents for a number of linguistic items, such as prepositions, subordination, deictic elements, metaphors or culture-specific structures. On this basis we look for regularities in the configuration of factors that influence equivalent choices for each of the phenomena in question. Apart from theoretical insights into contrastive language structures as well as cognitive aspects of the translation process, the purpose of the project is to discover and categorize prototye and non-prototype equivalents in two closely related languages. Research results could, for instance, be applied to bilingual lexicography or other language learning and translation aids.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
Little theoretical research has been published on LSP. The most useful approach is that of the ‘whole language’ applied to specialised discourse, an approach which only seems to be represented by Benveniste and Harris. How can a French predicative word such as sertissage be applied in a non-lexicographical approach ? It is suggested to compare the uses of this word in French and its conditional equivalents in other languages (de., en., es., it.), thereby bringing out a conflict between the ‘cultural stereotype’ and the ‘technical stereotype’, and also between national culture and international culture.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
INTRODUCTION In today's era of mobile commerce and globally distributed teams, technology is rapidly changing to fit the needs of this fast pace business world and society. Society has become very dependent upon mobile technology in every aspect of life including business, healthcare, education and government among others. Developers are constantly creating networks that have faster connectivity, enhanced performance, capacity and coverage. As the mobile technology industry grows, consumers grow more and more dependent on this industry as it integrates into our daily lives. As the world continues to advance, we can expect technological devices such as the smartphone (e.g., Apple's iPhone, Samsung's Galaxy, (formerly Research in Motion's) BlackBerry) to become smaller, faster, more energy efficient and more mobile. Smartphones/Mobile devices are not just telephones. They are web browsers, GPS systems, and messaging systems. And there are many uses such as customer service and payment options, inventory management and employee dispatching. Mobility is the portability of technology. Portable technology frees employees from their desks and allows customer flexibility. Since a viable mobile business model should create both customer value and network (i.e., the organizational and financial domains) value, according to de Reuver et al. (2009) findings, addressing organizational design issues (i.e., partner selection, governance and relation management) leads to an acceptable division of roles among actors, while addressing financial design issues (i.e., pricing, division of investments and costs among partners) results in risk levels that are perceived to be acceptable. The mobile phone has changed the way merchants and farmers do business in rural Africa and Asia. In rural China, many of the farmers cannot read and have never used the Internet, but with the help of younger tech-savvy villagers that use the Internet on their smartphones to sell produce and buy shoes and shampoo (Larson, 2013). In countries such as South Africa, where healthcare systems are overburdened and doctors are scarce, healthcare workers use an experimental smartphone based software program called Cell-Life which is used to manage the treatment of HIV/AIDS. This system combines a comprehensive database that includes a patient's treatment history and lab results with a messaging service that enables counselors, clinical staff and doctors to communicate using SMS (short messaging service). Therapeutic counselors scroll through a series of menus to report on side effects, monitor adherence, and provide detailed social information. These uses of mobile technology are only going to increase (Chief Executive Group, 2011). In today's era of mobile commerce, technology is rapidly changing to fit the needs of this fast pace business world and society. Developers are constantly creating networks that have faster connectivity, enhanced performance, capacity and coverage. Wireless devices (including smartphones) are increasingly popular across the healthcare field enabling caregivers to review patient records and test results, access charge captures, enter diagnosis information during patient visits and consult drug formularies, all without the need for a wired network connection. Patient--Provider communication through the smartphones has been beneficial because office visits are too infrequent and expensive, print mail usually is unread causing a break in continuity of patient care. The smartphone enhances communication with the patient. The use of voice, web access and text messaging helps the patient with reminders such as appointments and medications. The different features and applications on smartphones can also help clinician better track patient behavior and intervene when more intense care is needed (e.g., when asthmatics or diabetics need assistance). This technology has the potential to transform healthcare practices through streamlining operations, optimizing efficiencies, and improving patient outcomes and safety. …