(Volume 5, Number 3)
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written by Dr. William DeLone edited by Dr. Gwanhoo Lee and Ms. Marianne Du
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
Recent spending on social media technologies has increased dramatically with some commentators estimating that the industry will be worth nearly $5 billion by 2013.
Increasingly more companies are investing in the potential of social media as a means of strengthening relationships with their customers, hoping to increase customer loyalty and sales. Public sector agencies are also striving to improve service quality by using social media technologies to achieve better democratic engagement, wider political participation and the creation of social capital. However, despite substantial investment and increasing competition, few studies have attempted to evaluate its success.
This research study’s goal is to test a model formulated to explain and predict customer loyalty and referrals on the basis of social media service quality and perceived social value created by social media interaction.
In this CITGE study, we summarize findings from a recent survey of over 260 experienced users of social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter. This study analyses some of the best-known social media applications including Coca Cola, Mercedes, Starbucks,
Amazon, Dell and GroupOn. One of the important outcomes of this CITGE research is the development of an instrument to measure the Social Media Service Quality of social media platforms and the identification of perceived Social Value as a moderating factor that enhances the effect of website service quality on customer loyalty and customer referrals in a social media context.
In this summary we describe (1) the conceptual foundations of the study; (2) the research design and method; (3) our preliminary findings; (4) the important implications of our research; and (5) a summary of the practitioner panel and discussion session.
Companies are increasing their investments in Web 2.0 and social media applications with expectations of enhancing customer engagement and strengthening customer relationships that in turn should yield increased purchasing and improved ROI. To date however, there has been a lack of empirical research to validate these expected benefits from social media applications.
In reaction to this challenge, this CITGE study adapts and applies Service Quality metrics to measure the desirable features of social media applications. The challenge of measuring
Service Quality in the social media environment stems from the different purpose of Web
2.0 (i.e. participation) vs. the purpose of e-commerce applications (i.e. transaction processing). These different purposes require that we assess the relevance of existing
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012 service quality measures for the e-commerce environment and create new measures that account for the unique online community building nature of social media (Ransbotham and
Kane 2011).
Social Media creates a platform for new communities, levels of communication and social participation (Wattal et al. 2010). Service Quality measures the quality of the platform, but not the value inherent in the social media interaction. The unique nature and purpose of social media forces us to explore other meaningful features that create value for the customer. Based on the concept of Public Value (Moore 1995) applied to Government 2.0 applications as developed and measured in Scott, DeLone and Golden (2009), this CITGE study develops a measure of the “Social Value” that customers realize from their participation in social media applications. The new Social Value measure captures the value of the customer/citizen experience. We hypothesize that the impacts of Social Media
Service Quality on customer behavior are enhanced by a positive customer experience within the social media community (higher levels Social Value).
The objectives of this CITGE research project are therefore to answer the following questions: 1) Do Social Media applications positively impact customer behavior? and 2)
What are the social media features and functions that drive positive customer experiences and desired outcomes (e.g. increased sales)? The figure below contains the model for our proposed research study.
Perceived Value Website Service
Quality (Web 2.0)
Efficiency
System
Availability
Privacy
Responsiveness
Empathy
Interactivity
Contact of Website
Loyalty Intentions
Increased Peer
Recommendation
Social Value
Involvement
Participation
Well Informedness
Trust
Figure 1. Social Media Success
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
In order to understand Social Media Success we adapted and included some new measures of web site service quality. In particular we created a new measure "Interactivity" that is designed to capture the level and quality of customer-company and inter-customer interaction. Social Value is also a new contribution to research in this area and is intended to represent the value generated by enterprises through collaborative Web 2.0. Social value utilizes theories that identify dimensions not captured by traditional economic/exchange values and highlights the participative and deliberative elements of social media technologies resulting from the shared nature of new social media environment .
Therefore the primary research questions for this study are:
1.
Does Social Media Service Quality influence (i) customers’ perceptions of value and (ii) their loyalty intentions towards a company?
2.
Do Social Value dimensions enhance the influence of Social Media Service
Quality dimensions on customer perceived value/ loyalty intentions?
3.
Do customer perceived value or increased loyalty intentions increase peer recommendations?
The study used a survey questionnaire to test the research model (Figure 1). We followed a rigorous methodology in developing new scales for each of the constructs present in Social
Media Service Quality and Social Value. This comprised several data gathering and evaluation stages: (1) Literature review; (2) Pilot survey; (3) Main survey and (4)
Statistical Evaluation comprising over 260 responses from experienced social media users.
The process we followed combined with the statistical tests ensured that the resulting measures for Social Media Service Quality and Social Value are reliable and comprehensive in that a wide range of potential factors were captured.
We chose the University environment as the most appropriate site for locating a suitable sample. In this research, our sample extended to a varied population, including undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate, faculty and staff of various universities from the
US, Ireland and Scandinavia. Our key objective was to locate experienced users, as this type of respondent was most likely to provide accurate and valid responses to the benefits of using Social Media services. Survey respondents were invited to idnetify a company that they were most familiar with and then choose a (web-based) social media service provided by that company.
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Executive Briefing
Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
Profile of our Sample
 82% of our sample was in the age range 18-34 and 63% was Male.
 86% chose Facebook as their nominated social media service for the survey and
66% reported to use the social media service for their particular company at least once every day.
 The most common company social media applications nominated by the sample were: Groupon; Coca-Cola; Starbucks; Disney; Dell and Vistaprint.
 The most common reported social media activities were: communicating; creating/sharing/receiving content; sharing opinions and preferences; participating in discussion forums; and commenting on new product/service ideas.
Social Media Instruments
We were able to refine the constructs for both Social Media Service Quality and Social Value as shown in Table 1.
Measure
Efficiency
System
Privacy
Contact
Interactivity
Responsiveness
(Company)
Responsiveness
(Customer)
Measure
Influence
Table 1. Social Media Instruments
Social Media Service Quality
Definition
Efficient design and navigability of the platform
Platform availability and response time to user interaction
Perceived level of protection for personal information
Availability of contact channels through social media platform
Level and quality of customer-company and intercustomer interaction through social media platform.
Willingness to assist customers and provide a prompt response/service - level and quality of responsiveness.
In this construct, customer support is provided by other users of the social media platform
Social Value
Definition
The importance of involvement and the perception of
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012 being able to exert influence.
Trust Increase in relational trust and confidence resulting from valued community network.
Well-Informedness Better-informed and higher levels of understanding
Participation about the company and its products and/or services resulting from community-based knowledge creation.
Level of personal value and importance attributed to participation in activities of a virtual community.
These results confirm unique, multi-dimensional measures for two important value constructs relating to customer perceptions of social media. Of particular importance is the identification of two types of Responsiveness from the sample. The distinction relates to how customers separately value the responsiveness of company representatives and also of fellow customers to their concerns or questions. This interesting finding reflects the new environment provided by social media and the importance of customer participation and networks of inter-customer interaction.
Impact and Inter-relationships
Having confirmed the new Social Media measures, this study proceeded with an analysis of the proposed relationships as presented in Figure 1.
Social Media Service Quality -->> Perceived Value
From the set of Social Media Service Quality variables the following set provided the most significant impact on Perceived Value: Interactivity, System, Contact, and Efficiency.
 These variables influencing Perceived Value represent an interesting blend of technical/functional factors associated with the web site alongside other variables that more distinctly measure social media characteristics - especially Interactivity.
 Indeed, Interactivity was the strongest predictive variable representing Social Media
Service Quality and provided a significant relationship across almost all relationships in our research model.
 Interactivity and System also appeared consistently together in each of our proposed relationships. In each case, System appeared to be contributing a supporting role to Interactivity indicating that this is a consistently important issue to users.
Social Media Service Quality -->> Loyalty Intentions
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
 From the set of Social Media Service Quality variables the following set provided the most significant impact on Loyalty Intentions: Responsiveness, Interactivity,
Privacy, and System.
 In contrast to Perceived Value, a slightly different set of predictors is defined as influencing Loyalty Intentions towards the chosen company.
 Interactivity is still noted as important but was combined in this case with
Responsiveness. In addition, Privacy replaces Contact as the other important change from the previous relationship. In the case of Loyalty Intentions, Privacy is more important to respondents and appears to represent a more personal value attribute that impacts a fundamental perception of whether the individual is loyal to a particular company.
Peer Recommendations
 Perceived Value and Loyalty Intentions both display significant associations with
Peer Recommendation.
 We conducted an additional examination of the relationships among these variables and discovered that the association between Loyalty Intentions and Peer
Recommendation was significantly improved when tested simultaneously with
Perceived Value. This indicates that Perceived Value contributes a positive mediating influence on the strength of the relationship between Loyalty Intentions and Peer Recommendation. This suggests that the more companies invest in factors that affect the perceived value of their social media presence, the more likely customers will develop loyalty to that company and in turn recommend the company to their peers.
The Influence of Social Value
 We finally tested the influence of our newly created construct - Social Value - designed to measure the quality of the social media experience and to assess what impact this has customer value and behaviour.
 Our analysis confirmed that perceptions of Social Value enhance the impact of Social
Media Service Quality on Perceived Value and Loyalty Intentions. This indicates that when customers perceive social value from using social media, their Loyalty
Intentions towards the company increase.
 Lastly, we were interested to see how the variables within Social Value related to
Perceived Value and Loyalty Intentions. Participation and Trust significantly impacted Perceived Value and Involvement and Trust impacted Loyalty Intentions.
Clearly, the more a customer feels that the company values their involvement the more likely the individual is to be loyal to that company. Trust also plays an
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012 important role and is critical to perceptions of social value in using social media platforms.
 This CITGE study represents the first attempt to confirm the constructs and measures of Social Media Success involving experienced users.
 We have confirmed the existence of two important sets of social media variables:
Social Media Service Quality and Social Value. The resulting survey instruments can therefore be used to benchmark the success of social media applications provided by various commercial organizations. These instruments offer a practical means for companies to evaluate the success of initiatives that may have complex expected outcomes or benefits.
 The survey instruments and research model are highly adaptable to differing contexts and could be utilized to examine social media success in either customer facing initiatives or social media platforms used internally by employees.
 The identification of specific success constructs and the inter-relationships among them enables an organisation to strategically manage and control the most important aspects of the social media platform during design and implementation.
 The level of granularity provided by the research framework also enables companies to target particular features of Social Media Service Quality platform in the knowledge that these have an impact on the overall success of the initiative.
This is useful for social media designers and potentially influential for ensuring high standards of customer satisfaction. For example, the level of and quality of
Interaction combined with Responsiveness and Privacy has been shown to positively impact the level of loyalty intentions customers develop when interacting with the company online.
 Our measures capture quality perceptions that exist in two important contexts - traditional service encounters with consumers and also spontaneous, community driven interactions. Companies can exert control over the quality of service provided in traditional customer to company interactions however, have little impact when customers step into the role of service provider to other customers.
The importance of customer-to-customer interaction and the resulting value perceptions for users has important implications for companies as they continue to search for ways to manage their social media presence and harness the value inherent in this new medium.
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
 Although this study was conducted in the private sector, we predict that an adapted model could have equal explanatory potential for public sector initiatives in social media. The key challenge for government departments and agencies is to consider what outcomes may be appropriate for their social media projects. Perceived Value may be applicable but what would equate to Loyalty Intentions and Peer
Recommendation?
 We are interested in your views on building social capital in government and would welcome your participation in building a model specific for the democratic space. Please contact us.
Summary of Key Points from Q&A Discussion
Q: In terms of the value measures, how do you unitize what you’re measuring?
What are the units that you’re working with?
A: We have four or five items in the questionnaire. We have a number of statements to which the respondent can rate to what extent they agree with that statement. Then we put all of those responses together and run some tests to see how reliable those measures are.
A: It’s even more about behavior than any unit per se. We can correlate those with whether or not these people are happy or unhappy with a given experience.
Q: So are you guys thinking about stretching this to ROI and can social media perceived value be tied to a revenue number?
A: Not really, not now—but as we extend the research, what improvements can be made, and one of the next questions is can this be tied to real quantitative behaviors?
© 2012 Center for IT and the Global Economy, Kogod School of Business, American University
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3
December 2012
Panelists
Julia Quinn (Amtrak)
Will Samolis (Amtrak)
Justin Herman (GSA)
Facilitator
Lawrence Fitzpatrick
Following the research study presentation, three expert panellists gave a short presentation. A Q&A session followed the panel presentations.
Julia Quinn (Amtrak) Excerpts
We started out by discussing what we wanted out of social media at Amtrak:
 Until the beginning of this fiscal year, we had only one social media employee and social media was used as primarily a marketing push mechanism. It wasn’t working and we knew it—but we obviously did not have the resources
 We brought on a social media consultant to help with that o We wanted to monitor customer views o We wanted to help with customer service problems broadly o But this was also a marketing opportunity o We also needed to maintain our position because of government funding— people need to be on our side o Operations management puts us in a unique position as well, because we can leverage social media to spread information quickly about delays and cancellations. Same issue with crisis communication—a lot of this is outside of our control, so social media is really useful for letting everyone know.
 Since everyone is a reporter in the era of social media, we need to get ahead of many people and gather intelligence o Also monitoring security threats, and allowing people to be comfortable reporting security threats o We wanted to show that the whole company can benefit from social media, and we needed to show that because of how spread out these responsibilities were
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
 We used social media to monitor without engaging o Needed increase engagement, and we think we’ve made head way in that regard o We saw that we needed to start doing a more rapid response and we do have a full time customer service response team to help us with those responses o We needed to get used to the “public” nature of social media, and we wanted to try to reach out to people and mitigate problems
Will Samolis (Amtrak) Excerpts
 We trained nine customer service agents back in October and we “demystified” social media and had them monitor and respond to social media o Assigned one agent to be responsible for Facebook and Twitter responses o Many of these explanations are not black and white, so we often tried to redirect people to sources of information on our website. o People who were not asking time sensitive questions were to be acknowledged as well, we wanted to foster a sense of value and community
 We wanted to correct the perception that we don’t do anything when delays happen, that we don’t even know about them o We achieved that, and have a much higher response rate. This customer service approach greatly increased twitter and FB usage, and it is successfully integrated into our customer service platform
 That also reduces the volume of calls and e-mails, helping customer service holistically and not just singularly
 We are looking to evolve and improve our usage of social media o Your social media value is what your CUSTOMERS make of it
 Our subscribers and fans would tell us what they want out of us, and social media is a great no-mirror sounding board—customers tell you what they want, what you’re doing wrong, and who you can fix it in one place
 Want to demystify train travel, help with public perception
 Want to amplify our messages and champion our services—that’s what we do for the rail community in general o For example, there were misconceptions about our internet services aboard trains
 We crafted language that clarifies that service through cell phone towers that clarifies and personalizes many FAQs for confused customers
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012 o Customer service is an actual one to one ROI
 Referral sales are also great from Facebook and social media has really brought value because it provides a very open forum to see what we’re doing well and not doing well. We are trying to leverage that to analyze how many of our interactions are positive or negative
 What specifically are these conversations about? We can use that to evaluate our performance and improve internally.
 We want to see the calls ramped down—many people can see ONE social media answer, which can save us a lot of money
Q: From a purely marketing standpoint, how have you quantified new business from an ROI standpoint in terms of social media? Where does this fall into the traditional hierarchy of marketing?
A: We don’t really have a per dollar figure. But we’re working it. It’s too new, and it’s difficult to apply on a company-wide standpoint.
A: It’s definitely a struggle in terms of resources. Eventually I’d want to say that our social media team works as a clearinghouse for the entire company, but we’re not even close to there yet. The misperception is that we “own” social media—but we don’t. We manage it, we filter it, but it needs to be leveraged by all departments. There should be consistent tone and message, not a month-by-month thing. It needs to be a holistic approach.
Q: In the case of an incident, would you consult legal to see what you could do?
A: We have lots of different incidents. If there is a minor thirty-minute delay, there’s no major discussion. If it’s a major incident, then it needs to be more of a hands-off approach.
Q: What role do you see yourself playing in B-to-B social media?
A: There is an opportunity there and we are aware of it. But for now Facebook and Twitter are the most important platforms for now. We need to crawl before we can walk.
Q: How do you determine positive or negative comments?
A: We use Radiant Six for sentiment analysis, but we’re not sold on it. The tools are improving but there should be a human behind it.
Q: Amtrak was rarely late when I rode it very frequently, only four times in seven years. But I don’t understand the strategy—are you actually trying to make revenue?
A: We are trying to make a ton of advocates, because we think that the most valuable marketing tool is customers themselves.
© 2012 Center for IT and the Global Economy, Kogod School of Business, American University
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3
Justin Herman (GSA) Excerpts
December 2012
 This type of research fuels the policies that we create in government, and social media can be a huge innovator in government services—there are many examples of this.
 Center for Excellence in Digital Government does all sorts of training and innovation in that regard
 It can also fuel more effective street-level government o Better services in government are only going to rise out of these innovations o Cory Booker example:
 When small companies or government agencies say it can’t be done, I point to Cory Booker. Newark also has a lot of problems. But this guy is never too busy.
 Those who are happy about their local governments are also happy about the performance of their local institutions—social media builds social value and trust that can set the stage for implementation of other projects.
 Can affect public perceptions greatly
 Citizens now expect the engagement o Neil Dash put up the federal social media index, and these public agencies are being evaluated based on how they deal with social media—this ascribes a value to the public’s perception of a given agency
 Every organization could have its uses o Customer experience—how do people use a given service o Responsive information sharing—which services are available to whom
 “If I can’t find X on your website, it means you’re hiding X”
 If you don’t respond, people naturally turn that into a negative emotion or a negative intent—the truth is being avoided o Feedback
 We can show exactly what we need to do and why, and it’s an undeniable fact
 That’s what our office is focusing on nowadays
 More effective efficient targeted services, quality & savings o It’s tough to achieve those positive changes without the right metrics, and we are not using the right metrics o Here’s the breakdown:
 It was quantitative only in the first generation—initial adoption was the challenge, so the volume was very important. As we know this
ALONE does not tell the story of impact
© 2012 Center for IT and the Global Economy, Kogod School of Business, American University
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
 We really need to do more with less. How can we still create credible analysis without expensive tools
 Quantitative analysis is usually by hand now. I want an agency to know how effectively each use of social media is—we need formulas that evaluate on that basis.
 With shrinking budgets, many “social media” people will also wear other hats, so they need to be able to quickly and efficiently use data
 We want to move towards “the future” which should be data rich and real time
 A good example of this is disability.gov, which aggregates the services provided by the federal government for disabled people. o Eventually, the public facing side of the social media registry will open and the public will be able to tell which services are legit and which are not. You don’t just have to go to one twitter feed, you can contextualize the entire government social media presence around what you care about—a lot times the best info comes from government agencies that people don’t even know exist.
Q: I am sort of curious as to how you are just a service. Are you just disseminating information, or are you enabling?
A: Every week I go to a government agency and telework. I record my experiences as I observe their daily routine, hop on a computer ask them for their wish list. For our office’s credibility, emailing and online engagement is not enough—we are “mowing lawns” a la
Cory Booker to walk across the digital divide.
Q: How could creative collaboration occur across government agencies?
A: We talk about how we can bring information and changes to other agencies frequently.
We help others build their own innovation core. I am starting a community of practice for social media professionals; bringing these people together. A few years ago, just pockets were using social media. Now it’s everywhere, but only the pockets are effective. For example, OMB has this max wiki. Another is, by negotiating terms of service for all agencies we streamline greatly and in other ways we can save a lot of money.
Q: After the last election it seemed a lot of social media people joined the federal government. As the reelection of Obama gears up, how many people will be leaving?
A: I don’t think that many are going to be leaving. These are young and engaged people who are very interested in what they’re doing.
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
Summary of Key Points from Q&A Discussion led by Lawrence Fitzpatrick
 I’m sure all of you have the experience where you’re engaging social media, and all that’s happening is that you’re being yelled at. That’s fine—the listening component and understanding what people want to say about you is truly important
 The second important point is, where are you in terms of social media? To some extent social media is breaking the organizational construct. They are sort of bridging conversational gaps. They are listening and connecting people.
 The third main point is when do you implement?
What do YOU want to know about your own implementation? What would you like to know as a purveyor of the services?
A: I thought today was overall interesting, but definitely what seemed most important and what I want to know about is internal collaborative culture, and using that to create better services and a better final product. I think that the end result will be better product.
A, Justin Herman: Internally, we use Chatter. It’s a gussied up yammer, and there are a lot of great features on it. They just pushed it nationwide. Little by little you see more collaboration on it. I just started using it myself, and we are combining that with OMB’s max wiki. I will use one or the other, and I think that needs to be emphasized—we keep creating new tools, but the tools are not the problem. We need to keep and improve one single tool. The answer to better services is not new platforms, but building up a single platform.
A, William DeLone: That would be an interesting direction for research. What metrics affect which results exactly, depending on what you’re looking for? I think our instrument lends itself to this analysis. One of the variables is trust—can I say things in this internal platform and be trusted? Will I be listened to?
I think you’d find some interesting answers and I would encourage you to review our survey.
Q: What will failure look like in terms of social media?
A: I don’t think we fear it necessarily. From a company standpoint the main issue is transparency. We go from point A to B, but we don’t explain why. We don’t do a good job of explaining that. But there is a huge opportunity to explain this.
A: One fear is that the agency will be overwhelmed. But collaboration is great until one person gets mad and uses this internal information against you. When push comes to shove, our legal system is adversarial, as are most other proceedings—a lot can be used against you. That can really hurt us.
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
Next, we’re not dealing with a free market game and this is a zero-sum world. If you looked at social media in the federal government, you would have seen a lot of individualism. That was a good idea, though it may not have seemed so.
Q: So sometimes a groundswell can overwhelm an institution?
A: Exactly. In a free market, the stakes are lower. But in a narrower environment, it is a zero sum world.
A: What we came to realize is that a lot of stuff is happening out there on social media that we can’t control, so our focus is on member intimacy. From a legal perspective a lot of comments we would make on social media we were already making somewhere else, and they were going through some kind of review in any case.
A: There are sort of heroes in the company (Amtrak) that are trying to do the right thing.
Contrast that with the Cory Booker example. In this case you can see the level of leadership and see how he is solving problems and giving back. Whatever your intentions are, sometimes they seem self-serving or maybe you’re inept.
A: I have an example of a failure. I was helping a government service, and for months I would get no call response. I decided that every time I called I would tweet when they didn’t answer. Then, when I did get an excuse I would tweet that. Then the Washington
Post contacted me. The hashtag started spreading. By the end of the second day, I had legal backing. By the third day, I got a call from the Whitehouse. The day after that, I get contacted by an administrator about the benefits. And she found out a lot of information and outlined the process, and got my benefits fixed. It’s funny that while they weren’t responding, they called the person tweeting disingenuous which is a nightmare failure.
A: I think a lot of firms use data analytics to determine which people they don’t want as customers. The federal government doesn’t have that luxury. Everything has to go through to the end of the line—you can’t define your marketplace, and you have to take all comers.
And some of these people are very difficult.
I remember the electronic transfer switch over with banks, a lot of banks didn’t want to take social security beneficiaries—we had to push them into it.
A: The US Forest Service actually has a tool that analyzes comments that flags keywords, like obscenities or frustration words. So you can weed out awful stuff or important things.
It’s valuable because some of these messages of frustration really should be flagged.
A: We do come across situations of overreliance on social media and analytics, where some people who have clearly serious problems are not contacting our dedicated help lines that might be better served to assist them.
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
Q: That’s one of the challenges though. If it was always easy to call, people would always call. It’s kind of this huge shift publically that is undergoing. It’s hard because people have been doing what they’re doing for so long. It’s difficult to meet all of these needs.
A: It is a vehicle that is immediate.
A: I think we’re potentially on the precipice of a huge change. The ability to hold these organizations accountable could lead to a huge change. If you can live this way, a corporation’s ability to survive is far enhanced.
A: But they have some people that can actively seek out people rather than the people seeking them out.
References
Moore, M. Creating Public Value - Strategic Management in Government Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995.
Ransbotham, S., and Kane, G.C. "Membership turnover and collaboration success in Online
Communities: Explaining rises and falls from grace in Wikipedia," MIS Quarterly
(35:3) 2011, pp 613-627.
Scott, M., DeLone, W.H., and Golden, W. "Understanding Net Benefits: A Citizen-Based
Perspective on eGovernment Success," in: Thirtieth International Conference on
Information Systems (ICIS 2009) , AIS, Phoenix, Arizona, 2009, pp. 1-11.
Wattal, S., Schuff, D., Mandviwalla, M., and Williams, C.B. "Web 2.0 and Politics: The 2008 Us
Presidential Election and an E-Politics Research Agenda," MIS Quarterly (34:4), Dec
2010, pp 669-688.
© 2012 Center for IT and the Global Economy, Kogod School of Business, American University
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012
Confirmed Attendees (ordered by affiliation)
First name Last name
Mike
William
Vivek
Maria
Shalini
Julia
Will
Carleton
DeLone
J. Alberto Espinosa
Chaoqing Hou
Gwanhoo Lee
Supnekar
Teresa
Venturelli
Quinn
Samolis
Organization
American University
American University
American University
American University
American University
American University
American University
American University
Amtrak
Amtrak
Title
Senior Research Fellow
Professor and Executive Director,
CITGE
Associate Professor
MBA student
Associate Professor and Director,
CITGE
MBA student
MBA student
Associate Professor
Coordinator, Digital & Social Media
Senior Officer, Social Media
Peter Khanahmadi Booz Allen Hamilton
Lawrence Fitzpatrick Computech
Hardish
Rick
Nandra
Peters
CSC
CSC
Senior Consultant
President
Partner, Management Consulting Group
Partner, Federal Consulting Group
Rich
Samuel
Nicole
Carmen
Steve
Chris
Justin
Emily
Reba
Wang
Willis
Mohamoud Jibrell
Paul
Paolo
Richard
Sharon
Murray
Marco
Cooper
Stettler
Herman
Canis
CSC
CSC
Department of Homeland
Security
Partner
Partner
Senior Enterprise Architect
Federal Aviation Administration Communications Executive
Federal Aviation Administration Deputy Chief Information Officer
Fortessa CIO
General Services Administration Social Media lead for the Office of Citizen
Services
General Services Administration Public Outreach Specialist
Howard Hughes Medical
Insititue
Loyola University
VP for Information Technology
Assistant Professor DiGangi
Spagnoletti LUISS Guido Carli University
Corson
Solomon
Marriott International
MedImmune
Coordinator, CeRSI
Sr. Director
CIO
Professor
Bill
Gary
Paul
Richard
Ed
Scott
Hills
National University of Ireland
Galway
Navy Federal Credit Union
Cartwright Navy Federal Credit Union
Lough Navy Federal Credit Union
Resch
Avella
Potomac college
Potomac college
The World Bank Group
SVP, Application Development
VP, Business Activity Management
Assistant VP, Internal Technical
Consulting
Provost and DC Campus Director
Director and Chair of
InformationTechnology
Sr. Resource Management Officer Davinder Sakhuja
© 2012 Center for IT and the Global Economy, Kogod School of Business, American University
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Executive Briefing
Presenter Bios
Volume 5 / Number 3
William Delone
Professor
American University
December 2012
William DeLone is a Professor of Information Systems at the Kogod School of Business at American
University and Executive Director of the Center for Information Technology and the Global Economy.
Professor DeLone's primary areas of research include the assessment of information systems' effectiveness and value, e-government and public value, the management of global software development and the effective deployment of information and communications technology in developing countries.
Professor DeLone has been published in various information systems journals including Information
Systems Research , Management Information Systems Quarterly , the Journal of Management Information
Systems , the European Journal of Information Systems , the Communications of the ACM , DataBase , the
International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Information Technology & People and the Journal of
Global Information Management .
Professor DeLone’s article entitled “Information Systems Success: The Quest for the Dependent
Variable” was co-authored with Ephraim McLean at Georgia State University and appeared in
Information Systems Research.
This article was recently determined to be the most cited article appearing in the top three information systems journals in the last 15 years.
Professor DeLone has lectured and consulted on information systems at universities in London, Paris,
Rome, Shanghai, Warsaw, Galway, Singapore, Kuwait, Leipzig & Saarbrucken in Germany, and
Guatemala.
Murray Scott
Professor
National University of Ireland Galway
Dr. Murray Scott is a professor in Business Information Systems at the J.E. Cairnes School of Business &
Economics, National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG) and a research associate at the Centre for
Innovation and Structural Change (CISC) at NUIG. He recently completed a Ph.D in Information
Systems, which examined the success of citizen-centered eGovernment services. He has Masters degrees from the National University of Ireland Galway and the University of Dundee, Scotland in the areas of
Business and Philosophy respectively. His main research interests lie in IS Success, eGovernment and
Innovation in information systems. His research has been published or is forthcoming in various leading
© 2012 Center for IT and the Global Economy, Kogod School of Business, American University
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3 December 2012 scholarly journals such as: Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Business
Process Management Journal and the British Journal of Educational Technology. He has also published a number of book chapters, including various contributions for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and in the proceedings of leading international academic conferences where he is a frequent presenter. He teaches Enterprise Architecture Management,
Management Information Systems and E-Business Technologies.
Will Samolis
Senior Officer, Social Media
Amtrak
Will Samolis manages social media efforts across National Advertising, Field Marketing, eCommerce,
Pricing/Revenue Management and Customer Relations. He is also responsible for creation, distribution and monitoring social media presences for Amtrak. Mr. Samolis researches new social media marketing techniques to further the company’s strategic plan while managing Amtrak's financial position for social media. Over the past year, Will has been credited in a 128% growth in referral revenue from Facebook and increased Amtrak's social media audience size by over 200%.
Prior to working at Amtrak, Mr. Samolis developed and executed social media strategy at TIG Global. He holds a Bachelor in Arts degree in Corporate Communications from James Madison University.
Julia Quinn,
Coordinator, Digital & Social Media
Amtrak
Julia Quinn is responsible for supporting the corporate goals and strategies of Amtrak by coordinating and integrating digital and social media campaigns focused on both internal and external audiences. Quinn is responsible for working with Amtrak executives to develop and manage content for corporate social media platforms while ensuring consistency and effectiveness of external messaging. Additionally, she is in charge of facilitating the Amtrak online crisis communication program.
Prior to working at Amtrak, she developed and executed strategic online marketing, communications and business intelligence campaigns for Fortune 500 companies at New Media Strategies. She holds a
Bachelor of Arts in Public Communication from American University.
© 2012 Center for IT and the Global Economy, Kogod School of Business, American University
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Executive Briefing Volume 5 / Number 3
Justin Herman,
Social Media lead for the Office of Citizen Services,
General Services Administration
December 2012
Justin Herman was named the Social Media lead for the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative
Technologies (OCSIT) Center for Excellence in Digital Government in the General Services
Administration on March 26, 2012. The Center provides government-wide support and solutions that help agencies deliver excellent customer service to the public via web, social media, mobile, phone, email, print and newly evolving media. Mr. Herman is responsible for developing strategies for large-scale engagement initiatives, providing government-wide policy recommendations and implementation guidance, and coordinating web-based citizen engagement activities using collaborative tools.
His duties include promoting new media government-wide, contributing to GSA's HowTo.gov website-- designed to help government workers deliver a better customer experience to citizens--as well as the department's internal social media initiatives and Challenge.gov. Prior to his service at GSA, Mr. Herman supported Federal agencies as a private consultant specializing in citizen engagement and open government. Earlier positions included service as an active-duty Air Force Public Affairs officer,
Congressional aide, and health information technology advocate. Mr. Herman has a B.A. from the
University of New Hampshire in Political Science, and graduate coursework in International Relations from the University of Oklahoma and Public Administration from the University of Hampshire. He is also a graduate of the Public Affairs Officer Course at Defense Information School at Fort George G.
Meade.
Larry Fitzpatrick
President
Computech
Lawrence Fitzpatrick, President of Computech, a 30-year old IT application development firm, has particular expertise in online auctions, data driven dashboards and legacy system replacement. His record of successful software delivery and transformational software management has spanned academia and government, commercial software product development and corporate IT for over 25 years.
Prior to joining Computech, Larry served as Senior Vice President of the Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority (FINRA). During a time of substantial change in the financial sector, he created FINRA’s architecture group, built an application development team of over 500 individuals and led the delivery of numerous key systems. Previously, Larry led the delivery of commercial software products as
Technology Vice President at Open Text Software (OTEX) and as Chief Technology Officer at Personal
Library Software. He has specialized in text retrieval and analysis, high performance computing and database systems and delivered industry-leading commercial software that has been widely used.
Larry is a frequent author to industry trade publications and sought after to speak on enterprise infrastructure, IT-driven transformation and innovation within the government sector. He has a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering (Informatics) from The University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Science in
Biology with a minor in Computer Science from Georgetown University.
© 2012 Center for IT and the Global Economy, Kogod School of Business, American University
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Executive Briefing
CITGE Executive Team
Dr. William H. DeLone
Executive Director, CITGE
Professor, Kogod School of
Business, American University
Dr. Gwanhoo Lee
Director, CITGE
Associate Professor, Kogod
School of Business, American
University
Dr. Richard J. Schroth
Executive-in-Residence, Kogod
School of Business, American
University
CEO, Executive Insights, Ltd.
Associated Faculty and Research Fellows
Dr. Erran Carmel
Professor, Kogod School of
Business, American University
Dr. J. Alberto Espinosa
Associate Professor, Kogod
School of Business, American
University
Volume 5 / Number 3
Dr. Peter Keen
Distinguished Research Fellow
Chairman, Keen Innovation
Dr. Mary Culnan
Senior Research Fellow
Slade Professor of Management and Information Technology,
Bentley College
December 2012
Michael Carleton
Senior Research Fellow
Former CIO, U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services
Dr. Frank Armour
Research Fellow
CITGE Advisory Council
Steve Cooper
CIO, Air Traffic Organization,
Federal Aviation Administration
Bill DeLeo
Director of Release Engineering
Architecture, SAS
Mohamoud Jibrell
CIO, Howard Hughes Medical
Institute
Joe Kraus
CIO, U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum
Ed Trainor former CIO, AMTRAK
Susan Zankman
SVP of Information Resources
Finance and Management
Services, Marriott International
© 2012 Center for IT and the Global Economy, Kogod School of Business, American University
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