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Consumer value creation through WhatsApp use: A qualitative multimethod approach in a Latin American scenario

2019 , Cruz Cárdenas, Jorge , Guadalupe, J , Zabelina E. , Palacio Fierro, Andrés , Velín-Fárez M. , Staniewski M.W.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand in-depth how consumers create value in their lives using WhatsApp, the leading mobile instant messaging (MIM) application. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts the perspective of customer-dominant logic (CDL) and uses a qualitative multimethod design involving 3 focus groups and 25 subsequent in-depth interviews. The research setting was Ecuador, a Latin American country. Findings: Analysis and interpretation of the participants’ stories made it possible to identify and understand the creation of four types of value: maintaining and strengthening relationships; improving role performance; emotional support; and entertainment and fun. In addition, the present study proposes a conceptual model of consumer value creation as it applies to MIM. Practical implications: Understanding the way consumers create value in their lives using MIM is important not only for organizations that offer MIM applications, but also for those companies that develop other applications for mobile phones or for those who wish to use MIM as an electronic word-of-mouth vehicle. Originality/value: The current study is one of the first to address the topic of consumer behavior in the use of technologies from the perspective of CDL; this perspective enables an integrated qualitative vision of value creation in which the consumer is the protagonist. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Digital Divide: A Bibliometric Approach to Existing Knowledge

2023 , Cruz Cárdenas, Jorge , Palacio Fierro, Andrés , Zabelina E. , Deyneka O. , Ramos Galarza, Carlos

The topic of digital divide - the gap between those who have and those who do not have access to digital technologies - is of growing interest for both public and private sectors. This interest is reflected in an increasing number of academic and scientific publications focused on the topic. This study presents an overview of the digital divide research using a bibliometric approach. Analyzing 9,523 documents from the Scopus database, this study found that 1) there has been an accelerated growth in the publication rate on digital divide since 2018; 2) digital divide is a multidisciplinary field, led by the United States and other developed countries and some emerging countries; 3) the dominant term used to refer to the field, as per our analysis of the relevant keywords, is "digital divide"; and 4) as per our analysis of the evolution of keywords' importance, while topics related to technologies were of interest several years ago, current interest revolves around the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the elderly, education, and healthcare access. © 2023 IEEE.

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Empirical evidence for intransitivity in consumer preferences

2020 , Guadalupe, J , Cruz Cárdenas, Jorge , Artola-Jarrín V. , Palacio Fierro, Andrés

Consumer preferences patterns; Edible and nonedible goods; Transitivity assumption; Preference reversal phenomenon; Strong and weak transitivity, Behavioral economics; Money; Macroeconomics; Econometrics; Experimental economics. © 2020The present paper addresses one of the most important assumptions in consumer preference patterns: transitivity. This assumption states that, logically, selections between goods are rational because of the transitivity statement, which posits that people always prefer goods in the following order: A is preferred to B, and B is preferred to C, so A is preferred to C. With the aim of proving this principle's validity, we conducted an experiment with 70 subjects and probed their preferences in relation to edible and nonedible goods. We used a survey methodology, which allowed us to analyze three distinct situations: 1) individuals faced with goods choices without restrictions; 2) individuals facing budget restrictions and price changes; and 3) individuals faced with decreased disposable income. The results mostly showed that there was no evidence of transitivity in consumer preferences. On average, transitivity appeared in only 8% of the sample, and in cases where transitivity was proved, it was revealed to be strong. The preferences were transitive primarily in relation to edible rather than nonedible goods. © 2020

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Bibliometric Analysis of Existing Knowledge on Digital Transformation in Higher Education

2022 , Cruz Cárdenas, Jorge , Ramos Galarza, Carlos , Guadalupe-Lanas J. , Palacio-Fierro A. , Galarraga Carvajal, Mercedes

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been feeling great pressure to advance in digital transformation. This pressure has been intensified with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of 2019. Because the digital transformation of HEIs has been attracting a growing number of publications, the present study sought to carry out a bibliometric analysis of such titles. For this purpose, 643 relevant documents were identified from the Scopus database in January 2022. The descriptive results show an accelerated growth of the relevant literature, with conference papers being the main form of publication, followed by articles, conference reviews, and book chapters. The areas with which the majority of documents were associated were computer science, followed by social science, engineering, and business and management. An analysis of the co-occurrence of terms based on the titles and abstracts enabled the identification of three thematic areas of interest: 1) digital transformation in teaching, particularly under the pressure exerted by COVID-19; 2) environmental influences on the digital transformation of HEIs; and 3) enabling technologies for digital transformation. A longitudinal analysis also based on titles and abstracts allows us to see how the primary focus shifted from the economic issue (in 2019) to the COVID issue (in 2021). This study concludes by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of the findings, demonstrating as a particularly interesting area for future research the study of the digital transformation of HEIs in a future post-COVID scenario. © 2022, The Author(s).