Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review what we know – and don't know – about Generation Y's use of social media and to assess the implications for individuals, firms and society.Design/methodology/approach – The paper distinguishes Generation Y from other cohorts in terms of systematic differences in values, preferences and behavior that are stable over time (as opposed to maturational or other differences). It describes their social media use and highlights evidence of intra‐generational variance arising from environmental factors (including economic, cultural, technological and political/legal factors) and individual factors. Individual factors include stable factors (including socio‐economic status, age and lifecycle stage) and dynamic, endogenous factors (including goals, emotions, and social norms).The paper discusses how Generation Y's use of social media influences individuals, firms and society. It develops managerial implications and a research agenda.Findings – Prior research on the so...

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Understanding Generation Y and their use of social media: a review and research agenda

Industry 4.0 dictates the end of traditional centralized applications for production control. Its vision of ecosystems of smart factories with intelligent and autonomous shop-floor entities is inherently decentralized. Responding to customer demands for tailored products, these plants fueled by technology enablers such as 3D printing, Internet of Things, Cloud computing, Mobile Devices and Big Data, among others create a totally new environment. The manufacturing systems of the future, including manufacturing execution systems (MES) will have to be built to support this paradigm shift.

/pdf/the-industry-4-0-revolution-and-the-future-of-manufacturing-3gsufbtw7r.pdf

The Industry 4.0 revolution and the future of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)

Small and medium-sized enterprises face the challenges that they do not have enough employees and related resources to produce high-quality products with limited budget and time. The emergence of c...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1687814018814395

Exploring product design quality control and assurance under both traditional and crowdsourcing-based design environments

As academic and practitioner studies on crowdsourcing have been building up since 2006, the subject itself has progressively gained in importance within the broad field of management. No systematic review on the topic has so far appeared in management journals, however; moreover, the field suffers from ambiguity in the topic's definition, which in turn has led to its largely unstructured evolution. The authors therefore investigate the existing body of knowledge on crowdsourcing systematically through a penetrating review in which the strengths and weakness of this literature stream are presented clearly and then future avenues of research are set out. The review is based on 121 scientific articles published between January 2006 and January 2015. The review recognizes that crowdsourcing is ingrained in two mainstream disciplines within the broader subject matter of innovation and management: (1) open innovation; and (2) co-creation. The review, in addition, also touches on several issues covered in other theoretical streams: (3) information systems management; (4) organizational theory and design; (5) marketing; and (6) strategy. The authors adopt a process perspective, applying the ‘Input–Process–Output’ framework to interpret research on crowdsourcing within the broad lines of: (1) Input (Problem/Task); (2) Process (session management; problem management; knowledge management; technology); and (3) Outcome (solution/completed task; seekers’ benefits; solvers’ benefits). This framework provides a detailed description of how the topic has evolved over time, and suggestions concerning the future direction of research are proposed in the form of research questions that are valuable for both academics and managers.

/pdf/crowdsourcing-a-review-and-suggestions-for-future-research-jn2tv5mkqp.pdf

Crowdsourcing: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

Crowd employment platforms enable firms to source labour and expertise by leveraging Internet technology. Rather than offshoring jobs to low-cost geographies, functions once performed by internal employees can be outsourced to an undefined pool of digital labour using a virtual network. This enables firms to shift costs and offload risk as they access a flexible, scalable workforce that sits outside the traditional boundaries of labour laws and regulations. The micro-tasks of ‘clickwork’ are tedious, repetitive and poorly paid, with remuneration often well below minimum wage. This article will present an analysis of one of the most popular crowdsourcing sites—Mechanical Turk—to illuminate how Amazon's platform enables an array of companies to access digital labour at low cost and without any of the associated social protection or moral obligation.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/NTWE_NTWE12038.pdf?abstractid=2530770&mirid=2

Souad Djelassi

Papers

Customers' participation in product development through crowdsourcing: Issues and implications