Social media (SM) enables micro, small, and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve brand awareness and to engage their audience, which can lead to referrals, repeat business, and increased sales. However, the existing literature offers limited insights into how the ability to leverage SM for commercial activities that are beyond transactions (relational social commerce capability) can affect performance outcomes for SMEs. Drawing on the existing literature and insights from in-depth interviews with six SME managers/owners, we developed a conceptual research model and examined it empirically by using a dataset collected from Slovenian SMEs. This study identifies relational social commerce capability and competitive advantage as important mediators when exploring the impact of SM use on business performance. More specifically, the findings reveal the mediating role of relational social commerce capability between SM use and competitive advantage, while SM use was not found to have a direct impact on competitive advantage. Furthermore, the findings illustrate business performance as a result of the competitive advantage derived from relational s-commerce capability.

The developments of the digital economy will have an elementary impact on economic systems and how economic values will be created. The paper therefore discusse

Open government data is the result of as well as the preconditions for open government. Data made publically accessible is an important basis for creating added value for society as a whole. Open data business models support entrepreneurs in reusing and combining available open data sources to provide value-added services. Three cases show how open data business models can be realized.

The exponential speed of technological advancements and the ever-changing needs of customers have changed the way enterprises engage with their customers. However, despite the increasing scholarly interest in the enterprise-initiated perspective of customer engagement (CE) in recent years, it remains unclear what drives enterprises to initiate customer engagement and how enterprise-initiated customer engagement enhances enterprise performance. Thus, the purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate a conceptual model that consists of drivers and outcomes of enterprise-initiated customer engagement. After developing a conceptual model based on previous conceptual approaches to customer engagement, a quantitative survey was undertaken to gather the data from business-to-customer micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. The data were analyzed using the partial least square path modelling. The findings showed that external pressure and organizational readiness influence enterprise-initiated customer engagement. Enterprise-initiated customer engagement was also found to influence marketing performance. The empirical findings provide insights for managers that explain what drivers may influence enterprise-initiated customer engagement and what benefits they can expect. Overall, this research extends the understanding of the CE domain and provides additional insights for the drivers and outcomes of enterprise-initiated CE.

This interview with the CEO from Squirro reports on how a search engine in the enterprise context evolves with artificial intelligence (AI) towards a cognitive search engine and ultimately towards an electronic marketplace for information objects. Using several examples, Dorian Selz describes the opportunities of Squirro‘s low-code in creating user-specific information objects from internal and external data sources as well as in deriving probabilities and projections. This not only has the potential to improve existing business processes, but also sheds light on new predictive capabilities. The example shows potential elements of future AI marketplaces, such as models, app directories and connectors.

Open societal innovation (OSI) refers to the adaptation and subsequent sustainable use of appropriate open innovation approaches from business, adapted and util