The Long-Tails in Content Services: How the Structure of Hybrid Networks Shape Content Popularity and Related Decision-Making

<p>This thesis examines the role that socio-technical networks that drive content popularity. Socio-technical networks are conceptualized as the infrastructure through which distributed individuals make and share cognition. This making and sharing of cognition through socio-technical networks results in an emergent distributed decision-making process. This emergent distributed decision-making process is embedded within the context of the socio-technical networks and consequently the structure of the networks influences it. The emergent distributed decision-making process influences the popularity of content. This thesis examines the question about which factors of socio-technical networks influence the popularity of content.</p><p>I explore this question through the use of a combination of a case study and quantitative field study. The multi-method approach allows us to use a combination of approaches to explore the static and dynamic factors that influence popularity of content embedded within socio-technical networks. I find that technical artifacts play an important role in the sharing of cognition within content networks and socio-technical networks structures influence both thepopularity of content and the duration that content takes to emerge as popular.</p><p>This thesis has implications for both research and practice. It moves beyond an examination of the consequences and implications of long-tail behaviors to the structural characteristics that underlie such distributions. It alsoserves the knowledge management community by emphasizing the role of representational or classification systems in managing and disseminating knowledge. It adds to the IT literature by elaborating on the description of longtail characteristics of IT mediated networks. The implications for managers on the basis of this work are clear. Managers should focus on bridging large networksand making sure that participants in these networks have relationships with each other. While we might appreciate the phrase “let a thousand flowers bloom”, managers must not forget the forest for the trees. This work suggests thatmanagers in addition to encouraging the growth of new ideas should also ensure that these ideas are disseminated as widely as possible through cohesive and connected networks.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Management Information and Decision Systems

Grantor dc:publisher

Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Srinivasan, Nikhil S.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lyytinen, Kalle

• Information Systems
• popularity
• content
• social networks
• affiliation networks
• tags

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1355748209

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:case1355748209