Copyright University of Waikato RESEARCH PROPOSAL Candidate's name: Debashish Mandal. Email: [email protected]Chief supervisor: Prof. Bob McQueen Panel: Prof. Kay Weaver, Dr. Stuart Dillion, Dr. Karyn Rastrick Working title of the research: THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON ENTREPRENEURIAL NETWORKS Presented on: 29 th March 2011 PDF created with pdfFactory trial version www.pdffactory.com
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THE IMPACT OF SOCIALMEDIA ON ENTREPRENEURIAL NETWORKS
This is the actual Research Proposal runs in to 70 pages. The primary purpose of this research is to examine the process of adoption of social media in small businesses and investigate the impact it has on the business network of the owner/entrepreneur. The intended output of the investigation is to construct a robust social media adoption model specifically designed for small business. The model will be designed in a manner which will be helpful for practitioners and academics alike.
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4.3 Adoption of social media by businesses ................................................................ 14
4.4 Adoption and motivation of micro blogging by businesses .................................... 15
4.5 Adoption of application similar to facebook in organisational settings .................. 17
4.6 Conceptual framework based on Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) .................................................................................................... 20
4.7 Entrepreneurs – Role of links actors and ties in social networks ............................ 25
4.8 Contrary position on weak versus strong ties......................................................... 27
4.9 Literature gap ....................................................................................................... 31
5 Research Design .......................................................................................................... 33
5.1 Identification and Justification of Research Methodology ..................................... 33
Figure 1 Entrepreneur and network ties (Jack, 2005 P.1252) ............................................... 28 Figure 2 Conceptualizing network development Slotte-Kock & Coviello, (2010) ................ 30
List of Tables
Table 1: Articles related to Social Media (Arranged in level of importance to the investigation) ........................................................................................................................ 9 Table 2: Articles related to entrepreneur networks (Arranged in level of importance to our research) ............................................................................................................................... 9 Table 3: Conceptual comparative framework modelled from three similar studies and one facebook like application .................................................................................................... 23 Table 4: Justification of selection of research approach and methodology (Adapted from Yin 2007) .................................................................................................................................. 36 Table 5: Paradigm Position of the research (Adapted from Perry & Rao in Hine & Carson 2007) .................................................................................................................................. 39 Table 6 Milestone and time frame ....................................................................................... 48
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social media to maintain weak ties. In association with this link work of Günther et al.,
(2009) in extending the UTAUT is extremely important and justifies the theoretical
framework of this research. Slotte-Kock & Coviello (2010) development of model for
studying life cycle of ties in entrepreneur network along with Jack, (2005) work and strong
and weak ties forms the basis of theory to be examined in light of the constructs in the
UTAUT
Table 1: Articles related to Social Media (Arranged in level of importance to the investigation)
S.No. Author Subject Matter 1. Günther et al., (2009) Modelling of adoption of twitter in enterprise –
extension to the UTAUT model 2. DiMicco et al., (2008) Investigates adoption of social media (facebook type
application) at work – motivations for employees – Action research – nature and purpose of connection
3. Blake et al., (2010) Studies twitter adoption – diffusion process 4. Kärkkäinen et al., (2010) Adoption of social media in b2b for innovations 5. Ellison, et al., (2007) &
Ellison, et al., (2011) Two similar investigation – College students motivation to use facebook – evidence for building of social capital
6. Boyd & Ellison, (2008) Descriptive – latent ties – general – off line connections 7. Brzozowski et al., (2009)
Forward citation from DiMicco et al. (2008) – examines effect of feedback and peer pressure
8. Hopkins & Ress, (2007) Adoption strategies - bundle of social media tools – University settings
9. Kaplan & Haenlein, (2010)
Descriptive – Challenges and advantages of social media
10. Kaplan & Haenlein, (2010)
Descriptive – about the advantages of Twitter
11. Fischer & Reuber, (2010) Effect of twitter on entrepreneur thinking and behaviour
Table 2: Articles related to entrepreneur networks (Arranged in level of importance to our research)
recent origins and requires theory building methodology. Table 4 summarises Yin’s
justification and against each requirement I have summarised how my research fits with
Yin’s requirement. Kock, (1997 p. 86) suggest that “one of the reasons for emergence of
action research and its consequent use in the information systems field is the recognition that
a social system can be more deeply understood if the researcher is part of the socio-technical
system being studied, which can be achieved through applying positive intervention on the
system. This involvement is also believed to foster cooperation between the researcher and
those who are being studied, information exchange, and commitment towards both research
quality and organisational development.”
Table 4: Justification of selection of research approach and methodology (Adapted from Yin 2007)
Yin’s Criteria Our Research
1. Little is known about the research problem – paradigmatic body of knowledge so an inductive, theory-building methodology is needed
Social media is relatively new phenomena and their application by business is in the nascent stage. Application of this new technology to entrepreneurial research is absolutely uncharted and hence an inductive theory building approach is justified.
2. Context and Phenomena are not clearly distinct – the research is about the in depth ‘how’ or ‘why’ of a complex social science phenomena – it is an investigation of the changing processes with which people work together
Social media are precisely changing the processes with which people interact and work together. Our research questions examine how social media will impact social networks and communication. Why do small businesses adopt social media?
3. The phenomenon is rarely accessible to academic researchers and the research provides a window on to a critical part of the phenomena.
The process of adoption of social media especially facebook is an on-going phenomenon and once adopted the process can rarely be mapped by an academic.
Small business owners have a unique way of doing business which is largely based on
experience, knowledge, communication and judgement called as “Experiential Learning”.
The experiential learning process will benefit the action research process which is normally
conducted in spirals of plan, act, observe and reflect. (Hine & Carson, 2007) By using the
Table 4 and arguments from Kock, 1997 and Hine & Carson, 2007 I have justified the use of
action research for our research. More over the implementation process of social media as
experienced by other authors may move towards participatory action research involving
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triangulated effort is required to counter act the bias of the researcher and gather view points
from various angles to provide a holistic view point.
Table 5: Paradigm Position of the research (Adapted from Perry & Rao in Hine & Carson 2007)
Element Critical Theory Our Case Realism Our Case
Ontology ‘Virtual’ reality shaped by social, economic, ethnic, political, cultural and gender values and crystallized over time
Networks of entrepreneurs as argued above are largely shaped by the points mentioned.
Reality is real but only imperfectly and probabilistically apprehensible and so triangulations from many sources is required to try to know it
Existence of Networks for the entrepreneur cannot be denied, however the varied and specific nature of it may require variety of methods to capture its real perspective
Epistemology Value mediated finding researcher is “transformative intellectual” who changes the social world within which participants live
Investigation is about impact of social media and alter the social world of our subjects by implementation of social media
Findings probably true – researcher is value-aware and needs to triangulate any perceptions she is collecting
I intent to triangulate our findings by substantiating with in-depth structured interviews along with content analysis of large amount of data and unique phenomena of SMN’s
Common methodology
Action Research and participant Observation
I intent to apply Action Research and where permitted participant observation. I also intent to apply Participative actions research where feasible
Case Studies and Convergent Interviews
I intent to prepare case studies based on extensive interviews and reports from the Actions research which will be subjected to content analysis for theory building.
The above section discusses the importance of a qualitative approach for small enterprise
research and highlighted the need for an inductive intrepretist approach to study the
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Transcript of a sample discussion on Facebook business Page K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Mark the raw enforcer, he takes his nutrition seriously January 5 at 11:49am · Like · Comment · Share 3 people like this. View all 4 comments Lauren Buckman o it's the pimp mobile. January 5 at 5:45pm · Like · Flag Paws Natural ok uhm wow really, and I thought I would go to any length to catch an eye for a sale.....you need council January 5 at 9:01pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Official K9 dog, the handsome Onyx! His favorite food is the K9 lamb, lamb bones and chicken necks. A bone a day keeps the dentist away :) January 5 at 10:41am · Like · Comment · Share 5 people like this. Christopher Brankin may not be able to play soccer but what an outstanding specimen!!! January 5 at 6:01pm · Like · Flag Rose Close He's gorgeous !! January 5 at 9:03pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... K9Natural. 100% natural RAW DOG FOOD. K9 Natural raw fed car alarm.....(a.k.a. Stella a recently rescued dog that ended up in the shelter after the Christchurch earthquake, now part of a K9 Natural pack) January 4 at 7:46am · Like · Comment · Share 10 people like this. View all 6 comments K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. yep 3 dogs now buddy. they all have such different personalities, it makes for a lot of laughs and a hectic house at times:-) January 5 at 1:46pm · Like · Flag Keith Glendon hahah!! yep.... and where ya sittin' to watch the TV now mate? I reckon the sofa would be overtaken! ;) January 5 at 1:47pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... Darren Johnston our 2 goldens who are K9 natural dogs,it was a pleasure to meet you also on the flight home from LA on xmas eve. January 1 at 7:56pm · Like · Comment K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. they look like they are having lots of fun. Great to meet you too and all the best for 2011! January 1 at 8:37pm · Like Write a comment... K9Natural. 100% natural RAW DOG FOOD. how about I swap you this tasty, semi damaged frisbee for some of those awesome 100% lamb treats... January 1 at 6:50pm · Like · Comment · Share 9 people like this. Muriel Perkins Friends,You can find this pet food @ Doghouse Pet Health Centers..Fresno January 1 at 7:51pm · Like · Flag Phyllis Mueller Houston? January 2 at 5:17am · Like · Flag K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Hi Phyllis, on the www.k9natural.com site there is a USA store locator up near the top of the page, this shows the current list of stores stocking the food with more to be added throughout the year. January 2 at 5:57am · Like · Flag Muriel Perkins I looked at your store locator and you need to know we carry you food in both location's of Doghouse Pet Health Centers- Fresno CA January 2 at 6:05am · Like · Flag K9 Natural Sleddog
K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. ok sure thing, we will get this updated Muriel, thanks! January 2 at 6:24am · Like · Flag K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Muriel what is the address of the other location? January 2 at 6:28am · Like · Flag Muriel Perkins @ K9 ~ 9447 N Fort Washington, Fresno Ca 93730 Ph.559-433-4647 Thank You and Happy New Year!! January 2 at 9:43am · Like · Flag Muriel Perkins @ k9 Doghouse Pet Health Centers are as follows:9447 N Fort Washington~93730 559.433.4647 ( Next store 6157 N Palm@Bullard~93704 559.225.3647 Thanks January 2 at 1:03pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... Treacy Landers hey guys. is it right that you arent doing the salmon anymore?? im wanting to swap from chicken to the salmon. if you are, do you still have some left at yr shop, as i could come in and get some while you got some left. thanks heaps :) January 1 at 5:43pm · Like · Comment K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Hi Treacy, it is right that we no longer do the salmon. We do still do 'Endurance' which is a mix of lamb and salmon which is another option. Were you after Salmon for a particular reason? January 1 at 10:11pm · Like · Flag Treacy Landers i like to swap between the chicken/salmon so my 3 dogs get the omega from the salmon, but i can always get some omega oil from a health shop. 2 of my dogs (bichons) get ear probs and the omega helps them. (i dont want them having to have drugs from the vet if i can help it). bichons can have very sensitive skin and ive found that if i give them red meat, they end up with the tear staining around the eyes and mouth, so i steer clear of red meat based prods and treats, hence why they get the chicken/salmon. January 1 at 10:17pm · Like · Flag K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Have you heard of or tried Green Tripe? Its a natural probiotic and could help with some of the problems you listed above. Next time you go into K9, ask about it and we can give you a bag to try. January 2 at 8:32am · Like · Flag Write a comment... K9Natural. 100% natural RAW DOG FOOD. wow, here comes 2011......look at it....such wonderful new products on the horizon January 1 at 5:40pm · Like · Comment · Share 9 people like this. View all 4 comments Phyllis Mueller Barks 5th Avenue, or Bones 2 Go they are the best around here!!!! January 2 at 7:29am · Like · Flag Julie Cosgrove my two will look foward to that, just been away and tried the dehydrated lamb and to my utter surprise they loved it!! looks like we may have to convert to that for a while! January 3 at 5:39pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... Dawn-Sophie Leder NEED INFO ASAP PLEASE i ordered this product from a place in new zealand and i just recieved an email from them saying i might have to fill out a form to have food from your country to come into the USA. is this true? i need to know asap to tell them dont ship thankyou sooo much. their company is called www.naturalpaws... See More Natural Paws Holistic Pet Care www.naturalpaws.com.au Concerned for the natural needs and instincts of our pets with the increasing stresses of modern day living Natural Paws was established to offer pet owners a choice of natural andChohlisattic
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Transcript conversations on dedicated groups on Linked-In
Copyright University of Waikato 61
1) Use the “Tell your fans” option: You can upload your contact list and e-mail address list to encourage people outside of your Facebook friends to come see and like your page. 2) Use the “Suggest page to friends” link on your page. 3) Add a Connect with us Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn links to your web site if you have one. 4) Have employees add the URLs to their LinkedIn profiles 5) If you set up a twitter make sure to add a link to your FB and LinkedIn 6) Facebook Ads 7) Add your page URL to your business cards 8) Add a signature to the bottom of e-mails that ask people to connect with you on FB etc... 9) If you do do advertising outside of online – direct people to your FB page 10) Ensure your Facebook posts add value and create engagement. The more people who like your posts and comment on them the more impressions you can get. You can monitor results on Facebook by using the page insights. It can tell you how many people like and unlike your page each day, which posts are getting the most impressions etc... You can then use this information to tinker with what you are doing. David 14 days ago
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MohammedStop Following Follow Mohammed
Mohammed Younus • David, How we can promote a Fan page for a specific group ages? For example, if my website services offers 'water damage services', how I can find the specific groups and fans who will be interested?
14 days ago
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Transcript conversations on dedicated groups on Linked-In
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SusanStop Following Follow Susan
Susan Plunkett PhD • Mohammed... ever rented a house or apartment when you were fresh out of high school and you had problems with water leakage or a soaked carpet or whatever? Horror. Consider how your business services meet specific needs and once you consider the socio-cultural linkages to those needs you have your segments. So, once again it might be targeting under 25's re water damage and apartment living. Or, whatever best suits. I didn't look at your site. Once you have the age group and issue you then target renters and perhaps even real estate agents. @Jason I find competitions often draw new followers to 'like' a brand however, FB has updated its promotion rules and you should read those carefully because in some instances, pushing people to like a page just to be part of a competition is against those rules. Anyway, I'd look at the situation the other way round...why aren't people choosing to follow? I often see boring boring boring walls and posts. The same two or three post ideas constantly recycled or just a lack of understanding how to engage people well in FB well. Certainly often I see a lack of understanding of the client base. A classic example was a car firm that actually made NO attempt to engage its clients and small fan base about their interests in car racing and so on. When they began to shift that and show real understanding of their clients, their numbers began to increase. They then included a FB car racing game on their page and that added a newer richer dimension that led to fans bringing friends in. So often I see businesses just failing to understand the basics about marketing - know your client; know your product range - expand horizons.
13 days ago
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Transcript conversations on dedicated groups on Linked-In
Copyright University of Waikato 63
RichardStop Following Follow Richard
Richard Jones • For some great information on how to add more fans and followers I would recommend visiting www.engagesciences.com
13 days ago
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Kimberly D.Stop Following Follow Kimberly D.
Kimberly D. Hardy • I've seen professionals adding their company FB, Twitter, and Linkedin addresses to the back of their business cards. Thought that was unique.
12 days ago
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AndyStop Following Follow Andy
Andy Phelps • To get get a good start on a Facebook fan page, order some fans to give it that initial boost, people join fan pages that have lots of people using it, here is a little tip, go over to Fiverr.com and pay $5 for 1000 fans to give your page a kick start, then start building it with quality, yes the initial 1000 are poor contacts, and will drop off, but it builds you some credibility to start building, who wants to be at the party first? 12 days ago
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Transcript conversations on dedicated groups on Linked-In
Copyright University of Waikato 64
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MarkStop Following Follow Mark
Mark Gordon • One technique that seems to have worked for us is placing a small message at the top of our Welcome Page asking the user to "click LIKE to stay in touch" with an arrow pointing toward the Like Button. I've also seen this done with the main profile photo, where an arrow points to the right with the same call to action. 5 hours ago
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StephanieStop Following Follow Stephanie
Stephanie Rosendahl • One technique is to create "drawings" or "prizes" of gifts, such as a Kindle and in order to qualify a person just needs to "like" a fan page. This seems to work but the most beneficial is those that "like" your fan page because they have been suggested by friends.
3 hours ago
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Transcript conversations on dedicated groups on Linked-In
Copyright University of Waikato 65
winstonStop Following Follow winston
winston teo • Provide yr facebook address in Twitter, which is a very effective way to reach huge audience crowd, especially if u have alot of followers already.. In yr facebook account, having those friends who back you up and recommend others to yr link will help you more effectively...
1 hour ago
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Interview questions obtained from the authors of the article “Motivations for social networking at work” by DiMicco, J., Millen, D. R., Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Brownholtz, B., & Muller, M. (2008). Motivations for social networking at work. Proceedings of the ACM 2008 conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW ’08 (p. 711). New York, New York, USA: ACM
The questions will be suitably modified to suit our study and application.
Interview Questions: − Purpose: Warm-up o What is your job at IBM? Where do you work? What do you do? o Do you work in a traditional office? o How did you hear about Beehive? Did someone invite you to join? − Purpose: understand motivation for visiting − How often do you log into Beehive? o 1/day, 1/week, 1/month, only once o what usually prompts you to go to the site? − Let’s look at your connections page o How many of the people listed as your connections do you know? o Of the ones that you do not know, what prompted you to connect to them? o Of the ones you do know, how did you connect to them? Did you initiate contact? Did you search for them? Did they find you? o Do you have work colleagues and friends on Beehive that you have not connected to? − Your Relationship with your connections o How would you summarize who you connect to on Beehive? o Which of your connections do you keep an eye on the most? (through beehive) o Which of your connections do you communicate the most with on Beehive? o Which of your connections do you communicate the most with outside of Beehive? o − Memorable connections o Can you remember something you saw on one of your connections’ pages: either on their profile, a photo, a hive five, a status message? • Whose page was it? [go to the page with the user] • What was memorable about the page? • Did you learn something you didn’t know about the person? • Did you leave a comment? Have you ever left a comment on someone’s profile? − Thinking of all of your Beehive connections, have you ever mentioned a photo or a hive five to someone outside of Beehive (in person, over email, over ST)? What did you say? What prompted you to say it? − People you do not know o Can you think of a time you looked at a profile page of someone you didn’t know?
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• Who was it? [let’s go to the page together] • How did you find this person’s profile page? • Why did you look at it? • What did you learn about this person from looking at their profile? • What kind of impression do you have of this person? • What have you learned that you could not learn on Blue Pages/Fringe/Small Blue? o Have you ever contacted someone that you didn’t know because of something that you saw or read in beehive? − Your activity on Beehive o What kinds of things do you share on Beehive? o Why did you choose to share this set of photos? o Why did you choose to create this set of hive fives? o Events? o Status message? o What prompts you to leave a comment on Beehive? o Do you share mostly personal or professional content on beehive? − About Me questions o Let’s look at your profile page together o When you created your About Me description, what was inspiration? o Did you have a purpose in sharing this information? o Who do you think is looking at your About Me’s? Who is your audience? o What other kinds of profiles have you had to fill out (facebook? bluepages? etc) - how did filling out the About Me section of Beehive compare (if necessary, prompt: easier or harder to come up with questions rather than just answer them?) o Why did you choose that many questions? When and why did you stop? (if necessary, prompt: did you add more later? was it a one time thing?) o Did you specifically create questions for other people to reuse? o IF REUSER: − -How did you choose a question to reuse? Where did you reuse from (person's profile or the list page? from a connection?) − -If no reuse, how would your profile be different? o IF NOT A REUSER: − Did you know the reuse feature existed? When viewing other people’s About Me’s, what impression do you get of them? Versus other profile sites, how useful are the self-crafted about me’s?
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Beehive vs. other tools − Do you use any other (non-IBM) Social Networking sites? (LinkedIn, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, etc) o Do you use these other tools more or less than beehive? Why? o How do you see beehive as different from these other SN tools? o What is your primary motivation for using each of these sites? − What IBM tools do you use to find out information about someone? o Do you use Blue Pages? How often and why? o Do you use Connections? (blogs, dogear, activities)? o Do use Fringe? Small Blue? o Any other tools? How often and why? − How do you view Beehive as different from other tools at IBM? • What value or benefit does Beehive provide? • Do you see any business value in Beehive? − How does your team primarily keep up with each others activities? o Do you see them face-to-face regularly? o What technologies do you use?
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Appendix E Format of Introductory email sent to prospective participants
Copyright University of Waikato 69
Subject: Participation in a Facebook Commerce Project
We are communicating with you as a PhD student from the Waikato School of Manangement University of Waikato, New Zealand inquiring your interest in participating in a study of Facebook Commerce project.
The project is directed towards studying the impact of social media such as facebook on small businesses and their networks. We seek to answer questions:
• Do Social media play a role in creating social capital within SME networks? • How do social media add value to existing social network of the entrepreneurs? • How do social media influence and evolve business models of SME?
We are sure that you are aware of the far reaching potential of Facebook and its widespread use by businesses to interact and engage with its customers. Businesses are using facebook and its rich database to address a variety of issues such as customer service, complaints, helpdesk, product information, references from other customers, word-of-mouth marketing, facebook commerce so on and so forth We are writing to inquire about your interest in establishing a presence on Facebook. We would conduct research in a participatory manner wherein we help you to design, establish, engage with the customer, monitor and regulate your facebook site. Simultaneously we observe and learn from the process to establish guidelines, tools, enablers etc. Eventually as the process evolves if you wish we can help you move towards Facebook Commerce giving the opportunity for customers to buy directly from within facebook.
The study will start on April 2011. Participation and Data collection would mean simple interviews which will be recorded to explain the adoption process, views and specific comments etc. These interviews could be in the form of chats/skpe/google talk/blogs etc.
We are still developing the interview process and questions. These interviews could be of about 1-2 hours. We may require some follow up interviews next year for updates and review of progress.
We would like to inform you that Waikato School of management is the "Number One" Business School in New Zealand.Waikato School of Management is a "triple crown" accredited institution.
We are members of an elite group of business schools worldwide. Of the 3900 business schools, only 48 have triple crown accreditation. For more information you may refer to the links below. http://www.waikato.ac.nz/news/archive.shtml?article=502 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_accreditation
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Appendix E Format of Introductory email sent to prospective participants
Copyright University of Waikato 70
The research process will be performed under the active supervision of Prof. Bob McQueen an Harvard MBA who has more than 20 years of experience in business research and Electronic Commerce.
You may refer to the link below for details of Professor Bob McQueen.
We hope to receive your support for performing an effective research. We would love to hear from you and any clarifications you may need on the above. A confirmation indicating your interest would be extremely helpful. Thanks and Regards,
--
Regards,
D.Mandal - Mobile: 022 073 0802 email: [email protected] Phd Student - Waikato School of Management - University of Waikato - Hamilton New Zealand Tel: 00-64-7-838-4466 - ext. 8182 (try the home number first) Home: 291, Cambridge Road, Hamilton New Zealand 3216 Tel: ++64-7-856-9777 http://www.facebook.com/mandaldebashish http://nz.linkedin.com/pub/debashish-mandal/26/964/301 Twitter: @debashishmandal
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