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Organisational Challenges of using
                   Social Media Marketing:
               The Case of two Network Carriers



                          David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich


Abstract
Social media marketing on Facebook or Twitter is en vogue, but it implies a con-
siderable degree of transparency, and requires a high responsiveness that traditional
hierarchical companies might not be used to. Using social media marketing tools
therefore causes new kinds of organisational challenges that need to be researched.
After a literature review, an explorative case study approach was chosen in order to
research two approaches of airlines to dealing with the challenges in an internation-
al environment. Categories of challenges were built by collecting data from docu-
ments, interviews and the Facebook pages of KLM and SWISS International Air-
lines (SWISS).
The paper identifies four areas of challenges. First, it is crucial to set up an internal
network of respondents in order to quickly answer public questions and complaints
on social media channels. Second, the style of communicating with fans mirrors the
corporate culture and drives costs as well as benefits. Third: A Facebook Wall is a
multi-purpose communication channel. Requests might be answered by various
departments. Fourth: The dynamic field of social media marketing requires perma-
nent improvements in order to better serve the customer.


Keywords: Social Media Marketing, Facebook, Airlines, Organisational Challeng-
es




                                                                                       1
David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich


1.      Introduction
Since the beginning of the century, Internet usage has dramatically increased (Si-
mon & Bernhardt, 2008, 11). Within this timeframe, the users’ options to interact
and communicate electronically have greatly increased. Some business models,
applications and features on the Internet are entirely based on social interaction
(Busemann & Gscheidle, 2009). The social media movement started with the plat-
form called ‘open diary’ that brought online diary writers together in one communi-
ty. The trend of getting engage in social media has evolved quickly since then. So-
cial meda is defined as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the
ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and allow the creation and
exchange of user generated content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, 61).

The phenomenon of using social media platforms has been researched from differ-
ent angles. The point of view of the users dominates the research, as social media is
primarily designed for peer-to-peer communication. First, the motivation of con-
sumers to generate user generated content was researched. The findings of Daugh-
erty, Eastin & Bright (2008, 22) show that ego-defensive, social, and value-
expressive functional sources of motivation, and their contributions to attitude for-
mation with regard to creating user generated content, offer a positive theoretical
affirmation. Moreover, strengthening personal identity, entertainment, or in certain
cases remuneration, can be sources of the motivation for using social media
(Muntinga, Moorman & Smit 2010). A second research stream examines legal is-
sues (George & Scerri, 2007) and in particular privacy of users (Giardin, et al.,
2007; Acquisti & Gross 2006). Particularly in the field of travel and tourism, a third
research stream examines trust and the impact of travel reviews. While the level of
trust strongly depends on the perceived credibility of the type of website on which
the content is published (Yoo et al. 2009), the impact of reviews is strongly influ-
encing the decision which accommodation to chose in a particular town or city
(Gretzel & Yoo 2008; Sidali, Schulze & Spiller 2009).

When companies or institutions get involved in social media, it is mainly for mar-
keting purposes using social media as a B-to-C interaction channel. Researchers
started to measure the level of engagement of companies in social media marketing
(SMM). In particular, micro businesses see social media as a great marketing tool
through which they can compete on a marketing level with their larger counterparts
(Ghaffar & Tariq, 2010). A major reason for this is that most activities in SMM
require little cash-outflow and offer a high potential reach, as a substantial part of
the search results for potential tourist in search engines stem from social media
platforms (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010). However, some micro businesses and SMEs
have a low degree of activity compared to the large companies (Pesonen, 2011)
and, there are still too few tourism service providers that make use of SMM (Inver-



2
Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers


sini & Buhalis, 2009) while internet users frequently visit social media platforms
for gathering travel information (Milano, Baggio & Piatelli, 2011).

There is a myriad of options for interaction with customers using electronic chan-
nels and in particular social media services (Benz, 2010, 2). In terms of reach, ac-
cessibility and user-friendliness, social media can be used by the members of the
society on their own (Dreher, 2010, 18).

Scholars have also looked at the marketing side of SMM, as the social media offers
various ways to attract the customer. (Weber, 2007; Ghaffar & Tariq, 2010; Peso-
nen, 2011; Maurer & Wiegmann, 2011). SMM activities are supposed to be differ-
ent from activities for conventional marketing in the following ways. First, con-
sumers start to publicly interact to communicate about and judge a brand (Evans,
2008) which leads to uncontrollable marketing factors (Constantinides & Fountain
2008, 240). As soon as an organisation starts monitoring these factors and tries to
facilitate the interaction, the challenge of constantly and quickly interacting as well
as staying interesting to the target group emerges (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, 66).
Second, good social media activities should be embedded in the organisation in
order to be authentic and competent. Evans & Mc Kee, (2010, 10) point out “…
fear of the unknown, the unsaid, the unidentified and even the uninformed saying
bad things about your brand, product, or services that aren’t even correct? Fear not,
or at least fear less.” Due to the dynamic environment of social media, there is too
little time to write and react perfectly. Imperfectionism is not well aligned with the
essentials of corporate communications (Riel & Fombrun, 2007).

Besides the difficulties of analysing the existing media, selecting the most suitable
social media platforms to engage with, integrating the social media strategy in the
existing strategy allocating resources and monitoring the activities (Safko 2010)
companies have to answer the question of how they cope with this highly dynamic
and interactive environment. This question has not yet been researched.

Based on this, the following research question arises: How can hierarchically or-
ganised companies cope with a public, open and dynamic way of communication?


2.       Methodology
As there is no research of how organisational challenges caused by SMM can be
dealt with, this explorative case study approach (Yin, 1994) sheds light onto this
new field. An explorative case study approach investigates a contemporary phe-
nomenon for which the boundaries are not clear (Yin, 1994, 13). Both prerequisites
are fulfilled in the social media context.



                                                                                           3
David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich


According to Buhalis and Law (2008, 609), electronic complaints are the biggest
current challenges for tourism organisations. Other companies in the tourism sector
face similar challenges as there are various channels of sending feedback. Many
Walls on Facebook (FB) pages of tourism organisations and companies are full of
positive, but also negative feedback from anyone who can access the Internet. The
use of FB is very popular. It is by far the most popular social network in the world
(www.alexa.com). Therefore, this research focuses on FB.

Airlines are multinational companies with various offices around the world. As the
adoption of Web 2.0 has a positive link with the level of internationalisation
(Scaglione, Johnson & Trabichet, 2009), their FB page and the challenges connect-
ed to it are adequate research objects. Moreover, critical incidents often happen in
the airline business (Edvardsson, 1992). Critical incidents trigger a greater need for
fast information updates. Critical incidents may occur at times when environmental
conditions prevent aircraft from operating on time. After the ash cloud crisis, the
European airline industry went through a second crisis in December 2010 as snowy
and windy weather conditions severely impacted upon airline operation in Europe.

Two airlines with different approaches towards the usage of the FB page were se-
lected to conduct two explorative case studies in order to compare their approaches
and find patterns. First: KLM operates an FB page with comparatively many fans
(fans are people that klicked once on a companies’ ‘I lik button’) and a high level
of traffic on their Wall. Second, SWISS runs an FB page with a lower degree of
interaction than KLM. The case study approach allows data collection from multi-
ple sources:
- The most important data source was the Wall of the two airlines on FB. All
    posts and comments on the Walls of the two airlines that were posted between
    December 1st and 9th as well as between December 18th and 27th were subject
    to analysis. A stepwise inductive process was used to categorise the content of
    these posts and comments (Mayring, 2008). The aim of this first step was to
    find the patterns of action and reaction between the customers and the airlines
    that might cause challenges for a hierarchical organisation. Based on the results
    of this inductive process and from the literature, a semi-structured interview
    was prepared as suggested by (Flick 2002, 128).
- In a semi-structured interview (Hopf, 2008), social media managers of the
    companies answered questions relating to the analysed content and about how
    they deal with the identified challenges in a telephone interview. As SWISS
    had only one social media manager during the periods analysed, he was the on-
    ly interviewee. The interview with KLM was conducted with the person re-
    sponsible for the Wall on FB (social media manager) and the head of the social
    media hub. The answers were transcribed and analysed by using the inductive
    process of Mayring (2008) in order to verify the categories found during the


4
Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers


    analysis of the posts and comments. During the same interview, interviewees
    also answered questions about the company in order to better understand the
    development of social media activities, the strategic intentions of social media
    use and the social-media management processes in these organisations.
- Documents and policies concerning social media published by the airlines
    about how comments are treated were analysed.
The explorative approach is appropriate for this research as it is a little researched
contemporary phenomenon that implies challenges for the management of multina-
tional companies particularly in the travel and tourism business.


3.     Two Airlines with two different Approaches to SMM
There are differences and similarities in the approaches of KLM and SWISS to
SMM In order to better understand the results, the following table outlines the rele-
vant cornerstones.

Criteria                           SWISS                            KLM
Transported passengers in 2010     14.2 million                     20.7 million
FB Fans in Dec. 2010               Around 50,000                    85,000
# of fans: 7. Feb. 2011, 18:00     56,972                           101,460
# of fans: 8. May 2011, 18:00      63,057                           192,239
Decision to start with a FB page   Marketing department             Strategic decision at top
taken by                                                            management level
Reason for page on FB              Intention to increase SMM,       Additional e-Acquisition and
                                   many users on FB and an          information channel
                                   existing SWISS-FB page
                                   operated by a fan
Start on FB                        In 2009 SWISS got the            March 2010
                                   admin-rights of the unofficial
                                   SWISS-FB page from a user
Development of number (#) of       Large increase during ash        Very strong increase during
fans                               cloud crisis and thanks to a     ash cloud crisis and thanks
                                   creative competition             to the marketing of the FB
                                                                    page.
FB page is managed by              One social media Manager         Social media hub with seven
(Feb. 2011)                        (and one deputy if he is         employees
                                   absent)
Operating hours (Feb. 2011)        08.00 – 17.00 (CET)              08.00 – 23.00 (CET)

Figure 1:     Corner stones of KLM and SWISS relevant for a comparison of the SWISS fanpage

Both airlines use FB for cross-media marketing, branding purposes, corporate
communication and customer service. Due to the fans’ way of using this interac-
tion-channel, at the moment the focus is on customer service for both KLM and
SWISS.


                                                                                                   5
David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich


The periods of analysis were equal in terms of length. However, the weather in the
second period of analysis was worse. Both airlines had to cancel flights in both pe-
riods but their hub-airports were never closed for a whole day or more. In the se-
cond period, many ex-pats wanted to travel home for Christmas. The following
table shows the number of posts and categorised details as well as details of all
comments.

The major differences between the two airlines are that KLM strategically decided
to operate an FB page, puts more workforce effort into it and has almost twice as
many fans as SWISS. KLM acquired its fans in a shorter timeframe. SWISS carried
about two thirds of the number of passengers that KLM carried. The size of the
airlines is not correlated with the engagement of the fans as the following table
with the number of the fan-posts of the two selected periods clearly shows.

Day period 1     Number of fan-posts              Day period 2       Number of fan-posts
                 SWISS     KLM                                       SWISS       KLM
01.12.10         5         14                     18.12.10           1           365
02.12.10         1         34                     19.12.10           3           163
03.12.10         5         30                     20.12.10           2           87
04.12.10         3         36                     21.12.10           9           63
05.12.10         3         21                     22.12.10           7           78
06.12.10         1         24                     23.12.10           0           61
07.12.10         2         26                     24.12.10           2           36
08.12.10         2         23                     25.12.10           5           33
                                                  26.12.10           5           33

Figure 2:   Number of fan-posts during the two periods of analysis

On the FB Wall, the owner of the Walls (here the airlines) and fans can post short
messages. These messages can get comments from any fan or from the owner of
the Wall. Most posts and comments were contributed by the fans. The following
table shows the results of the defined periods of analysis. The comments of airlines
answering the posts of fans often consist of an apology for inconvenience and ei-
ther an instruction, a question or a private message.




6
Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers



                                                                    December 1.-8.        December 18.-26.
                                                                    SWISS      KLM        SWISS       KLM
Number of airline posts                                             10         6          11          21
Number of fan posts                                                 22         108        40          919
Number of fan posts containing 'rebook'                             2          13         0           209
Number of fan posts containing 'luggage'                            0          5          1           82
Total number of likes                                               1392       366        658         1580
                          Apologise for inconvenience and/or        10         115        28          424
                          instruction
                          Apologise for inconvenience and/or        2          23         0           130
Comments of




                          private message
                          Compliment                                2          16         3           27
               Airlines




                          Apologise for inconvenience and/or        1          13         1           17
                          question

Figure 3:                   Summarizing comparisons of patterns emerging from activities of the Wall for the
                            periods of analysis

The bold numbers show the differences between either the airlines or the two peri-
ods of analysis to be discussed.

Hardly any fan posts remained uncommented on by the airlines, although the num-
ber of KLM posts and comments in the second period caused technical problems
on the FB server so that the KLM-FB page-administrators could not access the
page for some hours. Therefore they posted the following text several times on De-
cember 18th: Dear all, due to the technical restrictions of FB, we are not able to
handle your requests anymore. Please follow KLM on Twitter so we can help you
there, or contact our call centre http://bit.ly/contactKLM.

Moreover both airlines confirmed in the interview that in order to stay transparent,
they hardly ever delete posts.

The comparison of the fan postings shows that KLM received 919 fan posts in the
second period and ‘only’ 108 in the first period. The words ‘rebook’ and ‘luggage’
were used much more in relation to the first period considering the total number of
posts. Posts containing the word ‘rebook’ are requests to rebook a flight such as
“Juanjín Lopez e-tickect 0742480983257 Booking code 2DWC9U AMS -
MAD.Please rebook as soon as posibl”.

However, there are considerably more ‘likes’ for KLM in the second period than in
the first one, whereas for SWISS this is the other way round. Astonishingly,
SWISS received the record number of ‘likes’ (433) for pictures of aircraft in the
snow. For both airlines, there is generally a positive spirit in the fan communities.

                                                                                                               7
David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich



In terms of comments from the airlines, KLM interacts much more with the cus-
tomers. Some posts are commented and re-commented upon up to five times in an
interactive way, as if the FB page was an electronic chat.


4.      Social Media triggers Multifaceted Organisational Challenges
Compared to other communication channels, social media is quite fast. Most of the
challenges originate from the sheer dynamics of the social media channel. The
challenges are summarised in four categories. First, the challenge of providing
timely answers, second, the challenge of finding a balance between input and out-
put, third, what administrators to involve and fourth, the constant improvements
triggered by the interaction with fans.


4.1      Challenge 1: Answering Everything Requires an Internal Network of
         Respondents and may lead to Evolving Patterns of Communication
Fans use FB airline FB pages for rebooking, requests, to complain that their lug-
gage is lost, to tell their friends that they are looking forward to the journey they
have just bought a ticket for, or to ask question such as “… What's the name of the
song we hear when you put us on hold for the US customer support line? …” (Post
on KLM FB page on December 26th 2010). For any kind of question coming from
anywhere in the world, the social media managers need to be among the first ones
to know the answer. Both airlines confirm that their social media managers invest a
lot of time in building up an internal (formal or informal) network of reliable and
knowledgeable colleagues all over the world that understand the needs of the FB-
fans in order to be able to answer questions. The close contact this network of peo-
ple also contributes to a better understanding of internal processes and to finding
content that could be posted by the airlines on the Wall of the FB page. The social
media manager of SWISS even manages to organise his network in a way that con-
tent is e-mailed to him without asking for it specifically.

Another way of coping with the need for fast responses is through patterns of how
to comment on posts. Both airlines have established guidelines in order to answer
similar posts in a similar way. SWISS developed the guidelines for answering
complaints coming from social media channel independently from the feedback/
complaints department. Their guidelines are therefore different from those in the
complaints department. KLM uses the same rules for the complaints as the feed-
back department. However, the tone of voice in feedback on social media is differ-
ent to the answers of the complaints’ department.
The KLM fan-community seems to have learnt from the first to the second period
of analysis that KLM solves ‘rebook’ problems quite fast if one posts it on FB.


8
Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers


KLM confirms that problems posted on social media are treated with a higher pri-
ority than normal complaints. Although KLM reminded people not to publish per-
sonal data such as ticket numbers on the FB Wall several times during the second
period, fans did not refrain from posting personal data. This learning effect that
occurs in the transparent and permanent interaction of the community and the com-
pany can be explained applying the structuration theory of Giddens (1984). Ac-
cording to him, actions (quick answers to rebooking requests) create informal struc-
tures (e.g. a more customer-oriented complaint channel). Therefore airlines should
have powerful complaint departments in order to keep complaints in the complaints
department.

The managerial challenge emerging in this context is how to handle communica-
tion patterns that run counter to the rules published.


4.2    Challenge 2: Costs and Benefits triggered by the Style of
        Communication
The social media community does not appreciate anyone removing user generated
content, as transparency on the Internet is an important paradigm (Evans, 2008,
211). However, both airlines had to remove a few posts in the past in cases where
fans used very bad language, in cases where they left spam (e.g. advertisements for
competing services), personal e-mail addresses or other very personal data. KLM
declares on the FB page which rules they expect their fans to follow when using the
Wall.

The frequency of communication is another factor that influences the style of
communication. While KLM interacts strongly with customers by answering posts
and comments, it also attracts more posts and more fans than SWISS. The chal-
lenge here is not only to decide on whether or not to use a FB Wall, but also to find
an optimum balance between input and output through trial and error guided by
strategic aims and marketing goals. The style of communication provides an im-
pression of the way the company works. Having many rebooking requests on the
FB Wall during a crisis situation might make the FB users perceive that the com-
plaints department is not strong enough.


4.3      Challenge 3: FB a Multi-Purpose Channel: Who is doing What and
         When?
On 24 December the social media manager of SWISS announced a return on 27th.
      th

For three days nobody monitored or answered posts. KLM monitored the posts dur-
ing this period. Airlines of the size of SWISS and KLM operate 24 hours a day,
365 days a year. Fans can always post or comment on the Wall of the FB page.


                                                                                           9
David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich


SWISS confirmed that it will not to leave its fan community on its own for such a
long time in the future. Therefore, in both airlines, those responsible for SMM
would like to increase the operating hours of the social media manager to 24 hours
a day. Moreover SWISS could imagine distributing the work among different de-
partments such as customer service, corporate communication, marketing and sales
as fans use the Wall as an additional multi-purpose channel. On the other hand,
KLM intends to stick with the model of a central social media hub. Moreover, both
airlines agree that in case of a crisis such as a plane crash, social media managers
would be a part of the crisis team.


4.4     Challenge 4: Crowd Sourcing and using the Information for
        Improvements
Both airlines state that they are still in the phase of trial and error. They try to get
better every day by observing and measuring the outcomes of their activities as
well as by asking fans whether they like something or not. For example, SWISS
asked its fans whether they would like to get special offers via the FB page and the
community agreed. Moreover, if similar complaints are made repeatedly, it can
trigger an improvement in a particular process. KLM improved the Wi-Fi access in
lounges due to complaints on social media channels.

KLM aims to simplify the process of getting information about internal processes.
Therefore the airline plans to set up a knowledge data-base. The team members of
the social media hub will enter their knowledge about how they solved a certain
problem. The next time a fan asks something similar, the team members do not
need to ask employees again for the answer, as they can access the knowledge in
the internal database.

The challenge here is to take concrete measures for improvement in order to stay
credible.


4.5     Conclusions and Managerial Implications
For hierarchically organised companies with many specialists, dynamic multi-
purpose communication channels like a Wall on FB or a Twitter channel present
several challenges with managerial implications:
1a. Companies can strongly interact with their fans, but run the risk of fans starting
    to misuse the Wall for the purposes of resolving their personal problems con-
    nected with the company (e.g. rebooking and baggage loss). Strong interaction
    requires more input of resources in terms of personnel than interacting on a less
    intense level. A third option is to operate a FB page but to disable the Wall
    such as British Airways does. The fourth way is not to operate an FB page at


10
Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers


    all, but this company runs the risk of a fan setting up an unofficial FB page.
    The management must decide which way to go.
1b. Social media managers must invest in creating an internal network across hier-
    archies and countries in order to be able to know whom to ask if a question or a
    complaint is posted on the Wall. As the bonds between a social media manager
    and specific knowledgeable other employees of the company are very personal,
    it is a challenge for a new social media manager to reach the quality of his pre-
    decessor. Putting queries to a database that was fed with knowledge by a pre-
    decessor may help finding answers quickly. As customers are likely to come up
    with new questions, a database is not enough. Moreover SWISS confirms that
    communication styles vary from the social media manager to his boss who
    used to comment and answer questions on social media channels while the so-
    cial media manager was out of the office. Aligning communication styles and
    train a new social media manager to be able to act and react fast in this dynam-
    ic environment from the first moment on he is in charge of posting and com-
    menting implies to either an extensive on-the-job-training or to recruit some-
    body who knows the company and the mechanisms in social media channels.
2. The speed of changing behaviour requires a high adaptability to new situations
    and new patterns of communication. Internal guidelines can help to streamline
    the methods of communication. However, fans might not remain within the
    guidelines for behaviour. The implication from this is to deduct a balance be-
    tween deleting posts or comments contravening the published guidelines and
    being as transparent as possible from the company’s culture.
3. The multi-purpose channel for communicating with fans requires a high pres-
    ence of social media managers. The interview partners of both airlines con-
    firmed that they would like to operate a service around the clock during seven
    days a week as their aircraft also operate around the clock. Social media man-
    agers must find a way together with the customer service and the crisis man-
    agement team to share responsibilities or to be empowered to take over a part
    of their work.
4. Social media managers can contribute to improving the service if similar com-
    plaints are posted frequently. They themselves can steadily learn about the or-
    ganisation and store their knowledge in order to improve responsiveness. So-
    cial media managers must be recognized as an important element of the quality
    assurance.

To summarise, findings show that SMM is challenging for companies with spatial-
ly scattered services. In practice, there are various approaches to dealing with social
media. And more importantly: Although the technical solution for a FB page is
free, it is quite an investment to first establish an internal personal network for in-
formation exchange and to operate the Wall on FB.



                                                                                          11
David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich


5.      Limitations and Further Research
In general, an explorative case study shows challenges in a new field, but does not
provide explanations. The study is further limited to European network carriers.
Low cost carriers might face different challenges as they operate point-to-point
connections. A baggage loss is therefore less likely, but due to lean structures, other
challenges might occur. Further limitations are cultural differences between the
home markets of airlines. KLM originates the Netherlands which is culturally simi-
lar to Switzerland (Gupta, Hanges & Dorfman 2002). In countries with other cul-
tures, communication patterns are different and therefore, the FB Wall might play a
different role.

The data collection took place in periods of difficult weather conditions. Data col-
lected during normal operating conditions may lead to further categories of chal-
lenges and put the issues of customer service to the background.

However, according to Cho et al. (2002) excellent online customer services is the
most important factor in online customer satisfaction. Their study refers to tradi-
tional online customer services. Social media was not part of the studies’ research
object. The case study of KLM and SWISS shows that the engagement of custom-
ers is by far higher if the airline is doing more to getting the customers engaged.
Deriving from Cho et al’s findings, the satisfaction of the fans can be hypothised as
being higher the more the company gets engaged on social media channels. The
fact that in the middle of the snowy period, when some passengers are in trouble
and post comments about their troubles, an airline gets 433 ‘likes’ for pictures of
planes in the snow, is an indicator that the majority of fans are not so much inter-
ested reading about troubles (and the solutions to them) on social media channels.
If the likes are a proxy for satisfaction, the hypothesis to test must rather be: “The
more ‘likes’ a social media manager collects the higher the level of satisfaction”.

Higher customer satisfaction can be one of the benefits for a company of getting
engaged in social media. Another approach to measure success is to evaluate the
return on investment (ROI). Doing this would trigger many questions because there
is a myriad of ways to measure input and output of SMM. In terms of organisation-
al challenges the following question is crucial: What do companies need to do in
order to find the optimum balance between input into a FB Wall and the outcome
from it?

Besides impacts on the ROI, there are impacts emerging from the Wall on how a
company is perceived in the public. These impacts might be an outcome of the cor-
porate culture. Doing further research on this hypothised causual relationship could
help explaining the importance of social media marketing.



12
Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers


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     59

Online Source
Weather conditions:
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/panorama/grossbritannien_hilfe_armee_cameron_1.8805042.html
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/panorama/europa_schweiz_schnee_schneefaelle_verkehr_flughaef
     en_1.8540434.html




14
Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers


                                List of Authors



Example:

Prof. Dr. Christian Laesser
Director
Institute for Public Services and Tourism
University of St. Gallen
Dufourstrasse 40a
9000 St. Gallen (Switzerland)
E-mail: christian.laesser@unisg.ch


David Caliesch
Lucerne School of Business

Andreas Liebrich
Lucerne School of Business




                                                                                          15

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Organisational challenges of using social media marketing caliesch liebrich_2011_vonline

  • 1. Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich Abstract Social media marketing on Facebook or Twitter is en vogue, but it implies a con- siderable degree of transparency, and requires a high responsiveness that traditional hierarchical companies might not be used to. Using social media marketing tools therefore causes new kinds of organisational challenges that need to be researched. After a literature review, an explorative case study approach was chosen in order to research two approaches of airlines to dealing with the challenges in an internation- al environment. Categories of challenges were built by collecting data from docu- ments, interviews and the Facebook pages of KLM and SWISS International Air- lines (SWISS). The paper identifies four areas of challenges. First, it is crucial to set up an internal network of respondents in order to quickly answer public questions and complaints on social media channels. Second, the style of communicating with fans mirrors the corporate culture and drives costs as well as benefits. Third: A Facebook Wall is a multi-purpose communication channel. Requests might be answered by various departments. Fourth: The dynamic field of social media marketing requires perma- nent improvements in order to better serve the customer. Keywords: Social Media Marketing, Facebook, Airlines, Organisational Challeng- es 1
  • 2. David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich 1. Introduction Since the beginning of the century, Internet usage has dramatically increased (Si- mon & Bernhardt, 2008, 11). Within this timeframe, the users’ options to interact and communicate electronically have greatly increased. Some business models, applications and features on the Internet are entirely based on social interaction (Busemann & Gscheidle, 2009). The social media movement started with the plat- form called ‘open diary’ that brought online diary writers together in one communi- ty. The trend of getting engage in social media has evolved quickly since then. So- cial meda is defined as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and allow the creation and exchange of user generated content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, 61). The phenomenon of using social media platforms has been researched from differ- ent angles. The point of view of the users dominates the research, as social media is primarily designed for peer-to-peer communication. First, the motivation of con- sumers to generate user generated content was researched. The findings of Daugh- erty, Eastin & Bright (2008, 22) show that ego-defensive, social, and value- expressive functional sources of motivation, and their contributions to attitude for- mation with regard to creating user generated content, offer a positive theoretical affirmation. Moreover, strengthening personal identity, entertainment, or in certain cases remuneration, can be sources of the motivation for using social media (Muntinga, Moorman & Smit 2010). A second research stream examines legal is- sues (George & Scerri, 2007) and in particular privacy of users (Giardin, et al., 2007; Acquisti & Gross 2006). Particularly in the field of travel and tourism, a third research stream examines trust and the impact of travel reviews. While the level of trust strongly depends on the perceived credibility of the type of website on which the content is published (Yoo et al. 2009), the impact of reviews is strongly influ- encing the decision which accommodation to chose in a particular town or city (Gretzel & Yoo 2008; Sidali, Schulze & Spiller 2009). When companies or institutions get involved in social media, it is mainly for mar- keting purposes using social media as a B-to-C interaction channel. Researchers started to measure the level of engagement of companies in social media marketing (SMM). In particular, micro businesses see social media as a great marketing tool through which they can compete on a marketing level with their larger counterparts (Ghaffar & Tariq, 2010). A major reason for this is that most activities in SMM require little cash-outflow and offer a high potential reach, as a substantial part of the search results for potential tourist in search engines stem from social media platforms (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010). However, some micro businesses and SMEs have a low degree of activity compared to the large companies (Pesonen, 2011) and, there are still too few tourism service providers that make use of SMM (Inver- 2
  • 3. Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers sini & Buhalis, 2009) while internet users frequently visit social media platforms for gathering travel information (Milano, Baggio & Piatelli, 2011). There is a myriad of options for interaction with customers using electronic chan- nels and in particular social media services (Benz, 2010, 2). In terms of reach, ac- cessibility and user-friendliness, social media can be used by the members of the society on their own (Dreher, 2010, 18). Scholars have also looked at the marketing side of SMM, as the social media offers various ways to attract the customer. (Weber, 2007; Ghaffar & Tariq, 2010; Peso- nen, 2011; Maurer & Wiegmann, 2011). SMM activities are supposed to be differ- ent from activities for conventional marketing in the following ways. First, con- sumers start to publicly interact to communicate about and judge a brand (Evans, 2008) which leads to uncontrollable marketing factors (Constantinides & Fountain 2008, 240). As soon as an organisation starts monitoring these factors and tries to facilitate the interaction, the challenge of constantly and quickly interacting as well as staying interesting to the target group emerges (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, 66). Second, good social media activities should be embedded in the organisation in order to be authentic and competent. Evans & Mc Kee, (2010, 10) point out “… fear of the unknown, the unsaid, the unidentified and even the uninformed saying bad things about your brand, product, or services that aren’t even correct? Fear not, or at least fear less.” Due to the dynamic environment of social media, there is too little time to write and react perfectly. Imperfectionism is not well aligned with the essentials of corporate communications (Riel & Fombrun, 2007). Besides the difficulties of analysing the existing media, selecting the most suitable social media platforms to engage with, integrating the social media strategy in the existing strategy allocating resources and monitoring the activities (Safko 2010) companies have to answer the question of how they cope with this highly dynamic and interactive environment. This question has not yet been researched. Based on this, the following research question arises: How can hierarchically or- ganised companies cope with a public, open and dynamic way of communication? 2. Methodology As there is no research of how organisational challenges caused by SMM can be dealt with, this explorative case study approach (Yin, 1994) sheds light onto this new field. An explorative case study approach investigates a contemporary phe- nomenon for which the boundaries are not clear (Yin, 1994, 13). Both prerequisites are fulfilled in the social media context. 3
  • 4. David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich According to Buhalis and Law (2008, 609), electronic complaints are the biggest current challenges for tourism organisations. Other companies in the tourism sector face similar challenges as there are various channels of sending feedback. Many Walls on Facebook (FB) pages of tourism organisations and companies are full of positive, but also negative feedback from anyone who can access the Internet. The use of FB is very popular. It is by far the most popular social network in the world (www.alexa.com). Therefore, this research focuses on FB. Airlines are multinational companies with various offices around the world. As the adoption of Web 2.0 has a positive link with the level of internationalisation (Scaglione, Johnson & Trabichet, 2009), their FB page and the challenges connect- ed to it are adequate research objects. Moreover, critical incidents often happen in the airline business (Edvardsson, 1992). Critical incidents trigger a greater need for fast information updates. Critical incidents may occur at times when environmental conditions prevent aircraft from operating on time. After the ash cloud crisis, the European airline industry went through a second crisis in December 2010 as snowy and windy weather conditions severely impacted upon airline operation in Europe. Two airlines with different approaches towards the usage of the FB page were se- lected to conduct two explorative case studies in order to compare their approaches and find patterns. First: KLM operates an FB page with comparatively many fans (fans are people that klicked once on a companies’ ‘I lik button’) and a high level of traffic on their Wall. Second, SWISS runs an FB page with a lower degree of interaction than KLM. The case study approach allows data collection from multi- ple sources: - The most important data source was the Wall of the two airlines on FB. All posts and comments on the Walls of the two airlines that were posted between December 1st and 9th as well as between December 18th and 27th were subject to analysis. A stepwise inductive process was used to categorise the content of these posts and comments (Mayring, 2008). The aim of this first step was to find the patterns of action and reaction between the customers and the airlines that might cause challenges for a hierarchical organisation. Based on the results of this inductive process and from the literature, a semi-structured interview was prepared as suggested by (Flick 2002, 128). - In a semi-structured interview (Hopf, 2008), social media managers of the companies answered questions relating to the analysed content and about how they deal with the identified challenges in a telephone interview. As SWISS had only one social media manager during the periods analysed, he was the on- ly interviewee. The interview with KLM was conducted with the person re- sponsible for the Wall on FB (social media manager) and the head of the social media hub. The answers were transcribed and analysed by using the inductive process of Mayring (2008) in order to verify the categories found during the 4
  • 5. Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers analysis of the posts and comments. During the same interview, interviewees also answered questions about the company in order to better understand the development of social media activities, the strategic intentions of social media use and the social-media management processes in these organisations. - Documents and policies concerning social media published by the airlines about how comments are treated were analysed. The explorative approach is appropriate for this research as it is a little researched contemporary phenomenon that implies challenges for the management of multina- tional companies particularly in the travel and tourism business. 3. Two Airlines with two different Approaches to SMM There are differences and similarities in the approaches of KLM and SWISS to SMM In order to better understand the results, the following table outlines the rele- vant cornerstones. Criteria SWISS KLM Transported passengers in 2010 14.2 million 20.7 million FB Fans in Dec. 2010 Around 50,000 85,000 # of fans: 7. Feb. 2011, 18:00 56,972 101,460 # of fans: 8. May 2011, 18:00 63,057 192,239 Decision to start with a FB page Marketing department Strategic decision at top taken by management level Reason for page on FB Intention to increase SMM, Additional e-Acquisition and many users on FB and an information channel existing SWISS-FB page operated by a fan Start on FB In 2009 SWISS got the March 2010 admin-rights of the unofficial SWISS-FB page from a user Development of number (#) of Large increase during ash Very strong increase during fans cloud crisis and thanks to a ash cloud crisis and thanks creative competition to the marketing of the FB page. FB page is managed by One social media Manager Social media hub with seven (Feb. 2011) (and one deputy if he is employees absent) Operating hours (Feb. 2011) 08.00 – 17.00 (CET) 08.00 – 23.00 (CET) Figure 1: Corner stones of KLM and SWISS relevant for a comparison of the SWISS fanpage Both airlines use FB for cross-media marketing, branding purposes, corporate communication and customer service. Due to the fans’ way of using this interac- tion-channel, at the moment the focus is on customer service for both KLM and SWISS. 5
  • 6. David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich The periods of analysis were equal in terms of length. However, the weather in the second period of analysis was worse. Both airlines had to cancel flights in both pe- riods but their hub-airports were never closed for a whole day or more. In the se- cond period, many ex-pats wanted to travel home for Christmas. The following table shows the number of posts and categorised details as well as details of all comments. The major differences between the two airlines are that KLM strategically decided to operate an FB page, puts more workforce effort into it and has almost twice as many fans as SWISS. KLM acquired its fans in a shorter timeframe. SWISS carried about two thirds of the number of passengers that KLM carried. The size of the airlines is not correlated with the engagement of the fans as the following table with the number of the fan-posts of the two selected periods clearly shows. Day period 1 Number of fan-posts Day period 2 Number of fan-posts SWISS KLM SWISS KLM 01.12.10 5 14 18.12.10 1 365 02.12.10 1 34 19.12.10 3 163 03.12.10 5 30 20.12.10 2 87 04.12.10 3 36 21.12.10 9 63 05.12.10 3 21 22.12.10 7 78 06.12.10 1 24 23.12.10 0 61 07.12.10 2 26 24.12.10 2 36 08.12.10 2 23 25.12.10 5 33 26.12.10 5 33 Figure 2: Number of fan-posts during the two periods of analysis On the FB Wall, the owner of the Walls (here the airlines) and fans can post short messages. These messages can get comments from any fan or from the owner of the Wall. Most posts and comments were contributed by the fans. The following table shows the results of the defined periods of analysis. The comments of airlines answering the posts of fans often consist of an apology for inconvenience and ei- ther an instruction, a question or a private message. 6
  • 7. Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers December 1.-8. December 18.-26. SWISS KLM SWISS KLM Number of airline posts 10 6 11 21 Number of fan posts 22 108 40 919 Number of fan posts containing 'rebook' 2 13 0 209 Number of fan posts containing 'luggage' 0 5 1 82 Total number of likes 1392 366 658 1580 Apologise for inconvenience and/or 10 115 28 424 instruction Apologise for inconvenience and/or 2 23 0 130 Comments of private message Compliment 2 16 3 27 Airlines Apologise for inconvenience and/or 1 13 1 17 question Figure 3: Summarizing comparisons of patterns emerging from activities of the Wall for the periods of analysis The bold numbers show the differences between either the airlines or the two peri- ods of analysis to be discussed. Hardly any fan posts remained uncommented on by the airlines, although the num- ber of KLM posts and comments in the second period caused technical problems on the FB server so that the KLM-FB page-administrators could not access the page for some hours. Therefore they posted the following text several times on De- cember 18th: Dear all, due to the technical restrictions of FB, we are not able to handle your requests anymore. Please follow KLM on Twitter so we can help you there, or contact our call centre http://bit.ly/contactKLM. Moreover both airlines confirmed in the interview that in order to stay transparent, they hardly ever delete posts. The comparison of the fan postings shows that KLM received 919 fan posts in the second period and ‘only’ 108 in the first period. The words ‘rebook’ and ‘luggage’ were used much more in relation to the first period considering the total number of posts. Posts containing the word ‘rebook’ are requests to rebook a flight such as “Juanjín Lopez e-tickect 0742480983257 Booking code 2DWC9U AMS - MAD.Please rebook as soon as posibl”. However, there are considerably more ‘likes’ for KLM in the second period than in the first one, whereas for SWISS this is the other way round. Astonishingly, SWISS received the record number of ‘likes’ (433) for pictures of aircraft in the snow. For both airlines, there is generally a positive spirit in the fan communities. 7
  • 8. David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich In terms of comments from the airlines, KLM interacts much more with the cus- tomers. Some posts are commented and re-commented upon up to five times in an interactive way, as if the FB page was an electronic chat. 4. Social Media triggers Multifaceted Organisational Challenges Compared to other communication channels, social media is quite fast. Most of the challenges originate from the sheer dynamics of the social media channel. The challenges are summarised in four categories. First, the challenge of providing timely answers, second, the challenge of finding a balance between input and out- put, third, what administrators to involve and fourth, the constant improvements triggered by the interaction with fans. 4.1 Challenge 1: Answering Everything Requires an Internal Network of Respondents and may lead to Evolving Patterns of Communication Fans use FB airline FB pages for rebooking, requests, to complain that their lug- gage is lost, to tell their friends that they are looking forward to the journey they have just bought a ticket for, or to ask question such as “… What's the name of the song we hear when you put us on hold for the US customer support line? …” (Post on KLM FB page on December 26th 2010). For any kind of question coming from anywhere in the world, the social media managers need to be among the first ones to know the answer. Both airlines confirm that their social media managers invest a lot of time in building up an internal (formal or informal) network of reliable and knowledgeable colleagues all over the world that understand the needs of the FB- fans in order to be able to answer questions. The close contact this network of peo- ple also contributes to a better understanding of internal processes and to finding content that could be posted by the airlines on the Wall of the FB page. The social media manager of SWISS even manages to organise his network in a way that con- tent is e-mailed to him without asking for it specifically. Another way of coping with the need for fast responses is through patterns of how to comment on posts. Both airlines have established guidelines in order to answer similar posts in a similar way. SWISS developed the guidelines for answering complaints coming from social media channel independently from the feedback/ complaints department. Their guidelines are therefore different from those in the complaints department. KLM uses the same rules for the complaints as the feed- back department. However, the tone of voice in feedback on social media is differ- ent to the answers of the complaints’ department. The KLM fan-community seems to have learnt from the first to the second period of analysis that KLM solves ‘rebook’ problems quite fast if one posts it on FB. 8
  • 9. Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers KLM confirms that problems posted on social media are treated with a higher pri- ority than normal complaints. Although KLM reminded people not to publish per- sonal data such as ticket numbers on the FB Wall several times during the second period, fans did not refrain from posting personal data. This learning effect that occurs in the transparent and permanent interaction of the community and the com- pany can be explained applying the structuration theory of Giddens (1984). Ac- cording to him, actions (quick answers to rebooking requests) create informal struc- tures (e.g. a more customer-oriented complaint channel). Therefore airlines should have powerful complaint departments in order to keep complaints in the complaints department. The managerial challenge emerging in this context is how to handle communica- tion patterns that run counter to the rules published. 4.2 Challenge 2: Costs and Benefits triggered by the Style of Communication The social media community does not appreciate anyone removing user generated content, as transparency on the Internet is an important paradigm (Evans, 2008, 211). However, both airlines had to remove a few posts in the past in cases where fans used very bad language, in cases where they left spam (e.g. advertisements for competing services), personal e-mail addresses or other very personal data. KLM declares on the FB page which rules they expect their fans to follow when using the Wall. The frequency of communication is another factor that influences the style of communication. While KLM interacts strongly with customers by answering posts and comments, it also attracts more posts and more fans than SWISS. The chal- lenge here is not only to decide on whether or not to use a FB Wall, but also to find an optimum balance between input and output through trial and error guided by strategic aims and marketing goals. The style of communication provides an im- pression of the way the company works. Having many rebooking requests on the FB Wall during a crisis situation might make the FB users perceive that the com- plaints department is not strong enough. 4.3 Challenge 3: FB a Multi-Purpose Channel: Who is doing What and When? On 24 December the social media manager of SWISS announced a return on 27th. th For three days nobody monitored or answered posts. KLM monitored the posts dur- ing this period. Airlines of the size of SWISS and KLM operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Fans can always post or comment on the Wall of the FB page. 9
  • 10. David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich SWISS confirmed that it will not to leave its fan community on its own for such a long time in the future. Therefore, in both airlines, those responsible for SMM would like to increase the operating hours of the social media manager to 24 hours a day. Moreover SWISS could imagine distributing the work among different de- partments such as customer service, corporate communication, marketing and sales as fans use the Wall as an additional multi-purpose channel. On the other hand, KLM intends to stick with the model of a central social media hub. Moreover, both airlines agree that in case of a crisis such as a plane crash, social media managers would be a part of the crisis team. 4.4 Challenge 4: Crowd Sourcing and using the Information for Improvements Both airlines state that they are still in the phase of trial and error. They try to get better every day by observing and measuring the outcomes of their activities as well as by asking fans whether they like something or not. For example, SWISS asked its fans whether they would like to get special offers via the FB page and the community agreed. Moreover, if similar complaints are made repeatedly, it can trigger an improvement in a particular process. KLM improved the Wi-Fi access in lounges due to complaints on social media channels. KLM aims to simplify the process of getting information about internal processes. Therefore the airline plans to set up a knowledge data-base. The team members of the social media hub will enter their knowledge about how they solved a certain problem. The next time a fan asks something similar, the team members do not need to ask employees again for the answer, as they can access the knowledge in the internal database. The challenge here is to take concrete measures for improvement in order to stay credible. 4.5 Conclusions and Managerial Implications For hierarchically organised companies with many specialists, dynamic multi- purpose communication channels like a Wall on FB or a Twitter channel present several challenges with managerial implications: 1a. Companies can strongly interact with their fans, but run the risk of fans starting to misuse the Wall for the purposes of resolving their personal problems con- nected with the company (e.g. rebooking and baggage loss). Strong interaction requires more input of resources in terms of personnel than interacting on a less intense level. A third option is to operate a FB page but to disable the Wall such as British Airways does. The fourth way is not to operate an FB page at 10
  • 11. Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers all, but this company runs the risk of a fan setting up an unofficial FB page. The management must decide which way to go. 1b. Social media managers must invest in creating an internal network across hier- archies and countries in order to be able to know whom to ask if a question or a complaint is posted on the Wall. As the bonds between a social media manager and specific knowledgeable other employees of the company are very personal, it is a challenge for a new social media manager to reach the quality of his pre- decessor. Putting queries to a database that was fed with knowledge by a pre- decessor may help finding answers quickly. As customers are likely to come up with new questions, a database is not enough. Moreover SWISS confirms that communication styles vary from the social media manager to his boss who used to comment and answer questions on social media channels while the so- cial media manager was out of the office. Aligning communication styles and train a new social media manager to be able to act and react fast in this dynam- ic environment from the first moment on he is in charge of posting and com- menting implies to either an extensive on-the-job-training or to recruit some- body who knows the company and the mechanisms in social media channels. 2. The speed of changing behaviour requires a high adaptability to new situations and new patterns of communication. Internal guidelines can help to streamline the methods of communication. However, fans might not remain within the guidelines for behaviour. The implication from this is to deduct a balance be- tween deleting posts or comments contravening the published guidelines and being as transparent as possible from the company’s culture. 3. The multi-purpose channel for communicating with fans requires a high pres- ence of social media managers. The interview partners of both airlines con- firmed that they would like to operate a service around the clock during seven days a week as their aircraft also operate around the clock. Social media man- agers must find a way together with the customer service and the crisis man- agement team to share responsibilities or to be empowered to take over a part of their work. 4. Social media managers can contribute to improving the service if similar com- plaints are posted frequently. They themselves can steadily learn about the or- ganisation and store their knowledge in order to improve responsiveness. So- cial media managers must be recognized as an important element of the quality assurance. To summarise, findings show that SMM is challenging for companies with spatial- ly scattered services. In practice, there are various approaches to dealing with social media. And more importantly: Although the technical solution for a FB page is free, it is quite an investment to first establish an internal personal network for in- formation exchange and to operate the Wall on FB. 11
  • 12. David Caliesch, Andreas Liebrich 5. Limitations and Further Research In general, an explorative case study shows challenges in a new field, but does not provide explanations. The study is further limited to European network carriers. Low cost carriers might face different challenges as they operate point-to-point connections. A baggage loss is therefore less likely, but due to lean structures, other challenges might occur. Further limitations are cultural differences between the home markets of airlines. KLM originates the Netherlands which is culturally simi- lar to Switzerland (Gupta, Hanges & Dorfman 2002). In countries with other cul- tures, communication patterns are different and therefore, the FB Wall might play a different role. The data collection took place in periods of difficult weather conditions. Data col- lected during normal operating conditions may lead to further categories of chal- lenges and put the issues of customer service to the background. However, according to Cho et al. (2002) excellent online customer services is the most important factor in online customer satisfaction. Their study refers to tradi- tional online customer services. Social media was not part of the studies’ research object. The case study of KLM and SWISS shows that the engagement of custom- ers is by far higher if the airline is doing more to getting the customers engaged. Deriving from Cho et al’s findings, the satisfaction of the fans can be hypothised as being higher the more the company gets engaged on social media channels. The fact that in the middle of the snowy period, when some passengers are in trouble and post comments about their troubles, an airline gets 433 ‘likes’ for pictures of planes in the snow, is an indicator that the majority of fans are not so much inter- ested reading about troubles (and the solutions to them) on social media channels. If the likes are a proxy for satisfaction, the hypothesis to test must rather be: “The more ‘likes’ a social media manager collects the higher the level of satisfaction”. Higher customer satisfaction can be one of the benefits for a company of getting engaged in social media. Another approach to measure success is to evaluate the return on investment (ROI). Doing this would trigger many questions because there is a myriad of ways to measure input and output of SMM. In terms of organisation- al challenges the following question is crucial: What do companies need to do in order to find the optimum balance between input into a FB Wall and the outcome from it? Besides impacts on the ROI, there are impacts emerging from the Wall on how a company is perceived in the public. These impacts might be an outcome of the cor- porate culture. Doing further research on this hypothised causual relationship could help explaining the importance of social media marketing. 12
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  • 15. Organisational Challenges of using Social Media Marketing: The Case of two Network Carriers List of Authors Example: Prof. Dr. Christian Laesser Director Institute for Public Services and Tourism University of St. Gallen Dufourstrasse 40a 9000 St. Gallen (Switzerland) E-mail: christian.laesser@unisg.ch David Caliesch Lucerne School of Business Andreas Liebrich Lucerne School of Business 15