374199dv

Keywords: Virtual communities; Virtual support communities; Public commitment; Identity-based motivation; Social identity; Weight loss

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Share your progress 🙂

Dear bloggers,

Session 6 of the course Customer-centric Digital Commerce will be about community commitment and sharing economies. The required readings for this session are about why people participate in collaborative consumption and what managers should know about the sharing economy. This blog post will provide some insight into the required literature for this week by showing the effect virtual support communities could have on achieving individual goals, for example weight loss. I hope you feel inspired!

Have you ever wondered why your friends share their holidays, high wines and new clothes on Social Media that much? Do you sometimes feel desperate by watching so much bullsh#t on the day that you have to work on your blog posts? Well, then buy yourself a large Starbucks at the campus and feel energized. But.. does it actually help? I have a better suggestion: open your Instagram or SnapChat App and SHARE YOUR PROGRESS. I can promise you will feel energized as if you drank three Starbucks in a row!

Unfortunately, a new trend is coming where people actually don’t like the Social Media Bloggers since it make people feel the grass is always greener on the other side (you might recognize this). However, you can use that grass to color yours and benefit from it! But.. how?

The answer is simple: grab your mobile phone, open your Instagram and share your personal progress. And yes: this has been confirmed by a very interesting paper.

Academic Paper
Let me introduce you a very inspiring study, named ‘Weight loss Through Virtual Support Communities: A Role for Identity-based Motivation in Public Commitment’’. The authors of this study published their convincing findings in the Journal of Interactive Marketing and concluded that watching others’ success on social media can actually be effective for your own success. In this study, they observed the progress of two different weight-loss communities over a period of four years, which is quite long. They found that those who had shared their progress online had greater success in achieving their weight-loss goals than those who did not share their progress.

The two communities included in the study are ObesityHelp.com, the best website for surgical weight loss support, and WeightWatchers.com, the site for the top lifestyle-oriented weight loss program. Within these sites, individuals can access information or create content via blogs, chat rooms, or comments. They write and share blogs and are encouraged to actively share their progress through both text and pictures.

According to the authors, social identity motivates public commitment in support of goal attainment. The sharing of intimate information and photos about weight loss goals in virtual space seems to be a key factor in motivating behaviors and thus helps people attain their goals. So, actually, people can share the greenness of their grass instead of thinking that it’s always greener on the other side! GO ONLINE AND SHARE YOUR PROGRESS. It might be more effective than just drinking coffee..

Side note: there are four types of virtual support community members:

Which type of community member do you think you are? For example on Instagram?

Figure 1 | Typology of virtual support community members (Bradford et al., 2017)

Why is it relevant?
Not everyone can get the support they need from other people they interact with in person on a daily basis, for example friends and family. It might be helpful that technology can support community building and goal achievement in a digital world. Virtual Support Communities, such as online blogs, Instagram Blogs, and Facebook allow for accessibility, availability and flexibility in how users represent themselves on their achievements. These communities help participants to keep motivation and strive for progress. It decreases feelings of loneliness and makes people feel more happy and supported.

Virtual Suppo…. what’s that?
Social media can be used to build connections and relationships to have impact on the world. Jim Rawson says social media can build a virtual community in which to transform the sharing of ideas into real life endeavors. He is an academic professor at Georgia Regents University and his primary research interest is health policy, process improvement and innovative educational techniques. You should watch this video if you want a detailed explanation of what virtual support communities can do for online users today. Examples of virtual support communities are blogs on Instagram, Facebook and several webpages.

Click on the following link to watch the TedTalk of Jim Rawson on Youtube: TedTalk.

selfie+weight+loss.jpg — Figure 2 | Example of Virtual Support Community on Instagram (wdtv.com, 2018)

Conclusion – ”Sharing the triumphs and tribulations of your weight loss journey with other members of an online virtual support community plays an important role in achieving success, according this new study. The study examines the role of virtual communities and public commitment in setting and reaching weight loss goals.” – Bradford et al. 2017

Critical Note
Strength: the study provides a new definition of virtual support communities by developing a typology of different users. This typology is based on both beneficiary focus and the breadth of sharing.

Strength: the study contributes an explanation of how the balance between compliance and co-creation influences opportunities for public commitment in Virtual Support Communities. Prior literature called for additional research into roles for value creation in online communities. The authors of this study provide answers to this demand.

Weakness: the authors do not explain the limitations of their study, they only discuss their contribution to prior literature. A critical note towards their own work is missing.

Weakness: the authors used two samples from the following communities: obesityhelp.com and weightwatchers.com. Both communities focus on lifestyle-oriented weight loss. The results of this study thus might be low in generalization since online communities differ in the subjects they are focusing on. It might be that sharing progress around for example career might be less positively working on others than the progress of weight loss. Losing weight is kind of health related and people would therefore feel more emotionally attached towards their ‘friends’. For sharing progress around careers, it might be that envy comes into play.

Suggestion: further research that investigate the effect of virtual support communities should incorporate several distinct online communities. Communities that both differ in user types (recruiters, learners, etc.) and are focused on different topics (career, study, health, etc.). Moreover, further research should make a critical note around their own work. This study doesn’t provide limitations, which is disadvantageous for readers’ confidence.

Are you ready to share your progress? I hope you feel inspired 🙂

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bibliography
Tonya Williams Bradford, Sonya A. Grier, Geraldine Rosa Henderson, Weight Loss Through Virtual Support Communities: A Role for Identity-based Motivation in Public Commitment, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Volume 40, 2017, Pages 9-23, ISSN 1094-9968.

Author
D. Verpalen
374199
Erasmus University, The Netherlands

Healthcare Management Will Never Be The Same
Today people are more connected in more places than ever and we are becoming more active participants in our own health. At the same time healthcare providers are looking for deeper clinical insights and actionable information to make better decisions and improve patient outcomes. A digital revolution in healthcare might take place by the innovative launch of an online healthcare platform initiated by Philips. The Philips HealthSuite is an open platform of service capabilities and tools designed to inspire and enable the development of next generation connected health and wellness innovation. Imagine a mobile app paired with connected health devices that allows people managing diabetes to capture and monitor their diet, glucose, insulin and more, all from their smart phone. The same data can be shared with their healthcare providers so that they 1) get a better insight into the medical conditions 2) get reminders and alerts for medication and testing 3) have a program to support the persons individual treatment plan and 4) a curated social community of others managing diabetes. Unlike other cloud computing platforms, HealthSuite is purpose-build for healthcare. It’s health optimized infrastructure allows seemless integration with existing heath enterprise ecosystems (Philips.nl, 2018).

Philips HealthSuite Business Model
The highly innovative business model is based on connecting multiple stakeholders: pharmaceutical companies, patients and care professionals. Main goal is to establish and strengthen this medical network by digital connected devices from Philips.

Where are the revenues coming from?
Both pharmaceutical companies, patients and care professionals pay for using the online HealthSuite platform. Moreover, they have to buy the digital connected devices from Philips in order to be connected to the network. This is how Philips will mainly increase its revenue streams.
What value is delivered to which markets?
Philips’ main goal is to deliver customer value to people who need medical care, e.g. elderly or people with certain diseases. These customers will get more personalized care which they can monitor by themselves and which results in a more efficient treatment. After all, this treatment will be less stressful for patients since they are now able to stay in their own environment at home instead of going to the hospital. Patients thus get more personalized care which is the main value that Philips delivers to them.
Secondly, Philip’s delivers value to the other side of the healthcare sector, i.e. the healthcare providers. By delivering an online platform and highly innovative infrastructure, it becomes less time-consuming for healthcare providers to monitor and treat their patients. Healthcare providers share their knowledge via the HeathSuite platform and can communicate with patients easier. Healthcare providers thus get more chance on sharing knowledge, provide efficient treatments and could thus increase their positive impact on patients via the digital platform.
What costs are involved in delivering that value?
Philips has to invest in research and development of digital connected devices and the online platform infrastructure. Another important cost item is the security of customer data which is very vulnerable in healthcare. Philips thus needs to invest in 1) improving the platform and innovating its products and 2) monitoring the data streams in order to protect data leakage.

Figure 1. HealthSuite Platform Stakeholders (Philips.com, 2018)

Theoretical Point-Of-View
Following Grönroos & Voima (2013), customer value creation depends on product and service interrelationships and product and service bundling. This resource integration-based view implies that customer satisfaction partly depends on its overall goodness of fit (Solomon and Buchanan, 1991). The Philips HealthSuite Platform does connect multiple stakeholders by providing a highly interactive platform where all stakeholders are connected and where both medical devices (products) and medical care (services) are bundled together. For example, a patient can monitor its own treatment at home while doctors can follow his or her results digitally. When needed, doctors can communicate with the patients and can provide them some extra treatments, such as medicines. Doctors will then switch to pharmacists via the platform to connect them with patients. In this case, Philips delivers customer value by interrelating products and services and bundling them together.
Following Karwatzki et al. (2017), individuals’ privacy valuation is a strong inhibitor of information provision in general. Following this line of reasoning, service providers need to align their service designs with consumers’ privacy preferences. Although Philips HealthSuite Business Model might be valuable in terms of revenues and costs, there is an important risk to consider. Medical data in healthcare industry is very sensitive and vulnerable. Patients may feel scared by sharing their personal data on such a highly intensive network. How will Philips elaborate on these dangers?

Figure 2. Patient Relationship Management (Philips.com, 2018)

Call-to-action
A digital revolution in healthcare might take place by the innovative launch of an online healthcare platform initiated by Philips. Although this might be beneficial for many different stakeholders and delivers great customer value, we need to consider the ethical and legal dilemma’s of this revolution and protect customer privacy.

Are you curious?
In collaboration with Radbout University, Philips designed a digital application where patients can monitor their own diabetes and are able to share their results with professional doctors and other patients. The following video illustrates a prototype that could help patients with type-1 diabetes. Link to YouTube Video: HealthSuite Philips

Bibliography
Grönroos, C., & Voima, P. (2013). Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation. Journal of the academy of marketing science, 41(2), 133-150.

Karwatzki, S., Dytynko, O., Trenz, M., & Veit, D. (2017). Beyond the Personalization–Privacy Paradox: Privacy Valuation, Transparency Features, and Service Personalization. Journal Of Management Information Systems, 34(2), 369-400. doi:10.1080/07421222.2017.1334467.

Solomon, M. R., & Buchanan, B. (1991). A role-theoretic approach to product symbolism: mapping a consumption constellation. Journal of Business Research, 22(March), 95–109.

https://www.usa.philips.com/healthcare/innovation/about-health-suite

http://www.smarthealth.nl/trendition/2014/10/13/radboud-en-philips-werken-samen-aan-open-cloud-gebaseerd-zorgplatform/

Author
Daan Verpalen, Student MSc. Business Information Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam School of Management, 2018 (studentnumber: 374199)