James M. Wilson III, PhD, Presents at Conference

10.14.2010

As technology becomes more advanced, businesses seek ways to successfully implement new communication tools to strengthen not only their relationships with customers, but their connections with employees. Ethnographer James M. Wilson III, PhD, an assistant professor of business at Bay Path College, and his colleague Kylie Pewtherer of the University of Massachusetts examine the impact new media—Google sites, smartphones and social media—have on the growth and management of small businesses, and will share their findings at the 33rd Annual Northeastern Association of Business, Economics and Technology (NABET) Conference on October 19 and 20 on the campus of Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA.

In their presentation In the Cloud and on the Ground, Blending the Virtual with Bricks & Mortar: A Qualitative Analysis of the use of Google Sites and Smartphones in the Growth and Management of a Small Café, Wilson and Pewtherer discuss how new media alters the response to challenges facing a small business when it shifts from the entrepreneurial, single site to a multi-site firm. Technology, such as Google, smartphones, and Facebook, enables management to immediately communicate its objectives to employees and provides their staff with opportunities to respond to updates, ideas, and concerns. Wilson and Pewtherer’s ethnography examines a café and its managed growth from one to three sites, and how new media allows small brick and mortar organizations to engage in a high degree of virtual interactions that improve efficiency and effectiveness and highlight a new form of organizational communication with impact on structure, roles, accountability, culture and control.

For more information on Dr. Wilson, click here. To learn more about the 33rd Annual Northeastern Association of Business, Economics and Technology (NABET) Conference, visit http://www.nabet.us/index.htm.