Social Media has changed how individuals share experiences, especially regarding their travels. Instagram is one of the most prominent social media platforms, and it is popular due to its focus on visually appealing content. This study explores how backpackers in Costa Rica share their experiences on Instagram. Ten backpacking respondents were interviewed on-site in Costa Rica to achieve this exploration. The data was analyzed using the well-established brand personality framework. The leading brand personality dimensions were excitement, sincerity, and ruggedness. While excitement and ruggedness are context-bound, sincerity is a more generic dimension. Destination managers can use these results to evaluate how they best connect their destinations to these dimensions. Congruent management can enhance travelers’ sharing and engagement with their audience on social media.

Transformations include major changes in processes and structure. Nowadays, companies are undergoing a digital transformation (DT). Meeting DT's changes is difficult. Companies struggle to realise DT's potential. We study industry-level barriers to find variances and patterns. Our study generates frequencies of seven barrier dimensions with 29 features from 46 semi-structured interviews and 1‚436 statements from 525 survey participants across 15 sectors mainly from the DACH region and Türkiye. Missing mistake culture, bureaucracy, and isolated systems vary widely among businesses. Missing organizational knowledge seems consistent across industries. Our research improves the understanding of DT barriers. Identifying industry distinctions helps establish common ground and increase generalization.

This study tests the independence of four Teaching and Learning Delivery Modes (DMs) in Higher Education: Face-to-Face. Blended, Hybrid, and Online. We collected students’ perceptions of barriers to these DMs through a survey with 192 respondents and tested for independence using Pearson’s Chi-square. The main result is that Hybrid and Online are perceived as one DM. Considering other academic work, we can conclude that hybrid delivery modes are superior to entirely online, as they allow students to adjust the DM based on their individual needs.

This study aims to compare students’ perceptions of the digitalization of higher education over time. We hypothesize that the perception will become more positive throughout a study program because of more exposure over time. We applied a 31-item questionnaire in a longitudinal study setting to measure the change in perception. Results indicate data protection, teaching quality, collaboration between students, and training for the digital learning platform as major areas of change in perception. Interestingly, students do not perceive a change in their study success. We conclude that data protection especially needs attention from Higher Education Institutions. Trust, which students experience in the physical space, needs to be transferred to the digital space.

Digital Transformation (DT) is gaining traction across all industries. Also, it impacts other sectors, such as non-profit and higher education. DT emerges when connectivity technologies merge with physical assets, potentially affecting value-generating processes and value propositions. These changes will improve effectiveness, business models, and customer relationships. However, firms confront several barriers when they embark on their DT journey. Thus, it is essential to understand how the barriers can be tackled by countermeasures. Understanding the qualities of these countermeasures is critical for businesses to overcome barriers. Thus, this current study searches for similarities and differences across socio-demographic categories representing company size (LE, MLE, SME), level of responsibility (executive, with and without personal responsibility), and age (under 30, 31-40, 41-50, above 50). Data from online surveys revealed 1171 participants’ statements. These were used to extract four dimensions and 39 countermeasures. The most prominent countermeasure dimensions are Human and Organisation. The most prominent countermeasures relate to the education of employees in the form of demand-oriented training and benefits and needs of DT. This research adds to identifying similarities across categories and paves the way for greater generalizability of countermeasures.

Digitisation is among the macro-trends that significantly influence the business world in the twenty-first century. Firms striving to succeed in this environment must develop new strategic approaches. The accelerating development of information technology (IT) drives digitisation. Therefore, IT and business strategies must be integrated. In this context, the information systems literature promotes the concept of digital business strategies (DBSs), reflecting a fusion between IT and business strategies. However, knowledge of the types and characteristics of such DBSs is currently scarce. Therefore, we developed a conceptually and empirically grounded typology of DBS based on the well-known business strategy classification by Miles and Snow (1978). Using a dataset comprising 192 firms worldwide, we conducted a cluster analysis, identified basic types of DBS, and evaluated their effects on firm performance. Moreover, we identified four types of DBS: non-digital reactor, analyser, digital opportunist, and digital producer. The study contributes to a better understanding of new business strategy concepts in the digitisation context.

Digital Transformation (DT) strives to alter an entity by substantially changing its characteristics facilitated by integrating digital technologies. Albeit numerous barriers hinder the realization of its potential. Barriers are subject to scientific research. Generally, scientific works result in research streams. The existing literature already examines the DT streams. Although these works make an essential contribution, they cannot sufficiently explore the field of barriers. Keeping track of the concepts and themes in a growing research field is challenging. Therefore, the aims of this mapping study are (1) to show which domain-specific research streams are explicitly dealing with the DT barriers, (2) to highlight which topics research currently addresses, and (3) which topics should be investigated in the future. Combining elements of a bibliometric analysis with a systematic literature review, we mapped nine different streams based on 203 publications. The results indicate that much research focuses on industrial companies or sectors but needs an overarching perspective. Also, many studies are only concerned with identifying the barriers, while systematic approaches to overcoming them still need to be developed. 

During the pandemic, insights into the large-scale use of multiple instructional methods were generated. Building upon existing categories of barriers to digital higher education teaching, this short paper explores the relationship between these barriers to different teaching formats (face-to-face, blended, hybrid, and online). With a survey, we collected data during the fall of 2023 from 192 student participants. Results indicate a higher perception of barriers to online teaching. Still, face-to-face teaching scores higher on bodily discomfort. Meanwhile, blended and hybrid formats score consistently between face-to-face and online teaching. Our results conclude that online teaching needs more investment in research and implementation to become the new normal.

Digital transformation (DT) is a trending topic in nearly all industries. Enterprises digitalize processes, offer digital services and products, and enhance the customer experience. However, complex barriers hinder the ability of entrepreneurial-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to advance in digital transformation. Using a questionnaire, we collected and analyzed data on the barriers to digital transformation in SMEs. The data revealed a heterogonous picture of SMEs regarding digital transformation and barriers. Based on 195 completed questionnaires, we demonstrated a significant negative influence of organizational and technical barriers and missing skills on digital transformation success. The identified predictors can explain 58% of the variance in the transformation process based on 195 respondents. We could not demonstrate a significant relationship to digital transformation success for the three additional barrier dimensions individual, lack of standards, and lack of laws. Nevertheless, respondents perceive the existence of a lack of standards and laws as well as individual barriers. Our results indicate that addressing organizational barriers is an excellent way to start a DT journey.

With the rise of modern digital connectivity technologies, Digital Transformation (DT) is now an issue for most companies across almost all industries. DT is an evolution to digitalizing internal processes, offering digital services and products, and improving the customer experience. Prior studies have explored different barriers that hinder successful DT. Our study follows a quantitative design to explore further how these barriers are perceived by staff at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) compared to larger enterprises (LEs). Our sample comprises participants from 189 SMEs and 221 LEs. In general, results indicate a somewhat similar perception of their DT processes. In detail, setting up new positions to manage DT poses a more intense barrier for SMEs.