Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate what marketing measures stores carry out to attract and simplify the purchase for the Chinese customer.  Completion: A qualitative study has been conducted focusing on how Chinese tourism has affected the Swedish retail trade. The study is based on a total of twelve different respondents who are localized in the Stockholm area. A total of 9 semi-structured interviews were conducted and 2 email correspondence. Nine of these consist of retail stores, the rest of which consists of a marketing company that focuses on the Chinese market, a Chinese newspaper independent of China and a communications company for the Swedish tourism industry.  Results: The findings of the study show that there are indications and a rising interest in introducing Chinese social media and payment methods in the future. This is mainly due to the fact of the observed increase of Chinese customers as well as this group accounting for 45% of Sweden’s total tax-free trade. Among the respondents, only three shops have adopted the payment methods today and one has been present on WeChat. / Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka marknadsföringsåtgärder butiker genomför för att attrahera och förenkla kinesernas köp Genomförande: En kvalitativ studie har genomförts med fokus på hur den kinesiska turismen har påverkat den svenska detaljhandeln. Studien baseras på totalt tolv olika respondenter som befinner sig i Stockholmsområdet. Nio av dessa består av butiker inom retail branschen, resterande består av ett marknadsföringsföretag som fokuserar på denna marknad, en kinesisk tidning oberoende av Kina samt ett kommunikationsföretag för svensk turistnäring. Det utfördes en systematisk tematisering av det insamlande materialet. Slutsats: Denna studie fann att bland de intervjuade butikerna var det endast 3 butiker idag som har antagit de kinesiskabetalningsmetoderna och att en använder sig av Kinas sociala medieapp, WeChat. Resterande respondenter meddelade att det finns funderingar på att införa dessa i framtiden då det observerat en stor ökning av kinesiska kunder under de senaste åren samt att denna grupp enligt Global Blue står för 45% av Sveriges totala tax free handel.

WeChat is a widely used multi-functional social media platform in China. The increasing number of WeChat users provides new possibilities and challenges for company marketing strategy. We draw literature from word-of-mouth (WOM) and e-service quality (e-SQ). Qualitive study approach was conducted, and ten interviews done with Chinese consumers with shopping experience on WeChat. This thesis aims to explore the purchasing experience of Chinese consumers on WeChat, and specifically we want to understand how do WOM/ eWOM influences Chinese consumers on their shopping experience on WeChat, and what aspect of the e-SQ may affect Chinese consumers’ shopping experience on WeChat. The results reveal that in the brand awareness period, people are more likely to be influenced by WOM to notice products or services. Furthermore, offline WOM has more influential persuading power than online WOM. In terms of e-service quality, the professionalism and convenience of website design is the foundation of consumer purchase. Fulfillment and security perform quite well on WeChat according to our research findings. At the same time, consumers on WeChat are inclined to buy products with less need of customer service.

abstract: This study explores how WeChat, one of the most popular Chinese-based Social Network Sites (SNSs), has been adopted and used under different patterns between two Chinese generation cohorts, namely “The post-70” (i.e., people who were born in the 1970s) and “The post-90” (i.e., people who were born in the 1990s). Three major issues were examined in this Study: (1) what are the differences in WeChat connection between two generations; (2) how Chinese post-70 and the post-90 cohorts differ regarding their cultural value orientations and how those differences influence their WeChat connection; (3) if there is a participatory cultural divide between two generation cohorts. Two hundred and eight the post-70 cohort and 221 the post-90 cohort were recruited to complete a 91-item survey. Results indicated significant differences between the post-70 and the post-90 cohorts in WeChat adoption and use, collectivistic/individualistic (COL/IND) orientations, and participation in creating and spreading of popular online memes. Moreover, factors influencing human capital- enhancing activities on WeChat were examined. Also explored were the influence of cultural values on the motivations to connect to the Internet and frequencies of different types of WeChat activities. Major findings and limitations were discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2018

With the rapid revolution within networks as well as social media, today people face areal well-rounded and colorful high-tech world. Indeed, the technology of socialmedia changes the way that people socialize and communicate. What is more, thepotential of the social media is limitless, because we can see the combination betweenthe classroom and networks for the communication within a group chatting on acourse discussion. This is really used in our life, especially in western countries. Bycomparison, the model or pattern of learning by using social media in China is quitedifferent. This is why this paper focuses on the perspective of undergraduates’attitudes as well as behaviors when they use Hatcheck during their studying life.Hatcheck is the biggest application for socializing in China and is seen as a ChineseFacebook. How can it change Chinese students’ manners to learn and how canstudents manage their learning process self-regulatory? This will be discussed withinthis paper.

Along with the development of smart phones and smart phones operating systems, users of smart phones are able to install software, games and other programs provided by third-party providers. WeChat as a third party software that exists in the current market, is an in-stant messaging application that enables users to send voice, video, pictures and text to their contacts through mobile network. Being a new application, the user acceptance of WeChat has not been studied. Therefore, the result of this study will be valuable to fill the knowledge gap about user acceptance study of this mobile application, and future development of other similar instant messaging mobile application could also benefit from this study. This study focuses on WeChat users and answers to the following research questions: 1. What are the factors that affect the users‘ acceptance of WeChat? 2. How could other competing instant messaging applications improve their user acceptance? The purpose of this study is to explain factors that affect the users‘ acceptance of WeChat among WeChat users who are studying in one specific school and working in one specific company. This study adopts a deductive, theory testing approach. The research model was proposed through literature review and expert interview, and six hypotheses were developed based on the research model. A survey was conducted subsequently to collect quantitative data. Hypotheses were tested through analyzing the quantitative data by using SPSS. Through testing the hypotheses, this study concluded that effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, cost and privacy are the factors that could affect user acceptance of WeChat. Other similar IM mobile applications could take those identified factors as reference in further user acceptance study, and the proposed research model in this study could also help in improving understanding of user acceptance in similar IM mobile application study.

Employer branding has come a long way from its early stages as a marketing branch. The concept of employer branding was established and developed among western companies in the last few decades, while it has become more and more popular in China in recent years. For Swedish companies who plan to step into the Chinese market, one of the most important thing is to use elaborate methods to ensure that they can compete in the tightened labour market for skilled talent. In order to do so, it is necessary and important to find solutions and strategies for Swedish companies to build employer branding on WeChat, as WeChat is the most popular and widely-used social media platform. Therefore, this paper mainly aims to find solutions and strategies for Swedish companies to build employer branding on WeChat, by conducting 4 case studies of 4 Swedish companies who have successfully built their own employer branding on WeChat. Based on the reference framework, this study came up with the final emerged employer branding model, which includes the employer knowledge framework, the instrumental-symbolic framework, and a scheme of five measurements. In the end, conclusions, limitations and future development suggestions are provided so that the stakeholders could have some references for further development of building employer branding on WeChat.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Communication

Recent trends in social network services (SNS) have taken the rates of personal information sharing, storage and processing to an unprecedented level, which yield both benefits and undesirable consequences for their users. SNS is being exploited by criminals to fraudulently obtain information from unsuspecting users. User’s awareness of privacy protection has been far left behind by the increasing and popularizing utilization of social network services (SNS), the privacy security problems will become one of the important factors influencing the healthy development of social network service industry. This study was designed to collect data and produce knowledge about the security awareness of WeChat users (i.e., randomly selected from all over China), their preferences and their experience of using WeChat while facing security issues as well as the perspectives of how people perceive a specific security problems, in order to find out what factors influence user's security awareness. In order to carefully conduct the research process and explain the empirical findings, seven principles of interpretive field research and protection motivation theory is adopted as core theoretical foundation. Participants were asked to provide information about and their personal views of questions from their different experience and value. Eight persons interviewed for our research and their responses confirmed our objectives of the study. As a result, six factors are indentified in related to WeChat user’s security awareness. PMT helps to explain and understand that how six indentified concepts influence behaviour intention and security awareness of user.

No description available.

隨著科技不斷地進步與網際網路的日益普及，消費者手中的智慧型手機似乎早已不限用於傳統的通話功能。作者在十幾年前就曾幻想過，如果將來出門在外身上可以只攜帶一支手機，那該有多好。沒想到當初天真爛漫的想像，轉眼幾年後便已幾乎實現。隨著相機、手電筒、地圖、筆記本、隨身聽……等等逐一被我們放進智慧型手機裡，手機已經不再只是手機。而近年來大眾開始把「錢」放進手機，許多企業也紛紛推出「結合手機與錢」這種概念的各式產品與服務。當供給端與需求端都已出現時，行動支付產業就此產生。 行動支付有許多應用與模式，本研究主要針對兩個以即時通訊應用程式為初始業務的案例―微信以及LINE進行探討。兩家案例公司都是在原有業務成長至一定規模後，開始發展新興行動支付業務，分別為：微信發展微信支付，LINE發展LINE Pay。本研究不僅透過資料瞭解這兩個案例之發展歷程、營運模式以及現況；同時藉由策略行銷4C理論架構，逐步分析這兩個案例是如何各自處理交換關係中的四個成本。 研究結果發現，歷經了差不多的光陰，兩個案例所呈現出的現況卻是天壤之別。儘管兩者因為政治環境、市場規模，以及所面對之消費者習慣上的差異，導致經營成效有所落差。不過排除這些先天因素，微信支付相較於LINE Pay，確實於各階段將4C策略執行地更加完善，並因此推動4C良性循環。LINE Pay本身對於4C架構仍有許多進步空間，本研究最終建議LINE Pay可以參考微信支付部分作法，並針對台灣市場適度調整，期許LINE Pay能順利啟動4C良性循環，為自己創造長期競爭優勢。 / With the advances of technology and the popularization of the internet, nowadays smartphones can perform several functions besides communication (e.g., camera, flashlight, map, notebook, Walkman). Moreover, people begin “putting” the money on their smartphones in recent years. Many corporations have also launched new products or services featuring the combination of mobile phone and money. As the growth of both supply and demand in the market, the mobile payment industry has gradually formed. There are many kinds of application and models in the mobile payment industry. This thesis concentrates the attention on two instant messaging companies―WeChat and LINE. Both companies began expanding mobile payment business―WeChat Pay and LINE Pay―after their original business grew mature. This thesis not only reviews the development history and business models of two companies, but also uses the 4C analysis framework to analyze how they dealt with the four transaction costs. The study shows that the operating results of WeChat Pay and LINE Pay are very different. There is still room for LINE Pay to grow. Although WeChat Pay and LINE Pay face quite distinct political environment, market size, and consumers, the thesis suggests that LINE pay can refer to the strategies and methods of WeChat Pay, and make some adjustments so as to successfully create the positive 4C cycle and long-term competitive advantage.