Special Issue: Social Media & Business Practices in Emerging Markets ------------------------------ Special issue call for papers from Journal of Advances in Management Research *“Social Media & Business Practices in the Emerging Markets” Journal of Advances in Management Research Special Issue* Journal of Advances in Management Research of Emerald Group Publishing invites high quality manuscripts for a special issue entitled 'Social Media & Business Practices in Emerging Markets’. Businesses use social media platforms in all the possible domains – marketing, customer relationship management, recruitment, brand management, market research and new product development etc. The extant management research is predominantly focusing on the developed markets, apart from abundant research on political activism or governance in the developing world. Out of the management research, digital marketing, with a special focus on social media platforms, are relatively numerous than other areas. There is a need for going beyond marketing and the developed world. The emerging and developing markets offer different challenges while deploying social media for various business functions. The ownership and usage of social media platforms in these markets differ significantly than the developed ones. Though the reasons are known - differential penetration rates, content availability, cost of broadband access, affordability of devices, weaker network externalities and regulatory frameworks, state-of-the art of social media strategies in the developing world is still emerging. The knowledge in this domain also seems to be sparse. Businesses, both local and multinationals, compete with each other in winning the emerging markets. The proven frameworks and social media strategies are from the developed markets of better wired consumers. They need to be customized or adapted, and subsequently disseminated. The proposed special issue is an attempt in this direction. The special issue invites high quality manuscripts that are grounded in empirical data and should be focused on the developing and emerging markets. The analysis of the data can be from traditional research methods and from social media analytics. Following are the possible questions (not exhaustive): How do firms in low-networked markets select and use specific social media platforms?; Is there a distinct social media strategy among the developing market firms?; Whether firms exploit the selected features of social media platforms? Whether firms differentiate between home grown and global social media platforms?; Is there a different device strategy adapted by the firms?; Whether CEOs in emerging markets think differently of social media platforms? Why?; What are the implications of introducing social media functions on the organizational structure?; Whether social media platforms are exploited in functions beyond marketing?; What is the impact of regulatory environment on the businesses’ use of social media?; How are firms handling social media skill deficiencies?; How are social media activities measured, and investments are evaluated?; What kind of insights and opportunities do social media data provide? What are the challenges of managing social media data? *Important Dates:* Call for notifications - 1 Dec 2016; Submission Deadline - 1 April 2017; Decision on submission - 1 June 2017; Revised Paper Submission – 1 Aug 2017. *Guidelines on Submission:* The papers submitted for this special issue shall be filtered by a Guest Editors first before sending for blind review by the experts. Please visit the Journal of Advances in Management Research author guidelines pages to find out more about the manuscript requirements. Submissions to the journal are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts, the online submission and peer review system.* The link is here: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jamr <https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jamr>* *Guest Editors:* Please feel free to discuss your manuscript ideas with any of the following guest editors: - Dr. P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. vignes@iitd.ac.in - Dr. Arpan Kumar Kar, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. arpankar@dms.iitd.ac.in - Prof. M. P. Gupta, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. mpgupta@iitd.ac.in Best Regards, Vignesh. http://web.iitd.ac.in/~vignes/ ________________________________ P. VIGNESWARA ILAVARASAN, PhD Associate Professor Dept. of Management Studies Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016 India M:+91 9910230407 (India); O: +91 11 2659 1174 E: vignes@iitd.ac.in W:http://web.iitd.ac.in/~vignes/