Opponents: Samir El-Tahan 830324

Daniela Poblete 930821

Authors: Rebecca Andersson

Christian Jensen

Deadline: 2017/04/07
Opposition paper
The overall paper has a clear structure, and the language has nice flow which makes it easier for
the reader. Regarding references, some references are missing in the first section "Introduction"
for example in the first sentence of the introduction, second paragraph in the first sentence. Also,
in "problem discussion" second paragraph second sentence and second paragraph sixth sentence.
Some minor errors in grammar, alignment of text that can be fixed in the upcoming writing
process of the thesis.

Introduction/ Background
The introduction extension paragraph (explaining introduction) we feel could be removed since it
is usually mutual understanding of what is included. However, it is optional and ultimately up to
the authors if they feel it is necessary. In this section, there is a good explanation of social media
usage and clear understanding of it. However, we believe that in the third paragraph last
sentence: "However, business-to-business (hence referred to as B2B) firms have not been that
widely explored as its counterpart (Michaelidou et al., 2011) " In this sentence, we believe that
companies are never purely B2B or B2C and one cannot distinguish them simply as counterparts,
perhaps it would be better to re-formulate the sentence. Also, the reference for such important
sentence, within such rapidly developing field is 6 years old. This is because we think that after 6
years, B2B companies have already explored most of the Web 2.0 capabilities.

After reading through the first part of this paper, we conclude that there are two solid
information in the introduction part. Firstly, that there has been a shift to Web 2.0 and secondly,
that when we analyse Web 2.0, we should distinguish between B2B and B2C. Which are relevant
to their topic, but perhaps could have been better if it is written in one paragraph, in order to
avoid redundancies. Our last observation of this section consists on the narrowing down process.
We believe the authors of this paper hurdles from web 2.0 straight down to B2B companies and
their social networks. As a suggestion, there are so many things within Web 2.0 that are not
mentioned and discussed for example; why and how authors omit them. In this case, it would be
better if they can mention or discussed it but it depends on the authors.

Problem discussion
The overall comment to this section, as it is the basic building block of the whole paper, the
authors give a strong compelling reason on why the topic make sense in two paragraphs which
were clear enough to understand the problem of the paper.

Purpose/ research questions

So far from authors introduction, we got a feeling that they are going to explore, hence it will be
exploratory study. But reading the purpose, we understood that authors are doing a descriptive
study. The descriptive studies are most of the times quantitative as one examining relationships
among pre-defined variables. However, if it is descriptive, the variables found should be from
some previous research. Finally, authors mentioned: "The study will have a descriptive approach
since it will be conducted through observing and interviewing marketing practitioners thoughts
and experience surrounding the topic", Authors are mentioning observation as their method,
which makes the reader confused since observation and descriptive study are not that compatible.

In the research question section, authors ought to be very careful when it comes to the use of
words such as "what, "how" and "why" in their aim formulation. The reason is that these words
are thinly connected with the overall approach of the research. Hence, these sub-questions imply
that this study will be both descriptive and explanatory.

Theory outline
We like the brief idea of taking two mainstreams- marketing and social media and constructing
literature review/theoretical framework and the concepts are interesting and relevant for their
topics. Starting with the first section of the theory outline: "Marketing- an everyday practice",
we believe that this section is extremely broad, for example; in the paragraph of Kotlers book on
marketing, however, it was nicely written. We believe that it would have been better if it was in
introduction rather than included in later sections, however in the literature review which is
written after research aim, we believe it should directly relate in some way or other to the
research aim, but it does not. The study of rhetoric is interesting, but also it is a whole new
theory by itself. Secondly, "Social media as a marketing tool", this concept is fair. One can
nicely see how the paragraph is related to the previous section of marketing and how the topic is
being narrowed down through the section. Thirdly and last, "social media adoption & usage"
here it is well-explained about the adoption and usage of social media. However, we are
concerned when the authors mentioned: "By applying the social media adoption process in B2B
companies with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) ". Here, would have been better to
explain further what TAM is and why the authors used this model (TAM) if the model is going
to be used in later sections, since TAM is mentioned only by the author Lacka and Chong (2016)
in one article mainly.

Methodology Plan
The authors present a nice and exciting idea. What the authors describe in the introduction and
other authors (scientific articles) say, this topic requires a very exploratory approach. We firmly
believe that there have been some qualitative studies, even quantitative. So maybe something
like a quantitative comparison of embedded cases would be even nicer. As a suggestion: that
would fit this topic nicely, for example; they can define a set of variables to examine within
social media and then the authors could go to the companies and cross-compare the cases with
each other. Variables would be set based on literature review. Case study would be embedded as
the authors are interested only in social media and nothing else. We believe that this could be a
possible suggestion for future improvement.
There is a need to clear the nature of their research, in this we mean to clarify if it is exploratory,
descriptive or explanatory. If there is a clear method of work, we firmly believe that it would be
easier to define their work with context variable. For example;
Are they identifying variables? (Exploratory)
Examining relationships among them? (Descriptive)
Explaining these relationships? (Explanatory)

Final comments/ possible suggestions

Since we had made a research on methodology, we believe that exploratory goes for bachelor
students, descriptive for masters and explanatory for higher such as PhD.

Grounded theory is an advanced research strategy that usually takes a team of experienced
researchers and usually needs substantial funding and long-time in performing the study
(Bryman & Bell, 2015).
In the Grounded theory section- grounded theory is inductive, hence such project does not have a
theoretical part, here one starts off with pure data and generalizes some general patterns and
rules. Also, grounded theory tends to be iterative, so the research goes back and forth between
the field and table to refine their theories. As we firmly believe that large part of grounded theory
papers is just about setting strict research guidelines that usually needs to be preapproved.

Ethnography study- we strongly believe when you are doing a research one must choose right
research strategy. Here is mentioned grounded theory and ethnographic study. Ethnography-
This study is a study of culture, this means that it is used in fields such as sociology, it can be
used in business, however it cannot be performed by bachelor level nor can it be done in a
months time. We strongly believe that this research study is Holistic which is the opposite to
embedded, hence once the case is chosen (such as company) the authors must examine
holistically and not just marketing or social media (Bryman & Bell, 2015).

We have enjoyed reading the work, we have also gained new insights by being a constructive
critic, and we hope that our constructive critic report can be of help to the authors.
Thank you.
Reference:

Bryman, A. & Bell, E. (2015). Business Research Methods. 4th Edition. Glasgow:

Oxford University Press.