Other Business Commons^™

Consumer Subjectivity In The Age Of Internet: The Radical Concept Of Marketing Control Through Customer Relationship Management, Detlev Zwick, Nikhilesh Dholakia

Nikhilesh Dholakia

In this paper, we present a poststructuralist analysis of customer database technology. This approach allows us to regard customer databases as configurations of language that produce new and significant discursive effects. In particular, we focus on the role of databases and related technologies such as customer relationship management (CRM) in the discursive construction of both customers and customer relationships. First, we argue that organizations become the authors of customer identities, using the language of the database to configure customer representation. From this perspective, we can see the radical innovation that the customer database brings to the organizational construction of its …

Investigating Virtual Worlds, Patricia D. Sobczak

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

The global phenomena of online gaming engages millions of people, some playing over 45 hours a week - the equivalent of a second full-time job. Our children are logging over 10,000 hours of gaming time before they are 21 years old; the equivalent of the time children spend in formal classrooms from grades five through 12. Players in one of the most popular online games have logged over 5.3 million years of play time since 2004.

These statistics show that virtual worlds, including online games, have become an important component of modern culture, but their impact on society has yet …