Business advances its business process in order to adapt to a constantly changing situation in economy and society. Analysis of buyers' burstiness assists in optimization of flow of business process in order to increase the profit. However, burstiness in quasi-group decision making in business settings has not attracted a lot of research efforts. The aim of the chapter is to explore the nature, origins, and impact of burstiness in quasi-group decision making in business settings underpinning implementation of an empirical study and elaboration of a new research question for further studies. The meaning of such key concepts as burstiness, mirror neurons, quasi-group, and decision making is studied. Moreover, the study demonstrates how the key concepts are related to the idea of business settings. The novel contribution of this manuscript is the newly defined research question on burstiness in quasi-group decision making in business settings. Directions of further research are proposed.
TopIntroduction
Business advances its business process in order to adapt to a constantly changing situation in economy and society. Currently, business considers the phenomenon of burstiness for the advancement of business practice as it influences the flow of a number of business processes. Therefore, the phenomenon of burstiness attracts more and more research efforts. It should be noted that by phenomenon’s burstiness, intervals of its high-activity alternating with long low-activity periods within a fat-tailed inter-event time distribution is meant (Karsai, Kaski, Barabási, & Kertész, 2012). The flow of business process is permanently optimized in order to increase the profit (Ahrens, Purvinis, Zaščerinska, & Andreeva, 2016). Optimization of business process implies choices about quantity of goods to be delivered, number of the staff to be employed, (Ahrens, Purvinis, Zaščerinska, & Andreeva, 2016), goods’ pricing, goods discounts, computer software to be installed, networking between a business company and its customers to be established, queue management, etc. Additionally, such a result of the business process as purchase and/or sale of a good or service indicates the output of this process (Ahrens & Zaščerinska, 2016). In business practice, analysis of buyers’ burstiness assists in optimisation of flow of business process in order to increase the profit (Ahrens, Purvinis, Zaščerinska, & Andreeva, 2016). For the optimization of the flow of business process, burstiness acts as a characteristic of the flow of e-business process (Ahrens & Zaščerinska, 2016). It should be noted that buyers’ burstiness in business processes has been considered on a customer’s individual basis within the paradigm of binary customer behavior (Ahrens & Zaščerinska, 2016). By binary customer behaviour, “to buy, or not to buy” is meant (Ahrens, Purvinis, Zaščerinska, & Andreeva, 2015). Consequently, “to buy, or not to buy” refers to decision making.
Decision making has attracted a lot of research interest. Many researchers agree that decision making plays a significant role in all the domains of human life as decision making results in a decision which regulates the well-being of society in general and/or individual in particular. The well-being of society and/or individual implies such a dimension as business as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Business as a dimension of the well-being of society and/or individual
In the present research, business includes business practice as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The relationship between business and business practice
It should be noted that in the present research business practice and business settings are used synonymously. By business settings, any setting where one would go in order to have a business experience is meant.
Business practice has shaped and been shaped by various social and political forces within the couple of past decades. A historical perspective on business development during the past decades indicates the shift in business practice from global business to hybrid business (Zaščerinska, Zaščerinskis, Aleksejeva, & Andreeva, 2016). Hybrid busness in the present research means a business strategy that blends traditional business methods, alternative business methods as well as use of modern technologies (Ahrens, Zaščerinska, Melnikova, & Andreeva, 2017) as depicted in Figure 3.