Example Of Research Article Critiquename: Institution: Term Paper

Research Article Critique

Introduction
The article on eWOW comprehensively discusses how the advent of social networking has greatly influenced the operations of the hospitality and tourism industry. Many players of the industry have embraced technology and especially social networks, as a platform for market research, communication, and interaction with their potential customers. The article argues that as much as the social media has enabled most hotels, which use it to acquire enhanced visibility, comments posted by both customers and mischievous individuals have greatly influenced the decision-making process of the customers (Ladhari & Michaud, 2015).
It has revealed significant role played by social media in the tourism and hospitality industry. Unlike the traditional methods, of collecting consumer opinions, the internet has generated numerous platforms that give clients online reviews, as well as product ratings on a daily basis. Most of these platforms give clients detailed comment as well as general rating technique using the 5-star rating system. Through this, clients are able to evaluate their hotel experience (Papathanassis and Knolle, 2011; Wilson et al., 2012; Xiang and Gretzel, 2010; Ye et al., 2011). As a result, given the widening availability of renowned opinion platforms on the internet, many people have embraced online reviews making it a vital aspect of consumer decision-making process.
Most people who access it have perceived the hotel website presentation, as clear representation of the organization. This implies that customers in the hotel industry no longer require physical or tangible proof to rate the quality of service render by the company, but would rather do so by simply evaluating their website. The article has exhausted all the various factors that influence consumer decision-making process.
Research Methodology used by research candidly meets the intent of the study and is more likely to produce a desirable outcome. However, contrary to (Neuman, 2007) methodology, the scope of study did not extensively discuss all aspects of social networking especially through defining social networking and relating it to popular behaviors or perceptions that influenced viewers to make the kind of comments that are made in the first place. I think social networking and human behavior exists simultaneously, since one factor complements the other.
For an organization to carry out an effective research, there is the need to observe and exhaust the all the stages of conducting an effective research. The eWOW study needed to adhere to these research stages in order to gain strength and influence among those who would read or use their finding in the future. The methodology seemed to have lost reliability due to lack of optimal efficiency in the data collection analysis and interpretation. Without proper research finding, an organization risks being sued by consumers for deception, lack of professionalism and credibility in their operations (Ladhari & Michaud, 2015). The preparation and the selection of the research method seemed to have been poorly done by the researchers. This automatically rendered the data collected and the finds sigh of desired standards (e.g., Liu and Park, 2015; Mauri and Minazzi, 2013; O’Connor, 2008; Sparks and Browning, 2011; Ye et al., 2011). Further research need to be done on the subject, with more respect to human behavior, and other social and economic factors that influence consumer decision-making process in the hotel industry such as; the level of income, education, culture etc.
In recent days, Researchers have been warned against over-relying on social media as a platform for studying human behaviors. Research studies have argued that such finds could be easily skewed. The main reason as to why social media should not be used to study human behavior is because; (a) different social networks attract different users, for instance, Pinterest is dominated by females of 25-35 years. (b) Publicly accessible data feeds posted on these social networks hardly provide a truthful depiction of the networks data, this mainly because the researchers are not enlightened on how the social network provider filters its data. (c) The design of most social networks, dictates, how their users behave and hence influencing the kind of behavior that can be measured (Sigala, Christou, & Gretzel, 2012). For instance, without the “like” and “dislike” buttons on Facebook, one cannot detect positive or negative response on a given subject. (d) The large number of spammers and bots, who often masquerade on social networks as normal users are always subconsciously incorporated into the data when measuring human behavior. Finally, the research carried on eWOW focused only, on how to classify users, subjects and events since it seemed to be more accurate than traditional data collection methods (Dickinger, 2011; Luo and Zhong, 2015; Mauri and Minazzi, 2013; Sparks et al., 2013; Sparks and Browning, 2011;Zhang et al., 2010).
In conclusion, the article offered a well-structured synthesis of the relationship between social media and consumer decision-making process in the hospitality and tourism industry. Despite, using social network as a platform to collect data, which is hardly accurate when it comes to measuring human behavior, the report seems legitimate and adaptable.

References

Ladhari, R., & Michaud, M. (April 01, 2015). eWOM effects on hotel booking intentions, attitudes, trust, and website perceptions. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 46, 1, 36-45.
Neuman, W. L. (2007). Basics of social research: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.
Sigala, M., Christou, E., & Gretzel, U. (2012). Social media in travel, tourism, and hospitality: Theory, practice and cases. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Pub.