Virtual online worlds - Enabling technologies to establish interwoven relationships to network constituents in an emerging virtual marketspace

Master's Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1st, University of Lincoln (Faculty of Business & Law), course: International Marketing Strategy, language: English, abstract: Purpose This dissertation analyses whether Second Life, as an emerging interactive online environment, provides marketers with the scope to establish interwoven relationships to network constituents, and highlights the importance and benefits arising from enabling technologies to business marketing operations. Design / Methodology / Approach The correlation to previous work was critically addressed with a focal point set on relationship, and e-marketing approaches and strategies, whilst highlighting the potential of an utilisation of virtual worlds / communities. The methodological approach was of an inductive philosophy by gathering information about Second Life from a corporate and an individual point of view. This took the form of a self-administered Internetmediated questionnaire, a semi-structured telephone interview and a participant observation. Findings Through a conceptual analysis of the virtual community of Second Life in terms of exploring reasons for participation and benefits received from an immersion into Second Life, the research study indicated that corporate involvement in this innovative environment can offer marketers with opportunities to establish relationships to existing and potential network constituents. Research Limitations / Implications This marketing research study identified limitations due to its topical nature, as the number of research publications is limited with regards to the momentum of Second Life¿s innovative virtual 3-D environment and hence, research in this arena is only just emerging and has not been empirically tested. The evolving virtual world environment along with the possible necessity for marketers to both establish a presence and demonstrate innovative marketing approaches to capture a tech-savvy audience, identify the implications for this dissertation.