Home

The world’s population continues to increase rapidly, and, within the next 30 years, more than half of all people will choose to live in large urban centers (Faria et al., 2018). This has led to a number of problems, such as congested people and transportation traffic and increased pollution that produces climate change. The concept of “smart” cities has emerged as a way to deal with these issues, in which these cities are defined as an ecosystem that seeks to improve citizens’ quality of life through a combination of technology, sustainability, and physical infrastructures (Estrada et al., 2018). Smart cities have to use new technologies ranging from the Internet of Things (IoT), which facilitates connections between everything, to home automation (i.e., the ease with which citizens can manage daily routines through their homes).

Years 2008 and 2009 were particularly affected by the outbreak of the global economic recession which in addition to economic instability was also affected by political instability. Economies of most countries in the world felt the impact of the financial crisis, not excluding the EU countries. Since the start of the crisis, there has been a substantial reduction in the EU’s growth potential. In the EU, this was reflected at the macro-level by 4.74% GDP reduction in 2009 (Campos-Soria, Inchausti-Sintes & Eugenio-Martin, 2014). The high levels of external liabilities and private and public debt in many countries in the EU still constitute substantial vulnerabilities for growth, jobs and financial stability. The development of various indicators at micro and macro levels in times of last crisis in various countries was investigated by several authors (Campos-Soria, Inchausti-Sintes, & Eugenio-Martin, 2015; Gugler, Weichselbaumer, & Zulehner, 2015; Zhao, Jiang, & Li, 2014; Tatulescu & Patruti, 2014; Mazurek & Mielcová, 2017; Klepáč & Hampel, 2018).

The rapid development of information communication technologies (ICT) has expanded the possibilities for marketing communication. In order to increase business competitiveness and carry out effective marketing activities, it has therefore become important to acquire knowledge about e-consumers and to identify significant elements that shape their virtual behaviour and influence their decision to buy. An analysis of scientific literature revealed that there is a gap in knowledge with regards to the e-consumer behaviour of different generations, as customer segments, and their preferences in the purchase phase. The purchase phase is characterised by different internet marketing communication elements, which influence the performance of browsing and searching tasks. The goal of the research presented in this article was to determine the most significant internet marketing communication elements during the purchase phase of the e-consumer journey by performing a browsing task and using the mathematical decision tree approach.

Due to the pressure of global competition, shortened product-life cycles and the increasing opportunity to imitate product designs or their elements, companies continuously focus on innovations as one of their main agenda in order to maintain their global or national competitiveness. Besides, these innovations are considered as an ultimate source of productivity improvement, the growth in sales volume, and the capability of a company in question to stay competitive on the global market (Liao, Hu, Chen, & Lin, 2015). Companies perceive the need to continuously adapt, develop, and innovate as an economic necessity that results from global market pressures. The enhancement of product design and quality, accessorial technological services, their accessibility and reliability are no longer only seen as a benefit but rather an ultimate condition for the sustainability of company competitiveness.

Today’s highly volatile business environment has initiated a wide variety of changes within organizations of all industries (Hurn, 2012). Change dynamics, in general, is likely to increase in organizational context due to: Digital and innovation disruption; Shifting social and demographic trends; Growing knowledge-based economy and knowledge workforce development; More sophisticated customer needs; and Global economic integration and liberalization. Regardless of its root-cause, it has been argued that change occurs in various shapes, forms and intensity (Jarrett, 2008). Accordingly, many authors recognize that key factor of an organization’s effectiveness lie in the ability to adapt to ever-present change, while successful change management became a pattern for organizational survival and long-term sustainability.