Questioner or question: Predicting the response rate in social question and answering on Sina Weibo

With the noted popularity of social networking sites, people increasingly rely on these social networks to address their information needs. Although social question and answering is potentially an important venue seeking information online, it, unfortunately, suffers from a problem of low response rate, with the majority of questions receiving no response. To understand why the response rate of social question and answering is low and hopefully to increase it in the future, this research analyzes extrinsic factors that may influence the response probability of questions posted on Sina Weibo. We propose 17 influential factors from 2 different perspectives: the content of the question, and the characteristics of the questioner. We also train a prediction model to forecast a question's likelihood of being responded based on the proposed features We test our predictive model on more than 60,000 real-world questions posted on Weibo, which generate more than 600,000 responses. Findings show that a Weibo's question answerability is primarily contingent on the questioner versus the question. Our findings indicate that using appreciation emojis can increase a question's response probability, whereas the use of hashtags negatively influences the chances of receiving answers. Our contribution is in providing insights for the design and development of future social question and answering tools, as well as for enhancing social network users’ collaboration in supporting social information seeking activities.     

Information avoidance behavior on social network sites: Information irrelevance,overload, and the moderating role of time pressure

Drawing on the stressor-strain-outcome framework, this study investigates how information irrelevance and overload induce social network fatigue, and the relationship of these variables to users’ information avoidance behavior. It also examines the conditions under which social network fatigue is more likely to be translated into information avoidance behavior. The analysis of data collected from 341 users of WeChat Moments suggests that information irrelevance directly leads to information avoidance behavior, and social media fatigue as a mediator partially mediates the impact of information overload on information avoidance behavior and fully mediates the impact of social overload on information avoidance behavior. Furthermore, time pressure strengthens the effect of social network fatigue on information avoidance behavior. This study fulfills the identified need for an in-depth investigation of actual discontinuous behavior in social network services (SNSs) by investigating information avoidance behavior and its antecedents. The findings provide SNSs providers with guidelines on how to manage users’ behavior so that they remain active users of the SNSs.     

Visualization of the Nordic academic web: Link analysis using social network tools

The aim of this paper is to study the link relationships in the Nordic academic web space – comprised of 23 Finnish, 11 Danish and 28 Swedish academic web domains with the European one. Through social networks analysis we intend to detect sub-networks within the Nordic network, the position and role of the different university web domains and to understand the structural topology of this web space. Co-link analysis, with asymmetrical matrices and cosine measure, is used to identify thematic clusters. Results show that the Nordic network is a cohesive network, set up by three well-defined sub-networks and it rests on the Finnish and Swedish sub-networks. We conclude that the Danish network has less visibility than other Nordic countries. The Swedish one is the principal Nordic sub-network and the Finland network is a slightly isolated from Europe, with the exception of the University of Helsinki.     

基于技术距离的知识溢出与产业升级—来自中美德制造业产品空间的微观证据*

中国制造业如何能够在现有生产能力的基础上获得产业升级是一个学术界普遍关注的议题。为此,本文以知识溢出为切入点,通过揭示中、美、德制造业的发展现状及产业升级的路径差异来为中国制造业发展寻找可借鉴的产业升级模式。以近三十年全球2000余种制造业300万条贸易数据作为研究样本,并以中、美、德三国作为研究对象,综合运用社会网络方法、产品空间理论和Logit回归模型,深入探讨了中、美、德制造业知识溢在产业升级过程中的作用机制。研究发现：中国制造业产品空间核心区域的产品尚未形成规模化的生产模式；中国制造业的产业升级更多遵循“渐进性发展”路径,盲目追求知识溢出的效果反而可能带来风险；中国加入WTO以来,不仅能够依靠生产能力累积而实现渐进式产业升级,还可以在产品生产能力累积与知识溢出强度的交互作用下,通过破坏式创新实现产业升级。     

An empirical investigation of information sharing behavior on social commerce sites

Social commerce sites (SCSs), a new model of social media, provide fertile ground for customers to communicate their opinions and exchange product- or service- related information. Given the significant opportunities related to the use of social media data for customers’ insight, we explore the factors driving information sharing behavior on SCSs. In this paper, we propose and empirically test a comprehensive theoretical model for customer information sharing behavior through analysis of online survey data as well as network and behavioral usage data of over four months from 1177 customers in a SCS. The research model was empirically validated with the use of both subjective and objective data in a longitudinal setting. Our results show that customer information sharing is influenced by both individual (i.e., reputation and the enjoyment of helping others) and social capital (i.e., out-degrees’ post, in-degrees’ feedback, customer expertise and reciprocity) factors. This study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the role of directed social network in customer information sharing behavior on SCSs. We believe that the results of our study offer important insights to the IS research and practice.     

Building Guanxi network in the mobile social platform: A social capital perspective

Mobile social platform such as WeChat Moments has gained great popularity in China in the past few years. However, there are still a lack of studies that focus on Guanxi network building in the virtual social community. Drawing upon social capital theory and technology affordance theory, this study develops a research model to examine the influences of platform media richness and interactivity on users’ social capital and participation behaviors in the WeChat Moments. An empirical survey was conducted in China and 287 valid data were collected from WeChat users. Structural equation modelling analysis was used to test the research model. The empirical results suggest that platform interactivity and media richness are significant technology affordances that promote users’ Guanxi network, and their influences are mediated by social interaction and shared understanding. Furthermore, Guanxi network is positively associated with users’ active participation in the WeChat Moments. Theoretical and practical implications are illustrated in the final section.     

Applying a multi-dimensional hedonic concept of intrinsic motivation on social tagging tools: A theoretical model and empirical validation

Participation in and adding content to social tagging tools is important for these tools to achieve their purpose of classifying and organizing information. Users of social tagging tools are driven to participate and add tags by extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is dominating research as a main predictor of why users use information systems. Social tagging tools, as a subset of social media tools, are distinguished by their unique social aspect that makes intrinsic motivation a potential driver for users to add tags to content. Intrinsic motivation, when applied to social tagging tools, could entail many shades that represent different users’ motives for using such tools. In this paper, we add a rich concept of intrinsic motivation to include hedonism as a main predictor of users’ behavior on social tagging tools. We empirically validate a previously proposed theoretical model of three dimensional concepts of hedonism with three components describing individuals’ hedonic state when interacting with social tagging tools: explorability, curiosity, and enjoyment. After a robust and thorough data analysis using structured equation modeling, the results confirm our theoretical model and suggest using a richer concept of enjoyment to reflect a hedonic dimension when investigating intrinsic motivation with interactive social media tools. Our validated model could be the spark of new factors that have the potential to influence user acceptance of information systems in general and in social media tools. This research contributes to the development of attitude-behavior theories that could explain users’ acceptance of dynamic web     

Mapping world-class universities on the web

A visual display of the most important universities in the world is the aim of this paper. It shows the topological characteristics and describes the web relationships among universities of different countries and continents. The first 1000 higher education institutions from the Ranking Web of World Universities were selected and their link relationships were obtained from Yahoo! Search. Network graphs and geographical maps were built from the search engine data. Social network analysis techniques were used to analyse and describe the structural properties of the whole of the network and its nodes. The results show that the world-class university network is constituted from national sub-networks that merge in a central core where the principal universities of each country pull their networks toward international link relationships. The United States dominates the world network, and within Europe the British and the German sub-networks stand out.     

基于社会网络的市场机遇信息交互模型研究

本文从社会网络的多元关系层次入手,研究网络规则程度对市场机遇信息交互的影响。首先,结合市场机遇信息交互的特性与要求,对Cowan和Jonard的模型进行了修正改进,构建了基于社会网络的市场机遇信息交互模型,并对模型进行了仿真,实验研究了网络规则程度、个体吸收能力与创新能力、市场机遇信息增长机制以及市场机遇信息交互绩效这四者的影响关系,得到了有意义的结论。     

Applying uses and gratifications theory and social influence processes to understand students' pervasive adoption of social networking sites: Perspectives from the Americas

This study provides nascent information on university students' needs to adopt social networking sites (SNSs) pervasively. The study drew from the uses and gratifications theory (UGT) and social influence (SI) processes framework. Relevant hypotheses were formulated to test the proposed research model. Data was collected in a survey of university undergraduates in four countries in the Americas (i.e., United States, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina). Data analysis using partial least squares (PLS) supported 8 out of the 10 hypotheses formulated. The SI process of internalization and identification, as well as UGT categories of self-discovery, entertainment value, social enhancement, and the need to maintain interpersonal connectivity through the construct of behavioral intentions, were found to have positive impacts on students' pervasive adoption of SNSs. The results also revealed that the cultural factor of individualism–collectivism had a positive impact on the pervasive adoption of SNSs, such that greater levels of engagement were observed for students from more individualistic cultures.     

Global health social technologies: Reflections on evolving theories and landscapes

This paper has two core purposes. First, building on Nelson and Sampat's work, we outline the social technology conceptual framework and explain why we favour using it to explore two global health initiatives. Second, we discuss the evolution of those initiatives through the lens of the interaction between social technologies, physical technologies and general institutions. Thus we reflect both on evolving conceptual landscapes on the one hand and organisational and institutional terrains on the other.The first section of the paper presents an intellectual journey and outlines our understanding and adoption of the social technology conceptual framework. This framework we argue has a number of advantages over alternative theoretical approaches and perspectives. The second section describes the context in which product development partnerships (PDPs), a type of global health initiative based on a public–private partnership (PPP), have arisen. The third section develops case studies of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and the Malaria Vaccines Initiative (MVI) as social technology experiments and looks at the complex dynamics between organisation, management, scientific and R&D success and general institutional environments. We look at these social technologies as having ‘integrator’ and ‘broker’ roles; classifications which we argue are useful in analysing the different roles taken on by these PDPs. In the conclusion we reflect on the useful ways in which the concept of social technologies can shed light on complex and networked initiatives.     

Email-free collaboration: An exploratory study on the formation of new work habits among knowledge workers

Social collaboration technologies have rapidly spread across organizations, offering a unique opportunity to improve the exchange of knowledge among employees, especially in distributed work environments. The increasing popularity of social-collaboration tools as an employee-oriented communication channel, inevitably raises questions about the future of email as its intensive use by knowledge workers is more and more perceived as being inefficient and unproductive. Through a quantitative case study methodology, this study seeks to explore the role played by the notion of habit in explaining employee knowledge sharing capability for firms implementing social collaborative practices in the context of no-email initiatives. Data collected within a large international IT services company, which is among the first firms having made such shift, were used to test the developed conceptual model. The findings suggest that habit is positively influenced by relative advantage and perceived ease of use while relative advantage was found to positively impact knowledge sharing capability. Besides, habit moderates the relationships between three attributes (relative advantage, perceived ease of use, and compatibility to a lesser extent) and knowledge sharing capability. Theoretical and practical implications developed from these findings are then discussed.     

The impact of social media on consumer acculturation: Current challenges,opportunities, and an agenda for research and practice

The concept of acculturation has been based on the assumption of an adaptation process, whereby immigrants lose aspects of their heritage cultures in favour of aspects of a host culture (i.e. assimilation). Past research has shown that acculturation preferences result in various possibilities and influence consumption behaviour. However, the impact of social media on consumer acculturation is underexplored, although the social purpose and information sharing online is utilized for a variety of social purposes. Recent studies have shown the transformation from an offline to an online context, in which social networks play an integral part in immigrants’ communications, relationships and connections. This study merges the views from a number of leading contributors to highlight significant opportunities and challenges for future consumer acculturation research influenced by social media. The research provides insights into the impact of social media on consumer acculturation.     

社会网络视角下的技术范式转换预见探讨

在当今技术变革加速的时代,一些企业尽管拥有强大的研发实力和主流市场的领导者地位,然而由于对技术发展趋势判断错误或者忽视新技术的市场潜力,一再错失重要发展机遇的情况时有发生。在此背景下,企业如能预见新的技术范式并识别、培育出突破性技术,则能成为新范式的掌舵者、行业的领导者。目前,已有的、基于线性思维的技术预测/预见方法尚难以解决包含高不确定性、复杂性的技术范式转换问题。文章认为,社会网络从一个网络的规模、密度、资源等角度,通过数据挖掘等工具和实证研究方法刻画范式转换的特征和演化路径,从而可能寻找到技术范式转换预见的途径。     

Mental disorders on online social media through the lens of language and behaviour: Analysis and visualisation

Due to the worldwide accessibility to the Internet along with the continuous advances in mobile technologies, physical and digital worlds have become completely blended, and the proliferation of social media platforms has taken a leading role over this evolution. In this paper, we undertake a thorough analysis towards better visualising and understanding the factors that characterise and differentiate social media users affected by mental disorders. We perform different experiments studying multiple dimensions of language, including vocabulary uniqueness, word usage, linguistic style, psychometric attributes, emotions’ co-occurrence patterns, and online behavioural traits, including social engagement and posting trends.Our findings reveal significant differences on the use of function words, such as adverbs and verb tense, and topic-specific vocabulary, such as biological processes. As for emotional expression, we observe that affected users tend to share emotions more regularly than control individuals on average. Overall, the monthly posting variance of the affected groups is higher than the control groups. Moreover, we found evidence suggesting that language use on micro-blogging platforms is less distinguishable for users who have a mental disorder than other less restrictive platforms. In particular, we observe on Twitter less quantifiable differences between affected and control groups compared to Reddit.     

新冠疫情背景下科技社会组织社团参与社会治理的国际比较研究

科技类社会组织是科技人员基于学术自由、平等交流、互动自主机制自愿结合而成的非盈利社会组织,在参与国家治理方面具有其他社会组织不能比拟的天然优势。 秉持多元包容、协同互惠的新时期科技产业价值,顺应国家建设科技强国的战略要求,科技社团作为社会组织的组成之一,有能力也有理由更加积极地参与国家治理。本文聚焦新冠疫情期间中外科技社团参与疫情应对的程度和方式,通过多案例比较研究方法具体分析了对科技社团参与社会治理的情况进行了国际比较,并得出探讨了我国科技社团参与社会治理的优势和不足,并对此从科技社团自身、政策环境和科技社团与上级部门的关系三个角度提出相应建议。     

Understanding the formation mechanism of high-quality knowledge in social question and answer communities: A knowledge co-creation perspective

The social question and answer (Q&A) community provides people with an effective tool to obtain high-quality information. From the perspective of reciprocal determinism and value co-creation, this study aims to investigate the formation mechanism of high-quality knowledge in the community. We develop a model to investigate how cognitive factors and community technological factors influence users’ knowledge co-creation behavior, thereby influencing knowledge quality in the community. A survey of 382 knowledge contributors in a social Q&A community shows that knowledge self-efficacy, topic richness, personalized recommendation, and social interactivity have a positive impact on users' knowledge sharing and integration behavior, which subsequently affect the community’s knowledge quality. Moreover, users' ratings moderate the influence of knowledge sharing on knowledge quality. This research demonstrates the synergistic effect of people and technology in knowledge co-creation, thus advances literature about value co-creation and content quality in online communities.     

Exploring individuals’ subjective well-being and loyalty towards social network sites from the perspective of network externalities: The Facebook case

This study aims to investigate users’ subjective well-being and loyalty towards social network sites (SNSs). Despite the growing role of network externalities in SNS continuance decisions, the SNS usage literature has paid scant attention to the relationship between network externalities, SNS identification, and users’ subjective well-being. In this study, we identify four components of network externalities: perceived network size, external prestige, compatibility, and complementarity. In the research model, both network size and external prestige are hypothesized positively to affect SNS identification. Perceived compatibility and perceived complementarity are hypothesized positively to affect user satisfaction. Satisfaction and SNS identification are hypothesized positively to affect user subjective well-being and loyalty towards the SNS. Users’ subjective well-being is hypothesized positively to affect their loyalty towards the SNS. Data collected from 615 valid users of Facebook provide strong support for most of these hypotheses. The findings indicate that perceived network size negatively affects users’ SNS identifications. Other components of network externalities have positive effects on SNS identification and satisfaction, which in turn have positive effects on users’ subjective well-being and loyalty towards SNS. Implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

基于社交网络的同行评议新模式——基于Peerage of Science与Frontiers平台的案例研究

【目的】研究Web3.0快速发展背景下,科技期刊同行评议改进与发展的新平台、新模式。【方法】 以Peerage of Science和Frontier为案例,针对最新的基于社交网络平台的同行评议模式进行了分析,介绍了该同行评议模式的改进、特点、流程、工作方式等。【结果】在社交网络平台下,同行评议从静态变为动态,从"一对一"变成"一对多",从封闭式评议变成开放式评价。【结论】基于社交网络的同行评议模式是同行评议发展的最新趋势,可为我国的同行评议发展提供参考。     

Gaining social values of wireless technology: An interpretive case study in the healthcare institutional context

The existing literature has given little consideration to social values of information technology in general or of wireless technology in particular. The purpose of this paper is thus to shed new light on this issue. Based on an interpretive case study, we examine two healthcare organisations and discover that social values are often manifested beyond, as well as within, organisations. A matrix of social values in relation to technology changes and their interactions with various stakeholders is further discussed. The matrix helps understand how various social values emerge from and revolve around organisations’ strategic management of information technology. The implications of the findings about social values are discussed and future research directions are suggested.