Employees’ trust and their knowledge sharing and integration: the mediating roles of organizational identification and organization-based self-esteem

We propose that the effect of trust on knowledge sharing (KS) and knowledge integration (KI) is mediated by organizational identification (OI) and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE). We focus on the relationship among different foci of trust and take into consideration that trust is a culturally dependent variable. We draw from a large-scale questionnaire survey with 50 Chinese companies and find support for our hypotheses in general. The study finds that employees’ trust within the organization is a multifaceted construct that includes their trust in the organization, trust in the supervisor and trust in peers. Trust with these different foci positively impact KS and KI. However, such effects are largely indirect and we find support for our expectation that OI and OBSE function as mediators. We conclude that trust in itself is a precondition but not sufficient condition for the actualization of KS and KI.     

On exploring the impact of users’ bullish-bearish tendencies in online community on the stock market

The online financial community enables non-professional individual investors to express opinions, share information and even spread emotions through the Internet. This paper uses 5,178,824 comments published in an online financial community to study the users’ bullish-bearish tendencies on the stock market. To that end, we propose a convolutional neural network based classifier to extract users’ tendencies from their comments, and introduce the distributed lag model and the GARCH model to investigate the impact of users’ tendencies on market volatility and market returns. The results show that the online users’ bearish tendencies are reflected in stronger market volatility and higher market returns, and the consistency of online users’ tendencies has a positive impact on market volatility.     

Promoting users’ intention to share online health articles on social media: The role of confirmation bias

Nowadays, it is a common practice for healthcare professionals to spread medical knowledge by posting health articles on social media. However, promoting users’ intention to share such articles is challenging because the extent of sharing intention varies in their eHealth literacy (high or low) and the content valence of the article that they are exposed to (positive or negative). This study investigates boundary conditions under which eHealth literacy and content valence help to increase users’ intention to share by introducing a moderating role of confirmation bias—a tendency to prefer information that conforms to their initial beliefs. A 2 (eHealth literacy: high vs. low) × 2 (content valence: positive vs. negative) between-subjects experiment was conducted in a sample of 80 participants. Levels of confirmation bias ranging from extreme negative bias to extreme positive bias among the participants were assessed during the experiment. Results suggested that: (1) users with a high level of eHealth literacy were more likely to share positive health articles when they had extreme confirmation bias; (2) users with a high level of eHealth literacy were more likely to share negative health articles when they had moderate confirmation bias or no confirmation bias; (3) users with a low level of eHealth literacy were more likely to share health articles regardless of positive or negative content valence when they had moderate positive confirmation bias. This study sheds new light on the role of confirmation bias in users’ health information sharing. Also, it offers implications for health information providers who want to increase the visibility of their online health articles: they need to consider readers’ eHealth literacy and confirmation bias when deciding the content valence of the articles.     

How can tacit knowledge be shared more in organizations? A multidimensional approach to the role of social capital and locus of control

This multidimensional study looks at the influence of social capital and internal vs external locus of control on tacit knowledge-sharing intention and behaviour, and the relationship between the two. The relations studied within the framework of the proposed model are tested by regression analyses. The findings indicate that social capital and its basic structural, cognitive, and relational dimensions tend to increase tacit knowledge-sharing intention, which gradually turns into behaviour because, according to Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour, behavioural intention is the immediate antecedent to behaviour (or according to Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour, a person’s intention to perform a behaviour increases as subjective norms become more favourable). It is further concluded that having an internal locus of control increases both the intentions and behaviour, whereas external locus of control only increases the behaviour. The study also concludes that tacit knowledge-sharing intention gradually turns into sharing behaviour. The study is considered to contribute to the field of knowledge management in various ways. In this study a multidimensional survey of 42 questions was used to investigate the research topic and its sub-dimensions, and the data were collected via face-to-face interviews. The population of the study was 106 nursing students, and all components of the research universe were reached. It was found that social capital positively affects and increases tacit knowledge-sharing intentions and behaviour. A research model based on the conceptual framework was developed and research questions were addressed by means of this model and the findings.     

The reflection of offline activities on users’ online social behavior: An observational study

The ever increasing presence of online social networks in users’ daily lives has led to the interplay between users’ online and offline activities. There have already been several works that have studied the impact of users’ online activities on their offline behavior, e.g., the impact of interaction with friends on an exercise social network on the number of daily steps. In this paper, we consider the inverse to what has already been studied and report on our extensive study that explores the potential causal effects of users’ offline activities on their online social behavior. The objective of our work is to understand whether the activities that users are involved with in their real daily life, which place them within or away from social situations, have any direct causal impact on their behavior in online social networks. Our work is motivated by the theory of normative social influence, which argues that individuals may show behaviors or express opinions that conform to those of the community for the sake of being accepted or from fear of rejection or isolation. We have collected data from two online social networks, namely Twitter and Foursquare, and systematically aligned user content on both social networks. On this basis, we have performed a natural experiment that took the form of an interrupted time series with a comparison group design to study whether users’ socially situated offline activities exhibited through their Foursquare check-ins impact their online behavior captured through the content they share on Twitter. Our main findings can be summarised as follows (1) a change in users’ offline behavior that affects the level of users’ exposure to social situations, e.g., starting to go to the gym or discontinuing frequenting bars, can have a causal impact on users’ online topical interests and sentiment; and (2) the causal relations between users’ socially situated offline activities and their online social behavior can be used to build effective predictive models of users’ online topical interests and sentiments.     

How does social support promote consumers' engagement in the social commerce community? The mediating effect of consumer involvement

This study aims to reveal the mechanism of how consumers’ engagement is established in social commerce communities. Building upon social support theory, we propose models and employ datasets obtained from Douban.com to empirically investigate the different effects of emotional and informational support on consumers’ engagement and how involvement mediates these relationships in the social commerce context. At the same time, the moderating role of product presentation is examined to help clarify the impact of social support and consumer involvement. Our analyses reveal that the two subdimensions of social supportive information are positively related to consumer involvement, together promoting consumers’ engagement in the community. In particular, involvement imposes a full mediating influence on emotional support but a partial mediating impact on informational support. Product presentation strengthens the effects in that the predictive effect of determinants on engagement is more pronounced for books with electronic versions in the social commerce community. For researchers and managers, these findings emphasize the benefits of the social commerce community, particularly with regard to Douban.com in China.     

Understanding envy and users’ responses to envy in the context of social networking sites: A literature review

Envy is an ancient theme of interest and various academic disciplines researched the topic in the last decades. With the advance of technologies and the popularity of social networking sites (SNSs), there is a need to comprehend what is new and unique about envy in the SNS environment. To contribute to an improved understanding of this phenomenon, we investigate academic research on envy in the context of SNSs. Particularly, in this work, we review and clarify the concept of envy in the SNS context and how users respond to envy they experienced in an SNS environment. This allows us to (1) better comprehend the conceptualization and theorization of envy in the SNS context, and to (2) identify particularities of users’ responses to envy. Based on our analysis, we observe that there exists a need to contextualize definition, operationalization and theorization further. Responses to SNS-induced envy mirror findings from the offline context with purchase intentions as an interesting and relevant behavioral response for the SNS context, since most revenues are generated by advertisement on these sites. We provide directions for future investigations on the phenomenon of SNS-induced envy.     

Differential influences of perceived organizational factors on younger employees’ participation in offline and online intergenerational knowledge transfer

Intergenerational supportive climate, top management support, organizational institution are seen as three types of important organizational factors for intergenerational knowledge transfer (IGKT), however, current studies are qualitative with little empirical evidence, further, the interrelations of them are little known. This paper investigates and verifies their relationships by an empirical study, especially focuses on their differential effects on younger employees’ participation in IGKT using offline versus online communication methods drawing upon social influence theory. A survey with younger doctors was conducted in the medical industry to test the research model proposed in this study. Results show that younger employees’ perceived intergenerational supportive climate (PISC) has a significant positive influence on offline IGKT, but not on online IGKT; perceived top management support (PTMS) has a significant positive influence on offline IGKT, but has a negative impact on online IGKT; perceived organizational institution support (POIS) has a significant positive influence on online IGKT, but not on offline IGKT. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding about IGKT, as well as help managers be more effective to enhance younger employees’ participation in IGKT through offline/online methods, which contribute to offline and online intergenerational knowledge transfer to knowledge management.     

The virtual simulation of child sexual abuse: online gameworld users’ views,understanding and responses to sexual ageplay

This paper explores cultural understandings of virtual sexual ageplay in the online world of Second Life. Online sexual ageplay is the virtual simulation of child abuse by consensual adults operating in-world with child computer characters (avatars). Second Life is primarily governed by Community Standards which rely on residents (the users of Second Life) to recognise sexual ageplay and report it, which requires an appreciation of how residents view, understand and construct sexual ageplay. The research presented drew on 12 months of resident blog posts referring to sexual ageplay: 263 total, with 91 residents. The analysis of this talk explores the cultural understandings of this banned behaviour and beliefs about the nature of Second Life which underpin residents’ likelihood to report sexual ageplay and so comply with the Community Standards. In considering these issues the paper is able to highlight issues regarding the unique cultural position of abuse against children and key concerns which underpin the reporting behaviour of residents. Key considerations relate to defining online sexual activity and child avatars; the moral status of ‘reporters’, and sexual ageplay as a form of edgeplay; belief in the harmfulness of sexual ageplay and its relationship to real world behaviours.     

Knowledge workers’ perceptions of potential benefits and challenges of inter-organizational knowledge sharing systems: a Delphi study in the health sector

Inter-organizational knowledge sharing systems (IOKSS) can serve as strategic systems for knowledge-based sectors. Most prior research on inter-organizational systems (IOSs) focuses on organizations’ adoption of such systems; they reveal little about knowledge workers’ adoption of IOS, especially in horizontally linked firms. Knowledge workers’ perception is critical to the deployment of IOKSS at all stages. On the basis of a Delphi technique in the health sector, this study demonstrates that IOKSS can benefit individuals, customers, organizations, the sector, and the knowledge sharing process, and that the challenges of IOKSS arise from individuals, peers, IOKSS, organizations, and the sector.     

From ivory towers to online bazaars? The internet,social media and competing discourses in the newspaper industry

In line with the development of new media, newspaper companies are facing drastic changes in their competitive environment. Managing change requires both new capabilities and new ways of thinking. Organizational learning could be seen in terms of increasing shared organizational knowledge through changing social practices, which in turn consist of discourses. In this article we investigate the Internet and social-media-related discourse among newspaper journalists, in order to enhance understanding of how social reality is constituted and made sense of in this environment. We identify four types of discourse: Ivory-tower-creating and Shielding, which seem to impede learning, and Accelerating and Connecting, which encourage adaptation to learning and change within newspaper companies.     

Deep strategic mediatization: Organizational leaders’ knowledge and usage of social bots in an era of disinformation

We identified a lack of theoretical concepts and empirical knowledge about the perception and usage of social bots from the organizational and communication management perspective. Therefore, we first introduce social bots in the realm of communication and information management by using a profound literature review. Second, by building on mediatization theory and strategic communication, we introduce the concept of deep strategic mediatization. By surveying the attitudes towards and usage of social bots of leading European communication professionals (n = 2,247) from 49 European countries, we thirdly offer first indications how diverse European organizations in different European regions use social bots. Results indicate, that leading communication professionals in Central and Western Europe as well as Scandinavia perceive highly ethical challenges, while in Southern and Eastern Europe professionals are less skeptical regarding the usage of social bots. Only 11.5 percent (n = 257) declare their organization uses or are making plans to use social bots for strategic communication. They are used primarily for identifying and following social networks users. This refers specifically to the usage of digital traces for strategic communication purposes e.g., to identify topic area opinion leaders or social media influencers. However, this represents only a small minority of the sample – leading to the conclusion that only a small minority of organizations already practice deep strategic mediatization.     

Exploring the effect of heuristic factors on the popularity of user-curated ‘Best places to visit’ recommendations in an online travel community

In online travel communities, ‘Top-K best places to visit’ recommendations are gaining more attention from travelers due to their ubiquitous access to the Internet, but little empirical effort has been made to investigate what factors lead to the popularity of user-curated ‘best places to visit (BP2V)’ recommendations. This research therefore aims to identify and validate the heuristic factors affecting the popularity of BP2V recommendations. Based on the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) of persuasion, we derive recommender-related (i.e., recommender's identity disclosure, reputation, experience, and location of residency) and recommendation-related (i.e., number of places recommended, helpfulness rating, number of comments added, and length of recommendation) heuristic characteristics of BP2V recommendations and investigate their impact on recommendation popularity. In addition, this study examines the moderating effect of destination category (i.e., attractions, food, shopping, and activities) on the relationship between heuristic characteristics and the popularity of BP2V recommendations. Our empirical results, which were based on 565 ‘best places to visit in the U.S.’ recommendation postings from Qyer.com, a major online travel community in China, suggest that recommender's identity disclosure, reputation, number of places recommended, helpfulness rating, and length of recommendation are positively associated with recommendation popularity. We also found that the relationships between heuristic factors and the popularity of BP2V recommendations are contingent on destination category. This study will contribute to the body of knowledge on online travel communities and HSM and provide valuable implications for general travelers and managers in the tourism and hospitality industry.     

Effects of user experience on user resistance to change to the voice user interface of an in‑vehicle infotainment system: Implications for platform and standards competition

This study examines the effects of user experience on user resistance to change—particularly, on the relationship between user resistance to change and its antecedents (i.e. switching costs and perceived value) in the context of the voice user interface of an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system. This research offers several salient findings. First, it shows that user experience positively moderates the relationship between uncertainty costs (one type of switching cost) and user resistance. It also negatively moderates the association between perceived value and user resistance. Second, the research test results demonstrate that users with a high degree of prior experience with the voice user interface of other smart devices exhibit low user resistance to change to the voice user interface in an IVI system. Third, we show that three types of switching costs (transition costs, in particular) may directly influence users to resist a change to the voice user interface. Fourth, our test results empirically demonstrate that both switching costs and perceived value affect user resistance to change in the context of an IVI system, which differs from the traditional IS research setting (i.e. enterprise systems). These findings may guide not only platform leaders in designing user interfaces, user experiences, and marketing strategies, but also firms that want to defend themselves from platform envelopment while devising defensive strategies in platform and standards competition.     

Rethinking knowledge hierarchies – bridging the gulf between theory and practice: the case of Frankfurt airport’s billing department

This paper examines the value of concrete empirical data in enhancing our understanding of knowledge hierarchies (KHs). Theoretical debate has generated different insights and perspectives, but the term (KH) remains a misconstrued principle. In today’s age of austerity, managing complex administrative processes in an airport billing environment, while striving for effectiveness and efficiency is challenging. These billing processes are influenced by the existing organisational KH. This study sheds light on the hybrid forms of KH: first, the theoretical impact: through data, information and knowledge as KH; second, the stakeholders’ understanding of their role within business processes. The method adopted for this study is influenced by the nature of the problem to be addressed. It uses a qualitative approach, analysing the billing processes and conducting interviews to gauge the stakeholders’ perceptions in order to demonstrate that there are significant variations in understanding organisational key roles.     

THE OTHERS: The role of individual personality,cultural acculturation,and perceived value on towards firm’s social media and acculturation orientation

This paper systematically examines (i) how individual personality can influence on cultural acculturation which can impact on the higher level of perceived value in LGBTs, and (ii) how the higher level of perceived value towards social media can result in being more satisfied, (iii) consequently having a better working life at workplace and performance proficiency. The generated framework was validated through a survey from multinational corporations in multi-industries such as higher education (with more than two campuses around the world), global fashion, global retailing, tourism, hospitality, food, and electronics and information technology. Key results, implications for managers and researchers are highlighted.     

How the emoji use in apology messages influences customers’ responses in online service recoveries: The moderating role of communication style

This research investigates the impact of using emojis (i.e., the pleading-face emoji) on customer forgiveness in relation to handling complaints on social media. Specifically, this research proposes that perceived firm sincerity and perceived firm empathy play mediating roles in the relationship between emoji use and customer forgiveness. In addition, the research identifies the moderating role of communication style in the proposed relationship. Results of three experimental studies indicated that the presence of the emoji in online complaint handling leads to an increase in perceived firm sincerity, which in turn increases perceived firm empathy and, subsequently, leads to customer forgiveness. The serial mediation effects (use of emojis → perceived firm sincerity → perceived firm empathy → customer forgiveness) were moderated by the service provider’s communication style. Specifically, the serial mediation effect occurs when an informal communication style, but not a formal communication style, is used. Furthermore, no difference exists in the research findings across different service types (hedonic vs. utilitarian).     

Using computer vision techniques on Instagram to link users’ personalities and genders to the features of their photos: An exploratory study

Instagram and other photo-based social networking sites have emerged as a popular medium. Previous studies mainly focused on social media texts, but the current study deals with the relationships between the characteristics of Instagram users and the features of their photos. The Big Five personality traits and gender were employed as the variables for user characteristics. Content category, the number of faces, the emotions on the faces, and the pixel derived features were employed as the variables for photo characteristics. An online survey of 179 university students was conducted to measure user characteristics, and 25,394 photos in total were downloaded and analyzed from the respondents’ Instagram accounts. Results suggested that content category is associated with extraversion and gender of users. The number of faces is associated with extraversion, agreeableness, and openness of users. Extraversion, agreeableness, and openness of users were partly associated with emotions expressed on the faces in their photos. Correlations were observed among some pixel features and extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and gender of users. It was also observed that the Big Five personality traits, except for gender, can be predicted by above variables. Implications and limitations are discussed and suggestions for future research are suggested.     

Between politics and prevention: A re-examination of China’s schistosomiasis control campaign in the 1950s

In the 1950s, China is widely regarded as having made great achievements in the control of schistosomiasis, also known as snail fever. Despite the success, efforts to prevent the disease did not fare well during the Reform period (1978–present). Given this, several key questions need to be addressed. Was the schistosomiasis control campaign a real success in the context of political fervor? Would a schistosomiasis control policy be successful only when it returns to the Maoist medical model, as Miriam Gross argues? Did schistosomiasis return as advertised, or was it never eliminated since the 1950s? In this article, I argue that (1) schistosomiasis control is widely regarded as a great success in an ecological sense, but as far as a long-term mechanism of control is concerned, an approach that relies exclusively on strong political intervention and mass participation may not be effective; (2) schistosomiasis control should first focus on the establishment of a sustainable, long-term mechanism, rather than a temporary, assault-style approach to the problem; and (3) from the 1950s to the present, the spread of schistosomiasis does not represent its return, but, rather, the failure of control efforts to eliminate it.     

Recommended for “frequent perusal” and “improving the science of medicine”: Benjamin Rush’s American editions and the circulation of medical knowledge in the early Republic

Between 1809 and 1813 leading American physician Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) devoted a significant portion of his time to the production of “American Editions” of four British and colonial medical texts by Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689), Sir John Pringle (1707–1782), William Hillary (1697–1763), and George Cleghorn (1716–1789). This occurred during a period where Rush might have written a textbook detailing his preferred medical system for students outright. Instead, he opted for a different form of knowledge production and proliferation that focused on creating fictive conversations and encouraging critical reading rather than rote memorization. He dedicated these heavily annotated documents to the medical students of the United States of America and set them up as a pedagogical tool. Analysis of these texts helps uncover the reading practices of Rush and the manner in which he expected Americans to mediate their usage of foreign texts and theories after the American Revolution.