/pdf/social-capital-a-theory-of-social-structure-and-action-4m7poq6byy.pdf

Social capital: a theory of social structure and action

As Social Network Sites (SNSs) are increasingly becoming part of people's everyday lives, the implications of their use need to be investigated and understood. We conducted a systematic literature review to lay the groundwork for understanding the relationship between SNS use and users' psychological wellâ€ being and for devising strategies for taking advantage of this relationship. The review included articles published between 2003 and 2016, extracted from major academic databases. Findings revealed that the use of SNSs is both positively and negatively related to users' psychological wellâ€ being. We discuss the factors that moderate this relationship and their implications on users' psychological wellâ€ being. Many of the studies we reviewed lacked a sound theoretical justification for their findings and most involved young and healthy students, leaving other cohorts of SNS users neglected. The paper concludes with the presentation of a platform for future investigation.

/pdf/impacts-of-the-use-of-social-network-sites-on-users-1hc1fohl1a.pdf

Impacts of the use of social network sites on users' psychological well-being: A systematic review

Social media, such as social networking platforms, are increasingly gaining importance in enterprise contexts. Enterprise social networking (ESN) is often associated with improved communication, information-sharing and problem-solving. At the same time, ESN has been argued to diminish the role of formal influence in that users increasingly derive authority from their contributions to the network rather than from their position in the organizational hierarchy. Others argue that ESN will diminish influence considerably by producing more democratic and inclusive communication structures. Yet, these assertions have so far remained largely unexplored empirically. Against this background, we explore what influence both a user’s position in the organization’s hierarchy and a user’s contributions on the network have on the the ability to elicit responses from other ESN users. We draw on a unique data set of more than 110,000 messages collected from the ESN platform used at Deloitte Australia. While we find evidence for both kinds of influence, our data also reveals that informal influence has a stronger effect and that, as the ESN community matures over time, communication structures become indeed more inclusive and balanced across hierarchical levels. We contribute a set of propositions that theorize the ways in which influence and communication pattern are shaped during the process of ESN emergence. Our results further underline the potentials of ESN to improve organic, user-driven communication and knowledge sharing within firms.

/pdf/from-top-to-bottom-investigating-the-changing-role-of-8zd5nmnfri.pdf

From Top to Bottom - Investigating the Changing Role of Hierarchy in Enterprise Social Networks

Continued site use by social networking site (SNS) members is important to the vitality of a SNS. Through the lens of Social Capital Theory, in this paper, we theorize the potential role of relational capital in cultivating members' continued site use. We posit that relational capital in the forms of trust, community identification, and reciprocity may affect site use yet in a non-uniform manner. Specifically, we contend that community identification directly affects a member's site use continuance and that perceived member trust and perceived member reciprocity indirectly affect one's continued site use through community identification as a mediator. Drawing upon supporting literature, we further suggest likely gender differences on the effects of relational capital. Finally, we explore important antecedents to relational capital on SNS. Analysis results of survey data from Facebook members attest to many of the research hypotheses. The current study contributes to the SNS literature and also informs practice. Communication identification positively affects one's continued site use.Perceived trust affects continued site use through community identification.Perceived reciprocity affects continued site use through community identification.Gender difference exists in the effect of perceived trust on community identification.

/pdf/members-site-use-continuance-on-facebook-50xocc8tdx.pdf

Members' site use continuance on Facebook

Antecedents of privacy calculus components in virtual health communities

The percentage of obese individuals in the population has increased exponentially over the last decade, making obesity a phenomenon of significant global concern. Individual behaviors, preferences and lifestyle choices are subject to social and environmental influences and social networks have been identified as a key contributor to the global obesity epidemic. Numerous empirical studies have found a relationship between dimensions of social capital, well-being and population health. It is the thesis of this article that social capital in online social networks might be similarly associated. Addressing previously identified gaps in the literature, our conceptual model enables the analysis of the relationships between the structure and content of an individual's online social network, the resulting opportunities and limitations to accessing resources and his or her health-related behaviors and body weight is introduced. Moreover, the model incorporates potential social capital as a special type of social capital in online social networks and uses network-based measures instead of self-reported data. Additionally, literature-based hypotheses discussing the relationships between the constructs of the model are presented. Establishing profound theoretical groundwork, this article encourages future research crossing the boundaries between information systems, health informatics and sociology. This study concludes by proposing a new Facebook e-health application to collect longitudinal data using the aforementioned conceptual model in order to explore the presented ideas further.

/pdf/online-social-networks-social-capital-and-health-related-4q385te8pd.pdf

Online Social Networks, Social Capital and Health-related Behaviors: A State-of-the-art Analysis

The rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity is a phenomenon often referred to as the "obesity epidemic". Literature suggests social networks to be one of the most important dimension of people's social environment that may enable or constrain the adoption of health-promoting behaviors. Given that online social networks are becoming more important in people's daily lives, this research in progress incorporated a design science research methodology for designing a Health 2.0 Facebook application to investigate the relationship of online social networks and health-related behaviors in the context of obesity. Specifically, the application enables medical and healthcare practitioners to (1) understand the effect of obesity propagation in online social networks; (2) identify potential online intervention strategies to disseminate health-related information to the right group of people and (3) to offer services fostering positive health-related behaviours or to promote behaviour change advice.

Insights from an investigation of the design of a consumer health 2.0 application to address the relationship between on-line social networks and health-related behaviours

Organizations introduce Enterprise Social Networks to support knowledge management and in particular to facilitate knowledge transfer. However, to reap the full benefit of Enterprise Social Networks it is necessary to understand the relations and the interactions between employees within these networks. This book chapter provides a literature-based theoretical framework that enables the analysis of the relationships between an employee’s embeddedness in an Enterprise Social Network, their access to social capital, their individual knowledge transfer process and the achieved knowledge transfer in an organization. We develop network-based measures that can be extracted for each framework element using data mining techniques and discuss the relationships among the framework elements. Additionally, suggestions on how to process the network measures using Computational Intelligence methods, e.g., fuzzy logic, are presented. Establishing a strong theoretical groundwork, this book chapter encourages future research crossing the boundaries between information systems, Computational Intelligence, organizational science, and knowledge management.

A Framework to Investigate the Relationship Between Employee Embeddedness in Enterprise Social Networks and Knowledge Transfer

Consumer health informatics is a relatively new and rapidly expanding area within the field of medical informatics. Central to this discipline is the importance of providing information and support to individuals (consumers) so that they can be empowered and take a central role in their own health and well-being.

Janine Viol

Papers

Online Social Networks, Social Capital and Health-related Behaviors: A State-of-the-art Analysis

Insights from an investigation of the design of a consumer health 2.0 application to address the relationship between on-line social networks and health-related behaviours

A Framework to Investigate the Relationship Between Employee Embeddedness in Enterprise Social Networks and Knowledge Transfer

The Role of Online Social Networks in Consumer Health Informatics: An Example of the Implicit Incorporation of Lean Principles