External Social Networks Research Articles

Customer involvement in the new process innovation: antecedents, mediation and performance

PurposeThe paper proposes customer involvement can be considered an organization-level construct of knowledge creation in the new process development. Specifically, the paper evaluates three distinct organizational practices as knowledge antecedents – competitor orientation, social network and internal coordination – that can facilitate the adoption of customer involvement in the process innovation development.Design/methodology/approachThe paper empirically tests this theory for 2,000 firms that are stratification sampled from a population of 33,844 Taiwanese firms, and a data set of 170 valid questionnaires is collected. The questionnaire was mainly modified from a Kim and Kim (2010) measure which was designed based on the 3rd edition of the Oslo Manual OECD/Eurostat 2005. The concept of customer involvement in new service development proposed by Alam (2002) was also applied to the questionnaire.Findings(1) The antecedents of customer involvement, which include competitor orientation, external social networks and internal coordination, function as a determinant to nourish customer involvement. (2) Customer involvement significantly positively mediates the relationship between knowledge antecedents and new process performance. (3) Customer involvement is a crucial knowledge creation for improving the new process innovation performance in manufacturing firms.Originality/valueTwo basic tenets of theory building serve as the foundation of the model in this paper. First, research on customer involvement is augmented by showing that customer involvement can emerge as a shared perception among organizational members that is distinct from individual-level involvement. Moreover, customer involvement in process innovation can help firms manage their knowledge and further enhance firm performance. Second, the knowledge management model provides a key lens through which researchers can take a process-oriented view that focuses on customer involvement as a unique capability that firms can develop in process innovation.

The Importance of Director External Social Networks to Stock Price Crash Risk*

ABSTRACTPrior research documents that information transmitted via director networks affects firms' policies and real economic activities. Given a manager's potential monopoly over firm information, it is important to analyze whether information transmission through director social networks undermines the manager's control. Specifically, we explore whether information flow through director networks influences managers' ability to hoard bad news. We predict and find that the extent of external connections of the board of directors is negatively associated with future stock price crash risk. Additional analysis implies that this evidence is driven by firms with more powerful executives, with weaker auditor monitoring, or subject to strong investor protection, and by directors with greater monitoring incentives or responsibilities and directors with less firm‐specific knowledge. Collectively, our research lends empirical support for the monitoring view under which better‐informed directors narrow the scope for bad news hoarding evident in stock price crash risk. In another series of tests, we fail to find evidence consistent with the information leakage view under which directors pass sensitive firm‐specific information to connections that trade on the information before its public release. Other analysis helps dispel the concern that the endogenous match between directors and companies is spuriously responsible for our core results. Our empirical findings have important implications on how social networks affect the proper functioning of capital markets.

Social capacitance: Leveraging absorptive capacity in the age of social media

A vital issue for marketers stemming from social media’s increased popularity is how they can leverage external knowledge within their organizations through internal social media networks and outside and across organizations with partners, collaborating firms, and consumers through external social networks. Although extensive research on absorptive capacity in organizations is available, research on leveraging external knowledge on social media is lacking. To address this research gap, we introduce a new construct termed “social capacitance,” which refers to how social media can help organizations’ absorptive capacity development, leading to organizational innovation, long-term success, and competitive advantage. Using an integrative capacitive-coupling framework, we theorize the antecedents and consequences of social capacitance in consumer–firm interactions, firm–consumer interactions, consumer–consumer interactions, and firm–firm interactions using social media platforms.

The Effort of Caring: The Caregivers’ Perspective of Dual Sensory Impairment

Abstract Aim: To explore the social implications of Dual Sensory Impairment (DSI) for older Australian adults and their family carers. Background: DSI in older adults is a chronic progressive disability with varying combined degrees of vision and hearing loss. Prevalence increases with age and is particularly high in those > 85 years of age. Older persons with DSI experience a range of functional, social and emotional health issues and are considered a vulnerable group. Family carers fulfil complex multiple roles and provide the majority of care and support to this group. Caregiving and care-receiving are reported as demanding and stressful for both. Together, both spousal and mother-daughter dyads experience a range of social consequences as a result of DSI which are under-reported in the DSI literature. Design: Qualitative study design using Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM). Methods: A series of 23 qualitative in-depth interviews with older Australians with DSI and their family carers were conducted over eighteen months. Data were analysed using the inductive constant comparative method to systematically categorise emergent themes in order to develop a grounded theory. Findings: This qualitative study explored the shared social experiences of the family carer and care-receiver in the context of DSI and identified social isolation, social effort and negotiating relationships as key themes. These common social effects interrupt personal and external social networks and have a pervasive, often negative impact on the social relations of each individual within the dyadic relationship as well as their external relationships. Conclusion: The experience of living with DSI is underexplored from a dyadic perspective. Few studies explore the perspective of both family carer and their family member with DSI. This report draws on the experiences of the family carers and identifies three main themes that impact the quality of their dyadic relationship. While caring in a DSI context has clear parallels to caring in other health domains, the social relational aspects of DSI appear unique justifying further qualitative exploration of the dyadic perspective. Keywords: dual sensory impairment, deafblind, ageing, social exclusion, social support, family carers, dyad.

The Importance of Director External Social Networks to Stock Price Crash Risk

Prior research documents that information transmitted via director networks affects firms’ policies and real economic activities. Given a manager’s potential monopoly over firm information, it is important to analyze whether information transmission through director social networks undermines the manager’s control. Specifically, we explore whether information flow through director networks influences managers’ ability to hoard bad news. We predict and find that the extent of external connections of the board of directors is negatively associated with future stock price crash risk. Additional analysis implies that this evidence is driven by firms with more powerful executives, with weaker auditor monitoring, or subject to strong investor protection, and by directors with greater monitoring incentives or responsibilities and directors with less firm-specific knowledge. Collectively, our research lends empirical support for the monitoring view under which better informed directors narrow the scope for bad news hoarding evident in stock price crash risk. In another series of tests, we fail to find evidence consistent with the information leakage view under which directors pass sensitive firm-specific information to connections who trade on the information before its public release. Other analysis helps dispel the concern that the endogenous match between directors and companies is spuriously responsible for our core results. Our empirical findings have important implications on how social networks affect the proper functioning of capital markets.

Russian Orthodox monasticism in Riga diocese, 1881–1917

ABSTRACT This article considers the foundation of four Orthodox monasteries and convents in Riga diocese in the late nineteenth century and how these conceptually and physically transformed diocesan space through borderland rhetoric and the creation of internal and external religious and social networks. Analyzing the foundation of these institutions, their demographic profiles, their role in social outreach, and their function as loci of Orthodox religiosity in the region, it is argued that the monasteries helped turn Riga diocese from a backwater of the Church into a borderland bastion of both the faith and Russian nationality, which was given impetus by dual (and often intersecting) processes of russification and eparchial institutionalization. Despite some achievements by 1914, the First World War effectively ended the roles of the monasteries in this process, as the imperial framework of both their rhetoric and their networks collapsed under the pressure of German invasion.

Collective action and leadership strategies in the Mahan polities: An examination of grave goods from Bogam-ri Tomb, Naju, Korea

This paper examines temporal changes in grave-good assemblages from a collective tomb and discusses the circumstances under which elites manipulated pooled resources for individual status and power. The need for cooperation and communal labor in agriculture in Naju, Korea, is believed to have suppressed the personal use of public capital. Although status and wealth differences were not clear in the settlement data, some graves contained luxury goods that suggested the operation of external social networks after 450 CE. There was the persistent need for collaborative labor for agricultural production and the bargaining power of the local population presumably remained the same over the study period (ca. 250–650 CE). The observed changes reflect a shift in emphasis among different types of public benefits toward more social demand for security and defense. There was the emergence of new social settings, in which some individuals could demand a large share of the spoils for their diplomatic efforts.

THE REORGANIZATION OF THE FAMILY SYSTEM AT THE TIME OF COVID-19: EDUCATIONAL RESILIENCE AND ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

In the life cycle of family systems, transition periods are important stages for the maturation of the individual and his family as it allows the reorganization of relational arrangements. The health emergency of recent months makes it necessary for us to reflect on resilience education, to cultivate more authentic educational relationships and to react to stressful and problematic situations with greater self-effectiveness. If rigid family systems risk of causing communicative and relational diseases, investing in emotional literacy and empathy means providing adults and children with the tools to deal with the painful situations, that are inevitably part of everyday life, to share negative experiences and bring out the inner resources. In this perspective, technologies play a significant role in the media, both because they are a bridge between the family context and the external social network, and because they potentially allow more inclusive and flexible learning-teaching processes. A meticulous analysis of assistive technologies is thus necessary in order to call for a reconfiguration of information flows, spatial-temporal arrangements, methodologies and tools that are to be reconfigured ad habitus of the new individual and social educational needs. Keywords: assistive technologies, educational resilience, emotional literacy, family system, health emergency, psychotherapy.

The effects of chairmen's social network heterogeneity on cooperative marketing innovation: evidence from Sichuan province in China

PurposeThe purpose of this paper, based on first-hand data from 255 chairmen of planting cooperatives in Sichuan province, is threefold: to understand their social network heterogeneity; to understand the significance for members of marketing innovation in farmers' cooperatives and to understand the effects of chairmen's social network heterogeneity on cooperative marketing innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe research employs an empirical survey of the chairmen of planting cooperatives in rural Sichuan province. The researchers use the ordinary least squares method to conduct regression on the data and the generalized linear model to process the data and avoid errors in the model setting. In the study, the following two hypotheses are examined: (1) The heterogeneity of chairmen's social networks has positive effects on cooperative marketing innovation; (2) The effects of heterogeneous external and internal social networks on cooperative marketing innovation are different.FindingsThe results show that both external and internal social network heterogeneity has positive effects on cooperative marketing innovation, and the effects of internal heterogeneity are greater than that of external heterogeneity.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to improving the income of farmers, the innovation of farmers' cooperatives and the development of agriculture in China. It provides a new way of managing and serving members to enable the long-term sustainable development of farmers' cooperatives.

Dual Leadership, Social Network and University Research Team Innovation Performance

Based on the dual leadership theory and social network theory, the research model of "Double Leadership—Team Social Network—Research Team Innovation Performance" was established. 420 samples from various universities were used as survey objects, and multiple regression analysis methods were used. The data was analyzed with a structural equation model. The results show that: (1) The dual leadership and its two dimensions are significantly positively correlated with the innovation performance of university research teams; (2) the internal social network of the team does not play a mediating role in the imperative leadership and the innovation performance of the university research team; The external social network of the team plays a partial intermediary role between the dual leadership and its sub-dimensions and the innovation performance of the research team in the university; (4) The differentiation of the leadership-member exchange relationship is negative between the dual leadership and the innovation performance of the university research team to adjust.

동아시아 영화들에 구현된 폭력의 상징으로서의 기차와 그 극복

The purpose of this study is to compare the image and meaning of “train” in three different countries of East Asia such as China, Japan, and Korea. We choose three films of each country, 『Oh, Xiangxue(哦，香雪)』, 『Tokyo Story(東京物語)』, and 『Train to Busan(釜山行)』, each of which shows the characteristics of the modernity through the train. The thing which the study focuses on is that train is a representative symbol of the modernity and that especially these three movies well demonstrate the “violence” of the modern through the attitude towards train and the modes of life related with it. Each film has about a decade time gaps, but has also common ground in that it reveals the isolation and desolation of the soul emanated from the modernity and the industrialization. Concretely, the train of 『Oh, Xiangxue』 symbolizes the coexistence of primitive nature and modern civilization, because it was based on the collapse of traditional society and community values from the emergence of the train. On the other hand, the trains in the 『Tokyo Story』 were related to the image of conflict of values and reconciliation between traditional perspective and modern mode of life. In addition, 『Train to Busan』 transfigured the external social network as showing the disconnection, distrust and selfishness of modern people in the era of highly industrial capitalism. In spite that these three movies have different backgrounds, we can find common perspective which is the violence caused by changes by the modern mobility. As a result, this study is meaningful in that it analyzes how the trains were described in the movies as a means of violence.

Business process improvement and the knowledge flows that cross a private online social network: An insurance supply chain case

This paper analyses how the knowledge shared between employees and suppliers within a private enterprise social network affects process improvement. Data was collected from internal documents, and the internal and external enterprise social networks used by an international insurance company; the average cycle time for handling 8494 claims and 3240 messages posted on the internal and external social networks was analysed. Social network analysis techniques were combined with principal component analysis and structural equation modeling, and the results demonstrate that the knowledge shared within the internal and external social network can explain 35.10% of process improvement variability, while the knowledge shared within the internal social network explains 89.90% of external social network variability. The analysis also demonstrates that: (i) the knowledge shared among employees positively affects process improvement; (ii) the knowledge shared among suppliers negatively affects process improvement; and (iii) the knowledge shared among employees positively affects the knowledge shared among supply chain members. These findings have theoretical and practical implications. They extend the literature in the knowledge management and information management field by offering empirical evidence of how the knowledge shared through an enterprise social network affects business process improvement, using the objective data provided by Yammer. They also provide a strategic tool for managers that will allow them to better understand how they can use the enterprise social network for business processes improvement.

REMOVING THE PHYSICAL BODY FROM INTERACTION - A PHENOMENOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION INTO LAYPEOPLE SHARING SELF-TRACKED EXERCISE DATA ON SOCIAL NETWORK SITES WHEN THEY FEEL UNEASY EXERCISING WITH PEOPLE

Self-tracking applications (apps) like Endomondo, Runkeeper and Strava have made it effortless for laypeople to measure their exercise activity and turn it into detailed data on running time, distance, average pace, calories burned etc. The users can share the exercise data with personal networks of users (often named friends) on the apps’ internal social network sites (Ellison & boyd, 2013) or external social network sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Few studies, however, have shed light on how people use self-tracking in their everyday lives (Lupton, 2016) – e.g. why people share exercise data on social network sites. Some people feel uneasy by exercising with – or in the presence of – people. In this paper, I provide a thick description of people that bypass their struggle with social exercise by sharing exercise data on social network sites. I utilize the lived experience of two female newcomers to exercise, Amanda and Dorte, to illustrate this. Firstly, using the philosopher and medical doctor Drew Leder’s phenomenological investigations into embodiment, I analyze how the females’ bodies dys-appear (Leder, 1990) when they exercise near/with people. Secondly, I examine how their networks of friends function as a beneficial form of exercise sociality that encourages Amanda and Dorte’s exercise activity. My empirical data originates from an exploratory, interview study of 12 Danish, recreational athletes’ experiences with exercise-related self-tracking apps.

External shocks, social networks and adaptability of resettled farming households

External shocks, social networks and adaptability of resettled farming households

The significance of social relations in rural development: A case study of a beef-cattle farmer group in Indonesia

The annual demand for beef has been increasing in Indonesia. One of the government strategies to develop cattle production and empower cattle farmers is by developing farmer groups to support farmers and promote entrepreneurship. This article explores the work of a farmer group called BPWU which employs internal and external social networking to empower farmers in the villages. The research questions are the following: (1) What are the strategies used by BPWU to develop its business? and (2) What are the impacts of BPWU existence in providing social changes to its surrounding population? The data were collected from July 2015 to December 2016 using interviews, observations, and focus group discussion. Based on the findings, the farmers’ livelihoods have improved because of the building of social relations internally and externally. The internal social relations were developed among cattle farmer groups related to BPWU, whereas the external social relations were built with local residents, educational institutions, officials of the Animal Husbandry of Tuban Regency, officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, financial institutions, and cattle traders from various areas. BPWU has managed to open work opportunities, impart a technological change in beef-cattle cultivation, increase the beef availability, and contribute to rural development.

Exploring the impact of retirement on police officers wellbeing

ABSTRACT This paper examines the impact of retirement on police officers. Using semi-structured in-depth interviews with 20 police retirees from Queensland, Australia, we explore the impacts of retirement on police officers’ sense of wellbeing as well as the coping strategies utilised by retirees in the transition from paid employment to retirement. We found experiences of retirement varied amongst participants depending on the role they had whilst policing, the type of social interactions they had pre and post retirement and their financial position. Common themes include conflicting emotions, relevance deficit, anger and disappointment, financial issues and the loss of social networks. Coping mechanisms involved psychological counselling, expanding external social networks and seeking out other interests and hobbies in the lead up to/upon retirement. We suggest these findings can enable policing organisations to provide improved support for police officers leading up to retirement.

How Do Organizational Absorptive Capacity and Entrepreneurial Social Networks Enhance Revenue Growth

This research explores the influence of organizational absorptive capacity on firm revenue growth through a lens of entrepreneurial social network structural holes, by asking the questions that i) to what extent does a firm’s absorptive capacity interact with its entrepreneurial social network? And moreover, ii) how do a firm’s absorptive capacity and entrepreneurial social network together influence its revenue growth? Results of survey data from 357 Chinese local entrepreneurial firms show that not only the organizational absorptive capacity and entrepreneurial social network structural holes have their direct positive effect on firms’ revenue growth, but also their positively moderating effect in the relationship of one the other with firms’ revenue growth. The research offers insights to both the theory of social networks, as well as to the perspective of absorptive capacity, by showing that i) a firm’s entrepreneurial social network structural hole can promote the firm’s financial performance by raising one of its collective capabilities; ii) both a firm’s collective absorptive capacity and entrepreneurial social network are likely to enhance the relationship of one the other and the firm revenue growth; and by being iii) one of the first entrepreneurship studies that look into a firm’s collective absorptive capacity through an external social network lens.

The solution for fuzzy large-scale group decision making problems combining internal preference information and external social network structures

Owing to the advancement of information technique, people in large groups usually have some social relationships with others and also have their own unique preferences. It is important to consider internal preference information and external social network relationships simultaneously in decision making. To handle the subjective uncertainty of DMs, the interval preference and connection strength are represented by interval type-2 fuzzy linguistic variables. To deal with the large-scale group decision making (LGDM) under uncertainty, an interval type-2 fuzzy k-means solution is proposed with the internal preference information and external social network relationship information considered in decision making. The corresponding interval type-2 fuzzy similarity matrices for these two kinds of decision information are computed, respectively. Then, the large-scale DMs are classified into separate partitions by an extended interval type-2 fuzzy k-means clustering analysis with the computed similarity matrices. Finally, the optimal alternative of the LGDM is determined by an interval type-2 fuzzy aggregation operator with weights and preferences of partitions. The importance of these two kinds of information in LGDM and the validity of the proposed method are verified by an illustrative example and corresponding comparisons. The proposed method can reduce the dimension and handle the uncertainty for LGDM in some extent.

Effect of Entrepreneur’s Behavior to the Transformation of Hi-Tech SMEs

The economic transformation needs the support of the micro level of enterprise transformation. As one of the main bodies of the market; Hi-Tech SMEs play the most active part in the market, promoting economic transformation. Current study on enterprise transformation mainly concentrated in manufacturing; there are few studies on the impact of entrepreneurial behavior on the success or failure of transformation of Hi-Tech SMEs. For this reason, this paper conducts a case study of Qi Wei Te solar energy corporation on this issue. The study finds that enterprise transformation follows the transition of entrepreneur’s behavior and the entrepreneur’s behavior affect the success or failure of the transformation. Magnificent dreams and business experience are the starting point of enterprise transformation. Learning behavior runs through the whole process of enterprise development. The inertia of thinking is the root of the enterprise unable to adapt to the environment. Network building behavior is adjusted, and then the internal and external social networks are adjusted to provide the guarantee for the successful transformation. On the basis of these, the paper puts forward the behavior pattern of entrepreneurs in the process of transformation.

Workplace Ostracism Seen through the Lens of Power.

Drawing on approach/inhibition theory of power, we investigated two factors that influence the manner by which victims react to workplace ostracism: the hierarchical status of the ostracizer and the level of an ostracizee’s external social support including family, friends, and significant others. Across an experimental vignette study (Study 1) and a field study (Study 2), we found support for a three-way interaction with felt ostracism, ostracizee external social support, and ostracizer status influencing victims’ organizational citizenship behavior and deviance directed toward other individuals. In addition, felt ostracism and ostracizee external social support interacted to predict turnover intentions. Overall, victims who were ostracized by a legitimate higher-status authority (e.g., manager) and whose external social support network was limited experienced the most negative outcomes across both studies. Our findings suggest that contextual factors both inside and outside the organization jointly impact the way in which individuals react to perceived workplace ostracism. Implications and future research directions are discussed.