Social Linkages Research Articles

Enhancing Global Sustainable Higher Education Through Sustainability Window Approach

The sustainability window approach began as a model that could explain the way to sustainable economic development. This theory places emphasis on ecological, economic and social linkages for making comprehensive analysis and policy towards United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. It identifies four theoretically sustainable paths; two associated with economic growth and the others requiring growth conditional or strict adherence to environmental and social criteria. Many studies confirm that higher education institutions have not been able to completely embrace the concept of sustainability window approach. The paper asserts that these are the most effective ways through which global higher education establishments can achieve sustainability: well-being of society, environmental protection, low consumption, and limited social usage. Finally, it concludes by calling on high education institutions to incorporate sustainability window and integrate it with triple bottom line and responsible management education approaches. The paper argues that in order to determine whether such a change might be suitable in different settings, it is recommended that we test this revised framework using empirical evidence

Enhancing Tourism Sustainability of Archipelago Countries: A Bibliometric Exploration of the Triple Helix Concept

This study employs a comprehensive bibliometric approach to unravel the intricate economic, ecological, and social linkages in sustainable tourism within archipelago countries. Utilizing bibliographic methodologies, the research endeavours to map the literature related to this specified theme, with Scopus serving as the primary data source. The VOS-viewer analysis tool is employed to delineate and characterize the identified keywords. A total of 1,380 documents related to the research theme were meticulously gathered, with the study specifically limiting the recorded country areas to selected archipelago countries. Authorship analysis spotlights Hall C.M. as the foremost contributor based on the analyzed sample data, and the literature journal "Governance, the State and Sustainable Tourism: A Political Economy Approach" emerges as the most-cited publication. The United Kingdom takes centre stage as the primary contributor among countries. At the same time, the School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University, Sweden, stands out as the institution making the most substantial contribution to publications concerning the economic, ecological, and social linkages of sustainable tourism in archipelago countries. This study significantly contributes to the mapping of literature on economic, ecological, and social interconnections, providing valuable insights into sustainable tourism in archipelago countries over the past 12 years.

Crowdsourcing-based social linkage and organizational innovation competence: knowledge transfer effectiveness and absorptive capacity as serial mediators

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine the impact of crowdsourcing-based social connections on the development of innovation competence (IC). The conflicting results in existing studies regarding the influence of crowdsourcing-based social linkage on IC necessitate a thorough investigation into this relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe research uses a sample of 300 senior managers from various industries in India. The data is analyzed using partial least squares (PLS), a component-based approach to structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results of the analysis indicate that knowledge transfer effectiveness and absorptive capacity (ABC) play a significant role as mediators in the relationship between social linkages based on crowdsourcing and IC. This suggests that the effectiveness of knowledge transfer and the organization’s ability to absorb and apply new knowledge are crucial factors in leveraging crowdsourcing-based social connections for enhanced innovation capabilities.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study hold crucial implications for managerial practices. The research highlights that successful crowdsourcing outcomes necessitate more than mere establishment of external social linkages. Managers must recognize that internal organizational readiness plays an equally critical role. This study offers two key managerial insights: first, exclusive focus on external linkages is inadequate; internal capabilities such as ABC and optimized knowledge transfer processes must be actively nurtured. Second, the concept of “crowdsourcing maturity” is introduced, emphasizing the evolving dynamic capabilities over time. Managers are urged to adopt a balanced approach, aligning external partnerships with internal adaptability, to fully optimize IC.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by shedding light on the mediating variables that influence the conversion of crowdsourcing-based social linkage into improved IC. By considering the role of knowledge transfer effectiveness and ABC, the study provides insights into the mechanisms through which social linkages based on crowdsourcing can impact innovation capabilities. These findings offer valuable implications for organizations seeking to leverage crowdsourcing for innovation purposes and enhance their overall IC.

Bridging immigrant crime, acculturation, and the life course: a broader perspective

Research generally supports that immigrants engage in less crime than the native-born; however, theory behind the immigrant-crime link has a foundation largely rooted in assimilationism. While this offers valuable insight, an immigrant-centered perspective focusing on individuals and crime has yet to be offered. We position the life course as a valuable lens to understand how immigrant socialization, largely informed by acculturation, serves to protect against—though in some cases exacerbate—the risk of criminal offending. Building off prior perspectives in the life course tradition, we offer that the immigrant-crime link may be explained through a life course lens by emphasizing how acculturation works with six concepts: linked lives (i.e., social linkages), time and place, life-stage, situational imperatives, agency, and accentuation.

Structure of Society From the Rugby to the Rubik’s Cube: A Stability Perspective on Social Structural Transformation

The Rugby-shaped society is considered a nearly ideal type of social structure, becoming an essentially stereotyped elite theory in the global mainstream sociology, which is fundamentally based on the practice and theoretically repeated confirmation of the super-stability function of the Rugby-shaped society in developed capitalist countries. As a result, the Rugby-shaped society has become a theoretical goal of social transformation and a general social consensus. The feasibility of localized social groupings exhibiting a Rugby-shaped structure is not necessarily adequately replicable under the condition of closer global social linkages, and the occupation-based social class structure is not always hyper-stable. The more multidimensional Rubik’s cube society contains both uncertainty and hyper-stability, and the proposed Rugby-shaped society for China should take into account the more complex influencing factors in the systemic global social structure of a Rubik’s cube society. Non-occupational factors may also increase the risk of social instability.

Hows and Whys That Lead to Online Brand Engagement

This article contributes to digital branding and customer involvement via social media. To improve online brand engagement, this study examined brand awareness, social linkage, and online trust value. Effective web survey design acquired 317 empirical online sample answers for the paper. The current study uses structural equation modeling to evaluate and verify the postulated model. In this competitive internet era, social networking-supported marketing may raise brand engagement to increase online brand trust, positive brand attitude, and deeper customer emotional connection and brand likability. This study proposes a unique paradigm to improve online brand engagement by investigating brand awareness, social, and online trust value correlations.

Land acquisition in rural tourism destinations: How social relations influence cooperative behaviours?

AbstractLand acquisition is becoming prevalent in most rural destinations. This study investigates the dynamic interaction process between rural residents regarding tourism‐led land acquisition and analyses how social relations influence cooperative behaviours by using social network analysis. The findings suggest that informal social relations between rural residents transmit influence and information, generating significantly positive impacts on individuals' land acquisition decisions. The multiple regression‐quadratic assignment procedure results further show that residential ties and political ties positively relate to the second land acquisition decision and that dynamic changes in formal political relations significantly facilitate the cooperative behaviour of rural residents. Our study suggests that building diverse social linkages between local governments and rural residents is conducive to promoting cooperation, shedding light on rural cooperative behaviours and sustainable tourism development.

A Model for the Construction of the Curriculum System of Hua People Students' China Knowledge Education

Hua people students (HPS), Citizens of Chinese descendant of foreign nationality, are unique in their natural affinity for China and have the most value in the development of non-governmental diplomacy. It is an important way to improve China's international communication ability to provide them with good conditions and opportunities to know China personally, experience China on the spot, devote themselves to research, form a true, objective and comprehensive understanding of China, make them grow into international friends who know China. The key to achieving this goal is to build a modern curriculum system that matches the cognitive psychology, acquisition ability and acceptance interest of the HPS. A two-level model is proposed for this curriculum system. The first level model integrates Chinese knowledge education (CKE)'s educational objectives, graduation (complete courses) requirements, curriculum and syllabus, teaching implementation and effect evaluation into one, with forward dependence and reverse reference. The second level model mainly solves the three problems of comprehensive weighing factors, construction principles, curriculum types and specific composition of curriculum system construction. Establish the sequence of degree education and non-degree education, set up education levels according to the two stages of undergraduate and graduate education, and finally grade the curriculum according to the three standards of China, students and content. At the same time, the policy and financial support, social linkage and communication coordination mechanism are included in the construction model as a guarantee system to ensure the effectiveness of teaching activities.

Enhanced link prediction using sentiment attribute and community detection.

In social network analysis, link prediction is an important area where the researchers can find the missing links and the future links possible among the users. Often, link prediction is made by analyzing the social linkage of the users in the given networks, i.e., the Topological structure of the networks. However, this approach leads to inconsistencies when researchers want to emphasize topics on which users have mainly engaged their selves in discussions. Mainly, this approach predicts future links based on available network structures without considering the topics on which the users are participating. This can be enhanced by incorporating the sentiment attributes and the community structure of the users in the network. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that incorporates the sentiment attribute of users and community structures along with the topological features. To evaluate the same, we have crawled the tweets of various countries concerning COVID-19 from Twitter. Experimental results show that users exhibiting the same emotion and belonging to the same community will influence other users to connect, thereby improving the performance of the link prediction.

How do customers meet their needs in in-store and online fashion shopping? A comparative study based on the jobs-to-be-done theory

Understanding customer needs is key for fashion retailers to stay competitive and innovative. Surprisingly, however, extant literature mainly explores customer needs in terms of a garment and its attributes rather than viewing shopping as a problem-solving process to meet customer needs. Moreover, these studies fail to address how customers meet their needs in-store (ISFR) and online fashion retailing (OFR). To fill this research gap, we empirically investigate customers' personal and social needs and how they can be met through the jobs-to-be-done theory. Findings reveal that, beyond the purchase of a garment, customer needs can be fulfilled through different ways, such as smart technology or a person's high interaction with social others in ISFR and the online shop experience or a social linkage without social interaction in OFR. Additionally, our findings offer potential service innovations for fashion retailing managers.

Connected in health: Place-to-place commuting networks and COVID-19 spillovers.

Biweekly county COVID-19 data were linked with Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data to analyze population risk exposures enabled by pre-pandemic, country-wide commuter networks. Results from fixed-effects, spatial, and computational statistical approaches showed that commuting network exposure to COVID-19 predicted an area's COVID-19 cases and deaths, indicating spillovers. Commuting spillovers between counties were independent from geographic contiguity, pandemic-time mobility, or social media ties. Results suggest that commuting connections form enduring social linkages with effects on health that can withstand mobility disruptions. Findings contribute to a growing relational view of health and place, with implications for neighborhood effects research and place-based policies.

An exploration of perceived ecotourism design affordance and destination social responsibility linkages to tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour and destination loyalty

ABSTRACT This study investigates the effects of perceived ecotourism design affordance and destination social responsibility on tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour and destination loyalty. It aims to shed light on the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that shape sustainable tourist behaviour. Three hundred and fourteen responses were collected quantitatively through an online survey. The research hypotheses were analysed using the Partial-least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The path analysis revealed that perceived ecotourism design affordance significantly enhances tourist pro-environmental behaviour and destination loyalty. A similar dynamic also can be reported in the context of affordance and destination social responsibility. Surprisingly, tourist pro-environmental behaviour does not affect tourist destination loyalty. Results highlighted the need for tourism policymakers and industry players to develop ecotourism products and services that allow tourists to adapt their behaviour towards a sustainable direction.

Modeling the influencing factors of electronic word-of-mouth about CSR on social networking sites.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) information can now be disseminated via social networking sites. An organization's image and upcoming portfolios are directly affected by electronic word of mouth (eWOM). It generates from its customers, employees, and other stakeholders. We developed a critical model to enlighten the behavior to share and comment on a negative news story about CSR displayed on Wechat and QQ to figure out what was causing this behavior. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and the partial least squares regression (PLS) approach were used to conduct a self-administered survey of hotel customers in China. Social and environmental awareness, information usefulness, corporate image, and a company's motivation to comment and share on CSR news were all considered explanatory variables in our study. We asked 300 Wechat and QQ users to rate a fake environmental news story. We found that social and environmental awareness affects the effectiveness of information and the attitude toward behavior, which may describe the eWOM intent of the particular news. On the other hand, corporate reputation could discourage people from disseminating eWOM and sharing the news with their social linkage contacts. The findings of the study suggest having a better understanding of how specific CSR activities can increase customers' commitment, which leads to positive eWOM, will benefit the hotel industry.

Committed Commenting and the Virtual Visage: Contextualizing Sorority Social Media Encounters

This article addresses the ways in which collegiate sorority women deploy sorority-specific aesthetic cues to construct socially acceptable and recognizable presentations of themselves online. I suggest that sorority members initiate and invite social media interaction as a means of parlaying their own media posts into discursive sites, thereby participating in a complex and considerably stratified economy of display and recognition. Sorority members also exert social capital through public demonstrations of social network linkages— demonstrations which can only be performed successfully if one maintains legitimacy and good standing within the media economy. I probe the implications of theorizing social media posting (particularly to the digital media platform Instagram) as a communal art creation practice that strengthens group social linkages and reifies communally observed aesthetic guidelines. I also address the stylistic and discursive regimens that shape expectations of media presentation, contrasting these practices with the comparatively candid and informal presentation styles exemplified in Fake Instagram (“finsta”) posting behaviors.

Building Parties’ Grassroots: Electoral Systems, Party Organizations, and Social Linkages from a Cross-National Perspective

This article explores the connection between the proportional electoral system (PR) and party organizations as a key institutional determinant of party-group linkages from cross-party and national perspectives. Developing a nuanced framework, we propose an integrated model to address two questions: 01. Do candidate-centred electoral systems affect the development of party-group linkages? 02. In the case that electoral systems do have an impact, is it a direct impact or is it mediated by party organizations? Using V-Party (2020) and V-Dem (2020) databases, we selected and analyzed 617 parties in 48 countries covering third-wave democracies, post-communist countries, and the most extensive proportional democracies in Europe (Western and Eastern Europe) and Latin America between 1989 and 2019 – Large- N cross-national comparative analysis (JANDA, 1980). Based on panel models, we found that the candidate-centred electoral system is negatively related to the development of strong ties between parties and groups, but only in the case of party organizations with low levels of party strength, intraparty cohesion, and financial linkages with non-party groups. When decision-making powers are concentrated in the hands of powerful party elites, these elites can solve coordination problems, mitigate intraparty conflicts, and deal with the consequences of personalization. Therefore, intraparty politics varies empirically since parties respond to their contextual challenges (electoral rules) strategically, with consequences for party-group linkages.

A differential analysis for men and women's determinants of livelihood diversification in rural rain-fed region of Pakistan: An ordered logit model (OLOGIT) approach

Gender responsiveness is a crucial element in achieving inclusive economic and developmental growth of an economy. A gender-differentiated analysis in determining livelihood diversification strategies is, therefore, important for developing gender sensitive policies. The study examined and presented the determinants of livelihood diversification for men and women smallholders' households in rural Pakistan. A multistage data sampling technique was used in selection and collection of the data from 148 men and 147 women households. Considering the three types of ordered structured dependent variable of livelihood strategies preferences (LC1, LC2 and LC3) ordered logit model (OLOGIT) was applied. The results revealed that there were some similarities and some differentials among men and women's for determining livelihood diversification strategies. The first differential was based on signs of the coefficients such as natural disasters, access to public transport and women role in building social relations showed varied nature of response for men and women. The second differential was explored on the basis of statistical significance levels, that revealed the factors that were highly significant for men seems to be non-significant for women and vice versa scenarios existed for most of the determinants of livelihood strategies. Like, the factors family labor, membership in any organization, social linkages, access to latest machinery and accessibility of credit were highly significant for men but non-significant for women. While only education, and family labor were the common significant factors in diversification. The role of formal financial institution was lacking in the study. Women's major livelihood sources was LC1-(on-farm) while men were more towards LC2-(off-farm) and LC3-(Non-farm) strategies. These differentials highlight the importance of a policy initiative to be taken to increase access and availability of assets and services to women households, improve their capacity to participate in non-farm sectors, and accelerate transformative changes at both local and policy levels.

The “Damaged” State vs. the “Willful” Nonpayer: Pay-to-Stay and the Social Construction of Damage, Harm, and Moral Responsibility in a Rent-Seeking Society

States increasingly look to incarcerated individuals as a source of revenue to alleviate the fiscal burden of incarceration, which results in suing prisoners for these costs. Through lawsuit complaints, states claim they have suffered damages and seek reimbursement from incarcerated individuals through pay-to-stay fees. Drawing from an original dataset consisting of 102 civil complaints from Illinois, we examine how the state constructs damage, harm, and willfulness through pay-to-stay lawsuits. We find that the state achieves this beneficial outcome by labeling incarcerated individuals as <i>willful nonpayers</i> and thereby morally responsible for what it terms damages suffered. Our empirical and theoretical contributions position civil lawsuits as part of imagining incarcerated individuals as fiscally responsible for their incarceration within a rent-seeking society, contextualizing the social linkages between willfulness, legal moralism, and perpetual indebtedness.

Effects of Climate Change on Human and Social Livelihood Assets of Rural Farm Families in Orlu Agricultural Zone of Imo State, Nigeria

The study investigated the effect of climate change on human and social livelihood assets of rural farm families in Orlu agricultural zone of Imo State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to ascertain rural farmers’ awareness of climate change, and identify sources of information on climate change and to describe the effect of climate change on the human and social livelihood assets of the rural farmers. A purposive sampling technique was adopted in selecting a sample size of 120 farm families. Data were collected with structured questionnaire and mean; percentage were used to analyze the data. The result showed that the major evidence of climate change includes increased temperature, unpredictable rainfall pattern, drought, flooding, increased precipitation, crop damage and among others. Climate change affects the livelihood of rural people and can be seen in the effects it has on their human and social capita assets in the following ways - loss of human lives, food shortage, hunger and malnutrition, increased disease incidence, reduction in household. Other effects include prevention of assistance from members of social groups to farmers and rural people at large, interruption of familiar social linkages of the poor, widows, disruption of linkages to formal and informal community organization.

Creative Arts-Based Approaches to Improve the Well-Being of Older Adults

As older adults age they may face cognitive impairment, disruption in their sleep, and a decrease in mood and overall well-being. Given the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, they may experience a disruption in their access to health care services. Creative arts-based approaches have shown promise in improving the well-being of older adults and may be helpful in augmenting health care services. In this symposium, we will present research results of creative arts-based interventions aimed at improving the well-being of older adults, including those with dementia. We will also discuss ways to successfully engage with organizations that serve older adults using arts-based interventions. The first presentation will focus on the results from a feasibility randomized controlled trial examining the effects of a tailored music listening intervention on sleep outcomes in older adults living with dementia and their caregivers. The second presentation will report findings from the Mason Music & Memory Initiative aiming to improve mood and behavioral outcomes in persons living with dementia in nursing homes. The third presentation will focus on the preliminary results of a pilot study that integrated the delivery of music therapy telehealth with remote social work support and service linkage for rural older adults from low-income areas. The fourth presentation will report findings from the capacity-building program for teaching artists, health/aging organizations, and arts organizations committed to strengthening Creative Aging efforts through research. Implications for future research and creative arts-based intervention development for older adults will be discussed.

Segregation with social linkages: Evaluating Schelling’s model with networked individuals

AbstractThis paper generalizes the original Schelling model of racial and residential segregation to a context of variable externalities due to social linkages. In a setting in which individuals’ utility function is a convex combination of a heuristic function à la Schelling, of the distance to friends, and of the cost of moving, the prediction of the original model gets attenuated: the segregation equilibria are not the unique solutions. While the cost of distance has a monotonic pro‐status‐quo effect, equivalent to that of models of migration and gravity models, if friends and neighbors are formed following independent processes, the location of friends in space generates an externality that reinforces the initial configuration if the distance to friends is minimal, and if the number of friends is high. The effect on segregation equilibria crucially depends on the role played by network externalities.