Search results

Unauthorised file sharing (UFS) in online communities (OCs) is a major intellectual property concern. Researchers have traditionally viewed UFS as digital piracy and have suggested that deterrents, such as legal actions, should be in place. However, previous research has not considered the OC context and cannot explain why OC members share unauthorised files even when there is legislation against this in place. In OCs, UFS exhibits features of public goods contribution. Therefore, the authors claim that public goods contribution motivations can provide a compelling explanation for UFS in OCs.

The authors propose a theoretical model in which two egoistic public goods contribution motivations (namely, warm-glow giving and demand for resources) are tested alongside motivations informed by the sanctions described by deterrence theory, a theory widely used within the digital piracy perspective.

The authors find that warm glow and demand for resources are positively related to UFS in OCs; the effect of warm glow is moderated by users' attachment to OCs. Importantly, the results suggest that although sanctions significantly predict UFS, the effect of sanctions on UFS becomes insignificant in the presence of warm glow, demand for resources and attachment.

The study offers new insights into why users engage in UFS and highlights that public goods contribution should be taken into account in developing anti-piracy policies and practices.

The place of festivals in national economic development has received increased attention from researchers globally. However, there appears to be a relatively small and disparate literature on the subject especially within the Ghanaian context. The study seeks to contribute to the global recognition of festivals as developmental tools and thus presents the effects of festival tourism on socio-economic capital of the people of Kwahu traditional area (Ghana) and how festival tourism in the region engenders economic benefits to businesses and the community.

This study is guided by the social development theory. A quantitative cross-sectional survey utilizing convenience technique was used to gather data from a sample of 398 residents of the selected towns and the regression model was used to analyse the data.

The findings revealed festival tourism to have a positive effect on community cohesiveness but not statistically significant. Further, the festival brought economic gains but had negative social effects on development of the selected towns.

This research is destination-specific. The application of the findings to other festivals would demand a bigger sample size for generalisation to be made.

The findings suggest that for growth of festival tourism in Ghana to be actualised, the Ghana Tourism Authority needs to ensure festivals do not erode entrenched traditional values and negate efforts at developing social structures and systems by putting measures to reduce the negative effect of commoditisation of festivals on the communities' cultural authenticity. Law enforcement agents should also be massively beefed up to curtail crime and social vices.

The study's findings extend earlier studies to extend the scope in festival tourism literature. This study found that festival tourism has effect on both community cohesion and economic development of the people of Kwahu traditional area.

Chief executives (CEOs) have turned to blogging. This research asks: do CEO blogs attract commenters leading to genuine discussion and community building?

The 30 most popular CEO blogs are analysed, community structure is graphically represented using social network analysis, measuring cohesion using connectedness. A review of content assesses whether richness and type of media affect community building.

By modelling a CEO blog as an affiliation network the structure is exposed. Community cohesiveness is assessed using a measure of connectedness. The connectedness ranking differs from the original Technorati Rank (TR) although the top blog in both is the same. Community building relates more to external reputation, writing style or topicality than to the type of media used.

CEO bloggers must engage commenters to build community. TR and connectedness scores measure different things but both affect community building. CEO blogs with high community scores post regularly, attract many comments and have an active core membership that bind the community. Top scoring CEO blogs build community and stimulate genuine discussion. Mid ranking blogs have little cross-post commenting and a fragmented network. Others attract few comments with low connectedness. “Wilderness” blogs may have no commenters. This suggests inefficient use of valuable CEO time. Because CEO credibility affects CEO blog success, a low-ranking blog depreciates CEO's reputation indicating little social capital.

There is little research into CEO blogging, this research contributes to the understanding of CEO blogging and community building.

The research aims to investigate the value of local wisdom, analyse local wisdom for the harmony of a multicultural society and discover forms of inheritance of local wisdom for maintaining peace.

Qualitative research was used in this research. The primary data were obtained through observation, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Secondary data were obtained through reports from agencies, such as Social Services and Central Bureau of Statistics, literature studies and news from the internet. The data validity technique used was source triangulation. The data were analysed with stages of data reduction, data presentation and conclusion.

The results showed that the local wisdom sedekah bumi, selamatan malam 1 suro, sadranan and kuda lumping contain values related to religion, cooperation, harmony, togetherness, kinship and cohesiveness; the implementation of local wisdom can strengthen social harmony; and the inheritance of local wisdom takes place sustainably from families and communities to the younger generation.

The research was conducted during the peak of COVID-19 cases in Central Java, Indonesia. Therefore, the data could not be obtained maximally.

This research contributes widely not only to the village studied but also to other communities with similar conditions.

The inheritance of local wisdom can help maintain peace, unify societies and offer solution to social conflicts by implementing traditions containing humanity and peaceful values.

This research offers a new insight concerning the inheritance of local wisdom that can function as a tool to achieve a peaceful society and prevent social disasters from occurring.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to demonstrate the contribution of whole school approaches embodied by the health‐promoting school approach, to the promotion of school connectedness, defined as the cohesiveness between diverse groups in the school community, including students, families, school staff and the wider community.

A cross‐disciplinary review of literature was conducted to identify strategies consistent with the health‐promoting school approach and the values and principles that promote school connectedness. The review included peer‐reviewed articles and published books and reports identified from the databases spanning the education, health, social science and science disciplines and used search terms encompassing health and mental health promotion, schools, social connectedness, belonging and attachment. The paper is also a framework of the contribution of the health‐promoting school approach to promoting school connectedness and was developed drawing on health promotion strategies at the broader community level known to foster connectedness.

The paper found that the framework developed illustrates how the health‐promoting school approach has the potential to build school connectedness through two major mechanisms: inclusive processes that involve the diversity of members that make up a community; the active participation of community members and equal “power” relationships, or equal partnerships among community members; and supportive structures such as school policies, the way the school is organised and its physical environment, that reflect the values of participation, democracy and inclusiveness and/or that promote processes based on these values.

In this paper the detailed mechanisms outlined in the framework provide practical strategies for health promotion practitioners and educators to use in the everyday school setting to promote school connectedness.

This paper draws together substantial bodies of evidence and makes a persuasive case for the contribution of the health‐promoting school approach to building school connectedness.

By adopting a paradox lens, the purpose of this study is to explore paradoxes in relation to work organization, recruitment and competence development in growth-oriented companies.

The study is a qualitative content analysis based on research interviews of managers responsible for human resource management (HRM) in Finnish small and medium-sized growth enterprises (SMEs).

The results show four themes, namely, (1) individualized work, (2) cultural cohesiveness, (3) experimental organization and (4) personal closeness. These identified themes are interpreted as mutually enabling, active responses to the underlying paradoxes of individualism – community and stability – change.

The results contribute to research on tension and paradox in HRM by taking the still unexplored opportunity to apply paradox theory to HRM in SMEs.

Communities of work are a phenomenon closely associated with government social and industrial policy, and can be tracked in contemporary examples globally alongside industrial development. The purpose of this paper is to explore community identity within a town which was previously single industry, but has since experienced workforce reduction and to a large degree, industry withdrawal.

Using an inductive approach, the researchers interviewed 32 participants who had resided (past or present) within the instrumental case study town. A thematic analytical framework, drawing on the work of Boje (2007) was employed.

A significant theme to emerge from the participants was the public assertion of social cohesion and belonging. However, what was interesting, was that beneath this unified exterior, lay accounts of multiple forms of demarcation. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s (1983) notion of the imagined community, and Bauman’s (2001) identity in globalisation, this contradiction is conceptualised as boundary-making moments of identification and disidentification.

This research is specific to the New Zealand context, although holds many points of interest for the wider international audience. The research provides a broad example of the layering of the collective and individual levels of identity.

This research provides a voice to the wider individual, community and societal implications of managerial practices entwined with political decisions. This research encourages managers and educators in our business schools to seek to understand the relationship between the political, corporate, community and individual realms.

This research makes a significant contribution to understandings of the interconnectedness of social policy, industry, and the lived experiences of individuals. Moreover, it contributes to the broader single industry town literature, which previously has focussed on stories of decline from a North American context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how peer-to-peer word-of-mouth (PPWOM) conversations evolve over time because of the dynamic social nature of the community in which they take place.

This study analyzed PPWOM conversations in an online community website for new and expectant mothers. Two data collection phases were undertaken during a four-year period. In phase I, messages were collected for a one-month period from five different bulletin boards (i.e. cross-sectional data) and at two points in time (i.e. semi-longitudinal). In phase II, a full longitudinal study was conducted, and the complete text of all messages of a newly formed bulletin board was captured for a nine-month period. The corpus of messages was examined in line with the basic tools of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis.

This research developed a typology of PPWOM genres and showed that these genres change over the community lifespan. The findings confirmed that the levels of social cohesiveness and the interaction communicative motives are the main factors that distinguish different PPWOM genres.

This research has offered a new perspective into the study of PPWOM, and hopefully it will serve as a starting point for a broader dialogue regarding the social context in which PPWOM is exchanged.

In contrast to traditional word-of-mouth research, this study demonstrated that PPWOM conversations go much beyond the exchange of functional information, and instead serve numerous social and emotional goals.

Drawing on ethnographic data collected over a 9-year period, from 1998 through 2006, we examine the foundations of community among a non-geographic, mobile, identity-based community of touring motorcyclists. Although traditionally oriented geographic communities continue to exist, the literature shows a growing trend toward non-geographic, identity-based communities, whose cohesiveness is based on collective identity, in-group/out-group boundaries, shared values, and symbols. Our focus on a mobile identity-based community contributes to this literature by examining a collectivity that is not only non-geographically situated, but is also based on a strong value placed on travel. Within the touring BMW motorcycling community, we found a strong collective identity that was founded on the shared values of adventure touring; long-distance, all weather endurance riding; proficient, and highly skilled riding; and safety. Our findings contribute to the literature on identity-based communities by demonstrating the salience of ritualized interaction that rewards those who conform to (or excel at) group values and reinforces the sense of collective identity that exists among this dispersed, mobile community. Additionally, our research demonstrates that a recreational subculture can provide some of the traditional benefits of community without many of the demands present in the more comprehensive forms of community.

The “Village” model has become an emerging, community-based, social initiative to help older adults age in place. This study aims to examine neighborhood social cohesion (NSC), or social connectedness and quality of life, from the perspective of village members.

A mixed-method evaluation was used to examine two Florida villages, a master-planned village (FV1) and a diverse neighborhood village (FV2). Both are full members of the National Village to Village Network.

The quantitative and qualitative data provided complementary and deeper understanding. Quantitative findings showed that FV1 members scored higher at NSC, and qualitative findings further confirmed that village program social activities were critical to building connections, especially for those who have lost loved ones and were single.

Findings should be interpreted considering the predominantly white racial makeup and affluence of village participants.

Findings point to the importance of NSC as older adults age and suggest that programs should prioritize activities that strengthen social connectiveness.

This is one of the first mixed-methods evaluations examining NSC and quality of life among village participants.