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This study aims to address how to facilitate more community members making purchases in social commerce communities. The research is expected to shed new light on the underlying process by which individuals’ social networks influence their purchases in social commerce communities.

An online survey and secondary archive data are presented to confirm all the hypotheses.

Community members’ out-degree ties show a positive effect on their attachment to other members, as well as to the community. Community members’ attachment to the community has a positive influence on their purchases made in the e-commerce modules of social commerce communities and mediates the effect of their attachment to community members. The study establishes a theoretical framework to reveal how community members’ social networks influence their purchases in social commerce communities.

The findings of this study provide new insights for managers and designers of new social commerce communities to inspire them to achieve their goal of keeping consumers making purchases in the e-commerce modules of social commerce communities.

Firstly, this study draws on attachment theory to explain why community members make purchases in a social commerce community. Then, the study enriches the research on social network ties and attachment theory by initially integrating the social network perspective with attachment theory to examine the effects of social network ties on different types of attachment.

The purpose of this paper is to look at immigrant family business through the framework of social capital by investigating how the social capital of immigrant family business owners helps them obtain network benefits and improve business performance.

This paper presents an empirical investigation of 170 immigrant family business owners. The authors examine social capital as a multidimensional construct and focus on two attributes of social capital: structural embeddedness and relational embeddedness. In addition, this study examines how social capital influences business performance through the mediating effect of network benefits. Finally, the constructs of family capital and immigrant community capacity are also investigated.

The results suggest that the two attributes of social capital differed in their effects on network benefits, and that network benefits mediated the influence of social capital attributes on family business performance. Specifically, relational social capital influenced access to resources and information, and structural social capital influenced access to resources. Family ties affected network benefits and business performance, and immigrant community capacity had the predicted moderating effect on the relationship between immigrant community ties and network benefits.

This investigation has the potential to advance understanding of immigrant family businesses by assessing how the overall social capital of the family business owner influences business performance. The study also furthers the understanding of family capital and immigrant community capacity. In addition, these results serve practitioners by helping identify avenues to increase immigrant family business performance, an issue that is increasingly important today given the contribution of such businesses to the economic vitality of societies.

This chapter is concerned with the social relationships and communities that families engage with while playing Pokémon Go. The chapter begins by considering the release of this hybrid reality game (HRG) in the summer of 2016, and the extent to which it seemingly lends itself to communities and the development of social relationships through play. Following this, we demonstrate that while the evidence for Pokémon Go facilitating new relationships is apparent, the kind of relationships in question are not explicitly explicated through extant literature. Accordingly, we develop the theoretical framework that undergirds the exigency of the chapter. This includes Granovetter's (1973) taxonomy of social ties among people in social networks – strong, weak and latent ties – and the suggested effect these categories have on the sharing of information. Having outlined the implication of this taxonomy for comprehending social relationships forged through Pokémon Go, we introduce Gerbaudo's (2012) ‘liquid organising’ to explore how weak ties have been enhanced through social media, which raises pertinent question in the context of familial locative play. Critically, then, this chapter looks to understand what kind of social ties can be formed when the playing of Pokémon Go is itself performed in the context of the family unit, using the theoretical frameworks outlined above. This chapter is driven by the following research questions. First, what kinds of social relationships have developed for the families that play Pokémon Go together? This includes whether intergenerational players have made new friends, as well as strengthened current relationships. Second, has this HRG facilitated friendships for the children that play Pokémon Go? In other words, is a community of players still a salient feature of playing this HRG, in the same way that it was shortly after its release in the Summer 2016?

The authors empirically examined social capital factors affecting patients' social support acquisition with the aim of providing guidance to patients seeking social support online.

The authors used social network analysis to extract data about social capital factors from online health communities and text mining to identify forms of informational support and emotional support grounded in online, text-based communication. Moreover, the authors employed a random coefficient model to understand the dynamic influence of social capital factors on both informational and emotional support.

The results from the empirical analyses show that structural connections have a lasting impact on the acquisition of both types of support; that is, social connections developed in the past will have an effect on the future. For relational capital, strong ties were less important; the quantity of connections mattered more than the quality when acquiring informational support. The use of health-related language increased the amount of informational support acquired. Over time, patients gained increasing social support, which primarily came from the patients' historical threads, likely via searches from peers facilitated by accumulated social capital.

The authors' research adds to the literature on social capital and social support in online health communities by exploring how the three dimensions of social capital affect social support acquisition. The authors' research also contributes to the online health care literature by examining social support from a dynamic perspective. Practically, the authors' findings provide guidance for patients on what decisions to make to acquire more social support.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how entrepreneurship traditions evolve in diaspora.

A qualitative multiple case study examining the role of diaspora embeddedness, extended family, ethno-religious-, cultural- and social ties and relevant structures shaping diaspora entrepreneurship.

The authors found that social ties and diaspora embeddedness create dynamism fostering entrepreneurial identity as a part of the Bukharian culture, and as a preferred career option in the context of Bukharian Jews in diaspora. Diasporic family businesses are products of culture and tradition that migrate to new locations with families and communities, not as disconnected business entities.

The ways in which families nurture a highly entrepreneurial culture that transfers across generations and contexts are context-specific and not per se generalizable to other diasporas.

Diasporans often continue their traditions and become again entrepreneurs after their settlement, or they may generate hybrid, circular solutions that allow them to employ their competences in the new contexts or connecting various contexts. This calls for transnational entrepreneurship-policymaking.

Time changes diasporas. A long-term commitment to the business environment evolves and reduces the mobility of the individual diasporan; typically the children of these migrants become more integrated and develop divergent career paths. Hence, their plans are not necessarily including family entrepreneurship creating a challenge for continuation of the original culture of entrepreneurship.

Despite a notable tradition in Jewish studies, there is limited research on Jewish entrepreneurial diaspora and its contemporary entrepreneurial identity and tradition. Furthermore, the population of Bukharian Jews is an unknown and under-explored highly entrepreneurial group that may offer instrumental views to larger diasporic audiences being concerned about maintaining notions of ethnic heritage and identity.

The central role of networks in advancing organizational and individual goals is well accepted (Adler & Kwon, 2002; Hite & Hesterly, 2001) in the management and sociology literatures. Networks are made up of two distinct types of ties: strong ties and weak ties. Strong ties refer to the network relationships that are close, stable and binding (Ibarra, 1993), as opposed to weak ties, that are more superficial and lacking in emotional investment. Network theory, however, suggests that strong ties may not provide the most beneficial opportunities for an individual/organization (Burt, 1997; Coleman, 1988) and conclude that in order for a business to succeed the entrepreneur must have a network made up of weak ties.

This study investigates how a competitor orientation (knowledge of and acting on competitors' strengths and weaknesses) facilitates coopetition activities (collaboration with competitors), within networks of competing micro-sized, independent, family restaurants, owned by entrepreneurs from ethnic minority backgrounds.

An instrumental case study features data collected from interviews with 30 owners (as key informants) of micro-sized, independent, family-owned restaurants, in two urban clusters within the Midlands (UK). Specifically, the context involves restaurants offering South Asian cuisine and where the owner originated from the Indian sub-continent (Bangladesh, India or Pakistan). Secondary data were collected wherever possible. These two clusters (not named for ethics reasons) are highly populated by members of these respective ethnic communities; also, they contain a relatively large number of restaurants offering South Asian cuisine.

A competitor orientation facilitated strong coopetition-oriented partnerships comprised of extended family and intra-community members that helped enhance individual firms' performance, maintained family employment and sustained their cluster. It also helped owners develop subtle counter strategies where weak ties existed, such as via inter-community networks. For example, strategies attracted customers that were not loyal to a particular restaurant, or indeed, sub-ethnic cuisine (within Bangladesh, India or Pakistan, like the Punjab region). Subtle as opposed to outright counter strategies minimised retaliation, since restaurant owners wanted to avoid price wars, or spreading misinformation where the reputation of a cluster may suffer alongside the likely survival of individual businesses within that regional cluster.

Mixed evidence exists in earlier studies regarding the competitive rivalry in certain sectors where ethnic minority ownership is prominent; not least, restaurants located in regional clusters. However, this investigation considers the notion – what if some of these earlier studies are wrong? More specifically, does certain prior research under-represent the extent that rival entrepreneurs of an ethnic minority origin collaborate rather than compete for mutually beneficial purposes? New evidence emerges regarding ways in which a competitor orientation can influence the performance-enhancing nature of coopetition activities among business owners originating from both intra and inter-ethnic communities.

This chapter is a comparison of fictive kin choice patterns in an interior frontier community in Paraguay over the history of that community. I gathered the data in 1984–1986, 1990–1991, 1995, and 2003. At each stage of the research, I assumed that there would be some measurable shift to fictive kin choices from horizontal local choices to vertical choices outside of the community due to infrastructure changes and increased access to markets.

Theorizing about consumer’s cultural identity has led to a greater understanding of why consumers choose and consume certain brands and products. The influence of cultural identity has traditionally been studied primarily in a consumer’s country of origin, neglecting its potential relevance for understanding the consumption choices of sojourners and expatriates. This paper aims to investigate how the length of stay (LOS) in a foreign country, as a manifestation of local identity, shapes expatriate consumers’ food brand preferences.

This study draws on social identity theory and cultural branding literature to examine the mechanisms through which local identity drives preference for local food brands among expatriate consumers. Data from a cross-sectional survey of 180 USA and UK expatriates living in the Greater Middle East were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Local identity (measured through LOS in the host country) appears to exert an indirect effect on the consumption of local food brands through social ties with a local community. Next, social ties with a local community enhance local food brand preferences (LFBP) and this relationship is fully mediated by the global food brand preference (GFBP) where GFBP weakens the preference for local food brands and vice versa. In addition, the heterogeneity of interplay effects between local and global food brands can be attributed to the local food brand value signalling. The study finds that the higher perceived value of local food brands lowers the negative impact the GFBP has on LFBP and vice versa. The hypothesized effects in the model remain robust when controlling for moderating effect of age and the expatriate’s country of origin.

The current study investigates the consumer behaviour of the expatriate consumer segment. As this study focuses only on expatriates currently living in countries of the Greater Middle East, its findings should be tested in other regions and with diverse subject samples.

Expatriates should not be treated as a uniform consumer segment but, instead, should be evaluated as unique individuals whose inclination towards local food brands depends on their: ability to establish and verify their local identity through developing social ties with the local community and reliance on global food brands. Moreover, findings demonstrate that brand managers should focus on increasing their perceived value by showcasing quality, reliability, innovation and performance, factors that reassure expatriate consumers when choosing local, over global food brands.

This study goes beyond the traditional focus on local identity in the domestic setting and sets out to investigate the chain of effects on LFBPs in the expatriate setting. Empirical evidence shows that an expatriate’s higher integration in a local community via social ties confirms their local identity, and thus exerts a stronger impact on a preference for local food brands. The study’s results demonstrate that the preference for local food is dependent on an expatriate consumer’s reliance on global food brands and the impact of global food preferences on local food preferences is moderated by the perceptions of the local food brand value. Additionally, findings suggest that the negative effects of global food brands are stronger for older expatriates and expatriates coming from the USA.