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The purpose of this paper is to explore whether online communities meet their potential of providing environments in which social relationships can be readily established to help patients cope with their disease through social support. The paper aims to develop and test a model to examine antecedents of the formation of virtual relationships of cancer patients within virtual communities (VCs) as well as their effects in the form of social assistance.

Data were collected from members of virtual patient communities in the German‐speaking internet through an online survey to which 301 cancer patients responded. The data were analyzed with partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling.

Virtual relationships for patients are established in VCs and play an important role in meeting patients' social needs. Important determinants for the formation of virtual relationships within virtual communities for patients are general internet usage intensity (active posting vs lurking) and the perceived disadvantages of CMC. The paper also found that virtual relationships have a strong effect on virtual support of patients; more than 61 per cent of the variance of perceived social assistance of cancer patients was explained by cancer‐related VCs. Emotional support and information exchange delivered through these virtual relationships may help patients to better cope with their illness.

In contrast to prior research, known determinants for the formation of virtual relationships (i.e. marital status, educational status, gender, and disease‐related factors such as the type of cancer as control variables, as well as general internet usage motives, and perceived advantages of CMC as direct determinants) played a weak role in this study of German cancer patients. Studies on other patient populations (i.e. patients with other acute illnesses in other cultures) are needed to see if results remain consistent.

Participants and administrators of patient VCs have different design criteria for the improvement of VCs for patients (e.g. concerning community management, personal behaviour and the usage of information in online communities). Once the social mechanisms taking place in online communities are better understood, the systematic redesign of online communities according to the needs of their users should be given priority.

Little research has been conducted examining the role of VCs for social relationships and social networks in general and for patients in particular. Antecedents and effects of virtual social relationships of patients have not been sufficiently theoretically or empirically researched to be better understood. This research combines various determinants and effects of virtual relationships from prior related research. These are integrated into a conceptual model and applied empirically to a new target group, i.e. VCs for patients.

The article aims to present a holistic approach to analysis of patterns on complex online profiles, demonstrated on profiles of European scientists.

An existing analytical framework was developed to incorporate a holistic understanding of online profiles. The framework was applied to a sample of 188 online profiles belonging to 48 European scientists. The profile data were studied on three levels (content‐unit level, profile‐instance level, and profile‐network level), using methods of the qualitative comparative analysis to derive profiling patterns.

The approach developed in this work generated profiling patterns for European scientists. The patterns exist on all three levels, forming a hierarchy. This pattern structure shows the variety of ways in which scientists can use the internet for self‐presentation.

The study was based on a holistic understanding of online self‐presentation, acknowledging that personal presentation can be spread across different platforms. The study presented shows how this understanding can be used when analysing online profiling behaviour. The profiling patterns of European scientists identified in this study supplement existing typologies. The study serves as a foundation to structure further research as well as to inform practitioners.

Chatbots are increasingly prevalent in the service frontline. Due to advancements in artificial intelligence, chatbots are often indistinguishable from humans. Regarding the question whether firms should disclose their chatbots' nonhuman identity or not, previous studies find negative consumer reactions to chatbot disclosure. By considering the role of trust and service-related context factors, this study explores how negative effects of chatbot disclosure for customer retention can be prevented.

This paper presents two experimental studies that examine the effect of disclosing the nonhuman identity of chatbots on customer retention. While the first study examines the effect of chatbot disclosure for different levels of service criticality, the second study considers different service outcomes. The authors employ analysis of covariance and mediation analysis to test their hypotheses.

Chatbot disclosure has a negative indirect effect on customer retention through mitigated trust for services with high criticality. In cases where a chatbot fails to handle the customer's service issue, disclosing the chatbot identity not only lacks negative impact but even elicits a positive effect on retention.

The authors provide evidence that customers will react differently to chatbot disclosure depending on the service frontline setting. They show that chatbot disclosure does not only have undesirable consequences as previous studies suspect but can lead to positive reactions as well. By doing so, the authors draw a more balanced picture on the consequences of chatbot disclosure.

This study examined whether individuals' coping strategies and their motivations for social media use act as mediators between actual COVID-19-related stress and the perception that social media use can reduce stress.

This study empirically develops and tests a research model with data (N = 503) collected through Amazon Mechanical Turk. A path analysis was used to test the research model.

The path analysis indicated that active coping initiated by individuals under COVID-19-related stress was more likely to be associated with information and social interaction needs, leading the individuals to perceive the use of social media as the cause for stress reduction. The expressive support coping strategy motivated the individuals under stress to seek social interaction, leading individuals to perceive that activities on social media reduced their stress during the pandemic. Emotional venting and avoidance coping strategies significantly impacted escape, social interaction, and entertainment seeking by allowing individuals to get absorbed in social media activities and forget unpleasant thoughts associated with the pandemic.

No previous study has explored the relationship between decisions around the type of coping strategy used and motivations for media usage, which leads to stress reduction. Understanding how stress-induced coping strategies influence social media users' specific motivations and reduce users' stress levels would help communicators understand how users' can encourage individuals to cope with stress by presenting individuals with more effective social media, resulting in stress reduction and improved well-being.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of an in‐depth case study into virtual teamworking practices in a large petro‐chemical company.

By drawing on the case study the paper offers a theoretical conceptualization of the development of commitment and personal trust relationships in a virtual teamworking context.

The paper argues that the durability of virtual teamworking depends largely on commitment and personal trust relationships, which may gradually dissipate over time without collocated, face‐to‐face social interactions. The virtual teamworking technologies alone may have limited scope in contributing to reproduction and reinforcement of commitment and personal trust relationships.

This research is based on an investigation in one organization that used a set of virtual teamworking technologies, which have been constantly improving in terms of capabilities and usability. In a business context investigated in this paper, the team working was not continuous, and the level and the range of activities varied over time. Future research should seek to explore whether personal and abstract trust can develop through continued online interaction.

Findings indicate that virtual teams should seek to manage expectations of the use of such technologies in their interactions. Human relationships, rather than technologies are therefore important for nurturing both personal and impersonal trust relationships, which is vital for durable virtual teams.

This paper argues that the long‐term virtual teamworking without face‐to‐face social interactions leads to a gradual dissipation of personal trust relationships, and subsequently loss of impersonal trust relations.

Online health communities (OHCs) have become increasingly popular sources of health information in recent years. However, little is known about the factors that affect the relationship commitment and continuous knowledge sharing intention among OHC members. Thus, this study aims to integrate social exchange and commitment-trust theories to establish a theoretical model to fill the gap.

A research model that integrates social exchange theory and commitment-trust theory is developed. Quantitative data from 519 valid questionnaires are collected via an offline survey. Statistical product and service solutions 20.0 and analysis of a moment structures 20.0 software are used to test the hypotheses.

Relationship commitment directly influences continuous knowledge sharing intention, partially mediates the relationship between social support and continuous knowledge sharing intention, and fully mediates the relationship between perceived health risks and continuous knowledge sharing intention. Informational and emotional supports are identified as benefit factors that positively affect relationship commitment and perceived health risks are regarded as cost factors that negatively influence relationship commitment. Informational and emotional supports of OHC members produce different effects on relationship commitment when members obtain social support from different sources. Moreover, trust moderates the influences of informational support and perceived health risks on relationship commitment.

The findings provide additional insights that can augment the knowledge management literature by indicating how people are driven to share knowledge continuously in the context of OHCs. This study empirically clarifies the relationships of benefits (i.e. social support) and costs (i.e. perceived health risks) to continuous knowledge sharing intention by demonstrating the significant mediating effect of relationship commitment. In addition, the findings of this study highlight the importance of the social support source in OHCs and provide additional insights into commitment–trust theory by integrating the moderating effect of trust on the relationships between relationship commitment and its antecedents.

To date, only a limited number of studies have considered WhatsApp groups. The purpose of this paper is to focus on single WhatsApp groups and explore their special characteristics and dynamics. The present study used the social support perspective, Big Five model and narcissism paradigm to predict the level of participation in WhatsApp groups with these variables.

The research was conducted in Israel during the Spring semester of the 2017 academic year and encompassed 127 students. Researchers used eight questionnaires to gather data: a demographic questionnaire; a perceived social support questionnaire; three characteristics from the BIG5 questionnaire: extroversion, openness to experience and neuroticism; a narcissistic questionnaire; questions about WhatsApp usage; questions about one meaningful WhatsApp group; participation level in the meaningful group; and group importance.

The findings confirmed that psychological factors such as social support, extroversion and narcissism significantly predict the level of participation in WhatsApp groups. It was also found that age, the level of group importance, being the group’s manager, WhatsApp usage and group’s subject play an important role in the participation level.

These results affirmed the importance of psychological factors when exploring new technological platforms, as the paper proposes that individuals may behave differently in various technological environments due to their psychological characteristics. The study expanded current research about a popular communication tool, WhatsApp, by examining it within the special context of WhatsApp groups. This focus enables researchers to follow the special dynamics that take place in a new technological platform.

This paper aims to identify the role of blogs in helping women victims of intimate partner sexual violence to restore their self-integrity.

The authors’ research uses an interpretive stance, supported by motivational and “self” theories to analyze 33 blogs reporting the experiences of women in Brazil who suffered sexual violence perpetrated by an intimate partner.

This study identifies the reasons why women who suffer violence from intimate partners write blog posts. It also develops an analytical framework that bridges the gap between the design and use of IT-artifacts and the context of sexual violence from an intimate partner. Women who suffer violence from intimate partners look for blogs in order to find a safe space for expression, a knowledge hub and a social support network. Blogs play a pivotal role in supporting the journey of reconstructing their self-integrity.

The results help to understand the role of blogs in helping victims in vulnerable situations trying to restore their self-integrity. It also contributes to improve the design and functionality of such platforms as an important resource for social support networks.

This study shows the positive impact of blogs as a tool to support victims in the process of restoring their self-integrity.

This study aims to promote the use of digital artifacts such as blogs as a complementary instrument to fight violence against women.

The analytical framework used in this paper helps to understand the role of IT-artifacts in the context of sexual violence from an intimate partner.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how community attachment to an OHC reduces the OHC users' emotional distress and therefore improves their emotional well-being.

A survey study was conducted in one of the largest online health communities (OHC) for people with diabetes.

OHC participants are likely to experience reduced emotional distress when they have developed an attachment to the community. This attachment is, in turn, positively associated with the normative expectations of reciprocity and the affective feeling of gratitude. However, some commonly used behavioral measures of community participation, such as visit frequency and membership tenure, have little to do with either community attachment or reduced emotional distress.

The research highlights the pivotal role of community attachment in appraising the much-debated benefits of OHCs. However, the cross-sectional survey study has its limitations in terms of establishing causality.

OHC managers need to look beyond some of the commonly used metrics, such as monthly visits and number of new postings, and focus on fostering a sense of attachment among existing users in order to fulfill the OHC's potential of emotional support. Our study implies that design features facilitating reciprocation and gratitude expression among users can lead to a strong emotional bond.

This is one of the first studies on the antecedents of community attachment and the relationship between community attachment and emotional distress in the context of OHC.

The study aimed to investigate the information disclosure behavior of women bloggers who suffer from infertility by examining their self-disclosure as it relates to the anonymity patterns they adopted.

A survey was distributed to approximately 300 authors of infertility blogs, 135 bloggers answered the request to take part in the study. The survey gathered basic demographic and blogging practice data, and measured different elements of the bloggers' discursive and visual anonymity as well as their patters of self-disclosure.

Findings reveal that the majority of respondents identify themselves on their blogs and only a small percentage decided to be totally anonymous, and about half of the bloggers post actual photos of themselves and their lives. The participants reported a high rate of self-disclosure, revealing sensitive information, letting their defenses down, disclosing highly intimate details about their lives, writing openly about their infertility treatments on their blog. No significant correlation was observed between visual and discursive anonymity and the perceived self-disclosure of participants. Results show that the more anonymous the bloggers are, the more afraid they become that their blog may be read by people they know offline. On the other hand, the more identifiable the bloggers are, the more willingness they show to share the content of their journal with people they know offline. The majority of participants expressed concerns that blogging could negatively impact their lives.

This study explores an alternate explanation through the examination of the bloggers' self-disclosure patterns as they relate to the degree of anonymity adopted.