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Drawn from the social playfulness literature and the elaboration likelihood model, the purpose of this paper is to propose and test a research model to examine users’ continuous participation in SNS game applications.

A field survey with 133 subjects was conducted to test the research model.

Two identified design features, symbolic physicality and inherent sociability, are found to influence users’ perceived curiosity and perceived enjoyment toward playing SNS game applications. Perceived enjoyment is significantly associated with perceived curiosity and predicts users’ continuous participation of SNS game applications. The authors also observed a gender difference of social playfulness design on perceived curiosity.

Use intention was used as a proxy for actual use behavior, since objective data on continuance behavior was not available. Additionally, the contributions of this study may be constrained by one single sample.

The findings of the study suggest practical guidelines for designing game applications in SNS through socialization design and symbolic physicality. Further, based on the findings of gender differences, a personalization game design strategy is provided.

The study contributes to the post-adoption IS literature and sheds light on the interesting area of social media participation. Additionally, this study enriches the online gaming research by demonstrating gender differences.

This paper relates migration and home through the experiences of belonging negotiated by both newcomers and established residents in a South London caff. My account emerges out of an ethnographic exploration of Nick's Caff, a small meeting place off a multi-ethnic, inner city Street. Urban change and social diversity are exemplified in the Walworth Road: a place from which one can hear the chimes of Big Ben and catch glimpses of the London Eye, but which remains curiously detached from the image of a prestigious city; where remnants of white working-class culture juxtapose with a variety of cultures brought from across the globalising world; and where emergent cultures are forged across the difficulties and possibilities of cultural difference. Nick's Caff situates the day-to-day and face-to-face experiences of belonging within a shared space in the contemporary city. This paper explores how different individuals reconstitute conventional understandings of ‘home’ and ‘family’ through inhabiting their regular tables in the Caff. I expand on ‘belonging’ as a mode of social interaction through three key ideas: social space, practice and sociability. I analyse the social and spatial dimensions of everyday interactions in the Caff, and examine whether intermingling within the Caff produces alternative understandings of belonging, beyond the binaries of insider/outsider or local/foreigner.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The introduction of innovative products into the marketplace has always been a risky business. Get it right and your product will become as ubiquitous as the cell phone. But get it wrong and your company's profit margin and reputation may both go into terminal decline. So how does a company make the right choices about developing and marketing products that are substantially different from those currently available?

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

Although it is commonly assumed that comparative studies are the best way to proceed in constructing theories of organizing, the practical fulfillment of this postulate has always been problematic. For example, anthropologists should have given organization theorists a clue long ago: they made the stories of their exotic localities interesting by using a variety of fictional approaches in their reporting. The purpose of this paper is to call for the development of anthropologies of organization through “distant reading” of novels.

The paper uses insights from literary theory, notably Iser and Moretti, to discuss the benefits of “distant readings” of novels for scholars and students within the discipline of organization studies.

Distant readings can make it possible for those studying organizations to consider novels as sources in historical anthropology; can enable an exploration of the theories embedded in the novel; can contribute to advancement in approaches to reading fieldwork material, and can help organization theorists better delineate the boundaries of their own literary genre.

The paper broadens the understanding of the relationship between the novel and organization through explaining how reading novels through the glasses of an organization theoretician might produce “novel readings” but also novel insights into the practices of organizing – across times and places.

Online games are prevalent internet applications and are known for satisfying the various needs of users. Nonetheless, little is known about whether online games could be a resort for users encountering workplace frustration. Explaining how workplace frustration and users' need satisfaction affect loyalty of online gamers, this study aims to formulate hypotheses and develop a framework based on the self-determination theory (SDT).

The authors use an online survey to collect 848 responses and use structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses.

The authors find that workplace frustration, autonomy need satisfaction and competence need satisfaction are positively related to online gamer loyalty. Moreover, workplace frustration enhances the link between competence need satisfaction and online gamer loyalty.

The authors are the first to use SDT to identify the three antecedents and the moderator of online gamer loyalty. Our findings offer a key message that game providers could design effective means to retain their gamers by understanding their gamers' workplace frustration and informing them that playing games could alleviate the associated negative feelings.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the discrepancy between ethnohistorical accounts on north-western Kalahari San of the nineteenth to early twentieth century and recent ethnographic accounts, the former depicting the San as intensely warlike, the latter as basically peaceable.

Review of historical, ethnohistorical and ethnographic source material (reports, journal articles, monographs).

The warlike ways of the nineteenth-century Kalahari San were reactions to settler intrusion, domination and encapsulation. This was met with resistance, a process that led to the rapid politicization and militarization, socially and ideationally, of San groups in the orbit of the intruders (especially the “tribal zone” they created). It culminated in internecine warfare, specifically raiding and feuding, amongst San bands and tribal groupings.

While the nineteenth-century Kalahari San were indeed warlike and aggressive, toward both intruders and one another, this fact does not warrant the conclusion that these “simple” hunter-gatherer people have an agonistic predisposition. Instead, of being integral to their sociality, bellicosity is historically contingent. In the absence of the historical circumstances that fuel San aggression and warfare, as was the case after and before the people's exposure and resistance to hegemonic intruders, San society and ethos, in conformity with the social structure and value orientation of simple, egalitarian band societies, is basically peaceful.

A setting-the-record-straight corrective on current misunderstandings and misinformation on hunter-gatherer warfare.

The goal of this article is to show that memetics is particularly useful to predict the adoption of major innovations.

Describes how TNO Telecom, an applied research institute in The Netherlands, adopted the theory of memetics to develop an instrument that predicts the adoption of major innovations. Explains and defines relevant aspects of this focus.

Initial results are encouraging and suggest that the approach may provide qualitatively better results than the existing methods when applied to major innovations.

Describes for the first time how the theory of memetics can be used to gain a real insight into the market adoption of major innovations as well as to focus and optimise product development.

This paper aims to examine the third-place phenomenon, within a fashion context, through the theoretical lens of servicescape and experiential retailing. It identifies third places’ typologies, evolution and adoption and explores the opportunities third places offer to retailers when attempting to connect better with consumers.

Taking a qualitative approach, research was conducted using secondary data sources, observation of 98 retail stores and the shopping-with-consumers technique with 42 informants. Manual thematic analysis and magnitude coding was conducted.

Third-place fashion practices are prevalent and growing. Their predominant functions include sociability, experiential, restorative and commercial. Variances inherent in third places are expounded and a third-place-dimensions model is proposed.

Due to the chosen research approach, the results are limited in terms of generalizability to other settings. Several research directions are elucidated, including exploration of fashion third places on consumers’ place attachment within specific sectors; the impact of differing age, gender and geographies on third place meaning; virtual and hybrid forms; retailer motivations; and third-place alliances.

The preliminary study serves to support managers to understand how consumers perceive and experience the fashion third place and the potential of the third place to enhance consumer engagement.

The research makes a valuable contribution to the dearth of extant literature on third place within the fashion field. It offers a new theoretical perspective on form, function and benefits of third places as a conduit of social-, experiential-, and commercial-experience consumption.

Social websites have become a major medium for social interaction. From Facebook to MySpace to emergent sites like Twitter, social websites are increasing exponentially in user numbers and unique visits every day. How do these websites encourage sociability? What features or design practices enable users to socialize with other users? The purpose of this paper is to explore sociability on the social web and details how different social websites encourage their users to interact.

Four social websites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter) were examined from a user study perspective. After thoroughly participating on the websites, a series of observations were recorded from each experience. These experiences were then compared to understand the different approaches of each website.

Social websites use a number of different approaches to encourage sociability amongst their users. Facebook promotes privacy and representing “real world” networks in web environment, while MySpace promotes publicity and representing both real world and virtual networks in a web environment. Niche websites like LinkedIn and Twitter focus on more specific aspects of community and technology, respectively.

A comparison of different models of sociability does not yet exist. This study focuses specifically on what makes social websites “social.”