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The purpose of this article is to investigate if and how social capital offline – stemming from face-to-face interactions – and social capital online – stemming from social digital media – can influence early-stage entrepreneurs, i.e. ventures with up to 42 months of existence.

The authors used herein a qualitative research approach. The method used was the case study. The authors investigated three early-stage entrepreneurs in order to achieve the objective of the paper. These entrepreneurs are both the unit of analysis and the unit of observation.

The outcomes of this research indicate (1) the combined importance of social capital offline and online; (2) the different performance of the two different types of social capital (they seem to operate in relatively distinct ways) and (3) the existence of recursiveness between resources stemming from the two social spheres (offline and online).

As research limitations, the authors point out the following: (1) the use of semistructured interviews as the only data collection instrument; (2) the limitation of the outcomes to entrepreneurs only (3) the absence of information on the performance of the business ventures; the focus of the paper was only on establishing causality between social capital offline and online and entrepreneurial performance.

This paper provides important research contributions. Initially, the paper presents a range of offline and online variables, which can be used in further research. At the same time, the paper emphasizes the combined impact of social capital offline and online, expanding the literature related to entrepreneurship. Moreover, this study proposes the creation of an integrative model. Finally, the authors point out the need for new theoretical and empirical studies on the subject, which still presents a gap in the literature.

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.

Social capital has been identified as a valuable resource that can lead to various positive outcomes of social activities in both online and offline communities. The purpose of this paper is to argue that social capital can also be an important ingredient in the development of adverse outcomes, such as technology addiction.

Based on social capital theory and prior research related to perceived integration, a research model that reflects the effects of online and offline social capitals as well as perceived integration on mobile social networking service (SNS) addiction was developed and empirically examined based on data collected from 458 mobile SNS users in China.

The structural equation modeling analysis shows that online social interaction ties and online social supports positively affect mobile SNS addiction, whereas offline social supports and online social identification negatively affect mobile SNS addiction. In addition, perceived integration between online and offline channels by using mobile SNS positively influences online social interaction ties, offline social interaction ties, and mobile SNS addiction.

From the practical perspective, the results of the study offer interesting implications for managing mobile SNS addiction. The study found that online social interaction ties and online social support positively influence mobile SNS addiction, whereas offline social support negatively influence mobile SNS addiction.

The mobile SNS users should invest more time to participate in offline social activities and maintain good social relationships with their family, colleagues, and friends in the real world.

The present study has both theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, unlike many previous studies tend to regard social capital as the predictor of positive outcomes of users’ social activities, the study contributes to the extant information systems literature by exploring the potential negative consequences of social capital on users’ social lives. The results of the study indicate that social capital is a significant predictor of mobile SNS addiction.

Empowered by Web 2.0 and social media, consumers join online communities and produce social capital. They generate information for online communities by sharing their knowledge, information and experience, and thus support organisational learning. Co‐creation of value with consumers instead of co‐creation of value for consumers is a new strategy for organisational development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate social factors introduced through social media to sport organisations in the co‐creation of value with fans.

This research adopts social capital and social support theory and investigates the way sport organisations can apply social relationship with fans in online communities in order to co‐create value for organisational development. The study looks at the current literature and the potential theoretical development for organisational learning.

Social interaction of individuals through social media and online communities has introduced co‐creation of value with customers. This behaviour originates from the supportive climate that has emerged through Web 2.0, where individuals share their information, knowledge, and experience through online communities. This co‐creation offers online social support as a source of social capital for organisations. The results can be beneficial for the development of sport organisations in the co‐creation of value with fans.

The clear implication of the research would be whether sport organisations can develop virtual communities and offer rich means that facilitate individuals' interactions. The research highlights the theoretical foundation and opportunities for sport organisational development. However, the study does not provide an empirical test of the theory. Therefore, an empirical test of the research theory is a future research direction.

This research investigates social factors introduced through social media to sport organisations in the co‐creation of value with fans. The contribution of the research is to provide the theoretical bases for a new research area for sport organisational development through social media. Sport organisations can learn from the social interactions of their fans and develop their strategies. This research shows how sport organisations can use social capital theory and online social support to progress in the industry.

Online social networks (OSNs) provide users with mechanisms such as social circles and individual selection to define the audiences (i.e., privacy policy) of the shared information. This privacy decision-making process is a hard and tedious task for users because they have to assess the cost-benefit in a complex environment. Moreover, little is known about how users assess the cost-benefit of matching the elements of online communication and their interests. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a research model to understand the impact that the types of receivers and the sensitivity of messages have on privacy decisions.

A study was conducted to understand how users evaluate the cost-benefit of the disclosure action in online social networks for the different types of receivers identified and the sensitivity of the message. Data from 400 respondents was collected and analyzed using partial least squares modeling.

The findings of this study demonstrated a trade-off variance between the perceived cost-benefit and the disclosure of sensitive information with different receiver types. Disclosing personal information with trusted receivers, influencer receivers and receivers from the circle of coworkers had a positive significant effect on social capital building. Conversely, disclosing personal information with receivers from the circle of family or unknown receivers had a significant negative effect on social capital building and even a significant positive effect on privacy concerns.

Recent literature has documented the increasing interest of the research community in understanding users' concerns and interests in making the most suitable privacy decisions. However, most researchers have worked on understanding the disclosure action from a user-centered perspective and have not considered all of the elements of online communication. This study puts the focus on all of the elements of communication during disclosure actions, taking into account the properties of the message and receivers and the impact on users' cost benefit value.

Helping intention is an important value that holds the key to the continuous user growth of instant messaging (IM). The purpose of this study is to validate a research model that examines online helping intention from a perspective of online social capital.

Empirical testing of this model, through a survey of employees from seven large companies, confirms some theoretical expectations of this study. Two of the seven companies are from general service industries and the other five companies are from high‐tech industries. Of the 500 questionnaires distributed to participants, 364 usable questionnaires were returned for an effective response rate of 72.8 per cent.

Helping intention is influenced by reciprocity, shared narratives, centrality, and network ties, whereas commitment and shared codes and language are not significantly related to helping intention.

Based on the test results of this study, helping intention is affected by different social capital dimensions. In particular, low helping intention is attributed to a lack of online social capital, which can result from weak reciprocity, shared narratives, centrality, and network ties. This study has some limitations that relate to the measurement and interpretation of results. A major limitation is the possibility of a common method bias by using a single questionnaire to measure all constructs, which may inflate the strength of the relationships among these research constructs.

This study recommends that those who support the establishment of helping culture among instant messaging users place emphasis on relational, cognitive, and structural capital. Both IM service developers and users should be aware that helping intention can be discouraged if any single dimension of social capital is ignored.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how online helping intention can be strengthened.

This study aims to research knowledge-sharing behavior and social capital from a pedagogical perspective. It explores the facilitating role of face-to-face and online interactions in social capital development to understand how the formation of a specific form of social capital nurtures knowledge-sharing behaviors.

A qualitative approach used interviews and a focus group to collect data from 20 teachers in different positions and subject areas.

For face-to-face interactions to form social capital, learning communities must develop features including shared vision, shared language, trust-building and self-development and foster identification with and commitment to the community. Of all the categories of pedagogical content knowledge exchanged among teachers, teachers seek knowledge of general pedagogy, representations and strategies and knowledge of curriculum and media more than any others. However, when differentiating between online and face-to-face activities, knowledge of the curriculum and media is sought more frequently online. In contrast, the preferred way of learning about general pedagogy is through face-to-face activities. The choice of knowledge channel reflects the complexity of the types of knowledge needed and the type of social ties required to support this exchange.

The research is expected to expand understanding of how teachers develop their social capital and how social ties foster knowledge-sharing behaviors. This study suggests professional development activities and online professional learning platforms facilitate building social ties.

This study aims to investigate the factors and mechanism which influence the doctor’s social and economic benefits from the perspective of social capital.

This paper mainly investigates the factors and mechanism influencing the doctor's social and economic benefits from the perspective of social capital and then constructs a doctor's social capital model and discusses the effects of doctor's social capital on their economic and social benefits; what is more, this paper also considers the moderating effect of patients’ group behavior.

The results show that the doctor's social capital has a positive and significant effect on doctor's economic benefits, while it has a negative and significant effect on doctors' social benefits. Patients’ group behavior plays an important moderating role; in particular, the number of online patients of doctors can effectively strengthen follow-up patients’ positive perception of the doctor capital, while the number of offline patients has a negative effect on doctors’ economic benefits, but it can reduce its negative impact on doctors’ social benefits by establishing trust between patient and physician.

This paper enriches the relevant research of social capital theory in the medical field and broadens the research about online health care. For platforms, they should give more attention to doctors and their income issues, which is of great significance for their healthy and sustainable development.

Traditionally, demographic factors have been recognized as important factors of social capital accumulation. Owing to the differences in social structure and relationships resulted from the Internet development, the social capital accumulation mechanism is likely different. Hence, this study investigated the significance of the demographic factors and the Internet-related factors (Internet mobilization, collective identity, and digital literacy) of social capital accumulation nowadays, so as to understand the factors contributing to social capital accumulation nowadays, and reflect upon the applicability of traditional social capital accumulation mechanism.

There were 1,747 participants aged between 13 and 30 taking part in this quantitative study. Correlation analysis was performed to find out the relationship of participants' demographic background and Internet-related factors with offline and online social capital. Structural equation modeling, hierarchical regression analysis, and mediation analysis was performed to investigate how these factors were related to the social capital accumulated from the Internet.

Results showed that demographic background and engagement in Internet activities affected the acquisition of social capital from the Internet. Digital literacy displayed the largest mediating effect on online social capital accumulation. Corresponding implications were discussed.

Informed by the literature and theories of social capital, this study investigates the mechanism of online social capital accumulation by exploring its contributing factors.

Online gaming has emerged as a popular activity providing a social outlet for millions. However, implications of online game networks for mental health remain disputed. Concepts of bridging social capital and bonding social capital may help characterize protective factors within social networks. This study aims to examine the associations between social capital derived from online versus in-person networks and mental health indicators among gamers.

Online gamers (n = 301) completed an online survey assessing their social networks (both in-person and through online gaming) and mental health indicators (depressive symptoms, anxiety, social isolation, perceived social support). Social network analysis was used to analyze bridging (network size, effective size, heterogeneity, weak ties) and bonding (closeness, frequent contact, confiding, connection quality) social capital. Separate linear regression models evaluated associations between bridging and bonding social capital for both online and in-person networks and depressive symptoms, anxiety, social support and social isolation.

In-person network characteristics showed the strongest associations with mental health outcomes. Greater average closeness and frequent confiding in the in-person network predicted lower isolation and fewer depressive symptoms. More diverse relationship types also correlated with lower depression. For online networks, closeness and confiding ties associated only with less isolation and greater support, not depressive symptoms, or anxiety.

While online gaming networks provide some degree of social support, in-person social capital exhibited stronger associations with mental health. This reinforces the importance of face-to-face relationships for emotional well-being. Findings suggest helping gamers cultivate close bonds offline. However, online connections still matter and should not be discounted.