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Social information is crucial to credit ratings and can improve the accuracy of the traditional credit assessment model. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) and social capital theory (SCT), this research explores the relationships between corporate social activities, network centrality and corporate credit behavior.

The authors used social network analysis (SNA) and regression analysis to analyze the data collected from 14,544 enterprises on the Alibaba platform.

The results indicate that among the four types of social activities, the number of corporate questions and posts shows a positive relationship with credit behavior; while the number of corporate comments has negative relationship with credit behavior. Further, degree and betweenness centralities mediate the relationship between the number of corporate questions, posts and comments with credit behavior.

This study contributes to the literature on non-financial factors (soft information) by exploring the social behavioral factors related to corporate credit. In addition, this study offers a new theoretical lens and reasonable explanations for investigating the relationship between corporate social activities, network centrality and credit behavior from the perspective of the resource-based view, while most studies are predictive and methodological. Moreover, this study provides new insights for platforms to evaluate enterprise credit and for managers to improve credit behavior.

This paper aims to explore the interaction between consumer empowerment and social interactions as fundamental social media elements. It demonstrates their relationship in both experiential and informative social media setting where social media complements an offline consumer activity. The study aims to contribute to the literature on social media by demonstrating its complementary role on offline activities through these fundamental elements.

The paper reports three experimental designs that manipulate the empowering and the socializing elements of complementary activities to show their effects on both the complementary online and the complemented offline activities.

The paper presents three empirical studies that reveal the effects of two fundamental social media elements (i.e. empowerment and socialization) on consumers’ responses toward consumption episodes that consist of complementary online and complemented offline activities. It reveals that that these elements increase positive consumer responses toward both the online and the offline activities through psychological empowerment. However, the interaction between the elements changes with respect to specific empowerment types.

The paper contributes to the literature on social media by demonstrating its complementary role on offline activities through its empowering and socializing elements. It bridges research on consumer empowerment and socialization in a way that reveals their interaction beyond the extant definitions of empowerment resulting from enhanced communication among consumers. The paper also demonstrates the complementary role of social media on offline consumer behaviors through the effects of these two fundamental elements.The participants of the experimental studies are presented with hypothetical scenarios and asked about their behavioral intentions. Thus, future studies should address the research questions in real-world settings.

The paper includes implications for social media usage as a complementary activity to offline real-life consumer behavior through the effects of consumer empowerment and social interactions. Thus, it may benefit marketers seeking to optimize the empowering and socializing components of their social media strategies.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how social media may affect real-life consumer behavior. It also identifies the interaction between the empowering and the socializing elements of social media offerings in both experiential and informative settings.

Many companies strengthen their interaction with consumers by establishing online communities and bring convenience to value co-creation with consumers. Some companies use economic and social strategies to stimulate consumer value creation. However, the way to increase the effectiveness of such corporate strategies remains unclear. To address this challenge, this study investigates the impact patterns of economic and social strategies that influence consumers' value co-creation behaviour in firm-hosted online communities (FOCs). Moreover, the effective conditions for the value co-creation of the two strategies are explored.

Data from an FOC were collected for electronic communications products. A total of 1,305 second-hand data records on value co-creation activities were obtained. Then, an econometric model was built and Stata14.0 software was used for data analysis.

The effect of economic interaction strategy on the value co-creation in online communities is an inverted U-shaped model, and that of social interaction strategy is relatively stable and is not an inverted U-shaped model. Value creation initiatives introduced by enterprise personnel adopt economic strategies to improve effectiveness. On the contrary, value co-creation activities initiated by consumers use social strategies for the same purpose. Economic strategies are effective for large teams, whereas social strategies may lead to a “free rider” mentality.

This study finds two important factors affecting the value co-creation in FOCs and their effective boundaries. However, other factors may also affect the online community value co-creation. Future research can further explore the intrinsic mechanisms of these strategies for value co-creation.

This article mainly discusses the influence of stimulation strategies on the value co-creation in an actual company community and exhibits good practical significance for the value co-creation activity and management in online communities. Firstly, corporate strategy is effective in communities, but this strategy requires proper control. Secondly, the company strategy must consider appropriate application conditions.

This study deepens the understanding of the impact of economic and social strategies on the value co-creation in FOCs and the effective boundaries of these impact patterns.

The purpose of this paper is to establish whether the inclusion of physical activity (PA) in a community programme setting is more beneficial than the benefit obtained from social participation for older adults.

A cross-sectional study conducted with a sample of 105 adults age 65+ and older that take part in community activities organised by the Bristol based charity LinkAge. Participants took part in either solely social groups or social groups with a PA component. A self-report questionnaire was composed of measures assessing functional health and well-being, health-related quality of life, functional ability, outcome expectation for exercise, and social support.

A significantly different and higher score on physical health measures was reported by the physically active group for role physical, physical function, bodily pain, and the physical capacity score. No significant difference was found for health measures that include a mental component. The physically active group reported higher outcome expectations for exercise.

Social activity in community programmes may provide a method to maintain a healthy mental state in older adults, but participation in PA in the same environment is associated with better scores for physical health measures.

Providing greater support for older people to engage in physical and social activities may enable them to maintain a higher quality of life.

Despite the growing popularity of internet based social media on e-commerce platforms, systematic examination of the emerging phenomenon is scarce. This paper aims to study whether online retailers ' social activity on e-commerce platforms improves their business performance, and if it does, what are the underlying mechanisms.

The paper proposes a typology of online retailers ' social activities on e-commerce platforms. Then drawing on social capital theory and social network theory, the authors develop hypotheses that relate online retailers ' social activities to their business performance. The hypotheses are tested using a large dataset collected from an e-commerce platform in China.

The paper shows that: online retailers ' social activities for friend-making improve their business performance, regardless of the directional attribute of the activities; social activities for advice-seeking decrease online retailers ' business performance; and social activities for advice-giving increase online retailers ' business performance.

The data in the empirical study are from an e-commerce platform in China, hence the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed hypotheses further.

The paper includes implications for e-commerce market makers and online retailers operating on e-commerce platforms. The authors show that online retailers ' social activities on e-commerce platforms can be an important source of business value. However certain types of social activities may hurt online retailers ' business performance, implying the necessity of a thoughtful social activity strategy in online marketplaces.

This paper represents an early effort to study whether online retailers ' social activities on e-commerce platforms improve their business performance and the underlying mechanisms of the effect.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an evaluation of a mental health resilience intervention for unemployed men aged 45-60. The focus is on examining the place of activities within a multi-dimensional men’s mental health programme, and exploring interactions between social context factors and models of change.

The paper draws on before and after survey data and qualitative interviews, to report results concerning effectiveness in changing men’s perceived resilience, to consider project processes concerning activities, social support and coping strategies, and to situate these within wider environments.

The programme significantly raised the perceived resilience of participants. Activities were engaging for men, while the complex intersection between activities, social networking, and coping strategies course provided opportunities for men to develop resilience in contexts resonant with their male identities.

A limitation is that the evaluation could not measure longer term impacts.

The paper discusses emerging considerations for resilience building, focusing on gender-sensitive approaches which can engage and retain men by focusing on doing and talking, in the contexts of men’s life-course, highlighting embodied (male) identities not disembodied “mental states”, and facilitating social support. There are challenges to recruit men despite stigma, support men to speak of feelings, and facilitate progression.

Potential exists for gender-aware programmes to sustain salutogenic change, co-producing social assets of peer support, male-friendly activities, and context sensitive course provision.

The paper adds fresh evidence of gendered intervention approaches, including effects on male resilience. Application of a context-sensitive change model leads to multi-component findings for transferring and sustaining programme gains.

This research note discusses three essential and practical questions related to social entrepreneurship and social activities in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): What motivates SMEs to undertake social activities? What are the obstacles faced by SMEs when undertaking social activities? What are the types of social activities that SMEs undertake? The article presents preliminary answers and provides research suggestions related to these questions.

The authors search and review articles that study social entrepreneurship and social activities of SMEs and synthesize their findings based on the three main topics of interest.

The authors synthesized findings based on their three motivating topics: motivation, obstacles and types. They extracted three primary motivations of SMEs for social activities: (1) demands and expectations from external stakeholders, (2) nonpecuniary incentives that stem from organizational values and culture and (3) anticipation of improving relevant organizational outcomes. The authors extracted two obstacles for social initiatives: (1) limited resources and knowledge and (2) lack of perceived benefits or incentives. Finally, the authors extracted two types of social activities: (1) activities that address social and ethical issues and (2) activities that address environmental concerns.

Pressing concerns in society have pushed numerous entrepreneurs and small business managers to create and manage businesses that aim to alleviate social and environmental problems. Accordingly, researchers have devoted some attention to how SMEs get increasingly involved with social activities and initiatives (i.e. addressing social and environmental challenges through their firms). The authors highlight existing findings and propose future research opportunities based on our three essential and motivating questions.

The purpose of this paper is to gain more insight into the relationship between social media activities and thinking styles, and its potential mechanism.

The current study conducted four studies using an experimental method and eye-tracking method to evaluate prediction.

Results from studies 1 and 2 showed that social media activities influence individuals’ self-construal, and the impact of self-construal on the relative reliance on cognitive vs affective thinking styles. Study 3 supports the hypothesis that social media activities influence individual’s thinking styles, and self-construal is a critical mediator in this process. Furthermore, the authors replicated these findings using an experimental method and eye-tracking method (Study 4), which enabled us to better understand the consumer’s psychological experience when using social media.

This paper contributes to the social media activity literature in the following ways. First, this research advances the knowledge of social media by demonstrating that social media activities can have significant effects on thinking styles. Second, the current research brings important insights to the literature on self-construal. Finally, using eye-tracking methods, the authors also provided some new insights on consumer thinking and behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the motivations behind online video content creation on services such as YouTube and Twitch. These activities, performed by private individuals online, have become increasingly monetized and professionalised through the accessible tools provided by video sharing services, which has presented a noteworthy manifestation of the increasing merger of the work and leisure within digital environments and the emergence of a hybrid form of work and play, playbour.

The data for the study were collected using an online survey of 377 video content creators and it was analysed via structural equation modelling.

The findings of the study indicate that although the practice of video content creation is becoming more commercialised and professionalised, the extrinsic motivations, often associated with work (e.g. income, prestige), remain less significant drivers for content creation than intrinsic motivations (e.g. enjoyment, socialisation), which are associated with leisure activities.

This study offers insight into how the authors have begun to reorganise the position in the new digital labour culture, where monotonous tasks are increasingly automated, allowing room for intrinsically driven playful labour to develop within the leisure activities.

A principal problem of information systems (IS) development today is how to integrate the work activity and social context of users into the IS which is being designed. This paper aims to delineate a sociocybernetic approach which enlightens the relationship between IS design activity, use activity, and the embedded social context. First and second order cybernetics are employed as a general skeleton or structure for conducting the sociocybernetic approach. Approaches from social autopoiesis theory and activity theory are introduced respectively to provide the skeleton of cybernetics with flesh and blood elements of real problems. An emerging conceptual body resulting from an organic integration of the cybernetic structure and social‐psychological elements which demonstrates the relationship between IS design activity, use activity, and embedded social context is presented.