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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of flow experience on users’ social commerce intention.

Based on the 287 valid responses collected from a survey, structural equation modeling was used to examine the research model.

The results indicated that social interaction, which includes human–computer interaction and human–human interaction, has a significant effect on the flow experience, which in turn affects social purchase and social sharing intention.

The results imply that companies need to facilitate social interaction to improve users’ experience and promote their social commerce intention.

Although prior research has examined social commerce user behaviour from multiple perspectives such as trust, perceived value and technological perceptions, it has focused on the effect of cognitive beliefs and neglected the effect of affective beliefs such as flow experience. This research tries to fill the gap.

Social commerce is a subpart of electronic commerce (e-commerce), where social media is forced to support user contributions. The purpose of this study is to measure the impact of customers' interpersonal interactions in social commerce on customer relationship management (CRM) performance, based on the flow, commitment-trust and stimulus–organism–response (SOR) theories.

On the basis of the SOR framework, the authors developed a study model to determine the impact on CRM performance of customers' interpersonal interactions in social commerce. The primary data of the study were collected from 640 users of social commerce through a web questionnaire during the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic situation, and the authors tested the study model using the approach of covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM).

Results of the current study reveal that customers' interpersonal interactions in social commerce optimistically influence their perceived flow. Moreover, perceived flow absolutely controls users' trust and CRM performance. In turn, collective users' trust positively influences users' commitment and CRM performance. Finally, collective users' commitment absolutely influences the performance of CRM.

The authors provide a valuable contribution to the theoretical field of online marketing and CRM. Besides, the findings of this study are relevant for marketers to know the issues for increasing customer trust, commitment and performance of CRM.

The current study develops a model based on the flow, commitment-trust and stimulus–organism–response (SOR) theories. The authors' research is the first to estimate the effect of customers' interpersonal interactions in social commerce on CRM performance.

How to realize social capital “exit from virtual to real” has become not only a hot issue that elicited economists' and the practice field's concern but also a key economic structure problem that the government has to solve urgently. The main purpose of this study is to explore effective methods for social capital to “exit from virtual to real”.

The study investigates the realization path of social capital's “exit from virtual to real” by using firm theory and data from the National Bureau of Statistics in China. Provincial panel data are also utilized to empirically test the impact of social capital's de-realization to virtual (or from virtual to real) on economic development and whether the path of social capital “from virtual to real” is valid.

This study analyzes the development status of social funds serving the real economy and the hazards of social funds' “exit from real to virtual,” which are mainly viewed as eroding the development of the real economy and causing operating difficulties. On the basis of firm theory, the internal motivation for why social funds flow to the real economy is explored from the perspectives of the needs of the real economy, price and profit. Moreover, this study designs a path for returning social capital to the real economy.

Overall, expanding aggregate demand while providing an effective supply and implementing a proactive fiscal policy that focuses on structural tax cuts while keeping margins in the virtual economy are appropriate for promoting the competitiveness of the real economy.

This study explores a topic, namely, social capital “exit from virtual to real,” that has received little attention. It provides an in-depth discussion of the following questions. (1) What is the current situation of social capital serving the real economy? (2) What kind of harm can social capital bring to society? What are the inherent barriers to the flow of social capital to the real economy? (3) At this stage, how can the effective transformation of social capital into the real economy be realized? The findings help in understanding the sustainable entrepreneurship concept, particularly in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to review three decades of the literature on flow measurement and propose issues to advance research on the measurement of social flow at work.

In a systematic literature review, the authors analyzed 143 articles published in the first three decades (1983–2013) of scholarly publications on flow measurement, of which 84 articles used scales to measure flow and 16 articles used scales to measure flow at work.

The main findings are: flow is frequently measured in association with other constructs or by means of proxies; flow measurement is highly dependent on a study’s purposes and context; flow is mostly studied at the level of the individual and, when studied beyond the individual, the measurement of flow in groups is simplified as an aggregation of individual-level measures; and social flow at work is an underresearched construct that nevertheless impacts organizations in important ways, thus deserving a specific research agenda.

The first limitation refers to the databases included in the review. There is always the possibility that important works were ignored. Another limitation is that the coding procedure was highly dependent on the authors’ discretion, as it did not include independent coding and formal assessment of agreement among coders. But the greatest limitation may refer to our very perspectives on flow, flow measurement and social flow at work, as they are highly attached to current models instead of seeing the issues with different lenses. This limitation is also present in the literature.

Reviewing three decades of scholarly publications on how flow has been measured contributes to organizations in their planning for person-job fit. The measurement of flow can reveal if and when flow correlates with personal characteristics and organizational events, thus serving to inform initiatives on personnel development, acculturation and job design. However, considering that flow as a social phenomenon has been conceived in superficial terms, that a vast number of empirical studies were developed with non-professional subjects, and that flow measurement involves significant adaptations to each situation, organizations are thus advised to be careful in adopting extant instruments.

This study provides a rich account on how flow measurement has been addressed in the scholarly literature, and it calls attention to research opportunities on social flow at work.

An integrative model that predicts users' stickiness to WeChat is built. In the proposed model, perceived value plays a dual mediating role in the causal pathway from users' immersive experiences of presence and flow to their engagement and stickiness. Furthermore, presence is treated as a bi-dimensional construct made up of spatial feelings and the sense of being in company, and users' engagement is conceived as cognitive, affective and behavioural contributions to WeChat's marketing functions.

The authors develop a measurement instrument and analyse data from a survey of 917 WeChat users. They use a hybrid partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and neural network approach to confirm the reliability and validity of the measurement items and all the relationships between the constructs.

The paper provides robust evidence about the mediating influences of both utilitarian and hedonic value on users' engagement with the immersive experiences of presence and flow. An additional finding highlights the role of social norms in engagement and stickiness.

Rather than studying the effects of the immersive experiences of presence and flow from either a hedonic or a utilitarian perspective, the authors consider how immersive experiences shape both utilitarian and hedonic value, as well as their joint impact (along with that of social norms) on users' engagement and stickiness.

Knowledge transfer which refers to the communication of knowledge from a source so that it is learned and applied by a recipient has long been a challenge for knowledge management. The purpose of this study is to understand influencing factors of transactive memory system (TMS) and knowledge transfer.

Drawing on the theories of communication visibility, social distance and flow, this study develops a research model. Then, data are collected from users of the social media mobile App. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is employed to analyze data.

TMS is a valid second-order construct in the social media mobile app context, which is more reflected by credibility. Meanwhile, communication visibility and social distance each have positive effects on TMS which further has a positive effect on knowledge transfer. Flow has a positive effect on knowledge transfer.

Developers of the mobile App should carefully consider the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in supporting TMS and knowledge transfer. They should consider recommendation algorithm so that the benefit of communication visibility can be retained. They should design the feature to classify users based on similarity so as to stimulate users' feeling of close social distance. They should keep on improving features based on users' holistic experience.

This study incorporates the perspectives of communication visibility, social distance and flow to understand TMS and knowledge transfer, presenting a new lens for research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of interactive and social features on users' online experiences and their purchase intention of virtual goods from a social network site.

A banner with a hyperlink that connected to the author's web survey was posted on the homepage of Facebook. Of the 258 responses returned, 176 were fully completed. Measurement items were adapted from previous literature. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to evaluate the research model and hypotheses testing.

The results of an empirical study supported the use of the stimuli‐organism‐response (S‐O‐R) model in a social networking site and showed how environmental features should be incorporated to enhance users' online experiences and purchase intentions. Specifically, social identity showed the strongest influence on involvement and flow. More specifically, affective involvement showed the greatest influence on purchase intention compared to flow and cognitive involvement.

The relative importance of both interactivity and social identity in platform features in shaping consumers' online experiences should not be ignored. The author suggests online games or apps. Additionally, platform providers should advance social identity features that show a strong positive impact on users' online experiences.

With the proliferation of online social gaming, there is growing evidence for virtual goods consumption; however, relatively few studies have discussed this phenomenon. This paper draws on hypotheses from environmental psychology; specifically, users' intentions to purchase are modeled on user responses to the online stimuli of a Web platform and the online experience that such an environment elicits.

Researchers have long been interested in the process of how networking firms share knowledge, what mechanisms firms use to govern knowledge sharing, and what the consequences are for the sharing firms. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to answer these questions from a social network perspective.

Qualitative method is employed to facilitate deeper understanding of soft variables and key relationships for discovering and mapping non‐formal business practices. The sampling strategy is based on relevance rather than representativeness; data analysis and theoretical analysis stresses an iterative process of theoretical sampling, comparing, and contrasting of samples to build theoretical categories.

The principal findings highlight how social capital, especially trust‐based‐ties, develops in inter‐firm interaction process, accelerates knowledge flow, and acts as an informal governance mechanism between firms. Weak ties help firms to build initial relationships and strong ties help firms to acquire higher‐quality and fine‐grained knowledge.

The analysis rests on qualitative studies in a single industry. The paper trades generalizability for richness, thus potentially risking producing theories that are idiosyncratic and not generalizable to the entire population. Longitudinal studies with larger sample sizes are encouraged to develop more precise propositions or hypotheses for testing.

The identification of the process through which social capital facilitates knowledge flow and consequently innovation enhances the understanding of firms' strategic behavior, and provides managers possible guidelines on how to accumulate social capital in interfirm dynamic interaction to gain competitive advantage.

The paper delineates the strategic roles of social capital in facilitating knowledge flow between firms and further contributes to emerging literature by demonstrating the process of social capital development and its impact on innovation and performance.

Although there are a number of studies on the factors affecting the continuance usage intention for social network services (SNS), the studies on the integrated model encompassing SNS qualities (information, system, and service quality, and hedonic value, which are gratifications for SNS usage), flow, relationship quality (which are trust and satisfaction), and continuance intention are almost non-existent. Based on Bagozzi’s self-regulation framework, the IS success model, uses and gratification theory, and flow theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the qualities and hedonic value of SNS, which have an influence on flow experience and relationship quality which are posited to affect the continuance usage intention.

This study used an e-mail survey method to collect 460 questionnaires for the final sample. The sample of the study includes college students or job workers who have experience in using SNS. Various user categories in terms of gender, school degree, occupation, usage years, and daily time of usage were included.

The study results show that system, service quality, and hedonic value have an impact on flow experience, information and service quality, and hedonic value influence the relationship quality of SNS. The flow experience and relationship quality while using SNS affect the continuance usage intention of SNS. This results show that the consideration of various SNS qualities, hedonic value, flow experience, and relationship quality is necessary to actively explore the factors for continuance usage intention for SNS.

IS managers trying to understand reuse intent can use surveys on information, system, and service quality, and hedonic value. Practitioners should constantly incorporate and develop various activities or useful applications to allow people to reach out to each other, to reinforce users’ attention, interaction, and increase social connections, trust, satisfaction, and further intensify users’ intention to use, increasing SNS value. The findings explain a mechanism through which SNS users’ continuance intention is built. Understanding this mechanism provides valuable information for practitioners to understand the qualities driving SNS users’ intention to revisit SNS.

This study sheds light on the existing literature on website usage that focuses on the design qualities as this paper has combined website quality perspective, i.e., information, system, and service quality, and hedonic value, and the flow and relationship perspective to investigate how these constructs would affect users’ intention to continuously use SNS. On the basis of four theories, Bagozzi’s self-regulation framework, IS success model, users and gratification theory, and flow theory, this study extended the previous studies on SNS by adding information, system, and service quality, hedonic value, flow and relationship quality as second-order constructs affecting continuance intention.

The focus in this study is a model that predicts continuance intention of online multi-player games. In this integrated model, the social cognitive theory (SCT) lays out the foundation of two types of pre-use (pre-play) expectations, the flow theory captures the affective feeling with the game as a moderator for the effect from the two pre-use expectations, and subjective norm together with its associated antecedents cover a wide spectrum of social influences.

A questionnaire was designed and pre-tested before distributing to target respondents. The reliability and validity of the instrument both met the commonly accepted guidelines. The integrated model was assessed first by examining its measurement model and then the structural model.

The integration of cognitive, affective and social influence in this model explains a larger amount of variance compared to the competing models and existing studies.

Unlike a popular trend that studies predictors of online games from either cognitive or affect angle, the work looks at both together to study how their joint effect is related to continuance intention. This marks an important improvement as cognitive expectations derived from SCT captures the pre-use experience that may be influenced or swayed by sources including those that are inflated or incorrect. By studying flow as a moderator in conjunction with other sources of influence, the authors are able to further the understanding of how the pre-use expectations may be shaped by one's own experience.