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Social influence plays a crucial role in determining the size of information diffusion. Drawing on threshold models, we reformulate the nonlinear threshold hypothesis of social influence.

We test the threshold hypothesis of social influence with a large dataset of information diffusion on social media.

There exists a bell-shaped relationship between social influence and diffusion size. However, the large network threshold, limited diffusion depth and intense bursts become the bottlenecks that constrain the diffusion size.

The practice of viral marketing needs innovative strategies to increase information novelty and reduce the excessive network threshold.

In all, this research extends threshold models of social influence and underlines the nonlinear nature of social influence in information diffusion.

Previous studies on social influence and virtual product adoption have mainly taken users’ purchase behavior as a dichotomous variable (i.e. purchasing or not). Given the prevalence of competing versions (basic vs upgraded) of a virtual product in online communities, this paper investigated the differences in the effect of social influence on users’ adoption of basic and upgraded choices of a virtual product. It also examined how the effect varies with users’ social status and user-level network density.

A natural experiment was conducted in an online game community. Two competing versions (basic vs upgraded) of a virtual product were provided for in-game purchase while a random set of users selected from 897,765 players received the notification of their friends’ adoption information. A competing-risk model was used to test the hypotheses.

Social influence exerts a stronger positive effect on users’ adoption of the upgraded virtual product than of the basic virtual product. Middle-status users have the greatest (least) susceptibility to social influence in adopting the upgraded (basic) virtual product than low- and high-status users. User’s network density enhances the effect of social influence on adoption of both virtual products, even more for the upgraded one.

This research contributes to the social influence and product adoption literature by disentangling the different effects of social influence on basic and upgraded versions of a virtual product. It also identifies the boundary conditions that social influence works for each version of the virtual product.

This paper works at the intersections of affect control theory, expectation states theory, and social influence network theory. First, we introduce social influence network theory into affect control theory. We show how an influence network may emerge from the pattern of interpersonal sentiments in a group and how the fundamental sentiments that are at the core of affect control theory (dealing with the evaluation, potency, and activity of self and others) may be modified by interpersonal influences. Second, we bring affect control theory and social influence network theory to bear on expectation states theory. In a task-oriented group, where persons’ performance expectations may be a major basis of their interpersonal influence, we argue that persons’ fundamental sentiments may mediate effects of status characteristics on group members’ performance expectations. Based on the linkage of fundamental sentiments and interpersonal influence, we develop an account of the formation of influence networks in groups that is applicable to both status homogeneous and status heterogeneous groups of any size, whether or not they are completely connected, and that is not restricted in scope to task-oriented groups.

The purpose of this present study is to investigate how opinion leaders' responsiveness to social influence varies with network positions (i.e. degree centrality and brokerage) and network density in new product diffusion networks.

This study collected data based on a sociometric network survey. Hierarchical moderated regression and hierarchical linear modeling analyses were used to test the moderating effects of degree centrality, brokerage and density on the relationship between opinion leadership and susceptibility to social influence.

This study documents the significant moderating roles of network positions and network density in the relationship between individual influence (i.e. opinion leadership) and susceptibility to social influence. Interestingly, this study shows that the significant moderating effects of degree centrality and brokerage hold for opinion leaders' responsiveness to informational social influence, whereas that of network density holds for opinion leaders' responsiveness to normative social influence.

This research sheds light on the network structural characteristics under which opinion leaders would be differentially responsive to social influence (i.e. informational and normative influence) from others.

This research provides marketing managers with insights into leveraging social influence by activating opinion leaders through existing network ties in new product diffusion networks.

Although opinion leaders are generally less susceptible to social influence from others than nonleaders, this research finds that, under certain network conditions, opinion leaders would be equally responsive to social influence from their peers.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on understanding how social influence and personality of individuals differentiate between users’ social network fatigue and discontinuance behavior. Furthermore, the most common discontinuance behavior among users was investigated.

The research model was tested with the data from 163 Instagram users based on online and offline surveys. The partial least squares method was used to test the proposed hypotheses of this study.

The results indicate that social influence affects users’ discontinuance behavior and social network fatigue. Social network fatigue is greater in users with higher reported social influence compared to those with a lower one. Moreover, in response to social network fatigue, users prefer to keep their activities under control instead of switching to alternative social network sites (SNSs) or a short break in social network activities.

By achieving a better understanding of users’ feeling and behaviors, social network providers may codify their strategies more efficiently.

The study is novel in exploring users’ SNS fatigue and their discontinuance behavior by integrating social influence and personality. The authors defined a new concept of effect of social influence on social network fatigue. Additionally, the authors examined which discontinuance behaviors in individuals were more prevalent.

This study aims to empirically investigate how susceptibility to social influence in new product adoption varies with one’s structural location in a social network.

The social network data were collected based on a sociometric network survey with 589 undergraduate students. Social network analysis and ordinary least squares regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

This study finds that consumers with high degree centrality (i.e. hubs) who have a large number of connections to others and consumers with high betweenness centrality (i.e. bridges) who connect otherwise distant groups in social networks are both less sensitive to informational influence from others. More importantly, the authors find evidence that consumers with moderate levels of degree/betweenness centrality are more susceptible to normative influence and status competition than those with low or high degree/betweenness centrality. The inverse-U patterns in the above relations are consistent with middle-status conformity and anxiety.

This research complements social influence and new product diffusion research by documenting important contingencies (i.e. network locations) in consumer susceptibility to different types of social influence from a social network perspective.

The findings will assist marketers to leverage social influence by activating relevant social ties with effective messages in their network marketing strategies.

This research provides a better understanding of the mechanisms driving susceptibility to social influence in new product diffusion.

The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice have focused primarily on individuals’ characteristics and behaviors as a means to understand “who” is influential in organizations, with substantially less attention paid to social networks. To reinvigorate a focus on network structures to explain interpersonal influence, the authors present a comprehensive account of how network structures enable and constrain influence within organizations. The authors begin by describing how power and status, two key determinants of individual influence in organizations, operate through different mechanisms, and delineate a range of network positions that yield power, reflect status, and/or capture realized influence. Then, the authors extend initial structural views of influence beyond the positions of individuals to consider how network structures within and between groups – capturing group social capital and/or shared leadership – enable and constrain groups’ ability to influence group members, other groups, and the broader organizational system. The authors also discuss how HRM may leverage these insights to facilitate interpersonal influence in ways that support individual, group, and organizational effectiveness.

This paper aims to contribute to the lack of research on female social entrepreneurs and their social and contextual embeddedness, promoting women’s social entrepreneurial activity as promising, specifically in the South African context.

By analyzing the founding process and networks of 11 female social entrepreneurs in South Africa using a mixed-method approach consisting of semi-structured interviews, media analysis and egocentric network analysis, this paper seeks to discover the idea-fruition process of female social entrepreneurs. This approach enables us to analyze contextual factors with a focus on personal networks and their influence on the processes of idea-generation and development.

The results indicate that social networks are an important part of the personal context which influences the idea-fruition process of female social entrepreneurs. The paper identifies specific actors as well as group outcomes as particular relevant within this context.

While the results enable the generation of a structure based on the authors’ first insights into how social relational networks influence female social entrepreneurship, it remains unclear if these results can be specifically traced to women or social entrepreneurial aspects, which suggests that further attention is needed in future studies.

Practical implications can be derived from the results concerning the support of female social entrepreneurs by, for example, optimizing or using their (social entrepreneurial) environment. Contrary to studies on business idea-generation, the results stress that women can make use of certain network constructions that are often considered to be obstructive.

This study introduces an innovative gender perspective on social entrepreneurship in South Africa and offers new directions for future research on the opportunity recognition process of female social entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a more detailed understanding of how embedding in different social networks relates to different types of action that individuals choose in the context of organizational closures, downsizing or relocations. To develop such insights, this paper focuses on three particular types of social networks, namely, intra-organizational; external professional and local community networks. These three types of networks have been frequently related to different types of action in the context of closures and relocations.

This is a conceptual paper. The authors develop the argument by integrating relevant recent literature on the salience related to embedding in different types of social networks, with a particular focus on responses to organizational closure or relocation.

The authors argue that at times of industrial decline and closure: embeddedness in intra-organizational networks can favor collective direct action; embeddedness in professional networks is likely to favor individual direct action and embeddedness in community networks can lead to individual indirect action. The authors then add nuance to the argument by considering a range of complicating factors that can constrain or enable the course (s) of action favored by particular combinations of network influences.

On a theoretical level, this paper adds to understandings of the role of network embeddedness in influencing individual and collective responses to such disruptive events; and direct or indirect forms of response. On a practical level, the authors contribute to understandings about how the employment landscape may evolve in regions affected by organizational demise, and how policymakers may study with or through network influences to develop more responsible downsizing approaches.

This paper aims to investigate social influences on the UK integrated reporting (<IR>) adoption and implementation.

The study was based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 36 senior executives actively involved in <IR> within 17 organisations.

Main social influences on adoption externally were reported design consultants and to a lesser extent, external auditors, primarily to legitimise <IR>. Internal influences were board support for <IR>, with the main driver being the mind-set of the CFO/Chairman to drive sustainability throughout the organisation or to regain trust in society. Social influences aiding further diffusion at the implementation stage came from three external sources: business networks; report design consultants; and external auditors. Internal influences in driving <IR> diffusion within organisations were identified in five functional areas, with finance, sustainability and communications functions exerting the greatest external influence on the diffusion of <IR>.

This research study was limited by the small sample of organisations that participated, although significant efforts were made to ensure that the sample incorporated the majority of early adopter UK organisations who demonstrated best practice in <IR>. Therefore, the findings are specific to the research context and do not represent statistical generalisations.

Empirical evidence identifying social influences from a practitioner perspective provides recommendations as to how <IR> may be further diffused in the future.

<IR> creates the potential to significantly improve the long-term health of corporations and the external environment they impact through consideration of the three indivisible and integrated dimensions of sustainable development, the economy, society and the environment and can contribute to a sustainable society by providing the opportunity for organisations to respond to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This highlights the significance of the research, which aims to gain insights into <IR> social influences which can assist in the adoption and implementation of <IR>.

This is the first comprehensive study of social influences on the <IR> adoption and implementation practices in the UK. It incorporates recommendations to improve the likelihood of subsequent adoption and diffusion of <IR> based on the findings.