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A key factor adversely affecting contractor social networking performance is the improper handling and information management of contractor’s services delivery on websites. Contractor social networking is particularly problematic on industrialised building system (IBS) infrastructure maintenance projects where contractor’s certified quality product and firms are not matched with maintenance specialisation services. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper reports on the early stages of research which is developing a new information and communications technology (ICT)-based approach to managing contractor social networking on IBS infrastructure maintenance schemes. As a precursor to this work, the paper reviews current contractor social networking websites practices on IBS infrastructure maintenance projects and explores the ICT tools and techniques currently being employed on such projects.

The findings reveal the need for more sophisticated contractor social networking websites solutions which accord with the needs of IBS infrastructure maintenance schemes.

The paper concludes by presenting a research framework for developing such a system in the future.

The aim of this research is to identify the characteristics that give rise to motivations to use social apps in light of behavioral concepts related to consumers’ desires and emotional values.

Netnography is used as the main methodology to analyze and categorize user profiles of online social networks. These profiles are presented through conceptual headlines, which highlight the main characteristics of each user group.

The results of the study show that many users have become dependent on the WhatsApp application, either for technological reasons or for social reasons related to fashion and status.

Few consumers actually explained the ways they use mobile social networks in the context of the procedures and level of communication performed. However, the influence of social contexts in the consumer environment is changing perceived values focusing on prestige and status to technological elements that the majority of consumers use.

Practical implications are directly related to forming business connections in a less formal and more hedonic environment, improving market results while fostering user enjoyment. In addition, the ongoing updates to WhatsApp have brought new functionalities and improvements to previously weak features.

Although other applications offer means by which to talk and send messages, WhatsApp continues to be (as of early 2021) the most used platform for conversation in Brazil. The sovereignty of WhatsApp is directly linked to its social value, which is related to the number of consumers who daily interact via the network.

The popularity of social networks has created business opportunities to the electronic commerce environment, being recently named as social commerce. The purpose of this paper is to analyze – from the perspective of the consumer – the main factors and characteristics (personal or related to the products bought) that have influenced consumers to participate in social commerce buying, recommending, comparing and sharing information about products and services in online marketplace and communities.

The study is characterized as an exploratory descriptive research, operationalized through a survey, applied to 229 participants of the social network Facebook. The research involves a qualitative stage for identifying potential variables that influence the participation of consumers in social commerce, followed by a quantitative one, including data collection procedures, validation and data analysis.

The results show trust, perceived usefulness and information quality as the factors that most influence consumer participation in social commerce, being trust in the website the main predictor. Concerning the characteristics, the findings also show that more expensive products and products classified as computers and electronics use ratings, recommendations and comments online more intensively than books, travel, household appliances and fashion products.

As limitations of the study, the authors highlight the small number of interviews conducted during the qualitative stage, which may have left out other relevant factors of the analysis on consumers’ participation in social commerce. Another limitation refers to the selection of the participants of the study; all members of the social network Facebook are identified by the contact net of the authors – though it has been tried to enlarge this contact list by requesting the respondents to share the questionnaire link with their acquaintances, we should be cautious about the generalization of the results.

The study proposes an instrument to identify factors and characteristics that are taken into consideration by the consumers when participating in social commerce. Such a tool can be replicated by firms included in this type of commerce, in order to evaluate the behavior and perception of their customers about their performance in the online environment. This study also highlights trust, information quality and perceived usefulness of the website as the most influencing factors of the consumers’ participation in social commerce. In addition, the authors identified that more expensive products and products classified as computers and electronics seem to use more intensively ratings, recommendations and comments online provided by other people. This fact supports the research literature that (positive or negative) online recommendations influence the consumers purchase behavior, reducing uncertainties about the products and increasing credibility and trust.

The purpose of this study is to operationalise and measure the effects of negative customer engagement (CE) in conjunction with positive CE. Both valences are explored through affective, cognitive and behaviour dimensions, and, in relation to the antecedent of involvement and outcome of word-of-mouth (WOM). It also explores the moderating influence of service context by examining engagement within a social service versus a social networking site (SNS). Engagement with the dual focal objects of a service brand and a service community are also examined.

Structural equation modelling is used to analyse 625 survey responses.

Involvement is a strong driver of positive CE, and positive CE has a strong effect on WOM. These findings are consistent across the “brand” and “community” object, suggesting positive CE is mutually reinforced by different objects in a relationship. Positive CE is also found to operate consistently across the service types. Involvement is a moderately negative driver of negative CE, and negative CE is a positive driver of WOM. These relationships operate differently across the objects and service types. Involvement has a stronger inverse effect on negative CE for the social service, diverging from assumptions that negative CE is reflective of highly involved customers. Interestingly, negative CE has a stronger effect on WOM in the social service, highlighting the active and vocal nature of customers within this service context.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to quantitatively measure positive and negative valences of engagement concurrently, and examine the moderating effect of dual objects across contrasting service types.

A variety of collaborative technologies have been developed to support design communication among members of design teams, and understanding the affordances of these technologies is critical to effective design collaboration. This research explores the potential of social networking as a collective medium that encourages design communication among student designers at the conceptual stage of design in a studio course.

For one semester, the student participants used different social networking services to communicate with their team members, and the authors analysed how they collaborated when solving a given problem using the collaborative tools.

The results show that various social networking platforms support students' communication of design and exploration of problems differently by affecting their clarification of ideas and information sharing. Collective discussion and online support are useful for framing problems and ideation in collaborative design.

This research proposes that social networking services appropriate to the activities needed to be chosen and provided to enable design communication to promote students' active learning through team collaboration.

To evaluate some of the current discussions about the possible impacts of social networks on the development of gastronomy in the Republic of Serbia. There could be either positive and/or negative impacts and this viewpoint provides some reflection on what the future might hold for some if not many tourism destinations in Serbia and the region when the tourism industry restarts after the pandemic of Covid-19 virus.

The research was conducted in December 2021, on a total of 244 respondents in three cities in Serbia. SPSS software was used, version 26.00, and the obtained data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. Then, to determine the structure of the questionnaire and the percentage of variance, an exploratory factor analysis was performed together with a higher order factor analysis, in order to obtain the desired number of factors. Subsequently, the authors used multiple regression analysis to confirm the significance of the predictors. The goal of the research was to determine whether, and to what extent, social networks can predict the choice of restaurants and gastronomic offers in Serbia. Serbian gastronomy has a great influence on the development of tourism, so this research has a wide scientific and practical contribution.

This paper provides a context and viewpoint on the possible implications of impacts of social networks on the development of gastronomy in the Republic of Serbia in the future. It has been proven that social networks can have an impact on the development of gastronomy and tourism itself.

To examine the impact of social networks on the development of gastronomy, the authors conducted a survey online due to the current Covid-19 pandemic. The limitation of this research was precisely that the authors did not have the opportunity to conduct the research live due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is recommended that such surveys be conducted live in direct contact with respondents in the future in order to obtain a larger sample with fully completed questionnaires.

The importance of social networks is increasingly a topic of study of world research, especially when it comes to gastronomy, which is becoming increasingly important as an activity in the tourism industry. The results indicate that the greatest importance in predicting the choice of restaurants and gastronomic offers has social networks and marketing. The importance of the work is reflected in the recognition of the importance of social networks, in order to better place Serbian gastronomy.

This paper offers a synthesis of views that fosters an understanding of the possibility of impacts of social networks on the development of gastronomy in the Republic of Serbia before and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The viewpoint proffered in this paper provides scope for a rapid evaluation of the current status of gastronomy tourism in Serbia which can help practitioners and researchers in the faster and better development of gastronomy and tourism.

The current pandemic and ongoing climate risks highlight the limited capacity of various systems, including health and social ones, to respond to population-scale and long-term threats. Practices to reduce the impacts on the health and well-being of populations must evolve from a reactive mode to preventive, proactive and concerted actions beginning at individual and community levels. Experiences and lessons learned from the pandemic will help to better prevent and reduce the psychosocial impacts of floods, or other hydroclimatic risks, in a climate change context.

The present paper first describes the complexity and the challenges associated with climate change and systemic risks. It also presents some systemic frameworks of mental health determinants, and provides an overview of the different types of psychosocial impacts of disasters. Through various Quebec case studies and using lessons learned from past and recent flood-related events, recommendations are made on how to better integrate individual and community factors in disaster response.

Results highlight the fact that people who have been affected by the events are significantly more likely to have mental health problems than those not exposed to flooding. They further demonstrate the adverse and long-term effects of floods on psychological health, notably stemming from indirect stressors at the community and institutional levels. Different strategies are proposed from individual-centered to systemic approaches, in putting forward the advantages from intersectoral and multirisk researches and interventions.

The establishment of an intersectoral flood network, namely the InterSectoral Flood Network of Québec (RIISQ), is presented as an interesting avenue to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and a systemic view of flood risks. Intersectoral work is proving to be a major issue in the management of systemic risks, and should concern communities, health and mental health professionals, and the various levels of governance. As climate change is called upon to lead to more and more systemic risks, close collaboration between all the areas concerned with the management of the factors of vulnerability and exposure of populations will be necessary to respond effectively to damages and impacts (direct and indirect) linked to new meteorological and compound hazards. This means as well to better integrate the communication managers into the risk management team.

Internet + and Electronic Business in China is a comprehensive resource that provides insight and analysis into E-commerce in China and how it has revolutionized and continues to revolutionize business and society. Split into four distinct sections, the book first lays out the theoretical foundations and fundamental concepts of E-Business before moving on to look at internet+ innovation models and their applications in different industries such as agriculture, finance and commerce. The book then provides a comprehensive analysis of E-business platforms and their applications in China before finishing with four comprehensive case studies of major E-business projects, providing readers with successful examples of implementing E-Business entrepreneurship projects.

Internet + and Electronic Business in China is a comprehensive resource that provides insights and analysis into how E-commerce has revolutionized and continues to revolutionize business and society in China.

Social relationships play an important role in organizational entrepreneurship. They are crucial to entrepreneurs’ decisions because, despite the bleeding-edge technological advancements observed nowadays, entrepreneurs as human beings will always strive to be social. During the COVID-19 pandemic many companies moved activities into the virtual world and as a result offline Social relationships became rarer, but as it turns out, even more valuable, likewise, the inter-organizational cooperation enabling many companies to survive.

This chapter aims to develop knowledge about entrepreneurs’ SR and their links with inter-organizational cooperation. The results of an integrative systematic literature review show that the concept of Social relationships, although often investigated, lacks a clear definition, conceptualization, and operationalization. This chapter revealed a great diversity of definitions for Social relationships, including different scopes of meaning and levels of analysis. The authors identify 10 building blocks and nine sources of entrepreneurs’ Social relationships. The authors offer an original typology of Social relationships using 12 criteria. Interestingly, with regard to building blocks, besides those frequently considered such as trust, reciprocity and commitment, the authors also point to others more rarely and narrowly discussed, such as gratitude, satisfaction and affection. Similarly, the authors discuss the varied scope of sources, including workplace, family/friendship, past relationships, and ethnic or religious bonds. The findings of this study point to a variety of links between Social relationships and inter-organizational cooperation, including their positive and negative influences on one another. These links appear to be extremely dynamic, bi-directional and highly complex.