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Facilitating members' continual participation in a community is crucial for ensuring the community's long-term survival. However, knowledge regarding whether member similarity is related to member participation and the mechanism underlying this relationship is limited. Drawing on similarity–attraction, social exchange and social identity theories, this study explored the influences of different facets of similarity (i.e. value, personality and goal similarity) on group norm conformity, group identity and social participation.

Data were collected from 444 Taiwanese members of social networking sites (SNSs), and structural equation modeling was employed to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The results revealed that value similarity directly affected group norm conformity but did not directly affect group identity; personality similarity influenced group identity but not group norm conformity. Goal similarity had positive influences on group norm conformity and group identity. Moreover, group norm conformity had direct and positive influences on group identity and social participation; group identity also had a positive influence on social participation.

On the basis of the aforementioned findings, this study contributes to the understanding of factors facilitating SNS members' participation from the perspective of similarity. These findings can serve as a reference for SNS administrators to facilitate social participation by emphasizing member similarity.

Demand for long-term care services increases with population aging. This study aims to develop a conceptual model of elderly customers’ health-care experiences to explore the antecedents, mechanisms and outcomes of social participation in long-term care service organizations.

Using a two-phase data collection approach, this study collects data from 238 elderly customers in a long-term care service organization. The final data are analyzed through structural equation modeling.

The results show that care management efforts (i.e. customer education, perceived organization support, role modeling, perceived other customer support and diversity of activity) influence elderly customers’ psychological states (i.e. self-efficacy and sense of community), leading to increased social participation. In addition, high levels of social participation evoke positive service satisfaction and quality of life, both of which alleviate switching intention.

This study is one of the first conclusive service studies focused on the role of elderly customers’ social participation in their long-term care experience. The findings contribute to health-care service marketing and transformative service research, and expand understanding of elderly customers’ health-care experience, especially in long-term care service settings.

The purpose of this study is to examine: direct effects of appearance management and fashion involvement on social participation; direct effects of social participation, appearance management, and fashion involvement on self‐esteem; and indirect effects of appearance management and fashion involvement on self‐esteem through social participation.

A total of 389 females aged 55 and over completed a mail survey measuring appearance management, fashion involvement, social participation, and self‐esteem. Principal component factor analysis was conducted to reduce multi‐items measuring the variables. Path analysis was employed to test direct and indirect effects among the variables.

The results of path analysis showed that social participation and appearance management had direct effects on self‐esteem, whereas fashion involvement had no direct effect on self‐esteem. However, both appearance management and fashion involvement had positive indirect effects on self‐esteem via social participation.

To maintain self‐esteem in old age, individuals should be encouraged to participate in social activities and appearance management activities. The fashion and personal care industry should have an awareness of older female consumers' needs and develop and provide age‐related products and services.

This paper provides important contributions to gerontology, retailing, marketing, and consumer behavior‐related research. Although older adults (55+) are an important market segment, especially for the fashion and personal care industry, little research has included this group of consumers. This study showed that older adult females' self‐esteem was influenced by social participation, appearance management, and fashion involvement. The finding of this study helps marketers developing products targeting seniors.

The participation of society is a valuable aspect of the governability of cities, for it strengthens the citizens’ collaborative component. Such participation, which is seen as social, is considered an essential element for the design of a smart city. This study aims to identify the factors that contribute to social participation in the definition of budgetary instruments’ planning.

Concerning the methodological instruments, this study is characterised by a quantitative and descriptive approach and uses a multivariate data analysis with a sample of 235 respondents.

The study’s findings identified a framework that portrays elements that collaborate with the social participation in the definition of the public administration’s budgetary instruments, which are considered as elements that are able to develop the role of the popular participation and are characterised by the definition of a smart city by enabling more assertiveness in society’s needs.

Identification of a framework that brings out elements that are able to develop the popular participation in the definition of budgetary instruments. Then, one scale of elements that contribute to social participation in the definition of the public administration’s budgetary instruments theoretically represented and statistically validated, thus contributing to the continuity of studies on social participation.

Through studies on social participation in budgetary planning, it is possible to guarantee a better allocation of public resources through intelligent governability.

The research can bring theoretical elements about social participation in the definition of budget instruments for a statistical convergence through the perception of the sample.

The purpose of this paper is to construct and validate customer social participation (CSP) scale in the context of brand communities on social media.

In this study, various tests for reliability and validity have been performed to confirm scale structure. Data were collected using survey method from the student and non-student sample.

The results confirm a multi-dimensional scale with nine items for measuring customer participation in social media brand communities.

The results of this study present several implications for online brand communities managers and are likely to support future research in the context of social media brand communities.

This paper is the first to develop a multi-dimensional scale of customer participation in social media brand communities. This is a new addition to existing literature, as the majority of empirical studies in this field are from participation other than CSP, and contexts different from social media brand communities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the use of social media by citizens has impacted the traditional conceptualization and operationalization of political participation in the society.

This study is based on Teorell et al.’s (2007) classification of political participation which is modified to suit the current context of social media. The authors classified 15,460 tweets along three parameters suggested in the framework with help of supervised text classification algorithms.

The analysis reveals that Activism is the most prominent form of political participation undertaken by people on Twitter. Other activities that were undertaken include Formal Political participation and Consumer participation. The analysis also reveals that identity of participant does not play a classifying role as expected from the theoretical framework. It was found that the social media as a platform facilitates new forms of participation which are not feasible offline.

The current work considers only the microblogging platform of Twitter as the data source. For a more comprehensive insight, analysis of other social media platforms is also required.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few analyses where such a large database covering multiple social media events has been created and analysed using supervised text classification algorithms. A large proportion of previous studies on social media have been based on case study and have limited analysis to only a particular event on social media. Although there exist a few works that have studied a vast and varied collection of social media data (Gaby and Caren, 2012; Shirazi, 2013; Rane and Salem, 2012), such efforts are few in number. This study aims to add to that stream of work where a wider and more generalized set of social media data is studied.

Building upon uses and gratifications (UG) theory and social exchange theory, the current study establishes a theoretical model to examine the underlying relationship between customer motivations, active participation and electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) and purchase intentions on WeChat.

The data were gathered in a web-based survey of 301 WeChat users in mainland China. To empirically verify the proposed hypotheses, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were employed using online data.

Path analysis outcomes demonstrate that functional, hedonic and social motivations positively affect WeChat users' active participation. In addition, active participation significantly influences e-WOM intention while showing no correlation with purchase intention.

Theoretically, this article can enrich the extant system of relevant theories and offer a fresh perspective for further research on the generation of consumers' e-WOM intention and purchase intention in the WeChat context. Practically, the research outcomes provide insight for companies on how to motivate customers to participate in online activities, which subsequently improve WeChat users' willingness in conducting e-WOM communication and making purchase decisions.

Although mobile social media could serve as an influential marketing vehicle for individuals' engagement in social and commercial activities in today's mobile-matured environment, the substantial impact of active engagement on the relationship between customer motivation and purchase intention remains insufficiently explored. The outcomes not only contribute to the current body of knowledge, but also offer several managerial guidance for companies that pay attention to mobile social media marketing in a contemporary mobile media-saturated society.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the way change implemented effects organizational learning. More specifically, we study the relationships between the use of social accounts, participation and organizational learning in the context of strategic change. The use of social accounts and participation are often promoted during change, but up to this point, their influences on organizational learning have not been studied.

A multi‐change and multi‐organization study, using a critical incident technique (i.e. informants provide information from a specific change experience), provides the data for testing a set of theory driven hypotheses that link aspects of the change process to learning outcomes.

Findings show that social accounting and participation are positively associated with organizational learning, but that the influence of social accounting is negatively moderated by participation. Social accounts framed as threats to system survival were unrelated to organizational learning.

In order to maximize learning during change organizations should attempt to involve members with different values and expertise throughout the process. The use of formalized communication programs would add little to organizational learning if participative change processes are applied. Although threat appeals could be useful for creating readiness for change, their impact on organizational learning seem to be marginal.

For knowledge intensive and learning dependent organizations, the study provides some guidance to change management.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale to measure customer social participation in brand communities, specifically e-travel companies’ communities.

A qualitative research has been undertaken to generate a pool of items. Based on Churchill’s (1979) scale development process, numerous reliability and validity tests have been conducted to confirm the scale structure. Data were collected through online and field surveys from the students and hotel guests who have either subscribed, liked or joined any e-travel service companies’ community brand page using any social networking site or have ever posted or considered reviews and ratings of any e-travel service companies via their official site or via a mobile app while planning their travel.

The findings depict nine items on a three-dimensional scale for measuring customer participation in travel brand communities created on social networking sites.

The findings provide important implications for hotel and travel managers and are likely to encourage future studies in the field of social media and travel brand communities.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing refinement to the distinct operationalization and conceptualization of customer online participation, specifically in social media-based travel brand communities. This paper is the first to develop a multidimensional scale of customer social participation in e-travel companies’ communities. This is a new addition to existing literature, as the majority of empirical studies in this field are from participation other than customer social participation and contexts different from e-travel companies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how various gratifications obtained in the social media context affect customer participation, and its sequential effect on brand trust, brand commitment and word of mouth (WOM) in social media brand communities.

The data were collected from 352 respondents who used social media using a survey method. The data were assessed using AMOS with structural equation modeling.

The findings depicted that among all gratifications obtained in the social media context, information seeking, incentive and brand likeability strongly affect customer participation, which sequentially affect brand trust, commitment and WOM in social media brand communities. In the context of social media brand communities, brand trust partially mediates the relationship between customer participation and its two outcome variables (brand commitment and WOM).

The present paper contributes that theory of uses and gratifications has particular significance and supposed to be provided further importance in the field of social media. It also presents a vivid and rich understanding of why customers use social media and participate in social media brand communities.