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The purpose of this conceptual paper is to present the existing research on already effective programmatic efforts designed to increase diversity in STEM fields and to subsequently encourage researchers and practitioners to more intentionally build upon and design effective interventions around this issue.

Previous research findings accredit this success to various forms of support, such as mentors, study groups, student programs and student organizations (Hurtado et al., 2012; Maton et al., 2000; May and Chubin, 2003).

Higher education professionals have experienced a rise in concern regarding the alarming disparities of minority students pursuing STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors and careers. Because of this, researchers are interested in exploring and addressing some of the reasons.

Through the discussion of ideas for action and the proposing of a theoretical foundation from the field of student development, the authors offer recommendations for future research and strategies to further improve recruitment, retention and performance for minority students in STEM fields.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct contribution of social identity and perceived social norm (PSN) to the intention of participating in collective India mission; more importantly, it also aims to verify the mediating role of PSN in the relationship between social identity and intention to participate in the programme of clean India mission.

The researcher has followed a correlational design, and the study has been carried out on a sample of 684 youths in the age range of 15‒24 years. The data were collected from respondents spread over five communes of Pondicherry, which is a union territory in the southern part of India. Sense of community (SOC) has been used as a measure of social identity. PSN has been considered as the mediator, and the participation intention (PI) in clean India mission has been taken as the outcome variable. Mediation analysis has been carried out with the help of AMOS package.

The findings indicate that both social identity and PSN exhibit significant positive contribution towards intention to participate in clean India mission activity. In addition, there is a partial mediation of perceived social participation norm in the relationship between SOC and PI.

Social psychological research can contribute significantly to the collectivistic approach, as is observed from the present study. However, some other important variables such as collective efficacy and group emotion can also be included as intervening variables for this social collectivistic action.

This is a first type of study upon pro-environmental action through collective action in the Indian context. Moreover, it has wider relevance in policy formulation and curriculum design since Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (clean India mission) is an initiative by the Government of India.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model of how technology‐enabled virtual experiences contribute to community members' online trust and engagement through inducing their community identification. It also seeks to examine two types of social influence in the virtual community: within‐community normative pressure and normative pressure from outside the community.

The authors employed the structural equation modelling approach to estimate a conceptual model using survey data from participants in the World of Warcraft online game community.

The results mainly supported the hypotheses. It was shown that three types of experience could influence community members' engaging behaviour through an increase in community identification and community trust. More importantly it was found that normative pressure from outside the community exhibits a significant and inverted U‐shaped relationship with online community engagement, while within‐community normative pressure had a positive relationship with community engagement. No evidence was found to support the inverted U‐shaped relationship between within‐community normative pressure and community members' engagement.

From perspectives of virtual experience, social identity theory, social trust, and susceptibility to normative influence, the current study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the process through which community members are willing to share what they know, participate in collective actions, and spend their time with strangers in a virtual space.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of user-motivation as well as demographics in developing an effective segmentation strategy of Facebook users. Additionally, the paper seeks to add validity to the scale developed by Park et al. (2009) by using a full spectrum of Facebook users.

A self-administered survey was employed to explore access motivations, frequency and session duration of Facebook users. The survey was e-mailed to 2,129 potential respondents with 530 valid responses received. Data were initially analysed by hierarchical cluster analysis to develop the cluster solution. Cluster means were then used as cluster centres for a K-means cluster analysis for all cases. The relationship between the clusters and Facebook activity variables was investigated through ANOVA while independent samples t-tests were employed to analyse the relationship between motivations and demographics. Lastly χ2-tests were used to explore the relationship between Facebook user segments and demographics.

The results indicate four distinct types of Facebook users: Devotee, Agnostic, Socializer and Finder. Devotees were highly positive about Facebook use while Agnostics were least motivated to use Facebook. Socializers were motivated to use Facebook for socializing and entertainment while Finders were motivated to use Facebook for information seeking. These four distinct groups are validated by examining their individual behaviour regarding frequency of access to Facebook and the average amount of time spent on Facebook per visit. Demographic variables such as gender and age were found to be significantly related to Facebook user-motivation and segmentation.

For marketers who communicate with market segments via social media, the findings of this study are highly significant. To date, marketers have found it difficult to fully exploit the benefits of Facebook. The authors argue this is due to a tendency to consider Facebook users as a single segment rather than understanding the nuances of different user segments. This research provides marketers with a motivation and demographic segmentation strategy for Facebook users.

Despite the popularity of Facebook as a communication channel, from a marketing perspective little is known regarding Facebook user segments. This research addresses this gap by undertaking a segmentation study of Facebook users. A segmentation typology is developed in which both Facebook user motivations as well as demographic variables are found to be useful in describing user segments. Additionally, the study makes important theoretical contributions by extending uses and gratifications theory to the Facebook context and adding validity to the scale developed by Park et al. (2009) for use with the full spectrum of Facebook users.

The proliferation and advance of web‐based technologies create expanded opportunities for retailers to gain a better understanding of their customers. However, the success of these web‐based discussion boards depends solely on whether customers are willing to share their knowledge and experience with other customers in these discussion boards. Thus, this study aims at identifying the factors that drive knowledge sharing among customers in web‐based discussion boards.

An exploratory study with 104 respondents was conducted to identify and categorize the key factors of customer knowledge sharing in web‐based discussion boards.

The results indicate that the enjoyment of helping others is the most frequently cited reason for customer knowledge sharing in web‐based discussion boards. On the other hand, the lack of knowledge self‐efficacy is the mostly cited reason explaining why customers do not want to share knowledge with others.

The exploratory analysis suggests that the underlying reasons that motivate and inhibit customers to share are very different. There is a need to integrate multiple theoretical perspectives from across the social and technical domains if this phenomenon is to be better understood.

Building upon the findings of this study, some generic guidelines for retailers and web designers for promoting customer sharing in web‐based discussion boards are outlined.

This research is one of the first studies to use the socio‐technical perspective to investigate customer knowledge sharing phenomena in web‐based discussion boards.

The aim of this paper is to study the effects of pro‐diversity practices on perceived insider status, and explore the moderating role of leader‐member exchange in this relationship. The main and interactive effects on PIS are studied for cultural minority and majority groups.

Research hypotheses are tested with a questionnaire administered to 210 employees working in three Canadian organizations engaged in diversity management.

Results indicate that the main and interactive effects of organizational fairness and leader‐member exchange on perceived insider status are significant. The interactive effect on perceived insider status is higher for cultural minorities than for other employees.

This study shows the importance of perceived insider status in the field of diversity, identifies organizational fairness and leader‐member exchange as two significant organizational antecedents to perceived insider status, and describes the mechanisms linking these antecedents to perceived insider status (the interaction effects).

The main contribution of the research resides in the identification of perceived insider status as a variable that deserves more attention in the field of diversity. The article invites future research to explore the behavioral consequences of perceived insider status in diverse teams, and to pursue the understanding of mechanisms leading to feelings of inclusion.