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This article aims to explore the factors influencing patients' distrust toward doctors in online health community.

This study leveraged the distrust construct model and socio-technical systems theory to establish a research model. The authors used the survey method to validate the research model by developing and distributing questionnaires to online health community users. 518 valid responses were collected.

The data analysis results showed that patients' distrusting beliefs were significantly related to their distrust toward doctors in online health communities. Meanwhile, social factors included perceived egoism and lack of expertise; whereas technical factors included no structural assurance, and lack of third-party recognition.

This study not only provides a solid and comprehensive theoretical understanding of patient distrust toward doctors in online health communities but also could serve as the basis to relieve the distrust between patients and doctors in online health communities, or even in the offline environment.

This paper was written to show that what has come to be called the social model of disability appeared as the primary analytical framework in research published by sociologists in the 1960s and 1970s. Although the name and constructs of the model have changed over the years, its roots are clearly present in the earlier sociological literature. The author looked for evidence of these roots.

The paper’s findings are based on a literature review and synthesis. For illustrative purposes, four publications were selected as case examples.

All of the components of the social model – locus of the problem in society, activism as a solution, and consumer control – appeared in the earlier literature. In addition, these studies conducted in the 1970s and earlier distinguished between the individual and social model, although they used different terminology.

Researchers need to go beyond simple electronic literature searches in order to find books and articles written prior to 1980. Otherwise, they may be “reinventing the wheel.”

Most recent literature in disability studies acknowledges a debt to the social model theorists of the 1990s. This paper suggests that their debt extends back much further and that the social model is part of a long tradition of sociological thinking.

In 1971 Land argued that a social indicator should be a component, that is a parameter or a variable, in a sociological model of a social system or some segment of a social system. This was the first strong suggestion that social indicators needed to be more than some sort of statistical series. Lineberry et al, writing on the use of indicators by municipalities, warned that the first conceptual limitation which should be identified when promoting social indicator use must be the poor record of indicators in detecting causal relationships among various factors contributing to a specific social problem. They attribute this inability to the general lack of social theory. Bunge points out that the very definition of a social indicator of some life quality contains a causal notion relating that indicator to well‐being. This would be acceptable if there were a science of well‐being or at least some reasonable model. He goes on “since no such thing has been constructed so far, we are forced to use our treacherous common‐sense to an extent that is uncommon in science. Which is a polite way of saying that, so far, the study of the quality of life has not been thoroughly scientific.”

The purpose of this paper is to report on a value-based empirical investigation of the adoption of Twitter social networking application. The unprecedented popularity of social networking applications in a short time period warrants exploring theory-based reasons of their success.

A cross-sectional survey-based study to elicit user views on Twitter was conducted with participants recruited through the web site of a North-American university.

All facets of perceived value considered in the study (utilitarian, hedonic and social) had a significant and relatively strong influence on consumer intent to use Twitter. Quite surprisingly for a social networking application, though, the social value facet had comparatively the weakest contribution in the use equation.

User value perception might have been influenced by the features of the actual social networking application under scrutiny (i.e. Twitter in this case).

To maximize the chances of success of new social networking applications, developers and marketers of these media should focus on the hedonic and utilitarian sides of their perceived value.

Additional efforts are necessary to better understand the reasons and factors leading to a comparatively lower social value perception of a social networking application, compared to its hedonic and utilitarian values.

Overall, the study opens the door for investigating user perceptions on popular social networking applications in an effort to understand the unparalleled success of these services in a short time period.

Nowadays, star athletes are global brand personalities. The increased popularity of the professional sport has contributed to elevating exceptional athletes to international star status. This empirical study aims to assess the impact of athlete performance and brand social value on product involvement with the mediation effect of celebrity athlete endorsement.

A quantitative survey was conducted with 399 Chinese participants. PLS-SEM is adopted to examine the associated paths and the mediating effect of celebrity endorsement.

The results demonstrate the significant impact of athlete performance and brand social value on product involvement. Celebrity endorsement partially mediates the effects of athlete performance and brand social value on product involvement.

This study extends understanding of celebrity athlete endorsement and provides insight into the strategic implications for Chinese social media-based marketing initiatives in the context of the recent Olympic Game in Tokyo 2021.

The purpose of this paper is to develop online community attributes based on Preece's sociability and usability framework to assess how online community attributes hosted by retailers or national brand companies may generate positive outcomes for consumers. Also, this study seeks to examine the effects of attribute dimensions on consumer benefits to verify its predictability.

An online survey was administered in South Korea. A questionnaire was constructed which contained 26 items measuring online community attributes. These items were developed by the researchers to measure seven dimensions defining Preece's sociability and usability conceptual framework. The items were based on examples of determinants and measures of successful online communities. The Korean sample consisted of 135 male and 216 female adults in a large metropolitan area in South Korea.

Results partially supported Preece's sociability and usability framework. Results show three online community attribute dimensions purpose, people, and policy to be represented by a higher order factor sociability and two attribute dimensions dialogue and social interaction and navigation represented by usability. The structural model testing the relationship between sociability and social benefits and usability and functional benefits was confirmed and proved predictive validity for the online community attribute dimensions and the sociability/usability framework. On the other hand, no evidence of sociability influencing perceptions of functional benefits and usability influencing perceptions of social benefits could be found. Nonetheless, these results provide evidence that Preece's online community attribute framework measures “success” from a consumer benefits standpoint.

This study provides retailers and companies who host online communities with a practical tool with which they can assess their online communities as well as their online strategy.

There is an increasing interest in the area of knowledge management (KM) within organisations and academia. Because of the emergent nature of the field there is a lack of classification of suitable knowledge management models to use in conducting further research, literature evaluation and organisational applications. This paper discusses the definitions and classifications of knowledge management, representing a wide spectrum of views from mechanistic to more socially orientated. An evaluative framework is established from which three knowledge management models can be critically discussed. Three KM model classifications are critiqued, namely knowledge category models, intellectual capital models and socially constructed models. Finally a modified KM model is tentatively suggested to act as a useful guide for further research and organisational application. This model takes a holistic approach to scientific and socially constructed knowledge, assuming the need for both emancipatory and business benefits from KM. The model represents KM as a highly recursive process, rather than sequential.

We apply a contemporary approach to study the effect of organizational complexity on post-merger integration. A computational, virtual experiment was carried out to determine how the level of structural complexity, a characteristic of all formal organizations, impacts the dynamics of organization performance during the post-merger integration period. We found that performance during this period is affected by the pre-existing complexities of the two merging organizations; surprisingly, the organizations’ size was found to be only a marginally relevant factor, instead, the number of work groups had a greater consequence. Moreover, we found that the homogeneity tendencies of the actors may be the source of an upper constraint on the merged organization's performance. Consistent to these findings, we develop hypotheses for later empirical study. Broadly, this chapter puts forth computational modeling as a vital methodology for advancing mergers and acquisitions research; in addition, this chapter uncovers previously unpronounced, phenomenological discoveries that were found using this promising approach. Throughout this chapter, we endeavor to advance the broad use of computational modeling into the fore of leading-edge post-merger integration and related research and practice.

Research on how social bonding between boundary spanners influences relationship outcomes in business-to-business (B2B) settings is sparse and controversial. This longitudinal study aims to close this gap and assess the impact of social bonding on the share of wallet and actual cross-buying behaviour.

B2B relationships between a manufacturer of light commercial vehicles and its customers were investigated. A random sample of fleet managers answered two telephone surveys.

Social bonding was found to affect both investigated relationship outcomes, share of wallet and cross-buying, through the generation of trust over and above the customer’s perceptions of value.

Only one product category was investigated in this study, and further research should explore boundary conditions for the relevance of social bonding in B2B.

Social bonding represents one lever (next to value perceptions) for building a competitive advantage in a B2B context. Relationship marketing activities that are intended to strengthen the development of social bonds between customers and account managers should be encouraged.

The authors provide clear evidence regarding the disputed impact of social bonding between boundary spanners on relationship outcomes in B2B relationships by testing its impact on real purchase behaviour and not only purchase intentions, as is the case in most published studies to date.