Risk Reduction Regarding Stigmatized and Marginalized Communities

While there are several perspectives on marginalization, there are multiple marginalized individuals, social groups, and communities globally. This process of marginalization produces individuals, groups and communities which are refused complete privileges, rights, and power within the broader political and social framework. Social, cultural, biological, and economic factors can thus be used as yardsticks to marginalize individuals and communities. Marginalization can be based on gender, race and ethnicity, social class, and sexuality, among others. Clearly, marginalized communities face poorer health outcomes and these outcomes are sometimes linked to risky behaviors more prevalent in such demographics. Marginalization is associated with reduced health outcomes and can limit the agency of marginalized communities. However, even within sites of marginalization, affected communities make significant attempts to mitigate health risks and retain agency. For example, marginalized men who have sex with men in China face severe discrimination which affects their health outcomes. Even within such contexts, these men still encourage peers to receive sexually transmitted infection testing. I explore how marginalized communities reduce health risks likely produced by marginalization and retain agency through doing so. I explore sexually transmitted infection testing and related issues in Chinese men who have sex with men, the United States legal cannabis industry, and medication for those with opioid use disorder. In doing so, I will provide understanding on risk reduction of health behaviors in marginalized communities, building a knowledge base to aid overall health outcomes. In the first chapter, I detailed a range of cannabis-centric studies. First, I detailed cannabis usage preferences among United States cannabis users. I put forth that frequent cannabis use may increase risk of health harms and highlighted the need to minimize problematic use. I also explored sociodemographic indicators and their association with likelihood for cannabis-related emergency department admissions in New York City. Results suggested that cannabis use may further burden marginalized groups. I investigated large cannabis firms’ motivations for participating in the cannabis space. I put forth that policymakers be aware that non-profits and for-profits both seek to expand cannabis access and consider the groups as a unified whole. In the second chapter I explored concerns regarding sexually transmitted infection testing in the Chinese men who have sex with men environment. I first detailed factors associated with sexually transmitted infection testing. Results detailed the role of altruism in a sexually transmitted infection testing intervention. Expressions of altruism may promote contributions toward public health initiatives in marginalized communities. In the same vein, I detailed the association between men who have sex with men community-centric behaviors and contributions toward others’ sexually transmitted infection testing. I proposed that community-oriented behaviors may be related with a reduction in testing service costs. Then, I evaluated whether men who have sex with men selected a sexually transmitted infection test appropriate for their sexual behavior. I suggested that disclosing sexual identity to treatment providers can improve men who have sex with men sexually transmitted infection prevalence estimates. I also detailed the correlates of antisocial behavior on the world\u27s largest gay dating app among Chinese men who have sex with men. I suggested that age, condom use, and number of social ties may be associated with antisocial behavior, with implications for the design of online sexual health interventions. Finally, I assessed if same-sex sexual behavior disclosure of Chinese men who have sex with men was related to number of HIV self-testing kits requested, and number of test results successfully uploaded by alters in a network-based HIV self-testing intervention. Findings had implications for the development of network-based interventions for key populations. In the final chapter I detailed that various forms of social network support may influence medication for opioid use disorder treatment outcomes. Failure to implement successful social network support programs within medication for opioid use disorder treatment settings may represent an important missed opportunity to engage patients at risk of treatment failure. While the topics here are broad, they all share similar thematic arcs. Low sexually transmitted infection testing uptake, opioid use disorder and cannabis use are issues often disproportionately faced by marginalized communities. Establishing marginalization as the causal factor behind these concerns is often complex, but there is significant work indicating that problematic patterns of drug use and poor sexual health outcomes are engendered by marginalization. Marginalization is associated with conditions inimical to health and well-being, creating a host of health risks. Such marginalization limits the agency of affected communities. However, even within these sites of marginalization, men who have sex with men seek testing and opioid use disorder patients seek medication, mitigating health risks borne from marginalization. I advance that marginalized communities are not completely helpless considering reduced health outcomes, indicating how agency is reclaimed. Finally, I indicated other cases where fostering agency in marginalized communities needs to be carefully considered

Does Give-and-Take Really Matter? Dynamics of Social Interactions in Social Network

Despite the increasing attention paid to the social interaction in online social networks, it is still not clear how social media users interact with each other, consume different content, and expand their social network. This study conceptualizes two types of user engagement (internal and external) and empirically examines the dynamics between user’s engagement, friends’ engagement, and network size. Using detailed social media activity data collected from over 20,000 Facebook users for three years, we find that when people externally engage in their friends’ social space rather than one’s own space, they can make more friends and also receive friends’ engagement in one’s own social space. However, when people receive more friends’ engagement in their social space and make more friends, they are likely to reduce their engagement in social media (both externally as well as internally). Our findings can provide useful insights for the literature on social ties, user-generated content, and online peer influence

The effect of friends’ churn on consumer behavior in mobile networks

We study how consumers decide which tariff plan to choose and whether to churn when their friends churn in the mobile industry. We develop a theoretical model showing conditions under which users remain with their carrier and conditions under which they churn when their friends do. We then use a large and rich anonymized longitudinal panel of call detailed records to characterize the consumers’ path to death with unprecedented level of detail. We explore the structure of the network inferred from these data to derive instruments for friends’ churn, which is typically endogenous in network settings. This allows us to econometrically identify the effect of peer influence in our setting. On average, we find that each additional friend that churns increases the monthly churn rate by 0.06 percent. The observed monthly churn rate across our dataset is 2.15 percent. We also find that firms introducing the pre-paid tariff plans that charge the same price to call users inside and outside the carrier help retain consumers that would otherwise churn. In our setting, without this tariff plan the monthly churn rate could have been as high as 8.09 percent. We perform a number of robustness checks, in particular to how we define friends in the social graph, and show that our results remain unchanged. Our paper shows that the traditional definition of customer lifetime value underestimates the value of consumers and, in particular, that of consumers with more friends due to the effect of contagious churn and, therefore, managers should actively take into account the structure of the social network when prioritizing whom to target during retention campaigns.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The Causal Impact of Incentive Structure and Message Design on Product Diffusion: Evidence from Two Randomized Field Experiments

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.May 2017. Major: Business Administration. Advisor: Ravi Bapna. 1 computer file (PDF); iv, 98 pages.59% of people consult friends for advice in making purchase decisions. Not surprisingly, concomitant with the exploding growth of digital social networks, firms recognize the importance of using referral programs towards driving new business. Such schemes encourage existing customers with an incentive-laden call-to-action to engage their social networks by informing them about products and ultimately influencing and stimulating friends’ purchase decisions. While referral marketing is a widely adopted practice, the underlying science behind understanding and optimizing its various dimensions is nascent. The optimal design of referral program can be determined by three key design choices: incentive design (for both sender and recipients), call-to-action for information sharing (to the sender) and message design (to the recipient). While previous research has examined the design of message sent to the recipients, no study has investigated how firms can optimally design the incentive to the sender and receiver and message to the sender in the form of a call-to-action to engage customers. In this dissertation, I examine whether and how a firm can enhance social contagion by varying incentives (first essay) as well as the framing of the call-to-action messages (second essay) shared by customers with their friends. In collaboration with two US-based companies, I conduct two randomized field experiments to identify the causal effect of three types of difference incentive schemes, as well as three different types of call for sharing, respectively. The first experiment involves manipulations of how the monetary reward is shared between the sender and the receiver of the referral: selfish reward (sender gets all), equal reward (50-50 split), and generous reward (receiver gets all). In the second experiment, I test the effect of three different calls for referral: a) the egoistic call for sharing action, where I highlight the reward to the sender, b) the equitable based call for sharing action, where I highlight that both sender and the receiver get the reward, and c) the altruistic call for sharing action, where I highlight the reward to the receiver. The results show that the generous pro-social referral reward schemes and altruistic framing dominate selfish schemes and egoistic framing in creating word-of-mouth. Theoretically, the results together provide concrete and causal support to the hitherto under-studied role of altruism in creating social contagion. The findings of the study provide insights to companies planning to run referral programs to promote WOM based adoption of the products

Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry

© 2017, American Marketing Association. Many businesses today have adopted tweeting as a new form of product marketing. However, whether and how tweeting affects product demand remains inconclusive. The authors explore this question using a randomized field experiment on Sina Weibo, the top tweeting website in China. The authors collaborate with a major global media company and examine how the viewing of its TV shows is affected by (1) the media company's tweets about its shows, and (2) recruited Weibo influentials' retweets of the company tweets. The authors find that both company tweets and influential retweets increase show viewing, but in different ways. Company tweets directly boost viewing, whereas influential retweets increase viewing if the show tweet is informative. Meanwhile, influential retweets are more effective than company tweets in bringing new Weibo followers to the company, which indirectly increases viewing. The authors discuss recommendations on how to manage tweeting as a marketing tool.National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71372045)National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71602033

Essays in Political Economy and Economic Sociology

This thesis consists of four self-contained papers within political economy and economic sociology. The first paper studies how the 2015 refugee wave impacted the vote share of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD) during the 2018 Swedish parliamentary elections. I find that while there is an overall positive effect of immigration on the SD votes, the magnitude of the effect differs considerably depending on pre-influx municipal characteristics. In the second paper, I study how releases of radioactive fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident affected environmentalist voting in subsequent elections in Sweden. The results show that in municipalities affected by fallout, green voting increased. The Chernobyl premium om the green vote remained for around one decade after the accident. Detailed-individual level survey data suggests that opposition to nuclear power increased in affected areas after the accident. The third paper examines how implementing blended learning at university affects grade outcomes when compared to online and campus teaching. The results show that female students with affluent parents were the relative winners of blended learning, both compared to other groups who were subject to blended learning, but also compared to their own performance when all teaching is on campus. Survey data suggests that this group of students have broader social networks, which facilitates communication with peers and improves grades. In the fourth paper, I analyze how the academic performance of university students is affected by their own and their peers' socioeconomic status and beauty. The results suggest that a student's own socioeconomic status and beauty affect grades positively, and that these traits in peers also have a positive impact on grades. For the peer effects, I provide evidence for both a direct spillover channel, and for an indirect channel according to which peer beauty improves well-being among students

Formative Evaluation of Job Clubs Operated by Faith- and Community-Based Organizations: Findings From Site Visits and Options for Future Evaluation

Over the past several decades, job search support groups, commonly referred to as “job clubs,” have evolved into one of several important activities used by the public workforce system and faith- and community-based organizations to enhance worker readiness and employability, as well as to provide ongoing support to unemployed and underemployed individuals as they search for jobs. The U.S. Department of Labor\u27s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) contracted in September 2012 with Capital Research Corporation, Inc. and George Washington University to conduct an assessment of job clubs sponsored by faith-based and community-based organizations (FBOs/CBOs). The overall purpose of this evaluation effort was to systematically describe the key characteristics of job clubs being offered by a range of faith- and community- based organizations, document how they differ from and are similar to the job clubs operated by publicly-funded workforce agencies (such as at American Job Centers [AJCs]), and identify potential approaches that might be used for more rigorous formal evaluation of impacts and effectiveness. Findings from the telephone interviews with stakeholders and in-person interviews with facilitators during the site visits indicate that job clubs operated by FBOs, CBOs and public workforce agencies are alike in many ways, with all of them emphasizing the critical importance of: (1) networking during the job search; (2) offering ongoing peer support and sharing of similar experiences among participants; and (3) providing instruction and guidance on the basics of the job search process (e.g., elevator pitches, resume development, job interview practice). Noteworthy differences between the FBO/CBO job clubs and those operated by public workforce agencies are related to staffing patterns and available resources for program operations and services. While public workforce agency job clubs are led by paid professional staff, supported by the full complement of workshops, activities, and other services typically available through AJCs/One-Stop Centers, FBO/CBO job clubs, in most cases, operate with limited budgets or no funding whatsoever. Additionally, compared with public sector agencies, FBOs/CBOs typically collect little in the way of participant-level data, such as participant identifiers, demographic characteristics, service receipt, or outcomes. Finally, although this report suggests several approaches to future rigorous experimental/non-experimental and process/implementation evaluation of FBO/CBO-sponsored job clubs, there are likely to be formidable challenges to implementation of rigorous evaluation methods because these job clubs rarely collect identifying information on participants, such as Social Security numbers, and are generally opposed to random assignment for their programs