Exploring the Activeness of Professional Online Community Members

With the rapid development and advancement of virtual communities and collaboration, it raises both opportunities and challenges for the online community members. Professional online communities have formed and flourished rapidly with the proliferation of network access in the past two decades. This study aims to explore the activeness of professional online community members by proposing a framework that built upon the Self-Determination Theory. Extant studies on motivation of online community members activeness mostly focus on extrinsic motivation in terms of rewards. We investigate users’ behavior with their intrinsic motivation from the prospective of individuals’ immanent psychological needs. Specially, we investigate the consistency between community discussion topics and the user’s interests, and define it as attraction level. We believe that higher attraction level will lead to higher user activeness. Empirical data will be tested in the future

Passive, Active, or Co-Active? The Link Between Synchronous User Participation and Willingness to Pay for Premium Options

Social media-enabled business models have transformed the content industry. To increase users’ willingness to pay (WTP), many of today’s content providers have changed from mere content provision towards offering social content experiences. Recent research has confirmed that users’ participation activities, e.g. commenting on content, increase the WTP for social content services’ premium options. So far, social content has been available predominantly on-demand, only allowing asynchronous user participation. Recently, social live content services emerged, which facilitate synchronous user participation and enable so-called co-active behavior. With this study, we conceptualize co-active behavior as the interplay between users while co-experiencing content together, and empirically show that co-active behavior has a stronger effect on WTP for premium options than the classic forms of passive and active behavior. Our work provides theoretical contributions on the WTP for social content as well as implications for the management of social content services

'Keeping your body and mind active': an ethnographic study of aspirations for healthy ageing.

OBJECTIVE: To describe and explore perceptions, practices and motivations for active living in later life. DESIGN: Qualitative study with semistructured interviews and 'semistructured' participant observations of participant-selected activities, such as exercise classes, private or organised walks, shopping and gardening. PARTICIPANTS: 27 participants (65-80 years) from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer Norfolk study, purposefully selected by gender, age, occupational class, living status and residential location; 19 of the participants agreed to be accompanied for observed activities. SETTING: Participants' homes, neighbourhoods, places of leisure activities and workplaces in Norfolk, England. RESULTS: All participants regarded a positive attitude as important for healthy ageing; this included staying active, both physically and mentally through sedentary activities such as reading and crosswords. 'Getting out of the house', being busy, or following a variety of interests were regarded as both important motivators and descriptions of their 'activeness'. Purposeful activities formed an important part of this, for example, still being engaged in paid or voluntary work, having caring responsibilities, or smaller incidental activities such as helping neighbours or walking for transport. Many also reported adapting previous, often lifelong, activity preferences and habits to their ageing body, or replacing them altogether with lower impact activities such as walking. This included adapting to the physical limitations of partners and friends which dictated the intensity and frequency of shared activities. The social context of activities could thus form a barrier to active living, but could also encourage it through companionship, social responsibilities and social pressures. CONCLUSIONS: Promoting and maintaining physical activity among older people may require more attention to activeness as an attitude and way of life as well as to its social context, and initiatives encouraging broader activity habits rather than discrete activities.This work was supported by the UK Research Councils’ Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) Initiative in partnership with the Department of Health [grant number MR/K025147/1]; LLHW is led by the Medical Research Council. The work was undertaken under the auspices of the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence which is funded by the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust. SG and DO are also supported by the Medical Research Council [Unit programme numbers MC_UU_12015/4 and MC_UU_12015/6].This is the final version of the article. It was first available from BMJ via http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-00997

A value oriented conceptual model for innovation in local government

The political rhetoric that accompanied the introduction of eGovernment expected it to produce innovation in the way government agencies conducted themselves with citizen and business alike. It was assumed that innovation was both "good" and inevitable. This paper challenges these assumptions and presents a more realistic model of how innovation might occurs in UK local government. The model is supported by anecdotal evidence, literature and a recent study of eGoverment achievement in the UK - VIEGO. A key element in the model is the notion of innovation value

Communicating Climate Change In Internet Discussion Fora: Processes and Implications

Communicating climate change issues in the Internet era requires new strategies that incorporate online communication. The rapid growth of new media and widespread use of the internet has marked everyday lifestyles in modern society. Information on a wide range of social issues, including climate change, is disseminated and debated through online discussions in internet fora. In this research, communication on internet fora and other potential forms of online social interaction are explored, to identify ways to enhance climate change communication on the Internet. The thesis raises three research questions to explore the communication context of internet fora discussion, namely: what are characteristics of the communication process on internet fora? Who is involved in the communication process? What influences do these online communication activities have on users’ everyday activities? The research applies a mixed-methods approach of analysing the usage of Internet fora and the contents of fora communication activities to explore these questions. This includes qualitative reviews of topic-thread discussions to reveal users’ roles in discussions, as well as surveys of fora users. It is argued that with increasing levels of interaction among communicators (people who post or reply to articles in order to express or respond ideas) on internet fora, these communicators are mobilised to join the online discussion process, competing for opinion leadership. The online discussions further contribute to the formation of opinions on climate change, as climate change and related issues are discussed The thesis thereby aims to contribute to the development of effective approaches for opinion formation and climate change communication online, and to encourage individuals to discuss changing behaviour patterns and public engagement of greenhouse gas reduction actions

Gen Z Digital Leadership through Social Media

Born within specific timeframes, typically five to ten years, individuals form distinct generational cohorts that share everyday experiences and traits influenced by the technology that evolves during their formative years. Generation Z, encompassing those born between 1996 and 2006, navigated their childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood with the companionship of smartphones, tablets, social media, online gaming, and various digital interaction platforms. This exploration into Generation Z digital leadership through social media using qualitative methods with netnography and literature review illuminates the dynamic interplay between generational disparities and the evolving digital landscape. New findings underline that if leadership goals and purposes are explicit, Gen Z leaders' disclosures may be perceived as fair by followers, enhancing interaction quality and shaping follower perceptions positively. Social media possesses the potential to bridge gaps, serving as a powerful tool for fostering cohesion and connectivity for Generation Z within a broader range of social contexts. This study found that initiative and high impact are among the main characteristics of Gen Z digital leaders who prefer online over offline discussions. The development and expression of social media consist of personal growth, learning new things, and developing skills and voice. Gen Z digital leaders are found to use social media in various contexts, such as fostering collaboration, building networks, and inspiring action. Gen Z also face challenges while using social media, as they are faced with passivity and communication failure. At the same time, they are blessed with opportunities such as amplifying underrepresented voices, impacting, influencing others, and even inspiring action. Supporting and integrating Gen Z digital leadership skills in practices means knowing the cohort closely, fostering digital literacy in senior generations that work together with them, understanding personal strength, and creating opportunities in the leadership area with safe online environments

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE PROJECTS\u27 ATTRACTIVENESS, ACTIVENESS, AND EFFICIENCY AS A PATH TO SOFTWARE QUALITY: AN EMPIRICAL EVALUATION OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS AND CAUSES

An organizational strategy to develop software has appeared in the market. Organizations release software source code open and hope to attract volunteers to improve their software, forming what we call an open source project. Examples of organizations that have used this strategy include IBM (Eclipse), SAP (Netweaver) and Mozilla (Thunderbird). Moreover, thousands of these projects have been created as a consequence of the growing amount of software source code released by individuals. This expressive phenomenon deserves attention for its sudden appearance, newness and usefulness to public and private organizations. To explain the dynamics of open source projects, this research theoretically identified and empirically analyzed a construct – attractiveness – found crucial to them due to its influence on how they are populated and operate, subsequently impacting the qualities of the software produced and of the support provided. Both attractiveness\u27 causes and consequences were put under scrutiny, as well as its indicators. On the side of the consequences, it was theoretically proposed and empirically tested whether the attractiveness of these projects affects their levels of activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion, and time for task completion, though not linearly, as task complexity could moderate the relationships between them. Also, it was argued at the theoretical level that activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion, and time for task completion mediate the relationship between attractiveness and software/support quality. On the side of attractiveness\u27 causes, it was proposed and tested that five open software projects\u27 characteristics (license type, intended audience, type of project and project’s life-cycle stage) impact attractiveness directly. Additionally, these projects\u27 characteristics were argued to influence projects\u27 levels of activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion, and time for task completion (and so an empirical evaluation of their associations was performed). The empirical tests of all these relationships between constructs were carried out using Structural Equation Modeling with Maximum Likelihood on three samples of over 4,600 projects each, collected from the largest repository of open source software, Sourceforge.net (a repeated cross-sectional approach). The results confirmed the importance of attractiveness, suggesting a direct influence on projects\u27 dynamics, as opposed to the moderated-by-task complexity indirect paths first proposed. Furthermore, all four projects\u27 characteristics studied were found to significantly influence projects\u27 attractiveness, activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion, and time for task completion (with the exception of license type and time for task completion). Besides providing a statistical test of these propositions, this study discovered the direction of the influence of each project characteristic on projects\u27 attractiveness, activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion and time for task completion. Lastly, conclusions, limitations, and future directions are discussed based on these findings

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUER IN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS IN SUSTAINABILITY OF SEKOLAH PETERNAKAN RAKYAT NGUDI REJEKI KEDIRI

This study aimed to analyze the influence of social entrepreneurs, organizational culture, and organizational effectiveness for the sustainability of the Sekolah Peternakan Rakyat Ngudi Rejeki (SPR). The study population and sample were all members of the Sekolah Peternakan Rakyat Ngudi Rejeki, amounting to 31 SPR members. Interviews and questionnaires did the data collection, and the data was analyzed with the structural equation model - partial least square (SEM-PLS). The results showed that social entrepreneurs have a positive and significant effect on organizational culture, organizational effectiveness, and indirectly on organizational sustainability; organizational culture has a positive and significant effect on organizational effectiveness. Culture has not significantly or indirectly affected sustainability. Organizational effectiveness has not significant effect on organizational sustainability. Keywords: organizational culture, organizational effectiveness, organizational sustainability, Social entrepreneur, SP

The Work Adjustment of Expatriate Teachers Employed in Chinese Internationalized Schools: A Hermeneutical Phenomenology

The purpose of this hermeneutical phenomenological study was to understand the work adjustment of expatriate teachers employed in Chinese internationalized schools. The theory guiding the study was Dawis and Lofquist’s theory of work adjustment. This theory explained the process of employee adjustment at the workplace as the result of job dissatisfaction leading to attempts at restoring the person-environment fit. The central research question was: How do expatriate teachers experience work adjustment in Chinese internationalized schools? The four sub-questions addressed the facets of work adjustment: activeness, reactiveness, perseverance, and flexibility. Chinese internationalized schools were an appropriate setting for the study because of the extraordinary work adjustment challenges in these institutions. The study employed a purposefully selected sample of 16 expatriate teachers who have worked in Chinese internationalized schools for at least one school year and have experienced work adjustment. Three data collection methods aided in gathering in-depth descriptions of participants’ lived experiences: individual interviews, written protocols, and focus groups. Data analysis relied on eclectic coding and van Manen’s hermeneutical framework. Four major themes summarized participants’ work adjustment experiences: discovering what lies behind the façade, trying to be a real teacher, navigating relationships with the paying customers, and trying to function in a multicultural work environment. Ryan and Deci’s self-determination theory aided the interpretation of findings and linked participants’ adjustment attempts to unfulfilled needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy