Herding Behavior in Social Media Networks in China

We conducted an interpretive, qualitative research study to investigate herding behavior around trending posts about disasters on Sina Weibo, one of the most popular social media websites in China. Our preliminary results show that in response to uncertain situations, users engage in sensemaking (Seidel, 2013) and become emotionally engaged (Taylor, 2015) as they converge around trending posts about disasters. Also, state, effect and response uncertainty (Milliken, 1987) may influence how users converge around these posts. Future research will examine the cross-cultural differences of herding behavior across Twitter (U.S.A) and Sina Weibo (China), as well as the differences across financial, scandalous, product based, and political trending posts

Innovation Diffusion Theory and Social Embeddedness - A New Perspective

This study focuses on the impact of social embeddedness on the diffusion and adoption of innovations. Historically, the primary factors influencing the adoption and diffusion of an innovation have been the perception of its’ relative advantage to other technologies, its’ perceived compatibility to previous innovations, and the degree to which the innovation is perceived to be difficult to use or understand (complexity). The additional characteristics of observability and trialability have been shown to be less important. However, with the effect of social embeddedness, this situation has likely changed. Trialability and observability, may outweigh the importance of the first three characteristics. The goal of this study is to explore this phenomenon by reexamining the relative weight of the five characteristics of innovation with regard to innovations under the influence of social embeddedness. Therefore, provide a more informed way of looking at innovation diffusion theory. The results of this study found that social embeddedness have positive and significant effects towards all perceived characteristics of innovation. However, the ease of use was not as important if the adoption intention was for an emerging innovation; while for an enabling innovation, ease of use become important and people are willing to sacrifice the compatibility of the innovation. Results also found that observability and trialability were important factors to consider for emerging innovation, but they are less of concern when it comes to enabling innovation. Relative advantage has been consistently showing significant effects regardless of the type of innovation. The study contributes to both theory and practice by furthering the understanding of Innovation Diffusion Theory and by helping innovation providers develop better strategies when they advertise their products