People often make social-related trips to perform activities with their friends. An individual's group of friends can be characterized by his or her social network. While traditional social network data collection is time-consuming and dependent on memory recollection, new online social networking sites may address these shortcomings. This research focuses on the use of tie-strength, the strength of an individual's relationships in his or her social network, to characterize friendships and how this influences an individual's air travel behavior. Four candidate weighting schemes were developed using data collected from a web-based survey which included demographic information, an air travel diary, and friendship information retrieved from Facebook.com. The candidate weight matrices were then tested in a spatial Durbin count model (social model). The results of this study are threefold. First, candidate weighting schemes which consider mutual friendship (i.e. the number of mutual friends two people have in common) exclusively produced higher log-likelihoods than weighting schemes which also consider whether individuals are direct friends (i.e. whether the two individuals are friends themselves). Second, the results of the social model were compared with those of a non-social model. These results suggest that there exist major flaws in using a non-social model to represent variables which may be socially dependent and correlated. Finally, results suggest that individuals tend to have friends who, on average, make more trips than they do. With a growing number of people using online social networks, exploring and understanding friendship influences on travel behavior will help the transportation industry better recognize future travel needs.

The primary purpose of this study was to identify dimensions of weak tie relationships including characteristics (e.g., distinctive qualities, traits, or properties), functions (e.g., outcomes, purposes, or meanings derived from the interaction) and determinants of engagement to gain insight into the weak tie exchange process and develop frameworks that can be used to operationalize the concept. Data were collected through stories provided by participants during face-to-face interviews. Respondents recounted a situation when someone they did not know well and to whom they did not feel particularly close provided them with assistance. Over 70 stories were collected from 50 adults aged 65 and older who were active in their community. Stories collected were analyzed using an inductive approach that was supported by the concepts of interpersonal tie strength, loose connections, social exchange theory, and social support. Findings suggest that weak tie relationships occur in a variety of community settings and in response to a variety of daily challenges. The exchanges occur more frequently with acquaintances than strangers and the initiator of the exchange is generally the person offering support. The types of support offered are broad-based and include instrumental, emotional, and informational support. Weak tie exchanges range from one-time brief interactions to intermittent exchanges over extended periods, depending on the circumstances. Findings also suggest that weak ties have a specific task or purpose, encourage awareness about the value and purpose of social interactions, and influence participants' future social interactions. Six factors were identified as determinants of engagement in weak ties: situational factors, personal characteristics, judgments of responsibility, attitudes about helping behaviors, personal network type, and exchange history. The findings from this study provide a foundation for further conceptualization of weak ties and a framework on which to develop instruments to measure tie strength and the potential for engaging in weak tie exchanges. / Ph. D.

While knowledge is one of an organization’s greatest assets, it remains a challenge to facilitate knowledge transfer between people within an organization. Social influence has been studied in its role of facilitating information diffusion, which is necessary for knowledge transfer to occur. Among this research, tie strength, a quantifiable characteristic of a social network that determines the link between two nodes, has been measured to determine the impact of social influence on knowledge transfer and information dissemination within a social network. Current research that explores the impact of social influence on information diffusion has been conducted within public social networks due to the availability of data that can be gathered from public social online network systems, such as Facebook. With the emergence of collaboration technologies that exist in online social network tools being utilized within organizations, there is an opportunity to digitally collect information regarding information dissemination within a collaborative network. This study captured data from an online social network, specifically a unified communication tool, being used within a collaborative social network at a mid-sized South Central corporation. A content analysis of Lync messages for 1,749 connections was performed to quantitatively measure the influence of tie strength on information dissemination within a collaborative social network. The results demonstrated that tie strength had a significant impact on information dissemination using a collaborative system. Multivariate analysis of variance showed that tie strength had the largest impact on information dissemination using the instant messaging modality of a collaboration system.

Recently, facing the fierce competition around the world, the headquarters of many MNCs are under pressure to make a decision quickly and effectively for their global marketing strategy. Under such a situation, how effectively the headquarters can obtain knowledge regarding the market situation of subsidiaries around the world is important. In this research, the concept of reverse knowledge transfer is applied to the space of the headquarters' acquisition of knowledge from subsidiaries, from the perspective of decision-making for global marketing strategies. In the extant literature, however, studies on reverse knowledge transfer analyzing the mechanisms dynamically in a multi-faceted way from the perspective of transferring marketing-related knowledge are rare. In order to capture the reverse knowledge transfer mechanisms in a MNC precisely and dynamically, three case studies of the headquarters of an American MNC and its Japanese subsidiary were conducted. Through analysis of the case studies, two new factors were found; one is 'bypass effect', and the other is 'heeding capacity'. By bringing in those new factors, a new dynamic model for reverse knowledge transfer is proposed.

Online group-buying is one of the popular online business models recently. Both the initiator and participants hope to recruit more consumers to join order to aggregate larger orders and thus get cheaper price. Traditionally, consumers always invite their friends or families to join group-buying in order to collect more orders. Hope the relationship could affect their behavior. As the communication and coordination through the Internet are getting more convenient, it is easy and popular to recruit friends in larger range to join group-buying via e-mail. Further, the increasing virtual communities result from that, members have same interest, concern, and needs. It is quite possible that the members have same needs and therefore initiate a group-buying activity to fulfill many members¡¦ needs. Since information sharing is a major activity between members of virtual communities, the degree of the interactions will impact the tie strength between them. If members can send peer-to-peer recommendation email to other members who may be interested in the group-buying transaction, it may improve the group-buying performance. In addition, marketing via e-mail is getting common. The different marketing appeal results in different effect. Rational appeals focus on product itself while emotional appeal makes consumer¡¦s feeling change. The purpose of this research is to explore the difference in advertisement attitude between consumers clicking the peer-to-peer recommendation e-mail and consumers not clicking it. We also examined if these two groups have different cognition of tie strength with the e-mail sender. The result shows the group clicking the recommendation mail has better advertisement attitude than the group not clicking. Further, emotional appeal induces the subjects¡¦ better cognition of reliability of the appeal

Most of previous word of mouth studies focused on marketing and consumer behavior issues. However, for job applicants, word of mouth could be a significant reference when applicants are looking for jobs. The present study tried to find out if word of mouth will influence organizational attractiveness perceived by potential applicants and under what situations related to word of mouth have the stronger effect. Hence, the study examined if the impact of word of mouth and if these impacts are moderated by the situational variables of tie strength with presenters and expertise of presenters and moderated by individual-difference variables of self-monitoring, self-esteem, and risk-taking. Results indicated that word of mouth has significant impact on organizational attractiveness. The moderation effects of potential applicants¡¦ tie strength with presenters, expertise of presenters, and self-esteem are also supported.

In the recent years, social network services, such as Facebook or LinkedIn, have experienced an exponential growth. People enjoy their functionalities, such as sharing photos, finding friends, looking for jobs, and in general, they appreciate the social benefits that social networks provide. However, as using social network has become routine for many people, privacy breaches that may occur in social network services have increased users' concerns. For example, it is easy to find news about people being fired because of something they shared on a social network. To enable people define their privacy settings, service providers employ simple access controls which usually rely exclusively on lists or circles of friends. Although these access controls are easy to configure by average users, research literature points out that they are lacking elements, such as tie strength, that play a key role when users decide what to share and with whom. Additionally, despite the simplicity of current access controls, research on privacy on social media reports that people still struggle to effectively control how their information flows on these services. To provide users with a more robust privacy framework, related literature proposes a new paradigm for access controls based on relationships. In contrast to traditional access controls where permissions are granted based on users and their roles, this paradigm employs social elements such as the relationship between the information owner and potential viewers (e.g., only my siblings can see this photo). Access controls that follow this paradigm provide users with mechanisms for disclosure control that represent more naturally how humans reason about privacy. Furthermore, these access controls can deal with specific issues that social network services present. Specifically, users often share information that concerns many people, especially other members of the social network. In such situations, two or more people can have conflicting privacy preferences; thus, an appropriate sharing policy may not be apparent. These situations are usually identified as multiuser privacy scenarios. Since relationship based access controls are complex for the average social network user, service providers have not adopted them. Therefore, to enable the implementation of such access controls in current social networks, tools and mechanisms that facilitate their use must be provided. To that aim, this thesis makes five contributions: (1) a review of related research on privacy management on social networks that identifies pressing challenges in the field, (2) BFF, a tool for eliciting automatically tie strength and user communities, (3) a new access control that employs communities, individual identifiers, tie strength, and content tags, (4) a novel model for representing and reasoning about multiuser privacy scenarios, employing three types of features: contextual factors, user preferences, and user arguments; and, (5) Muppet, a tool that recommends sharing policies in multiuser privacy scenarios. / En los últimos años, los servicios de redes sociales, como Facebook o LinkedIn, han experimentado un crecimiento exponencial. Los usuarios valoran positivamente sus muchas funcionalidades tales como compartir fotos, o búsqueda de amigos y trabajo. En general, los usuarios aprecian los beneficios que las redes sociales les aportan. Sin embargo, mientras el uso de redes sociales se ha convertido en rutina para mucha gente, brechas de privacidad que pueden ocurrir en redes sociales han aumentado los recelos de los usuarios. Por ejemplo, es sencillo encontrar en las noticias casos sobre personas que han perdido su empleo debido a algo que compartieron en una red social. Para facilitar la definición de los ajustes de privacidad, los proveedores de servicios emplean controles de acceso sencillos que normalmente se basan, de forma exclusiva, en listas o círculos de amigos. Aunque estos controles de acceso son fáciles de configurar por un usuario medio, investigaciones recientes indican que éstos carecen de elementos tales como la intensidad de los vínculos personales, que juegan un papel clave en cómo los usuarios deciden qué compartir y con quién. Además, a pesar de la simplicidad de los controles de acceso, investigaciones sobre privacidad en redes sociales señalan que los usuarios han de esforzarse para controlar de forma efectiva como su información fluye en estos servicios. Para ofrecer a los usuarios un marco de privacidad más robusto, trabajos recientes proponen un nuevo paradigma para controles de acceso basado en relaciones. A diferencia de los controles de acceso tradicionales donde los permisos se otorgan en base a usuarios y sus roles, este paradigma emplea elementos sociales como la relación entre el propietario de la información y su audiencia potencial (por ejemplo, sólo mis hermanos pueden ver la foto). Los controles de acceso que siguen este paradigma ofrecen a los usuarios mecanismos para el control de la privacidad que representan de una forma más natural como los humanos razonan sobre cuestiones de privacidad. Además, estos controles de acceso pueden lidiar con problemáticas específicas que presentan las redes sociales. Específicamente, los usuarios comparten de forma habitual información que atañe a muchas personas, especialmente a otros miembros de la red social. En tales situaciones, dos o más personas pueden tener preferencias de privacidad que entran en conflicto. Cuando esto ocurre, no hay una configuración correcta de privacidad que sea evidente. Estas situaciones son normalmente identificadas como escenarios de privacidad multiusuario. Dado que los controles de acceso basados en relaciones son complejos para el usuario promedio de redes sociales, los proveedores de servicios no los han adoptado. Por lo tanto, para permitir la implementación de tales controles de acceso en redes sociales actuales, es necesario que se ofrezcan herramientas y mecanismos que faciliten su uso. En este sentido, esta tesis presenta cinco contribuciones: (1) una revisión del estado del arte en manejo de privacidad en redes sociales que permite identificar los retos más importantes en el campo, (2) BFF, una herramienta para obtener automáticamente la intensidad de los vínculos personales y las comunidades de usuarios, (3) un nuevo control de acceso que emplea comunidades, identificadores individuales, la intensidad de los vínculos personales, y etiquetas de contenido, (4) un modelo novedoso para representar y razonar sobre escenarios de privacidad multiusario que emplea tres tipos de características: factores contextuales, preferencias de usuario, y argumentos de usuario; y, (5) Muppet, una herramienta que recomienda configuraciones de privacidad en escenarios de privacidad multiusuario. / En els darrers anys, els servicis de xarxes socials, com Facebook o LinkedIn, han experimentat un creixement exponencial. Els usuaris valoren positivament les seues variades funcionalitats com la compartició de fotos o la cerca d'amics i treball. En general, els usuaris aprecien els beneficis que les xarxes socials els aporten. No obstant això, mentre l'ús de les xarxes socials s'ha convertit en rutina per a molta gent, bretxes de privacitat que poden ocórrer en xarxes socials han augmentat els recels dels usuaris. Per exemple, és senzill trobar notícies sobre persones que han perdut el seu treball per alguna cosa que compartiren a una xarxa social. Per facilitar la definició dels ajustos de privacitat, els proveïdors de servicis empren controls d'accés senzills que normalment es basen, de forma exclusiva, en llistes o cercles d'amics. Encara que aquests controls d'accés són fàcils d'emprar per a un usuari mitjà, investigacions recents indiquen que aquests manquen elements com la força dels vincles personals, que juguen un paper clau en com els usuaris decideixen què compartir i amb qui. A més a més, malgrat la simplicitat dels controls d'accés, investigacions sobre privacitat en xarxes socials revelen que els usuaris han d'esforçar-se per a controlar de forma efectiva com fluix la seua informació en aquests servicis. Per a oferir als usuaris un marc de privacitat més robust, treballs recents proposen un nou paradigma per a controls d'accés basat en relacions. A diferència dels controls d'accés tradicionals on els permisos s'atorguen segons usuaris i els seus rols, aquest paradigma empra elements socials com la relació entre el propietari de la informació i la seua audiència potencial (per exemple, sols els meus germans poden veure aquesta foto). Els controls d'accés que segueixen aquest paradigma ofereixen als usuaris mecanismes per al control de la privacitat que representen d'una forma més natural com els humans raonen sobre la privacitat. A més a més, aquests controls d'accés poden resoldre problemàtiques específiques que presenten les xarxes socials. Específicament, els usuaris comparteixen de forma habitual informació que concerneix moltes persones, especialment a altres membres de la xarxa social. En aquestes situacions, dues o més persones poden tindre preferències de privacitat que entren en conflicte. Quan açò ocorre, no hi ha una configuració de privacitat correcta que siga evident. Aquestes situacions són normalment identificades com escenaris de privacitat multiusari. Donat que els controls d'accés basats en relacions són complexos per a l'usuari mitjà de xarxes socials, els proveïdors de servicis no els han adoptat. Per tant, per a permetre la implementació d'aquests controls d'accés en xarxes socials actuals, és necessari oferir ferramentes i mecanismes que faciliten el seu ús. En aquest sentit, aquesta tesi presenta cinc contribucions: (1) una revisió de l'estat de l'art en maneig de privacitat en xarxes socials que permet identificar els reptes més importants en el camp, (2) BFF, una ferramenta per a obtenir automàticament la força dels vincles personals i les comunitats d'usuaris, (3) un nou control d'accés que empra comunitats, identificadors individuals, força dels vincles personals, i etiquetes de contingut, (4) un model nou per a representar i raonar sobre escenaris de privacitat multiusari que empra tres tipus de característiques: factors contextuals, preferències d'usuari, i arguments d'usuaris; i, (5) Muppet, una ferramenta que recomana configuracions de privacitat en escenaris de privacitat multiusuari. / López Fogués, R. (2017). Enhancing Privacy Management on Social Network Services [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/85978 / TESIS

När covid-19 bröt ut under våren år 2020, tvingades en stor del av svenska företag att snabbt ställa om till distansarbete. Även om det finns omfattande forskning som berör organisatorisk kreativitet och innovation vid distansarbete, saknas det emellertid forskning som undersöker hur detta påverkas av en hastig övergång från kontorsarbete till distansarbete. Därför är syftet med denna studie att undersöka om ett sådant skifte påverkar idégenerering bland anställda, och därav även innovation och kreativitet inom företag. Detta görs genom att utföra en kvalitativ intervjustudie, där sju informanter från ett företag medverkar. Det teoretiska ramverk som ligger till grund för studien omfattar olika aspekter av idégenerering, där social networks, tie strength och idégenereringsprocess är centrala begrepp, som tillsammans skapar studiens analysmodell. Slutsatserna som dras är att idégenereringen på ett generellt plan kan ha påverkats negativt till följd av distansarbetet, men att idégenereringen inom team inte verkar drabbas i samma utsträckning.

This thesis examines how female consumers’ self-esteem may impact an influencer’s ability to create a purchase through suggesting and testing a developed conceptual model. The Source credibility model, Similarity and Tie-strength were utilized as underlying theoretical frameworks. Five different independent variables were identified; Source- Attractiveness, Trustworthiness, Expertise, Similarity, and Tie-strength, which were evaluated in relation to the dependent variable; Purchase intention. Lastly, Self-esteem was introduced as a moderating variable. The goal with the conceptual model was to gain a deeper understanding of how a consumer’s self-esteem may affect their purchasing behavior, as well as which factors that may influence their purchase intention. A quantitative research method was used, and ten hypotheses were developed from the conceptual model.    To test the hypotheses and answer the research questions, a questionnaire was distributed with the use of snowball sampling. Overall, 1029 Swedish females who followed an influencer on a social media participated in the survey. It was stated in the results and the analysis that all five independent variables had a significant positive relation on the consumer’s purchase intention. However, data shows that a consumer’s self-esteem solely had a relation on two of the five independent variables; Trustworthiness & Tie-strength. Trustworthiness was found to have a negative relation to the purchase intention, while Tie-strength was found to have a positive relation. A content analysis was conducted in order to identify other factors that the participants in the survey felt had a significant impact on why they followed their favorite influencer. The result of the content analysis identified two more factors that may impact the ability of an influencer to create a purchase. These were the Entertainment value and the Core values of the influencer.

The research project empirically assesses the influence of an under-researched aspect of social capital on the family firm’s entrepreneurial behaviors. Specifically, blending social capital, which consists of bonding social capital and bridging social capital that develops between family firms and external family stakeholders, is considered in examining the family firm’s engagement in innovation efforts. Additionally, familial tie strength and outside business ownership of external family stakeholders are argued to moderate the proposed relationship between blending social capital and family firm innovation. The surveying methods for assessing the hypothesized relationships included conducting a two-wave study with adapted, modified, and validated scales. Also, some variables were collected using the Mississippi Secretary of State, the U.S. Copyright Office, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey databases. The theoretical model is analyzed using hierarchical regression and moderated regression using IBM SPSS 28 Process Macro (Hayes, 2021), structural equation modeling with AMOS, and scale development techniques to ensure the validity and reliability of the measurement instruments. The goal is to identify potential antecedents for enhancing the innovation capabilities of family firms.