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Social technologies tend to attract research on social structure or interaction. In this paper we analyze the individual use of a social technology, specifically an enterprise people-tagging application. We focus on active participants of the system and distinguish between users who initiate activity and those who respond to activity. This distinction is situated within the preferential attachment theory in order to examine which type of participant contributes more to the process of tagging. We analyze the usage of the people-tagging application in a snapshot representing 3 years of activity, focusing on self-tagging compared to tagging by and of others. The main findings are: (1) People who tag themselves are the most productive contributors to the system. (2) Preferential attachment saturation is reached at 12-14 tags per user. (3) The nature of participation is more significant than the number of participants for system growth. The paper concludes with theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on fieldwork conducted in Singapore and Malaysia, examines the social foundations and organizational principles of Chinese business finns, focusing in particular, on the inclination to incorporate personal relationships in decision making. It identifies three key aspects of personalism: personal control, personal guanxi relationships, and interpersonal trust or xinyong. Personal control is effected largely through depending on people whom one personally trusts as this would reduce risks and afford better business control. The paper also examines the dynamics between guanxi and xinyong, and how these ideals are played out in reality. A central argument is that economic decisions are not based solely on market considerations. Rather, they are embedded in the context of larger social relations and institutional forces which shape, reinforce, as well as challenge, a set of behaviours or organizational structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information technology ( IT) outsourcing has become a widely accepted management strategy. As a consequence, a great deal of research on the IT outsourcing domain, covering a wide range of issues, has been conducted. This study investigates the IT outsourcing knowledge infrastructure from a network point of view. Triple helix indicators and social network analysis techniques are employed on 288 scholarly papers obtained from the Web of Science database using keywords related to IT outsourcing. The results reveal the key players in IT outsourcing research collaborations; their network characteristics, such as degree centrality; and the relationship of academia, industry, and government in terms of IT outsourcing knowledge production. This article also provides results-based implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In organizations, the amount of attention that user-generated knowledge receives in knowledge management systems ( KMSs) may not imply its potential for benefiting organizational activities in terms of accelerating innovation and product development. To optimize the utilization of knowledge in organizations, it is crucial to identify factors that influence knowledge popularity. From a network perspective, this study proposes a model to evaluate knowledge popularity by investigating 2 attributes of contextual information (i.e., authors and tags) that are embedded in a heterogeneous knowledge network, and how they interact to impact knowledge popularity. Objective data obtained through the interaction history of a KMS in a global telecommunication company was applied to test the hypotheses. This paper contributes to the extant literature on knowledge popularity by identifying contextual attributions of knowledge, and empirically tests the impact of their interactions on knowledge popularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of extra-local economic and political forces on the business community participants of the governing regime coalition in Akron, Ohio, and in turn, how other regime partners responded to and engaged with the changing constitution of Akron's business community. Unlike the UK where municipalities receive substantial fiscal support from regional and national governments, American cities are more readily forced into regime partnerships with other public and private actors for fiscal solvency, including, primarily, the local business community. In the case of Akron, the local business community experienced a prolonged and ongoing period of comprehensive deindustrialization and economic restructuring, forcing the city into partnerships with less traditional non-private sector actors as Akron's business community structure continues to transform. A secondary objective is to forward the utility of social network analysis in regime theory applications. Social network analysis offers a way to situate arguably the most influential actors in a regime coalition. Utilizing the directories of Standard and Poor's Index of Corporations and Directors from 1975 through 2006, social network analysis is performed on the interlocking network of corporations and civic organizations based in Akron for each decade, allowing a longitudinal view of the changing business community partners of Akron's governing coalition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]