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Introduction: Responsive, integrated and sustainable health systems require that communities take an active role in service design and delivery. Much of the current literature focuses on provider‐led initiatives to gain community input, raising concerns about power imbalances inherent in invited forms of participation. This paper provides an alternate view, exploring how, in a period following reforms, community actors forge network alliances to (re)gain legitimacy and capacities to coproduce health services with system providers. Methods: A longitudinal case study traced the network‐building efforts over 3 years of a working group formed by citizens and community actors working with seniors, minorities, recent immigrants, youth and people with disabilities. The group came together over concerns about reforms that impacted access to health services and the ability of community groups to mediate access for vulnerable community residents. Data were collected from observation of the group's meetings and activities, documents circulated within and by the group, and semi‐directed interviews. The first stage of analysis used social network mapping to reveal the network development achieved by the working group; a second traced network maturation, based on actor–network theory. Results: Network mapping revealed how the working group mobilized existing links and created new links with health system actors to explore access issues. Problematization appeared as an especially important stage in network development in the context of reforms that disrupted existing collaborative relationships and introduced new structures and processes. Conclusion: Network‐building strategies enable community actors to enhance their capacity for coproduction. A key contribution lies in the creation of 'organizational infrastructure'. Patient or Public Contribution: The lead researcher was embedded over 3 years in the activities of the community groups and community residents. Several group members provided comments on an initial draft of this paper. To preserve the anonymity of the group, their names do not appear in the acknowledgements section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates dynamic changes in instrumental (i.e., work‐related) tie‐seeking patterns and the structure of a communication network following a downsizing event—whereby many employees are simultaneously eliminated from a network. Our analysis spans a two‐year period and applies a resource‐ and network‐change approach to examine how survivors develop revised resource‐acquisition strategies while repositioning themselves after a downsizing. Our results demonstrate that two temporary logics of tie formation—a suspension of within‐unit homophily and a preference for seeking ties with long‐tenured employees—help employees acquire betweenness centrality during the disruption period. Specifically, we find that disruption initiates a transitional period after downsizing in which new tie‐making logics are employed, including seeking out ties with long‐tenured employees and employees outside of one's department. We observed post‐disruption, during the stabilization period after downsizing, where logics used for tie‐making in the disruption period were abandoned, pre‐disruption tie‐making logics were resumed, and betweenness centrality remained relatively constant. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these results and suggest future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open Dialogue approaches fall broadly into the area of systemic psychotherapeutic practices. They encourage active participation of families and social networks, and emphasize genuine collaboration within highly integrated systems of health‐care service delivery. These approaches are currently being implemented in a growing number of services across the globe, and in this review, we summarize and discuss insights from papers concerned with the implementation of Open Dialogue. We used a scoping review method, which included systematic literature searches and summarizing data extraction as well as consultation with eight Open Dialogue implementation stakeholders who were invited to comment on preliminary review findings and a draft paper. We included 18 studies in the review and present their content under four thematic headings: 1. Training, 2. Family and network experiences, 3. Staff members' experiences, and 4. Structural and organizational barriers and resistance to implementation. In general, the studies did not include rich descriptions of the implementation contexts, which made it difficult to draw conclusions across studies about effective implementation practices. The discussion draws on Jamous and Peloille's (Professions and professionalisation, 1970, Cambridge University Press, 109‐152) concepts of "indeterminacy" and "technicality," and we argue that the indeterminacy that dominates Open Dialogue is a challenge to implementation efforts that favor specific and standardized practices. We conclude by encouraging the development of implementation initiatives that theorize Open Dialogue practices with higher levels of technicality without corrupting the fundamental spirit of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social relationships in and around work are a fundamental building block of organizational life. According to a number of relationship theories, the quality of those relationships is a critical aspect of their influence on a variety of employee and organizational outcomes. Relationship quality is, therefore, one of the most commonly studied constructs in management research. Our paper critically reviews the landscape of relationship quality measures used in management studies, identifying critical issues with how the construct has been conceptualized and measured. To help advance research on the subject and improve measurement, we identify and evaluate 21 relationship quality measures that have been developed for, or used in, management research. Overall, we find that the instruments used to measure relationship quality in management research have significant limitations associated with their conceptualizations and operationalizations. Many of these limitations stem from the fact that most of the measures used to assess the construct were not originally designed to measure relationship quality, which impedes research clarity and implications. We offer a future research agenda and several recommendations for the advancement of management research on relationship quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance assessment is ubiquitous and crucial in people analytics. Scientific impact, particularly, plays a significant role in the academia. This paper attempts to understand researchers' career trajectories by considering the research community as a social network, where individuals build ties with each other via coauthorship. The resulting linkage facilitates information flow and affects researchers' future impact. Consequently, we systematically investigate the career trajectories of researchers with respect to research impact using the social capital theory as our theoretical foundation. Specifically, for early‐stage and mid‐career academics, we find that connections with prominent researchers associate with greater impact. Brokerage positions, in addition, are beneficial to a researcher's research impact in the long run. For senior researchers, however, the only social network feature that significantly affects their future impact is the reputation of their recently built ties. Finally, we build predictive models on future research impact which can be leveraged by both organizations and individuals. This paper provides empirical evidence for how social networks provide signals on researchers' career dynamics guided by social capital theory. Our findings have implications for individual researchers to strategically plan and promote their careers and for research institutions to better evaluate current as well as prospective employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A marriage of convenience has been defined as a reciprocal relationship between a gay man and a lesbian that provides a way to cope with social, cultural, family, and political stress, but this definition may be oversimplified in explaining this type of reciprocal relationship in a guanxi (the system of social networks and influential relationships that facilitate business and other dealings) society such as China. Such relationships are undergoing a process of development and change rather than remaining stable in Chinese guanxi society. This paper explores the nature and process of the development of marriages of convenience between gay men and lesbians in China. The data were collected and analyzed according to the grounded theory method. A theoretical sampling strategy was employed, and a sample of 15 people involved in so‐called marriages of convenience was recruited from gay and lesbian communities in China. In our research, we found that the marriage relationships documented in this study included four stages: (1) men dang hu dui (being matched for marriage), (2) partnership, (3) friendship, and (4) kinship. Building a suitable relationship in a marriage of convenience can help gay men and lesbians meet social expectations while simultaneously retaining a degree of autonomy for their own homosexual identities. Maintaining and developing guanxi is a basic method of conflict resolution in Chinese society. Meanwhile, the ambiguity of the relationship within a marriage of convenience may cause conflict in these marriages. Treatment modalities are recommended to reorganize the system structuring these marriages and clarify ambiguous family boundaries by redefining who is in the family unit and his and her associated roles and responsibilities in the marriage of convenience. We conclude that more research is warranted to investigate how family therapy can be adapted for Chinese gay and lesbian individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID‐19 pandemic has affected teaching and professional learning activities. Teachers may have to rely on online spaces, such as Twitter, to interact with their professional learning networks and get enough support. Objectives: This study aims to investigate the structure and the content of teachers' network interactions on Twitter both before and during the COVID19 pandemic. Methods: Data were analysed for 103 teachers using multiple methods, including social network analysis (SNA) and content and thematic analysis. Results and Conclusions: Content analysis revealed that teachers' cognitive and affective posts increased significantly during COVID‐19. Thematic analysis showed that, during COVID‐19, teachers' post sfocused on issues around digital transformation. SNA showed that the sizes of teachers' networks and in/out‐ties grew during COVID‐19. Although the study finds that teachers interacted with individuals both within and outside their discipline and their country, most teachers' interactions were with teachers from similar disciplines and same country. Teachers used Twitter to share information and support each other. Implications: This study provides recommendations for stimulating professional interactions among teachers. This work shows the potential of SNA and content analysis to analyse teachers' professional learning networks. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Teachers' professional learning networks can facilitate access to resources and information.Twitter can help teachers seek help and obtain emotional support from others.The COVID‐19 pandemic can affect teachers' social capital and networks. What the paper adds: The frequency of teachers' cognitive and affective posts increased during COVID‐19.The density of teachers' network size grew significantly.Teachers increased their interaction with people from both the same and different subject disciplines and countries.The majority of teachers' relations were with people from subject disciplines and country similar to their own. Implications of the study findings for practitioners: Twitter can be used as a tool for teachers' professional development.Teachers' awareness of their network structure should be increased.Effort should be made to develop teachers' intercultural communication competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mindfulness has become an integrated element in many psychotherapy approaches. It has also been embraced by media, the self‐help industry, and popular culture. This paper will address the question: Is the explosive growth in mindfulness approaches a success‐story? We will address some concerns on both a clinical and sociopolitical level. The authors have both been, and still are, enthusiastic about the potential of mindfulness‐based approaches. Mindfulness‐meditation has proven its value as a mental health intervention for a relatively broad range of clinical symptoms and disorders. However, they do not seem to work for all. There are reasons to be concerned about meditation's potential for having harmful as well as helpful effects. When mindfulness is decontextualized from its Buddhist roots, this often leaves the meditator alone, without both a community and a conceptual framework to give meaning to their experiences. Mindfulness is often presented as a panacea for all types of stress‐related problems in society. It might join forces with an individualistic do‐it‐yourself culture. Decontextualization of stress – and its solutions – might mask real social problems that require political solutions. However, suffering occurs in even the very best of societies; it arises both from social structures and the conditions of human existence. At all times, individuals have sought ways to improve their lives, and mindfulness offers a broad range of valuable practices. An in between is needed, combining the healthy energy of enthusiasm with critical inquiry and awareness of the limitations of mindfulness‐based approaches to psychotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Transitions in medical education are dynamic, emotional and complex yet, unavoidable. Relationships matter, especially in times of transition. Using qualitative, social network research methods, we explored social relationships and social support as medical students transitioned from pre‐clinical to clinical training. Methods: Eight medical students completed a social network map during a semi‐structured interview within two weeks of beginning their clinical clerkships (T0) and then again four months later (T1). They indicated meaningful interactions that influenced their transition from pre‐clinical to clinical training and discussed how these relationshipsimpacted their transition. We conducted mixed‐methods analysis on this data. Results: At T0, eight participants described the influence of 128 people in their social support networks; this marginally increased to 134 at T1. People from within and beyond the clinical space made up participants' social networks. As new relationships were created (eg with peers and doctors), old relationships were kept (eg with doctors and family) or dissolved over time (eg with near‐peers and nurses). Participants deliberately created, kept or dissolved relationships over time dependent on whether they provided emotional support (eg they could trust them) or instrumental support (eg they provided academic guidance). Conclusions: This is the first social networks analysis paper to explore social networks in transitioning students in medicine. We found that undergraduate medical students' social support networks were diverse, dynamic and deliberate as they transitioned to clerkships. Participants created and kept relationships with those they trusted and who provided emotional or instrumental support and dissolved relationships that did not provide these functions. It is well‐established that relationships are crucial to effective education. Here Atherley et al. explore how relationships change as students transition into clinical training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gains insight into the role of gender in interpersonal networks, which is largely neglected in research on networking. We do so by exploring the concept of 'practising gender', the spatial-temporal accomplishment of gender practices, when people build, maintain and exit social networks. The paper is based on a study of male-dominated technological collaboration projects between universities and industry. Our analysis of observations of project meetings and interviews with project participants demonstrates how people in real time and space draw from culturally available gender practices in their networking with each other. This practising of gender was found to be done largely unreflexively, sometimes through humour, within allegedly trivial activities such as pouring coffee and socializing as well as in critical activities such as composing the network. The exploration of the practising of gender in relation to culturally available gender practices enabled us to examine how those gender practices are reproduced, stretched or challenged when people network. We show how focussing on the dynamic side of gender allows us to get better insight into how gender inequalities in networks are reproduced or countered on the micro-interactional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Social network processes impact on the genesis and management of mental health problems. There is currently less understanding of the way people negotiate networked relationships in times of crisis compared to how they manage at other times. Objective This paper explores the patterns and nature of personal network involvement at times of crises and how these may differ from day-to-day networks of recovery and maintenance. Method Semi-structured interviews with 25 participants with a diagnosis of long-term mental health ( MH) problems drawn from recovery settings in the south of England. Interviews centred on personal network mapping of members and resources providing support. The mapping interviews explored the work of network members and changes in times of crisis. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed using a framework analysis. Results Three key themes were identified: the fluidity of network relationality between crisis and recovery; isolation as a means of crises management; leaning towards peer support. Personal network input retreated at times of crisis often as result of 'ejection' from the network by participants who used self-isolation as a personal management strategy in an attempt to deal with crises. Peer support is considered useful during a crisis, whilst the role of services was viewed with some ambiguity. Conclusions Social networks membership, and type and depth of involvement, is subject to change between times of crisis and everyday support. This has implications for managing mental health in terms of engaging with network support differently in times of crises versus recovery and everyday living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessible summary This paper is a summary of research on the support people with disabilities get from their friends and family. The research is mostly about people with intellectual disabilities, but there is also some research on people with other disabilities. The main findings in the research are as follows: People with intellectual disabilities have small groups of supporters. These supporters are family, friends with intellectual disability and people who work in services., People with disabilities say that services could provide more support for making and keeping friends., There are projects that have helped people with disabilities make friends and be a part of their community. More research is needed on these projects., Policy makers, services and other people who deliver services should put more efforts into supporting people with disabilities to make friends in their community., Summary The purpose of this review was to identify the available evidence base on role of natural supports in promoting independent living for people with disabilities. A search of peer-reviewed literature identified 30 core papers and 16 contextual papers which addressed issues relating to natural supports and their role in facilitating independent living. The papers reveal that the evidence base is limited and focuses heavily on the social networks of people with intellectual disabilities, which typically comprise family, other people with disabilities using services and staff members. People with disabilities themselves call for greater support in establishing and maintaining social relationships in the community. Some initiatives such as peer-based support and befriending schemes are reviewed, mindful that few have been formally evaluated. The issue for policy makers is whether, following decades of deinstitutionalisation, efforts to physically locate people with disabilities within their local communities have come at the price of social inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scand J Caring Sci; 2012; 26; 553-560 Variations in older persons' descriptions of the burden of loneliness Research indicates that approximately one-third of older people over the age of 65 years report loneliness, with even higher rates among those aged over 85. Loneliness is associated with a variety of health issues, such as depression, anxiety, physical impairment and social isolation. The purpose of this paper is to describe the characteristics of the burden of loneliness, and investigate the variability in how it is described by older. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 older people in autumn 2006 and spring 2007 in Norway. Participants aged from 70 to 97 years were recruited from a variety of backgrounds, and varied in health status and social status. The findings reported in this paper are based on hermeneutic analyses of the interviews. Our findings indicate that some of the participants experienced loneliness that they felt able to manage. They experienced a fluctuating loneliness that was linked to feeling valuable and having power and energy. However, another group described experiences of agonising loneliness. They felt a present and extensive loneliness, together with feeling less valuable and lacking in power and initiative. They seemed trapped in their loneliness, and unable to overcome their situation themselves. Our findings indicate that the burden of loneliness is experienced differently. For some older persons, the experience of loneliness is so severe that they urgently need help to manage their situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim To examine the scientific evidence regarding the association between characteristics of social networks of injection drug users (IDUs) and the sharing of drug injection equipment. Methods A search was performed on MEDLINE, EMBASE, BIOSIS, Current Contents, PsycINFO databases and other sources to identify published studies on social networks of IDUs. Papers were selected based on their examination of social network factors in relation to the sharing of syringes and drug preparation equipment (e.g. containers, filters, water). Additional relevant papers were found from the reference list of identified articles. Results Network correlates of drug equipment sharing are multi-factorial and include structural factors (network size, density, position, turnover), compositional factors (network member characteristics, role and quality of relationships with members) and behavioural factors (injecting norms, patterns of drug use, severity of drug addiction). Factors appear to be related differentially to equipment sharing. Conclusions Social network characteristics are associated with drug injection risk behaviours and should be considered alongside personal risk behaviours in prevention programmes. Recommendations for future research into the social networks of IDUs are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the role that physical, corporeal travel plays in social life. There is a large and increasing scale of such travel. This increase has occurred simultaneously with the proliferation of communication devices that in some ways substitute for physical travel. I hypothesize that the bases of such travel are new ways in which social life is 'networked'. Such increasingly extensive networks, hugely extended through the informational revolution, depend for their functioning upon intermittent occasioned meetings. These moments of physical copresence and face-to-face conversation, are crucial to patterns of social life that occur 'at-a-distance', whether for business, leisure, family life, politics, pleasure or friendship. So life is networked but it also involves specific co-present encounters within specific times and places. 'Meetingness', and thus different forms and modes of travel, are central to much social life, a life involving strange combinations of increasing distance and intermittent co-presence. The paper seeks to examine the place of travel within the emergent pattern of a 'networked sociality'. It seeks to contribute to the emerging 'mobility turn' within the social sciences. [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]

With an increasingly integrated global economy, the need to understand how national work contexts impact newcomers is critical. In particular, it is important to understand individuals' possible responses to interaction within multicultural work contexts. Blending theoretical perspectives on social identity, cross-cultural diversity, and identity formation/change, this paper explores the complex role played by dispositional and situational factors on acculturation strategies and, in turn, labour market outcomes. To guide this exploration, a theoretical model depicting the acculturation process is developed and presented. We posit that the relationship between cultural identity salience and acculturation strategy will be moderated by two key factors: desire for economic rewards and relational pressures. We further propose that acculturation strategy will influence the social networks and organizations that newcomers join, while these latter choices can help predict their income, employability, and advancement. We advance a number of testable propositions to stimulate future research and conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical contributions. Practitioner Points Recruitment processes should attract job applications from individuals with varying levels of cultural identity salience through wide-reaching job marketing campaigns., Workgroup composition should reflect a diverse range of complementary skills., Performance management and reward systems should reward employees for idea-sharing and achieving team goals., HRM strategy should seek to gain a competitive advantage through fostering diverse skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological studies of relationships tend to focus on specific types of close personal relationships (romantic, parent-offspring, friendship) and examine characteristics of both the individuals and the dyad. This paper looks more broadly at the wider range of relationships that constitute an individual's personal social world. Recent work on the composition of personal social networks suggests that they consist of a series of layers that differ in the quality and quantity of relationships involved. Each layer increases relationship numbers by an approximate multiple of 3 (5-15-50-150) but decreasing levels of intimacy (strong, medium, and weak ties) and frequency of interaction. To account for these regularities, we draw on both social and evolutionary psychology to argue that relationships at different layers serve different functions and have different cost-benefit profiles. At each layer, the benefits are asymptotic but the costs of maintaining a relationship at that level (most obviously, the time that has to be invested in servicing it) are roughly linear with the number of relationships. The trade-off between costs and benefits at a given level, and across the different types of demands and resources typical of different levels, gives rise to a distribution of social effort that generates and maintains a hierarchy of layered sets of relationships within social networks. We suggest that, psychologically, these trade-offs are related to the level of trust in a relationship, and that this is itself a function of the time invested in the relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper considers how our understanding of religious identifications may be enriched through social psychological theorizing on group identity. It reviews a range of work (for example, sociological and social psychological) concerning Islam and Muslim identities and develops the case for viewing religious identities as constructed in and through argument. It then seeks to draw out the implications of such an approach for understanding group relations. Although minority religious identifications are often assumed to undermine social cohesion, the social networks within and between groups can contribute to inter-group harmony. For example, reciprocal relationships characterized by trust and reciprocity can constitute forms of social capital that facilitate civic integration. Yet, how such social networks are used and how relationships are developed depends on group members' understandings of their collective identity. As this is contested, it follows that analyses of intergroup relations must attend to group members' identity-related arguments and the strategic concerns that lie behind them. The utility of this perspective is illustrated briefly with empirical material (arising from interviews conducted with Muslim activists) which hints at the importance of investigating social actors' own theories of social capital and how it can be developed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 12,140 person – waves) to identify characteristics associated with mothers’ having or lacking ‘‘personal safety net’’ support from family and friends. We focus on characteristics that are likely to increase the importance of having support available but may also interfere with the maintenance of supportive ties: poverty, poor physical and mental health, and challenging childrearing responsibilities. By capitalizing on distinctions among these types of personal disadvantages and among types of personal safety nets (financial, housing, child care, and emotional), we help to explain why personal disadvantages are associated with weaker support. Our paper contributes to the literature emphasizing the importance of reciprocity in support relationships and introduces the idea that families that are more difficult to help will have less support available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we seek to unravel and interrogate the aesthetics of the museum database, and the links between digital and social relationships within the museum and beyond, using as a case study the development of an integrated database system for the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, or Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta (VKS). The VKS database both draws relationships of knowledge, practice, and collection into view and generates connections in a newly national trilingual space. We ask: What are the implications of mapping the social onto the digital and vice versa? What is the efficacy of digital connectivity on museum practices, and other social networks? Does the digital domain create a new national aesthetic of connection and relationality, and how might we rethink the nation in this new aesthetic frame? How do digital relationships affect the production of new collections and new relations to the object world? How does this electronic infrastructure generate or perpetuate hierarchies of knowledge and the political economy of information? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research investigating proactive behaviour at work has generally focused on the ways in which proactive behaviour enables individuals and organizations to be more effective. Although it has been noted that some proactive behaviours may be undesirable or have potentially negative consequences, researchers have not examined the 'dark side' of proactive behaviour in any systematic way. In this conceptual paper, we explore the potentially negative individual and organizational implications of expecting employees to behave proactively. Specifically, at the individual level, we argue that expecting proactive behaviour in organizations may contribute to stress among employees and friction between proactive and less proactive employees. At the organizational level, we suggest that relying on proactive behaviour may cause harm to an organization by undermining its ability to socialize employees and foster its organizational culture, weakening its learning capability, and reducing its ability to develop future leaders. We conclude by discussing additional avenues for studies examining the potential costs of proactive behaviour for both individuals and organizations alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual marketplaces on the Web provide people with great facilities to buy and sell goods similar to conventional markets. In traditional business, reputation is subjectively built for known persons and companies as the deals are made in the course of time. As it is important to do business with trustful individuals and companies, there is a need to survive the reputation concept in virtual markets. Auction sites generally employ reputation systems based on feedbacks that provide a global view to a cyber dealer. In contrast to global trust, people usually infer their personal trust about someone whose reputation is completely or partially unknown by asking their trusted friends. Personal reputation is what makes a person trusted for some people and untrusted for others. There should be a facility for users in a virtual market to specify how much they trust a friend and also a mechanism that infers the trust of a user to another user who is not directly a friend of her. There are two main issues that should be addressed in trust inference. First, the trust modeling and aggregation problem needs to be challenged. Second, algorithms should be introduced to find and select the best paths among the existing trust paths from a source to a sink. First, as trust to a person can be stated more naturally using linguistic expressions, this work suggests employing linguistic terms for trust specification. To this end, corresponding fuzzy sets are defined for trust linguistic terms and a fuzzy trust aggregation method is also proposed. Comparing the fuzzy aggregation method to the existing aggregation methods shows superiority of fuzzy approach especially at aggregating contradictory information. Second, this paper proposes an incremental trust inference algorithm. The results show improvement in preciseness of inference for the proposed inference algorithm over the existing and recently proposed algorithm named TidalTrust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between travel behaviour, ICT use and social networks. Specifically, we outline a theory of social action that can inform how ICTs relates to social activity travel and explore the efficacy of this theory in an empirical setting. We begin by outlining two factors that influence the propensity to travel: an individual's will to initiate events with members of one's social network, referred to as agency, and the social accessibility of network members themselves. Social accessibility defines a series of practical constraints for social-activity travel and agency defines the extent to which an individual will actively work within these constraints to maintain their social network. The theoretical section first unpacks these concepts while embedding them in the research literature, finishing with an operationalisation of agency and social accessibility. Using this theory, the empirical section investigates the relationship between agency, social accessibility, and factors associated with both the respondents and their personal networks. More specifically, we examine how agency levels of interaction are related to differences in demographics, global measures of network structure and composition, and measures of media use, particularly of Internet and telephone. We conclude that individuals who are proximate or more active are more likely to maintain reciprocal relationships, and that more distant or infrequent ties require greater maintenance on the individual's part. We believe that studies of activity-travel and ICTs will benefit from a theoretical lens that articulates some of the transformative effects of ICTs on travel vis-à-vis its effects on social life. Social accessibility and agency can help focus that lens thereby enabling researchers to make potentially more elaborate and realistic models that move beyond the spatial and temporal dimensions into social dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the impact of relational goods on individual life satisfaction. By relational goods we indicate the affective/expressive, non instrumental, side of interpersonal relationships. The homo oeconomicus view of human nature is questioned by the recent upsurge of empirical studies on the determinants of self declared happiness, that show that an increasing income does not always lead to more subjective well being ( Easterlin's famous (1974) ‘paradox of happiness’). The theoretical literature on relational goods has isolated various mechanisms which may induce an under-consumption and under- production of relational goods. The hypothesis we test is that people with a more intense relational life are less affected by this ‘relational poverty trap’ and are therefore happier. Our findings does not disprove our hypothesis: relational goods turn out to have significant and positive effects on self declared life satisfaction, when other determinants isolated in the literature as important are taken into account and when the inverse causality nexus i.e. from more happiness to a more intense relational life is also taken into account. Finally, we show that gender, age and education matter and in particular that the effects of sociability on happiness are stronger for women, older and less educated individuals. These findings can be useful in designing and evaluating public policies with a direct or indirect effect on the quality and quantity of relational goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use social network analysis to test the hypothesis that group ideology affects information exchange among environmental groups. The analysis is based on interviews with leaders of 136 environmental groups in Alabama. This paper adds to the literature on resource mobilization among social movement organizations by exploring information exchange among a wide range of environmental groups across an entire state, and by incorporating ideology into our analysis. A typology of environmental groups was developed based on willingness to engage or not engage in political and legal activism to pursue their goals. We found a level of information exchange between activist groups twice that among all other groups. We also found that differing ideological profiles did not limit the flow of information between groups, taken as a whole. We conclude that the relatively high level of connectivity is attributable in part to the presence of paid staff among several key activist groups, making these groups important resources for technical and non-technical support for all groups across the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of social interactions has recently become an important area of economic research, and the focus of researchers in this area has increasingly shifted toward dynamic models. In one recent contribution, Brueckner and Smirnov (2007) analyze the evolution of population attributes in an exceedingly simple model, where an agent's attributes at time t are equal to the average attribute value among his acquaintances. The pattern of acquaintances in the population is determined by the social network, and Brueckner and Smirnov (BS) explore the effect of network characteristics on the convergence of population attributes over time. They show that some simple sufficient conditions on the network structure ensure convergence to a “melting-pot” equilibrium where attributes are uniform across agents. The present paper provides a generalization of BS's analysis, allowing for a more general form of the rule governing the evolution of population attributes. The analysis shows that BS's previous conclusions continue to hold under this generalization, while also providing a result that can be applied more generally to other models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social psychology and social network research are both centrally concerned with human sociality. Despite some historically significant interactions between the two, these areas of investigation have not been usefully deployed together in recent research endeavours. The present paper attempts to bring out some points of both theoretical and methodological contentions, to characterize the gap between them, to traverse briefly the trajectories of their historical development, and to provide some concrete instances of these differences. Intellectual resources available to Asian social psychology are reviewed, which may help bridge the gap between the two areas of research. We conclude by calling for a greater integration of social psychology and social network perspectives in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper examines the psychological characteristics of people who link tightly connected cliques to each other with friendship ties. Based on the work of sociologist Georg Simmel, I argue that these people are characterized by two separate motivations, which I call entrepreneurial and relationship-building motivations. Using a complete network from a heterogeneous class of Jewish-, Arab-, and Druze-Israelis, I provide the first empirical evidence of their existence. Gould and Fernandez's brokerage roles were calculated for each participant, and triad proportions from each brokerage type were correlated with well-established psychological questionnaires. Results indicate the existence of two psychologically distinct network orientations, easily interpretable in terms of Simmel's analysis of processes in triads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the sociological tradition, status characteristics and patterns of interpersonal relations within a social network are considered important in explaining organizational behaviour (e.g. influence, cooperation). In the social identity tradition, perceptions of shared psychological group membership and group prototypicality are considered important in explaining many of the same organizational behaviours. The present paper explores core variables within each of these perspectives as predictors of advice seeking among supervisors in a manufacturing facility. Dyadic measures of group assignment are found to better predict advice seeking than measures taken at the individual level. Identification with work groups predicted advice seeking from those perceived to be in the same group, and also from structural equivalents. Implications for theory and further research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. This paper reports a study to describe meanings that couples mutually assign to, and practices they develop, after the onset of cardiac disease and to understand the impact of the illness on the couples’ relationships in everyday life. Background. Patients as well as partners are affected by the onset of cardiovascular disease. Social support within intimate relationships has been shown to be important for patient survival and well-being, and couples’ coping strategies are pivotal for well-being and adjustment to the chronic condition in both patients with cardiovascular disease and their partners. Method. Twenty-four couples participated in this phenomenological study. Data were collected during 2003. Participants were interviewed after having been hospitalized due to an acute event and having participated in a rehabilitation programme. Three in-depth interviews were obtained for each dyad: one couple interview and two individual interviews with each partner of the dyad. Paradigm cases were sought and thematic analyses conducted. Findings. All couples experienced a ‘brush with death’ at the onset of heart disease, which called for changes in lifestyle. Three distinct patterns of dealing with the illness emerged. The first revealed that some couples assess the illness as a positive, transformative experience in their lives, bringing them closer together. The second showed that a proportion of couples experience the illness as a threat which imposes fear on both partners. The challenges are faced as mutual tasks and new routines are developed. The third pattern revealed couples who experience a missed opportunity to change. These couples are disenchanted about each other but return to life as usual. Conclusions. Nurses can use the information gained from this study to support couples in their attempts to come to terms with the illness, and can enhance their supportive role in rehabilitation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper proposes a model of knowledge sharing, in which coworker congruence, outcome interdependence, perceived organizational support, and procedural justice influence knowledge sharing indirectly through the mediation of instrumental ties and expressive ties, and examined gender differences in causal connections within the model. In a sample of employees in Taiwan, it was shown that the influence of instrumental ties on knowledge sharing is stronger for females than for males; the influence of expressive ties on knowledge sharing is stronger for males than for females; the influence of coworker congruence on expressive ties is stronger for females than for males; the influence of outcome interdependence on instrumental ties is stronger for females than for males; and the influence of perceived organizational support on instrumental ties is stronger for males than for females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideas of community and social capital have received much attention in the last decade, but are plagued by a multitude of conceptualizations, definitions, and operationalizations. This confusion is problematic for both researchers and policymakers trying to use these concepts. While numerous efforts have been made to clarify “social capital” and “community,” too often the two are simply conflated. This paper attempts to distinguish between them by looking at the various ways they are related in concrete examples. Drawn largely from the literature, five examples are offered that together describe the complex interactions of place-based communities and social capital networks. These examples also demonstrate distinctions between community and social capital with regard to boundaries, the qualities of social relations and trust in each, instrumentality, the consequences of one for the other, and issues related to multiple communities in a single place. It is hoped that these distinctions will inform the ongoing efforts to develop unique and useful conceptualizations of these two terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the role that social networks have played in the migration and settlement of Russian and other former Soviet immigrants to Costa Rica, This group of immigrants is of particular interest in that it is an example of migration from a former communist nation to a Third World country, not to the first world (Europe or the United States), Furthermore, a group of Soviet women who married Costa Rican men beginning in the late 1970s set this migration in motion. The objective of our research was to examine the structure and meaning of these immigrants' social networks, and the role that they play in the migration process and during settlement. The findings suggest there is a significant difference in the form and function of the social networks of those immigrants who arrived prior to 1991 (during the Soviet era), and those who came post-1991 and following the collapse of the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on the social support networks of homeless and runaway youth suggest the social networks of runaway youth are made up largely of transient deviant peer relationships. This paper examined social network characteristics of 428 homeless and runaway adolescents from small-to moderate-sized cities in four Midwestern states. We investigated size, homogeneity, and correlates of the composition of the instrumental and emotional support networks as reported by the adolescents. Results showed the networks are considerably heterogeneous, comprised of relationships from home and the street as well as family and non-related adults. Further, the composition of these networks is related to adolescent characteristics and experiences including sexual identity, abuse history, and street experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on the development and piloting of the Social Inclusion Interview Schedule (SIIS). This uses pictures to explore social networks and feelings of social inclusion. The background, conceptual framework and development of the interview schedule are discussed and interim findings are highlighted. The challenge of not just identifying the constituents of a social network but also attributing some measure of intensity to the relationships and activities identified will be considered. The study site is Bradford in the UK and the study population are young people with learning disabilities and their carers. There is a specific focus on people from the South Asian community resident in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings together the educational psychology and place experience literatures to explore 8 children's experiences of school behavior settings. Within this framework, the goal is to think of school as a place comprised of multiple behavior settings, disentangle behavior and engagement, and problematize the construct of engagement. Results indicate that children liked places where the physical space was open, and they had some autonomy, independence, choice, opportunities for leadership, and social support. Conversely, they disliked places that were physically chaotic, where they perceived an abuse of power, and that inhibited choice, independence, and autonomy. Finally, children engaged their disliked places by attempting to personalize these spaces to bring in other parts of their identities. Implications include creating behavior settings that lead to positive experiences, attending to social justice. and the use of project-based pedagogies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of perceived organisational support as a mediator of the relationship between perceived situational factors and affective organisational commitment. Perceived situational factors examined were: procedural justice, distributive justice, communication satisfaction with supervisor, and labor-management relationship climate. Analysis of data from a sample of 185 pharmaceutical sales representatives from India indicated that perceived organisational support fully mediates the relationship between each of these perceived situational variables and affective commitment to the organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary immigration to the United States and the formation of new ethnic groups are the complex and unintended social consequences of the expansion of the nation to its post-World War II position of global hegemony. Immigrant communities in the United States today are related to a history of American military, political, economic, and cultural involvement and intervention in the sending countries, especially in Asia and the Caribbean Basin, and to the linkages that are formed in the process that open a variety of legal and illegal migration pathways. The 19.8 million foreign-born persons counted in the 1990 U.S. census formed the largest immigrant population in the world, though in relative terms, only 7.9% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, a lower proportion than earlier in this century. Today's immigrants are extraordinarily diverse, a reflection of polar-opposite types of migrations embedded in very different historical and structural contexts. Also, unlike the expanding economy that absorbed earlier flows from Europe, since the 1970s new immigrants have entered an "hourglass" economy with reduced opportunities for social mobility, particularly among the less educated, and new waves of refugees have entered a welfare state with expanded opportunities for public assistance. This paper seeks to make sense of the new diversify. A typology of contemporary immigrants is presented, and their patterns of settlement, their distinctive social and economic characteristics compared to major native-born racial-ethnic groups, and their different modes of incorporation in - and consequences for - American society are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an author response to three commentaries, by Robert Kraut and Itamar Rosenn (2012), Barry Wellman (2012) and Mark van Vugt (2012), on our article entitled 'Relationships and the social brain: Integrating psychological and evolutionary perspectives' (Sutcliffe, Dunbar, Binder, & Arrow, 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a special issue of the journal Personal Relationships dealing with context and relationships. It reflects on the state of the literature and discusses five approaches to the interplay of context and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]