AIM This paper presents qualitative data from an in-depth interview study of 40 repeat drink drivers in Perth Western Australia to inform countermeasures for these high risk offenders. BACKGROUND Licence sanctions are effective countermeasures for most drink drivers but the small group of repeat offenders are less responsive. Many choose to drive whilst unlicensed as the probability of detect...

This study examines how weak and strong network ties of micro-entrepreneurs influence their entrepreneurial self-efficacy, thereby micro-enterprise performance, in the informal sector Sri Lanka. Using matched data from 635 case officers employed by government, structural equation modeling is to test hypothesized relationships. In line with social cognitive theory, findings confirm that, whereas...

We are investigating the role of online social interactions on the quality of life and well-being of people aged 65 years and over. We have conducted workshops and one-to-one semi-structured interviews, and have had free-flowing informal exchanges with our participants who have shared stories and incidents with us. Initial findings indicate that older people need an incentive to get and stay on...

Social networks are important for finding jobs, but which ties are most useful? Granovetter (1973) suggested that “weak ties” are more valuable than “strong ties,” since strong ties have redundant information, while weak ties have new information. Using six million Facebook users’ data we find evidence for the opposite. We proxy for job help by identifying people who eventually work with a pre-...

Executive Summary While there is growing recognition about the role of informal networks in organizations and the importance of energizers in the workplace, chances are that managers and organizations are missing a potentially devastating expense: de-energizers. Over the past decade we've studied the effects of negative or de-energizing ties, defined as enduring, recurring set of negative judgm...

This paper explores the role of social capital in human resources management. We suggest that the recent interest in social capital has neglected the possibility that social networks may contain negative ties, and that attention to these negative ties may provide additional insights into understanding relationships and social networks in organizations. Research focusing on the antecedents and c...

BACKGROUND The overlap between social networks and health represents a key area of research in social gerontology. Set in a continuing care retirement community, this research focuses on how health is related to outgoing and incoming reports of social interaction among residents. METHOD Study participants (n = 123) were given the RAND 36-item Health Survey and asked about their social interac...

Friendship and peer acceptance contribute uniquely to positive social and emotional adjustment whereas low status within the peer group has been found to produce rejection, loneliness and harassment. We have studied how the exclusionary ties and friendship ties are distributed among first grade pupils in the classroom. The basic question was whether girls’ and boys’ networks are different from ...

Studies of social networks, mapped using self-reported contacts, have demonstrated the strong influence of social connections on the propensity for individuals to adopt or maintain healthy behaviors and on their likelihood to adopt health risks such as obesity. Social network analysis may prove useful for businesses and organizations that wish to improve the health of their populations by ident...

BACKGROUND Leadership behaviour in complex networks is under-researched, and little has been written concerning leadership of translational research networks (TRNs) that take discoveries made 'at the bench' and translate them into practices used 'at the bedside.' Understanding leaders' opportunities and behaviours within TRNs working to solve this key problem in implementing evidence into clini...