On the so-called Web 2.0, numerous Social Networking Sites (SNS) have known a tremendous success as they brought new ways to communicate, interact, learn about people, and share content with them. Besides improving informal social ties, transposing Awareness to the enterprise is very promising for promoting collaboration. However, it can easily lead to information overload, which means producti...

Enforcement problems are frequently acute in illegal transactions, such as bribery. However, if a government official and a member of the public share informal social or economic ties, this may enable them to enforce bribe transactions by “linking the games”. As a result, official’s incentives to engage in corruption may be affected by the social structure of the society in which they are embed...

OBJECTIVES To describe the structure of informal networks for individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) living in the community, to understand the quality of relationship of informal networks, and to understand the role of informal networks in the prevention and management of secondary health conditions (SHCs). DESIGN Mixed-method descriptive study. SETTING Ontario, Canada Participants: C...

People face heterogeneous health shocks and medical spending risks. Using a rich dynamic structural life-cycle model, this paper investigates how these shocks a¤ect the savings behavior of retired single households. Consumers are allowed to respond to health shocks in two different ways: they can directly pay for their health care expenses (self-insure) or they can rely on health insurance cont...

We study borrowers’ optimal choice between formal and informal sources of credit in a setting with strategic default due to limited enforcement. Informal loans (e.g., from friends or relatives) can be enforced by the threat of severing social ties which hurts both the borrower and the lender, while formal loans (e.g., from banks) are enforced by requiring collateral. We show that in this settin...

Existing research suggests that social media use is associated with higher levels of social capital – the resources contained within a person’s network of friends, family, and other acquaintances. However, in predicting access to these resources, it has been impossible to distinguish the affordances of social media from the underlying advantage of maintaining a favorable social network of relat...

Our research explores online social networking sites to describe the patterns of participation and knowledge sharing in these spaces. We examine how knowledge is shared and how participation is potentially shaped by social or material resources of the space. Our presentation will focus on data gathered from two different types of social networking sites. Theoretical Background Educational resea...

BACKGROUND People with mental illness have been identified as being more likely to experience type 2 diabetes and the complications arising from this, necessitating more complex chronic illness self-management. Social support has been identified as a significant factor in the successful adoption of lifestyle change for people with type 2 diabetes, however people with mental illness often have i...

We investigated how positive affectivity influences people's perception of the pat terns of social relationships around them. Positive affectivity was measured as trait positive affect. The outcome variable was accuracy in the perception of informal patterns of social interaction in a group (i.e., the group's network structure). Data on the perception of the relationships of friendship and work...

BACKGROUND Studies have shown that social capital is positively associated with health, and the association is context-based. Indigenous populations with poor access to health care largely depend on social capital for their health care needs. This study was conducted to explore the dimensions and types of social capital and its utilization by families with thalassemia for their health and well-...