The Application of Social Network Theory During a Pandemic

This chapter provides a theoretical overview of social network theory, given the widespread of social media during the COVID-19 outbreak. It mainly focuses on three social network theories (the social capital and structural halls, the strength of weak ties, and the small-world). It gives insights into how different researchers have examined these theories during the pandemics and how they have been used in exchanging and communicating information during pandemics. In addition, it reviews previous research concerning how epidemic propagation often happens based on these theories.

Weak and strong ties and its connection to experts' problem-solving styles in scaffolding students' PBL activities on social media

Background: Studies have acknowledged that social media enables students to connect with and learn from experts from different ties available in the students’ personal learning environment (PLE). Incorporating experts into formal learning activities such as scaffolding problem-solving tasks through social media, allows students to understand how experts solve real-world problems. However, studies that evaluate experts’ problem-solving styles on social media in relation to the tie strength of the experts with the students are scarce in the extant literature. This study aimed to explore the problem-solving styles that the experts portrayed based on their ties with the students in problem-based learning (PBL) on Facebook. Methods: This study employed a simultaneous within-subject experimental design which was conducted in three closed Facebook groups with 12 final year management students, six business experts, and one instructor as the participants. The experts were invited by the students from the weak and strong ties in their PLE. Hinging on the Strength of Weak Ties Theory (Granovetter, 1973) and problem-solving styles (Selby et al., 2004), this study employed thematic analysis using the ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software to map the experts’ comments on Facebook. Results: The experts from strong and weak ties who had a prior relationship with the students showed people preference style by being more sensitive to the students' learning needs and demonstrating firmer scaffolding compared to the weak ties' experts who had no prior relationship with the students. Regardless of the types of ties, all experts applied all manner of processing information and orientation to change but the degree of its applications are correlated with the working experience of the experts. Conclusion: The use of weak or strong ties benefited the students as it expedited their problem-solving tasks since the experts have unique expertise to offer depending on the problem-solving styles that they exhibited.

Reward Crowdfunding: Who to Attract at the Beginning of the Campaign? An Analysis in Terms of Revealed Networks of Preferences

This research study combines the theoretical teachings of revealed preferences, signal theory and weak tie theory to better understand the dynamics at work at the beginning of a campaign and to explain its success. By identifying the revealed preferences of early backers through their common past contributions, we characterize as strong or weak the nature of the complex preference ties between them. We build networks of the contributions made by the individuals identified as early backers to 9,425 campaigns run on the Ulule platform between July 2010 and September 2014. The results of this study underline the importance of the presence of strong preference ties between early backers and other platform users for the success of campaigns. They also corroborate the theory of the strength of weak ties. Later in the campaign, the intervention of backers with less specific preferences, in the position of intermediaries, positively influences the future outcome by accelerating the fundraising speed at the beginning of the campaign.

Indirect impact of employees’ social capital on their income at Dong Thap Muoi, Long An Province

The study aims to examine the direct impact of social capital on the employment and income of workers. The research model is built based on Granovetter’s theory of the strength of weak-ties relationships, Putnam’s social capital theory, and the results of some related previous studies. The study used secondary data collected from 1,197 workers in the Dong Thap Muoi region of Long An province. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to analyze the data. The results show that social capital has a positive impact on the employment and income of workers, in which the trust factor has the most substantial influence. From the research results, some recommendations are proposed to increase work efficiency and increase employee income.

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way: Synthesizing Creativity, Contagious Motivation, and Unique Projects Into the Course Experience

Creativity is not just a catch phrase for the new decade—it is a way of life. While technology-driven innovation can promote efforts to produce optimal solutions, individually driven creativity is necessary to launch and drive cutting-edge, trailblazing ideas. The goal of this study is to examine relationships between creative divergent thinking (CDT) and motivation situated within course projects as antecedents to the overall course experience. The synthesis of transformational leadership, context-dependent fixation hypothesis, strength of weak ties perspective, contagious motivation, and constructivist learning frameworks form the interdisciplinary foundation for the proposed contagious motivation and creative experience model (CMCEM). The proposed marketing classroom model is tested using a structural equation model of N = 540 marketing undergraduate students. Findings indicate that CDT is an important individual characteristic that affects classroom dynamics. Importantly, when students exhibit higher levels of CDT, they perceive higher project uniqueness, higher levels of motivation, higher other student motivation, and more positive course experiences. In addition to other findings, the CMCEM emphasizes the powerful combination of CDT, individual student motivation, the contagious nature of that motivation on other students through well-structured group projects, and the importance of instructors as transformational teachers.

Exploring the Value of Nodes with Multicommunity Membership for Classification with Graph Convolutional Neural Networks

Sampling is an important step in the machine learning process because it prioritizes samples that help the model best summarize the important concepts required for the task at hand. The process of determining the best sampling method has been rarely studied in the context of graph neural networks. In this paper, we evaluate multiple sampling methods (i.e., ascending and descending) that sample based off different definitions of centrality (i.e., Voterank, Pagerank, degree) to observe its relation with network topology. We find that no sampling method is superior across all network topologies. Additionally, we find situations where ascending sampling provides better classification scores, showing the strength of weak ties. Two strategies are then created to predict the best sampling method, one that observes the homogeneous connectivity of the nodes, and one that observes the network topology. In both methods, we are able to evaluate the best sampling direction consistently.

The Strength of Weak Ties Revisited: Further Evidence of the Role of Strong Ties in the Provision of Online Social Support

In this work, we challenge the assumption that weak ties play uniquely important social support roles on social network sites, particularly regarding informational support. To overcome methodological limitations of earlier research, we present a mixed-methods study. Forty-one participants were interviewed and asked to identify five weak, medium, and strong ties each and to report on perceived and actually received social support (emotional, informational, instrumental, and appraisal) associated with each. Complicating traditional understandings of “the strength of weak ties,” the qualitative analyses of actual support events show that both emotional and informational support is provided by strong ties. In an additional quantitative between-subjects study design, 352 participants were asked about various aspects of a weak, medium, or strong tie. These results indicate that participants valued their strong ties more regarding every form of support. Although there were only weak correlations between perceived and recalled actually received support, people also report actual support events with strong ties to be more helpful—overall suggesting the strength of strong ties.

Managing everyday communication with strong, weak, and latent ties via WeChat: Availability, visibility, and reciprocal engagement

This article examines how people utilize WeChat, the most popular multi-purpose mobile app in China, to manage their everyday communication with different social ties. Since Granovetter popularized the idea of social ties by noting the strength of weak ties, a long list of studies has extended social ties theory by following the quantification tradition, for instance, quantitatively examining the different functionalities of strong and weak ties. However, many aspects of social ties cannot be easily quantified. In this vein, this study, being a qualitative network analysis, offers a communicative conception and categorization of social ties. It is based on data from 39 distinctive Chinese respondents, collected through an interview-diary-interview method. WeChat, being more than a social media app, affords new technologies (e.g., mobile payment and virtual red packets), enabling users to manage and maintain their social networks in new and alternative ways. The empirical findings suggest that Chinese respondents differentiate between strong, weak, and latent ties, and they articulate three communication strategies: managing availability, managing visibility, and managing reciprocal engagement. Based on the empirical evidence, this article discusses further implications with reference to the concepts of imagined audiences and commercialization of social relations. Moreover, this study contributes to social ties theory by providing empirical insights into its cultural specifications in the context of China, such as the emphasis on the principle of reciprocity in guanxi culture.