Exchanging social support on online health communities (OHCs) can be beneficial to people's health, but the OHC characteristics that promote environments in which users feel socially supported are understudied. We develop a model that examines the mediating influence of OHC cohesiveness, altruism , and universality on the relationships between active and passive use and received OHC social support. Our findings indicate that social support can be derived from both active and passive use of the OHC. Although active use can directly stimulate received OHC social support, the relationship between passive use and social support is fully mediated by OHC group dynamics.

Mobile technologies have increasingly become an integral part of individuals’ work and personal lives. Although research exists in this domain, most of it focuses on the customer’s adoption factors rather than assessing the value or the impact of mobile business (m-business) usage on firms. The present study fills this gap in the literature through the analysis of the value m-business can provide for firms. The Technology-Organization-Environment framework, Diffusion of Innovation theory and Resource-Based theory ground this research’s conceptual model for assessing the post-adoption stages of usage and value of mobile business from an organizational perspective. The value of m-business includes the impact on marketing and sales, internal operations, and procurement. This research uses a mixed method research design; interviews are first conducted to develop a model to assess m-business usage, and survey data collected from 180 Portuguese organizations is then used to test the proposed model. The results indicate that seven of the nine proposed antecedents of m-business usage are significant, and that m-business usage has a positive and significant relationship with m-business value. Furthermore, the three dimensions of value (marketing and sales, internal operations, and procurement) are significant, but only two of them have direct positive impacts on firm performance. Implications of these findings for practice and research are discussed.

Governments and corporations are increasingly considering the use of the Internet for individuals to cast votes. Yet, not everyone has access to and is comfortable with the use of technology. This is the problem of the digital divide. This study explores the impact of the digital divide on Internet voting (I-voting). A model of I-voting and the digital divide is proposed. The proposed model suggests that age, income, education and frequency of Internet use have an impact on I-voting utilization. To test the model both an online and paper-based version of the survey was administered to a large sample of citizens. The results of multiple linear regressions indicate that age and income (access and skills) have a significant impact on Internet voting. These findings indicate that, like other e-government services, I-voting is subject to the barriers associated with the digital divide, and this digital divide introduces several challenges to government agencies.

This research investigates the effects of technical (i.e. technical ability) and soft (i.e. emotional intelligence) skills on CS program retention. Structural equation modeling revealed that affinity (satisfaction with the major) was the most important factor in determining intention to leave the CS major. Unexpectedly, technical skills were the least important (compared to soft skills). Gender differences were also examined. Results indicate significantly different effects on affinity and intent to stay across gender. For example, when examining female CS students, both technical and soft skills were significantly related to affinity which in turn was significantly related to intent to stay; with soft skills providing the stronger relationship. For males, affinity for the CS major was only significantly related to emotional intelligence. Technical skills were not significantly related to affinity. The implications of these findings are discussed.