自适应临床路径建模中语义与规范分析研究

文中运用语义分析与规范分析的方法表示临床路径知识,其中语义分析表示临床路径中的语义单元以及它们的关系与行为的方式,规范分析提取并描述决定这些行为如何发生的规范。论述了基于语义分析和规范分析建立临床路径本体模型的方法,通过定义可能的行为模式和根据病人的具体情况控制这些行为的规范,为自适应临床路径建模提供关键技术,从而为设计实现自适应临床路径奠定基础。     

Reciprocity norms and information-sharing behavior in online consumption communities: An empirical investigation of antecedents and moderators

This study seeks a better understanding of information-sharing behavior in online consumption communities by investigating both the antecedents and moderating mechanisms of such behavior. Using self-reported data collected over two periods, along with objective behavioral data, the authors show that a reciprocity norm functions as a proximal determinant of information-sharing behavior. This norm also channels the effects of social, hedonic, and utilitarian community values on sharing behavior. The results reveal that the conversion of reciprocity norms into information-sharing behavior depends on individual and contextual conditions. These significant insights reflect the integration of consumer resource allocation theory with a reciprocity framework to establish an explanatory platform for members’ information-sharing behavior in online communities. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Why do you return the favor in online knowledge communities? A study of the motivations of reciprocity

Online knowledge community administrators are attempting to encourage their users to contribute knowledge in order to provide value to members and maintain sustainability. A large number of online knowledge communities fail mainly due to the reluctance of users to return the favor and share knowledge. Many studies on this topic have highlighted the importance of reciprocity for knowledge contribution which forms a virtuous feedback loop for the community sustainability. However, it is unclear how reciprocity is developed and what influences its development. Motivated by this, this study focuses on investigating the antecedents of knowledge receivers’ reciprocity in online knowledge communities. It formulates and tests a theoretical model to explain reciprocity behavior of community members based on equity theory and Social Identity explanation of De-individuation Effects (SIDE) model. Our proposed model is validated through a large-scale survey in an online forum for English learning. Results reveal that indebtedness and community norm not only are key antecedents of intention to reciprocate but are also positively related to each other. The perceived anonymity of the online knowledge community not only has a positive effect on intention to reciprocate, but also has an interactive effect with community norm on intention to reciprocate. Theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.     

Predicting continuance in online communities: model development and empirical test

Popular interest in online communities has grown rapidly in recent years as a result of the widespread diffusion of Web 2.0 applications. However, the full values and potential of online communities cannot be realised without users' ongoing participation. Thus, this study aims at developing and empirically testing a research model to examine users' continuance intention to participate in an online community based on an extended information systems (IS) continuance model. Specifically, entertainment value and affective commitment are included in the IS continuance model and empirically examined in the context of online communities. A total of 240 returns collected from an online survey, which was conducted among users of a website bulletin board-based community in China, were analysed using partial least squares. The results reveal that users' continuance intention to participate in an online community is determined by both satisfaction and affective commitment. Satisfaction and affective commitment are, in turn, influenced by positive disconfirmations of purposive and entertainment values. The findings of this study contribute not only to theory building in online community continuance but also inform online community moderators in their effort to develop strategies for retaining their users.     

Understanding continuance intention of knowledge creation using extended expectation–confirmation theory: an empirical study of Taiwan and China online communities

Grounded on expectation–confirmation theory (ECT), this study proposes an integrated model aiming to understand how participants' continuance intention of knowledge creation and satisfaction are affected by their perceived identity verification (PIV) and performance expectancy in an online community. To assess the theoretical model, we surveyed two online communities – Baidu (China) and Yahoo knowledge+ (Taiwan), including 213 and 216 useable responses, respectively. Both PIV and performance expectancy are positively associated with continuance intention of knowledge creation. In Baidu community, satisfaction is affected either directly by performance expectancy or indirectly by PIV (through performance expectancy). Our findings have implications for both practice and theory.     

Empathy online

Members of online support communities help each other by empathising about common problems and exchanging information about symptoms and treatments. Results from two studies indicate that: empathy occurs in most online textual communities; empathetic communication is influenced by the topic being discussed; the presence of women tends to encourage empathy; and the presence of moderators not only reduces hostility but also appears to encourage empathy. The paper explores how empathy may be affected by pace of interaction, mode of expression and the way people reveal themselves in synchronous and asynchronous communities. As we advance towards technically better computer virtual environments, it is timely to pay greater attention to social issues such as empathetic communication.     

Mediating roles of self-presentation desire in online game community commitment and trust behavior of Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), which allow simultaneous participation of several gamers, have attracted a great deal of attention recently. Since MMORPGs can be categorized as a type of online community, the behavior of MMORPGs users needs to be considered as the general behavior in online communities. However, previous studies of online communities did not pay enough attention to MMORPGs, in which users can express themselves by interacting actively through games and game avatars. Understanding the characteristics of MMORPGs as online game communities where users communicate and interact will allow games to be vitalized and users to be immersed in games in a more positive way. Hence, using self-presentation theory and social identity theory, this study examined the factors influencing self-presentation desire and the mediating role of self-presentation desire examined in terms of trust of and commitments to online game communities. The results showed that the interactivity in the spaces of MMORPGs had the biggest impacts on self-presentation desire; personal innovativeness and game design quality also was influential. The results also indicated that self-presentation desire caused trust of online games and eventually led to even stronger commitments to gamers.     

User Roles in Online Communities and Their Moderating Effect on Online Community Usage Intention: An Integrated Approach

Recently, it has been evident that the analysis of user data and content in online environments allows practitioners to understand how to motivate online community members and keep them frequently involved in the community, and so to manage these communities successfully. In this sense, practitioners should comprehend community members’ usage intentions to give a better service and to motivate them. However, different user types engage in such communities, so understanding their diverse needs is also essential for practitioners. In parallel, this article addresses the problem of the different user types existing in online communities, and each of them requires different strategies to be motivated and involved in the community. Thus, unlike previous studies, this study firstly identifies user roles in an online community based on the structural role theory, social network analysis, and community members’ contribution behavior. After that, it investigates members’ usage intentions based on the technology acceptance model and examines the moderating effect of identified user roles on their usage intentions. The study also guides practitioners to develop motivational strategies to keep each type of member continually satisfied.     

Forming relationship commitments to online communities: The role of social motivations

Although administrators of online communities (OCs) may focus on improving their OCs through upgrading technology and enhancing the usability of their OCs to attract additional users, the level of OC participation may be associated with social motives. The purpose of this study is to understand how social motivations (that is, network externalities and social norms) affect members committed to OCs. This study tests the hypotheses on data collected from 396 undergraduate students. Data analyses show that network externalities and social norms directly influence social interaction ties, which subsequently results in commitment toward a community. Social norms also directly influence relationship commitments to a community. The results provide insights into how social motivations lead to commitment to an OC, reminding OC administrators to encourage member commitment to the OC from the perspective of social motivations.     

Conflict and identity shape shifting in an online financial community

Abstract.  This paper challenges traditional explorations of online communities that have relied upon assumptions of trust and social cohesion. In the analysis presented here, conflict becomes more than just dysfunctional communication and provides an alternative set of unifying principles and rationales for understanding social interaction and identity shape shifting within an online community. A model is advanced that describes the systematic techniques of hostility and aggression in technologically enabled communities that take the form of contemporary tribalism. It is argued that this tribe-like conflict embodies important rituals essential for maintaining and defining the contradictory social roles sometimes found in online environments. This research offers a critical interpretive perspective that focuses on the link between identity shape shifting behaviours and the power relations within an online financial community. The analysis reveals how conflict between positions of power can help to align the values and ideals of an online community. With this study we seek to motivate a re-examination of the design and governance of online communities.     

Learning Virtual Community Loyalty Behavior From a Perspective of Social Cognitive Theory

Drawing upon social cognitive theory (SCT), this research postulates several personal and environmental factors as key drivers of virtual community loyalty behavior in online settings. An empirical testing of this model, by investigating undergraduate students' participation in communities of online games, reveals the applicability of SCT in virtual communities. The study's test results show that the influences of both affective commitment and social norms on community loyalty behavior are significant, whereas the influences of both exchange ideology and social support on community loyalty behavior are insignificant. This research contributes to the online community literature by assessing critical antecedent factors to the unexplored area of community loyalty behavior, by validating idiosyncratic drivers of community loyalty behavior and by performing an operationalization of affective commitment and social norms in a virtual world. Last, managerial implications and limitations of this research are provided.     

Cyber neutralisation and flaming

Individuals are increasingly subjected to flaming or negative behaviours as society becomes digitally adept. Existing research on flaming is largely fragmented and insufficient to understand what induces individuals to engage in flaming actions online. Neutralisation theory, the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), and motivational theory are integrated to develop a theoretical model to better understand flaming in virtual communities. A large-scale online questionnaire targeting individuals who had experience with flaming in a virtual community was employed to analyse the research model. The results indicate that neutralisation techniques acceptability, enjoyment, subjective norms, and low self-control significantly influence flaming. Enjoyment, low moral beliefs, subjective norms, and low self-control influence neutralisation techniques acceptability, or efforts made by individuals to rationalise their deviant behaviour. Neutralisation techniques acceptability is highly correlated with flaming in virtual communities, which has not previously been examined. Intrinsic motivation or enjoyment influences flaming, which is important because neutralisation theory and the TPB do not account for motivation. Virtual communities have a tremendous amount of influence towards an individual's rationalisation of and repeated engagement in flaming. The government, Internet service providers, the media, virtual communities, and Internet activists have an opportunity to define appropriate online behavioural standards that diminish the prevalence of flaming.     

How do entrepreneurs learn and engage in an online community-of-practice? A case study approach

This paper investigates the ways in which entrepreneurs use communities of practice (CoPs) to express themselves, using narrative theory and rhetorical analysis, to gain insight into an electronic social network medium, namely, YoungEntrepreneur.com. In particular, the study focuses on CoPs themes, including why entrepreneurs engage in CoPs, what role the moderators and resident entrepreneurs can play in managing online CoPs, on communication rituals of the knowledge sharing through interactivity, and on ‘how to develop an intervention’ to maintain and stimulate entrepreneurs for engaging in an online community. Findings reveal that the topic title plays a major role in attracting people. Successful topics with successful conclusions (in terms of the original query that was answered) will not necessarily get high responses and vice versa. It is observed that the domain expert does not play a big role in keeping the discussion going. Finally, the study also discovered that entrepreneurs like to communicate in a story telling genre. A comprehensive set of engagement measurement tools are introduced to effectively measure the engagement in a virtual CoP, along with a classification to define and categorise discourse of messages in terms of content and context, which allow practitioners to understand the effectiveness of a social networking site.     

What to Tell About Me? Self‐Presentation in Online Communities

This paper investigates how the type of community and personal goals affect self‐presentation. In 3 online studies, we simulated the registration process in online communities, presenting either a common‐bond or a common‐identity community. Study 1 confirmed that members of the common‐bond community presented themselves in an individualizing manner, while members of the common‐identity community focused on characteristics shared among members of the community. Study 2 investigated underlying processes, showing that the goal to get in contact with other members was less salient in the common‐identity than in the common‐bond community. Study 3 demonstrated that community members actively manage their self‐presentation in accordance with personal goals. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for research and profile design.     

Understanding the roles of signs and norms in organizations - a semiotic approach to information systems design

To apply semiotics to organizational analysis and information systems design, it is essential to unite two basic concepts: the sign and the norm. A sign is anything that stands for something else for some community. A norm is a generalized disposition to the world shared by members of a community. When its condition is met, a norm generates a propositional attitude which may, but not necessarily will, affect the subject's behaviour. Norms reflect regularities in the behaviour of members in an organization, allowing them to coordinate their actions. Organized behaviour is norm-governed behaviour. Signs trigger the norms leading to more signs being produced. Both signs and norms lend themselves to empirical study. The focus in this paper is on the properties of norms since those for signs are relatively well known. The paper discusses a number of different taxonomies of norms: formal, informal, technical; evaluative, perceptual, behavioural, cognitive; structure, action; substantive, communication and control. A semiotic analysis of information systems is adduced in this paper from the social, pragmatic, semantic, syntactic, empiric and physical perspectives. The paper finally presents a semiotic approach to information systems design, by discussing the method of information modelling and systems architecture. This approach shows advantages over other traditional ones in a higher degree of separation of knowledge, and hence in the consistency, integrity and maintainability of systems.     

Identifying prohibition norms in agent societies

In normative multi-agent systems, the question of “how an agent identifies norms in an open agent society” has not received much attention. This paper aims at addressing this question. To this end, this paper proposes an architecture for norm identification for an agent. The architecture is based on observation of interactions between agents. This architecture enables an autonomous agent to identify prohibition norms in a society using the prohibition norm identification (PNI) algorithm. The PNI algorithm uses association rule mining, a data mining approach to identify sequences of events as candidate norms. When a norm changes, an agent using our architecture will be able to modify the norm and also remove a norm if it does not hold in the society. Using simulations of a park scenario we demonstrate how an agent makes use of the norm identification framework to identify prohibition norms.     

Understanding the roles of signs and norms in organizations - a semiotic approach to information systems design

To apply semiotics to organizational analysis and information systems design, it is essential to unite two basic concepts: the sign and the norm. A sign is anything that stands for something else for some community. A norm is a generalized disposition to the world shared by members of a community. When its condition is met, a norm generates a propositional attitude which may, but not necessarily will, affect the subject's behaviour. Norms reflect regularities in the behaviour of members in an organization, allowing them to coordinate their actions. Organized behaviour is norm-governed behaviour. Signs trigger the norms leading to more signs being produced. Both signs and norms lend themselves to empirical study. The focus in this paper is on the properties of norms since those for signs are relatively well known. The paper discusses a number of different taxonomies of norms: formal, informal, technical; evaluative, perceptual, behavioural, cognitive; structure, action; substantive, communication and control. A semiotic analysis of information systems is adduced in this paper from the social, pragmatic, semantic, syntactic, empiric and physical perspectives. The paper finally presents a semiotic approach to information systems design, by discussing the method of information modelling and systems architecture. This approach shows advantages over other traditional ones in a higher degree of separation of knowledge, and hence in the consistency, integrity and maintainability of systems.     

Administrator-users contribute more to online communities

Lack of user participation and contribution has been a long-standing problem for online communities. We proposed and examined new strategies for cultivating opinion leadership and enabling users to post articles outside of the community theme. We used social role theory to propose that online communities should encourage highly committed users to take administrator roles, which will increase their opinion leadership and contributions to both public spaces and their own user-controlled spaces. We collected multiple-wave and multiple-source data from 1,115 users of a large online community. The results indicate that encouraging users to take administrator roles increases their community contributions.     

Firestorms: Modeling conflict diffusion and management strategies in online communities

This study aims to provide a better understanding of how organizations can manage public conflict and firestorms in social media spheres. We develop an agent-based simulation model of conflicts in firm-hosted online communities and find that a collaborating conflict management style characterized by high levels of cooperativeness and assertiveness helps to successfully handle conflict. However, the effectiveness of this collaborative style is highly dependent on contingency factors related to the participating individuals and the social structure within the community itself, such as the number of moderators and aggressors present in the community, their credibility, as well as the overall opinion of the community. Depending on these factors, collaborating and accommodating conflict management becomes more or less successful. Under some configurations it is even less effective than more competitive and assertive management styles. Therefore, to successfully handle conflict and restrain the escalation of a firestorm, organizations need to optimally adapt their conflict management style to varying conditions by considering individual-level and community-level characteristics.     

A multiagent network for peer norm enforcement

In a multiagent system where norms are used to regulate the actions agents ought to execute, some agents may decide not to abide by the norms if this can benefit them. Norm enforcement mechanisms are designed to counteract these benefits and thus the motives for not abiding by the norms. In this work we propose a distributed mechanism through which agents in the multiagent system that do not abide by the norms can be ostracised by their peers. An ostracised agent cannot interact anymore and looses all benefits from future interactions. We describe a model for multiagent systems structured as networks of agents, and a behavioural model for the agents in such systems. Furthermore, we provide analytical results which show that there exists an upper bound to the number of potential norm violations when all the agents exhibit certain behaviours. We also provide experimental results showing that both stricter enforcement behaviours and larger percentage of agents exhibiting these behaviours reduce the number of norm violations, and that the network topology influences the number of norm violations. These experiments have been executed under varying scenarios with different values for the number of agents, percentage of enforcers, percentage of violators, network topology, and agent behaviours. Finally, we give examples of applications where the enforcement techniques we provide could be used.