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The chapter defines social capital and explains its relationship to the broader concept of traffic safety culture. It lays out the conceptual case for a causal connection between social capital and positive traffic safety outcomes and describes recent work that has examined that connection. Implications for the practitioner include current policy options based on existing research results and promising new directions that require further exploration.

This paper aims to explore the role of observable product characteristics and label wording in consumers' valuations for credence goods, products for which key characteristics may not be fully evaluated even after purchase. The objective is to draw conclusions with relevance to pricing policy.

Hedonic price equations are estimated for a dietary supplement called black cohosh, taken by women for relief from menopausal symptoms.

Consumers respond in expected ways to label words that directly indicate product characteristics: for example, paying more for a product labeled as suitable for vegetarians. But surprising results occur for some nonspecific label words (e.g. “guaranteed” is associated with lower prices), suggesting that consumers view these words as indirect signals with respect to unobservable qualities. Additionally, consumers pay more for packages containing more units (e.g. tablets) even when the time supply of product is held constant; this outcome is consistent with the notion that sheer quantity reassures consumers about value and could indicate a reaction to uncertainty in the overall value proposition.

The study relies on list prices in place of transacted prices, so consumers' true valuations may not be reflected with complete accuracy. The study should be repeated in the future using scanner data on actual product transactions.

The indirect signals transmitted by label words and other observable attributes play a key role in consumers' valuations for credence goods, and so are highly relevant to pricing strategy.

Previous studies have considered willingness‐to‐pay for label‐indicated credence qualities, but have not looked at the role of indirect signals/indicators.

Adequate, reliable, and efficient urban infrastructure systems (UIS) are fundamental to sustainable development, social mobility, and economic vitality. As communities continuously rely on basic infrastructure services to support their daily communal functions, major components of UIS are subject to heavy use, and thus rapidly deteriorate over time; hence, it is critical that efficient infrastructure management strategies practices are in place. As current strategies remain confronted with various limitations including adaptability to changing conditions, lack of public engagement, and cost-effectiveness, this study explores social media data mining as an approach to revitalise and support current urban infrastructure monitoring strategies by extracting valuable insights from public opinion. Twitter messages or ‘Tweets’ pertaining to public infrastructure in The Philippines were collected and analysed to identify recurring issues in public infrastructure, emerging topics in public discussions, and the overall perception of the public on infrastructure services. This study presents a topic model that extracts dominant topics from aggregated social media data and a sentiment analysis model that determines public opinion sentiment in relation to different urban infrastructure components. The findings of this study highlight the potential of social media data mining to surpass the limits of conventional data collection techniques and the importance of public opinion as a key driver for a more user-involved decision-making in infrastructure management and as an important social aspect that can be utilised to support planning and response strategies in routine maintenance, preservation, and improvement of UIS.

This chapter develops an integrated model that encompasses four aspects: (1) face-to-face (F2F), (2) online teaching, (3) massive open online courses (MOOCs), and (4) the combination of Western, localized, and indigenous knowledge to provide blended entrepreneurship education. The model emphasizes the importance of a heutagogical approach and the institutional environment in blended entrepreneurship education. It is then applied to a start-up university to help develop students’ entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurial identity aspirations, and entrepreneurial skills. The model’s implications for research and entrepreneurship education are discussed.

A growing number of human rights NGOs have placed international volunteers in conflict zones from Guatemala and Colombia to Palestine and Iraq. This study samples from contemporary high-risk transnational activists and highlights the variation in biographical steps taken toward the shared outcome of participation in human rights work (HRW). Data was collected through 6 weeks of participant observation in Israel-Palestine, 21 in-depth interviews, and 28 shorter focused interviews with human rights workers (N=49). Oversampling from the International Solidarity Movement reveals how the unique constraints and opportunities presented by a particular conflict zone and NGO culture impacts self-selection into HRW. Grounded theory and Boolean methodology aided in identifying four main pathways (the nonviolent activist, peace church, anarchist, and solidarity pathways) to HRW as well as biographical patterns and complexities that have been underemphasized in the existing literature. These include the salience of transformative events and attitude changes in the process of constructing a cosmopolitan identity and committing to high-risk transnational activism.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an increase in online traffic, with many assuming that this technology would facilitate coping through active social connections. This study aims to interrogate the nature of this traffic-engagement relationship by distinguishing between passive (e.g. browsing) and active (e.g. reacting, commenting and sharing) engagement, and examining behavioral shifts across platforms.

Three field studies assessed changes in social media engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. These studies included social media engagement with the most followed accounts (Twitter), discussion board commenting (Reddit) and news content sharing (Facebook).

Even though people spent more time online during the pandemic, the current research finds people were actively engaging less. Users were reacting less to popular social media accounts, commenting less on discussion boards and even sharing less news content.

While the current work provides a systematic observation of engagement during a global crisis, it does not claim causality based on its correlational nature. Future research should test potential mechanisms (e.g. anxiety, threat and privacy) to draw causal inference and identify possible interventions.

The pandemic shed light on a complex systemic issue: the misunderstanding and oversimplification of how online platforms facilitate social cohesion. It encourages thoughtful consideration of online social dynamics, emphasizing that not all engagement is equal and that the benefits of connection may not always be realized as expected.

This research provides a postmortem on the traffic-engagement relationship, highlighting that increased online presence does not necessarily translate to active social connection, which might help explain the rise in mental health issues that emerged from the pandemic.

The Internet is a breeding ground for rumors. A way to tackle the problem involves the use of counter-rumor messages that refute rumors. This paper analyzes users' intention to follow rumors and counter-rumors as a function of two factors: individuals' risk propensity and messages' prior endorsement.

The paper conducted an online experiment. Complete responses from 134 participants were analyzed statistically.

Risk-seeking users were keener to follow counter-rumors compared with risk-averse ones. No difference was detected in terms of their intention to follow rumors. Users' intention to follow rumors always exceeded their intention to follow counter-rumors regardless of whether prior endorsement was low or high.

This paper contributes to the scholarly understanding of people's behavioral responses when, unknowingly, exposed to rumors and counter-rumors on the Internet. Moreover, it dovetails the literature by examining how risk-averse and risk-seeking individuals differ in terms of intention to follow rumors and counter-rumors. It also shows how prior endorsement of such messages drives their likelihood to be followed.

The paper explores the hitherto elusive question: When users are unknowingly exposed to both a rumor and its counter-rumor, which entry is likely to be followed more than the other? It also takes into consideration the roles played by individuals' risk propensity and messages' prior endorsement.