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The purpose of this paper is to test flow as a construct distinctly separate from its antecedents, and the resulting impact on brand attitudes and purchase intent within realistic online shopping three-dimensional virtual environments (3-DVEs).

This research utilizes a field study, combined with a survey research design of 348 3-DVE participants.

The findings reveal that flow is not a unidimensional construct but rather, a mental state that should be measured separately from its antecedents, with the possibility that certain antecedents may be more relevant than others in different activities. Furthermore, the authors received strong support for the overarching hypothesized model separating the nine dimensions associated with engagement in an activity as antecedents of flow, which, in turn, influences brand attitude and thereafter purchase intention.

This study was limited to one type of activity within one 3-DVE but is balanced by the difficulty in gaining access to organizations and computer-mediated environments of this type for examining such phenomena.

Businesses using 3-DVEs to market brands should focus their efforts on creating highly enjoyable experiences that result in the feeling of a loss of sense of time for the participants in order to ultimately positively influence purchase intentions.

Prior research focused on fantasy-based, game-oriented environments, while also neglecting to test all elements of flow, examining “similar to flow” constructs or measuring flow as a unidimensional construct.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how participation in an online health community provides for direct benefits in the form of information utility and social support and an indirect influence on perceptions of patient empowerment.

A multi‐method approach was conducted involving interviews with moderators of 18 online health communities and a field survey of 153 online health community participants.

Online health community participation leads to direct benefits in the form of information utility and social support and that information utility also helps to shape perceptions of patient empowerment among community participants.

This research calls into question the role of online health communities as a support mechanism to empower patients to take ownership over their healthcare treatment. Online health communities support the development of patient empowerment by creating and disseminating information that can be used to gain an understanding of a patient's health condition.

Purveyors of online health communities must be able to ensure a high level of engagement among community participants that allows for each member to elicit outcomes such as information utility, while simultaneously guarding against undesirable circumstances that may prohibit a positive experience.

Medical professionals can utilize the results of this study to develop strategies for incorporating online health communities into patient care. Specifically, medical professionals can use these results to identify relevant communities and engage in information sharing to ensure relevant and accurate information is disseminated to patients as they seek out information concerning their health conditions.

As an ever growing segment of the population looks to online health communities for health information seeking and emotional support, we still know very little as to the type of support that is provided by these forums and how benefits obtained from participation help to shape patient empowerment outcomes. This study determined that information utility and social support are two benefits obtained by online health community participants and that information utility also helps to shape perceptions of patient empowerment among community participants.

Following a third‐generation knowledge management (KM) approach, this article aims to report on a three‐year series of practitioners' experiences engaged in a consensus‐building exercise known as the MAKCi exercise.

Designed to illustrate a real‐world KM case, this research work used participant observation, on‐line interactions and interviews as methodological tools to explore how knowledge management as a discipline has benefited from the use of Web 2.0 technology.

The first part of the article depicts the Most Admired Knowledge City (MAKCi) exercise as a research and learning space networked and tightly connected on‐line by common interests of participants. The second part of the article brings further understanding on how networked learning and knowledge creation has been made possible by the use of Web 2.0 tools. It is advanced that higher levels of knowledge co‐creation at a global scale can take the shape of networks of practice (NoPs) in knowledge‐based development contexts such as the one explored for the MAKCi exercise.

The research is limited to a three‐year recording of practitioners' experiences.

Knowledge‐based social systems, such as networks of practice (NoPs) are identified as emerging social configurations fostering knowledge‐intensive networked learning. NoPs clearly depend on collaboration within networks. Thus, the paper advances that some emerging models of knowledge‐intensive networks such as (NoPs) are natural KM vehicles to foster and promote intensive tacit knowledge conversion into explicit scholarly knowledge regardless of geographical location, becoming highly relevant to knowledge‐based development (KBD) practitioners.

This paper aims to present a conceptual framework of four knowledge co-creation processes in enterprise social media (ESM). From an interactionist perspective, the paper proposes a model on the role of ESM and enterprise social networks (ESNs) in facilitating knowledge co-creation processes.

This conceptual paper revisits existing literature on ESM, ESNs and social knowledge management to propose, hypothetically, the relationship between ESM, ESN and knowledge co-creation processes.

ESM enhances employee-to-employee interaction, which allows employees to co-create knowledge in a social context. Firstly, ESM affords employees to create ESNs for knowledge co-creation. Secondly, the structure of employee-to-employee interaction in ESNs will influence knowledge co-creation processes. Thirdly, ESNs provide the mechanism through which ESM affordances enable or constrain knowledge co-creation in the organisation.

ESM creates a social context that allows employees to share, apply and recreate or reproduce knowledge in the process of knowledge co-creation. The action possibilities of ESM perceived and actualised by employees will enable or constrain knowledge co-creation. Such influences are fuelled by the structural properties of employee relationships on ESM.

The paper elucidates the concept of knowledge co-creation based on a representation of user activities in ESM. This paper suggests that knowledge co-creation is a salient outcome of both individual-to-individual interactions on ESM and individual-to-ESM interactions enabled by ESM affordances.