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The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for statistical inference on data from power law distributions in order to explain behavior and social phenomena associated with web‐based social spaces such as discussion forums, question‐and‐answer sites, web 2.0 applications and the like.

The paper starts by highlighting the importance of explaining behavior in social networks. Next, the power law nature of social interactions is described and a hypothetical example is used to explain why analyzing sub‐sets of data might misrepresent the relationship between variables having power law distributions. Analysis requires the use of the complete distribution. The paper proposes logarithmic transformation prior to correlation and regression analysis and shows why it works using the hypothetical example and field data retrieved from Microsoft's Netscan project.

The hypothetical example emphasizes the importance of analyzing complete datasets harvested from social spaces. The Netscan example shows the importance of the logarithmic transformation for enabling the development of a predictive regression model based on the power law distributed data. Specifically, it shows that the number of new and returning participants are the main predictors of discussion forum activity.

This paper offers a useful analysis tool for anyone interested in social aspects of the Internet as well as corporate intra‐net systems, knowledge management systems or other systems that support social interaction such as cellular phones and mobile devices. It also explains how to avoid errors by paying attention to assumptions and range restriction issues.

How are social groups unmade? Current theories identify the symbolic power of the state as a primary factor in the creation of social groups. Drawing on Gramsci's The Southern Question, this chapter extends state-centered theories by exploring policies that are critical but under-theorized factors in group formation. These include the concession of material benefits as well as the use of coercive means. Further, while current theories focus on how social groups are made, a Gramscian perspective draws attention to how the state intervenes to prevent or neutralize group-making projects from below. This chapter explores a case of a decrease in national group solidarity. Specifically, this study explains how in the 1990s the Israeli state weakened national group formation among Palestinians by adopting two spatially distinct but coordinated strategies. First, the rearrangement of the military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank through the establishment of an authority of self-rule (the Palestinian Authority) demobilized and divided Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories, especially along class-cum-moral lines. Second, state practices and discourses centered on citizenship rights shifted the center of political activism among Palestinian citizens of Israel toward citizenship issues. I argue that these two routes, which I call the indirect rule route and the civil society route, were complementary components of a broader attempt to neutralize Palestinian collective mobilization around nationhood. Despite recent changes and contestations, these two strategies of rule continue to affect group formation and to create distinct experiences of politics among Palestinians under Israeli rule. Analysis of the Palestinian–Israeli case shows that the state can unmake groups through the distribution of interrelated policies that are specific to certain categories of people and places. Understanding the conditions under which certain policies of inclusion or exclusion affect group formation requires going beyond the analytic primacy currently given to the symbolic power of the state.

This study aims to identify individuals' biases while making investment decisions and explore how these biases can be incorporated into a robo-advisory platform to help mitigate these biases. This paper identifies eight investment-related behavioral biases: mental accounting, gambler’s fallacy, hindsight, regret aversion, disposition, trend-chasing, loss aversion and herding.

This study uses primary data from 263 respondents across various age groups, of which approximately 50 were wealth management professionals in the UAE. A random sampling method from probability sampling is employed to gather the primary data. The identified biases serve as dependent variables; the age and income of individuals serve as the independent variables.

Age and income are significantly related to mental accounting, herding, gambler fallacy and loss aversion. Existing studies on behavioral finance demonstrate that individuals who make investment decisions are susceptible to cognitive fallacies, leading to nonrational investment decisions.

By studying these biases affecting individuals of varying ages and income levels, wealth management professionals can tailor their financial robo-advisory services to address these biases and help clients build wealth with consistent investment.

This study uses survey-based sampling in the context of the UAE; hence, the data and analysis represent originality.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically define the ways in which informal institutions influence entrepreneurial intentions. It tests the statement that informal institutions can have an impact on people’s decisions, directly and indirectly, by affecting their perceptions of the external world.

The paper develops a theoretical model of the probability of starting a business by a potential entrepreneur. The model takes into account a comparison of current wages and future profits. The empirical analysis is based on European social survey data at the individual level. Three-stage least squares regression helps to overcome the endogeneity problem since perceptions of government actions are individual specific.

Informal institutions can affect expectations about future activities in a person’s lifetime utility maximisation problem. The paper empirically concludes that these institutions are connected with a person’s satisfaction with government and can indirectly affect the probability to be self-employed.

Research limitations are related to employing proxies for informal institutions, using only the “satisfaction with government” as a perceptions indicator, and cross-sectional data while defining the causal effect.

Policymakers should consider that institutional settings affect people in a different manner when developing their policies.

The paper makes a novel contribution by analysing the effect of informal institutions on the probability to start a business by using both theoretical arguments and empirical tests. Building upon insights from a broader informal institutions’ effect on entrepreneurial intentions, this paper is the first to study a linkage between informal institutions and their indirect effect on people’s profit expectations.