The mediated effects of social support in professional online communities on crowdworker engagement in micro-task crowdworking

Online communities come with real-world consequences for individuals and societies

Online communities have become a central part of the internet. Understanding what motivates users to join these communities, and how they affect them and others, spans various psychological domains, including organizational psychology, political and social psychology, and clinical and health psychology. We focus on online communities that are exemplary for three domains: work, hate, and addictions. We review the risks that emerge from these online communities but also recognize the opportunities that work and behavioral addiction communities present for groups and individuals. With the continued evolution of online spheres, online communities are likely to have an increasingly significant role in all spheres of life, ranging from personal to professional and from individual to societal. Psychological research provides critical insights into understanding the formation of online communities, and the implications for individuals and society. To counteract risks, it needs to identify opportunities for prevention and support.

Leadership of place in virtual environments

Place and space concepts help to illuminate how the place an organization inhabits and related beliefs have a significant impact on leadership processes. While places often have a physical presence, a sense of place is socially constructed by those who interact in it. This article offers analysis of how virtual environments can be seen as socially constructed places and how that conceptualization impacts leadership, both in the environment acting as a leadership substitute and how people engage in virtual leadership. This conceptual analysis occurs by integrating existing literature on space, place, technology affordances, and virtual leadership, as well as analyzing current virtual work environments and virtual leaders. We illustrate how virtual places can offer affordances for leadership sensemaking of political leaders, virtual place-making by social media influencers, algorithmic leadership, and shared leadership in the gig economy. We close the article by discussing how current leaders can consider the affordances of virtual environments and needed future needed research.