The popularity of virtual worlds and their increasing economic impact has created a situation where the value of trusted identification has risen substantially. We propose an identity management solution that provides the user with secure credentials and allows to decrease the required trust that the user must have towards the server running the virtual world. Additionally, the identity managem...

Virtual healthcare communities are receiving increasing attention as a promising platform to facilitate exchange of social support for their members. However, despite the large number of registered members of virtual healthcare communities, many members do not actively use their community. Some are reluctant to ask for help and others even do not visit the community frequently. Thus motivated, ...

Virtual corporations are seen as new organisational forms to ensure knowledge sharing and innovation. In this chapter the reason for the knowledge-creating competence of virtual corporations is explained. A shared identity and mutual trust of the participants are of paramount importance to innovation. Virtual corporations are in fact balancing on a tightrope. They have to create an identity whi...

This study draws upon self-verification theory, social identity theory and self-categorization theory to investigate the dual effects of system design, i.e., identity confirmation (the self) and identification (the community), on virtual community (VC) participation. An important theoretical development is the conceptualization of VC identity and the elucidation of its system design determinant...

This study attempts to understand how people can promote cognition-based trust in virtual worlds such as Second Life. The effects of the two presentation formats on avatars’ appearance as well as the moderating role of the disclosure of offline identity were examined in a laboratory experiment. The experimental results show that (1) a more sophisticated avatar leads to higher cognition-based tr...

Background: In the legal world, a person is not only referred to as a human being. In fact, in the world of law, a person has a more general concept that includes both human and non-human. The aim of this study was to compare real and legal personality with virtual personality from a moral perspective, as one of the important principles of Iranian law. In this regard, by understanding ethics an...

Nowadays, new informational and communicative media, and the rate of their use by individuals have caused deep metamorphoses in the material and non-material dimensions of human lives, and individuals’ mental regulation. The use of these media, especially the Internet and virtual social networks, among Iranian teenagers has unnoticeably increased, and providing numerous facilities and opt...