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Social media has promoted anti-brand communities, which build around the shared aversion to a specific brand. The purpose of this paper is to investigate social media-based anti-brand communities and their effects on the sports team brand in question.

The authors conducted a netnographic study of Facebook-based anti-brand communities that oppose a professional football team.

The netnographic study reveals characteristics and drivers of Facebook-based anti-brand communities that oppose a professional football team. The research further identifies co-destructive behaviours of anti-brand community members that harm the sports team brand and even its sponsors. However, the findings also reveal that anti-brand communities may play a positive role in sport, as they strengthen the relationship between fans of the opposed brand and this brand and foster rivalry among football fans.

This research establishes the relevance of social media-based anti-brand communities for sports brands. Recommendations are made for team sport brands with regards to how to deal with the phenomenon of anti-brand communities.

While the previous research on anti-brand activism focused on either offline movements or movements using traditional websites, this research is the first to investigate the pivotal role of social networking sites for anti-brand activism. The paper further uncovers unique motivational, attitudinal, and behavioral patterns of fans that meet in communities opposing not only the rival team, but also the brand associated with the team. Findings show ways to better understand and deal with such anti-brand communities in sports.

The study aims to examine what laypersons expect those corroborating an alibi to remember about an interaction with an alibi provider.

Participants (N = 314) were presented with a mock crime scenario and answered questions about an alibi provider (i.e. the criminal suspect) and alibi corroborators. Participants also completed a lineup task based on the scenario and rated the likelihood of their own ability to corroborate the suspect’s alibi.

Overall, participants believed that it was moderately likely that an alibi corroborator with no prior relationship with the suspect would be able to vouch for the suspect, provide a description and to remember his general physical characteristics. Those who were inaccurate in their lineup decision demonstrated lower expectations of their own ability to corroborate the suspect’s alibi relative to those who were accurate in their decision.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first known study to assess what those judging an alibi expect when making a decision about the outcome of a case. Results demonstrate that laypeople have arguably unrealistic expectations of alibi corroborators, potentially jeopardizing innocent people’s ability to prove their innocence.

Moral exemplarity is a desirable but complex achievement. The chapter discusses the meaning of moral exemplarity and examines how the self, as a psychological and spiritual centre within a Jungian perspective, contributes to fostering moral commitment.

A narrative study was conducted amongst ten spiritual healers in New Zealand and France. Stories were collected and analysed interpretively to uncover meaningful patterns about spiritual healers’ moral stance and apprehension of the self.

Spiritual healers demonstrated a deep commitment to the self which clearly sustained a commitment to serve or help others. Commitment to the self was articulated around five core values: self-work, self-reflection, humility, self-integrity and love.

The chapter highlights the moral value of inner work. The self, in its archetypal sense, carries as potential an ‘innate morality’ that resonates in the heart and nurtures integrity and authenticity. To commit to the self requires undertaking a long and painful exploration of the psyche and integrating unconscious material into ego-consciousness. The participating spiritual healers, who had committed to their self and were well advanced on their psychological exploration journey, displayed moral qualities akin to exemplarity.

Cropsey′s 1955 invitation to reassess the particular metaphysic or political philosophy which underpins modern economics remains under‐appreciated. Reviews Cropsey′s 1955 argument in order to apprehend just what charges are being laid at the door of modern welfare economics. Considers the way in which Benjamin Ward misconstrued that argument in his 1956 “rebuttal” and the same misunderstandings and dividing lines which still exist in economics today. Offers illustration from the contemporary economics literature (e.g. regarding the market for baby adoption) to gauge the plausibility of Cropsey′s 1955 prediction that certain social, political and moral consequences will follow for society in the longer run if more traditional metaphysical teachings and conceptions of social welfare are undermined by what Cropsey sees as the potentially destructive metaphysics embodied in orthodox welfare economics.

Citizens are substantial stakeholders in every e-government system, thus their willingness to use and ability to access the system are critical. Unequal access and information and communication technology usage, which is known as digital divide, however has been identified as one of the major obstacles to the implementation of e-government system. As digital divide inhibits citizen’s acceptance to e-government, it should be overcome despite the lack of deep theoretical understanding on this issue. This research aimed to investigate the digital divide and its direct impact on e-government system success of local governments in Indonesia as well as indirect impact through the mediation role of trust. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of digital divide, this study introduced a new type of digital divide, the innovativeness divide.

The research problems were approached by applying two-stage sequential mixed method research approach comprising of both qualitative and quantitative studies. In the first phase, an initial research model was proposed based on a literature review. Semi-structured interview with 12 users of e-government systems was then conducted to explore and enhance this initial research model. Data collected in this phase were analyzed with a two-stage content analysis approach and the initial model was then amended based on the findings. As a result, a comprehensive research model with 16 hypotheses was proposed for examination in the second phase.

In the second phase, quantitative method was applied. A questionnaire was developed based on findings in the first phase. A pilot study was conducted to refine the questionnaire, which was then distributed in a national survey resulting in 237 useable responses. Data collected in this phase were analyzed using Partial Least Square based Structural Equation Modeling.

The results of quantitative analysis confirmed 13 hypotheses. All direct influences of the variables of digital divide on e-government system success were supported. The mediating effects of trust in e-government in the relationship between capability divide and e-government system success as well as in the relationship between innovativeness divide and e-government system success were supported, but was rejected in the relationship between access divide and e-government system success. Furthermore, the results supported the moderating effects of demographic variables of age, residential place, and education.

This research has both theoretical and practical contributions. The study contributes to the developments of literature on digital divide and e-government by providing a more comprehensive framework, and also to the implementation of e-government by local governments and the improvement of e-government Readiness Index of Indonesia.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic meltdown and social unrest severely challenged most countries, their societies, economies, organizations, and individual citizens. Focusing on both more and less successful country-specific initiatives to fight the pandemic and its multitude of related consequences, this chapter explores implications for leadership and effective action at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. As international management scholars and consultants, the authors document actions taken and their wide-ranging consequences in a diverse set of countries, including countries that have been more or less successful in fighting the pandemic, are geographically larger and smaller, are located in each region of the world, are economically advanced and economically developing, and that chose unique strategies versus strategies more similar to those of their neighbors. Cultural influences on leadership, strategy, and outcomes are described for 19 countries. Informed by a cross-cultural lens, the authors explore such urgent questions as: What is most important for leaders, scholars, and organizations to learn from critical, life-threatening, society-encompassing crises and grand challenges? How do leaders build and maintain trust? What types of communication are most effective at various stages of a crisis? How can we accelerate learning processes globally? How does cultural resilience emerge within rapidly changing environments of fear, shifting cultural norms, and profound challenges to core identity and meaning? This chapter invites readers and authors alike to learn from each other and to begin to discover novel and more successful approaches to tackling grand challenges. It is not definitive; we are all still learning.

Because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, online platforms where travelers' comments and reviews are published have grown considerably. More specifically, in the tourism sector, these social evaluations have been shown to have a strong influence as online platforms, such as online travel agencies (OTA), represent a main touchpoint for the formation process of the online corporate reputation. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate how the pandemic has influenced the online reputation formation of tourism companies and which are the new reputation pillars emerging from the COVID-19. To achieve this research aim, we analyzed the customers' reviews as reported publicly on TrustPilot.com, an online platform that allows customers to review businesses after a purchase or contact with their customer service, before and after COVID-19 so as to identify significant changes in the corporate reputational drivers of LastMinute.com. With this study we have identified the four topic clusters and their sentiment in the two periods of consideration, and we have found that the corporate reputation of tourism companies is formed today starting from different consumer needs. Finally, managerial implications for communication professionals operating in tourism firms are presented.