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Brand managers face many challenges (including questions of brand strength, world class culture, “glocal” branding, seeded marketing channels, “service smart” integration, brand architecture and brand organizing). A framework is presented for thinking about the challenges and how to deal with them. This process, called “brand chartering”, has three principal elements: creating and communicating the brand, managing the brand organization, and directing and structuring the brand. We illustrate how this framework is of help in management practice and show how it can be used as a tool for organizational learning.

Brand managers face many challenges (including questions of brand strength, world‐class culture, “glocal” branding, seeded marketing channels, “service smart” integration, brand architecture and brand organizing). A framework is presented for thinking about the challenges and how to deal with them. This process, called “brand chartering”, has three principal elements: creating and communicating the brand, managing the brand organization, and directing and structuring the brand. Illustrates how this framework is of help in management practice and shows how it can be used as a stool for organizational learning.

This paper provides an overview of the evidence base for alcohol‐related brain injury (ARBI) and describes how this has been used to develop a pilot programme for the treatment of ARBI. Key components include: detoxification, assessment, social behaviour network therapy, cognitive rehabilitation and systematic instruction. The programme is being delivered and evaluated in the north of England by Swanswell, a national drug and alcohol treatment charity.

This study aims to examine how variations in the perceived gender (a)typicality of front-line staff impact on consumer spending. Gender typicality is defined here as traditionally masculine-looking men and feminine-looking women, whereas gender atypicality, in contrast, refers to feminine-looking men and masculine-looking women.

Using an experimental design, the authors use simulated consumption scenarios across two separate studies, one in the USA and the other in South Korea. In each study, the authors investigate main and interaction effects in relation to front-line employees’ race (white vis-à-vis Asian) and baseline gender (originally male vis-à-vis originally female).

Across the two studies, consumers spent more money with gender-typical female front-line staff or, alternatively stated, less money with more masculine-looking female front-line staff. The effect of the male service staff was more complicated. In both countries, the authors found a significant consumer preference for gender-atypical (i.e. more feminine-looking), Asian male employees, compared to more masculine-looking Asian men.

The experimental design strengthens claims of not only good internal validity but also weakens the generalizability of the findings. Field research is needed to explore these effects in various workplaces and sectors. The authors also acknowledge the limitations of operationalizing the gender (a)typicality of front-line staff by manipulating facial structures. Future research should manipulate gender (a)typicality using sociological and performative indicators.

The authors contribute to ongoing debates surrounding the legality and ethics of regulating employee appearance in the workplace. Employers must consider whether this type of “lookism” is legally and morally defensible.

This is, to the knowledge, the first-ever study to examine the effect of front-line employee gender non-conformity on consumer behavior and decision-making. The authors show how variations in perceived gender (a)typicality can, variously, promote or retard consumer spending. The study is original in that it shifts the debate from traditional studies of between-gender differences to a focus on within-gender differences. The key value of the research is that it shines a much-needed light on the changing role of gender in the workplace.

This paper examines different perspectives on the broad umbrella term of organisational silence. It identifies ten perspectives on organisational silence from the previous literature on inquiries into failings of British National Health Service providers. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

Using content analysis, it applies ten perspectives on organisational silence to the report of the inquiry into the Gosport Hospital.

There is some overlap between the perspectives in that they draw on the same authors, and stress similar issues. There is some evidence for most of the perspectives in the report, but some perspectives appear stronger than others. However, none of the perspectives seem to cover the full spectrum of behaviour and place differential emphasis on different processes. It is not clear whether all ten perspectives add independent analytical value. This suggests that some might be extended or combined with the umbrella term of organisational silence more fully opened.

This is the first study in healthcare to review perspectives on organisational silence and apply them to a case study.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of social networking sites (SNSs) by mass media organisations in Malawi.

The research was a survey that was carried out amongst mass media organisations in Malawi. It mainly employed quantitative methods. Data were collected through a combination of mailed and self-administered questionnaires.

The research established that SNSs were popularly used by mass media organisations in Malawi such that 20 (87 per cent) of the mass media organisations had SNS pages. Facebook was the most commonly used SNS although Twitter was also used. Mass media organisations benefited from using SNSs through increased listenership/readership, and soliciting of feedback which helped improve service offering. However, few mass media organisations registered increased business activity through the use of SNSs. Challenges associated with using SNSs were limited ICT penetration in Malawi, distraction of employees' attention at work, and there was also a concern that not many people interact on SNSs.

Despite registering an overall high response rate of 74 per cent, the response rate amongst other media categories especially the community radio broadcasters was generally poor. In fact only one out of the four organisations responded to the questionnaires. This entails that the study may have not adequately presented a true picture of organisations within this category. So although the study findings reflect the prevailing situation amongst mass media organisations in Malawi in relation to their use of SNSs, they may not holistically apply to organisations within the community radio category.

A number of studies have shown that radio listenership and television viewership are dwindling. At the same time, audiences and attention are shifting to online channels. This research, therefore, recommends that mass media organisations should continue using SNSs so as to capture this audience, and also to remain relevant in the modern society.

Being a relatively new area of research, the study has provided unique knowledge about the use, benefits and challenges of the application of SNSs among mass media organisations in Malawi. Consequently, this has brought to light the use of SNSs as an opportunity which other private and public institutions could take advantage of, as a means of enhancing their operations.

In this chapter, I describe a project that sought to explore the ‘lived experience’ of a group of children engaged in on- and off-screen play, during an after-school Minecraft Club. Building on established research methodologies, an approach that I called ‘rhizomic ethnography’ was developed to study this complex site of play. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1987), I demonstrate how this suite of participatory, playful and multimodal approaches, including use of video, comic strips and virtual model making, helped to illuminate the children's collaborative creation of a ‘virtual community’. I explain how employing a range of methods, which often emerged during the process of research, allowed for unexpected meanings to develop and, therefore, afforded new insights into the nature of children's play. Here, I also seek to demonstrate how taking an adaptive and playful approach to research, working in synergy with the research context, could have affordances for examining other examples of children's playful, social interactions.

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