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Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one dark social-media phenomenon in particular has experienced a significant rise: consumer-to-consumer (C2C) conflicts, i.e. consumers who verbally attack each other in response to COVID-19 service failures. The aim of this paper is to uncover the sources of such conflicts and to gain an insight into the corresponding conflict moderation strategies that international brands adopt.

The methodology consists of non-participatory netnographic observations of 13 national, international, and global online brand communities (OBCs) on Facebook. The authors use purposeful sampling to collect relevant data on conflict sources and brand moderation strategies during COVID-19 service failures and a hybrid approach to thematic analysis to derive distinct themes from these data.

The paper identifies five C2C conflict sources: brand attack, brand dissatisfaction, brand skepticism, brand contention and brand defense; these are then classified as having either an individualistic (self-oriented) or collectivistic (other-oriented) orientation. The authors also uncover several moderation strategies: non-engaging, automated, bolstering, asserting (direct, indirect) and informing (factual, empathetic, apologetic), which are broadly categorized into two levels based on their passive vs active approach and authoritative vs cooperative orientation. The paper further highlights that brands adapt their moderation strategies to specific sources of C2C conflicts, thereby producing a range of OBC outcomes.

The study's empirically informed framework comprising sources of undesirable conflicts and brand moderation strategies offers a practical tool that can aid marketing managers in nurturing civil C2C engagement and interactive behaviors in their OBCs. By adopting our framework, brand and marketing practitioners can tailor their communication strategies toward different sources of C2C conflict and minimize their adverse consequences, thus, fostering an overall constructive OBC engagement.

The authors offer a novel framework to international marketing research, consisting of C2C conflict sources and corresponding moderation strategies that take place in response to service failures during the COVID-19 pandemic. These insights, in turn, inform international marketers about new ways of transforming the dark side of OBCs into a source of competitive advantage based on real-world brand practice.

The literature lacks knowledge on how organizations can manage trolling behaviors in online communities. Extant studies tend to either focus on user responses to trolling behaviors (i.e. a micro-level perspective) or how the trolling infrastructure is governed by platforms (i.e. a macro-level perspective), paying less attention to the organizational community host. With more organizations hosting online communities on social media networks and trolling behaviors increasingly disrupting user engagement within these communities, the current understanding of trolling management practices has become inapt. Given the commercial and social damage caused by trolling behaviors, it is important to understand how these can be best managed. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine the meso-level perspective of trolling management by focusing on organizational practice.

The research design consists of an in-depth non-participatory netnography based on a case study of PETA’s (“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals”) Facebook community.

Six distinct trolling management strategies are identified and categorized by their direct versus indirect communication approach: non-engaging, educating, bolstering, expurgating, asserting and mobilizing. Some strategies are deemed to be more successful than others in generating positive community outcomes such as reduced trolling frequency or further support from like-minded community members.

The findings contribute to the meso-level perspective in the trolling management literature by introducing a novel, empirically informed typology of organizational trolling management strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate public online consumer complaint responses from three different perspectives: the complainer, the company and third party consumers. Consumer complaint behaviour and management has been studied in various streams of literature, yet the subsequent processes triggered by a company complaint response have not been studied so far. In particular, this paper seeks to divert from examining complaint participants in isolation by recognising interrelated communication effects of complaint dialogue and public media.

Looking at credibility perceptions as a theoretical construct for measuring the utility of a complaint as well as attitude‐orientation as an evaluative moderator, the paper highlights the ambiguity of meaning transfer in an online complaint forum.

It is hypothesised that credibility and congruence in attitude orientation positively enhance complaint utility perceptions and strongly bias complaint dialogue evaluations.

The paper highlights that expected relevant results for online complaint managers and marketers alike are the inclusion of post‐complaint communication into corporate image and relationship management as well as using credibility perceptions as a benchmark for online customer satisfaction and potential positive electronic word‐of‐mouth.

To advance understanding of transparency by problematising the motivations and strategies of a so far underexplored group: its users.

We explore the relationship between blindness, visibility, and transparency by drawing on our analysis of Max Frisch’s experimental novel Gantenbein (1964), in which the protagonist lives a life of feigned blindness.

The accounting scholarly debate on transparency has neglected the users of transparency. We address this through a novel theorisation of transparency as a game, highlighting some of its distinctive features and paradoxes.

By theorising the transparency game we move beyond concerns with what transparency reveals or conceals and conceptualise the motivations and strategies of the players engaged in this game. We show how different players have something to gain from the transparency game and warn of its emancipatory limits.

To respond to recent calls for better understanding of the complexities related to happiness management, especially from the employees' perspective, this study examines how corporate volunteering (CV), as one form of corporate social responsibility (CSR), creates sustainable happiness in business organizations.

Theoretical knowledge of CSR and CV as well as the literature on happiness management was examined to form a preliminary understanding of the phenomenon. The empirical section includes a qualitative multiple case study including two company cases of CV in Finland. The data were collected through qualitative interviews. Empirical analysis was made using thematical coding based on existing theory but also by allowing themes to emerge inductively from the data as well.

The study found that CV enables the emergence of sustainable happiness by allowing individual employee volunteers to transition from individual and rational mindsets to collective and emotional mindsets. A third transition was also identified, a process of change in the volunteers' approach in life that the authors describe as “from actual to potential”.

The study provides a theoretical contribution to the existing literature on happiness management by identifying the third dimension, from actual to potential, and depicting the way this allows employees to move from a state of being to becoming and thus the emergence of sustainable happiness. The study also contributes to existing literature on CV and CSR by revealing the way CV, as a form of practical CSR activity, generates happiness. This study concludes that companies' strategic activities that engage with society can create sustainable happiness for employees who participate. In order to achieve this, volunteering employees should have the chance to reflect on their experience and constant support from managers.

The purpose of this study is to examine how employee competences can be developed through corporate volunteering (CV). Specifically, this study focuses on diversity of volunteering studies categorized according to the type of beneficiaries and intensity of volunteer contact with them. The study examines how the beneficiary-employee relation influences the development of employee competences in CV projects.

In this qualitative empirical study, interview data collected in Poland about the perceived effects of CV projects on employee competences was used.

The findings suggest that to understand the competences generated in CV, attention needs to be paid to the nature of the volunteering study itself. The study proposes four different logics of competence development in CV, based on the type of the beneficiary and contact with them.

The study builds on managers’ perceptions of competence development. For a holistic understanding, future research should include employees’ perceptions of the process. Also, more research is needed regarding national and organizational settings as factors in competence development through CV.

The study suggests how companies could best engage in volunteering programs and improve existing ones to make them more beneficial for all parties involved.

The findings build the better business case for CV and other corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, i.e. they deliver rationales for business engagement in this regard.

The study contributes to the conceptual understanding of CSR activities by presenting four logics of competence development in CV.

This study, based on signaling theory, examines the pre-recruitment employer branding strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. It investigates the relationship between spontaneous word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations for companies and prospective candidates' job application intentions. Specifically, the study explores serial mechanisms mediating the characteristics of company online career pages, including the perceived informativeness of online job advertisements (ads), candidates' preferences for its web approach to them and the company’s reputation.

Reflecting prospective candidates from students and young alumni of universities, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed on a sample of 737 individuals representing various fields of study from Greek universities.

The findings highlight the effectiveness of positive WOM recommendations during the initial stages of recruitment, particularly amidst COVID-19 challenges in the labor market, notably impacting young candidates. The study suggests that spontaneous WOM, originating from trustful sources, motivates job seekers to actively engage with the company’s web career channels, seeking information and favorable indications of the company’s approach toward its candidates. Positive WOM, combined with informative content and a friendly communication style, plays a critical role in shaping the company’s reputation. Consequently, this encouragement motivates individuals to start their job search efforts and consider applying for positions within the specific organization.

This research provides valuable empirical evidence in the pre-recruitment field, particularly in unforeseen crisis circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines how spontaneous, positive WOM from sources, like peers and alumni, significantly influences young job seekers' perceptions and preferences regarding the company’s career web channels as sources of information and signals about working conditions. The combination of positive WOM with informative content and a friendly communication style in the web approach plays a crucial role in shaping a positive company reputation. Consequently, this encourages candidates to consider applying for positions within the company.

This research contributes to pre-recruitment studies, especially amidst crises like COVID-19. It examines how positive WOM from trusted sources like peers and alma mater alumni influences young job seekers' views on the company’s career web channels. By emphasizing the importance of combining positive WOM with informative web content and a friendly communication style, the study offers insights into effective recruitment strategies. It highlights the significance of positive and spontaneous WOM in attracting young talent and its impact on job seekers' decision-making, even in uncertain conditions. Overall, it advances recruitment practices for attracting candidates.

This study explores green human resource management in Pakistan's automobile industry.

The nature of the study is quantitative, with cross-sectional data collected through a survey questionnaire. A convenience sampling strategy is employed to trace employees working in the automobile industry. In total, 400 surveys are distributed, with 190 responses received. The response rate is recorded as 47%.

By employing structural equation modeling (SEM), the study finds positive and significant effects of green employee involvement (GEI), green compensation and reward (GCR), green performance management (GPM), green training and development (GTD), and green recruitment and selection (GRS) on task-related green behaviors (TRGB), voluntary green behaviors (VGB), and green innovation (GI).

The study's findings add greater depth to the knowledge about green human resource management (HRM) practices, with a focus on the developing country context. The proposed framework will provide guidelines to policymakers with recommendations on how to influence and implement task-related green behaviors, voluntary green behaviors, and green innovation within green HRM practices.

The conclusions of the study offer empirical confirmation of green HRM practices, task-related green behaviors, voluntary green behaviors, and green innovation in a developing country setting.

While the phenomenon of technostress has received significant attention from researchers in recent years, empirical findings concerning the consequences of specific forms of techno-stressors have remained scattered and contradictory. The authors aim to integrate the conclusions of previous studies to understand the effects of specific techno-stressors on strain and job performance.

This study employs meta-analytic techniques to calibrate the findings of 67 studies investigating more than 63,100 employees.

In general, not all techno-stressors have adverse effects. In particular, techno-uncertainty does not impact job performance. In addition, relative weight analyses reveal the relative importance of techno-complexity and techno-insecurity as predictors of both strain and job performance. Finally, this study finds that the effects of specific techno-stressors on job performance vary depending on research participants' gender, educational attainment and employment status.

First, this study provides a more nuanced view of the effects of specific techno-stressors. Second, this research clarifies the relative importance of specific techno-stressors as predictors of strain and job performance. Finally, this study reveals the moderating effects of demographic variables on the relationships between specific techno-stressors and job performance.

An “open communication culture” in the workplace is considered a key contributor to high-quality interaction and providing means to address problems at work. We study how the ideals of “open communication” operate in healthcare.

We use discourse analysis to investigate the audio-recorded data from 14 workshop team discussions in older people services.

We found four imperatives concerning the interactional conduct of their colleagues in problematic situations that nursing professionals prefer: (1) Engage in direct communication and avoid making assumptions, (2) Address problems immediately, (3) Deal directly with the person involved in the matter and (4) Summon the courage to speak up. Through these imperatives, the nursing professionals invoke and draw upon the “open communication” discourse. Although these ideals were acknowledged as difficult to realize in practice and as leading to experiences of frustration, the need to comply with them was constructed as beyond doubt.

Workplace communication should be enhanced at a communal level, allowing those with less power to express their perspectives on shaping shared ideals of workplace interaction.

The expectation that an individual will simply “speak up” when they experience mistreatment by a colleague might be too much if the individual is already in a precarious position.