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Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, in addition to his broad popular appeal. Since his transition from a successful pro-wrestling career to a full-time actor, his onscreen persona has transitioned from one dimensional action hero to more balanced star ‘type’ (Dyer, 1991), alternating action films with more family-friendly fare. Johnson's starring role in the Fast and the Furious franchise has been central to the growth of his career, yet as I will argue, this success is fuelled by his apparent rivalry with other action stars onscreen (Jason Statham) and offscreen (Vin Diesel). As I will show, these rivalries are rooted in the star ‘types’ formulated by Richard Dyer (1991), and this tension is central to the ongoing fan interest in the series.

Johnson's expanding profile has also led to the establishment of his own production company, Seven Bucks, and transition into television series Ballers (2015–2019) and Young Rock (2021–), both of which allowed him to explore autobiographical elements of his early life. As I will demonstrate via a case study of Hobbs and Shaw (2019), Johnson's success as a transnational action star and creative control allowed by Seven Bucks has allowed more explicit on-screen engagement with his Sāmoan heritage. The production history of Hobbs and Shaw illustrates both the successful co-existence of rivalry between action stars as a successful marketing strategy for action franchises, and the evolving action genre which allows a more personal exploration of race and masculine identity.

Although there are a number of hybrid tropes and cross-over conventions that relate to contemporary action cinema, broken down to its most rudimentary components, the genre places its cinematic hero in scenes of ritualised violence or conflict, with the intent of showcasing both athletic mastery and aesthetically pleasing physiques for interested and invested audiences. In as much as it is difficult to define the contemporary genre, the role of the action hero is clear in all permutations. Indeed, there is little question or query about who or what makes for a popular and long-standing action star. After all, names such as Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Statham have become inextricably linked to the genre in question. While there is much to consider here in relation to the muscles and power of these hard-bodied heroes in sweaty vests or form fitting t-shirts, there is another iteration of masculinity, a different and more agile physique, a more refined sartorial code, that has quietly overtaken these macho figures as the site of contemporary action, and that figure is Keanu Reeves. With this in mind, this chapter will examine the ways in which popular media reviewers foreground star image, acting, movement, the body and performance in order to position Reeves as an action star removed from the physical excesses of bulkier, slower and less agile men who continue to perform in the genre around him.

In this, the third volume of Emerald Publishing's Gender and Action Film series, the emphasis is placed firmly on the way that Action Cinema has transformed in the post-millennial period. Through a series of in-depth case studies, and using a mix of theoretical approaches and analysis, each chapter will offer comparative gender studies that are both evocative and interrogative of a genre that has often been lambasted for the way in which gender is portrayed. The volume covers such areas as ageing action stars and the roles they portray in geriaction movies, critical examinations of gender in Action Cinema post-9/11, and changes aspects of feminism, gender practices and metamodern narratives.

This research paper aims to examine how organized criminals rescript their identities to engage with entrepreneurship discourse when authoring their biographies. From a sociological perspective, stereotypes and social constructs of the entrepreneur and the criminal are subjects of recurring interest. Yet, despite the prevalence of the stereotype of the entrepreneur as a hero-figure in the entrepreneurship literature and the conflation of the entrepreneur with the stereotype of the businessman, notions of entrepreneurial identity are not fixed with constructions of the entrepreneur as a rascal, rogue or villain being accepted as alternative social constructs.

The qualitative approaches of “biographical analysis” and “close reading” adopted help us draw out discursive strategies.

The main finding is that a particular genre of criminal biographies can be re-read as entrepreneur stories. The theme of nuanced entrepreneurial identities and in particular gangster discourse is under researched. In this study, by conducting a close reading of contemporary biographies of British criminals, the paper encounters self-representations of criminals who seek to author an alternative and more appealing social identity as entrepreneurs. That this re-scripting of personal biographies to make gangster stories conform to the genre of entrepreneur stories is of particular interest.

This study points to similarities and differences between criminal and entrepreneurial biographies. It also presents sociological insights into an alternative version of entrepreneurial identity and sociological constructions of the criminal as entrepreneur.

This research provides an insight into how criminals seek to legitimise their life-stories.

This research paper is of value in that it is the first to consider contemporary biographies of British criminals as entrepreneurship discourse. Understanding how criminal biographies and entrepreneur stories share similar socially constructed themes, storylines and epistemologies contribute to the development of entrepreneurship and sociological research by examining entrepreneurship in an unusual social setting.

This paper investigates the determinants of retailers’ product monitoring intensity within retail brand trading relationships. Drawing on the transaction cost and power literatures, it proposes that retailers trade‐off monitoring intensity against market orientated sanctions to protect against supplier opportunism. Based on a survey of 55 food manufacturers, the findings demonstrate that retailers’ product‐related monitoring intensity is positively related to the retailer's strategic use of retail brands, positively related to the manufacturer's specific investments in the relationship with the retailer, but negatively related to the retailer's ability to impose market‐orientated sanctions on the manufacturer.

The report of the Departmental Committee on the Irish butter industry to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland was issued on March 23 as a parliamentary paper. Mr. J. R. CAMPBELL was chairman of the Committee, and the other members were Mr. T. CARROLL, Mr. E. G. HAYGARTH‐BROWN, Lord CARRICK, and Mr. A. POOLE WILSON, with Mr. D. J. MCGRATH as secretary. The Committee were appointed:—