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The purpose of this article is to provide a set of practical recommendations or strategies for reducing the potential apathy and/or perceived loss of meaning that may accompany the overuse of common or popular management terms.

The article summarizes possible unintended consequences (i.e. apathy and perceived loss of meaning) that could develop as a result of repetition or overuse that may be associated with the growing popularity of certain management terms as they emerge. Recommendations for minimizing these unintended consequences are provided.

Four recommendations for reducing/minimizing potential apathy or perceived loss of meaning that may be associated with overuse of popular management terms are outlined. Two contemporary management terms (innovation and quality) that have been characterized as overused are utilized for illustration purposes to highlight the application of select recommendations. These recommendations include: acknowledging the potential for apathy; providing a context for the overused term; the use of synonyms; and discussing personal perceptions associated with the term.

The article provides a relatively pragmatic perspective on the unintended consequences of apathy and perceived loss of meaning that may develop as management terms emerge, gain popularity, and potentially become overused. Practical recommendations/strategies for reducing/minimizing these unintended consequences are discussed.

Social loafing is a key inhibitor in group-based student learning and is a key challenge in administering group-based assessments in higher education. This study examines differences in the effects of antecedents of social loafing (disruptive behaviour, social disconnectedness and apathy) on work quality by comparing student-created and instructor-created groups. The study also investigates how group members' efforts to “pick up the slack” of social loafers in the two kinds of groups moderate the effect of antecedents of social loafing on work quality.

Post-graduate students from two different sessions of the Marketing Management unit participated in the study: 95 students from session 1 and 90 students from session 2. One session represented student-created groups and the other session represented instructor-created groups. Each group consisted of five students. Partial Least Square (PLS) estimation using SmartPLS was used to assess the direct and interaction effects.

The results indicate differences in the effects of the antecedents of social loafing such as apathy and disruptive behaviour on work quality for both student-created and instructor-created groups. Social disconnectedness was found to have no significant effect on work quality. Interestingly, the study found significant differences in the effects of “pick up the slack” on the work quality of student-created and instructor-created groups. Members of student-created groups who picked up the slack of social loafers improved the work quality for unit assessment. This effect was not significant for instructor-created groups.

Extant literature on social loafing predominantly focusses on its effect on students' work quality and educational achievement. This study contributes to the literature by investigating how the student-created and instructor-created group members' efforts to pick up the slack of social loafers moderate the effects of the antecedents of social loafing on work quality.

Although the challenge of food waste (FW) in the foodservice sector is significant, restaurant managers do not always engage in its reduction. The psychological reasons for this disengagement remain insufficiently understood. This study aims to explore the antecedents of behavioural intention of restaurateurs (not) to reduce FW. The influence of three factors is tested, namely, market orientation; environmental apathy alongside selected neutralization techniques, namely, appeal to higher loyalties; denial of injury and denial of responsibility.

The study uses the method of a large-scale managerial survey (n = 292) administered in the commercial foodservice sector of Spain. The data are analysed via structural equation modelling with partial least squares.

The study finds that market orientation affects managerial intention to reduce FW but not their attitude, while environmental apathy influences managerial attitudes but not their behavioural intention. The study confirms the negative effect of such neutralizers as the appeal to higher loyalties and the denial of injury on suppressing managerial intention to reduce FW. Contrary to initial anticipations, another established neutralizer, the denial of responsibility, exerts no significant effect.

The study elaborates on the interventions necessitated to neutralize the effect of the neutralizers on managerial (un)willingness to reduce FW in the commercial foodservice sector.

This is the first known attempt to understand the drivers of managerial engagement in FW reduction in the commercial foodservice sector through the prism of environmental apathy, market orientation and neutralization theory.

To achieve the UN’s 2030 agenda, consumers will need to behave more responsibly and make less environmentally harmful purchases. This study aims to investigate the antecedents of consumers’ pro-environmental purchase intentions based on a range of motivating (i.e. attitudes, locus of control) and inhibiting factors (i.e. apathy and myopia) for a low-involvement product. It also tests the moderating effect of the greenness of a low-involvement product (green vs nongreen) on the consumer’s pro-environmental purchase intentions.

An online panel survey of 679 Turkish consumers was used. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships.

The results suggest that while inhibiting factors (i.e. apathy and myopia) may not directly impede such purchase intentions, they could prevent consumers from considering the environmental characteristics of low-involvement products.

The insights are expected to assist marketers and policymakers to understand consumer psychological mechanisms when encouraging and promoting pro-environmental behavior in the context of low-involvement purchases, enhancing consumers contributing to the 2030 objectives.

This study examines the role of inhibiting factors behind the purchase of low-involvement goods. It also tests the moderating effect of the greenness of a low-involvement product on pro-environmental purchase intentions.

Although there is increasing insight in student engagement (SE) in higher education, there is limited insight in how students experience SE in a transnational setting. The purpose of this paper is to explore SE perceptions and transnational experiences. A model, derived from the literature, representing four student identities (consumer, partner, co-creator and citizen) guides the empirical analysis.

Using a phenomenological approach, 18 in-depth interviews were carried out with students (business and management) enroled in transnational education initiatives of three Scottish universities in India, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

Students primarily identify the partner and consumer model. Significant levels of apathy were found, not only at the level of the students, but also the staff and the university.

Although the study was based on a relatively small sample, it does highlight the impact of the context (external commitments part-time students, “fly in” staff from home campus) on levels of SE.

Stressing again that the study was explorative, the key practical message is that ultimately meaningful dialogue on SE between all stakeholders – inside and outside – needs to take place to forestall a vicious circle of apathy that would be detrimental for quality (assurance).

This is one of the first papers on SE in a transnational context and offers a solid point of departure for follow-up research.

Burnout has been studied by organizational researchers for nearly 50 years (Maslach and Schaufeli, 2017; Schaufeli et al., 2009); however, little attention is given to burnout experienced by employed students who may be prone to the symptoms of burnout as they juggle multiple demanding roles. Burnout in employed students has previously been conceptualized as a bi-factor model consisting of three dimensions: general burnout, apathy and exhaustion (see Rauti et al., 2019 for further information). The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a novel and theoretically driven tool to assess burnout in employed students.

A sample of 239 employed undergraduate students from a university in southwestern Ontario completed an online survey which included the University of Windsor Employed Student Burnout Survey. Participants also completed six additional measures for scale validation purposes.

Confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-factor model of the employed student burnout scale: apathy toward employment, exhaustion toward employment, apathy toward academics and exhaustion toward academics. The findings also supported a bi-factor version of the four-factor model. Correlation analyses provided evidence for convergent and divergent validity.

The experience of burnout for employed students is unique as employed students balance the demands of work and school simultaneously. This research suggests that experiences of burnout from work and burnout from school may be distinct from one another and that burnout is context specific.

This paper aims to improve understanding of individuals' awareness and perceptions of computer usage policies (CUPs) and why individuals elect not to read these policies.

MBA students were asked to complete an online survey evaluating their behavioral intention to read CUPs, as well as their performance of this behavior. Factors contributing to the intention to read policies were also examined. The resulting data were analyzed with Smart PLS.

Results suggest that three factors influence individual intention to read CUPs. These factors include attitude, apathy, and social trust. The model explained about 70 percent of individual intention to read CUPs and about 44 percent of the variability in actually reading these policies.

The sample is limited to MBA students from a single university.

Although written policy statements are often considered the cornerstone of computer security, many individuals elect not to read these policies. Thus, other methods of communication must be used.

This paper examines the reasons individuals elect not to read CUPs. Given the importance of these policies as deterrents to information systems misuse and computer crime, understanding why individuals fail to read policies is a critical first step in enhancing user knowledge of computer security.

Much research looks at why customers switch service organizations but there has been less focus on why customers do not switch service organizations, even though they have seriously considered doing so. In light of this, we present an analysis of the literature and develop a list of potential switching barriers. These switching barriers are then empirically tested within two financial services industries. Results from over 400 consumers enable us to ascertain not only the importance of each switching barrier but also to develop a more parsimonious understanding of these barriers, through factor analysis. The results reveal similar patterns in the two industries in respect to switching barriers. The first of the four factors contains reasons related to apathy, the second factor contains negative reasons for customers staying with their current service provider, the third factor relates to relationship variables and the final factor relates to service recovery. Results clearly indicate that the first two factors are far more important than the latter two in terms of why customers stay even when they seriously considered leaving.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the analysis and grasp of accessible tourism, from its present into a medium-term future. It provides a socio-anthropological approach.

This paper uses the scenarios-planning analysis framework proposing four scenarios arising from the interaction of aforementioned driving forces. The author also use a trilemma to both form and evaluate scenarios. The criteria for the trilemma were (stakeholders, cooperation and prejudice).

The strength of combining a new set of driving forces, namely, empathy, apathy, certainty in economic profits and fear of economic losses, which would enable to draw four plausible scenarios into the future of accessible tourism within a scenarios-planning framework. The significance is to provide “food for thought” to address the future through a range of different concepts.

The main limitation is the difficulty to obtain honest answers about why the lack of development of accessible tourism.

Participant observation on both groups and individuals in vacation atmosphere. Also, in-depth interviews to different stakeholder representatives.

To try to explain to the stakeholders their wasted economic benefits and, at the same time, the opportunity of getting social prestige.

The main value is about considering the interplay of social concepts as empathy, apathy, “aesthetic prejudice” and fear of losses or faith in profits.

The protection of organisational information assets is a human problem. It is widely acknowledged that an organisation's employees are the weakest link in the protection of the organisation's information assets. Most current approaches towards addressing this human problem focus on awareness and educational activities and do not necessarily view the problem from a holistic viewpoint. Combating employee apathy and motivating employees to see information security as their problem is often not adequately addressed by “isolated” awareness activities. The purpose of this paper is to show how employee apathy towards information security can be addressed through the use of existing theory from the social sciences.

By means of a literature study, three key organizational environments that could exist are identified and explored. Goal‐setting theory is then investigated. Finally, arguments are presented to show how goal‐setting theory could be used to actively foster an organizational environment in which employees will view their roles and responsibilities towards information security as prosocial behaviour.

The work in the paper is primarily of a conceptual nature. However, the authors believe that encouraging such prosocial behaviour could contribute towards an organizational culture of information security.

The paper examines the motivation of employees to actively contribute towards information security from an organisational science perspective.