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This study examines the effects of narcissism and bonus-based incentive plans on managerial decision-making performance. Using an experiment, the authors first examine decision choices under two levels of an incentive threshold (high and low). Narcissism is measured using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). Typically, the NPI is used as a single monolithic construct in analyses; however, in this study, the authors subdivide it in two ways to gain more nuanced information about its impact on decision making. First, the authors split the NPI into three levels – high, medium, and low (Hascalovitz & Obhi, 2015), and then decompose it into its adaptive and maladaptive components (Campbell, Hoffman, Campbell, & Marchisio, 2011) to examine how these subdivisions affect performance. Results show that the different levels of incentive thresholds affect performance among narcissistic individuals. Results indicate that individuals higher in narcissism and higher in levels of adaptive and maladaptive narcissism outperform their low-trait counterparts in a lower-threshold environment, but not in a high threshold environment.

This paper studies how employee effort depends upon the manager’s level of narcissism and the framing of the manager’s incentive scheme. In an online experiment with 356 employee participants, the authors manipulate the description of the manager narcissism (high or low) and the framing of the manager’s compensation scheme (bonus or penalty) and examine the joint effect of these two factors on employee effort to help the manager reach their objectives. Results show that employees exert less (more) effort when manager narcissism is high (low). This effect is mediated by employees’ feelings of envy toward the manager. In line with recent research on the cascading effect of management compensation, the authors also find that a manager’s penalty contract has a negative effect on employee effort when manager narcissism is high. The results have important implications for compensation design in business practice.

Rural students encounter challenges such as the achievement gap; racial inequality; little or no college counseling; higher rates of poverty; limited accessibility to college preparatory courses; and recruitment and retention of quality teachers. Moreover, Black males tend to experience the same issues; however, there is a dearth of literature around this population in rural areas. The authors describe the implications of the unique intersection of Black males in rural settings and discuss the unique challenges and opportunities presented. Specifically, academic achievement, college and career readiness, and access to employment and higher education for Black males are highlighted in this chapter. The authors provide recommendations on research and practice for educators to best serve Black males in rural settings.

We analyse the dynamics of social assistance benefit (SA) receipt among working-age adults in Britain between 1991 and 2005. The decline in the annual SA receipt rate was driven by a decline in the SA entry rate rather than by the SA exit rate (which also declined). We examine the determinants of these trends using a multivariate dynamic random effects probit model of SA receipt probabilities applied to British Household Panel Survey data. We show how the model may be used to derive year-by-year predictions of aggregate SA entry, exit and receipt rates. The analysis highlights the importance of the decline in the unemployment rate over the period and other changes in the socio-economic environment including two reforms to the income maintenance system in the 1990s and also illustrates the effects of self-selection (‘creaming’) on observed and unobserved characteristics.

This work critically investigates online fan responses towards the implementation of the affirmative action policy, the Rooney Rule, within English professional football. It explores systemic and structural racism and the history of the Rooney Rule, before analysing football fans' Twitter comments concerning the policy within English football across an 18-month period.

This research utilised a bespoke search programme to identify and analyse Tweets which focused on the Rooney Rule in English football. A total of 205 posts were thematically analysed and a series of codes were created.

The findings illustrated that fans were generally divided over the Rooney Rule. Over half of the participants welcomed counter measures against structural racism although many caveated responses by critiquing the Rule's approach and scope. For others, however, the policy is yet another example of ‘reverse racism’ and ‘political correctness gone mad’. The findings illustrate that there is an undercurrent of hostility towards anti-racist action and a belief that sport is inherently meritocratic and fair.

While much research has focused on examining online reactions to ‘trigger events’, this chapter provides an empirical insight into contemporary football fan responses towards anti-racist action in the ‘beautiful game’. It demonstrates that there are a series of common misconceptions and misunderstandings towards affirmative action policies in sport. Once we become aware of such misunderstandings, we can attempt to remedy them in order to aid the efficacy of anti-racist action.

While Hemingway noted that all stories end in death, this story begins with a death in the family. I recount my mother's (Ma's) death from a sociological point of view, making use of an autoethnographic perspective. Such a perspective encourages a frank portrayal of my involvement in the story as well as more detached reflection of various behaviors (enacted by Ma, her children, her grandchildren, and her friends). I also focus on Ma as a child of the Depression, a young adult during World War II, and a casualty of a middle class lifestyle. Her death, while unwanted, allowed her to create and construct authentic encounters with her children, grandchildren, and friends – encounters that she had avoided while living the middle class life. Her story allows me to reflect on her death as encouraging an authentic understanding of my emotions.

When Rambo Last Blood hit the screens in 2019 to an almost unanimous thumbs down from the critics, it seemed as if Sylvester Stallone's ‘last outing’ as his iconic action hero, John Rambo was to bow out with more of a violent whimper than a spectacular bang. But action heroes never really do know when to quit. There is always one last mission to undertake. In an online interview in September 2019, Stallone indicated that Rambo 6 could well be on the cards. This chapter will discuss not only ideas about ‘Rambo’ as a character and his character arc, but posit the idea that Stallone, through the process of gerontology, has moved through the decades to become not a simplification or distillation of a cinematic action hero, but rather a much more complex one that asks questions about the politics of the era, masculinity, fragility and ageing.