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This stud aims to analyze the influence that the enabling and coercive management control systems (MCS) have on the individuals’ mental representations and their commitment to goals, satisfaction with the system and perceived organizational support. Under the lens of the construal level theory (CLT), it is assumed that: individuals exhibit more positive behaviors when the MCS is enabling rather than coercive; the effects of MCS on the behavior of individuals are explained by the way they mentally represent events; and these effects are intensified or mitigated according to the psychological distance.

The predictions were tested in an experiment with 131 undergraduate students, assuming a company that decides to implement a performance measurement system.

The results show that enabling MCS are interpreted more abstractly (high level of construction) and coercive MCS are represented more concretely (low level of construction). Furthermore, enabling systems lead to more positive behaviors (commitment to goals and perceived organizational support) than coercive ones, however, the satisfaction with the MCS is affected by both depending on psychological distance.

The CLT allowed broadening the understanding of the effects of enabling and coercive controls on individuals’ behavior, by assuming that mental representation can explain individuals’ behaviors. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to point out that temporal distance can attenuate the negative effects of coercive MCS on satisfaction with the system.

Coercive control (which is a form of intimate partner violence [IPV]) is a significant public health concern affecting millions of people throughout the world. Whilst exposure to IPV in childhood and adolescence has been shown to contribute to the intergenerational transmission of IPV, this alone does not explain IPV. A range of bio-psycho-social factors contribute to IPV which includes exposure to peer influence on social media platforms, whereby research has shown this online expression of views and opinions can change off-line behaviour. This has extended to not only purchasing products but also influencing attitudes in relation to illegal behaviour such as sexual harassment and sexual assault. The purpose of this study was to explore what young people are being exposed to online, through social media, surrounding coercive controlling behaviour.

According to Fazel et al. (2021), real-time social media data can provide important information about trends in public attitudes and attitudes towards events in the news. This study used data from Twitter to explore what adolescents are being exposed to online surrounding coercive and controlling behaviour. The data was subsequently analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Three overarching themes were found in relation to coercive control: the Educator; Gaslighter; and the Comedian. Two of these were forms of secondary victimisation.

Social media provides a powerful platform through which people’s attitudes and behaviours may be influenced both positively and negatively in relation to socio-political issues (Lozano-Blasco et al., 2022). The implications of the findings in this study are discussed with recommendations for how social media platforms could be supported to act prevent them from being used as a tool to facilitate the distribution of hate speech in relation to IPV and instead be used as a platform for psycho-education.

Previous research in this field has tended to focus on the impact of IPV and the prevalence rates of IPV in young people, but not on the different types of information young people may be exposed to surrounding relationships on social media platforms.

The authors study how enabling perceptions (flexibility, reparability and internal and global transparency) of a budgetary control system are formed, and whether enabling perceptions empower lower-level managers and make them form less negative attitudes about red tape in the organization. This study research is warranted because of the lack of knowledge on how perceptual variation in flexibility, repairability and transparency of a control system within an organization, where managers experiencing the same control system design, can be explained.

Survey data with answers from 211 managers from a large local government organization in Sweden is analyzed with structural equation modeling.

The extent to which the budget system is perceived as having enabling qualities (being flexible, reparable and transparent) is explained by the safeness of the individual manager's psychological climate. This climate is characterized by trust and fairness perceptions in upper management. In turn, enabling perceptions positively affect a sense of psychological empowerment and reduces attitudes toward red tape in the organization.

The authors contribute by identifying an important factor explaining individual-level variability in enabling perceptions of control systems within organizations. Compared to previous research that has taken an interest in the organizational-level climate, the authors theorize about and investigate (parts of) the individual-level psychological climate as an explanation of within-system variability.

Woman's use of violence has been mainly conceptualised through woman's experiences of victimization. However, more recent perspectives emphasise the female agency, responsibility and meaning of woman's violence. Listening to the voices of victims of women's abuse is a powerful way of learning about woman's use of violence and its impact on the victims. We conducted focus groups with 41 men from four countries who experienced female-perpetrated abuse. Four major types of abuse were identified: psychological abuse and coercive control followed by physical violence and sexual violence. Psychological abuse ranged from verbal assaults and gaslighting to provoking physical altercations and reporting false accusations. Patterns of control included deliberate isolation, threatening false accusations and financial domination. Men reported that women initiated physical violence for various reasons, including jealousy and rage. Some women used different objects that could seriously hurt, including knife, while others slapped, bit, punched or kicked. Several men reported female-perpetrated sexual abuse. Woman's use of violence in the intimate relationship should be treated seriously. A more gender-inclusive approach to partner abuse is required that can focus on a better prevention of abuse for all victims.

Now and again the discourse of women's violence being ignored and minimised emerges, but what is already known about this subject? Within the domestic abuse literature, there appears to be a weighty discord between Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and family conflict researchers. Both groups present very distinct findings regarding the motives and prevalence of women's use of violence. This theoretical chapter aims to provide an historical and contemporary grounded overview of how women's use of violence in domestic abuse incidents has been depicted in the literature within these two groups of researchers (VAWG and family conflict). This analysis will be especially focussed on the underlying rationale behind women's violence and its prevalence and impact.

Murder is overwhelmingly a male affair (UNODC Global Study on Homicide, 2019). So, when women kill, their crimes gain a lot of attention and even more hysteria in both courts and media. This chapter will analyse the cases of Sally Challen, Belinda van Krevel and Maxine Carr to show that portrayals of women who are involved in killing exist on a continuum, from abused victims to those simply ‘born evil’ to the incomprehension of those whose crimes render them outside society altogether; or in simple terms, from sad, to bad, to mad. In all cases, the agency of the women is presented as incomplete or impossible, indicating our inability in heteropatriarchy to acknowledge that women are as capable as men of exhibiting the full spectrum of human behaviour. Denying agency, particularly to violent women, allows Western societies to avoid having to face and thus, attempt to understand, the female capacity for aggression.

This paper aims to examine the use of coproduction to create a film “Do You See Me?”, to amplify the voices of a “hard to reach” group: older lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) victim-survivors of domestic abuse (DA).

Qualitative methods were used as part of the co-production, which included two practitioner focus groups and 14 narrative interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning persons or the community (LGBTQ+) victim-survivors.

Despite differences in gender, sexualities, roles and “lived experiences” across stakeholders, there was a shared aim to ensure victim-survivors had a sense of ownership in this endeavour. Consequently, a positive reciprocity existed that helped to foster effective communication, allow for capacity building and subsequent knowledge exchange. The collaboration produced a nuanced meta-narrative making visible the “lived experiences” of LGB victim-survivors’ perceptions of perpetrator behaviours.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is original in two ways, firstly, providing insights into the “lived experiences” of an invisible group; older LGBTQ+ victim-survivors, and secondly, in involving them in the co-production of a film. The paper aims to reveal how interdependencies that developed between stakeholders helped to disrupt understandings, develop new ways of knowing and build levels of trust. Group interactions helped to dismantle hierarchies, so those with experiential knowledge: the survivors, had greater control throughout the research process. The paper is significant in providing a critical reflection on the ethical, methodological and resource challenges involved in co-production. It also makes recommendations for researchers and funders about the value of using co-production as a method to engage with hard-to-reach groups.

The purpose of the article is to outline the insights provided by Alan Fox in Man Mismanagement in relation to the rise of the New Right political economy and the spread of unitarist managerialism. The article assesses the contemporary work and employment relations implications of mismanagement arising from a “second wave” of the New Right ideology from 2010 in the UK.

Responding to the Special Issue on Alan Fox, the article focuses on Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, considering industrial relations developments arising between the 1st (1974b) and 2nd (1985) editions relating to the political rise of the New Right. It reviews various literature that illustrates the contemporary IR relevance of the book and Fox's insights.

The New Right’s ideology has further fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collective industrial relations institutions, and macho mismanagement praxis is even more commonplace, compared to when Fox wrote Man Mismanagement. The stripping away of the institutional architecture of IR renders the renewal of pluralist praxis, like collective bargaining and other forms of joint regulation of work, a formidable task.

The value of the article relates to the identification of dramatic historical industrial relations events and change in the UK in Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, most notably relating to the rise to power of the Thatcherite New Right in 1979. Originality is evidenced by the authors’ drawing on Fox's ideas and assessing the implications of the “second wave” of the New Right in the contemporary industrial relations (IR) context of the 2020s under the conceptual themes of fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collectivism.

This study aims to respond to calls for more research to understand how sustainability control systems (SCSs) feature (or do not feature) in short-term operational and long-term strategic decision-making.

An in-depth case study of a large multinational organisation undertaking several rounds of sustainability reporting is presented. Data collection was extensive including 26 semi-structured interviews with a range of employees from senior management to facility employees, access to confidential reports and internal documents and attendance of company meetings, including an external stakeholder engagement meeting and the attendance of the company’s annual environmental meeting. A descriptive, analytical and explanatory analysis is performed on the case context (Pfister et al., 2022).

Simon’s (1995) levers of control framework structures our discussion. The case company has sophisticated and formalised diagnostic controls and strong belief and boundary systems. Conventional management controls and SCSs are used in short-term operational decision-making, although differences between financial imperatives and other aspects such as environmental concerns are difficult to reconcile. SCSs also provided information to justify company actions in short-term decisions that impacted stakeholders. However, SCSs played a very limited role in the long-term strategic decision. Tensions between social, environmental and economic factors are more reconcilable in the long-term strategic decision, where holistic risks and opportunities need to be fully identified. External reporting is seen in a “constraining” light (Tessier and Otley, 2012), and intentionally de-coupled from SCSs.

This paper responds to recent calls for rich, holistic and contextually-grounded perspectives of sustainability processes at an extractives company. The study provides novel insight into how SCSs are used (or not used) in short-term or long-term decision-making and external reporting. The paper illustrates how a large company is responding to sustainability pressures within the unique contextual setting of New Zealand. The study outlines the imitations of existing practice and provides implications for how sustainability-based internal controls can be better embedded into organisations.