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The purpose of this study is to examine the role of collective angst, the concern about the future viability of one’s group, during service failure and recovery.

To test this objective the authors utilize an experiment to examine how Kuwaitis react to service failures when the front-line employee is a foreigner.

The results indicate that collective angst is associated with greater anger following a service failure. The authors also find that collective angst moderates the impact of cultural distance on anger and recommendation intentions following a service-failure recovery attempt. More specifically, cultural distance leads to greater anger and lower intentions to recommend a service establishment for consumers that experience greater collective angst.

The research provides the first attempt at examining how local consumers react to foreigner service providers, by examining how concern about the future vitality of one’s national group, in other words collective angst, affects such reactions.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the myths and challenges in the field of organizational ethnography and methodological angst.

This paper is initially written as an invited keynote address for the 3rd Annual Joint Symposium on “Current Developments in Ethnographic Research in the Social and Management Sciences” (University of Liverpool Management School and Keele University Institute for Public Policy and Management, Liverpool, September 3‐5, 2008). It explores what might be distinctive about organizational ethnography and how that might be different from “anthropological” ethnography. In particular, it engages a kind of collective methodological performance anxiety among organizational studies scholars without formal training in anthropology who do ethnographic research.

The paper argues that it is time to be explicit about a variety of forms of professional angst that many ethnographic researchers within organizational studies carry which have not been discussed.

The paper is of value to those willing to consider the myths and challenges that need engaging and perhaps uprooting and casting off.

Uncertainty-identity theory serves as our guiding theoretical framework to explore subjective uncertainty, especially uncertainty about self and identity, and the ways in which communication within groups provides valuable social identity information to group members as a means to manage subjective uncertainty.

We review and synthesize research in communication science and social identity theory, specifically uncertainty-identity theory, to compare diverse understandings of uncertainty and the identity-shaping function of communication within groups.

Uncertainty inherent in dyadic interactions has received extensive attention in communication science. However, the identity-defining function of communication that flows within and between groups as a means to resolving uncertainty about subjectively important matters has received little attention in both social psychology and communication science.

We explore how communication that flows from in-group sources (e.g., leaders) serves to shape a shared reality and identity for group members while providing a framework for self-definition. We propose an agenda for future research that would benefit from an articulation of the importance of communication in the shaping and management of identity-uncertainty.

Uncertainty arousing rhetoric by influential in-group sources, such as leaders and the media can have serious implications for intergroup relations, as uncertain individuals seek distinctive and tight-knit groups and autocratic leaders under conditions of heightened uncertainty. The role that communication plays in shaping clear and distinct identities as a panacea for identity-uncertainty has implications for the intragroup normative structure of the group and for intergroup relations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how participating in a branded Biennale (Venice) may legitimate and promote selected artists from the emerging markets of Venezuela and Thailand alongside art market leaders.

Research was conducted at the 53rd International Art Biennale in Venice, Italy, in June 2009. Underpinned by a constructivist approach, qualitative data were collected via participant observation, illustrative photography and semi‐structured interviews (average interview time 55 minutes) with curators and participating artists from two emerging markets: Venezuela and Thailand.

This research indicates that merely attending the Venice Biennale does not mean automatic branding for success: each artist's signature style must stand out within its cultural context for the branding effect to succeed. The conclusion compares and contrasts the effective relationship between identification and success for the two emerging economies within the world‐leader arts event in Venice.

This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on arts management and events management, focusing on the until now unexplored area of contemporary arts marketing for the emerging economies of Venezuela and Thailand. The paper may aid emerging market art professionals in their strategy and planning to better benefit from the Venice Biennale's branding opportunity, as well as guiding scholarly research to a better understanding of the area.

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) have poor school outcomes and serious problems in life after school. Transition services are intended to promote more positive outcomes for these individuals and other students with disabilities. Recent trends in society and education appear to be changing the nature of the current generation of secondary students and young adults, potentially rendering aspects of traditional transition planning obsolete. We review these trends, transition guidelines, and current research and outline an approach that may have merit in dealing with transition for students with EBD in the twenty-first century.

This study aims to develop and examine a model that links the foreigner service orientation, defined as indigenous consumers’ preference for service environments popular among foreign versus local consumers, to both foreigner and local comfort in intercultural service encounters.

The authors collected cross-sectional survey data from 516 indigenous consumers in Qatar.

According to the findings, although foreigner comfort is positively related to their service orientation, local comfort is negatively related to foreigner service orientation. The results further indicate that the relationships are intensified when cosmopolitanism or collective narcissism is high and when consumers are alone in the service setting.

Service firms can use the findings of this research to create a meaningful service environment based on consumers’ orientation to the in-group and out-group.

The examination of the foreigner service orientation addresses the possibility that consumers might prefer foreign consumers to local ones in service environments. This research also addresses the dearth of research on customer-to-customer intercultural service encounter.