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Scholarship on the state control of social movements has predominately focused on overt repression, resulting in comparatively less attention to more covert forms of control. Researchers have suggested that government surveillance of social movement organizations (SMOs) has become increasingly widespread and routinized in the post-September 11, 2001 era, but this hypothesis has remained untested. Since contemporary surveillance is grounded in a logic of information gathering that has diffused across law enforcement agencies since the September 11 attacks, government actors now cast a wide net and monitor a large variety of groups. This study shows that a result, traditional factors predicting surveillance, such as contentious behavior, have less explanatory power. Using a database of 409 SMOs active in Philadelphia between January 1996 and October 2009, the research asked who and why particular groups are monitored by the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security (PA-OHS) between November 2009 and September 2010. Bayesian logistic regression analysis is used to examine the variables predicting surveillance. Findings show that 23% of the SMOs in the sample were targets of surveillance. Organizational ideology was the strongest predictor and there was little evidence that history of contentious protests or previous conflict with the police influenced coming under surveillance. However, groups with less visibility in traditional media sources were more likely to be monitored.

The study of group dynamics was central to the field of organization development at its inception. More recently, there has been a move away from considering irrational and unconscious dynamics in organizational life and more attention focused on rational and observable behavior that can be measured and quantified. We introduce the tool, Beneath the Surface of the Burke-Litwin Model, that invites consideration of how the overt behavior of individuals, groups, and entire systems is linked to covert dynamics. This more comprehensive view of organizational life provides scholar-practitioners with a systemic perspective, a view of covert dynamics by organizational level, and support for the ongoing development of one’s capacity for using self-as-instrument when engaged in organization development and organization change efforts.

Covert research has a mixed reputation within the scientific community. Some are unsure of its moral worth, others would proscribe it entirely. This reputation stems largely from a lack of knowledge about the reasons for choosing the covert method. In this chapter, these reasons will be reconstructed in detail and all the elements that will allow one to judge the level of ethicality of covert research will be laid out for the reader. In particular, the chapter will answer the following questions: What harms can result from covert research to the subjects participating in the research? Is covert research necessarily deceptive? In which cases is it ethically permissible for a researcher to deceive? What is the scientific added value of the covert research, that is, what does covert research discover that overt research does not? What are the risks to researchers acting undercover? Finally, some suggestions will be offered to research ethics reviewers to help in their appraisal of covert research.

Studies report that frontline employees frequently discriminate against overweight customers, a group of vulnerable consumers that is growing worldwide. However, because most discrimination by frontline employees is covert, the authors ask whether overweight customers perceive discrimination and what influences this perception. Drawing on field theory, this paper aims to investigate how two environment factors (frontline employee overweight and frontline employees’ neutral treatment of other customers) and two person factors (customer pre-encounter affect and self-esteem) influence customer-perceived weight discrimination.

In a pilot study and three experimental studies, the authors examine the impact of covert discrimination of overweight customers by frontline employees on customers’ perception of discrimination and the influencing effects of environment and person factors. Hypotheses are tested using regression analysis.

The authors find that overweight customers perceive covert weight discrimination by frontline employees. Frontline employee overweight mitigates the effect of covert discrimination, and (state and trait) self-esteem amplifies this effect. Frontline employees’ neutral treatment of other customers is insignificant. Customer (state and trait) negative affect directly increases customer-perceived discrimination independent of covert discrimination.

While extant research focuses on marketplace discrimination triggers and consequences, the perspective of the discriminated customer and what influences his or her perception of covert discrimination has attracted much less attention. Moreover, research rarely addresses overweight as a discrimination trigger. As environment and person influences frequently shape service encounters, the authors contribute novel and relevant insights to the literature. This is of high value, especially in light of the harmful consequences marketplace discrimination entails for customers and service firms.

Today, more than ever, businesses need to improve strategy implementation. Part of achieving implementation requires strategies to be embedded in the daily activities of executors (practitioners) – thus to embed strategy in implementation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a “lesser acknowledged” strategy type that is ill-considered by management and leadership alike. “Covert tactics” are described.

Through dialectic conversation and applying the devil’s advocacy approach to challenging embeddedness and implementation liabilities, the phenomenon of “covert tactics” was identified. Purposively selected subjects participated in the dialectic conversations. Their opinions were collected and patterns identified until their “tactics” became apparent. Another element of interest was the underlying thinking of subjects to understand what drives them to follow covert tactics.

Covert tactics are phantasmal individual ploys that employees take in response to their own micro situation. Higher-level managers are often not aware of their existence, as these tactics are not spoken about but do exist. Such managers assume the organisation’s professed strategies are pursued but are oblivious to the “real tactics” that are pursued.

The research proposes an “invisible concept” and depends on one individual view point.

Understanding and accepting the existence of covert tactics gives managers flexibility to respond.

To address their existence, there is no need to expose and oppose covert tactics, as this will make them more “invisible”. The innovative approach is to recognise their existence and align them to the organisation strategy. The quality of the strategy message was shown to be the fundamental tool that managers can use to address covert tactics by replacing the need for their existence.

This study aims to critically expose and explore “taking sides” in the context of a covert ethnography of bouncers in the night-time economy of Manchester, UK.

The methodology adopted is covert ethnography. The author reflects on the application and use of situated deception within an embedded and insider ethnography of bouncers, alongside other relevant covert ethnographies. Fieldwork vignettes are drawn upon to articulate the management of situated ethics and moral dilemmas.

The findings argue that bouncers are a deeply maligned occupational group, who perform a valuable regulatory role in the night-time economy. Moreover, a covert role ethnographic presents an interesting liminal stance of being on both sides, rather than a reductionist choosing of a single sides. Theoretically, phenomenological bracketing and ethnomethodological indifference are used to justify the position taken in the paper.

Covert research has limitations around fieldwork time consumption, instigation tactics and “going native” distortion, alongside common fears of ethical belligerence and cavalier morals.

The lessons learnt, particularly for early career researchers, are about pursuing creative ethnographic methods.

Occupationally, bouncers should be less demonized and more accessible to more women. This rather hyper-masculine domain should be disrupted and democratized.

The field is relatively niche, with a purist covert ethnographic approach being an innovative way to unpack it.

The purpose of this paper is to study the responses of young consumers to suspected covert and overt product-brand recommendations in a blog.

Experimental design was applied to investigate the effect of covert and overt marketing on young consumers’ perceptions of blogger credibility and their behavioural intentions.

Overt marketing had a negative effect on behavioural intentions, such as future interest in the blogger, intention to engage in word-of-mouth, and purchase intention. Covert marketing did not affect the intended behaviour. Neither covert nor overt marketing influenced the blogger’s credibility.

The study was delimited to a small sample; one blog, one type of product recommendation, and a well-known brand. Young, well-educated consumers with experience in reading blogs may be able to filter the brand recommendations and focus on the content of the blog.

This study has implications for bloggers, companies, and policy makers. Although overt marketing is the most open and the recommended form of blog marketing, the study showed that overt marketing has negative effects. Therefore, bloggers need to carefully consider how they present a sponsorship.

The study makes three important contributions. First, it answers the call for research on consumer reactions to covert (deceptive) and overt marketing tactics. Second, it contributes to blog marketing research by studying a case of suspected covert marketing where consumers do not know whether the blog is sponsored or not. Third, the study contributes to knowledge around young consumers, demonstrating that covert and overt tactics do not affect blogger credibility.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and redefine the categories of covert advertising, to demonstrate the covert aspects of advertising in the press, to provide a high-quality comparison of three leading Slovenian newspapers and to prepare a model for future researchers.

In this article, the authors defined, analyzed, and explored covert advertising. In the first part, the authors used descriptive approach and method of compilation. In the empirical part, the authors used content analysis to research texts of covert advertising; the authors used analytical approach. Data were analyzed with the help of the computer programme SPSS.

The results of the research indicate that covert advertising appears on a daily basis in daily newspapers and these articles are visually more attractive to garner greater attention from readers and offer numerous visual presentations.

The first limitation is presenting a lack of literature in this area, especially very poor knowledge of covert advertising in English, American and German literature. There is not a single word that around the world marked the same phenomenon. This research is limited to print media; it cannot be generalized to all media. This is a survey of ads where the authors cannot rule out subjective assessments.

The significance of this research is that texts with covert advertising in Slovenia were for the first time scientifically investigated. The research approach and methodological instruments could be used as a model, a simplified representation of reality for future researches.

This study examines the impact of narcissism on young luxury consumers' preferences for quiet versus loud luxury products in China and the United States. As young consumers are increasingly becoming the bedrock of global luxury growth, it is imperative for marketing researchers and practitioners to understand the psychological and social needs of these consumers.

A two-study examination of young Chinese and US luxury consumers suggests that the two types of narcissism influence luxury consumption in different ways. Study 1 is a survey of young Chinese consumers that examines how the impact of narcissism on luxury purchase is mediated by social attitude functions and moderated by social anxiety. Study 2 is an experiment conducted in both the United States and China that establishes the causal relationship between the different types of narcissism and purchase intention toward quiet versus loud luxury products.

Building on an overarching framework that integrates both the narcissism literature and social attitude function theory, this study shows that overt narcissistic (vs. covert) consumers hold a value-expressive (vs. social-adjustive) attitude toward luxury products, which leads them to prefer quiet (vs. loud) luxury. In addition, higher levels of social anxiety enhance the mediating role of narcissistic consumers' social attitude functions.

This study advances understanding of young Chinese and US luxury consumers' narcissistic consumption patterns by proposing and empirically testing a novel research model that examines the mechanisms by which overt and covert narcissism leads to a different preference of quiet and loud luxury via the routes of different social attitude functions.

The purpose of this study contributes to literature on marketing communications by empirically contrasting the effectiveness of a new form of covert promotions (product placement in recipes) and an overt promotion (traditional advertisement). The mediating role of perceived believability of promotional materials and the moderating roles of advertising skepticism and brand awareness were examined based on a conceptual model.

A Web-based experiment with 2 (form of promotion: overt versus covert) × 2 (brand awareness: low versus high) between-subjects full factorial design was used. A public sample of 537 participants had participated in the study. The conceptual model was further tested on 106 participants using stimuli of a fictitious brand.

A two-stage moderated mediation analysis shows that the perceived believability of promotional materials was a significant mediator of the form of promotion and brand evaluations. Consumers showed a higher level of believability toward covert promotion, which, in turn, led to more positive evaluations of the promoted brand. Advertising skepticism and brand awareness were found to significantly moderate the relationship between form of promotion and attitudes toward the promoted brands. A similar pattern of results was obtained when stimuli of a fictitious brand were used.

This research addresses an important issue in marketing communication and extends the understanding of the perception of overt and covert promotions by examining the underlying mediating and moderating variables, which have rarely been explored before. The results guide marketers in developing effective marketing communication strategies for well-known, less well-known and even new brands. It also directs policymakers to consider whether integrated branded content in recipes should be disclosed to protect consumers from surreptitious promotions, which may help to lower consumers’ skepticism toward advertising in the long run.