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The institutional work literature has paid little attention to cognition and interests in the creation, maintenance, and disruption of institutions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the construct of interests as it relates to institutional work projects. The authors frame interests as recognitions situated within broader institutional meaning systems, with a specific focus on interest plurality.

The authors conducted an 18-month ethnography exploring institutional work projects within a rural chamber of commerce. The authors aimed to understand how projects contributed to community survival on a micro-level and institutional change on a macro-level. Rural chambers of commerce represent a unique example of emergent public-private partnerships, challenging traditional commercial logics of chambers of commerce. The research design included qualitative data collection, coding, and analysis of field notes, interviews, and archival sources.

Purposive action was grounded in the community inhabited by the rural chamber of commerce and not the institution itself. Recognized interests enabled nontraditional workers – public employees with newly founded and legitimate roles within the chamber – to pursue community-focussed projects. Change across the institution of chambers of commerce occurred because of the separated and aggregate projects spanning across rural communities.

Recognized interests are a social, plural, and malleable phenomenon supporting situated agency and the co-creation activities embodied in institutional work projects. The authors contribute to the institutional work literature by introducing the idea of interest plurality and illustrating how the work of rural chambers of commerce captures contemporary forms of community organizing.

This paper demonstrates the impact of recognition and valuation of youth interest on potential career trajectory and future pathway choices.

This paper presents data from two ethnographies. The first ethnography is of an online professional wrestling fan community, which took place between October 2012 and May 2013. The second ethnography is of the online Scratch community, Scratch is a free online coding program. Observations of the community took place between October 2014 and October 2015, with interviews ongoing as of the writing of this paper.

This paper details the importance of valuing youth learning and the impact that receiving recognition and valuation can have on youths’ future choices.

This research focuses on two online communities and presents four examples of the phenomena of valuation and recognition described in the paper. To draw broad conclusions, a wider sample would be required.

This paper can offer examples to practitioners and researcher alike as to what the impacts of valuing youth learning in interest-driven contexts can be for youth long-term learning and career trajectory and forms that the valuation of interest to support growth and interest can take.

The paper demonstrates the importance of valuing learning in all parts of youths’ lives and the impact that the valuation can have on the future pathways and career trajectory of youth.

As fertile soil for product promotion, online interest communities have gradually come into brands' view. However, existing research does not clarify whether brand engagement in consumer interaction is beneficial to the development of online interest communities. This study attempts to investigate the effects of brand engagement on the online interest community operation.

The authors propose a model that delineated the influence of brand engagement on consumers' citizenship behavior in the online interest community from the commitment-trust perspective. Scenario-based experiments were conducted and 536 data were collected by simple random sampling.

Results shows that a stronger perception of brand engagement has a positive influence on the relationship (trust and commitment) between the community and its users, which further influences online community citizenship behavior (feedback, advocacy and tolerance) of both posters and lurkers, especially for the posters. Although relationships are more complex, brand engagement activates the development of online interest communities to some extent.

This original study contributes to the commitment-trust theory by examining the impact of brand engagement on citizenship behavior via community commitment and trust in the online interest community context. In addition, this study compares the moderating effect of posters vs lurkers on the relationship between brand engagement and citizenship behavior in the online interest community.

The current service landscape is increasingly dynamic, and consumers’ engagement in market-related behavior is constantly changing. Developments in technology further influence this continuous dynamism. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that may cause different engagement valence, especially as only some consumers actively engage in online platforms. The purpose of this paper is to characterize factors that positively and negatively influence consumer engagement and suggest theoretical and managerial implications for the different factors that determine consumer engagement.

This paper conceptualizes factors that influence consumer engagement based on their characteristics (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) and the type of influence (positive or negative). The study uses customer-dominant logic of service, which focuses on emancipated customers and idiosyncratic customer logic, rather than on provider-orchestrated customer experiences of brands, firms, or offerings. An abductive research approach is used to qualitatively explore consumer engagement in the context of online interest communities.

The study identifies the behavioral, emotional, and cognitive factors that positively and negatively determine consumer engagement in the context of online interest communities.

Through the focus on customer logic, the study provides a detailed and nuanced view of factors that influence consumer engagement. Future research is needed to explore how this framework can be applied to other online communities and different service contexts.

The paper provides insights into the presence of an interest area in consumers’ lives. The study indicates how firms may be involved in consumers’ lives and how firms may create successful customer relationships based on consumer engagement.

This study enhances previous research in four ways: by characterizing factors that determine engagement, paying particular attention to its negatively valenced factors and examining the interplay of the factors that positively and negatively influence engagement, by describing consumers’ connection to the interest area instead of positioning the brand as the link between the consumers and the provider, and by discussing the theoretical and practical challenges associated with understanding and managing consumer engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to apply five models of conflict negotiation (power‐based, interests‐based, needs‐based, dignity model and comprehensive systemic) to Hindu‐Muslim religious conflict in Ahmedabad city, India and assess their relative applicability.

The general principles of each of the five models of conflict negotiation are first laid out from literature review. The principles are then hypothetically applied to resolve the contextual particularities of the Hindu‐Muslim conflict that occurred in 2002 in Ahmedabad city, India.

The comprehensive systemic approach is a good model to be used as a diagnostic tool for assessing the Ahmedabad conflict. Following that diagnosis, however, a combination of the need‐based and dignity model is useful in effectively negotiating the conflict.

This article creates awareness about the advantages and drawbacks of popular models of negotiation; this will enable negotiators to adopt a more realistic approach while negotiating conflicts in the field. The paper recommends that, while trauma, emotions and fears are real, so are destruction of property, livelihood and resources – peace cannot be long‐term unless negotiation addresses questions of subjective as well as material violations by raising questions of distributive justice.

This article indicates that conflicts are complex processes rooted in particular places and hence negotiation should be contextual and experiential. Through a comparative evaluation of different approaches the paper provides a tool kit. However, it also elucidates how reality may require negotiators to be more spontaneous and hence adopt mix‐models.

Purpose – This chapter explores the nature of spatial change processes in the urban–rural fringe of Ireland's capital city, Dublin. These areas have experienced rapid population growth between 1991 and 2002 in changing social structures, a rapidly changing built and natural environment, and increases in commuting. The chapter investigates how coalitions of community interests have responded to these spatial changes through opportunities for public participation in local governance processes.

Methodology/approach – We adopt a qualitative approach to assess the relationship between residents’ associations and the local state through a detailed empirical examination of the activities of residents’ associations within the rural–urban fringe.

Findings – Community and residents’ groups are very active in attempting to shape land-use and spatial planning policy outcomes with a complexity of motivations for engaging with the planning process, beyond simplistic portrayals of Not In My Back Yard-style local opposition to any change. However, attempts to influence policy outcomes were undermined by powerful developer and landowning interests, resulting in a deep-seated cynicism towards the public participation process, particularly with regard to the relationship between developers and councillors, and the probity of the planning system.

Implications/value of chapter – The limited ability of community interests to influence policy represents the economic and political reality of the development process, where the strategies and tactical behaviour of a few dominant interests and embedded power relations can compromise a deliberative and participatory policy process.

To explore an emerging area in internet practice that has implications for new product developers.

The paper integrates concepts including a range of recently published (1993‐2004) theoretical works and ongoing case developments in internet practice.

Provides information and action approaches to new product developers that may increase the success and accuracy of resulting new products. Outlines the benefits of monitoring and participating in online consumer communities and offers practical suggestions for maximizing their value in the product development process.

The theoretical concepts that form the foundation of the paper appear to have a significant application to the product development process but have not been tested empirically.

Uncovers a previously unrecognized source of direct consumer input and cooperation in the design and valuation of new products.

This paper describes the nature and application of online consumer communities to an important marketing process. It offers the potential of improving the success of new products in the marketplace reducing significant waste.

The design of viable, small‐scale community spaces on the Net is often a hit‐or‐miss affair. To better understand promising approaches in this design space, it is necessary to go back in time to examine an earlier community technology. A field study is presented of The Castle, a dial‐up bulletin board system, that focuses on Disneyland. As a “gathering place for Disney enthusiasts”, The Castle is a fascinating, albeit eccentric, online community. The Castle's centrality in the fans’ interest network allows it to function as a collecting point. Here people find similar enthusiasts and even those with insider knowledge. Yet, because of the cost structure of dial‐up access (an accidental side‐effect of the technology), participants are overwhelmingly geographically local, which has useful consequences for social maintenance. It is argued that the geographical locality and centrality of interest allow The Castle to thrive. Most importantly, however, the combination of the two together creates a powerful social dynamic which has been lost in most contemporary online communities.

The paper discusses how the Commission is shaping a decentralisation policy in the antitrust field. The paper details the procedural architecture ‐ “degrees of priority”, “preconditions for decentralisation” and “Community interest” ‐ which gives the Commission sole discretion to decide whether an antitrust case is dealt with by Brussels or is referred to a Member State. It reveals that the decentralisation procedure has been set up by the Commission, with the blessing of the Community courts, but with little real consultation with the Member States. The paper points out that the decision whether to decentralise turns on a new, qualitative and Commission decided Community interest test. The paper emphasises that the Community interest test runs in parallel with ‐ and has a similar function to ‐ a number of decentralisation provisions which already exist. The final section of the paper contrasts Community interest as a decentralisation test with the rival, and pre‐existing, quantitative approach to decentralisation ‐ the Community dimension test ‐ contained in the EC Merger Control Regulation (MCR). It explains that both tests have strengths and weaknesses and that the recent reform of the MCR has not fully addressed these concerns in respect to Community dimension. The paper’s main conclusion is that the Commission’s appropriation of the ability to decide which Member States are competent to deal with decentralised antitrust cases has created the possibility of a fragmented or two‐speed Europe in competition regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the legislation and case law relevant to preventing and combating fraud affecting the European Union (EU)'s financial interests in Romania.

The paper explores how the legislation is implemented in the process of Romania's accession to the EU, how it has been interpreted in case law, the reasons for the results achieved so far and the link between these specific offences and the general fraud offences provided for in the Criminal Code and other special laws.

The analysis examines the deficiencies in the legislation and in practical implementation thereof, focusing on the penalties and on recovery of funds.

The research highlights the need for practitioners clearly to distinguish between the common legislation applicable to fraud offences, on the one hand, and offences affecting the EU's financial interests, on the other, thus contributing to a fair trial.

The paper identifies the linkages between the common legislation applicable to fraud offences and offences affecting the EU's financial interests, which are still blurred even for Romanian legislators, especially in the field of Community revenue.