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Workplace mavericks are often labeled as non-conformists. They are perceived to be the employees who disregard organizational policies and procedures, and who invite huge risks in the pursuit of goals that sit outside what the organization dictates as the core business or practice. While this may be accurate to a degree, it is not the complete story. Guided by recent conceptualizations of non-conformity and positive deviance, this qualitative study interviewed 27 observers of mavericks (observer-types) in the workplace, and 28 interviews with mavericks (maverick-types). Results highlight that while maverick individuals do challenge organizational norms, they do so for the benefit of others, including the organization. Additionally, they are not wildcard non-conformists as they do in fact conform. However, they are conforming positively to higher level hyper-norms or organizational goals, and therefore operate in what could be termed as bounded non-conformity. Understanding the form that this bounded non-conformity takes is key for organizations to mitigate perceptions of the risk posed by maverick individuals, while maximizing the rewards that maverick employees can offer to organizations, especially for informing ideas and plans around more radical change and innovation. In this way, organizations can benefit from the numerous and unique contributions of mavericks in the workplace, such as innovative, unorthodox, and out-of-the-box thinking, while at the same time still ensuring the effective governance and risk management of the organization.

This paper seeks to explore a host of straight‐to‐DVD and direct‐download motion picture marketing, production, and distribution strategies deployed by Florida‐based Maverick Entertainment. The focus is Maverick's most prominent and successful sub‐genre “urban teen gangsta” films.

The somewhat wide‐ranging and eclectic approach taken in this paper draws from two emergent academic subdisciplines: consumer culture theory (CCT), largely on the business‐school side, and media industry studies (MIS), largely on the communications‐school side. The project thus attempts to bridge the interpretive poetics and eclecticism of CCT with the interpretive aesthetics and eclecticism of MIS and relies on a blend of filmic, marketing, PR, journalistic, trade publication, and academic evidence.

It is argued that “marketing mimicry” – where Maverick imitates specific successful urban‐teen themed cross‐over film marketing strategies of major and mini‐major Hollywood studio titles – was crucial to the start‐up's success.

Marketers outside the USA will find it somewhat difficult to glean generalizable lessons based on the strategies and principles evaluated here. Future research should be conducted in the area of direct‐download of urban teen filmed content, particularly vis‐à‐vis Maverick's new direct‐download partners such as Hulu, YouTube, Amazon VOD, Facebook Store, and Gigaplex. Future research should also look into the extent to which the somewhat pervasive notion of a “global teen audience” is valid for this sub‐genre of films.

Marketers are advised to thin‐slice the appeals of their teen‐themed product‐lines to maximize the appeal to given sub‐segments. Marketers may beneifit by developing ethical non‐harmful iterations of marketing‐mimicry in their market space.

Scholars who analyze teen‐themed marketing strategies often tend to construct some version of the “global teenager”. The current paper focuses largely on African American and Latino American teens.

This is the first paper to analyse how a small firm successfully markets to the urban American teen film audience. It is also the first academic paper to explore the concept of marketing‐mimicry.

Fostering employee engagement in large organizations is a formidable problem that gets even more challenging in a sluggish economy, when the standard lever of monetary incentives are not a viable option for boosting employee engagement and motivation. As the organization gets larger, building emotional connectedness or bonding becomes challenging as teams expand to operate in different time zones. The overwhelming pace of work in the modern workplace can also hamper bonding. Yet emotional connectedness, when present, serves as a catalyst in driving superior performance and employee loyalty. The culture of many large organizations discourages innovation and out-of-the-box thinking because their institutional structures encourage risk aversion. Even though large organizations are best positioned to absorb the ups and downs of intelligent risk-taking, their talent processes enforce conformity, legitimize mediocrity and penalize failed attempts at innovative thinking. Performance appraisals tend to promote employees who take the path of least resistance. Managers, of course, help perpetuate this risk-averse cycle of mediocrity. Either they have been conditioned to think only in a linear fashion or organizational systems perpetuate managerial insecurity at all levels. This insecurity manifests in several ways: managers may take credit for the work performed by a subordinate; shoot down ideas a subordinate may have; or deflect opportunities that a subordinate may get. Survival in such an environment is based on being average and staying within the system. As a result, the spirit of entrepreneurship is lost. The authors designed a creative and playful contest called “Maverick” to tackle employee engagement in large organizations. The contest deeper goals include: shifting culture and behavior, talent discovery, brand building and meaningful engagement. The impact of the program on a broader organizational culture parameters were assessed through a survey. The survey results validate the impact of the program.

The paper develops a conceptual approach that underlies the design of the Maverick program. Surveys were deployed to determine the perceived impact of the program on the broader culture.

The secret ingredient in employee engagement is gaining the “emotional share of wallet” of employees to drive meaningful, enduring organizational change. Emotional wallet share is the sweet spot that lies at the intersection of employees’ skill sets, their aspirations and the value they generate for the organization. Proactively identifying the sweet spot empowers an organization to capture employees’ emotional wallet share to identify enablers and catalysts that can unlock motivation and performance. The survey results indicate that the Maverick contest was perceived to have a positive impact on all the identified attributes. This is a testament to the program’s success as a pivotal driver of a positive organizational culture. Further, it validates that the Maverick contest identifies several levers that leaders can use to positively influence organizational culture.

The organizations can adapt the proposed conceptual framework in designing meaningful programs to tackle employee engagement and motivation.

The paper provides a meaningful framework to tackle employee engagement in large organizations. The Maverick approach is of interest to leaders of large organizations that are struggling to increase employee engagement with limited resources and that wish to foster creativity to drive innovation. The program offers a compelling way for talented professionals to meaningfully contribute to their organization that is agnostic to their position in the hierarchy. It gives employees the freedom to strive without being paralyzed by fear of failure; the chance to build their personal brand and pride; and a safe environment in which they can question received wisdom and attempt an unconventional approach to problem-solving. It creates a playful environment to bust stress, foster innovation and encourage an entrepreneurial mindset.

This paper offers a superior alternative to the standard gamification solutions that are routinely applied to business situations. Gamification mechanics work effectively in roles that are transactional, instead of roles that demand autonomy, mastery and a sense of purpose. Maverick program is designed while being mindful of the intrinsic motivation of the professionals.

This study of a market-leader in a turbulent hostile telecommunications market uncovers how the competitive context influences strategy-making and cultivates central control that opposes autonomous initiatives. It shows how a highly competitive industry context reduces organizational slack that inhibits autonomy and drives central actions. Strategic initiatives primarily arise as deliberate actions induced by top management. This creates an information gap between ongoing experiences gained by employees operating in the periphery of the organization and the perceptions of decision-makers at the corporate center. In this organizational setting, the authors observe maverick behavior among entrepreneurial individuals that deliberately circumvent the formal rules to turn autonomous initiatives into viable strategic ventures in the best interest of the firm. Where conventional views presume that power delegation and organizational slack are necessary for autonomous strategic initiatives to emerge, the authors find that central control can provoke autonomous rule-breaking maverick behavior among resource-deprived entrepreneurial individuals inside the organization.

Challenges the notion that people resist change and puts forward a strategy for getting the majority of people in an organisation to support a change initiative.

Identifies four main groups within organisations – saboteurs, groupies, double agents and mavericks – and puts forward opinions on how best to lead each group.

Argues that mavericks need to be supported and rewarded for their contributions, groupies must be driven and encouraged, double agents have to be persuaded and convinced and saboteurs must be handled carefully and effectively and must not be allowed to become the focal point of leadership efforts.

Reveals that, with the right management styles, most people will support or go along with organisational changes.

Contends that leaders must lead from the front when dealing with saboteurs, lead from the middle with groupies, and lead from behind with mavericks. Double agents can be convinced only through actions.

Analyses how the basic similarity of youth culture worldwide allows marketers to segment it across a four‐quadrant lifestyle matrix: the quadrants are In‐Crowd, Pop Mavericks, Networked Intelligentsia, and Thrill Renegades. Shows how this results from dividing young people by the oppositions of sober versus sensorial, and popculture versus subculture. Relates this fourfold classification to the brands that are likely to appeal to each: for instance, mobile phones are central for Pop Mavericks, but the Networked Intelligentsia prefers the internet. Concludes that brands must empower young people as evolving consumers and allow them to choose what is natural for them, rather than attempting to impose choices on them.

Highlights some of the new techniques being implemented across the USA in the area of team training. Some are revolutionary but some are just fine tuning on already successful methods. Gives suggestions for trainers on how to deal with resistant, reluctant or resentful trainees. Reviews the methods used at one firm to train its trainers, and at another where a company‐wide policy was adopted to create a new value‐added training system. Concludes that some of the most effective training techniques are not new ‐ merely the application of old‐fashioned common sense to training problems.

The presence of mature masculinity is slowly reshaping contemporary action cinema in the twenty-first century. It is a phenomenon that rejects the unrealistic view that action heroes are embodiments of Apollo and Ares in human flesh. Instead, action heroes are viewed as flawed characters who cannot escape the realities of their corporeality, mortality and humanity. The following chapter is an examination of a particular type of action hero archetype that combines ageing with virtuous and mature masculinity. Here I use Tom Cruise's development and portrayal of Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible series as a lens through which to highlight the presence of the virtuous and mature hero archetype in action cinema.

Cruise's representation of heroic masculinity is significant because it achieves three separate goals. First, Cruise's mature masculinity repudiates the hardbody model by showing its deficiencies as a male archetype. Second, it introduces a version of an action hero that emphasises the benefits of ageing and mature masculinity. Lastly, Cruise's onscreen presence redoubles the idea that heroic masculinity is motivated by a deep sense of morality, duty and a desire to serve the greater good. As the model of the mature and virtuous hero becomes more prevalent, as I argue, it not only reshapes action cinema but also produces cinematic representations of heroic masculinity that are more positive in terms of showing the importance of maturity, virtue, and public service.

In Chapter 1, a broad overview of the scope of entrepreneurialism in policing and criminal contexts which are broadly positive in nature was developed. In Chapter 2, the scrutiny to cover socio-cultural and organisational barriers to the implementation of entrepreneurial policing are extended. These include police culture, organisational traits such as ‘Machismo’ and ‘Conformism’, the restrictive nature of the police rank structure, the military model of policing, bureaucracy, risk-aversion, anti-entrepreneurialism, anti-intellectualism, the ‘Maverick’ stereotype, and the ‘Questioning Constable’. Many of these elements are of a negative nature and inhibit the implementation of entrepreneurial policing and practices. Also the entrepreneurial organisation and issues such as privatisation, commercialisation, innovation, and technology which also inhibit entrepreneurialism in policing contexts, but which also offer significant opportunities, are considered.

Maverickism is the tendency of an individual to be socially competent, creative, goal focussed, risk-taking and disruptive. Previous research with the five-factor model (FFM) shows that individuals high in maverickism exhibit both functional and dysfunctional tendencies. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the descriptive FFM with the process-oriented hybrid model of learning in personality (HMLP), in the prediction of maverickism.

Employing a cross-sectional design with 490 full-time workers the authors use the NEO-International Personality Item Pool and the Learning Styles Profiler to examine differences in the FFM and HMLP in the prediction of maverickism.

Results with the FFM, identify extraversion, openness and (low) agreeableness as significant predictors of maverickism. All factors of the HMLP (except conscientious learning) significantly predict maverickism. Hierarchal regression analysis shows that the HMLP accounts for an additional 21 percent of variance in maverickism over and above that of the FFM.

The authors have tested and built theory by identifying not only what predicts maverickism, but also how the learning processes of the HMLP interrelate to predict maverickism.

Managers interested in developing the maverick potential of their employees will find this study useful because it identifies what to look for in maverick workers.

Individuals high in maverickism have the potential for radical innovation. Understanding how to identify and develop these individuals may lead to larger societal benefits.

The authors are the first to use the HMLP to test maverickism. The research highlights the importance of both personality and learning processes in maverickism.