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Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one dark social-media phenomenon in particular has experienced a significant rise: consumer-to-consumer (C2C) conflicts, i.e. consumers who verbally attack each other in response to COVID-19 service failures. The aim of this paper is to uncover the sources of such conflicts and to gain an insight into the corresponding conflict moderation strategies that international brands adopt.

The methodology consists of non-participatory netnographic observations of 13 national, international, and global online brand communities (OBCs) on Facebook. The authors use purposeful sampling to collect relevant data on conflict sources and brand moderation strategies during COVID-19 service failures and a hybrid approach to thematic analysis to derive distinct themes from these data.

The paper identifies five C2C conflict sources: brand attack, brand dissatisfaction, brand skepticism, brand contention and brand defense; these are then classified as having either an individualistic (self-oriented) or collectivistic (other-oriented) orientation. The authors also uncover several moderation strategies: non-engaging, automated, bolstering, asserting (direct, indirect) and informing (factual, empathetic, apologetic), which are broadly categorized into two levels based on their passive vs active approach and authoritative vs cooperative orientation. The paper further highlights that brands adapt their moderation strategies to specific sources of C2C conflicts, thereby producing a range of OBC outcomes.

The study's empirically informed framework comprising sources of undesirable conflicts and brand moderation strategies offers a practical tool that can aid marketing managers in nurturing civil C2C engagement and interactive behaviors in their OBCs. By adopting our framework, brand and marketing practitioners can tailor their communication strategies toward different sources of C2C conflict and minimize their adverse consequences, thus, fostering an overall constructive OBC engagement.

The authors offer a novel framework to international marketing research, consisting of C2C conflict sources and corresponding moderation strategies that take place in response to service failures during the COVID-19 pandemic. These insights, in turn, inform international marketers about new ways of transforming the dark side of OBCs into a source of competitive advantage based on real-world brand practice.

The paper examines the content moderation practices and related public disclosures of the World's most popular social media organizations (SMOs). It seeks to understand how content moderation operates as a process of accountability to shape and inform how users (inter)act on social media and how SMOs account for these practices.

Content analysis of the content moderation practices for selected SMOs was conducted using a range of publicly available data. Drawing on seminal accountability studies and the concepts of hierarchical and holistic accountability, the authors investigate the design and appearance of the systems of accountability that seek to guide how users create and share content on social media.

The paper unpacks the four-stage process of content moderation enacted by the World's largest SMOs. The findings suggest that while social media accountability may allow SMOs to control the content shared on their platforms, it may struggle to condition user behavior. This argument is built around the limitations the authors found in the way performance expectations are communicated to users, the nature of the dialogue that manifests between SMOs and users who are “held to account”, and the metrics drawn upon to determine the effectiveness of SMOs content moderation activities.

This is the first paper to examine the content moderation practices of the World's largest SMOs. Doing so extends understanding of the forms of accountability that function in the digital space. Crucial future research opportunities are highlighted to provoke and guide debate in this research area of escalating importance.

This article aims to propose guidelines to develop moderation hypotheses, assess moderators using the multigroup analysis and interaction effect approaches and interpret the results of moderation analysis in tourism and hospitality research.

Through a review of 600 articles published in top tourism and hospitality journals from the year 2016 to 2020, and reviewing the literature related to moderation analysis, this study identifies key issues in different steps of moderation analysis and proposes robust guidelines to aid future research.

The results of the systematic review uncovered some key issues in different steps of moderation analysis, such as hypothesis development, moderation assessment and results interpretation. The findings emphasized the typical methodological misconceptions and improper practices for moderation analysis.

Moderation analysis is of great significance to the advancement of theory, and its application has increased significantly in recent years. However, many studies appear to have a limited understanding of moderation analysis and follow questionable practices regarding hypothesis development, moderation assessment and results interpretation, thus leading to suspicious conclusions for theory advancement. By highlighting these methodological issues, this article provides robust guidelines for moderation analysis, which is of great theoretical and methodological significance to the academic research in tourism and hospitality.

As one of the first studies to provide robust guidelines for moderation analysis, based on a critical and systematic review of papers published in top-tier journals in tourism and hospitality and the latest developments on moderation analysis in the wider literature, this article has important theoretical and methodological significance for the academic research in tourism and hospitality as well as general social science disciplines.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the way “moderation” is defined and operationalised at UK universities. It is hoped that this investigation provides pointers for modifications in university documentation and practices, as well as indicates possible areas for future research.

This paper begins with a review of relevant scholarly literature, first tracing the history of the concept of moderation (essentially meaning the avoidance of extremes) in western thought and then proceeding to show how moderation is understood and operationalised in UK universities. Relevant documentation from 10 UK universities, all in the public domain, is analysed to show both commonalities and differences in definition and operationalisation of moderation.

This paper shows that universities differ in their understanding of the scope of moderation, with some seeing it as covering the evaluation of draft assessment artifacts. It is also noted that the distinction between moderation and marking is not always expressed in university documentation in ways that distinguish between the two with maximal clarity.

Limitations include the relatively small sample of documents examined. Conversely, ancient universities (e.g. Edinburgh), long-established universities (e.g. Manchester) and 1992 and more recent universities (e.g. Manchester Metropolitan University and Suffolk) are contained in the sample, so moderation practices from across the sector are included.

The main findings are that some universities see moderation as including drafting, redrafting and approval of assessment artifacts, whereas others do not. In addition, although all universities stress that moderation and marking are separate activities, some documentation discusses both the activities in tandem; thus, undermining the contention that they are discrete. Both these findings have implications for UK university documentation in terms of both document structure and precise wording.

The approach taken, in which a sample of publicly available university documents is scrutinised and evaluated, casts a new light on understandings of “moderation”, which is a term and concept that may not always be examined critically by lecturers and quality assurance professionals involved in higher education.

The aim of quality assessment is to support the development of learners’ competencies as required in 21st century economies. This paper aims to analyse the role and understanding of heads of department (HoDs) regarding quality assessment and the moderation of school-based assessment (SBA) tasks in tourism, which is a subject in the secondary school curriculum.

To elicit valid findings in this interpretative study, focus group discussions were conducted with 16 participants. The HoDs who participated in this study were purposively sampled based on their role as managers of tourism in their respective schools.

Informed by the context, input, process and output theoretical model, this study identified various elements that impacted the enactment of HoDs’ role in the moderation of SBA tasks, with particular reference to tourism. Despite these HoDs’ understanding of the importance of moderation as a key aspect in assuring quality assessment practices, it was found that the moderation of tourism SBA tasks was generally not conducted meticulously and appropriately.

The qualitative case study on which this paper is based used a limited sample within a restricted timeframe and the results may thus not be generalised. However, the methodology produced trustworthy results and may thus be replicated and extended to other subjects with a practical component for enhanced insights into SBA practices.

This paper highlights the necessity for schools to rely on knowledgeable and principled curriculum leaders, particularly HoDs, for the effective management of assessment and moderation strategies to ensure quality outcomes. The qualitative case study on which this paper is based used a limited sample within a restricted timeframe, and the results may thus not be generalised. However, the methodology produced trustworthy results and may thus be replicated and extended to other subjects with a practical component for enhanced insights into SBA practices.

This paper contributes to the discourse on quality assurance and SBA, with particular focus on how quality assessment can be enhanced in the moderation process of tourism. The insights that this paper share may contribute to improved policy decisions regarding the SBA process in tourism.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect moderation effects of demographic and socio-economic(s) factors on the adoption of Islamic banking in UAE.

Convenience sampling was done on the residents of Sharjah, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. A closed-ended questionnaire with 30 items was designed and pre-tested before the start of the study. Path analysis and moderation testing were the main analytical approach. A total of 320 respondents completed the survey.

The research revealed that demographic and socio-economic(s) moderators may have direct and indirect moderation effects on the adoption of the Islamic banking in the UAE, which indicates the importance of these factors in the provision of Islamic banking products and services in the UAE.

This study further revealed that these moderators have huge practical implications for Islamic bank managers and marketers as they can exploit these demographics to enhance their market share in the UAE.

In UAE, minimal attention has been directed toward the role moderators would play in the criterion that individual investors would use in the adoption of Islamic banking products and services in a cosmopolitan environment that is experiencing competition from conventional banks.

An extensive review of the existing literature on the adoption of Islamic banking reveals that no empirical research has been undertaken to explore the role played by demographic and socio-economic(s) moderators in the adoption of Islamic banking in UAE and internationally. This study attempts to fill this gap.

This paper presents a case study of the reaction of the Queensland Teachers Union to the moderation proposals of the 1970 Radford Report. After reviewing the events surrounding the development and implementation of Union policy concerning moderation, the implications of these events for the Union and for education in Queensland are discussed. These implications are considered in terms of the Union's internal characteristics, its principal political targets, alternative sources of influence and the industrial and political tactics adopted. The study demonstrates the importance of intramural divisions, the strategic role of individual activists and the interaction between conservative and militant pressures in determining the nature and effectiveness of teachers' organizations as pressure groups.

The aim of this paper is to generate a streamlined, transparent and effective instrument to fairly measure the contribution made by each student to a group project within a higher education context. The primary aim is to moderate the grades of underperforming students at the end of the project. There is a secondary benefit in alerting underperforming students to raise their contribution mid-task or face a potentially reduced grade at the final stage.

The development of this multi-dimensional instrument is guided by findings from previous research. The quest is to minimise the instructor's administrative work load in applying a moderation-only instrument that is open-source and available at no cost. Based on the literature, the survey instrument seeks to apply a peer-based, equitable and transparent evaluation of each member's contribution to a group task. The survey is applied at mid-task and again at end-task in order to afford underperformers the opportunity to address contribution deficits during the final phase of the project.

The instrument, called TANDEM©, offers a transparent, streamlined, equitable, confidential and practical measure of each student's contribution to a graded group task. Students whose end-task contribution falls below the group average rating receive a proportional reduction in their personal grade. Additionally, the end-task moderation instrument captures a single-item holistic measure of relative contribution that may, in the future, serve as a surrogate for the multi-dimensional measures currently in place.

TANDEM© was developed with group sizes of four or five members in mind. There is no evidence to support its application to three-person groups. Moreover, the application was applied only amongst under-graduate students. It is yet to be applied across post-graduate groups and within online learning environments. Future research into diverse cultural settings would serve to advance understanding of how moderation is perceived across borders.

Several existing group grade moderation methods propose complex algorithms that are “black box” solutions from a student's perspective. In establishing a fair, streamlined, confidential and transparent process for peer-rated moderation, TANDEM© deploys a concise instrument with a relatively small administrative load. TANDEM © may be applied to all groups or can selectively be applied to groups that report moderate, strong or extreme levels of conflict.

Students will appreciate the opportunity to rate peer contributions to group projects. This will dissipate the negative social sentiment that may arise when fellow students benefit from the work of others. Those students seeking conflict resolution within the group will value the transparent and equitable moderation of grades as well as the positive social implications that follow.

This research forms part of an ongoing quest to present a moderation instrument that fairly identifies student contribution to a group project. Whilst the solution proposed is one of many existing alternatives, its focus is on a practical moderation-only instrument that can immediately be applied to a course or major. The benefits lie in the ease of application and minimal administrative workload. This constitutes an original contribution to the individual (course or major) coordinator who seeks to apply a moderation-only instrument without having to commit to an extensive, broad-based group optimisation programme.

The on‐line tutor or e‐moderator faces a diversity of new challenges, including instructional design, organisation, direct instruction and facilitating discourse. This study aims to contrast the views of students and tutors regarding what factors constitute effective e‐moderation in order to identify key attributes of an on‐line tutor.

A qualitative methodology was adopted. The research utilised a semi‐structured interview technique to collect data contrasting and comparing the views of 35 students and 35 tutors on the constituents of effective e‐moderation.

The paper finds that from a student perspective the quality of feedback, student support and module management were key attributes of an effective e‐moderator. In contrast tutors argued that motivating students, including the provision of constructive feedback and developing an engaging on‐line persona were critical to successful e‐moderation. Comparison revealed that students and tutors have a broadly similar view to what constitutes effective on‐line moderation and any disparities related to how these groups tended to interact with the learning environment. Students were concerned primarily with how moderation enabled them to engage with the learning environment whereas tutors tended to discuss effective moderation in terms of factors that facilitated the learning process.

The study recognises the key attributes of an effective e‐moderator that should inform course design and tutor training.

In an online executive education setting, online discussions are seen as a frequently used pedagogical tool that promotes higher level of learning and critical thinking. A teacher's role is seen more as a moderator or facilitator of learning than as a lecturer or preacher. This shift of roles enhances the online students’ opportunities to critically think and reflect; and encourages co-creation of knowledge by way of peer discussions. It is imperative that students apply their critical thinking as well as soft skills to effectively participate and contribute towards making the discussion forum as self-regulated. However, in reality it needs explicit planning and effort on the part of the teacher to motivate them towards this positional shift. This chapter presents the motivation and techniques for improving student engagement by way of assigning them the role of moderator in a predominantly asynchronous online course for management graduates. A qualitative analysis of the observations made based on the application of three techniques of student moderation on student cohorts is shared and implications are discussed.