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The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the feedback discourse by exploring how public managers and politicians use complaints from citizens to improve the overall and specific performance of public services. The main research questions are: Can citizen complaints analysis be a useful planning tool in the public sector? What can public managers learn from citizen feedback?

Applying an empirical approach (Yin, 2005), the multiple case studies treated in the paper aim to clarify a series of decisions (particularly, why feedback is not used to its maximum potential). The overall design includes a defined set of questions, and the research protocol includes data retrieval, collection and analysis. A new cataloging model is proposed to homogenize the spectrum of analysis. This model is intended to create a parallel between two local bodies different in size, mission, and complexity, but which have front office facilities and are in the same territory and have the same potential target population.

In total, 698 complaints and 183 corrective or preventive actions were analyzed. Public managers’ attention seems to focus on technical or normative issues rather than on aspects of public services. This may be explained by the lack of funds for training, the scarce use of relational and human capital development leverage, and the concomitant necessity to guarantee at least the same level of services as provided in previous years, confirming the “Blame the rich and credit the poor” mantra.

This paper offers a strategic approach to learning from citizen’s feedback that other scholars or practitioners have not yet provided. There are many academic studies on customer feedback as a continuous improvement tool for the private sector, but few for public administration.

To examine the post dissatisfaction behaviour of Malaysian consumers vis‐à‐vis their complaint behaviour and defection. Specifically, the relationship between public complaint behaviour (i.e. complaining to the organization), private complaint behaviour (complaining to family members and friends without a word to the organisation) and customer defection were considered. The research also investigates the moderating effect of gender and income in this relationship.

Consisted of a survey of 218 randomly selected customers of banks in Malaysia.

shows that both public and private complaints are associated with defection, albeit the determinant strength of private complaint is more robust. These findings are generic as there is no gender‐moderated effect. However, income moderates the private complaint‐defection relationship. Lower income customers are more likely to defect without a word to the bank than higher income Malaysian bank customers.

Emphasises that an apparant each of complaints doesn’t mean that all is well. Also, stresses the need for encouraging complaints from customers and a system to hand complaints. Originality/value Income levels may affect a customers expression of dissatisfaction.

The study was carried out to better understand the behaviour of tourists from different cultures and backgrounds, and to provide strategic solutions for tourism managers. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships between the cultural dimensions of Hofstede and customer complaint behaviours.

Exploratory factor analyses were carried out separately for national culture and complaint behaviour scales and the factor structuring was then tested using a confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test theoretical correlations and a conceptual model was created to put forward the correlations between national cultural dimensions and complaint behaviours, as well as to examine the impact of variation in one dimension on the other.

Significant correlations were observed between power distance and both public action and no action behaviours, uncertainty avoidance and public action and private action, as well as individualism/collectivism and public action.

The sample population of the study included foreign tourists visiting Manavgat district in 2015. Manavgat as a destination is preferred by foreign tourists, rather than domestic tourists. In addition, many accommodations in the region only host guests from particular nationalities. For this reason, domestic tourists were not included in the survey. A limitation of the research is the fact that it focused only on hotel management. Extending the scope of the study in future research—the study could be carried out for a wider area and include other sectors—would increase the effectiveness of the study.

The results shed light on the fact that customers perform different complaint behaviours depending on variation in national cultural dimensions. In this context, the findings contribute to the hotel management literature and to the development of management strategies such as staff training, effective complaint solution methods, increasing customer complaints, using indirect resources effectively and decreasing the cost of solutions. The research also aims to create awareness in hotel managers by highlighting the importance of this issue.

In many of the studies where customer complaint behaviour and culture are analysed together, culture is regarded primarily as a geographical region, or as ethnical origin. Using Hofstede’s national cultural dimension scale, and taking into consideration all the national cultural dimensions, adds originality to this research. This study is one of the first to explore the impact of cultural dimensions on customer complaint behaviours in Turkey. This is also one of the first studies on complaint behaviour in the hotel industry.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the relevance of citizen complaints as a new source of information for local environmental governance. It represents an initial attempt to construct a fresh approach to the field.

The paper comprises a brief literature review around the concept of environmental governance, the role played by institutions, and the challenges of local environmental governance; an empirical study of a Portuguese municipality based on environmental complaints submitted to its City Council and a comparative analysis between the results garnered from the empirical study and the areas of intervention in the Municipal Environmental Plan.

The results suggest that the information gathered from public complaints on environmental issues has the potential to reveal the most significant environmental problems from the standpoint of local actors. This knowledge is relevant for self‐evaluation by local authorities whilst remaining a promising avenue for local public participation in decision‐making processes.

The authors take the view that concerns raised by local populations are important, latent sources of information that can have a positive impact on delineating necessary action for the management and resolution of local environmental problems.

The purpose of this paper is to help researchers and practitioners to understand and respond to consumer complaining behaviour (CCB) by developing a taxonomy that addresses the inadequacies of previous consumer complaining taxonomies and models, simplifies the terminology and covers both traditional and new ways of complaining.

Based on a systematic review of 210 studies, a concept-centric analysis of CCB literature was conducted. Seminal taxonomies and models of CCB are revisited and a critical evaluation of these is presented.

An integrated taxonomy of CCB is proposed which enhances the understanding of complaining in the twenty-first century by clarifying the ambiguities and overlapping constructs in the previous taxonomies.

The integrated taxonomy of CCB eliminates the ambiguity of previous approaches and introduces more coherent constructs in relation to the theory of CCB. The taxonomy comprehensively defines and describes the range of complaining actions to provide a complete framework. As a result, the authors’ understanding of CCB is developed through a focus on complaining actions, their characteristics and what these actions afford companies in their attempts to deal with complaints (i.e. audience and amount of information available).

Practitioners can use the integrated taxonomy of CCB to structure their complaint handling processes to obtain maximum customer feedback, to improve their product/service and to retain customers through satisfactorily addressing their complaints.

Although the literature on consumer complaining is mature, this is the first paper that offers a comprehensive taxonomy that explains CCB while addressing new developments in computer-mediated communications.

This paper seeks to develop a clearer understanding of the operations and decisions made by Australian advertising standards bodies, the Advertising Standards Council and its successor, the Advertising Standards Board. It also seeks to identify whose interests have been served by these advertising standards organisations – those of the public or those of the advertising industry.

Using annual reports and reports in mainstream press outlets, this paper compares the two advertising standards bodies, their respective organisational structures, and their decisions, in order to identify the key issues that have confronted Australia's advertising regulation bodies.

In addition to demonstrating the fundamental similarities between the Advertising Standards Council and the Advertising Standards Board, this paper raises serious questions about self‐regulation and the way that it serves the advertising industry's interests ahead of the public interest.

This is the first long‐term comparative survey of the operations, activities and decisions of the Advertising Standards Council and the Advertising Standards Board that also reveals the fundamental shortcomings of the current advertising standards codes.

Online consumer complaint behaviour that is observable to other consumers provides the firm with an opportunity to demonstrate transparency and service quality to the public eye. The purpose of this paper is to assist practitioners with a strategy to increase perceived accommodativeness in complaint management on social media and reduce the social risk associated with online consumer complaint behaviour using a social exchange theory perspective.

Six online experiments with 1,350 US Facebook users were conducted to investigate the effect of supportive and non-supportive virtually present others, and employee intervention on a consumer’s choice to complain, likelihood to make an observable complaint (on the Facebook page) and likelihood to make a non-observable complaint (via Facebook Messenger). The mediating role of perceived accommodativeness and subsequent social risk is also examined.

Supportive comments made to the complainant by virtually present others were found to influence participants’ decision to complain, heighten participants’ likelihood to complain about the Facebook page and reduce their likelihood to complain via Facebook Messenger. This effect was reversed in the presence of non-supportive virtually present others and was explained by perceived social risk. Further, a participant’s likelihood to complain about the Facebook page was increased when an employee intervention was directed at a non-supportive comment made to a complainant, by a virtually present other. This effect was explained by the perceived accommodativeness of the employee interaction.

The findings advance research on online consumer complaint behaviour by investigating how employee intervention can be used to increase the likelihood of an observable complaint. This research is limited in that it does not incorporate individual characteristics, such as introversion/extroversion and propensity to respond to peer pressure, which may affect participant responses.

This research shows that perceptions of social risk are most effectively reduced by employee intervention directed at a non-supportive comment (made to a complainant) of a virtually present other. Consumer complaint management strategies aimed at minimising perceptions of social risk and encouraging observable online complaint behaviour are proposed.

This research extends the consumer complaint behaviour taxonomy by introducing the term “observable complaining”, that is, visible complaints made on a Facebook page, and broadens understanding of the organisation’s role in managing non-supportive virtually present others to assuage perceptions of social risk in potential complainants.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate public online consumer complaint responses from three different perspectives: the complainer, the company and third party consumers. Consumer complaint behaviour and management has been studied in various streams of literature, yet the subsequent processes triggered by a company complaint response have not been studied so far. In particular, this paper seeks to divert from examining complaint participants in isolation by recognising interrelated communication effects of complaint dialogue and public media.

Looking at credibility perceptions as a theoretical construct for measuring the utility of a complaint as well as attitude‐orientation as an evaluative moderator, the paper highlights the ambiguity of meaning transfer in an online complaint forum.

It is hypothesised that credibility and congruence in attitude orientation positively enhance complaint utility perceptions and strongly bias complaint dialogue evaluations.

The paper highlights that expected relevant results for online complaint managers and marketers alike are the inclusion of post‐complaint communication into corporate image and relationship management as well as using credibility perceptions as a benchmark for online customer satisfaction and potential positive electronic word‐of‐mouth.

To examine the incidence and prevalence rate of drug‐related complaints against police in the New South Wales Police Service (Australia) and compare these rates to officer demographics.

Seven years of complaints data (1993‐2000) are examined. The data showed that of nearly 40,000 complaints amounting to over 80,000 allegations, less than 2 percent relate to drug‐related allegations. These allegations were isolated and the pattern of officer demographics from these incidents were compared to the police service as a whole, with the aim of exploring if particular groups (such as length of service, age, gender etc.) were particularly susceptible to attracting drug‐related allegations.

The most common drug‐related allegation was for supplying drugs. The distribution of drug‐related complaints follows the general demographic pattern of officers in the police service, though female officers attracted fewer drug‐related allegations. Adverse findings, while rare, are most likely to be recorded against lower ranking police officers who have served less time in the police service.

The paper shows that demographics alone are not sufficient to identify officers at risk of being on the receiving end of a drug‐related complaint. The age, service and rank analysis conducted in this paper has not revealed any particular groups that are more susceptible to allegations of drugs misconduct. This paper therefore supports the idea that a more thorough early warning system tailored to individual officers may be necessary for an effective strategic complaints system.

With a pool of nearly 80,000 allegations to draw upon, the research employs one of the largest data sets ever examined. The findings are therefore sufficient to provide robust statistical comparisons, and are of interest to police practitioners, law enforcement managers, and researchers.