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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe challenges to ethnic minorities in the UK. While the experiences of migrants are both complex and varied depending on individuals' social class, race, cultural proximity to the host country and acculturation levels, more in-depth studies are necessary to fully understand how COVID-19 affects specific migrant groups and their health. Taiwanese migrants were selected because they are an understudied group. Also, there were widespread differences in pandemic management between the UK and Taiwan, making this group an ideal case for understanding how their acculturation journey can be disrupted by a crisis.

Qualitative data were collected at two different time points, at the start of the UK pandemic (March/April 2020) and six months on (October/November 2020), to explore migrant coping experiences over time. Theoretically, the authors apply acculturation theory through the lens of coping, while discussing health-consumption practices, as empirical evidence.

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, participants worked hard to achieve high levels of integration in the UK. The pandemic changed this; participants faced unexpected changes in the UK’s sociocultural structures. They were forced to exercise the layered and complex “coping with coping” in a hostile host environment that signalled their new marginalised status. They faced impossible choices, from catching a life-threatening disease to being seen as overly cautious. Such experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society.

It is important to note that the Taiwanese sample recruited through Facebook community groups is biased and has a high level of homogeneity. These participants were well-integrated, middle-class migrants who were highly educated, relatively resourceful and active on social media. More studies are needed to fully understand the impact on well-being and acculturation of migrants from different cultural, contextual and social backgrounds. This being the case, the authors can speculate that migrants with less resource are likely to have found the pandemic experience even more challenging. More studies are needed to fully understand migrant experience from different backgrounds.

Public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. In particular, this paper has shown how separation, especially if embraced temporarily, is not necessarily a negative outcome to be corrected with specific policies. It can be strategically adopted by migrants as a way of defending their health and well-being from an increasingly hostile environment. Migrants' home country experience provides vicarious learning opportunities to acquire good practices. Their voices should be encouraged rather than in favour of a surprising orthodox and rather singular approach in the discussion of public health management.

The paper has clear public health policy implications. Firstly, public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. Acknowledging migrants' voice is a critical first step to contribute to the development of a fair and inclusive society. Secondly, to retain skilful migrants and avoid a future brain-drain, policymakers are advised to advance existing infrastructure to provide more incentives to support and retain migrant talents in the post-pandemic recovery phase.

This paper reveals how a group of previously well-integrated migrants had to exercise “coping with coping” during the COVID crisis. This experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society. It contributes to the understanding of acculturation by showing how a such crisis can significantly disrupt migrants' acculturation journey, challenging them to re-acculturate and reconsider their identity stance. It shows how separation was indeed a good option for migrants for protecting their well-being from a newly hostile host environment.

One of the main strengths of qualitative research is to focus on ideas, concepts and meanings involving individuals and groups of people in their own discourse. Instead of testing a narrow hypothesis or making a generalisation about a population on certain issues under investigation, qualitative research attempts to present different insights which can only be unearthed by direct and personal engagement with research participants (Brannen, 1992). This engagement should take place in a natural social context where real life takes place. However, conducting qualitative research in China can pose a huge challenge for both Chinese and international researchers. This paper examines some problems (ethics, linguistics, etc) of using qualitative research methods and tools such as interviews, participant observation, and Critical Discourse Analysis in China.

Given that a “one size fits all” strategy might not be sufficiently robust enough to capture all the idiosyncrasies of the ethnic minority market in Britain, due to the heterogeneous nature of their consumption behaviour, the purpose of this paper is to specifically explore clothing acculturation of Black African women in London, UK.

A total of 20 in‐depth interviews were conducted with women of Black African ethnicity resident in London, as recruited through the use of purposive and snowballing sampling methods.

Essentially, the study shows that clothing acculturation among these women is influenced by a number of interconnected factors which are identified and categorised in this study to be weather condition, social factors, religion, and personal factors.

Theoretically, the study supplements the existing ethnic minority studies in the literature, and extends understanding on acculturation and women's consumption of clothing. The implications of the study for marketing practice are discussed especially in relation to the use of segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy by organisations towards satisfying their disparate target markets in the society.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues surrounding the use of ethnography and participant observation in event studies. It considers the role and benefits of participant observation in terms of understanding event audiences and provides examples of the range of participant motivations and preferences such approaches can reveal and explore. As a methodological paper it focuses on the processes, challenges and benefits surrounding the utilisation of ethnographic methods within events research, with specific examples taken from an ethnographic study into contemporary dance music culture to contextualise the discussion.

Ethnography and participant observation are flexible research approaches characterised by varying levels of participation in and observation of different cultural groups and activities. This paper focuses specifically on participant observation revolving around field trips, focus groups, internet research and key informant interviews.

The challenges facing ethnographic researchers studying event audiences include identifying opportunities for observation and participation, identity negotiation for different research settings, their positioning on the participant observer spectrum, recruiting participants, recording data and the extent to which research takes an overt or covert approach, bearing in mind ethics and participant reactivity. It concludes that once these challenges are addressed, this multifaceted approach provides a valuable avenue for researchers exploring the range of socio-cultural forces at play surrounding event audiences and their experiences.

It advocates a shift from attempts to quantify audience motivations and experiences, to methods which seek to understand them more fully through focusing on the entirety of the event experience and the influence of surrounding cultural networks and discourses.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the cultural similarities and differences between elite referees concerning their preparation and performance in dealing with reduced player behaviour.

Semi-structured interviews were employed to collect the data. The 37 participants from England, Spain and Italy were selected through the use of purposive sampling, and all were working in the field of refereeing as current elite-level referees, ex-elite-level referees, referee assessors, referee coaches, or managers and administrators from bodies that manage and train referees. Inductive content analysis was employed to generate themes from the raw data.

Referees have identified particular issues related specifically to player behaviour and also identified specific traits pertaining to players from certain countries. Furthermore, results demonstrate that referees have begun to alter their preparation and performance due to the pressure they perceive exists within association football and, more specifically, from the players themselves.

This study is the first to compare cross-cultural elite referee responses regarding their preparation and performance related to player behaviour.

This article’s principle aim is the investigation into the underdeveloped field of lesbian audience research. It theorises the relationship between the text of Xena Warrior Princess a television programme and a fanclub called Xenasubtexttalk that evolved on the Internet. The researcher has drawn on evidence from a case study and participant observation over a twelve month period, the gathering of postings from bulletin boards and continuing interviews lasting between one and two hours conducted over the Internet. This has revealed some of the practices and rituals of two self‐identified lesbians who participated in this fanclub. Informed by a postmodernist feminist framework several issues of methodology are discussed. The main theme in this study’s findings is that these fans have produced through the appropriation of this particular text, biographies that represent a “coming out narrative”.

The modern construction industry is highly competitive and cost driven, with tangible adversarial relationships between projects' contractual parties at individual and organisational levels; there are conflict of interest as people to survive. Accordingly, team leaders on construction megaprojects (CMPs) in multinational engineering organisations strive to survive in such competitive markets. The research’s aim is to investigate relationships between team leaders' tenure and management styles towards professional subordinates on CMPs and elaborate how corporate governance can optimally address this conflict of interest and adversarial relationships.

The research methodology adopted processes of inducting theory using case studies. A qualitative approach was adopted as a primary data collection and analysis source. It involved case studies through primary data collection in semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 38 professional subordinates (interviewees) to discuss impacts of team leaders' tenure on their management style (a five-team leader, case studies). The research methodology is based on building theories from case study grounded theory research methodologies.

The research introduced the notion that team leader survival syndrome is pronounced and evidenced by adversarial reactions towards new or experienced professional subordinates where team leaders perceive professional subordinates, especially at senior technical levels, as potential risks that jeopardise their positions and employment survival possibilities. The syndrome is proven based on real-life case studies; it is constant, tangible and serious disorder of attitudes and behaviours. Longer tenure stimulates and accelerates these phenomena and syndrome, with 58% of team leaders exhibiting such syndromes. Optimum employee tenure is between 7 and 10 years. Corporate governance provides good resolution practices.

The research implications are useful to construction industry and academia. However, the analysis is limited to the case studies considered in Canada and Qatar. Due to small sample size for both case studies and respondents to the questionnaire survey, it is recommended for future exploration to expand the scope of research to larger sample size and various demographic and geographical locations.

Corporates should acknowledge the presence of team leader survival syndromes. They should thoroughly investigate sociopolitical relationships behind it and seek to understand consequences on professional subordinates. Corporates should also adopt a 360-degree feedback system; they should limit trust given to team leaders in this regard to responsible trust, to eliminate manipulation. Team leaders are perceived as being not always truthful and misrepresent capabilities and performance of their professional subordinates to senior managers. Corporate governance holistic multidimensional perspectives are required to provide resolutions of team leader survival syndromes.

The research has discovered a phenomenon that team leaders on CMPs in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) organisations, prompted by virtue of long tenure in corporates or by power of their managerial level in organisations, perceive their professional subordinates, especially senior technical employees, as potential risks. It is thought promoting them would put their own positions and security of tenure at risk. Hence, team leaders act adversarially, to enhance their own survival prospects. This research introduced the novel team leader survival syndrome and introduced analyses, practical implications and recommendations.

This paper aims to unravel how membership of Pentecostal fellowships aids the entrepreneurial activities of African-Caribbean (AC) members. While many issues about the entrepreneurial engagements of AC people have been discussed in the literature, there are far less studies documented about the link of these activities to faith, especially in the context of Pentecostalism.

Adopting the interpretive research paradigm, a total of 25 tape-recorded, semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with AC entrepreneurs who are members of Pentecostal faith-based organisations in London, and pastors in this same sphere. Sixteen of the respondents are entrepreneurs running and managing their businesses, seven are pastors and the remaining two fall in both categories, as they are both entrepreneurs and still serving as pastors in churches in London. Rather than merely serving as gatekeepers for information, the pastors are active participants/respondents in the study.

The paper highlights the challenges confronting the AC ethnic entrepreneurs, but also suggests that those in the Pentecostal faith are motivated and emboldened by the shared values in this religion to navigate the volatile marketing environment. It unveils participants’ faith in God as their key business survival strategy. It also shows the unwavering confidence of the respondents that this religious stance results in outstanding business successes like increase in sales and profits, competitive edge, divine creativity and innovation, opportunity recognition, networks, institutional support and other factors that underpin entrepreneurship.

This study unpacks the thickly blurred link between Pentecostalism as a thriving religious orientation among the AC ethnic group in the UK and their entrepreneurial engagements.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate information communications technologies (ICT)‐mediated inclusion and exclusion in terms of sexuality through a study of a commercial social networking web site for gay men.

The paper uses an approach based on technological inscription and the commodification of difference to study Gaydar, a commercial social networking site.

Through the activities, events and interactions offered by Gaydar, the study identifies a series of contrasting identity constructions and market segmentations that are constructed through the cyclic commodification of difference. These are fuelled by a particular series of meanings attached to gay male sexualities which serve to keep gay men positioned as a niche market.

The research centres on the study of one, albeit widely used, web site with a very specific set of purposes. The study offers a model for future research on sexuality and ICTs.

This study places sexuality centre stage in an ICT‐mediated environment and provides insights into the contemporary phenomenon of social networking. As a sexualised object, Gaydar presents a semiosis of politicised messages that question heteronormativity while simultaneously contributing to the definition of an increasingly globalised, commercialised and monolithic form of gay male sexuality defined against ICT.

Chronic consumption practice has been greatly accelerated by mobile, interactive and smartphone gaming technology devices. The purpose of this paper is to explore how chronic consumption of smartphone gaming produces positive coping practice.

Underpinned by cognitive framing theory, empirical insights from 11 focus groups (n=62) reveal how smartphone gaming enhances positive coping amongst gamers and non-gamers.

The findings reveal how the chronic consumption of games allows technology to act with privileged agency that resolves tensions between individuals and collectives. Consumption narratives of smartphone games, even when play is limited, lead to the identification of three cognitive frames through which positive coping processes operate: the market-generated, social being and citizen frames.

This paper adds to previous research by providing an understanding of positive coping practice in the smartphone chronic gaming consumption.

In smartphone chronic gaming consumption, cognitive frames enable positive coping by fostering appraisal capacities in which individuals confront hegemony, culture and alterity-morality concerns.