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Marketers have become increasingly culpable for their role in societal problems which affect a myriad of sensitive groups. The publicity engendered from this relationship has translated into a new arena of competition, largely based on perceptions of corporate social responsibility. An ethically‐based, strategic framework for analyzing social issues and sensitive groups is critical to the development of relationship marketing in the 1990s.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the particular culture within which research is conducted and its norms and values can give rise to additional challenges and complications for the researcher when the research area is sensitive in nature.

Drawing on research on sexual harassment of working women in Sri Lanka, the researcher engages in self and methodological reflections to elucidate the many challenges faced.

Carrying out sensitive research in an Asian cultural context, with various stereotyping cultural norms, values and beliefs can give rise to additional culture-specific challenges for the researcher, even when the researcher is a cultural insider. How these cultural complexities influence the manner in which the participants respond to data collection and the manner in which the researcher is seen and understood by others are explained. Strategies to overcome these challenges are discussed in light of the cultural competencies propose by Deardorff and Sewyer et al.

The paper highlights the need for researchers engaged in sensitive research to carefully plan and conduct their research, being mindful not only to the sensitive nature of the topic, but also to the cultural edifices and ethos.

The influence of cultural context in conducting sensitive research is not sufficiently addressed. Culture-specific challenges that can arise in cultures outside the West, such as Asia, have specifically being neglected. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by focusing on the culture-specific challenges faced by researchers, whether they are cultural insiders or outsiders.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the methodological challenges in the design and implementation of an emotionally sensitive topic involving research with adolescents based on a study evaluating the experiences of adolescents and families facing a diagnosis of maternal cancer.

This conceptual paper builds an argument based on experiences from the field of qualitative data collection with adolescents and builds on arguments that were identified in the literature to provide with a detailed argument on the methodological challenges that researchers can face while undertaking sensitive research with young people.

Carrying out research on sensitive topics is challenging because rigour can be affected by real people experiencing pain, sorrow and other emotions linked to sensitive and difficult moments in their lives. Researchers need to decide how they will deal with the emotional impact that these topics can have on them as people but also continue to carry out high quality research.

This paper adds to the current body of knowledge by describing the challenges faced in the field carrying out data on sensitive issues with adolescents but it also provides alternatives and solutions on how these limitations can be overcome from early stages of the research design until the dissemination of results.

Qualitative, case study methods were used to examine students’ expectations of and experiences with studying women and leadership. Participants were 48 undergraduate students enrolled in an elective course titled Women and Leadership offered in the Leadership Studies minor curriculum at a liberal arts institution. Students perceived women and leadership as a sensitive subject fraught with potential struggles for learners, but were willing to engage in the subject in pursuit of both meaningful learning and their own utilitarian-oriented leadership development. Their experiences show the potential for transformative learning if the course content, structure, and learning environment are purposefully crafted to enable students to deal with anticipated or experienced struggles and engage in rather than resist the learning experience. The findings have implications for leadership curriculum design, course design, and pedagogy. Although this study focused on undergraduate learners in a traditional college classroom, the implications may also be relevant to a range of leadership educators and learners in various educational contexts both within and outside of academe.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of internet censorship, which is represented by the Great Fire Wall, on Chinese internet users’ self-censorship.

A 3×2 factorial experiment (n=315) is designed. Different patterns of censorship (soft censorship, compared censorship, and hard censorship) and the justification of internet regulation are involved in the experiment as two factors. The dependent variable is self-censorship which is measured through the willingness to speak about sensitive issues and the behavior of refusing to sign petitions with true names.

The results show that perceived internet censorship significantly decreases the willingness to talk about sensitive issues and the likelihood of signing petitions with true names. The justification of censorship significantly decreases self-censorship on the behaviors of petition signing. Although there are different patterns of internet censorship that Chinese netizens may encounter, they do not differ from each other in causing different levels of self-censorship.

The subjects are college students who were born in the early 1990s, and the characteristics of this generation may influence the results of the experiment. The measurement of self-censorship could be refined.

The study contributes to the body of literature about internet regulation because it identifies a causal relationship between the government’s internet censorship system and ordinary people’s reaction to the regulation in an authoritarian regime. Unpacking different patterns of censorship and different dimensions of self-censorship depicts the complexity of censoring and being censored.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and the impact of negative electronic word of mouth (eWoM) on Muslim consumers’ tolerance and to look for evidence on whether it can pose threat to high-tolerance products and cause spillover effect on products in similar category.

This study used a qualitative method with purposive sampling, and data were collected from 23 Malay Muslim consumers using in-depth interviews.

Findings from this study clearly showed that consumers’ perception toward effected products can easily be distorted with negative claim which indicates that halal issues are very sensitive to Muslim consumers. The negative eWoM distorts consumers’ perception toward effected product and the effect was also found to escalate into other brands that share similar category as the effected products.

By examining the negative impact of eWoM, it validates the severe impact it has on Muslim consumers, and it is quite obvious that no products are really safe from it, including high-tolerance products. Evidence from this study revealed the importance and the urgency for organizations to handle any rumors immediately because further delay can result from significant loses in sales and can tarnish the brand image.

Negative claims related to the halal product status often sparks negative reactions, especially among Muslim consumers, and despite frequent occurrence of such event, very little information is available on its impact on consumers’ tolerance. Certain products fall under safe product category, or high-tolerance products are also found to be vulnerable to negative impact of eWoM because once the consumers’ trust is shaken, confidence will be replaced by doubt, which often leads to loss of sales and loyalty. It is commonly known that effected products and brand will suffer from this event; however, spillover effect is another side effect of negative eWoM that is not yet highlighted in previous studies.

This research aims to examine the relationship between the physical environment and neuropsychological perception in children with Asperger’s disorder.

This study through mixed qualitative–quantitative approaches conducted strategies including a survey and case study. Accordingly, multiple methods were applied to collect data including semi-structured expert interviews (20 persons) and questionnaires (N = 400). The sampling strategy of questionnaire participants was random clustering and the target population was children with Asperger from Iran Asperger Support Associations. Besides, the sampling strategy for the participants of semi-structured expert interviews was non-random and purposeful. The collected data from the participant’s questionnaires and interviews were analyzed by Porsline and Excel software and content analysis, respectively.

Based on the relationship between the physical environment and neuropsychological perception, the results of the research indicate that despite all existing differences between the two spectra of hyper-sensitive and hypo-sensitive behaviors, it is possible to design architectural spaces responding to their common needs and satisfy both spectra.

This research on to healing aspect is quite new and contributes significant information about health issues in building design. This study tries to derive and examine the supportive characteristics of architectural spaces that integrate special physical and effective designs to improve the healing process of children with Asperger’s disorder.

The purpose of this paper is to understand and explain the financial disclosure processes among Malaysian local authorities (MLAs).

Employing semi-structured interviews, data were collected from 26 members in five case study organisations, and interpreted using Gibbins et al. (1990, 1992) framework of financial disclosure.

The study finds that financial disclosure is influenced by a hierarchical structure consisting of accountants, the Financial Accounts Committee, the mayor and other managers. The decision to disclose or not disclose was influenced by how sensitive the issue was. External auditors and mediators influenced both the identification of issues, disclosure position and disclosure output. Though there are many laws governing financial accounting, MLAs opportunistically chose to apply the Federal Treasury Circular largely because the external auditors used it.

This study contributes to the literature by illuminating who makes disclosure decisions, what influences these decisions and how. The study reveals hitherto un-researched contextual factors that affect disclosure, namely, religion and external auditors and the opportunistic choice of which laws and regulations to apply in financial disclosure. Future studies might want to apply this approach in other contexts to see what we can learn from them.

Using case studies in the study of financial disclosure provided valuable insights into the complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon of financial information disclosure. The application of Gibbins et al. (1990, 1992) framework in the public sector and in Malaysia is novel.

How do researchers capture children's and adolescents’ cultures and peer interactions? Ethnography, as argued by several sociologists including Corsaro (1996), is indeed a valuable method for understanding everyday life. However, what about issues that are sensitive? What about issues that are salient in the lives of children and adolescents, yet are not talked about in settings generally accessible to researchers such as schools, youth groups, community centers, and extracurricular programs? Family issues such as divorce, for example, might be highly salient in a child's life, yet not talked about during school lunch in front of an adult researcher. Children talk with their friends and peers about divorce, share stories and experiences with divorce, and interpret the meanings of divorce in groups.