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The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the multi-ethnic marketplace as the site of the emergence of service nepotism: the practice where employees bestow relational benefits and/or gifts on customers on the basis that they share a perceived common socio-collective identity. The authors draw on the contemporary turn to practice in social theory to explore why ethnic employees may engage in service nepotism even when they are aware that it contravenes organizational policy.

Given the paucity of empirical research which investigates the multi-ethnic marketplace as a locus for the emergence of service nepotism, the authors adopted an exploratory qualitative research approach to advance insight into service nepotism. The study benefits from its empirical focus on West African migrants in the UK who represent a distinct minority group living in urban areas of the developed world. Data for the study were collected over a six-month period, utilizing semi-structured interviews as the primary method of data collection.

The research highlights the occurrence and complexities of service nepotism in the multi-ethnic marketplace, and identifies four distinct activities (marginal revolution, reciprocal altruism, pandering for recognition, and horizontal comradeship), that motivate ethnic employees to engage in service nepotism, despite their awareness that this conflicts with organizational policy.

By virtue of the chosen theoretical lens, the authors were unable to demonstrate how service nepotism could be observed outside spoken language. Also, care should be taken in generalizing the findings from this study given the particularities of the sub-group involved. For example, since the study is based on a small sample of first generation migrants, the findings may not hold true for their offspring, whose socialization and marketplace experiences may be qualitatively different from those of their parents.

Service nepotism challenges fundamental western egalitarian ideals in the multi-ethnic marketplace. Organizations may wish to develop strategies to placate observers’ concerns of creeping favouritism in a supposedly equitable marketplace. The research could also serve as a starting point for managers objectively to assess the likely impact of service nepotism on the organizing value systems and competitiveness. In particular, the authors suggest that international marketing managers would do well to look beneath the surface to see what is really going on in international marketplaces, since ostensible experiences of marketplace consumption may not always reflect underlying reality.

By using service nepotism as an analytical category to explore the marketplace experiences of ethnic service employees living and working in industrialized societies, the research shows that the practice of service nepotism, whilst taken for granted, can have far-reaching impact on individuals, observers, and service organizations in an increasingly highly differentiated multi-ethnic society.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential effects of nepotism on human resource management (HRM) practices through the use of Turkish Cypriot hotel employees in three, four, and five star accommodation establishments in Northern Cyprus.

Questionnaires were distributed to full time hotel employees in three, four, and five star hotels in Northern Cyprus. Of the 500 distributed, 257 usable questionnaires were retrieved. A judgmental sampling approach was used.

The principal finding is that nepotism has a significant negative effect on HRM, job satisfaction, quitting intention, and negative word of mouth. The study also shows that HRM exerts a significant positive effect on job satisfaction.

This study reveals that nepotism is an unprofessional phenomenon that provides benefits merely to the family members or close friends. Therefore, nepotism paralyzes human resource practices and affects the level of satisfaction among employees. Although the job opportunities are limited in the hotel industry in north Cyprus, employees may think of quitting their jobs or using negative word of mouth if their job satisfaction level is not enhanced. Customers perceive and evaluate the quality by considering the attitude, behavior and tone of the voice of employees. Therefore, priority of satisfaction has to be given to the employees in order to satisfy the customers. There are several limitations to the current study. In future studies, other variables such as role stress, organizational commitment, and different facets of job satisfaction may be used in order to examine the probable relationships. Secondly, future research with larger sample size elsewhere would be productive to provide a support for the generalization of the present findings. Thirdly, this study employed judgmental sampling approach. Future studies may use probability‐sampling approach in order to support the current study findings.

This study is necessary and useful for three reasons. Firstly, it investigates the possible impacts of nepotism on multiple organizational dimensions, which is a relatively virgin area. Secondly, the effects of nepotism have been mostly examined at the macro level resulting in a paucity of empirical research especially at the organizational level. Thirdly, the study provides some propositions and managerial implications to owners, managers, and employees in North Cyprus where the tourism and hospitality industry constitutes an essential part of the economy.

The manner in which people, businesses and governments perform is changing because of the spread of technology. Digitalization of governments can be considered a necessity as we are now entering the era of the Internet-of-Things. The advantages and disadvantages of electronic governments have been examined in several research studies. This study aims to examine the attitudes of decision-makers towards e-government. The research aims are as follows: to determine the problems related with e-government usage, to establish the factors which decrease the usage of e-government services and to propose recommendations for the effective application of e-government practices.

Qualitative research has been used for the study. Participants were chosen by the snowball sampling method, and face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with all decision-makers. In-depth interviews are more efficient and enable the acquisition of better qualitative information, in-depth knowledge and statistics, as the distance between the interviewer and interviewee is reduced (Stokes and Bergin, 2006). Questions asked can be categorized under two sections, where the questions in the first section are related to the decision-maker’s management style/managerial proposition, and in the second section, technological questions are asked in terms of the preferred communication method and the decision-makers’ attitudes towards e-government practices.

Decision-makers perceive electronic government to be important, while the level of importance is observed to be different among the decision-makers. Chronic problems exist in many countries, such as nepotism, where the decision-makers have conflicting arguments about e-government and the resulting effect on nepotism. Furthermore, the study also indicates that decision-makers are aware of the importance of mobile government, although they acknowledge that more time is required, as their country is still developing. Electronic voting is also perceived to be important, although the decision-makers believe that security and privacy issues need to be solved before related projects can be initiated.

This research can be a benchmark study for the decision-makers of small island developing states by means of e-government. The impediments preventing the effective application of e-government practices are also discussed in the study. This study will be useful to highlight the triggers and obstacles for e-government development in the context of a developing country. Internet penetration has increased significantly since the 2000s, and therefore, decision-makers need to consider the shift in citizens’ behaviour, such as the high usage of smartphones and the emergence of the Internet-of-Things (Kaya and Bicen, 2016; Kumar et al., 2017).

With an increasing thrust upon transparency and accountability in government, e-government platforms are being scaled in many countries to bolster trust of the citizens and to bring about efficiency in public service delivery. Recently, India launched its “Digital India” initiative as an e-government measure. This study aims to gauge respondents’ perceptions regarding corruption in public services post-launch of the “Digital India” initiative.

A survey was conducted via email, soliciting inputs from 217 respondents following a convenience sampling technique in selected districts of India. Using an institutional theory lens, this study uses a quantitative approach where correlations and hierarchical regression analysis inform the overall analysis.

The results showed that low transparency, high cost incurred in availing public services, inefficiency in government and favoritism in government are the key determinants that influenced the perception of users about corruption in e-government services. Also, one demographic variable, namely, gender, showed a statistically significant relationship with the perception of corruption in e-government services.

Hitherto, extant literature is replete with conceptual and theoretical studies on the impact of e-government initiatives on curbing corruption, and there is negligible empirical research in developing countries vis-à-vis this dimension – the present study seeks to fill this gap. Second, previous research has not used the institutional theory to investigate the efficacy of e-government initiatives; this study uses the framework of the institutional theory framework to substantiate the arguments.

This article seeks to illustrate how social commonalities between employees and their customers often result in customers believing that they are entitled to discounts in retail settings.

This study employs survey methodology to reveal the extent to which various social commonalities between customers and service providers encourage customers to believe that they are entitled to financial discounts.

The findings show that commonalities may cause customers to adhere to narcissism – that is, many customers may expect discounts even when they know that employees may jeopardize their jobs by providing them.

Customer relationships dramatically change with commonalities, as customers believe that social relationships propel them to “best customer status” and that they are entitled to discounts.

Customers who become increasingly connected with employees expect relational benefits that usually require time to develop. Retailers that encourage their employees to develop social media bonds with their customers must realize that customers desire to be financially rewarded for maintaining these linkages.

This work reveals that customers who maintain social commonalities with employees expect to receive some type of financial benefit from doing so.

In Bangladesh, the fertilizer market is the main source of corruption in the agriculture sector. Market imperfection allows the input dealers to extract extra benefit from the market through selling fertilizer at higher than government declared price, and the benefit is positively correlated with market restriction. Bribery or unauthorized payment in the fertilizer market negatively affects farm profit. Empirical evidence shows that restricted fertilizer markets encourage corruption, as bribe-paying farmers can acquire their required fertilizer and thus operate at a higher efficiency level than their counterparts who do not pay bribes. Alternatively, in markets where sufficient supply is available and farmers face liquidity constraints, corruption further restricts farmers to collecting their optimal input bundle and ultimately reduces efficiency. Nepotism and negligence of duty are the two most common form of corruption in the extension service. Along with identifying several key causes of corruption, this article suggests some interventions to combat corruption.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of customer discomfort in service settings when employees and customers who share social incompatibilities, stemming from war, nationalism, religious differences or terrorism, work together in service settings.

The authors engage in triangulation research to understand how Israeli Arabs and Jews experience comfort/discomfort in services. Study 1 uses an experimental design to show how comfort differs when Israeli Jews work with Arabs and Jews in three different service settings. Study 2 employs survey methodology to explore how comfort differs among Israeli Arabs when they work with either an Arab or a Jewish employee. Study 3 uses grounded theory methodology to provide a theoretical framework that explains reasons for customer discomfort occurrence between Israel’s Arabs and Jews, its impact on customers’ attitudes and behaviors and suggestions for increasing comfort.

Israeli Arabs and Jews express various feelings of discomfort when working with each other, and Druze, in service settings. Israeli Jews express higher levels of discomfort when working with Arabs than vice versa, while Israeli Arabs express discomfort when working with Druze employees. Five strategies for increasing customer comfort are defined and developed.

Social incompatibilities prevent many consumers and employees from experiencing comfort during service exchanges; however, managers can alleviate some of the factors that exacerbate customer discomfort.

Managers need to realize that customer discomfort leads to place avoidance and thus should implement strategies to assuage it.

Unabated service situations that result in customer discomfort may lead to customer ill-being, including fear.

This study is the first to explore customer discomfort due to social incompatibilities in depth.

Corruption in humanitarian aid is one of the most worried and worst problems around the world. The existence of corruption acts in humanitarian aid delivery can endanger the already susceptible lives of the neediest individuals in the community. Amid serious humanitarian allegation in the country, this study aims to capture meaningful insights in humanitarian aid corruption in Puntland State of Somalia.

The study applied qualitative method and used interview as a technique of data collection. The information obtained through the interview was analyzed by quoting and narration forms.

The findings indicated numerous acts of corruption in all project stages including corruption in project granting and humanitarian staff employment, distortion of project targets and diversion of humanitarian project from targeted communities. The research also found that governmental and non-governmental actors are involved in the humanitarian corruption such as project managers and support staffs in addition to line ministries, parliament and community representatives.

Corruption is a taboo and is difficult to research; people do not want to share the information for fear of victimization. Concerned institutions were not willing to provide necessary materials which led to shortage of secondary data. Another problem encountered during the study has been that the humanitarian stakeholders (for instance, government, non-government and private institutions) acted reluctantly to cooperate because of suspicion that disclosing information may lead to negative effect on their business. To overcome the challenges, the study assured the confidentiality of the members and that information collected would be used for research purposes only. The study further combined various tools of data collection so that the weakness of one tool becomes the strength of the other; while the researcher made efforts to build rapport with the research participants.

This study will contribute to the literature on corruption in the humanitarian aid. Specifically, the findings of this study will benefit academicians/researchers by giving empirical insights of corruption in the humanitarian aid in Puntland. It will benefit the government policymakers in the formulation of policies to combat corruption in the sector. Donors and aid agencies may also find the findings useful as they are key stakeholders who are interested in corruption in the humanitarian sector and finally the findings will benefit the wider society that is the primary victim of corruption in the humanitarian sector.

The purpose of this paper is to underline the role of demographic variables as far as the perception of corruption among the Indian respondents is concerned.

Hierarchical regression analysis is conducted to ascertain the role of demographic variables in line with the study’s objectives.

Gender is a demographic factor that influences the perception of corruption by the respondents. Other demographic factors including education, marital status, professional status and age do not have any influence on the user perception of corruption in e-government services. Implicitly, there are differences in the manner in which men and women perceive the prevalence of corruption in India. Therefore, males perceive that corruption has decreased in e-government services post-launch of “Digital India” initiative and women perceive the opposite.

On the one hand, the study holds significance, in that no empirical investigation has been conducted which seeks to underline the impact of the “Digital India” initiatives on the citizen’s perception of corruption in public services. On the other hand, the present research is limited in the sense that only demographic variables are being probed in the present study with a small sample.

Studies in developing countries have remained few and far between despite the growing concern for existence of corruption in government services. The present study seeks to fill the gap by underlining the role of demographic variables as far as the perception of corruption in public services is concerned in the Indian context.

Wasta is an Arabic word that means the intervention of a patron in favor of a client in attempt to obtain privileges or resources from a third party. In Arab countries, wasta is often used to obtain employment, thus causing unequal opportunity. The purpose of this paper is to study the attributions that people make regarding the competency and morality of wasta users. The main hypothesis is that those that use wasta in obtaining employment will be perceived as less competent and moral than those that do not.

The study is designed as a factorial quasi‐experiment, with three independent variables; wasta, employee qualification and socioeconomic status. The dependent variables are perceived competency and morality. Data were gathered from 421 Egyptian undergraduate business students attending a public and a private university.

In support of the hypotheses, subjects discounted the competency and morality of employees that used wasta to obtain the job. Additionally, subjects from lower socioeconomic groups evaluated wasta users more positively than more affluent subjects.

This is the first study that attempts to use attribution theory to examine the effects of wasta on perceptions of competency and morality. The study may be useful in identifying the disadvantages of using wasta, thus reducing its use.