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The discussion about firearms in the United States often involves a contentious confrontation between two polarized groups: gun owners and those that might increase regulation of guns. The former group often uses rights-based arguments, including the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, while the latter assesses problems related to gun violence from a collectivist perspective, focusing on the health, social, and policy implications of firearm ownership. The National Rifle Association (NRA) adds to the mix through communicating and lobbying activities.

The chapter uses qualitative data and interpretive methods to gain an in-depth insight into the values of the gun culture and the role of the NRA in this community. Data used are from nine depth interviews with gun owners and field notes derived from participant observation in addition to examination of email communications sent by the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.

Three significant values espoused by members of the culture – self-sufficiency, safety, and privacy – are based on the individualist perspective and this perspective is reinforced by public narrative provided by the NRA.

A limitation is the geographic limitation on data collection, although it is expected that rural gun culture does not vary significantly throughout the United States. The study has implications for a more nuanced understanding of the gun debate in the United States by suggesting how the narrative is structured by lobbying groups such as the NRA.

This chapter provides insight into the U.S. gun culture that has not been previously addressed through a consumer culture theory lens.

Emergency management groups aiming to address community resilience work with complex systems which consist of multiple interacting dynamics. The purpose of this paper is to help ensure that information is displayed in a way which supports strategic performance, to address longer term challenges faced by these groups.

Ten professional emergency managers completed an online simulation of complex, community resilience related tasks faced in their normal working lives. They responded to either table-or diagram-based information about a relevant emergency management strategy. Responses were rated by academic and practitioner experts using 0-5 point Likert scales.

Analyses of the expert ratings found that certain components of macrocognitive performance reached large degrees of inter-rater reliability (ρ=0.76, p=0.003; ρ=0.58, p=0.03; ρ=0.53, p=0.05). Current situation awareness increased by an average of 29 per cent in the diagram condition. Prospective amendment quality also increased, by an average of 38 per cent. A small sample size meant that these increases are difficult to generalise.

Extensions of this pilot research could use larger samples and more generic simulation conditions, to increase confidence in the claim that certain displays help improve strategic emergency management planning.

It is recommended that further research continues to focus on current and prospective situational awareness, as measures of strategic emergency management performance which can be reliably expert rated.

This research provides novel methodological considerations for supporting a more strategic approach to emergency management, with a focus on longer term implications.

This chapter fosters understanding of core U.S. gun culture and how it promotes its political ideology through visual means.

The research applies key visual theory concepts to investigate a selection of political representations made by gun rights advocates. The images analyzed include photographs, posters, and other ephemera posted on blogs and commercial websites located through informed keyword searches of Google Images.

Core gun culture in the U.S. aggressively promotes its libertarian and right-wing ideology through tactics of interpellation, intertextuality, and exhibitionism, often in tandem with humor, sarcasm, paranoia, and sex appeals.

Although the findings are preliminary, visual theories and methodologies present a promising direction for further consumer research on American gun culture.

U.S. gun culture produces levels of gun violence that far exceed those in other developed countries. Knowledge of how the core gun culture represents itself visually may deliver insights for mitigating this social problem.

Relatively little consumer culture research has addressed U.S. gun culture and visual theories have not been fully deployed.

Over the last three decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has evolved significantly as a worldwide trend in both the management literature and the modern economy. However, it is still at its infancy stage in the developing countries like Malaysia. It is more prevalent in the coffee industry, due to the challenges that this industry encounters. In addition, not much information is available in the academic literature in order to understand these challenges that this industry is facing in performing CSR. Therefore, this chapter aims to highlight the main challenges that the coffee franchise industry faces in incorporating the activities of CSR in their operations. Lack of top management support, performing CSR in isolation, and lack of capable employees to do CSR are some of the major challenges. This chapter is expected to advance the knowledge about CSR practices and challenges in the Malaysian context.

Economic efficiency of public school districts was explored by utilization of the concept of economies and dis‐economies of scale. An optimum size relative to costs was discovered by analyzing the data with curvilinear least squares regression and also with the differential calculus. The sample was taken from elementary, high school, and K–12 (unit) districts in the state of Illinois, U.S.A. Suggestions for further research on the general notion of optimum size of school districts are presented.

To delineate the range of consumer responses to life‐conditions where sustained powerlessness is experienced. To provide a framework to understand the ways in which these consumers try to reclaim degrees of self‐empowerment and wellbeing.

Goffman's conceptualization of stigma is employed to study a heavy metal music enclave consisting of lower socioeconomic consumers, who exhibit a range of stigmatizing attributes.

A taxonomy of ten consumer remedies for their situation is developed. These include: resignation, confrontation, withdrawal, engagement, concealment, escapism, hedonic, spiritual, nostalgia, and creative. Each can potentially have negative or positive consequences. However, we found consumers often use a blend of these remedies as pathways to self‐empower.

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each of the remedies will potentially guide public policy makers in shaping programs better able to foster self‐empowerment among disadvantaged consumers.

The paper advances understanding of consumer response to sustained powerlessness as consequence of disadvantaged life conditions that are resistant to change.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether, and under what conditions, an individual’s punitive intent in response to ethical misconduct is shaped by their perceived forgiveness climate, which is their perception of how forgiving their organization is.

This study used the survey method embedded within a vignette-based experiment involving working adults.

Results show that higher perceived forgiveness climate is associated with lower punitive intent when an experience of being forgiven is salient to the disciplinary decision maker and when there are mitigating circumstances surrounding the ethical misconduct. When an experience of being unforgiven is salient to the disciplinary decision maker, higher perceived forgiveness climate is associated with higher punitive intent.

This study presents a more nuanced perspective on the conditions that shape punishment decision making in response to workplace ethical misconduct. As the findings may be specific to the measures and vignette used, future research should explore the replicability of these results using other measures and types of ethical misconduct.

The paper alerts disciplinary decision makers to the potential influence of their perceptions of the organizational context and of their personal experiences on their punishment decision making, helping avoid inappropriately punishing subordinates, which can generate employee resentment and inflated turnover.

This is the first study that examined the relationship between forgiveness and punishment in response to ethical misconduct in a workplace setting.

Based on their size, disposable income, and purchasing power, generation Y (Gen Y) consumers are viewed as the Holy Grail for marketers. Conversely, some of this group's behavior disturbs public policy officials, particularly when dealing with issues such as poor financial planning, bulimia and anorexia nervosa. The key question for both marketers and policy makers is what is the best way to understand the Gen Y segment? The vanity concept is used in this study as a way to understand the Gen Y consumer segment. The purpose of this paper is to examine vanity perceptions (cross‐nationally and by gender) as well as social and business implications with vanity.

Key research expectations are proposed that are related to cross‐cultural and gender differences on vanity perceptions. A sample of approximately 125 Gen Y consumers in two eastern and two western cultures was used to find support for the research expectations. Statistical results are reported.

The results clearly show that both gender and country have an impact on vanity perceptions. Concern for both physical appearance and professional achievement are higher in eastern cultures as compared to western cultures. Both males and females are highly concerned about physical appearance and professional achievements. However, self‐assessment of physical appearance and professional achievement are significantly lower among females as compared to males.

In future studies it would be interesting to study differences among other countries and consumer groups.

The results of this study provide evidence to marketers that vanity appeals can resonate well with Gen Y especially those in China and India. For consumer protection advocates, results offer insights about the extent to which importance of vanity is likely to increase, especially in countries that embrace globalization.

So far, no study has applied the vanity scale to understand the Gen Y segment, despite the financial power of this group in purchasing both desirable and undesirable products; nor has any study examined whether vanity perceptions vary cross‐nationally, especially between economically developed western cultures and developing economies with large populations representing eastern cultures.

The paper aims to present a conceptual framework for analysing CSR practices in global supply chains. It also seeks to demonstrate how a pioneering Swedish company, IKEA, implements and manages CSR practices at its suppliers.

A case analysis of IKEA illustrates the implementation and management of CSR practices in supply chains. The focus is on internal and external integration of CSR practices in the supply chain. IKEA holds a leading position in its supply chain and is a global brand‐owner. Personal interviews are performed with employees from one of the company's trading areas.

Practising CSR in supply chains requires that CSR is embedded within the entire organisation, including subsidiaries abroad and offshore suppliers. It includes employee training and sharing of experience, training of key personnel at the supplier level, positive incentives for suppliers in the form of long‐term contracts and enlarged purchasing orders, and regular auditing of suppliers' performance.

The paper focuses on CSR practices in a specific company's supply chain. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalised to other companies. Also, the practices have been studied from the perspective of the focal company.

The CSR practices of IKEA can serve as inspiration for other companies that are considering adopting corporate codes of conduct.

The paper presents a company that has a long tradition for working with environmental and social issues. The paper demonstrates how the actual management of CSR practices is determined by context‐dependent factors.

The purpose of this inquiry is to examine why companies create LGBTQ-inclusive work environments and how these firms advance LGBTQ-inclusiveness through CSR practices and address challenges presented by strategic duality.

Using a qualitative multiple case study design, data was collected and then triangulated from interviews and company documents. NVivo, a qualitative research program, was used to organize, sort, query and model the data.

Several themes were identified as reasons why Fortune 500 organizations sought to create LGBTQ-inclusive work environments. Themes include a positive return on investment, advancing human rights issues within the framework of corporate social responsibility (CSR), internal organizational pressure and parity with other Minnesota companies. Findings are examined through the theoretical lens of strategic duality.

Primary theoretical implications include contributions to our understanding of strategic duality by providing a first-hand account from people in organizations that encountered imperatives that to some degree are in conflict. By design, the multiple case study methodology does not allow generalizations to be drawn beyond the organizations included in this study.

Both managers and researchers will find this study provides valuable insight on how people and organizations experience and navigate strategic duality (pairs of competing imperatives) within the context of the motivation behind creating an LGBTQ-inclusive work environment.

This inquiry provides a unique and valuable account as to why organizations choose to invest resources in creating a LGBTQ-inclusive work environment, the return on investment (ROI) and examines competing imperatives (strategic dualities) faced by management. Similar multiple case studies of this qualitative nature are rare, possibly even non-existent and, therefore, this study makes a significant contribution to the literature.