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The purpose of this study is to explore the use of expletives and derogatory terminology in the naming structure for companies, products and brands; a marketing strategy which is growing across a wide range of industries. The author defines this concept as brand vulgarity and explores the practice, as it situates in the midst of irony, as terms commonly held as taboo and societally indecent, are moving into the mainstream.

This study draws on the established literature in branding, profanity and ironic marketing to create a conceptual framework through which to understand brand vulgarity.

Brand vulgarity is intended to capture attention. However, several factors influence consumer receptivity and acceptance. These factors include perceived offensiveness exposure and the reclaiming and reappropriation of vulgar terms. Brand vulgarity not only challenges traditional approaches to nomenclature in branding but the building of brand image as well.

The marketplace has become a brand war demarcated by fierce competition each entity vying for attention. The use of vulgar terminology and the growing ease of consumer receptivity calls to question changes in sociocultural sensitivity and its influence on social acceptance of brand vulgarity.

This work breaks new ground as the first to introduce the concept of brand vulgarity and examine the practice across multiple industries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the spillover effects of offensive commenting in online community from the lens of emotional and behavioral contagion. Specifically, it examines the contagion of swearing – a linguistic mannerism that conveys high-arousal emotion – based upon two mechanisms of contagion: mimicry and social interaction effect.

The study performs a series of mixed-effect logistic regressions to investigate the contagious potential of offensive comments collected from YouTube in response to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign videos posted between January and April 2016.

The study examines non-random incidences of two types of swearing online: public and interpersonal. Findings suggest that a first-level (a.k.a. parent) comment’s public swearing tends to trigger chains of interpersonal swearing in the second-level (a.k.a. child) comments. Meanwhile, among the child-comments, a sequentially preceding comment’s swearing is contagious to the following comment only across the same swearing type. Based on the findings, the study concludes that offensive comments are contagious and have impact on shaping the community-wide linguistic norms of online user interactions.

The study discusses the ways in which an individual’s display of offensiveness may influence and shape discursive cultures on the internet. This study delves into the mechanisms of text-based contagion by differentiating between mimicry effect and social interaction effect. While online emotional contagion research to this date has focused on the difference between positive and negative valence, internet research that specifically looks at the contagious potential of offensive expressions remains sparse.

FEW BOOKS have been so enthusiastically received in England as The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane's novel of the American Civil War. In December 1895 it was welcomed unanimously by authors and critics alike, and caused a good deal of public excitement. The book arrived in England, in the words of Joseph Conrad, ‘with the impact of a twelve‐inch shell’. It has since come to be regarded as one of the most significant books in the development of modern American literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the “dark nuances” of social media by identifying moral disengagement (MD) mechanisms and hostile emotions in people discussing the hosting of immigrants and examining the relationship between MD mechanisms and hostile emotions expressed online (annoyance, irritation and contempt).

The method was based on a psycho-lexicographical approach that analysed the in vivo real words, adopting a quanti-qualitative point of view. The investigation started from the case of a Facebook post in support of immigrants after a serious shipwreck causing the death of more than 700 would-be migrants. More than 10,000 comments were codified. For the comments against the hosting of such immigrants, the authors followed a codebook aimed at identifying MD mechanisms and hostile emotions.

The main findings show an interplay between different hostile negative emotions and online MD mechanisms. The greater the intensity of hostile emotions, the more the locus of disengagement moves from the unethical individual’s behaviour – for example, offering moral justifications – to the target recipient of such behaviour – for example, blaming or dehumanising.

The study could be applicable in designing and developing algorithms and technological tools aimed at preventive interventions to promote moral awareness and emotional regulation in online settings.

The study may be a useful contribution to understanding unethical orientation by identifying areas where education can intervene in reducing harmful behavioural tendencies.

This study takes together expressed hostile emotions and MD mechanisms by means of the analysis of real words in vivo through social media discussions.

The literature lacks knowledge on how organizations can manage trolling behaviors in online communities. Extant studies tend to either focus on user responses to trolling behaviors (i.e. a micro-level perspective) or how the trolling infrastructure is governed by platforms (i.e. a macro-level perspective), paying less attention to the organizational community host. With more organizations hosting online communities on social media networks and trolling behaviors increasingly disrupting user engagement within these communities, the current understanding of trolling management practices has become inapt. Given the commercial and social damage caused by trolling behaviors, it is important to understand how these can be best managed. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine the meso-level perspective of trolling management by focusing on organizational practice.

The research design consists of an in-depth non-participatory netnography based on a case study of PETA’s (“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals”) Facebook community.

Six distinct trolling management strategies are identified and categorized by their direct versus indirect communication approach: non-engaging, educating, bolstering, expurgating, asserting and mobilizing. Some strategies are deemed to be more successful than others in generating positive community outcomes such as reduced trolling frequency or further support from like-minded community members.

The findings contribute to the meso-level perspective in the trolling management literature by introducing a novel, empirically informed typology of organizational trolling management strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of expletives and swearing in the workplace. It proposes to challenge leadership style and to suggest ideas for management best practice.

Case studies and qualitative analysis were applied, methods that fit well for this sensitive topic.

This paper identifies the relevance, and even the importance, of using non‐conventional and sometimes uncivil language in the workplace.

Sample size and representativeness present limitations.

There is a need for leaders to apply, under certain circumstances, a permissive leadership culture. This paper advises leaders on how it may lead to positive consequences.

The paper is an original contribution to an area where research is scarce. A certain originality element stems from the fact that, focusing on swearing language, the paper found it necessary to use swear words (avoiding usage of the explicit form); bearing in mind the purpose of the paper, the paper hopes that this will not cause offence to the readership of the journal.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use and misuse of swearing in the workplace.

Using a qualitative methodology, the authors interviewed 52 lawyers, medical doctors and business executives in the UK, France and the USA.

In contrast to much of the incivility and social norms literatures, the authors find that male and female business executives, lawyers and doctors of all ages admit to swearing. Further, swearing can lead to positive outcomes at the individual, interpersonal and group levels, including stress-relief, communication-enrichment and socialization-enhancement.

An implication for future scholarship is that “thinking out of the box” when exploring emotion-related issues can lead to new insights.

Practical implications include reconsidering and tolerating incivility under certain conditions.

The authors identified a case in which a negative phenomenon reveals counter-intuitive yet insightful results.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

A new study published in the Journal of Managerial Psychology has revealed that swearing at work has positive benefits for staff morale. The results are in stark contrast to the traditional view of swearing at work as a purely negative, aggressive activity.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This article seeks to look at the police officer on patrol. It aims to explore three categories of work undertaken during periods of un‐tasked patrol where officers can self‐direct their work.

Informed by empirical data from an ethnographic study of front line community policing in Britain, the categories of work are illustrated through the profile(s) of officer(s) whose actions best support each style.

The coming together of officers with different skills and the propensity to undertake different types of police work can broaden the community policing philosophy as well as the practice itself. While an expansive policing mandate can be used to justify and explain the pursuit of preferential areas of police work by the patrolling officer, findings also uncover evidence of the persistence of police practices and attitudes that alienate certain community groups.

Given the sustained popularity of localized policing models, further ethnographies are needed to broaden the analysis of patrol work particularly as additional research of this kind conducted with different groups of officers may well reveal evidence of different patrol styles.

If the full potential of community policing is to be recognized then the police service needs to encourage front line officers to devise ways of learning about, making contact with, and working with, the diverse groups that comprise local communities. However, introducing new policies and working practices needs to be accompanied by attitudinal and behavioural change.

The paper presents a new and original set of patrolling styles of the police officer.

This paper aims to contribute to the emerging body of research on firestorms, specifically on the inflammatory user-generated content (UGC) created in response to brand transgressions. By analyzing and segmenting UGC created and shared in the wake of three different events, the authors identify which type of inflammatory message is most likely to be widely shared; thus, contributing to a possible online firestorm.

Tweets were collected involving brand transgressions in the retail, fast food and technology space from varying timeframe and diverse media coverage. Then, the tweets were coded for message intention and analyzed with linguistics software to determine the message characteristics and framing. A two-step cluster analysis identified three types of UGC.

The authors found that message dimensions and the framing of tweets in the context of brand transgressions differed in characteristics, sentiment, call to action and the extent to which the messages were shared. The findings contradict traditional negative word-of-mouth studies involving idiosyncratic service and product failure. During online brand firestorms, rational activism messages with a call to action, generated in response to a firm’s transgression or “sparks,” have a higher likelihood of being shared (virality).

This research provides novel insights into UGC created after brand transgressions. Different types of messages created after these events vary in the extent that they “fan the flames” of the transgression. A message typology and flowchart are provided to assist managers in identifying and responding to three message types: ash, sparks and embers.