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This article considers the literature on threats made by individuals, with particular reference to threats made by patients against health care workers. It is in two parts. The first part considers the definitions and classification of threats, the prevalence of threat‐making and suggestions for assessment and management. The second part concerns the characteristics of those who threaten and the impact of the threats on the victims, and considers threats as predictors of, and part of, the escalating process which leads to further violence.

This article considers the literature on threats made by individuals, with particular reference to threats made by patients against health care workers. This is the second of two parts, and concerns the characteristics of those who threaten and the impact of the threats on the victims. It considers threats as predictors of, and part of, the escalating process which leads to further violence.

Although strategic scholars have made great effects to exploring the moderating roles of team interaction in explaining the effect of top management team (TMT) diversity, they have adopted seemingly conflicting theoretical perspectives to explain how it works. Drawing on ideas from the threat rigidity theory, the authors integrated these perspectives by proposing a contingency model in which the relationships between TMT diversity and adaptive firm performance depend on the matching between the internal context (i.e. overlapping team tenure) and external context (i.e. severity of threat).

This study sampled 579 Chinese A-share listed companies that have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and multilevel linear regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis.

Results provided support for this hypothesis. Specifically, the interaction between TMT age/tenure diversity and overlapping team tenure is significant only when the severity of threat is high, while the interaction between TMT functional diversity and overlapping team tenure is significant only when the severity of threat is low.

The results of this study provide a comprehensive perspective to predict the performance impact of team diversity and contribute to diversity research and practice.

This study considered the use of video conferencing virtual backgrounds with employees located in a large multinational corporate organisation in Ireland and the USA to discern if background images evoking gendered stereotypes of leadership can cue stereotype threat in female technology workers undertaking a leadership activity, thus negatively effecting performance. This study aims to contribute to the body of research on stereotype threat by establishing whether virtual backgrounds used in video conferencing software are inherently identity safe or whether their use could have a negative performance impact on marginalised groups.

Using a mixed methods research design with 22 participants in two countries working in the one large organisation, using two quantitative methods (an experiment and a survey) and one qualitative method (semi-structured interviews), the study examined the relationship between performance on the leadership activity and exposure to gendered backgrounds on a video conference call.

It found that female leaders undertaking a leadership test experienced more anxiety and achieved lower scores on average when exposed to a male-gendered virtual background compared to male colleagues or female leaders exposed to a female gendered background. It was also found that these leaders were aware of the stereotype of leadership being White and male, and showed symptoms of prolonged exposure to stereotype threat in the workplace. While the authors still are working through a post-pandemic environment, it may be judicious for organisations to restrict the use of virtual backgrounds to identity-safe ones, specifically chosen by the company.

The study makes several practical recommendations, indicating actions which can be taken at the individual, team and corporate levels. Re-running this experiment in a more controlled environment with a larger sample set could yield more definitive, statistically significant results and contribute more to the literature.

Some individual impacts were found via the interviews. Male leaders in the organisation need to do more to mentor and endorse their female colleagues. By doing this, they can counter the negative effects of solo status and the subsequent performance degradations of their female counterparts, while also setting an example for other leaders. Participation in the mentoring programme and initiatives such as Dare and value, inclusion, belonging, and equity should be encouraged and supported. Reverse mentoring should also be encouraged among the population of male leaders to aid in allyship and bias-awareness.

Teams should note that a democratic vote is not always the best way to decide on the names of teams, projects or meeting rooms. These may skew towards niche interests that can serve to alienate members of the team who do not associate themselves with that interest. Rather, the teams should strive to be fully inclusive and educated on the need for identity-safety. Team events may also serve to alienate members if teams are not mindful of the need to be inclusive. Activities, such as “go-kart” racing and physical or competitive team events have been highlighted as unsuitable for some team members, and should be avoided in favour of inclusivity.

A significant body of research has documented the effect to which stereotype threat can be triggered by both the physical environment and by the use of various technology media. However, there is a dearth of research exploring the relationship between stereotype threat, defined as “the concrete, real-time threat of being judged and treated poorly in settings where a negative stereotype about one’s group applies” (Steele et al., 2002, p. 385), and video conferencing software features, such as virtual backgrounds.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the mechanism of humble leadership inducing abusive supervision from the low-status compensation perspective, examining the mediation role of leader perceived thread to status. Besides, the moderation effect of regulatory focus on the mediation path is discussed.

This study conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey. The data was collected from 438 leaders and their employees in five Chinese enterprises. This study used Mplus 7.4 and adopted a bootstrapping technique for data analysis.

Humble leadership has a positive effect on leader perceived threat to status. Leader perceived threat to status plays a mediation role between humble leadership and leader abusive supervision. Leader regulatory focus is the “gate valve” that humble leadership fosters leader abusive supervision. That is, when the leader promotion focus is high, leader perceived threat to status bred by humble leadership is low, resulting in less abusive supervision. When the leader prevention focus is high, humble leadership brings relatively more abusive supervision through perceived threat to status.

This study explores why humble leadership breeds abusive supervision behaviors and reveals the mechanism behind the negative effect of humble leadership based on low-status compensation theory. This study not only promotes the continuous development of the field of humble leadership research through empirical research but also provides guidance for effectively suppressing the negative effects of humble leadership, promoting strengths and avoiding weaknesses and suppressing inappropriate management behaviors in management practice.

Advertisements often use fear appeals to encourage prevention focused behaviors. This approach has been somewhat successful in changing attitudes and behaviors, often encouraging consumers to secede from behaviors such as smoking or to adopt preventative behaviors such as engaging in health screenings. However, health-care marketers have been less successful in efforts to reduce obesity. The obesity crisis has led to an abundance of marketing communications designed to influence weight loss. Many of these focus on fear of physical health risks associated with being overweight which have a certain degree of uncertainty surrounding them. This study aims to examine financial threats that have lower perceptions of uncertainty, and the differential impact this type of threat has on elements of the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM).

A 2 × 2 experimental design is used to examine the differential impact of messages communicating threat of financial and physical risk on evoked fear, perceived uncertainty, perceived susceptibility, efficacy and intention to lose weight.

Overall results indicate that response to weight loss advertising varies given the type of threat presented. Results indicate that there is a greater level of uncertainty associated with physical health threats than that with financial threats. Moreover, even though individuals were more fearful of and felt more susceptible to physical threats, when they believed that the recommended behavior was feasible, financial threat was more influential.

To encourage weight loss and intentions to lose weight advertising in practice and advertising research primarily focus on the physical health risks associated with being overweight as a motivating factor. Current research explores the impact of financial threats on attitudes and behavioral intention and finds that financial threats are perceived as more certain than physical threats, and the communication of financial threats is more salient in its effect on weight loss intentions. An opportunity for future research is to further explore the impact of uncertainty in relation to components of EPPM and how threats varying in degrees of uncertainty may impact weight loss intentions.

This paper aims to examine how a stereotype threat, which entails being aware of a negative stereotype about one’s social group (e.g. gender), affects consumers’ price perceptions.

The authors conducted four studies to examine the effect of a stereotype threat on consumers’ perceptions of a product’s price–quality relationship.

This study found that being aware of a negative stereotype about one’s social group (i.e. gender here) led consumers to use price more as a quality indicator. This study also determined that reappraisal – an alternative way of coping with stereotype threats – reduced the impact of a stereotype threat and, subsequently, decreased reliance on price to infer quality.

This research contributes to the consumer decision-making literature by examining stereotype threat effect in in-store product purchasing contexts; provides theoretical contributions to the processing of price information by exploring the role of a stereotype threat in price perceptions and revealing that impairment of consumers’ working memory resources affects price perceptions; adds to the existing stereotype threat literature by investigating the effect of a stereotype threat on systematic versus heuristic information processing; and advances the stress and coping literature by suggesting that consumers adopting a reappraisal strategy cope better with a stereotype threat than when opting for a suppression strategy.

This research provides important implications for consumers. For example, the findings suggest that consumers who would like to avoid paying more for stereotype-associated products may adopt reappraisal to cope with a stereotype threat. Reappraisal may allow consumers to use fewer cognitive resources when coping with stereotype threats, thus minimizing the possibility that they might overpay for high-priced products.

This research uniquely examines the effect of a stereotype threat on consumers’ price perceptions and the role of reappraisal in this effect.

Computing technology is becoming ubiquitous within modern society and youth use technology regularly for school, entertainment and socializing. Yet, despite societal belief that computing technology is neutral, the technologies of today’s society are rife with biases that harm and oppress populations that experience marginalization. While previous research has explored children’s values and perceptions of computing technology, few studies have focused on youth conceptualizations of this technological bias and their understandings of how computing technology discriminates against them and their communities. This paper aims to examine youth conceptualizations of inequities in computing technology.

This study analyzes a series of codesign sessions and artifacts partnering with eight black youth to learn about their conceptualizations of technology bias.

Without introduction, the youth demonstrated an awareness of visible negative impacts of technology and provided examples of this bias within their lives, but they did not have a formal vocabulary to discuss said bias or knowledge of biased technologies less visible to the naked eye. Once presented with common technological biases, the youth expanded their conceptualizations to include both visible and invisible biases.

This paper builds on the current body of literature around how youth view computing technology and provides a foundation to ground future pedagogical work around technological bias for youth.

The new ways to complete financial transactions have been developed by setting up mobile payment (m-payment) platforms and such platforms to access banking in the financial mainstream can transact as never before. But, does m-payment have veiled consequences? To seek an answer, the research was undertaken to explore the dark sides of m-payment for consumers by extending the theory of innovation resistance (IR) and by measuring non-adoption intention (NAI).

Three hundred individuals using popular online m-payment apps such as Paytm, PhonePe, Amazon Pay and Google Pay were surveyed for the primary data. IBM AMOS based structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data.

Each m-payment transaction leaves a digital record, making some vulnerable consumers concerned about privacy threats. Lack of global standards prevents consumers from participating in the m-payment system properly until common interfaces are established based on up-to-date standards. Self-compassion (SC) characteristics such as anxiety, efficacy, fatigue, wait-and-see tendencies and the excessive choice of technology effect contribute to the non-adoption of m-payment.

This study proposes a threat model and empirically explores the dark sides of m-payment. In addition, it also unveils the moderator's role of SC in building the structural relationship between IR and NAI.

Protection motivation theory (PMT) explains that the intention to cope with information security risks is based on informed threat and coping appraisals. However, people cannot always make appropriate assessments due to possible ignorance and cognitive biases. This study proposes a research model that introduces four antecedent factors from ignorance and bias perspectives into the PMT model and empirically tests this model with data from a survey of electronic waste (e-waste) handling.

The data collected from 356 Chinese samples are analyzed via structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results revealed that for threat appraisal, optimistic bias leads to a lower perception of risks. However, factual ignorance (lack of knowledge of risks) does not significantly affect the perceived threat. For coping appraisal, practical ignorance (lack of knowledge of coping with risks) leads to low response efficacy and self-efficacy and high perceptions of coping cost, but the illusion of control overestimates response efficacy and self-efficacy.

First, this study addresses a new type of information security problem in e-waste handling. Second, this study extends the PMT model by exploring the roles of ignorance and bias as antecedents. Finally, the authors reinvestigate the basic constructs of PMT to identify how rational threat and coping assessments affect user intentions to cope with data security risks.