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Social media has been gaining importance in recent years as an integral part of entrepreneurs’ business and marketing strategies. At the same time, the entrepreneurial use of social media can lead to dark and negative consequences. This aspect has received less attention in the literature so far. The purpose of this study is to advice entrepreneurial practitioners to balance the sides of pros and cons as being an inherent reality to acknowledge the full scenario of business life and the interplay of diverse influences.

The qualitative interviews focused on the dark side experiences of micro-entrepreneurs on social media and on strategies to protect their private identities and businesses from those dark side effects. For the theoretical classification of dark side experiences, the framework of Baccarella et al. (2018) was used and adapted based on the experiences reported.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is one of the first to provide an understanding of the negative experiences micro-entrepreneurs face on social media. The research showed the relevance of five out of the seven dark-side building blocks and identified time as a further influential aspect. Thereby, the authors learn to comprehend the negative sides of social media for micro-operated businesses. The findings highlight the need to understand entrepreneurial social media use with simultaneously negative hazards and economic and social challenges. Addressing the entanglement of the entrepreneurial and private selves of micro-entrepreneurs, the findings demonstrate entrepreneur’s attempts of distancing or cleaning the negativity from their private identities and their businesses.

This paper problematizes dark sides as critical elements in entrepreneurial practice, which are too often neglected when discussing entrepreneurial marketing in general and entrepreneurship in social media specifically. The self is always captured between two sides, including the problematic (“dark”) and the bright.

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.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

This paper aims to investigate how the emerging blockchain technology can tackle dark side or dysfunctional effects at different stages of the interorganizational relationship life cycle. The rationale for this study stems from the somewhat paradoxical causes of dysfunctional effects. In particular, concepts such as trust and cooperation that typically result in positive relationship outcomes may also lead to negative effects under certain conditions. This contradiction creates a governance headache for organizations in their quest for initiating, developing, maintaining and enhancing efficient interorganizational relationships.

The study draws upon multiple organizational theories (agency, signaling, transaction cost, population ecology, institutional) and develops a conceptual understanding of how blockchain can serve as a safeguard for tackling dark side effects in interorganizational relationships. Primarily, the paper outlines a set of research propositions that provides a platform for developing an actionable managerial decision framework. In addition, the authors conduct an automated textual analysis of qualitative blockchain expert opinion using the ALCESTE software and uncover salient themes about blockchain governance.

The blockchain ledger distributes trust among participants and keeps dark side effects at bay. Hence, blockchain can transform conventional approaches for handling dark side effects into value creating activities. The results of an automated textual analysis on a corpus of expert opinions provides preliminary support for several aspects of blockchain governance. Furthermore, the study articulates a decision framework that managers can use for optimal relationship governance and identifies several areas for future research.

This paper is conceptual in nature and draws upon multiple theoretical perspectives to outline a set of research propositions. Thus, lack of empirical testing is a current limitation. However, the findings from an automated textual analysis of expert opinions provide exploratory but encouraging support for the power of blockchain to tackle dark side effects.

Managers can deploy blockchain creatively while selecting interorganizational relationship partners. For example, provenance issues in organizations’ supply chains can be efficiently managed using blockchain. Likewise, organizations may also create efficient learning around blockchain to gain efficiencies in relationship management.

Conventional approaches for managing dark side effects in interorganizational relationships rely mainly on ex post governance strategies. By contrast, this paper supplements the extant approach by discussing ex ante strategies that can be deployed at different stages of the interorganizational relationship cycle, e.g. initiation, maintenance/development and termination to better address dark side effects.

This paper aims to study the dark side of cooperative buyer-seller relationships to improve our knowledge of this phenomenon.

A selective definition of dark side has been adopted, linking it to relationships of a cooperative nature within which one of the two partners assumes an opportunistic behavior. Taking into account this definition, the first part of the paper critically reviews those studies which have analyzed cooperative relations along the supply chain, drawing attention to the formation of a dark side. The second part of the paper re-examines the association between cooperation and opportunism, taking the point of view of the disadvantaged partner and adopting the networking perspective developed by the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group.

The literature review enables one to identify two types of dark side. In the first case, the partner at a disadvantage is aware of what is going on, but remains trapped in the relationship because of a power imbalance and a strong dependence. In the second case, the relationship is spoilt by one partner keeping a secret from the other, exploiting an information asymmetry. The main constructs of the IMP approach have made possible to shed light on the two different types of dark side – trap and secret – that were examined from the perspective of the disadvantaged partner.

The analysis of the disadvantaged partner has made it possible to understand what strategies he can use to prevent or mitigate such a disadvantaged position.

The paper develops an original view of the phenomenon of dark side in cooperative relationships.

A cursory review of behavioral ethics research reveals a growing interest in what scholars regularly refer to as the “dark side,” a genre of studies in which concepts that are generally regarded as positive and good are shown to be associated with some sort of negative or bad outcomes. We employ philosophical and institutional lenses to explain why any concept would have a dark side and why researchers would be drawn to it. We then take a social scientific point of view to consider how the dark side of various constructs is typically revealed. Finally, we discuss the implications of dark side research, paying particular attention to the negative implications (no irony intended) focusing on the dark side has for the practice of research and the practice of management.

The paper aims to consider the neglected area of customer relationship management (CRM) and customer management's “dark side”; and identify the key types of dark side behaviours of service providers as well as integrated approaches to CRM that will assist in overcoming dark side behaviour.

Based on an extensive literature review, supplemented by insights drawn from an on‐going longitudinal study of CRM, the authors develop a classification of dark side behaviour types.

The paper identifies ten forms of dark side behaviour that may be grouped into three broad categories based on means used and target. It illustrates how different types of dark side behaviours may be linked to the key strategic CRM processes.

The paper examines how these dark side practices may be addressed by adoption of a more enlightened approach to CRM.

The dysfunctional forms of CRM and customer management have been neglected as an area of research in marketing. The paper identifies and classifies service provider dark side practices and outlines how adoption of a more strategic approach to CRM can address dark side behaviours and move towards more enlightened marketing practices.

The paper aims to explore the beliefs of doctors in leadership roles of the concept of “the dark side”, using data collected from interviews carried out with 45 doctors in medical leadership roles across Australia. The paper looks at the beliefs from the perspectives of doctors who are already in leadership roles themselves; to identify potential barriers they might have encountered and to arrive at better-informed strategies to engage more doctors in the leadership of the Australian health system. The research question is: “What are the beliefs of medical leaders that form the key themes or dimensions of the negative perception of the ‘dark side’?”.

The paper analysed data from two similar qualitative studies examining medical leadership and engagement in Australia by the same author, in collaboration with other researchers, which used in-depth semi-structured interviews with 45 purposively sampled senior medical leaders in leadership roles across Australia in health services, private and public hospitals, professional associations and health departments. The data were analysed using deductive and inductive approaches through a coding framework based on the interview data and literature review, with all sections of coded data grouped into themes.

Medical leaders had four key beliefs about the “dark side” as perceived through the eyes of their own past clinical experience and/or their clinical colleagues. These four beliefs or dimensions of the negative perception colloquially known as “the dark side” are the belief that they lack both managerial and clinical credibility, they have confused identities, they may be in conflict with clinicians, their clinical colleagues lack insight into the complexities of medical leadership and, as a result, doctors are actively discouraged from making the transition from clinical practice to medical leadership roles in the first place.

This research was conducted within the Western developed-nation setting of Australia and only involved interviews with doctors in medical leadership roles. The findings are therefore limited to the doctors’ own perceptions of themselves based on their past experiences and beliefs. Future research involving doctors who have not chosen to transition to leadership roles, or other health practitioners in other settings, may provide a broader perspective. Also, this research was exploratory and descriptive in nature using qualitative methods, and quantitative research can be carried out in the future to extend this research for statistical generalisation.

The paper includes implications for health organisations, training providers, medical employers and health departments and describes a multi-prong strategy to address this important issue.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the concept of “moving to the dark side” as a negative perception of medical leadership and contributes to the evidence in this under-researched area. This paper has used data from two similar studies, combined together for the first time, with new analysis and coding, looking at the concept of the “dark side” to discover new emergent findings.

FinTech offers numerous prospects for significant enhancements and fundamental changes in financial services. However, along with the myriad of benefits, it also has the potential to induce risks to individuals, organisations and society. This study focuses on understanding FinTech developers’ perspective of the dark side of FinTech.

This study conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 Nigerian FinTech developers using an exploratory, inductive methodology The data were transcribed and then thematically analysed using NVivo.

Three themes – customer vulnerability, technical inability and regulatory irresponsibility – arose from the thematic analysis. The poor existing technological infrastructure, data management challenges, limited access to data and smartphone adoption pose challenges to a speedy integration of FinTech in the country, making customers vulnerable. The lack of privacy control leads to ethical issues. The lack of skilled developers and the brain drain of good developers present additional obstacles to the development of FinTech in Nigeria.

FinTech operation in a developing country differs from that in developed countries with better technological infrastructure and institutional acceptance. This study recognises that basic banking operations through FinTech are still not well adopted, necessitating the need to be more open-minded about the global practicalities of FinTech.

FinTech managers, banks and policymakers can ethically collect consumer data that can help influence customer credit decisions, product development and recommendations using the mobile app and transaction history. There should be strict penalties on FinTech for selling customers’ data, sending unsolicited messages or gaining unnecessary access to the customer’s contact list. FinTech can offer to educate consumers about their financial management skills.

Whereas other studies have focused on the positive aspects of FinTech to understand client perceptions, this study offers new insights into the dark side of FinTech by analysing the viewpoints of FinTech developers. Furthermore, the study is based in Nigeria, an emerging economy adopting FinTech, adding a new dimension to the body of knowledge.