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The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of employees who are exposed to dysfunctional behaviors by their leaders in a healthcare organization.

This study employed a qualitative methodology drawing on 25 semi-structured interviews with administrative and clinical employees working in a healthcare setting operating in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

This study’s findings provide insights into dysfunctional leadership phenomena based on employees’ personal experiences with dysfunctional leaders. Dysfunctional leaders have several harmful behaviors, such as behaving in abusive ways, marginalizing others, engaging in favoritism, and degrading employees. This study also demonstrated that the leaders’ negative behavior directly influences employees to leave their jobs, contributes to feelings of alienation at work, reduces their commitment, and frequently creates serious psychological and physical problems. This study also discovered that over time the negative effects of a dysfunctional leader do not stop at employees; it also filters through to other areas such as the organizational environment and family life.

Dysfunctional leadership is under-studied within the context of the Middle Eastern region. Therefore, this study’s findings provide theoretical and practical implications. It provides information about employee experiences and how dysfunctional behavior influences individuals and, ultimately, organizational life. Furthermore, this study has value to practitioners by offering suggestions for organizational interventions for creating more effective policies and programs to support employees’ careers and well-being.

Drawing on the theory of goal systems applied to family business this case study focuses on the interdependence between non-economic goals and family goals, in order to identify if and how achieving non-economic goals generates dysfunctional behavioural patterns for family members in the long term.

This study used an inductive, 20-year longitudinal case-study based methodology.

This case study shows how the business family faces ethical/affective dimensions, struggling every day for a balance and often undermining the legitimisation and differentiation of its children. Findings show that the achievement of non-economic goals can occur to the detriment of family goals, such as by generating a dysfunctional system, specifically in business family adaptability.

The principal limitation is that this single case study evidently does not allow for complete generalization of the findings.

This case study makes a contribution to alerting the family business system to the long-term risk they face in trying to simultaneously maintain both harmony/cohesion and ethics/responsibility. Practitioners and consultants are therefore called on to help family firm owners with adopting a strategic vision by considering possible long-term counterfinal (i.e. mutually incompatible) goals.

SMEs are the most widespread type of firm in the world, and consequently dysfunctional behavioural patterns within business families represent a prominent socio-economical problem for policy makers and institutions.

This study shows that, in the long term, that which is perceived to be a desirable goal can transpire to be a dysfunctional pattern. In doing so, this research introduces a new point of view to the literature on goal systems in family business.

The idea that user comments on journalistic articles would help to increase the quality of the media has long been greeted with enthusiasm. By now, however, these high hopes have mostly evaporated. Practical experience has shown that user participation does not automatically lead to better journalism but may also result in hate speech and systematic trolling – thus having a dysfunctional impact on journalistic actors. Although empirical journalism research has made it possible to describe various kinds of disruptive follow-up communication on journalistic platforms, it has not yet succeeded in explaining what exactly drives certain users to indulge in flaming and trolling. This paper intends to fill this gap.

It does so on the basis of problem-centered interviews with media users who regularly publish negative comments on news websites.

The evaluation allows for a nuanced view on current phenomena of dysfunctional follow-up communication on journalistic news sites. It shows that the typical “troll” does not exist. Instead, it seems to be more appropriate to differentiate disruptive commenters according to their varying backgrounds and motives. Quite often, the interviewed users display a distinct political (or other) devotion to a certain cause that rather makes them appear as “warriors of faith.” However, they are united in their dissatisfaction with the quality of the (mass) media, which they attack critically and often with a harsh tone.

The study reflects these differences by developing a typology of dysfunctional online commenters. By helping to understand their aims and intentions, it contributes to the development of sustainable strategies for stimulating constructive user participation in a post-truth age.

Follower's individual differences have been receiving increased attention in studying destructive leadership because followers may enable or disable it. One of these yet under-researched features is the role of followers' leadership coproduction beliefs (a role construal) in explaining their resistance to destructive leaders. Departing from the proactive motivation theory, this paper explores the robustness of coproduction beliefs by testing its ability to predict followers' resistance to destructive leaders across four situations – abusive supervision, exploitative leadership, organization directed behaviors and laissez-faire.

With a sample of 359 participants that answered a scenario-based survey, the present study tests the relationship between coproduction beliefs and resistance behaviors in the four mentioned groups, while controlling for alternative explanations. A multigroup analysis was conducted with PLS-SEM.

Constructive resistance is always favored by coproduction beliefs independently of the leader's type of destructive behavior. Dysfunctional resistance, however, is sensitive to the leader's type of destructive behavior.

This paper extends knowledge on the role of coproduction beliefs as an individual-based resource against destructive leaders.

This paper aims to provide an experiential learning exercise that develops student skills in assertive communication and listening in the context of dysfunctional group projects. It offers iterative planning, roleplays and reflection. Variations incorporate additional practice, interim debriefing or multiple partners.

A scaffolded approach introduces assertiveness and listening. Students prepare and discuss feedback scripts for two scenarios about problematic team members, articulate perceptions of blame (to call attention to bias) and identify listening tactics. They receive additional scenarios with complementary roles to analyze individually and then practice with new partners. In one, they are assertive, and in the other, they are the dysfunctional group member.

The challenges represented by the scenarios resonate with students. Many are shocked by the difficulty of speaking assertively with “problem” group members and find the iterative practice helpful.

Students avoid directly addressing problems caused by peers or request instructor intervention. This iterative activity helps them close the knowing-doing gap by practicing assertive communication, feedback and listening within the context of realistic group project situations.

This activity develops learner confidence and capacity to handle similar situations. It incorporates valuable soft skills that are transferable to the workplace.

This activity draws on common problems caused by group members in college project teams. Learners develop scripts and listening approaches and practice assertive communication to achieve better group outcomes.

Prediction is a critical task in targeted online advertising, where predictions better than random guessing can translate to real economic return. This study aims to use machine learning (ML) methods to identify individuals who respond well to certain linguistic styles/persuasion techniques based on Aristotle’s means of persuasion, rhetorical devices, cognitive theories and Cialdini’s principles, given their psychometric profile.

A total of 1,022 individuals took part in the survey; participants were asked to fill out the ten item personality measure questionnaire to capture personality traits and the dysfunctional attitude scale (DAS) to measure dysfunctional beliefs and cognitive vulnerabilities. ML classification models using participant profiling information as input were developed to predict the extent to which an individual was influenced by statements that contained different linguistic styles/persuasion techniques. Several ML algorithms were used including support vector machine, LightGBM and Auto-Sklearn to predict the effect of each technique given each individual’s profile (personality, belief system and demographic data).

The findings highlight the importance of incorporating emotion-based variables as model input in predicting the influence of textual statements with embedded persuasion techniques. Across all investigated models, the influence effect could be predicted with an accuracy ranging 53%–70%, indicating the importance of testing multiple ML algorithms in the development of a persuasive communication (PC) system. The classification ability of models was highest when predicting the response to statements using rhetorical devices and flattery persuasion techniques. Contrastingly, techniques such as authority or social proof were less predictable. Adding DAS scale features improved model performance, suggesting they may be important in modelling persuasion.

In this study, the survey was limited to English-speaking countries and largely Western society values. More work is needed to ascertain the efficacy of models for other populations, cultures and languages. Most PC efforts are targeted at groups such as users, clients, shoppers and voters with this study in the communication context of education – further research is required to explore the capability of predictive ML models in other contexts. Finally, long self-reported psychological questionnaires may not be suitable for real-world deployment and could be subject to bias, thus a simpler method needs to be devised to gather user profile data such as using a subset of the most predictive features.

The findings of this study indicate that leveraging richer profiling data in conjunction with ML approaches may assist in the development of enhanced persuasive systems. There are many applications such as online apps, digital advertising, recommendation systems, chatbots and e-commerce platforms which can benefit from integrating persuasion communication systems that tailor messaging to the individual – potentially translating into higher economic returns.

This study integrates sets of features that have heretofore not been used together in developing ML-based predictive models of PC. DAS scale data, which relate to dysfunctional beliefs and cognitive vulnerabilities, were assessed for their importance in identifying effective persuasion techniques. Additionally, the work compares a range of persuasion techniques that thus far have only been studied separately. This study also demonstrates the application of various ML methods in predicting the influence of linguistic styles/persuasion techniques within textual statements and show that a robust methodology comparing a range of ML algorithms is important in the discovery of a performant model.

The purpose of this study is to increase understanding about vertical coopetition from the perspective of interrelated conflict episodes on multiple levels.

The empirical part is based on a qualitative single case study of a coopetitive buyer-supplier relationship in the manufacturing sector.

Conflicts in vertical coopetition evolve from being merely functional and task-related to becoming dysfunctional and relationship-related, as the level of competition increases. The nature of conflict episodes influences the development of vertical coopetition, and therefore, the interrelatedness of conflict episodes is important to acknowledge.

Although a conflict is considered functional within a company, it may still be dysfunctional as far as the coopetitive relationship with the buyer or seller is concerned. Competition may trigger conflicts related to protecting own technology and knowledge, which may lead to termination of the cooperation, therefore coopetition should be managed in a way that balance sharing and protecting important knowledge to get advantages of coopetition.

The findings enhance prior research on vertical coopetition by offering new perspectives on causes of conflicts, their management, outcomes and types. The value of taking a multilevel approach lies in the ability to show how conflicts occur and influence other conflicts through the interrelatedness of conflict elements on different levels.

A major paradigm shift focusing on the dark side of leadership has generated lots of concern for organizations as leadership has cascading effects on employees’ behaviour. This study aims to understand negative behaviours in the organization as a system of interrelated interaction initiated from the top which trickles down to employees.

Drawing on the theories of social exchange and norms of reciprocity, social learning and displaced aggression, this study models how and when abusive supervision relates to employees’ task performance. The model is empirically tested and extended to cover mediation and moderation processes. Drawing data from 218 bank supervisors and employees, this study uses the structural equation modelling to analyse a trickle-down model of abusive supervision.

Results from multi-waved, multi-sourced data indicated a mediating effect on the abusive supervision–performance relationships and provided support for employees’ guilt proneness and emotional dissonance as moderators. Overall, the results provided support for a moderated mediation relationship in the trickle-down model.

This study provides new knowledge into the potential boundary conditions of employees’ guilt proneness and emotional dissonance in affecting the relationship between abusive supervision, counterproductive work behaviour and task performance.

This paper aims to analyze factors based on organizational knowledge management (KM; transactional memory systems and knowledge-oriented leadership [K-OL]) that help firms to mitigate conflicts based on task management at work, with the aim to improve their innovation capabilities (IC). The knowledge-based view of the firm, conflict management theory and cognitive collective engagement theory have been used to build a model of relationships that connects the development of positive KM contexts and management of dysfunctional conflict with IC improvement.

Data survey collected from inland hotel establishments in Spain is used to test seven hypotheses by means of structural equations modeling, applying the partial least squares technique. Direct, indirect and mediating relationships between variables are examined from the structural path model.

The results confirm that, as expected, IC improve when K-OL and transactive memory systems (TMSs) are properly implemented by hotel establishments, which leads them to reduce negative effects of task management conflict (TMC). Significant direct effects are found between the key variables of the study and also a significant indirect effect between K-OL and IC through TMS reinforcement and the mitigation of TMC.

This paper provides useful ideas for hotel managers about how to improve KM contexts in their establishments while avoiding TMC. Efforts devoted to creating those contexts by hotel establishments are shown to be effective to improve their IC and create competitive advantages.

The analysis of IC improvement by studying TMC mitigation had not been researched to date by the KM literature. The consideration and testing of a model that integrates KM-related tools such as K-OL and TMS to avoid TMC in the hotel industry is the main contribution of this study.