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Dyadic interactions between customers and service providers rarely occur in isolation. Still, there is a lack of systematic knowledge about the roles that different types of nontechnological third parties – that is, other customers, pets, other employees and other firms – can adopt in relation to customers and service providers during encounters. The present study aims to unravel these roles and highlight their implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties.

This research relies on a systematic review of literature in the Web of Science using a search string pertaining to the research study’s objectives. In total, 2,726 articles were screened by title and abstract using clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, thereby extracting 189 articles for full-text eligibility. The final sample consisted of 139 articles for coding and analysis.

The analyses reveal that other customers, pets, other employees and other firms can adopt five roles: bystander, connector, endorser, balancer and partner. Each role has different implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties. Additionally, the five roles are associated with distinct constellations of the customer, the service provider and the third party. These roles and constellations are dynamic and not mutually exclusive.

This research contributes to the service encounter literature by providing a thorough understanding of the various third-party roles and their implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties during encounters. As such, this research sheds light on the conditions under which third parties become “significant others” in service encounters and identifies avenues for future research.

Although information technology has been at the centre of attention of political branding for some time, research has traditionally focused mainly on its role in the facilitation of communication. This paper aims to unpack the role of information technology in the emergence of new cyber political brands.

This research uses a dual case study approach that focuses on the relationship between branding, politics and information technology. The analysis focuses on two successful political cyber brands: the Italian Five Star Movement and the Czech Pirate Party. Data collection covering the time frame between their emergence and their political success occurs through netnographic methods.

Cyber political brands emerge and materialize in different forms. The present analysis allows for a delineation of three conceptual elements that characterize the constitutive interrelationship of information technology in the emergence of cyber political brands. The first conceptual element, organization, refers to how political brands become structured around linked activities. The second conceptual element, orientation, describes how the activities of a political brand are directed to build a specific path and legitimize courses of action. The third conceptual element, operation, delineates the processes that anchor and stabilize the political brands in its “own” culture, establishing specific base activities.

Information technology and the techno-culture emerging around the two cyber party brands can be seen as the possible delineations of new “cleavages” in the form of “information technology-culture” which enables potential electoral success.

The present study by offering the conceptualization of the cyber political brand shows how political brands can reflect a type of performative cultural branding where they become able, as a networked-medium, to assemble a specific techno-culture. In terms of political brand development, the current analysis offers a framework that allows us to consider the process of political party development in a new fashion.

The purpose of this study to identify the role of women in political agenda at Azad Jammu Kashmir. The political parties are always considered main gatekeepers to women’s political representation. Existing scholarship highlights the significance of centralized political institutions (parties) with structured set up for the effective representation of women at different levels. However, the functioning of these institutions is greatly influenced by the social and cultural context of a country in which they operate.

This paper mainly analyzes social and cultural practices and those informal ways that operate within the exited democratic government setup and creates serious obstacles for women’s effective political representation at the party level. For this purpose, a qualitative research methodology is used to get the full insight of the issue at hand. The authors conducted 25 in-depth interviews with women members of three different political parties.

The results revealed that both (social context and political structure) have a significant impact on women’s nature and level of participation in the political processes in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Prevailing social and political context of Pakistan does not support a truly democratic and centralized political system. Parties are weak entities with the less democratic organizational structure, which ultimately have a negative impact on women’s political representation.

This paper aims to analyse the promises of the various political party in the 2019 general election in the United Kingdom (UK) concerning the provision of broadband, especially in remote and rural areas.

This is an analysis of the party manifestos, some interviews and speeches involving party leaders. It identified the various commitments, any costs for those and the reasoning given.

The UK lags badly on fibre to the premises, both homes and offices. Without analysing the reasons, the two dominant parties proposed to borrow large amounts of money to fund fibre deployment, the Conservative Party without explaining how it would be disbursed. The Labour Party produced a confused proposal to nationalise BT Openreach and probably other operators, without explaining how this transition would work. Nor did they explain why the service was to be free to users.

The UK political parties need to improve their understanding of broadband and digital policies, including means to simplify the governance of markets.

This is the first analysis of the broadband commitments of a UK general election and one of the very few analyses of political offers in an election.

This study aims to investigate the legal consequences of the use of force majeure (FM) clause in a contract related to the prospect of business sustainability. In addition, this paper also examines the legal risk perspective toward the interpretation of FM clauses in contracts that incorporate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic situation.

The research design in this paper uses the normative juridical method, which means that it is carried out with library research on secondary data in the field of law, in the form of primary and secondary legal materials and tertiary legal materials. Primary legal materials are in the form of regulations relating to the variable topics of this paper, namely, FM, COVID-19, contracts and legal risk management (LRM).

The study found that studies of FM are still limited in terms of the aspects of contract sustainability, and none has reviewed them using the LRM paradigm.

Given the fact that this pandemic is still ongoing and uncertain, the extent to which the broadening of the interpretation of FM in the contract by the parties and how much the designs offered above can help the parties, will greatly depend on the commitment of the parties. However, if the orientation is to maintain a long-term business relationship, it still fulfills the essence of a win–win solution that will greatly assist the parties in determining the continuity of the contract.

The results of this study are expected to provide benefit to the parties in an agreement affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and by regulators who wish to provide a legal basis in contract law.

Long-term business relationships will create sound, peaceful and conducive environment for modern business. This kind of situation will sustain the business as expected.

This study concludes that the interpretation of FM can be extended to accommodate the interests of the parties to the contract by considering several principles in contract law and other relevant clauses. In addition, this study also produced four essential designs for LRM oriented to long-term business relationships in a win–win solution.

Comprehensive political marketing informs how parties determine their policies and organisation, not just how they campaign. This article applies the marketing concepts of product, sales and market orientation, combined with tools such as market intelligence, to party behaviour as a whole. Producing a comprehensive theoretical framework, it explores how a product, sales and market‐oriented party would behave and go through a marketing process. This framework is used to analyse the British Labour Party, showing how Labour moved from a product‐oriented approach in 1983, through to a sales orientation in 1987, finally achieving a market orientation – and electoral success – in 1997. This demonstrates the potential of political marketing to deepen our understanding of a wide range of political behaviour.

The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 makes provision for the service of party structure notices on adjoining property owners where certain types of work are undertaken to party walls and other structures between neighbouring properties. The paper emphasises the difficulty of determining whether a notice should be served in a particular situation and the importance for property managers of making a correct decision. A systematic approach is proposed whereby each of the component parts of the task is addressed separately before a final decision is made. The paper examines these component parts and applies the relevant legal rules to each in the context of circumstances frequently encountered in practice.