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Management in education departments must cater for the special nature of professional administration within them. The problems to be faced in managing such changes required are outlined and the main areas of management development described.

Using protest event analysis, this study aims to investigate which risk factors influence the severity of environmental protests in China, thus filling a gap in China-related environmental protest literature.

Using a database derived from media coverage of 129 environmental protests in China from 2009 to 2015, this empirical study identifies underlying risk factors influencing environmental protest severity, quantifies these protest cases and verifies the associations between risk factors and severity using ordered logistic regression.

The results show that higher environmental health threat, economic loss, distrust of local government, lack of local governmental response, improper local government action and higher population density are likely to increase environmental protest severity; however, contrary to expectations, environmental information disclosure has no significant effect. These findings illuminate the vital and variational role of local government throughout all stages of the evolutionary process in environmental protests. Moreover, public distrust of local government is the principal cause of these protests.

This study enhances the understanding of how Chinese environmental protests arise from the identified risk factors and contributes to quantitative multi-case research in this area. Furthermore, the findings may help local governments in China, as well as in other countries, to enact positive measures to prevent serious environmental protests and improve their ability to address the environmental problems that cause protests. More effective governance can decrease the number and severity of environmental protests and thus promote social stability.

The purpose of this paper is to connect sociology, criminology, and social psychology to identify specific factors that keep protests peaceful, discusses empirical examples of effective peacekeeping, and develops practical peacekeeping guidelines.

The analysis systematically compared 30 peaceful and violent protests in the USA and Germany to identify peaceful interaction routines and how they are disrupted. It employed a triangulation of visual and document data on each demonstration, analyzing over 1,000 documents in total. The paper relies on qualitative analysis based on the principles of process tracing.

Results show that specific interaction sequences and emotional dynamics can break peaceful interaction routines and trigger violence. Single interactions do not break these routines, but certain combinations do. Police forces and protesters need to avoid these interaction dynamics to keep protests peaceful. Communication between both sides and good police management are especially important.

The paper highlights the need to examine the role of situational interactions and emotional dynamics for the emergence and avoidance of protest violence more closely.

Findings have implications for police practice and training and for officers’ and protesters’ safety.

Employing recent data and an interdisciplinary approach, the study systematically analyzes peacekeeping in protests, developing guidelines for protest organizers and police.

In April 2016, students at Rhodes University brought the institution to a standstill as they protested the University’s sexual violence policies and procedures, as well as the “rape culture” that pervades social structures. In response, a Sexual Violence Task Team (SVTT) was formed in an open, participatory, and transparent process. Members of the University community were invited to comment on drafts of the SVTT document. The purpose of this paper is to outline the contestations – arising from both the establishment of the task team and the inputs from University members to drafts of the document – that surfaced concerning managing sexual violence on campuses and sexual offences policies.

These contestations are outlined in the form of a case study of Rhodes University.

The case study of Rhodes University draws attention to two rifts: fissures between student and management; and the role of universities in prosecuting alleged rapists.

In light of increased concern about sexual violence on campuses, the rifts highlighted require careful attention in considering sexual violence on university campuses. In addition, the process engaged in by the SVTT may provide a road map for participatory processes for other such task teams.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the organisation of the Bolivian “water war” in Cochabamba that saw a social movement resist international business and the privatisation of public goods. The implications for the study of resistance in management and organisation studies will be evaluated.

Laclau's discourse theory is used to analyse the organisation of resistance and the establishment of a new discourse of “the people”. A range of primary and secondary data are drawn upon.

The study shows how the resistance movement was successfully organised in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Through various “horizontal” and “vertical” methods of organising, the Coordinadora, the overarching resistance organisation, was able to unite formerly disparate discourses into a single demand. This establishment of a united front was a key element in the formation of the discourse of “the people”, which successfully challenged neo‐liberal privatisation and management discourses put forward by the government, multinational companies and international finance institutions.

The research was primarily focused on studying the discursive shift that occurred during the Bolivian “water war” in 1999 and 2000. The paper was not able to discuss the aftermath of the successful resistance movement, and the various problems the new municipal water organisation ran into after it regained control of the water resources in Cochabamba.

The primary audience of practitioners are participants in social movements that are engaged in resistance struggles against multinational companies and governments. Drawing on the experiences from the Bolivian “water war”, the paper offers a range of practical insights into how to effectively organise resistance movements. This paper might also be useful to policy makers and managers in the area of water management.

This is one of the first papers that analyses the Bolivian “water war” to consider its implications for the study of resistance within management and organisation studies.

The purpose of this paper is to employ a Yin-Yang harmony perspective to propose a novel circled 5C model to understand the unique harmonizing process of how conflicts are resolved in China. Despite increasing research on labor conflicts in Chinese manufacturing, Western theories still can not explain how Chinese culture influences conflict management.

The authors investigate a large manufacturer where a severe labor strike happened in South China. A mixed-methods research design is adopted. The scale of Chinese harmony and analysis of variance are used to identify the underlying unharmonious factors triggering the labor strike. The grounding theory approach (a case study) was adopted to further examine the proposed 5C model.

“Harmony with corporate system”, “Harmony between departments” and “Harmony with firm leader” were found to arouse employee grievances the most. Differences in age, gender, marital status, educational level, tenure and position were discovered to affect workers’ perceptions of workplace harmony. The proposed 5C model was supported.

As a lesson in handling escalating labor conflicts, this study allows foreign investors to better understand how to cope with relevant labor strife issues in China. In addition, this project integrates research with consultancy service, which can be seen as an exciting step forward in bridging academics and practitioners.

Based on Yin-Yang harmony thinking, this study suggests an integrative, context-specific concern – concern for harmony for China to transcend the Western dual-concern model regarding the choice of coping with conflicts. The paper constructs a novel circled 5C model of the Chinese harmonizing process (conflict, clash, communication, comprise and consensus), which characterizes the dynamic, contingent and art-oriented nature of Chinese conflict management.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how abstract space of the State – universally and specifically within the context of Middle Eastern cities – aims to homogenise the city and eliminate any anomaly that threatens its power structure.

Through a historical and discourse analysis of these policies and processes in the two case studies, this paper presents a contextualised reading of Lefebvre’s concept of abstract space and process of abstraction in relation to the alienation of political public spaces.

The paper proposes that regardless of these homogenising strategies being applied universally, they fail to respond to contextual particularities and therefore they – in a contradictory manner – may themselves produce a space of resistance and difference.

This paper focusses on Iran, the case of Tehran and Turkey, the case of Taksim Square and Gezi Park in Istanbul. Recent policies and strategies have been proposed and implemented to reduce, alienate and possibly neutralise the impacts of urban and political protests in these cities and socio-political contexts.

A detailed account is given of a strike during December 1987 in a number of production and support units of the Ravne Iron Works, located in Slovenia, and run under workers′ self‐management, according to the laws in force at that time. The phenomenon of the strike is initially examined in the context of the official political and legal refusal to recognize its existence. A discussion then follows on how, within the then national model of workers′ self‐management, strikers were acting against their own agents (management) and against their own economic and political interests. A scrutiny of management′s role shows how its response frequently was to concede strikers′ demands, for reasons of avoiding official attention and opprobrium. The strike thus acquired a reputation for being antisocial, unacknowledged, yet effective. Finally, the strike events are analysed in respect of the economic, sociological, political and epidemiological models of strikes: elements of all four models are identified.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors affecting the course of action that employees in acquired firms choose to follow. Loyalty, compliance, voice and neglect (LCVN) are four employee behaviors in acquired companies.

Two questionnaires were designed: one was administered to employees of the acquired company and the other to a member of the post‐acquisition managerial team. One hundred and thirty‐five administrative employees in 27 acquired companies in Greece participated in the research.

The results of the study support that employees decide their course of action based on the cost of their action, the effectiveness of the behaviour and the attractiveness of the company.

This study concentrated at the individual level to examine the factors affecting employee behaviours. Future research is needed to examine behavioural changes over time and the factors that make employees move from one behavioural category to the other.

The findings in the paper have implications for organization members facing the challenge of managing human issues in the sensitive phases of an acquisition. Evidence of specific behavioural responses and the factors affecting them is presented.

The present study provides a model for understanding the complex and multiple behavioral choices employees have after an acquisition.

DO you recall the June Editorial wherein we asked you to write to your MP protesting about the increased postal rates? And we, for our part, sent out over 600 copies of “Work Study” to MPs containing the Leader in question. So you might think some sort of action would be generated.