Customer responses to service failures on social media

Purpose As customers increasingly adopt social media as the primary channel to reach out to companies, voicing is becoming a public act. Adopting a social psychological perspective, this study aims to focus on the social dynamics that drive consumer voice on social media. Design/methodology/approach The research uses three studies. First, a list of metaperceptions about voicing behavior is compiled using the critical incident technique, and then the hypothesized effects are tested with two scenario-based experiments. Findings Metaperceptions mediate the relationship between social anxiety and the intention to voice on social media. Self-construal moderates the effect of metaperceptions, such that in the presence of a negative metaperception, the reluctance to post a direct complaint is attenuated under independent self-construal. Independent self-construal attenuates the positive effect of positive metaperception. An experimental comparison between social media and consumer review sites reveals that metaperceptions are only prevalent in social media and when the complainer construes him or herself as interdependent. Originality/value Since lodging a direct complaint to a service provider has been mainly conceived as a private behavior, the role of social dynamics in the context of voicing remains under-researched. Aiming to fill this gap, the present research empirically examines how the presence of a perceived audience affects voicing behavior.

How social norms are often a barrier to addressing climate change but can be part of the solution

We argue that the behavioral challenges posed by climate change are fundamentally problems of social influence. Behaviors that perpetuate climate change are often opaque in their consequences; thus, we look to others to infer how to act. Yet unsustainable behaviors, like driving and eating meat, are often the norm; conformity to such norms is a major hurdle to a more sustainable world. Nonetheless, we argue that social norms can also be a powerful lever for positive change. Drawing on two streams of recent research, we show that well-implemented social norm strategies can motivate positive steps even in the face of a negative current norm and even in individuals’ private behavior absent the judgment of others. First, appeals to dynamic norms – information about change in others or trends in norms over time – can lead people to conform to the change itself, even if this change violates current norms. Second, framing normative appeals in terms of an invitation to work with others toward a common goal can increase the motivation to join in. Despite ubiquitous unsustainable norms, careful theory-based representations of social norms can help us make progress on climate change.

Exposing Private User Behaviors of Collaborative Filtering via Model Inversion Techniques

Privacy risks of collaborative filtering (CF) have been widely studied. The current state-of-theart inference attack on user behaviors (e.g., ratings/purchases on sensitive items) for CF is by Calandrino et al. (S&P, 2011). They showed that if an adversary obtained a moderate amount of user’s public behavior before some time T, she can infer user’s private behavior after time T. However, the existence of an attack that infers user’s private behavior before T remains open. In this paper, we propose the first inference attack that reveals past private user behaviors. Our attack departs from previous techniques and is based on model inversion (MI). In particular, we propose the first MI attack on factorization-based CF systems by leveraging data poisoning by Li et al. (NIPS, 2016) in a novel way. We inject malicious users into the CF system so that adversarialy chosen “decoy” items are linked with user’s private behaviors. We also show how to weaken the assumption made by Li et al. on the information available to the adversary from the whole rating matrix to only the item profile and how to create malicious ratings effectively. We validate the effectiveness of our inference algorithm using two real-world datasets.

The Perils of Politicized Religion

In the United States, religion and partisan politics have become increasingly intertwined. The rising level of religious disaffiliation is a backlash to the religious right: many Americans are abandoning religion because they see it as an extension of politics with which they disagree. Politics is also shaping many Americans' religious views. There has been a stunning change in the percentage of religious believers who, prior to Donald Trump's presidential candidacy, overwhelmingly objected to immoral private behavior by politicians but now dismiss it as irrelevant to their ability to act ethically in their public role. The politicization of religion not only contributes to greater political polarization, it diminishes the ability of religious leaders to speak prophetically on important public issues.

Ante los retos de las grandes transformaciones, ¿qué esperamos las personas directivas públicas de las decisoras?

Laburpena: Sektore publikoaren zeregina gakoa izan da gizarteek aurrera egiteko, eta izaten segituko du hurrengo hamarkadatan ere. Erabakitzaileak –gobernu-taldeetako kideak– eta zuzendaritza-kide publikoak –zuzenean edo zeharka, lehenengoen menpekoak, maila batean edo batzuetan– dira politika publikoen katalizatzaile potentzialak. Gizarte modura aurrean ditugun erronkei aurre egiteko –esaterako, eraldaketa digitalari–, pertsonarik onenak behar dira, erronka horiei administrazio publikoetako lidergo bikoitzetik aurre egiteko. Batzuetatik –erabakitzaileetatik– eta besteetatik –zuzendaritza-kideetatik– herritar guztiok espero ditugu antzeko gaitasun eta jarrerak: eredugarriak izan daitezela beren jokaera publiko eta pribatuan, izan dezatela ikuskera estrategikoa, maila askotako sentsibilitatea eta berrikuntzarako eta gardentasunerako orientazioa eta kontuak emateko orientazioa, eta taldeak sortzeko gaitasuna, batez ere onenak kontuan hartuta. Artikuluak nazioarteko egungo egoeraren sarrera egiten du, garapen jasangarriaren helburuetatik; bederatzi konpetentzia zehazten ditu, zuzendaritza-kide publikoek erabakitzaileengadik espero ditzakegunak, eta, amaitzeko, konpetentzia bat aipatzen du, zerikusia duena taldeak sortzearekin, meritokraziatik eta zuzendaritza publiko profesionalaren ekologiatik abiatuta –zuzendaritza-konpetentziak, publizitatea, ...– herrialderik aurreratuenetan bezala. Resumen: El papel del sector público ha sido clave para el progreso de las sociedades y lo seguirá siendo en las próximas décadas. Las personas decisoras – miembros de los equipos de gobierno - y las personas directivas públicas – quienes dependen de las primeras, directa o indirectamente, en uno o varios escalones - son catalizadoras del potencial de las políticas públicas. Los retos que tenemos por delante como sociedad – el de la transformación digital, por ejemplo - requieren contar con las mejores personas para afrontarlos, desde el liderazgo dual de las Administraciones Públicas. De las unas – decisoras - y de las otras – directivas - esperamos, toda la ciudadanía, capacidades y actitudes similares: que sean ejemplares en su comportamiento público y privado, que tengan visión estratégica, sensibilidad multinivel y hacia la colaboración público privada, orientación a la innovación y la transparencia, y a la rendición de cuentas, y capacidad de crear equipos contando con las mejores personas, fundamentalmente. El artículo hace una introducción a la situación internacional, detalla las competencias que las personas directivas públicas esperamos de las decisoras, y concluye con la competencia que tiene que ver con la capacidad de crear equipos construidos desde la meritocracia y la ecología de la dirección pública profesional – competencias directivas, publicidad…- emulando a los países más avanzados. Abstract: The role of the public sector has been key to the progress of societies and will continue to be in the coming decades. Decision makers - members of government teams - and public managers - who depend on the former, directly or indirectly, on one or several steps - are catalysts for the potential of public policies. The challenges that lie ahead as a society - that of digital transformation, for example - require having the best people to face them, from the dual leadership of Public Administrations. Of the some - decision makers - and the other - directives - we expect, all citizens, similar capacities and attitudes: that they be exemplary in their public and private behavior, that they have strategic vision, multilevel sensitivity and towards private public collaboration, innovation orientation and transparency, and accountability, and ability to create teams with the best, fundamentally. The article introduces the international situation, details the competencies that public managers can expect from decision makers, and concludes with the competence that has to do with the ability to create teams built from meritocracy. and the ecology of professional public management - management skills, advertising, ... - emulating the most advanced countries.

Exploring Hegemonic Masculinity in Amandeep Sandhu’s Roll of Honour

Masculinity often associated with being strong, aggressive, powerful. Masculinity, as a social construct, plays a significant role in shaping the public-private behavior of men. The emerging field of studies on men has extensively dealt with the question of construction, practice, and variations of masculinity. Amandeep Sandhu’s Roll of Honour (2012) underpins the constructed hegemonic masculinity through the resistance of subordinated masculinities. The text unravels the traumatic effects of the traditional notion of masculinity faced by the protagonist, Appu. The narrative contains implicit and explicit references to sexual abuse. Sexual abuse, especially targeting children, is not only physical and mental abuse but also a political act imposing masculinity. The present paper explores the recurrence of sexual abuse in the text as a method of constructing hegemonic masculinity and resistance to this abuse as the assertion and counter-hegemonic exercise of various kinds of subordinated masculinities. The paper focuses on unraveling the politics of domination and tracing the use of sexual abuse as a coercive political tool. Through the life of Appu, Sandhu delineates the various socio-political layers associated with sexual abuse, as well as the horrific trauma of victims and the aftermath of such incidents. The present paper engages with various forms of resistance by the characters who were prone to or victimized by sexual abuse at the hands of abusers.

The Importance of Environmental Knowledge for Private and Public Sphere Pro-Environmental Behavior: Modifying the Value-Belief-Norm Theory

The promotion of pro-environmental behavior is regarded as very important in solving environmental problems. The Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory usually emphasizes internal factors; however, we have transformed this theory by including the environmental knowledge as an external factor. The results showed that action-related environmental knowledge was related to the ecological worldview and directly influenced the private sphere behavior. The ecological worldview, which in this paper was operationalized as environmental concern, had a direct effect on public sphere behavior and an indirect effect on private behavior through awareness of behavioral consequences. Thus, in this paper we revealed how specific environmental knowledge influenced pro-environmental behavior. We also suggest that it is important to educate people about local and global environmental problems, about the impact of behavior on the environment not only in private but also in the public sphere, and to foster the ecocentrism, as well. In addition, we revealed the meaning and necessity of education for environmental citizenship.

Efficiency, Estrangement, and Antirealism

This chapter presents a commentary on Hal Hartley's film career. It begins with a biographical sketch based on material included in interviews, reviews, and essays about Hartley's work, and an earlier version of his official website, possiblefilms.com. It then moves on to analyze seven feature films: The Unbelievable Truth (1989), Trust (1990), Simple Men (1992), Amateur (1994), Henry Fool, Fay Grim (2006), and The Book of Life (1998). These films show that efficiency, estrangement, and antirealism allow Hartley to chart the struggles of individuals against the ideological precepts that pertain to public and private behavior, responsible actions, “common sense,” and the cinematic conventions that support such ideologies. (e.g., romantic characters who will live “happily ever after”).These conflicts are often related to the restrictions posed by gender norms and are depicted as conflicts with authority figures. Hartley's male protagonists struggle to live up to popular ideals of heteronormative masculinity, control, and violent mastery of the world around them, while his central female characters break from heteronormative conceptions of women as mothers, caregivers, and/or sexual objects.