The thesis looks at the communication between the management shore and crew on board vessels, and examines the role of such communication in influencing OHSM in two Chinese chemical shipping companies. The study was conducted in the shore offices of two companies, as well as on four of their chemical tankers. The data was mainly collected by semi-structured interviews, supplemented by field observations, informal discussions and document analyses. By examining major areas of communication closely related to OHSM, i.e., shore to ship communication for work support, shore to ship communication for management control, ship to shore communication for safety reporting, ship to shore communication for safety suggestions, the study presents the range of purposes behind communication between the two. The study shows that communication between shore management and ship’s crew is significantly influenced by divergent interests between the two. It reveals a set of socio-economic and cultural factors that underlie their communication. As a consequence, such communication has noticeable influence on crew’s shipboard working practices as well as indirect effects on crew’s health, safety and well-being. The findings of this study show that shore-ship communication is mainly in an asymmetrical form. It was generally disengaged with the concerns of OHSM. The communication contributed to an unfavourable working environment. The study suggested that communication achieved very limited outcomes for OHSM. The study concludes by calling policy makers as well as industrial practitioners to rethink the role of communication in effective OHSM and reshape maritime regulatory strategy in promoting OHSM in the global shipping industry.

This thesis presents the findings of an ethnographic study of the social worlds of racist hate crime victims and their caseworkers. The fieldwork involved participant observation and 25 interviews with victims and caseworkers at a charity that supports victims of racist hate crime, based in an ethnically diverse UK city. The aim of the research was to explore victims’ perceptions and experiences of racist hate crime in light of the victim-centred definition of ‘hate crime’ adopted by the criminal justice system in England and Wales. This research contributes to a gap in our understanding of who is victimized and how, with what impact, and why they believe they have been victims of racist hate crime. The literature review sets the foundations for the thesis, arguing that empirical research is required to understand victims’ perceptions of racist hate crimes at the micro-level and the process of victimization as it extends to claiming and negotiating hate crime victim status with, for example, police officers. The analysis and findings build on the idea of racist hate crime as a process and shows how people become victims and how hate crimes are interactional accomplishments. Whilst making the case for the use of embodied ethnography for research into hate crime, the thesis addresses a range of complex ethical and epistemological issues – from cross-cultural research to researcher safety. The research also addresses gaps in knowledge, including the significance and operation of the Stephen Lawrence definition of hate crime. It adds granularity to our understanding of who is victimized and how, including less blatant forms of victimisation – racism by stealth. The thesis thereby contributes to our understanding of the ways in which racism is encoded in victims’ lives and how they perceive risk and suffer harm.

Despite the popularity of consumers‘ environmental behaviour choices, little research has been forthcoming which analyzes green behaviour across different situations in a systematic way. A particularly relevant stream of research to explain the situational effect on consumer environmental behaviour is the Behavioural Perspective Model (BPM). A key insight of the BPM is of the anticipated benefit consumers acquire and the impact of the environment that surrounds consumer choice. The aim of the research is to interpret consumer environmental behaviour across different situations in a systematic way by using the BPM. Due to the exploratory nature of the study, a mixed method approach was used among Cardiff consumers. The first study involved standardized open-ended interviews (N=30). Panel experts were also invited to take part in the BPM Contingency Definition Test. The second studies were conducted via survey (N=200), which provided data on 1,600 consumer situations. The findings from the consumers‘ verbal responses to descriptions of eight consumer environmental situations confirm the predictions raised by the BPM interpretation of consumer choice. Mehrabian and Russell‘s affective (Pleasure, Arousal, Dominance) and behavioural variables (Approach and Avoidance) showed significant main effects. The one-way ANOVA and Tukey‘s HSD analysis provide support for the patterns of the affective and behavioural variables for the BPM contingencies categories. Furthermore, the actual differences in the variables means scores of the groups were large (eta squared = between 0.1 and 0.4). The discriminant analysis justified the predicted capability of the BPM. Two-way interaction effects between affective variables were also identified. In summary, this study shows that the application of the model is not only empirically limited to familiar themes of consumer research but also applicable to different consumer environmental behaviours.

As part of the economic activity of the state, the concept of the ‘Public Plate’ is synonymous with sustainable public food procurement, where sustainable development outcomes of democracy and social justice are brought about through the provision of healthy nutritious food and localised supply chains, within a moral economy guided by an ethic of care. The economic activities of the state are also concerned with how public services are designed, delivered and accounted for, as governance. This research explores these issues through a study of the governance of nutritional care in hospital settings, the national context of Wales providing the focus for sustainable development outcomes. By examining the historical development of sustainability and healthcare governance in Wales and adopting a critical realist perspective, the research departs from the focus of existing studies on ‘what’ needs to be done, and aims to understand ‘how’ change has been brought about. The research finds that emerging structures for nutritional care in hospitals have been planned, designed and adapted over time, through leadership, learning and collaboration. Equity provides a guide for action, linking individual patients’ needs and outcomes, whilst values of dignity and respect guide activities of caring. Quality, patient experience and safety provide evidence of outcomes from those care processes as effectiveness. Effectiveness therefore becomes the driver of efficiency and efficiency drives lowest cost, resulting in best value outcomes. Variations in outcomes in practice lead to the proposition that the mechanism enabling and constraining change is that of capabilities, as an integrative concept linking structural empowerment with both cognitive and behavioural conditions. The challenges to governance are identified within best value as the need to reduce, rather than constrain costs, of particular concern in publicly funded healthcare systems where the demand for care, already in excess of supply, is expected to increase.

This study contributes to the growing cross-cultural body of literature of globalised consumer behaviour with pecific to CCT within the discipline of consumer research addressing the consumer identity of consumption. It explores the role of social influences in explaining consumer behaviour of a specific ethnic minority group in Malaysia (i.e. the Chinese Malaysians) during the celebration of the Lunar New Year. Specifically, this study aims to investigate the consumption celebration of the Reunion Dinner through its cultural significance within the multicultural Malaysian context especially of the Chinese Malaysian. Its objectives are to explore the ritual of the consumption, beyond the frame of economics or psychology but from the view of cultural meanings within the contextual, symbolic and experiential of consumption from acquisition to consumption and disposition. The theoretical guidance for this study which is parallel with CCT incorporates the lenses of social anthropology and consumer behaviour, which is based on interpretive and ethnographic approaches. Data was collected from forty in-depth interviews, participant observation, photographs over three years to provide a schema of analyses. The findings reveal variations of the celebration consumption from the participants, place, time and activities with negotiations made across age, gender and social status. Four central themes came to light as integral components of the celebrationconsumption experience in addressing the consumers’ identity and its identification through namely solidarity, symbolism, self-concept and play among ethnic subculture members. Firstly identity is negotiated through solidarity likened to the western identity with thanksgiving; bonding in preparation; time for all and reconnection; inclusion of ancestors, deities, friends and relatives; appropriation of food; and pragmatism of time and venue for the gathering. Secondly, identity is associated with symbolism derived from the meanings of: time; food and actions of gifting; and prayers to taboos. Thirdly, the concept of self-identity is reflected in the projection of future self; the role of mother, wife, daughter-in-law, and children; social identity and interdependent of self. Lastly, the phenomenology of play due to the liminal essence of standing between the threshold of old and new, is manifested through food, gifts and gambling as the ritual is being re-experienced through an imagined construction of reality and new identity. The findings of this study generate implications for theorists and practitioners within the context of the identity of the consumers in the construction, maintenance and negotiation of identity is often used to maintain the sense of identity through time as it defines oneself in relationship to other people. This study validates the knowledge of culture that is continuously produced, reproduced and negotiated within the CCT constructs from the ethnic subculture consumption perspective. Keywords: culture, consumption, ritual, identity, ethnic, subculture, solidarity,symbolism, self-concept, play Chinese, Consumer Culture Theory (CCT).

This thesis investigates deeper influences that contribute to the way organisational leadership is practiced, taking a social, cultural and collective point of view. Three different theoretical perspectives are drawn on: the work of Kurt Lewin and field theory shows that underlying forces exist, describing organising principles that are not under the control of human intention; the work of Carl Jung and the collective unconscious explains leadership at a deep archetypal level; the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu help to explain how leadership is established and maintained through social interaction and social fields—symbolic power, habitus and doxa. A narrative methodology provided the framework for interviewing participants on their leadership experiences. Two research groups consisted of (A) 17 corporate leaders, comprising 3 men and 14 women, (B) 6 organisational consultants, comprising 5 men and 1 woman. A set of questions based on the three theoretical perspectives, was used to analyse the data. A difference between leadership thinking and leadership in practice was found. Descriptions of leadership were individualistic and direction-giving, compared to narratives of leadership experiences which revealed relational, inclusive and collaborative leadership practices. A predominance of role model learning was also found. The concept of eclipsing is used to describe how relational, inclusive and collaborative practices are overshadowed by conventional leadership thinking. Field theory shows how dynamic fields influence eclipsing behaviour beneath the surface of intentional action. A Jungian perspective explains eclipsing as a hidden compensatory process within the dyadic relationship of the masculine and the feminine. Bourdieuian ideas explain how conventional leadership thinking is in the habitus of social interaction, and how symbolic power of leaders is a dynamic force in organisational systems. This thesis adds to the debate on ‘where leadership is situated’, offering new insight to conventional leadership theory, and advances thinking in relational and distributed leadership.

The thesis is a qualitative ethnographic study which examines the interaction between the operation of informal social control and de-industrialisation, in the context of austerity measures and public sector retrenchment. Drawing theoretical and methodological insights from the Chicago School, which argued that population churn and competing value systems in the ‘zone of transition’ inhibited the transmission of pro-social values (Shaw and McKay, 1947), this research develops these insights in a setting where these phenomena are absent in order to understand the implications of this changed context for informal social control. This study develops a definition of informal social control past its traditional focus on crime and anti-social behaviour and towards the control of actors and behaviours which are deemed socially problematic due to their transgression of local cultures of decency and respectability. This localised culture of respectability is itself the product of a shared identity and collective memory of hardship in a stable community where these values have been transmitted. This research builds out of an inductive examination of what residents viewed as the key issues facing them, namely combating a spoiled identity which was drawn from stigmatising media depictions of poverty and which painted all residents as being ‘workshy’. The implications for future research build on the construction of ‘decent’ identities in the post-industrial context and the ways in which identity is managed and renegotiated in an environment where even respectable individuals experience spoiled identities. It uncovers hidden orders within a seemingly disorganised community and demonstrates the extent to which state-based theories of crime control cannot account for levels of conformity to pro-social normative orders. In the ‘age of austerity’ this study highlights the importance of further research into the conditions under which this conformity may break down across a variety of different contexts.

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An organization trusted by consumers enjoys a number of benefits. Unfortunately, instances of trust-damaging events involving organizations happen often. Damaged consumer trust in an organization has numerous negative consequences for the organization and for consumers. Currently, there is a paucity of theory about consumer trust recovery. So, understanding why and how consumer trust recovery occurs is timely, and theoretically and practically relevant. However, the findings from this study suggest that we need to distinguish between two kinds of consumer trust recovery. The first (I call it unconscious consumer trust recovery) refers to trust recovery that occurs without the consumer being fully conscious of it. In other words, a consumer is aware of their damaged trust during the scandal, but is not aware that their trust in the organization has improved. The consumer does not think about his or her recovered trust, just as they did not think about their level of trust before the scandal. The consumer trust is habitual. The second (I call it conscious consumer trust recovery) refers to an improvement in damaged trust where the consumer is fully conscious of their trust recovery. In other words, in conscious trust recovery the consumer is aware that the scandal damaged their trust in the organization. Also, after the scandal, in contrast to unconscious trust recovery, in conscious trust recovery the consumer is also fully aware that he trusts the organization as much or more than during the scandal. My aim is to inductively develop a theory explaining each type of consumer trust recovery. To do so, I use Charmazian grounded theory methodology, because this methodology is developed for theory-building from data and is aligned with the philosophical underpinnings of this study. The empirical context for this study is the meat adulteration scandal (“the horse meat scandal”) in 2013 in the UK. I collect and analyse empirical data about both types of trust recovery in an organization from 31 consumers that experienced both types. My analysis shows that when consumers perceive the scandal as less important, they experience unconscious trust recovery. This happens because the reduced importance of the scandal leads to a shift in consumers’ attention, which in turn leads to their inattentiveness to the scandal. Consumer inattentiveness is an immediate antecedent of unconscious trust recovery. Conscious consumer trust recovery occurs because consumers see cues indicating to them that the food retailer has improved product control systems, which in turn leads to consumer perceptions of the organization’s renewed ability. Consumer perception of renewed ability is an immediate antecedent of their conscious trust recovery. My findings lead me to make three main theoretical contributions to the theory of trust recovery in general and to consumer trust recovery in particular. The first contribution lies in showing that there are two types of consumer trust recovery in an organization, not one, as previously conceptualised, and that the same consumers can experience both types. The second contribution is a theory of unconscious consumer trust recovery in an organization that involves three concepts: consumers’ perceived importance of the scandal, consumers’ shift of attention, and consumer inattentiveness. The third contribution is the finding that conscious recovery of consumer trust occurs even when existing theory of trust recovery would predict that it would not. This study can help managers aiming to repair consumer trust in an organization by identifying a set of antecedents and underlying mechanisms that can guide such trust repair.

This study investigates the practice of public procurement fraud in Malaysia. The aim of this research is to understand the nature and extent of the persistence of procurement fraud in the Malaysian public sector. Fraud in public procurement results in large losses of public funds which are needed by the government for delivering public services in order to build public infrastructure and facilities for healthcare and education, poverty eradication, security, defense and economic growth. A primarily qualitative methodology is employed in this study using the political economy approach in order to understand this social phenomenon. First, documentary analysis helps identifying some possible factors for the existence of fraud in public procurement in Malaysia. Then, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews are obtained using the Snowball Sampling Method (SSM). The interviews with 40 stakeholders (regulators, professionals, politicians, academics and media actors) reveal their „hidden‟ voices so as to understand public procurement fraud in Malaysia. Nevertheless, this study does not aim to make generalizations and reach concrete conclusions about this issue, but instead seeks to understand why public procurement fraud persists in Malaysia through an analysis of the subjective narratives of the stakeholders. This research identifies several possible factors explaining why fraud in Malaysian public procurement continues to exist: (1) the prevailing power of political and economic forces, (2) complexities in the check and balance system, (3) deficiencies in procurement practices, (4) constraints on the civil servants, and (5) characteristics of the Malaysian society. The findings contribute to the body of knowledge by focusing on an unexplored area of the institutional arrangements between the state and businesses in Malaysia. The institutional arrangements between state and private sector appear to be legitimate, but they have the potential to conceal fraudulent practices, thus making fraud possible. Given the sensitive nature of the subject matter of this research and the fact that fraud by its nature is often concealed, it is possible that the findings have only revealed the „tip of the iceberg‟ of public procurement fraud in Malaysia.