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The purpose of this paper is to argue that gossip is a neglected aspect of organizational communication and knowledge, and an under-used management resource.

The paper challenges mainstream managerial assumptions that gossip is trivial or tainted talk which should be discouraged in the workplace. Instead, gossip is re-framed at an organizational level of analysis, which provides the opportunity for relational knowledge about systemic failure and poor practice in healthcare to surface.

Rather than simply viewing gossip as an individual behaviour and interpersonal process, it is claimed that organizational gossip is also a valuable early warning indicator of risk and failure in healthcare systems. There is potentially significant value in re-framing gossip as an aspect of organizational communication and knowledge. If attended to (rather than neglected or silenced) gossip can provide fresh insights into professional practice, decision making and relational leadership.

This paper offers a provocative challenge to mainstream health organization and management thinking about gossip in the workplace. It offers new ways of thinking to promote patient safety, and prevent the scandals that have plagued healthcare organizations in recent years.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between gossip and emotion in health‐care organizations. It draws on findings from empirical research exploring the characteristics and function of gossip which, to date, has been a relatively under‐researched organizational phenomenon.

A multidisciplinary approach was adopted, drawing on an eclectic range of discipline‐based theories, skills, ideas and data. Methods included repertory grid technique, in‐depth interviews and structured diary records of work‐related gossip. The sample comprised 96 qualified nurses working in a range of practice areas and organizational settings in the UK.

Template analysis was used to integrate findings across three phases of data collection. The findings revealed that gossip is used to express a range of emotions including care and concern about others, anger, annoyance and anxiety, with emotional outcomes that include feeling reassured and supported. It is the individual who gossips, while the organization provides the content, emotional context, triggers and opportunities.

Nurses were chosen as an information‐rich source of data, but the findings may simply reflect the professional culture and practice of nursing. Future research should take into account a wider range of health‐care organizational roles and perspectives in order to capture the dynamics and detail of the emotions and relationships that initiate and sustain gossip.

Because gossip makes people feel better it may serve to reinforce the “stress mask of professionalism”, hiding issues of conflict, vulnerability and intense emotion. Managers need to consider what the emotions expressed through gossip might represent in terms of underlying issues relating to organizational health, communication and change.

This paper makes a valuable contribution to the under‐researched phenomenon of gossip in organizations and adds to the growing field of research into the role of emotion in health‐care organizations and emotion work in nursing.

Drawing on the anthropological literature, this paper aims to develop a model of taboos (morality) that applies to the marketing, consumer behaviour and consumption contexts.

The paper is mainly conceptual but illustrates the general premises of the model with a case study of “dark” tourism and the contemporary marketing of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The paper shows that even extreme taboos can be commodified and traded-off, and that not even the horrific deaths and large-scale suffering that occurred at Auschwitz are “sacred”. This can occur through reframing and seeing the same taboo through different national lens.

Questions pertaining to consumer morality are relative rather than universalistic, and even the most extreme cases of taboo can still be successfully marketed.

The paper is among the first to attempt to conceptually design a model and then explain the taboo process as it applies to a marketing and consumption context.

In this chapter, we explore the intricate relationships between young disabled children, their families, institutional settings, and disability services in Canada, with an emphasis on the challenges stemming from unstable custodial dynamics and governmental interference. Drawing on data from a 9-year longitudinal Institutional Ethnography across three provinces and one territory, we analyze the experiences of 41 families who have interacted with the child welfare system, foster care, adoption processes, family courts, or other custodial procedures – many of them are Indigenous or live with low income. The historic and ongoing state control and institutionalization of disabled children in Canada are interrogated through the lens of settler-colonialism (Awj, 2017; Disability Rights International, 2021). This chapter scrutinizes constructs framed by colonial narratives, including disabled childhoods, notions of disability, the “best interest of the child,” the archetype of the “good parent,” and the designation of custodial “status.” We present Institutional Ethnography as a method of de-constructing these systems and identifying care principles in the changing context of family.

Emotion regulation (ER) has been identified as an important factor influencing psychological and health problems of adult populations. The purpose of this paper is to address a gap in the literature by examining available evidence relating to the use of ER strategies (avoidance, problem solving, reappraisal, rumination and suppression) on the well-being of older people (OP).

A systematic search for peer-reviewed articles published from 1985 to 2015 was conducted in PsycINFO, CINAHL, Medline, Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Collections and ASSIA and resulted in 1746 titles. In total, 20 studies met full inclusion criteria (the cross-sectional association between well-being and ER was reported, participants were 60 years or older, without cognitive impairment and the article was written in English, Portuguese or Spanish).

Rumination was found to be the ER strategy most strongly associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression in OP populations, while mixed result were found for avoidance, problem solving, suppression and reappraisal.

Given the scarcity of research examining the association between ER and positive psychological concepts only a conclusion about ER and negative mood measures could be made. Questions for future research on ER and well-being in OP are proposed.

This paper addresses a significant gap in the literature regarding the use of ER strategies in older adults.