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Despite growing research on LGBT+ populations, few studies have examined transgender individuals’ specific workplace experiences, whose voice is often subsumed in a wider category. This article presents the story of Kathrine, a female transgender food retail worker, and discusses the abusive, discriminatory and transphobic behaviour of customers, which has received limited attention in the sociology of service work literature. The article reveals the stigmatization of transgender employees by customers, which is expressed through micro-aggressions, such as mis-gendering, mocking and harassing, and is often neglected and/or tolerated by management. Kathrine discusses the coping strategies she utilizes to reduce the negative consequences of the stigma, and to negotiate and protect her gender identity. These include confronting and/or refusing to serve transphobic customers, reflecting her resilience towards discrimination and abuse. The article calls for further research to understand transgender service employees’ experiences and the complexity and diversity of coping strategies used by stigmatized workers.

This article discusses the story of Steven, a precarious academic worker, and his decision to work from home while being infected with Covid-19; a phenomenon called virtual presenteeism. As argued, Steven’s sickness presence is the outcome of the increasing precarity and job insecurity in the sector, as well as the outcome of a presenteeism culture in academia which is being facilitated by technology and the blended learning approach adopted during the pandemic. The article outlines precarious academic workers’ fear to go off sick, illustrating how Steven negotiates the precarity of his contract via virtual presenteeism to portray over-commitment to the institution and avoid the risk of job loss. As concluded, while blended learning becomes the new educational norm in higher education, virtual presenteeism risks becoming the new attendance norm. This article calls for more research to examine how the blended teaching approach will further impact on academic work, post-pandemic.

This article gives voice to a front-line manager in food retailing, discussing her experiences during the COVID-19 outbreak which, overnight, became an ‘essential service’, leaving employees exposed to the virus. The article utilizes the ‘moral economy’ framework to understand how organizational policies, which were developed by senior management and implemented by front-line managers, denied human flourishing and well-being during a period of socio-economic crisis. The article captures the complexity of morality in organizations across managerial levels. Questioning the morality of managerial decisions during the pandemic and emphasizing how these are driven by the intense competition in the market, it reveals that front-line managers are caught between conflicting moral values and expectations. This study contributes to the ‘moral economy’ framework suggesting that the structural constraints of front-line managerial authority have challenged their moral values and narrowed the space for safe and meaningful work and well-being for front-line managers and employees.

PurposeThe article challenges the narrow view in scholarship which presents disengagement as passive and simply the absence of condition of engagement and explores how food retail employees articulate their disengagement within the intensified customer-centric service work. The article adopts the term “active disengagement”, as presented by Ackroyd and Thompson (2016) and empirically examines this as a form of oppositional voice towards managerial norms and behavioural expectations.Design/methodology/approachThe article draws on qualitative data from two case study organisations in the Cypriot food retail sector. Forty-six interviews took place with participants across different departments, including front-line employees and front-line and senior managers, to better understand the research problem through different perspectives.FindingsThe data show that disengagement is an integral part of organisational life and it is expressed in an individual and less-risky way. The data also reveal a variation in disengagement actions across departments, depending on employees' mobility on the shop floor and the intensity of interaction with the customers and the line manager. Shop floor employees enjoyed a wider “space of disengagement”, in comparison to those working on the front-end/checkouts. Nevertheless, checkout employees have developed sophisticated actions to express disengagement.Research limitations/implicationsThis research provides a refined understanding of active disengagement in organisations. It empirically contributes to the existence of a spectrum of engagement and expands Ackroyd and Thompson's (2016) “active disengagement” framework, discussing it as a form of oppositional voice towards corporate values and the customer-centric work intensification.Practical implicationsThe research provides empirical evidence that employee disengagement is not merely the absence of engagement, as HRM scholars and practitioners have argued, but entails further social meanings. This article will be useful for practitioners to rethink, revisit and revise employee engagement programmes in organisations, as well as to re-write corporate values, mission and vision, to also consider employees' experiences within the workplace. This will allow the provision of social support by management to address active disengagement in service organisations.Originality/valueThe study provides an important insight in employees' individual actions to express disengagement towards corporate values and managerial expectations related to customer service. It highlights the variation of dynamics across the food retail shop floor, which has been treated as a contextual periphery within the disengagement debate. Applying a broader lens on retail work heterogeneity, it provides further understanding of the diversity of how frontline service workers express disengagement within the triadic employment relationship. This study offers ground for future research to examine active disengagement in various contexts for better conceptual and practical understanding of this behaviour in organisations.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to revisit discussions on managerial work, seeking to re-examine the front-line service manager’s position within the service triangle, and bring forward questions of agency that remain under-developed by scholars. Challenging the assumed unitarist and “consensus” standing point in organizations it recognizes that front-line managers, similarly to their subordinates, resist corporate demands and unveils stories of “battles” and disengagement towards their role, providing a rich empirical agenda regarding managerial misbehaviour. In order to explore front-line managers’ agency issues, the paper adopts the framework of the dimensions of misbehaviour, as developed by Ackroyd and Thompson (1999), to capture and to better describe and understand the recalcitrant agential practices by front-line managers. Design/methodology/approach The paper calls on qualitative data from two case study organizations in the Cyprus food-retail sector. In total, 46 interviews took place with participants across different departments and different management levels. This aimed for a better and deeper understanding of the research problem through understanding of the different perspectives. Findings The evidence reveals the intensification of FLSMs’ work and their feelings of pressure. FLSMs, however, did not stay apathetic and have utilized tactics to oppose the increasing workload and the expansion of their role. The paper classifies these tactics using the four dimensions of misbehaviour (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1999), namely, appropriation of time; work, product and identity. It shows that FLSMs not only resist corporate demands, like their subordinates, but also devised practices which are similar to workers. The data also reveal a variety in actions of misbehaviour between FLSMs depending on the level of customer interaction and their mobility on the shop floor. Research limitations/implications Students of managerial work overlooked the political realities of management and the contested nature of (front-line service) management work. As this study has shown FLSMs across the shop floor strongly identify more with “front-line employees” than senior management, protecting their own interests within the employment relationship via oppositional actions and disengagement. FLSM is, of course, in an agency relationship with capital; however, this neglects the heterogeneity in interests at different levels of management. This paper shifts the focus of management research away from the traditional agency argument and discusses FLSMs as “misbehaving agents”. It challenges the assumed unitarist and “consensus” standing point for FLSMs in organizations and calls HRM scholars to embrace a pluralist analysis in line management research. Practical implications This research shows that FLSMs misbehave as an expression of discontent towards the expansion and intensification of their role. Yet, the data reveal variation in the organization of FLSMs’ work across the shop floor and consequently variation in their actions of misbehaviour. This suggests that it is erroneous to presume a similar labour process for these managers and/or over-generalize their battling actions. HR practitioners will need to re-examine the roles of FLSMs in organizations, recognize the variety of interests within management, step away from rhetoric discourses of unproblematic devolvement of HR and managerial tasks to the front-line and appropriately review, redesign and re-organize front-line managerial work. Social implications Although research has fruitfully located the powerlessness of front-line managers as a central theme in their analysis, the complexity of the front-line management position within the social relations of interactive service work and their “logic of action” within their labour process remains a relatively marginal theme in research. Indeed, FLSMs’ position within the triangle, where managerial work is subject to degradation and trilateral conflicting dynamics and their battles within their own labour process, still remains under-explored. This study addresses this research lacuna focusing on the FLSMs’ experiences on the front-end and their actions of misbehaviour within their labour process. Originality/value The paper brings forward questions of agency that remain under-developed by scholars and unveils “stories of battles”. It discusses FLSMs as “misbehaving agents” a question that is only superficially addressed in resistance and managerial studies. This paper challenges the embedded HRM unitarist assumption that FLSMs are conscientiously agents of the capital and reveals evidence suggesting the plurality of interests across management. HRM scholars, especially those discussed line managers as HRM partners, have overestimated FLSMs’ identification with senior management and the strategic goals of the organization. As this study has shown FLSMs across the shop floor strongly identify with “front-line employees”, protecting their own interests within the employment relationship via oppositional actions and disengagement.

Purpose This study aims to examine customer misbehaviour in the hospitality sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach The study draws on a cross-sectional survey of employees in the Scottish hospitality sector highlighting customer misbehaviour as a key concern during the pandemic. Prevalent types of abuse and harassment experienced are outlined along with employee and management responses to incidents of misbehaviour. Findings Verbal abuse and sexual harassment from customers are the most prevalent types of misbehaviour either experienced or witnessed by respondents. Customer misbehaviour is commonly thought of as “part of the job” and therefore “not a big deal”. Managers, largely, expect workers to tolerate abusive behaviours from customers and do not take reports of incidents seriously. Practical implications Transformational managers need to foster workplace well-being with a focus on physical and psychological safety. Recognition of the issue and greater support for victims are furthermore required at an industry level and on the policy front. Social implications The research points to an uncomfortable reality in the service economy that needs to be confronted by society. It has, therefore, important implications for key stakeholders in ensuring fair, dignified and safe hospitality workplaces. Originality/value Customer misbehaviour is reportedly worsening in times of COVID-19 as demonstrated by this study. Despite rhetoric that abuse and harassment are not tolerated, dismissive attitudes from managers – who expect workers to tolerate abusive behaviour – and employee silence about incidents lead the authors to argue that the failure to acknowledge and address this issue constitutes a form of “social washing” in hospitality.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of line managers in managing attendance at work in the lean regime of grocery retailing. The increasing competitiveness within the sector, coupled with the sophisticated control systems in place put pressure on managers to keep labour costs low. Attendance, therefore, becomes a critical factor, particularly as staffing levels become leaner. Taking this into account, it is necessary to understand the parameters of the line managers’ role in managing attendance, especially within the lean food retail market and the antagonistic terrain of the supermarket shop floor. The paper discusses the impact of lean retailing on line managers’ authority and provides a fresh sociological analysis regarding their role in managing attendance, offering insights into managerial practices on the UK supermarket shop floor. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on qualitative research evidence from two case study grocery retail organizations in the UK. It reports on 44 semi-structured interviews and provides a multi-level analysis aiming to understand the different perspectives on the problem examined. Findings – The paper reveals the existence of a centralized absence management policy and highlights the greater involvement of line managers in this procedure. Line managers though were subjected to forces of bureaucratic control, intensification and degradation of their work. Despite having an active role within the attendance management process and high responsibility for the implementation of rules and procedures handed down by head office, they had limited authority over the process. Line managers perceived the latter as routine and a box-ticking exercise and had developed coping tactics to deal with the control from above. Originality/value – This paper provides practical and theoretical considerations over the role of line management in the labour process, investigating their role in managing attendance at work within the lean terrain of food retailing. This research contributes to the ongoing academic discussions related to the devolvement of HR responsibilities to the line, highlighting the great involvement of line managers in the absence policy. It also provides a sociological perspective over line managers’ authority and discretion in managing attendance, revealing that they were subjected to direct and bureaucratic control within their role in attendance management. However, the research reveals that line managers were not passive in the face of direct control from above and had developed tactics to cope with the monotony and the repetition of this process, attempting to somehow escape the top-down control they were subjected to.

This thesis examines the role of line managers in managing attendance at work, within grocery retailing, providing a comparison between the UK and Cyprus. It explores the sector's political economy, discusses the impact on workplace attendance, explores the manifestations of attendance in the labour process, and examines the role of line managers in managing absence. The empirical evidence draws on qualitative research from four case-study grocery retail organizations in the UK and Cyprus and reports on 91 semi-structured interviews with HR managers, store managers, line managers, union representatives and shop-floor employees. The research evidence highlighted a drop in absence in all the case study organizations. In both countries, the economic crisis, the absence management process and the role of the line managers were major drivers for the employees' decision to attend work regularly, consenting to the attendance control and the shop floor regimes. The labour process analysis adopted in this study suggests that non-attendance as a form of industrial conflict is regarded as muted, while consent to regular attendance is built. Nevertheless, the data illustrated a latent behaviour by workers, across the four organizations, utilizing silent and individual actions to battle over workplace attendance. The research also highlights the role of line managers in managing attendance at work, as well as in negotiating the shop floor order. The thesis discusses the versatile role of the line managers in managing both attendance and the shop floor order, across the four case study organizations. The study also illustrates that the line managers were subjected to forces of control, holding limited authority and discretion. However, they developed tactics to cope and gain control within these processes. The main contributions of this research are the similar organization of food retail work within the UK and Cyprus, the employees' consent to regular attendance, and the 'Rebels of the clock' thesis, which suggests the emergence of 'game playing', as an expression of industrial conflict. Finally, the versatile role of line managers in coercing and negotiating both workplace attendance and shop floor order is suggested, while these actors used informal actions to gain discretion and overcome the top-down control on their role within the attendance management process.