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The purpose of this paper is to discuss and critically examine how formal project management (PM) tools and techniques affect the organization of university research.

The paper is empirically grounded and explores how university researchers respond to an increasing emphasis on formalized PM methods to manage research work conducted within the university. The empirical material consists of 20 interviews with research staff working with engineering, natural and medical sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden. Describing how PM techniques are increasingly imposed upon the researchers, the paper analyses different modes of relating to the formalized toolsets, and discusses their accommodation and resistance within academia.

One key finding is how the PM formalization is resisted by partial accommodation and containment. This can be described in terms of an enactment of a front- and a backstage of the research organization. At the front-stage, formal PM technology and terminology is used by specially appointed research managers as means of presenting to funding agencies and other external parties. At the backstage, researchers carry out work in more traditional forms.

The findings indicate a challenge for research to comply with increased PM formalization and secure on-going open-ended research. Second, the paper points toward a risk of young researchers being nudged out into “front-stage” administration with little chance of returning to “backstage” research.

This paper builds upon a growing area of the critical analysis of PM practice, offering insights into the tension between the values and norms of university research and an on-going formalization of PM in some organizational contexts.

Communities of Practice (CoPs) are increasingly being created to facilitate knowledge mobilization in organizations. This paper aims to elucidate an underexplored aspect of participation in mandated CoPs – identity reconciliation. Specifically, the authors explore how actors reconcile their existing identities with becoming members of new knowledge mobilization CoPs.

The authors conducted a longitudinal qualitative case study over a 12-month period to explore identity reconciliation practices during the formation of the “ED CoP” – mandated by policymakers to mobilize knowledge between process improvement advisors and clinicians from various hospitals. Observation and interviews allowed us to uncover “front stage” and “backstage” practices of identity reconciliation.

The findings reveal two key unexpected modes of identity reconciliation – “distancing” and “peripheral lurking”. These modes resulted in different trajectories of participation of two of the key participant groups – “veteran” improvement advisors and “veteran” clinicians.

Different modes of identity reconciliation of different participants impact the formation of CoPs and how knowledge mobilization occurs within them. This paper offers a sensitizing lens for practitioners creating CoPs which enhances awareness of hidden identity practices, and recommendations to enable practitioners to effectively facilitate CoP formation.

This study suggests that identity reconciliation is an integral aspect of CoP formation, and essential for knowledge mobilization within CoPs. Whereas studies on CoPs in the knowledge management literature have mostly assumed that collaboration produces beneficial knowledge mobilization outcomes, the findings build a more nuanced picture of the processes involved in producing these outcomes.

This paper seeks to identify the instances of informal knowledge sharing at the “backstage” of the clinical environment and to demonstrate their contribution to organisational learning and patient safety.

The approach takes the form of an ethnographic study in two Day Surgery Units in the UK National Health Service undertaken over three months in various clinical and non‐clinical settings. The observations recorded the instances of communication and knowledge sharing, as well as taking into account the wider socio‐cultural and organisational context.

The study identified situations of informal knowledge sharing. These were characterised by degrees of homogeneity/heterogeneity and patency/privacy. Focusing on three sites – staff lounge, storeroom, and theatre corridor, the paper elaborates the context and content of knowledge sharing, and the contributions to clinical practice, service function and learning.

Backstage knowledge sharing is premised on shared understanding, trust and mutuality and situational opportunity. This contrasts with more formal models of learning advocated in policy. Services managers might embrace, rather than replace, these relationships, whilst emphasising the need for knowledge to be shared more widely amongst peers and service leaders.

To date, little research in the area of patient safety has considered the contribution of informal learning at the “backstage”. This is an important, if taken‐for‐granted, part of everyday practice and makes a “hidden” contribution to organisational learning.

Argues that the concept of the total workplace goes beyond physical facilities to take account of the whole network of social, organisational, and design elements that constitute the context in which we spend our working lives. Uses the Steelcase Corporate Development Centre, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as an example of a total workplace, and to show the effectiveness of teamwork and the critical need for communication in advanced work culture. Discusses a number of key social process areas that represent an integral part of the workplace. Finally, considers the application of the total workplace concept to other organisations and contexts.

Do accommodative or integrative components make contentious conflict behavior more effective? A questionnaire study shows that Japanese subordinates (N = 136) handle interpersonal conflicts with superiors more effectively to the extent that they complement high contending with high accommodating. By contrast, prior research shows that high contending by Dutch subordinates and superiors is more effective if complemented with high integrating. Together, these findings support the notion that the most effective conglomeration of contending with other components of conflict behavior is society‐specific.

This article contains two brief cases about health‐care disputes, designed for executive education audiences who work in health care. One case is a dispute between a doctor and a hospital administrator over authority to control nursing assignments. The other case is about doctors competing for access to operating room space. These cases are used to discuss underlying causes of the disputes and participants' strategies for managing these disputes. The teaching note focuses on using the power, rights, and interests model from Ury, Brett, and Goldberg (1988) as a way to organize the discussion.

Conflict styles are typically seen as a response to particular situations. By contrast, we argue that individual conflict styles may shape an employee's social environment, affecting the level of ongoing conflict and thus his or her experience of stress. Using data from a hospital‐affiliated clinical department, we find that those who use a more integrative style experience lower levels of task conflict, reducing relationship conflict, which reduces stress. Those who use a more dominating or avoiding style experience higher levels of task conflict, increasing relationship conflict and stress. We conclude that an employee's work environment is, in part, of his or her own making.

This study investigates the impact of conflict style as a coping strategy in response to role conflict. Recent research has begun to examine workplace uncertainty as a mediator in the role stress process. Using this overall framework, we developed and tested hypotheses regarding the effect of conflict style activeness on the link between role conflict and uncertainty. Results supported the mediating role of uncertainty in the role stress process, thus replicating previous research. Additionally, the results showed that exhibiting a more active approach to conflict management decreased the negative impact of role conflict on uncertainty. These findings suggest that individuals may be able to reduce the negative individual impact of role conflict in their environment by adopting positive behavioral styles while avoiding negative ones.

This paper considers whether negotiation outcomes and processes of groups of males and females differ. Previous research examining such differences has had mixed results, in part because of “cueing” effects contained in typical, high‐conflict negotiation cases. Low‐conflict negotiation cases, such as the one used in this study, provide an opportunity to observe a wider range of negotiation behaviors than are commonly revealed in negotiation research. Fifty advanced undergraduate students negotiated funding in a low‐conflict, public policy negotiation case. Analysis of the negotiated outcomes revealed that females allocated less than males. Content coding of audio transcripts revealed very different negotiation processes and styles underlying these different outcomes. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the existence of relational power which is derived from an indigenous Chinese construct – guanxi. The authors also test the hypotheses of relational power with two well established power sources (position and personal power) and their relationships with influence strategies (persuasive, assertive and relationship‐based).

The authors employed a mixed method approach. The survey study included 438 Chinese respondents whereas the follow‐up interview study included 17 managers from different industries, collected across main cities in China.

The analysis of the data from survey responses provides support for the authors' argument regarding the existence of relational power. Survey results showed that all three power sources predicted leaders' choices of influence strategies. The follow‐up qualitative findings from additional interviews with managers also shed interesting insights into the dynamics of different power sources.

The use of a convenience sample may limit the generalizability of the findings. Notwithstanding, the study contributes to the power literature by adding a new dimension to the existing power typology, thus helping us better understand how different power sources affect leaders' choices of influence strategies.

The study offers new insights to both practitioners and academicians, which is of growing importance because knowledge on power sources and understanding how it operates should help managers consciously cultivate desirable types of power. This study also shows the dynamics of guanxi, thus helping the Westerners better understand work relationships in China and understand why guanxi/relational power is effective here.

The paper integrates the power‐dependency theory and an indigenous Chinese construct – guanxi and empirically examines how the authors' proposed power source – relational power – affects leaders' choices of influence strategies. The paper argues that by adding this new power source to the power typology which has dominated the power literature for half a century can fully capture the sources of power embedded in an organizational setting, and generate practical implications on leader‐member interactions.