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Multi-party systems (MPS) comprise interdependent stakeholders (teams, organizations) that engage in complex interactions and negotiations. Building on the approach/inhibition theory of power, the self-enhancement strategy and on social interdependence theory, this study aims to understand the mediating role of attributions (i.e. perception of who/what is responsible for a certain outcome) in the relation between perceptions of the stakeholders’ power (i.e. self-perceptions of power, power ascribed to others and others’ perception of one’s own power) and their perceptions of intergroup climate and future collaborative intentions.

Data were collected from 30 groups (113 participants) that took part in five multi-party simulations concerning the negotiation of funds allocation among six stakeholders. The authors have evaluated attributions, intergroup climate and future collaborative intentions using questionnaires and different facets of systemic power were derived from a round-robin procedure.

Mixed models and multi-level mediation analyses were carried out, and the results show that self-attributed power and power attributed by others predict internal attributions, while power attributed to others predicts external attributions. Moreover, attributions mediate the relationship between perceived power and future collaborative intention, as well as between power and perceptions of intergroup climate.

Managing the multi-party systems is a complex endeavor, and the results point toward ways in which power dynamics in multi-party systems can be addressed.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first empirical attempts to explore the association between the perceptions of power and attributions in multi-party systems engaged in negotiation tasks.

This study aims to propose and test a model that examines the potential connections between two teacher situational variables (teacher immediacy and credibility) and three learner affective factors (motivation, attitudes and communication confidence) and to examine how such associations predict learners’ L2WTC (Foreign/second language willingness to communicate) in a language class via a comprehensive communication model to structurally verify the theoretically based associations among these variables.

In total, 214 females and 198 males took part in the study with age range between 19 and 38 years. Participants filled in a verified, translated Arabic version of the questionnaires using an online questionnaire. Data were gathered using questionnaires and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis and sequential mediation analysis using bootstrapping methods to identify and verify direct and indirect paths in the model.

The initial L2 communication structural model showed acceptable goodness of model fit. Teacher credibility and immediacy behaviors only indirectly predicted L2WTC through the mediation of affective variables. Motivation and communication confidence mediated the relationship between credibility and L2WTC, while the association between immediacy and L2WTC was mediated by communication confidence.

The findings of this study have important pedagogical implications globally for professions related to communication instruction, especially with regard to teacher credibility behaviors and particularly for practitioners and beneficiaries in EFL contexts where learners are widely acknowledged for their unwillingness to communicate in foreign language classes.

Over the past decade, the U.S. workforce has become increasingly diverse. In response, scholars and practitioners have sought to uncover ways to leverage this increasing diversity to enhance business performance. To date, research evidence has failed to provide consistent support for the value of diversity to organizational effectiveness. Accordingly, scholars have shifted their attention to diversity management as a means to fully realize the potential benefits of diversity in organizations. The principal aim of this chapter is to review the current wisdom on the study of diversity climate in organizations. Defined as the extent that employees view an organization as utilizing fair personnel practices and socially integrating all personnel into the work environment, diversity climate has been proposed as a catalyst for unlocking the full value of diversity in organizations. During our review, we discuss the existent individual- and aggregate-level research, describe the theoretical foundations of such work, summarize the key research findings and themes gleaned from work in each domain, and note the limitations of diversity climate research. Finally, we highlight the domains of uncertainty regarding diversity climate research, and offer recommendations for future work that can enhance knowledge of diversity climate effects on organizational outcomes.

This paper outlines a theoretical framework for studying the integration of ethnically diverse workforces in public service organizations. Individual and work group characteristics are viewed as determinants of social identity and organizational identification. Social Identity theory suggests that individuals develop self‐concept through identification with salient groups, including ethnic groups and organizational roles. The extent to which these identifications are competitive or synergistic may depend upon organizational and work group characteristics and on organizational policies concerning selection, performance appraisal, and rewards. Cross‐functional teamwork may provide an integrative mechanism which can promote intergroup relations and encourage greater organizational commitment among an ethnically diverse workforce. Cross‐functional teams can contribute to reduced intergroup conflict and promote the development of organizational identification. The benefits of cross‐functional teams will be particularly important in situations where the workforce is diverse, but work groups are ethnically homogeneous.

Despite more than half a century of academic research, relatively few methods have been shown to reliably improve intergroup relations in the real world. This paper aims to use a social marketing approach to design a pro-diversity intervention in a university setting.

We conducted extensive qualitative, quantitative and observational background research to identify elements that would increase the effectiveness of the intervention. Focus groups and surveys allowed us to identify a target audience, target behaviors and the relevant barriers and benefits.

The background research suggested increasing inclusive behavior would have a greater impact than reducing discriminatory behavior. Based on this research, this paper determined an optimal target audience was students who had relatively positive attitudes toward diversity but engaged in few inclusive behaviors. This paper used relevant theories from the behavioral sciences to design an intervention that promoted a small set of inclusive behaviors and that addressed the relevant barriers and benefits. The intervention took the form of a single page of targeted messages that instructors can add to their course syllabi. The page communicates injunctive and descriptive norms, highlights the benefits of behaving inclusively and provides concrete behavioral advice.

The research applies the social marketing approach to a novel domain. This approach represents a new way to advance diversity, equity and inclusion through promoting inclusive and reducing discriminatory behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a theory-driven intervention called VOICES that was developed to improve police-community relations. The intervention was designed based on principles derived from social psychological theories of intergroup contact and communication.

The authors discuss the theoretical basis for the intervention, as well as its development and implementation in the Santa Barbara Police Department. Based on this pilot testing, the authors provide preliminary evidence about its effectiveness using survey responses and qualitative feedback provided by participants.

Although the case study method used here does not allow for causal inferences about the effectiveness of the intervention, the limited evidence the authors present does suggest that participants found VOICES useful and it may have improved their perceptions of police. The next step will be to test this intervention using experimental or quasi-experimental methods that allow for causal inferences about effectiveness.

The paper shows how police can develop theory-driven interventions in an effort to improve trust between police and the public, including communities in which relationships with police have been historically strained. It also underscores how insights from the study of intergroup contact and communication can benefit policing.

This paper aims to identify the rudiments of an organizational communication framework which can serve as a facilitator of a positive diversity climate, which, in turn, could enhance the integration of locals into the expatriate-dominated workforce of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As UAE citizens constitute a small minority of the workforce, the local style of communication is not, ipso facto, the dominant one in organizations.

The study elicited 458 Emirati respondents’ narratives of positive and negative workplace communication experiences. The authors identified emerging themes to highlight the key features of interpersonal interactions likely to foster or hinder a supportive diversity climate.

The critical incidents reported are interpreted in terms of UAE cultural traditions, more specifically, the communication patterns valued by local workers.

Outside of the Arabian Gulf, there are perhaps no other national workforces that are so multicultural that local communication strategies are overshadowed. This research is, therefore, a pioneering attempt to re-establish a preference for indigenous communication practices to facilitate the workforce localization policies that are present in many Gulf countries.

The communication preferences identified could inform the implementation of an organizational communication model centered around indigenous communication preferences, including the communication strategies that would be most effective for organizational leadership to use. At the same time, this could contribute to the creation of a positive diversity climate that, in turn, could decrease levels of attrition among Emirati employees and enhance workforce localization.

This study represents an innovative attempt to construct a communication model around which a positive diversity climate can coalesce and, in so doing, it serves as an initial contribution to the management of diversity within the context of Arabian Gulf workplaces.

This study aims to investigate the role of minority dissent (MD) as an antecedent for task (TC) and relationship conflict (RC) in groups engaged in multiparty collaboration. The authors hypothesized that MD triggers both TC and RC and that the association between MD and RC is mediated by TC. Moreover, the authors hypothesized that the positive association between MD and RC is attenuated by social acceptance, while the positive association between TC and RC is attenuated by trust.

The authors have tested the hypotheses in 36 groups comprising in total 145 professionals that attended a two-day workshop on working across organizational boundaries and who filled in three surveys during a multiparty simulation. The authors used multilevel mediation analyses to test the hypotheses.

The results generally supported the role of MD as an antecedent for both TC and RC as well as the mediating role of TC in the relationship between MD and RC. The attenuating role of social acceptance in the relationship between MD and RC was fully supported, while the attenuating role of trust in the relationship between TC and RC was not supported.

This study is based on a rather small sample and used a cross-lagged data collection design, and no causal claims can be derived from the findings. Behavioral multiparty simulations create a realistic context in which the authors investigate the dynamics of conflict transformation and explore the interplay of MD, TC and RC.

As nowadays, multiparty systems are engaged in dealing with important societal challenges and because RC is detrimental for collaborative effectiveness, the results have important implications for facilitating effective collaboration in such complex systems.

This study makes an important contribution to the literature on conflict in multiparty systems by showing that as an antecedent of intragroup conflict, MD can have both a beneficial as well as a detrimental impact on the conflict dynamics of multiparty systems. It points out the importance of social acceptance as a buffer against the detrimental role of MD.

Managerial behavior has typically not been the lead variable in organizational change efforts. Change efforts have assumed that structure, strategy and work design changes will lead to new supervisory behaviors. The kinds of behaviors that are required of a manager in a high involvement organization are examined. It is suggested that managerial behavior is the primary change that is required to make a transition to a high involvement culture, and that it might be a suitable lead variable in the change sequence.