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Despite best intentions, mergers and acquisitions often do not live up to the expectations for performance. This study examined how the salience of multiple identities creates dynamics in postmerger integration processes and how these dynamics influence the acquisition of the target's capabilities.

The authors conducted an in-depth case study of a large American consumer goods multinational corporation's acquisition of a family-owned German beauty business and examined responses to decisions and events during the postmerger integration process.

The results show how and why efforts to acquire unique target capabilities might not deliver the hoped-for results. The authors discovered multiple identities that became salient during the postmerger integration process which subsequently influenced interpretations and reactions to decisions and events and which created intergroup dynamics. The authors also noted the role of language in making these identities salient. Such dynamics pose challenges to managing the postmerger integration process and to acquiring sought after capabilities.

This study reveals how different identities become salient in the interpretation of particular events and decisions, resulting in emotional and behavioral reactions and intergroup dynamics. Furthermore, it uncovers the role of language in making identities salient. This study offers further insight into identity dynamics when the capability of the target firm is the motive of the acquisition.

Interorganizational collaboration has been a major source of exploratory innovation. Despite much research, the authors’ understanding about how partner cultural distance is harnessed for exploratory innovation is limited. The authors’ conceptual framework aims to address this gap by explaining the social-psychological processes between perceived partner cultural distance and exploratory innovation.

Drawing on research in organizational learning and culture mixing, the authors propose a multilevel model with two parallel processes – cultural brokering and cultural defense. If managers are engaged in the former and are protected from the latter, then the partnership will produce more exploratory innovation. Cultural brokering is encouraged by prompting a learning mindset, while cultural defense is preempted by dampening social categorization across organizational boundaries.

Cultural brokering can be encouraged by building operational-level managers' (OLMs') collaborative strength through developing a learning orientation, allowing them delivery for exploration, cultivating mutual trust with partners. Cultural defense can be preempted by protecting OLMs from intergroup anxieties through providing organizational support to the OLMs, bridging social categorization faultlines and setting shared collaborative goals. Whether an alliance can unleash its potential depends on not just how cultural brokering is enabled but also how cultural defense is curtailed.

This paper takes a microfoundational approach and considers micro-level processes in a partnership. Furthermore, the model takes the operational managers' perspective and defines culture at the organizational level. All these differences allow us to provide a nuanced picture of how diverse partnerships can be harnessed for exploratory innovation through a few easily-implementable measures.

The study directs attention to the psychological conditions experienced and knowledge management practices leveraged by faculty in higher education institutes (HEIs) to cope with the shift to emergency remote teaching caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. By focusing attention on faculty experiences during this transition, this study aims to examine an under-investigated effect of the pandemic in the Indian context.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis is used to analyze the data gathered in two waves through 40 in-depth interviews with 20 faculty members based in India over a year. The data were analyzed deductively using Kahn’s framework of engagement and robust coding protocols.

Eight subthemes across three psychological conditions (meaningfulness, availability and safety) were developed to discourse faculty experiences and challenges with emergency remote teaching related to their learning, identity, leveraged resources and support received from their employing educational institutes. The findings also present the coping strategies and knowledge management-related practices that the faculty used to adjust to each discussed challenge.

The study uses a longitudinal design and phenomenology as the analytical method, which offers a significant methodological contribution to the extant literature. Further, the study’s use of Kahn’s model to examine the faculty members’ transitions to emergency remote teaching in India offers novel insights into the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on educational institutes in an under-investigated context.

This paper aims to present a new survey data set of 9,065 private sector respondents and other stakeholder groups, in Myanmar. The primary aim of this paper is to offer new insight avenues on local business–conflict–development interactions, and offer the full survey data set itself as an open-source research tool for scholars and practitioners.

The survey was conducted over smartphone in 2018. It asked questions that aimed to better understand the relationships between business, ethnic conflict, investment, corporate social responsibility and the United Nations sustainable development goals in Myanmar and in Rakhine State in particular.

The data set captures a series of significant differences in corporate leadership perspectives on the role of business in society, across sectors (e.g. banking, agriculture, retail, manufacturing, extractives) and variations across firm country of ownership (e.g. national firms, Global North firms, Indian firms, Chinese firms).

The authors conclude with a brief discussion of possible research findings from the survey, offering suggestions for possible forward analysis. The authors offer here the raw survey data as an attachment for full global open-source use and application.

This data set offers a unique window into stakeholder perceptions and understandings of working through conflict, and the role of business in development in a fragile conflict-affected state (Myanmar). The authors also conduct two example analyses of the data set using ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis tests to illustrate possible uses and findings of the data set.

The authors briefly discuss social implications as well, particularly regarding the role of business in peacebuilding and development.

This data set offers a unique window into stakeholder perceptions and understandings of working through conflict, and the role of business in development in a fragile conflict-affected state (Myanmar). The authors also conduct two example analyses of the data set using ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis tests to illustrate possible uses and findings of the data set.

For a long time, researchers have stressed the importance of identity for collaborative supply relationships. Accordingly, it has been proposed that supply relationships may be efficiently managed by establishing a shared collective identity among partners. However, this strategy may challenge the partners' individual distinctiveness and thus lead to adversarial relationship outcomes. In this article, it is argued how and when establishing an intergroup relational identity may be a better choice than building a collective identity.

The conceptual research is based on an analysis of previous literature. Relational identity theorizing and the theory of intergroup leadership are applied to build on and extend previous views on identity in interorganizational contexts.

It is proposed that when supply chain actors are subject to identity threats in collaborative supply relationships, such threats are driven by the imbalance of power between or among the parties. Therefore, establishing an intergroup relational identity should be preferred over a collective identity in situations characterized by a high identity threat.

Future studies could support this article's theoretical suggestions with empirical evidence.

Intergroup relational identity preserves the distinctiveness of all parties involved in a collaborative relationship and is based on their individual contributions. Managers could support a collaborative environment and promote a shared vision between or among organizations through appropriate rhetoric.

This study contributes to an understanding of the relational aspects of interorganizational behavior by adapting social psychological theories to this area of research.

The purpose of this study is to explore whether a group dynamics perspective still exists in the scientific study of groups and what factors may account for the current situation.

Alongside reflections based on my professional experience, I have analyzed the main academic journals that publish group research.

A group dynamics perspective is almost totally absent in the scientific study of groups. Contributing factors to this state of affairs are disciplinary developments in psychology (e.g. individualization, experimentalization and specialization), the demise of the status of psychoanalysis, changes in the meaning and manifestation of the “group,” and effects of New Public Management.

The study offers a critical perspective on current group research practices and considers these in a larger (social and historical) context. It advocates a group dynamics perspective for the study of groups, based on systems-psychodynamic insights.

This study aims to shed light on the relationship between gender diversity and group performance by considering the moderating role of relative cultural distance. Drawing from the categorization–elaboration model (CEM), the authors hypothesize that gender-diverse collaborative learning groups perform better when a low level of relative cultural distance in country-level individualism–collectivism or power distance exists among group members.

To test this hypothesis, the authors conducted a study on 539 undergraduate students organized into 94 groups. The assessment of group performance was based on scores given by external raters.

The authors found that relative cultural distance significantly moderated the gender diversity–group performance relationship such that gender diversity was positively related to group performance when the collaborative learning group included members who similarly valued individualism–collectivism or power distance (i.e. relative cultural distance was low) and was negatively related to group performance when the collaborative learning group comprised members who differently valued individualism–collectivism or power distance (i.e. relative cultural distance was high).

This study contributes to understanding when gender diversity is positively associated with group performance by expanding the range of previously examined diversity dimensions to include relative cultural distance in country-level individualism–collectivism and power distance.

This qualitative study explores how trailing spouses form their relationships before and after a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic and what patterns can be observed. It explores their significant relationships with friends and extended family, focusing on dynamics and change.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with seven trailing spouses in Malaysia: before the pandemic, in the beginning and at the end of the first year of the pandemic. The authors used longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis (LIPA).

Being aware of the limits of resources emerged as a key factor in how trailing spouses develop and maintain relationships with friends and extended family. The fact that the pandemic changed the dynamics of their social networks illuminates how crucial these relationships or their absence are in their adjustment and readjustment process. Children play a significant role in these relationships.

Comparative research into the friendships and relationships of different groups of trailing spouses in various locations could capture more specificity of the relationship dynamics.

The explored patterns can promote a better understanding of the relationship dynamics of trailing spouses' networks, which can, in turn, support and facilitate both adjustment and repatriation processes. They can help explain how and what kind of social networks best support trailing spouse transition during a time of crisis or adjustment. These findings could be incorporated into intercultural training programs.

No current study that the authors know of has explored trailing spouses' relationship dynamics in a longitudinal study before and during a crisis.

The study aims to explain the communicative basis of conflicts in which actors stand in opposition in defining a negotiated situation and to deepen knowledge of environmental conflict development, in particular on how frames are (re)shaped through discursive choices in interaction.

This study adopts an interactional approach to framing and 1) identifies the frames shaped and reshaped in four environmental debates and 2) analyzes how framing activities affect the course of the debates.

This study contributes to understanding 1) the interactive nature of conflicts; 2) how the reception and interpretation of issue framing depends on the surrounding identity and characterization framing and 3) how framing activities, like identity work, emotional alignment and reframing, can affect the course of environmental debates toward polarizing or bridging.

On a methodological level, this study contributes to communication research by applying methodologies for investigating framing processes on a micro-level. This study investigates interactional framing, considering the perspectives of frame strategists engaging in issue arenas. The study provides an in-depth discourse analysis of the debates but lacks an overview on the entire issue arena regarding this conflict.

Skilled actors span boundaries by articulating issue frames that accommodate opponents' concerns and values while demonstrating the added value of the new frame, adjusting identity work in favor of relations with opponents. Furthermore, calibrating emotional intensity offers opportunities to mobilize support.

This research investigates which communicative competences are essential to act adequately in environmental conflicts, given their intractable nature, and suggests opportunities for cocreation by making discursive choices. This approach helps to uncover the micro-processes that escalate and de-escalate a conflict.

Research consistently shows that non-scientific bias, equity, and diversity trainings do not work, and often make bias and diversity problems worse. Despite these widespread failures, there is considerable reason for hope that effective, meaningful DEI efforts can be developed. One approach in particular, the bias habit-breaking training, has 15 years of experimental evidence demonstrating its widespread effectiveness and efficacy.

This article discusses bias, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts from the author’s perspective as a scientist–practitioner – the author draws primarily on the scientific literature, but also integrates insights from practical experiences working in DEI. The author provides a roadmap for adapting effective, evidence-based approaches from other disciplines (e.g. cognitive-behavioral therapy) into the DEI context and review evidence related to the bias habit-breaking training, as one prominent demonstration of a scientifically-validated approach that effects lasting, meaningful improvements on DEI issues within both individuals and institutions.

DEI trainings fail due to widespread adoption of the information deficit model, which is well-known as a highly ineffective approach. Empowerment-based approaches, in contrast, are highly promising for making meaningful, lasting changes in the DEI realm. Evidence indicates that the bias habit-breaking training is effective at empowering individuals as agents of change to reduce bias, create inclusion, and promote equity, both within themselves and the social contexts they inhabit.

In contrast to the considerable despair and pessimism around DEI efforts, the present analysis provides hope and optimism, and an empirically-validated path forward, to develop and test DEI approaches that empower individuals as agents of change.