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A rapidly expanding body of literature on international mediation, as well as the central role international mediation plays in modern-day conflict resolution, make it necessary to review and analyze this vastly evolving field of study. This study seeks to review the most significant trends and debates in the literature on international mediation, with an emphasis on the literature of the past six years.

Reflecting Wall et al.'s staged conceptualization of the mediation process; this review essay is divided in three sections that cover the antecedents of mediation, possible mediation approaches, and the outcomes these approaches yield – making it possible to review and analyze the diverse sets of theories within the field of mediation, as well the various methodological approaches employed to test these theories.

Much research to date has focused on how international mediation in armed conflicts affects the likelihood of reaching a negotiated agreement, while other possible outcomes of mediation have been understudied. Accordingly, research needs to be done on the effects of mediation attempts that did not lead to a peace agreement, as well as the accumulative effect of peace agreements. Furthermore, the relation between negative peace and mediation has been studied extensively, but how mediation affects the degree of positive peace has received scant scholarly attention. Finally, the interlinkages between the different phases of the mediation process need to be examined more extensively.

This review identifies the state of the art knowledge concerning the international mediation process, which allows peacemakers to make informed decisions in order to prevent and resolve armed conflict in the twenty-first century.

This paper aims to examine how parental mediation of children's television viewing varies among urban and rural children in China.

A survey of 1,056 children ages 6 to 14 in nine Chinese provinces was conducted. Independent sample t‐tests were performed to make rural‐urban comparisons. Correlation analyses were provided on the relationships between parental mediation styles and children's television usage, and between parental mediation styles and children's purchase request.

The paper finds that urban parents engage in more instructive mediation and restrictive mediation than rural parents. Urban parents use restrictive mediation the more often, while rural parents use co‐viewing the more frequently. Only urban children's television viewing has a significantly positive relationship with co‐viewing with their parents. In general, children's purchase request is positively related to parental mediation styles in rural and urban China (except for restrictive mediation in rural areas).

The study is based on an analysis of secondary data. Future studies should adopt established scales of parental mediation styles for the Chinese context.

The findings should help public policy makers understand the dynamic parents‐children interactions with television, and help marketers find effective and efficient ways to reach young Chinese consumers.

The study represents a preliminary effort to examine the antecedents of television parental mediation, its occurrence, and its potential effects in the Chinese context.

This study aims to explore the factors whereby some international organizations (IOs) are more effective than others in international mediation and proposes three types of hypotheses through combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. First, IOs with greater institutional capabilities for gathering, exchanging and disseminating conflict-related information are more likely to mediate effectively. IO bias is another factor of influence in this regard. Second, IOs with greater institutional capabilities for deploying field missions and guaranteeing agreement are more likely to mediate effectively and maintain durable peace. Third, IOs with higher amounts of leverage are more likely to mediate effectively.

The study establishes two data sets: one on interstate conflict; the other on intrastate conflict, thus to cover as many research samples as possible and avoid sampling bias.

Results of the statistical analysis indicate that no matter interstate or intrastate conflict, IOs with higher institutional capabilities for diplomatic interventions are more likely to bring conflict parties to an agreement and thereafter maintain short-term peace. IOs with higher institutional capabilities for economic sanctions are similarly effective. Furthermore, IOs with greater institutional capabilities for field mission deployment mediate more effectively, whether in facilitating peace agreements or maintaining short-term and long-term peace after the agreement. IO bias and preference, however, have no significant impact on mediation effectiveness.

This study has made no in-depth explorations of such existing and important research areas as different third-party comparisons of the mediation effect.

This paper attempts to make some contributions to the topic of mediation effectiveness through applying a bargaining model to the research and performing a statistical analysis based on both an interstate conflict data set and an intrastate conflict data set.

This paper provides an in-depth causal analysis and thoroughgoing comparison of the effectiveness of IOs in both interstate conflicts and intrastate conflicts.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the link between three constructs, namely, service innovation, corporate reputation (CR), and word-of-mouth (hereinafter WOM). Primarily, the aim is to understand whether innovation in a service firm drives its reputation, thereby resulting in positive WOM where the direct effect of service innovation of a firm on WOM is mediated by reputation. Furthermore, the study also seeks to understand whether the type of service firm has an effect on determining the level of the mediation effect.

This study adopts an integrated approach where the measure for the construct service innovation is explored through a qualitative approach, and the conceptual model is estimated through path analysis. The service industry taken for this study is banking, and the through non-probability criterion sampling technique, 252 customers responded to their level of agreement. The PLS-SEM technique was used to estimate the path coefficient by following the two-stage approach. The multigroup moderation analysis is performed to determine whether the type of the bank plays a major role in determining the direct effects and the mediation effect of CR between service innovation and WOM.

The result of this study indicates that there is a strong positive association between the three constructs. Further, the direct relationship between service innovation and WOM is partially mediated by reputation. The result of the multigroup moderation indicates that the type of the bank plays a major role in determining the mediation effect of reputation.

The study helps the decision makers and the managers of the bank to understand that frequent innovation within the firm would help to gain reputation, and thereby customers would tend to give a positive WOM. Further, non-reputable firms can still gain a positive WOM if they continuously innovate new services. In the Indian context, it is noted that there is a difference between private and public banks in determining the mediation effect of reputation between service innovation and WOM.

The originality of the study is based on the following: development of a unique scale to measure service innovation in the banking industry overcoming the existing scales which are based on goods-dominant logic; estimating empirically the combined effect of service innovation and CR on WOM; the process of evaluating the moderated mediation effect; how the mediating effect of CR varies from private sector banks to public sector banks.

This paper aims to build on work that has demonstrated the value of play or game-based learning environments and to further unpack how different kinds of play activities can support learning of academic concepts. To do so, this paper explores how students learn complex science concepts through collective embodied play by comparing two forms of play labeled as Inquiry Play and Game Play.

This study builds off of previous research that uses the Science Through Technology Enhanced Play (STEP) technology platform (Authors et al., 2015). STEP is a mixed reality platform that allows learners to playfully explore science phenomena, such as the rules of particle behavior in solid, liquid and gas, through collective embodied activity. A combination of interaction analysis and qualitative coding of teacher and student interactions are used to examine patterns in the learning processes during embodied play activities.

Both forms of play led to similar learning gains. However, Inquiry Play promoted more emergent, flexible modeling of underlying mechanisms while Game Play oriented students more towards “winning”.

By contrasting play environments, this paper provides new insights into how different features of play activities, as well as how teachers orient their students according to these different features, support students’ learning in collective activity. As a result, these findings can provide insights into the design of future play-based learning environments that are intended to support the learning of academic concepts.

The paper aims to investigate why organizations often opt to reject Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)-sponsored mediation of employment disputes (in contrast to employees who tend to readily agree to it). It is guided by recent research associated with Shapiro and Kirkman’s (1999, 2001) theory of “anticipatory justice”, whereby (in)justice is anticipated, or expected, when people think about an event they have not yet experienced whose likely fairness they are questioning. In contrast, “organizational justice” reflects people’s retrospective assessments of how fair they have been treated to date.

The paper relied upon data made available by the mediation program administered by the US EEOC. The EEOC provided the names and contact information for the officially designated EEOC contacts for each dispute. The authors distributed surveys to each of these organizational representatives and received completed surveys from 492 organizations (a response rate of 85.8 per cent).

The authors tested the extent to which organizational representatives’ decision to accept or reject mediation as a means of settling discrimination claims is influenced by representatives’ expectation of more versus less fair treatments – by the opposing party as well as by the third-party mediator – during the mediation procedure. The pattern of findings in the study support all hypotheses and, thus, also the expectation-oriented theories that have guided them.

The study relies on self-reports. However, this concern is somewhat lessened because of the salience and recency of events to the time of surveying.

The paper provides new insights on the need for organizations to implement rules, policies and procedures to constrain decision-maker choices consistent with organizational goals. The authors offer specific procedural proposals to reduce this organizational tendency to reject mediation.

Employee grievances are costly to organizations in terms of finances, reputation and to the emotional climate of the organization. Moreover, it is similarly costly to employees. This study provides new insights to better understand why employees (as opposed to organizations) are almost three times more likely to elect mediation of employment disputes. As such, it offers some promising ideas to narrow that gap.

The paper investigates a little-studied phenomenon – the differential participation rate of employees versus organizations in EEOC-sponsored mediation.

Parents are seen to mediate media behavior of their children to protect them from negative and undesirable effects of advertising. In doing so, they either restrict TV viewing by children or actively discuss ad content with children. The nature of mediation strategy to be used depends upon the age of their children. The purpose of this study is to uncover the nature of mediation strategies used by mothers of younger and older children in India. The findings and implications of the study are further discussed.

Data were collected from three cities of Punjab state of India – Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana and its capital city of Chandigarh during the period November 2010 to June 2011. The mothers were the basic sampling unit for the present study as they are seen to be the primary caregivers for children. Parents of children in eight schools (two from each city), were approached through the schools. The children were asked to take the questionnaire home and get it filled by their mother. Parental mediation of food advertising was measured through a parental advertising mediation scale developed by Valkenburg et al.

The results of the present study reveal that mothers of Indian children resort to mediation of ads in general and food ads in particular. The nature of mediation is also governed by age of children. Mothers of older children primarily use active advertising mediation and mothers of younger children use restrictive mediation strategies. It is also seen that mothers mediate the exposure of food ads more strongly in younger children as compared to older children.

Although vast literature exists about parental mediation of advertising to children, hardly any study has been conducted in India to investigate the nature of parental mediation of advertising to children. The present study adds to the existing literature by delving into this aspect in the Indian settings. More so, as age of children is witnessed to affect nature of parental mediation, this study also sheds light on the way parents in India mediate exposure of children to TV ads.

The purpose of this paper is to link public relations to peacebuilding. Although scholarship has discussed public relations as relationship management, the nexus between public relations and peace building has been understudied. To address this deficiency, this research studies the negotiations between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP separatist group that lead to the landmark peace treaty between the two entities that had fought for over five decades with thousands of deaths. Three research questions addressed the communication factors that contributed to the two sworn enemies – FARC-EP and the Colombian Government – finally sealing a peace agreement; the specific public relations strategies and techniques that led to relationship building between the two sides leading to the landmark peace agreement; and the use of the indicators of relationship building proposed by scholarship in the negotiations between the Colombian Government and FARC-EP.

The case study method was used and a purposive sample of news reports from three national newspapers at specific key dates yielding a final sample consisted of 504 articles was analysed. A codebook with deductive and inductive categories was developed specially to study the existing communication factors (RQ1), public relations strategies and techniques (RQ2), as well as contributions by relationship indicators (RQ3). Given the sensitivity of the issues, only secondary data could be relied upon for this study.

The results of RQ1 fall within the scope of Grunig’s (2001), Sriramesh’s (1992) and Hung’s (2001) notion of the personal influence model where the leveraging of individuals’ network is important to facilitate communication. Indeed, the relations already existing and established with third parties are revealed to be fundamental to the success of the negotiation process. As for RQ2, findings demonstrate that the Colombian Government used third-party mediation, principled and distributive strategies, while FARC-EP mainly used contending strategies. But results showed that both used compromising during the whole process, and that both transitioned from one-way asymmetrical strategies, such as principled or contending towards compromising along the peace talks. Finally, findings demonstrate evidence of the four indicators of the relationship and their link with public relations techniques. The most evidenced indicators of the relationship were trust, commitment and control mutuality. Trust was the indicator of the relationship the most evidenced in the Colombian case. The dimension was built during the whole process and evolved continually. Distrust was the total between the two enemies at the beginning of the pre-negotiation. However, as parties entered into a relationship, confidence and trust increased.

The inability to obtain primary data is the major limitation of this study. It was caused by the sensitivity of the topic.

This study links public relations to a very practical case that is also vastly understudied/underreported – peacemaking/peacebuilding – while also addressing communication by governments and civil society in Latin America – an area that is largely understudied.

This is the first study that links public relations with peacebuilding.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of trust in the relationship between knowledge management enablers (i.e. top management support, organizational culture, knowledge management system quality, and openness in communication) on knowledge sharing in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan.

The study was conducted through self-administered survey of employees of SMEs in Pakistan. Correlation, Baron and Kenny approach (causal steps approach) and PROCESS Macro (normal test theory) developed by Hayes were used to find out the direct and indirect effects of trust among knowledge management enablers and knowledge sharing.

The results have shown that trust of employees at SMEs was developed through knowledge management enablers which promote knowledge sharing. Therefore, the relationship between knowledge management enablers, trust, and knowledge sharing is positive.

The current study only considered the single aspect of knowledge management system, i.e. knowledge sharing; some other aspects of knowledge management system such as knowledge creation and knowledge utilization can be used for future studies at SMEs sector.

The mediation of trust between top management support, culture, openness in communication, and knowledge sharing provided that trustworthy relationships between the members of an organization would lead to enhance the knowledge sharing activities. In order to promote the knowledge sharing attitudes within the organization, the managers should consider knowledge management enablers (top management support, organizational culture, and openness in communication) along with trustworthy environment as an energetic force for the development of knowledge management systems.

The study confirmed the mediating effect of trust between the relationships of top management support, organizational culture, openness in communication, and knowledge sharing, while there is a partial mediating role of trust between knowledge management system quality and knowledge sharing.

This paper aims to critique the rationalist theoretical framework of international mediation, which ignores emotions in analyzing the decision by conflict parties to pursue a negotiated settlement or continue fighting, and to present an alternative framework that integrates emotions.

The paper draws on psychology research on emotions and conflict to develop an emotionally informed framework for analyzing conflict parties’ decision-making regarding a settlement. It demonstrates the framework’s validity and value through a case study of the 2000 Camp David mediation to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

A rationalist approach to mediation does not have adequate explanatory and predictive power theoretically. In practice, it can reduce the prospect of success.

The paper highlights the necessity for mediation researchers to study the effects of emotion, draw on psychology studies on conflict and explore the emotional implications of different mediation strategies and tactics.

The framework highlights the challenge of designing and conducting mediation in a way that cultivates emotions favorable to a settlement and lessens emotions unfavorable to a settlement.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to critique the rationalist framework of international mediation studies and develop an alternative framework that integrates emotions.