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This article describes advances in the study of knowledge transfer (KT) in project-based organizations (PBOs). Project management offices (PMOs) have both a moderation role and a mediation role to play in KT between projects. In order to improve KT between projects, this paper explores the mediation role of the PMO in the transfer of knowledge with different levels of articulability. The aim is to improve the usability of transferred knowledge.

The case study method was used to investigate KT in five-divisional PMOs within a multinational engineering and project management PBO. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted and the results were analysed using ATLAS.Ti (a computer-aided qualitative data analysis software).

The findings show that it is the way in which the PMO structures knowledge management (KM) infrastructure and processes, which determines the success of its mediation role in the transfer of tacit and explicit knowledge between projects. The articulability of knowledge influences the PMO's mediation role and the PMO's mediation role in turn improves the usability of knowledge, thereby creating a conducive environment for a competitive advantage.

This study offers a framework to assist scholars and practitioners to understand the mediation role of the PMO in the transfer of knowledge with different levels of articulability within the projects environment. Such understanding can improve the usability of transferred knowledge, thereby creating a competitive edge for a PBO. The study shows that the PMO can be used as an instrument for KT between projects, a theme that was not found in literature. The paper thus offers new empirical information.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the different roles and natures of objects in organizational process. Furthermore, the concept of the mediation object is developed to understand how the objects help to structure interactions and collective activities over time.

The paper employs data from a case study (the Pupitre Virtuel) in order to highlight and illustrate the relevance of a process analysis of the roles and natures of objects.

The paper demonstrates that the roles and natures of objects evolve over time through controversies and compromises. On one hand, the evolution of interactions drives the evolution of the roles and natures of objects. On the other, the evolution of objects help the actors to structure their interactions and activities.

The paper argues that, rather than a static analysis, human‐object interaction needs to be understood and observed through a process analysis, taking into account the evolution of objects and interactions. This paper shows that mediation objects can play three roles – as carriers of controversies, of compromises, and of prescriptions – and that it can appear in one of three aspects – interpretable, modifiable, and non‐interpretable/non‐modifiable.

This paper aims to, using the concept of “modes of mediation”, examine how different roles for accountants are “made present” in an Egyptian manufacturing company. The paper introduces the notion of “modes of mediation” as a different perspective for the opposing popular archetypes of accountants: “bean-counter” versus “business partner”. Modes of mediation emphasise the materiality of artefacts, entities and technologies, as well as organisational space and spatial settings.

The paper draws on a field study in an Egyptian manufacturing company where accountants are engaged as business partners and involved in operations planning and decision-making. The data were collected over a period of four years through participant observation, interviews and ethnographic techniques.

The paper reveals the relational nature of accountants’ calculative agency and shows how roles of accountants are intimately associated with a web of technologies and artefacts, as well as spatial working arrangements that represent particular “modes of mediation”.

The concept of “modes of mediation”, which is still under-explored in the role change literature, is useful in studying the roles of accountants. It enriches our understanding of the wider involvement of accountants in business decision-making that goes beyond the major drivers of role change and deliberate interventions discussed in the existing literature.

The paper contributes to the literature on role change by drawing attention to the way in which different modes of mediation, involving certain material and spatial arrangements, enact different forms of calculative agency. Minor alteration to these arrangements can result in a wider involvement of accountants in business decision-making.

This paper aims to examine how the law may play a role in mediation by paying special attention to how the law is excluded from and included in the process of court mediation in China.

Hundred model court mediation cases selected by the Supreme People’s Court of China were analysed and reviewed.

The law is relevant in Chinese-style court mediation in four ways: first, judge-mediators are intended to use mediation to avoid resolving legal difficulties or challenges; second, judge-mediators consult the law to anticipate the losing party and the potential negative effects that might result from the adjudication; third, judge-mediators refer to the law to propose a mediation scheme or plan to guide the parties to settle; and fourth, judge-mediators would use the law as a bargaining chip in various ways to induce the parties to settle.

Standards should be set out for the use of law in the mediation process to standardise judge-mediators’ actions, to ensure that the law is not used coercively to push settlement, which would undermine the parties’ self-determination in mediation.

This paper provides an original understanding of how law affects the process, the outcomes and, ultimately, the nature of settlements that parties achieve through court mediation in China. This study contributes to the literature that argues that ethical norms and legal standards should be set to direct those legal evaluations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the interaction between internal factors of corporate governance, especially the relationship between equity checks and balances and corporate social responsibility (CSR), and further analyze the mediating of green innovation performance and the moderating role of environmental uncertainty.

This study adopts a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2012 to 2020 constructed a regulated mediation effect model, empirically tests the impact of equity checks and balances on CSR and the mediation and mediator roles of green innovation performance and environmental uncertainty.

(1) Equity checks and balances among shareholders have a significant positive impact on CSR. (2) Equity checks and balances have a positive impact on green innovation performance, green innovation performance has a positive impact on CSR and green innovation performance plays a partial mediation effect between equity checks and balances and CSR. (3) Additionally, environmental uncertainty not only moderates the relationship between Green Innovation Performance and CSR but also moderates the direct effect between equity balance and CSR, which verifies the existence of a moderated mediation effect.

The study only considers listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets as the research sample and does not include unlisted and gem enterprises.

The present research can offer some managerial implications about implementing equity checks and balances among shareholders, actively fulfilling CSR and developing new products.

This study complements previous studies on the role of green innovation in corporate governance by exploring the impact of green innovation on equity checks and balances and CSR. And this study explores the dynamic moderating of environmental uncertainty within enterprises and provides another explanation for the mixed results of equity checks and balances, green innovation performance and CSR.

By demonstrating the influence of the ownership structure of A-shares listed companies on CSR, this paper provides a new and comprehensive theoretical framework to examine the interaction between equity checks and balances, green innovation performance, environmental uncertainty and CSR. The results can be used as a reference for corporate governance, improving innovation performance and fulfilling CSR.

The intent of the research reported in this paper was to add to our understanding of the factors which affect a participant's beliefs concerning whether he/she has been fairly treated within a dispute mediation. A study was conducted using role‐play mediations involving peer‐mediators with undergraduate students posing as roommates experiencing a conflict. Approximately 2 weeks after the mediations, 25 of the disputant‐subjects met with one of the researchers to review a video tape of their particular mediation and discuss the communication which occurred The results of those interviews are presented and discussed in terms of their implications for procedural justice theory and the conduct of interpersonal dispute mediations.

The purpose of the paper is to provide a quantitative analysis of existing research comparing perceptions about male and female mediators to understand better the extent a mediator's gender is related to the disputing individuals' view of the mediation.

Several databases were searched extensively (1967‐2007) for relevant research studies and articles reporting disputant perceptions and mediator gender. Unpublished research was solicited from dissertations, the internet, as well as directly from authors. Articles were screened; those meeting predetermined criteria were included in the meta‐analysis.

Existing studies indicated that male mediators were perceived more favorably than their female counterparts were.

Despite a very extensive search of existing studies, only five contained the information necessary for this meta‐analytic review.

The results suggest that additional barriers and challenges exist for women, compared to men, in the world of mediation. Considering both the significant results and the lack of existing research on the topic, further research is clearly needed for more definitive advice regarding the training and practice of mediation.

Current textbooks and research on mediation have extremely limited or no information on the role of the gender of the mediators. While gender differences have been researched in regards to negotiation and negotiators, this paper systematically considers perceptions about male and female mediators.

This paper aims to explore the role of frontline employees (FLEs) as mediators in transformative service processes within services targeting vulnerable users.

This paper is based on a case study of the development and implementation of a dementia village, and the data consist of documents, in-depth interviews and field observations.

The analysis identifies FLEs as mediators in six different roles. These roles highlight how FLEs perform as mediators, acting in between and for vulnerable users and thus supporting their well-being. Specifically, the roles explicate the mediating role of FLEs in the design and planning of transformative changes and in daily work practices.

The different mediating roles of FLEs presented here should inform care providers and managers of how employees can become assets for supporting vulnerable users’ well-being during the design and planning stages of transformative change and through daily service work.

This paper offers novel insights into the multifaceted roles of FLEs in transformative services. The findings add to the current debate on mediation in transformative services and contribute to the literature by extending and refining the established conceptual and empirical understandings of the role of transformative service mediators in consumers’ well-being.

Over the past decade there has been an upsurge of interest in the study of mediation. Much of the current interest is the consequence of mediation's apparent success in the management of labor‐management conflicts. It is suggested here that a critical examination of mandated mediation—a long standing, but neglected part of negotiation under the Railway Labor Act of 1926—can make substantive contributions to the development of mediation theory. This paper proposes a conceptual model for understanding context, process, and outcome constraints on the performance of mandated mediation.