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The purpose of this paper is to examine the differential effect of reciprocal and negotiated social exchanges in establishing workplace relationship cohesion, providing a mediating influence between social constructed initiatives (i.e. internal socialization and support) and internal customers’ psychological connectedness.

Data were gathered via a national online survey of service employees in Australia, representing a diverse range of service industries (e.g. retail (food/non-food), health, financial, administrative support, real estate, household, insurance, education and training, etc.).

Reciprocal-exchange relationship quality fully mediates the relationship between internal socialization and psychological connectedness; and negotiated-exchange relationship quality partially mediates the relationship between internal support and psychological connectedness of internal customers.

While the findings reported herein support the salience of interpersonal relationship quality enhancing the internal performance of the organization, it is essential to consider how the findings link to externally perceived performance (i.e. from the customer’s perspective). Future research is guided by a framework that the authors propose as a result of the study’s findings to facilitate research in this under-researched area.

The development of sound socially relevant internal marketing strategies is vital to the long-term health and prosperity of the firm and its internal counterparts necessitating a move beyond transactional internal marketing, reflecting “pay for service” organizational thinking.

The examination of internal relationship cohesion and how this effects internal customers’ allegiance to their organizations addresses an important research gap and, thus, provides a significant contribution to both theory and practice.

The relationship between intergroup conflict and intragroup cohesion is a longstanding concern in sociology and related disciplines. Past work suggests that intergroup conflict shapes emotional bonds between group members, promotes in-group and out-group stereotyping, encourages self-sacrifice for the group, and changes the social structure of groups. Conflict thus plays an important structural role in organizing social interaction. Although sociologists contributed much to the beginnings of this research tradition, sociological attention to the conflict–cohesion link has waned in recent decades. We contend that despite advances in our understanding of the conflict–cohesion hypothesis, more remains to be done, and sociologists are especially equipped to tackle these unanswered questions. As such, we encourage sociologists to revisit the study of intergroup conflict and intragroup cohesion and offer some possibilities for furthering our understanding of this phenomenon. After reviewing and evaluating the relevant literatures on the conflict–cohesion hypothesis, we consider ways in which a broad range of current theories from the group process tradition – including theories of status, exchange, justice, identity, and emotion – could contribute to understanding the conflict–cohesion hypothesis and how those theories could benefit from considering the conflict–cohesion hypothesis. In doing so, we make a case for the continuing importance of sociology in explaining the link between intergroup conflict and intragroup cohesion.

This study aims to construct a theory of multi-dimensional organizational innovation cultures and innovation performance in transitional economies and explore the moderating effect of team cohesion on this theoretical relationship.

Using data collected from 175 manufacturing firms in transitional economies, this study constructs a new theory framework of multi-dimensional organizational innovation cultures (knowledge sharing, organizational innovation atmosphere, team decision-making and organizational change) and firms’ innovation performance and also explores the moderating effect of team cohesion on this theoretical relationship.

The findings show that there are positive relationships between knowledge sharing, organizational innovation atmosphere, team decision-making, organizational change and innovation performance of firms. Furthermore, team cohesion plays a positive moderating role in this relationship.

It extends the general understanding of multi-dimensional organizational cultures management in the context of transition economies by exploring the differences between the Chinese and Vietnamese firms in terms of the impact of organizational innovation culture on innovation performance.

This study constructs a new theory framework of multi-dimensional organizational innovation cultures along the four dimensions of knowledge sharing, organizational innovation atmosphere, team decision-making and organizational change. These factors together have rarely been examined before. Hence, the findings extend existing research on organizational cultures management. Moreover, a new idea for this study is that the authors consider team cohesion as a moderating variable between organizational innovation culture and innovation performance of firms, hence providing both theoretical discussion and empirical validation of the impact of team cohesion on this relationship. It thus extends existing research on the team theory.

With extant research on the relationship between trust and effectiveness being inconclusive, the present study attempts to create a foundational investigation that examines the role of multiple mediators in the team trust – team effectiveness relationship. The authors identified the two emergent states of cohesion and satisfaction as intervening variables in the team trust – team effectiveness relationship, and tested this multi-mediation proposed model, within an interdependence theory perspective.

MBA students at a large university in the southwestern USA were administered two waves of paper-based surveys, which were assigned to project groups. Individuals had been assigned to groups with the intent of maximizing diversity of age, gender, functional background, industry experience, and undergraduate major for each team (this is a goal of the MBA program, not the researchers). The first wave was administered one week after the groups had been formed and after all group members had met in their groups at least once. The second wave of surveys was administered at the end of the semester after the groups had been working together for three months and had completed their final projects.

The results of the multiple mediation analysis found support for the hypotheses that cohesion and satisfaction serve as dual mediators of the trust – team effectiveness relationship.

This study examined how trust operates through other variables to affect team performance. Two important variables that have been shown to be affected by trust are cohesion and satisfaction. Utilizing interdependence theory, the relationship of team trust and team performance was investigated through the intervening variables of cohesion and satisfaction, as both have been shown to possess properties that potentially represent different aspects of the interdependent relationship between team members. Therefore, this study examines how trust impacts team performance though the dual mediators of cohesion and satisfaction, in efforts to develop a more informed and theoretically grounded understanding of team performance and effectiveness processes.

In this paper, extending the research on the positive effects of marketing channel conflicts, this paper aims to examine how functional and dysfunctional conflicts influence channel innovation capability by triggering channel cohesion and investigate the moderating role of a distributor’s network structure.

Based on social network theory and Coser’s conflict theory, this paper develops a framework, tested using Chinese manufacturers’ data, which incorporated six key variables, namely, functional conflict, dysfunctional conflict, channel cohesion, channel innovation capability, network density and network centrality.

The empirical results revealed that functional conflict can arouse channel cohesion and that distributor network density and centrality positively moderates this relationship; dysfunctional conflict negatively affects channel cohesion, but distributor network density negatively moderates this relationship; channel cohesion had a mediating effect on the relationship between channel conflict and channel innovation capability.

This paper contributes to the research on channel conflict by incorporating the entire channel system’s innovation capability as a positive consequence of channel conflict and expands the channel conflict literature that adopts a network structure perspective.

This chapter analyzes the ways that individuals develop person-to-group ties. The chapter reviews the development and evidentiary basis of the theory of relational cohesion, the affect theory of social exchange, and the theory of social commitments.

We survey twenty-five years of published literature on these theories, and review unpublished theoretical tests and extensions that are currently in progress.

The research program has grown substantially over the past twenty-five years to encompass more varied and diverse phenomena. The findings indicate that structural interdependencies, repeated exchanges, and a sense of shared responsibility are key conditions for people to develop affective ties to groups, organizations, and even nation-states.

The research implies that if people are engaged in joint tasks, they attribute positive or negative feelings from those tasks to their local groups (teams, departments) and/or to larger organizations (companies, communities). To date, empirical tests have focused on microlevel processes.

Our work has practical implications for how managers or supervisors organize tasks and work routines in a way to maximize group or organizational commitment.

This research helps to understand problems of fragmentation that are faced by decentralized organizations and also how these can be overcome.

The chapter represents the most complete and comprehensive review of the theory of relational cohesion, the affect theory of social exchange, and the theory of social commitments to date.

Although existing research on cohesion provides a robust understanding of the emergent phenomenon in small groups and teams, our comprehension of cohesion at the multisystem (MTS) level is quite limited. The simultaneous within- and between-team functioning inherent in MTSs produces more intricate dynamics than those observed at the team level. This added layer of complexity requires that many familiar team constructs, including cohesion, be systematically re-conceptualized and empirically examined through the lens of MTS theory (DeChurch & Zaccaro, 2010; Hackman, 2003). The present research addresses this gap by extending the conceptualization of team cohesion to the interteam level, and empirically investigating how cohesion functions across levels in a collective network of teams. Results from preliminary research suggest that intrateam and interteam cohesion share a curvilinear relationship with one another, while simultaneously interacting to affect overall system-level outcomes. This research not only illuminates the complexities associated with emergent phenomena in MTSs, but also serves as a starting point for continued, systematic research of the multilevel cohesive bonds that characterize MTS functioning.

Relational cohesion theory posits that relational cohesion helps build relationships among communication partners, implying that users would expect a growth in relations or making more friends in the future. However, little is known about expectancy of a better future state of relations, i.e. expectancy of relational growth, and its impact on users' continued engagement in online communication. Our study extends relational cohesion theory to explain how expectancy of relational growth impacts online gamer loyalty.

We test the framework using structural equation modeling to analyze a large sample of 1,429 responses from online gamers.

We find that expectancy of relational growth is positively related to norm compliance and relational cohesion, which are further related to network convergence and interdependence, fostering online gamer loyalty.

The findings contribute to relational cohesion theory by identifying novel sources of relational cohesion, i.e. expectancy of relational growth and norm compliance. Hence, game providers should create gamers' expectancy of growth in online relationships. Such expectancy could motivate continued gaming communication, even when gamers are not satisfied with the current state of online relationships. Moreover, we propose the new concept of expectancy of relational growth, which should have a strong impact on online communication in various areas.

In recent decades, research across the social sciences has linked higher income inequality to poorer health and social outcomes in advanced market democracies. According to general theories, this relationship is mediated by social cohesion; an absence of which is said to be the cause behind such poor outcomes. This article aims to examine the first step in this theory by exploring whether there is an empirical relationship between income inequality and social cohesion.

To achieve this, social cohesion is operationalized as 18 variables across six unique dimensions of social cohesion. Subsequently, the relationship between each variable and inequality is tested in a range of statistical models that include two measures of income inequality, numerous control variables and a range of different country samples.

The relationship between inequality and social cohesion is found to be problematic, with significant associations for some dimensions but not for others. Further, the relationship between social cohesion and inequality is dependent on the measure of inequality used, whether other variables are controlled for and the number of countries in the sample. To explain this paradox, a distinction is made between “horizontal” and “vertical” social relations.

This article argues that research into the health and social effects of income inequality has thus far largely failed to address the causal mechanisms by which negative outcomes are purportedly produced. By empirically examining the links between inequality and one of these hypothesized mechanisms, social cohesion, it is shown that there are relationships between inequality and some dimensions of social cohesion, but not between others. This suggests that the income inequality-social cohesion hypothesis is more complex than has hitherto been implied.