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This study aims to investigate how small talk interaction affects knowledge sharing, examining the mediating role of interpersonal trust (affect- and cognition-based trust) and the moderating role of perceived similarity among the mechanisms of small talk and knowledge sharing.

This research conducts complementary studies and collects multi-culture and multi-wave data to test research hypotheses and adopts structural equation modeling to validate the whole conceptual model.

The research findings first reveal two trust mechanisms linking small talk and knowledge sharing. Meanwhile, the perceived similarity between employees, specifically, strengthens the affective pathway of trust rather than the cognitive pathway of trust.

This study combines Interaction Ritual Theory and constructs a dual-facilitating pathway approach that aims to reveal the impact of small talk on knowledge sharing, describing how and when small talk could generate a positive effect on knowledge sharing. This research provides intriguing and dynamic insights into understanding knowledge sharing processes.

Small talk, often regarded as a superficial interaction unrelated to work, is a pervasive and inescapable aspect of daily life and professional settings. In China, where the notion of guanxi – the cultivation of strategic relationships – is deeply valued, workplace small talk (WST) is a strategic tool used by employees to strengthen their interpersonal networks. This study aims to investigate the positive impact of WST on task performance within the Chinese workplace and explores the mechanisms underpinning this relationship.

This study adopted a time-lagged research design to test its hypotheses using data from 516 employees across various Chinese firms.

This study revealed that WST exerts both direct and indirect positive effects on task performance. It boosts task performance indirectly via two mediators: relational energy and positive affect. This study also delineated a chain mediation model wherein WST sequentially elevates task performance by first enhancing relational energy and then fostering positive affect.

Counter to the prevailing focus on the negative repercussions of WST, this study sheds light on its beneficial outcomes, proposing novel pathways connecting WST to task performance. These insights contribute to both academic discourse and the development of practical management strategies.

Genderwashing is an organizational phenomenon in which claims to gender equity remain superficial because organizational efforts toward gender equity are unsuccessful at creating substantive change. I introduce the concept of encounter as a useful framework in extending our understandings of the ways that genderwashing might occur within workplaces. Drawing on “encounters” as fundamentally informal, everyday interactions, I explore the ways in which these seemingly trivial social interactions make significant contributions to the quality of workplace relationships. Using the manager–employee relationship and performance review process as a basis, I show how paying attention to “small talk” is not trivial, but rather has a significant impact on the performance review process, and functions as an important site for the reproduction of or challenge to existing gender inequities. I also suggest that the consideration of “encounters” offers practical insights that can help identify additional behaviors that result in significant movement toward gender equity.

As social infrastructures, public libraries are increasingly recognised as providing more than access to books and information; librarians’ work is importantly centred around practices of care. However, the ways in which they provide care is poorly researched, let alone conceptualised. This paper explores how this important part of librarians’ daily work is practiced through the lens of infrastructuring.

The paper first theoretically discusses the concepts of social infrastructuring, care and tinkering. Then, it turns to ethnographic research conducted in the public library networks of three European cities: Vienna (Austria), Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and Malmö (Sweden). The paper comprises empirical materials from all three countries and unpacks 16 librarians’ daily working routines of care through participant observations.

The empirical analysis resulted in three modes of social infrastructuring in public libraries: (1) maintaining, (2) building connections and (3) drawing boundaries. Practices of care are prominent in each of these infrastructuring modes: librarians infrastructure the library with and via their care practices. Whilst care practices are difficult to quantify and verbalise, they are valuable for library patrons. By using the concept of tinkering, the article conceptualises librarians’ infrastructuring enactments as crucial community-building aspects of libraries.

By focusing on the enactment of social infrastructuring, the paper goes beyond a descriptive approach to understanding public libraries as important social infrastructures. Rather, the paper unpacks how libraries come into being as infrastructuring agencies by highlighting what librarians do and say. Our international study articulates the importance of care practices in public libraries across different national contexts.

The purpose of this research was to reflect on the enablers, challenges and ethical considerations in conducting qualitative research with young children using online methods. The aim was to suggest recommended practices to be put in place for researchers conducting online focus groups and interviews with young children.

This research article explores the use of Zoom video conferencing as a tool to collect qualitative data with young children in Singapore, as an alternative to face-to-face interviews. Taking a child-centred participatory approach, children shared their perspectives of their experiences of child agency in school and at home through their drawings, pictures and dialogue in online group interviews. Schon's model of reflective practice was used to guide the researchers' process of reflections during the research project.

Screen sharing and real-time nature of interactions of Zoom video conferencing enabled building of rapport and children's narratives to be developed while group size and the effect of parental influence provided challenges and ethical issues that needed to be addressed in the research process. Researcher withitness emerged as an essential quality in successful engagement of children in an online focus group discussion.

Online video conferencing platforms like Zoom provide a powerful alternative tool for participatory research with children. It challenges researchers to share control of the interactions and data collection process with children. However, parental interference and effect on data may present itself as a research limitation if not navigated well.

Group size of the focus group has an impact on children's engagement levels and wait time for their turn to speak during group interviews. While parents' presence during the online interview ensured child safety and a comforting presence for the child, parents should also understand their role in the study to avoid interfering with the data collection process.

The Zoom platform resembled onsite interviews' spontaneity of exchanges which allowed the researchers to build rapport with children through small-talk and icebreaker activities. Establishing personal connections and building of trust were essential elements in ensuring children were comfortable participating in the interviews. Observing real-time behaviour and body language of children also allowed for indication of withdrawal of consent and participation by the children.

This research adds new insights to the emerging discussions on collecting data from children via online video platforms with suggestions of new strategies and recommendations to overcome challenges, as well as future implications and potential of using Zoom as an alternative tool for participatory research with children. This research conducted in Singapore provides an Asian context and is different from current literature on this topic, largely focused on western countries' reports.

The purpose of this briefing, which is Part II of a two-part series, is to address the challenges faced by real estate professionals in negotiations, advocating a shift from traditional win-lose strategies to a value win-win approach and providing a path for this transition. It highlights the importance of continuous negotiation learning and adaptation in an evolving industry, emphasising the need for a collaborative, ethical and interest-based negotiation strategy to achieve long-term success.

The briefing adopts a theoretical and practical approach, combining insights from negotiation theory with real-world applications in the real estate context. It introduces the seven elements framework as a foundation for value win-win negotiations, providing a structured method for real estate professionals to enhance their negotiation skills and outcomes.

The briefing identifies a historical preference for win-lose negotiation strategies in the real estate industry, driven by power dynamics and short-term gains. It highlights the limitations of this approach in a changing industry landscape and presents value win-win negotiation as a more effective alternative that focuses on mutual gains, ethical practices and long-term relationships. It differentiates value win-win from win-lose or win-win naïve strategies and provides value win-win advice to negotiate when faced with these other two strategies.

Real estate professionals are encouraged to embrace the value win-win approach by shifting their mind-set, building strong relationships and communication channels, focusing on interests rather than positions, generating mutual-gain options, persuading based on legitimacy and finally making the best possible decision to either commit or walk away to their alternatives. The briefing provides practical strategies and best practices for implementing this approach, including preparation, option generation and commitment to mutually beneficial outcomes.

The briefing contributes to the negotiation literature by offering a comprehensive and practical guide for real estate professionals to navigate complex negotiations. It presents a novel application of the seven elements framework in the real estate context, emphasising the importance of a value-driven, collaborative approach in achieving superior negotiation outcomes on average than other common negotiation strategies.

This contribution responds to the call of various researchers for a shift in Responsible Management Education (RME) to adopt a more human-centered and less organizational-centered approach. Service learning (SL) is introduced as a possibility to offer didactical opportunities for participants to connect real-world experiences to system thinking in various ways. We suggest an approach called a “Prism of Reflections” to pique participants' hermeneutical, technical, and emancipatory interests so they can delve deeply into local social and environmental issues and be able to connect them to broader global issues as encapsulated in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We exemplify our method by demonstrating how students reflect on their experiences working at food banks, and how they relate to concerns of sustainability, poverty, and access to food. Our research suggests that this approach offers a way to situate organizational thinking and instrumental reasoning in a larger framework that considers the aims of hermeneutics, technical and emancipatory discourses. Our findings demonstrate that there are conflicts and dissonances when connecting intersubjective real-world perceptions to emancipatory interests and technical knowledge, particularly when it comes to challenges in the realm of food.

This study investigates the following research question: What pedagogical strategies are necessary for the success of HyFlex course design? The findings to this question are based in new media literacies and help to further pedagogy in an emerging HyFlex model while also grounding in needed theorization.

This study uses design-based research (DBR) across two iterations and four doctoral, higher education courses, using mixed methods of data collection and analysis.

Six pedagogical strategies influential for HyFlex research are presented, each grounded in a new media literacy skill.

These six pedagogical strategies help practitioners grappling with the HyFlex or blended learning model merge traditional pedagogy with how this might be tailored for students entrenched in a participatory culture.

Multisited ethnography has primarily been portrayed as a challenge for the following field-worker, with the researcher taking the central role and neglecting research participants also experiencing a multisited nature of their work. The authors argue that literature on multisited ethnography merely discusses multisitedness as a methodological theme. In correspondence, the authors propose to think of multisitedness not just as a methodological theme but also as an empirical theme.

The authors contend etic and emic perspectives to address multisitedness empirically, which enables researchers to compare and contrast the multisited topic of inquiry in academic “outsider” terms with the etic analysis and considering the perspective of the research participants' multisited experiences using the emic perspective. To show the fruitfulness of discussing multisitedness using the complementary etic and emic analysis, the authors present the example of Mennonite entrepreneurial activities in Belize, a heterogeneous group of migrants that established themselves as successful traders and entrepreneurs.

Through an etic multisited ethnographic perspective, the authors compare and contrast four communities of Mennonites in terms of their entrepreneurial activities, technology and energy use. Through an emic perspective, the authors demonstrate how Mennonites, while preferring an in-group focus, navigate their multisited entrepreneurial activities, which require interaction with the outside world.

The authors highlight the value of combining etic–emic reflections to acknowledge and include the multisited nature of many social phenomena as experienced by the research participants.