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Conflicts between humans about wildlife, sometimes also referred to as conservation conflicts, are a challenging issue all over the world. Comparing conservation conflicts from different settings helps to better understand general strategies for conflict management and provides opportunities for mutual learning to solve conservation conflicts. This paper analyses commonalities and differences of conservation conflicts in one Ghanaian and three German national parks, and discusses lessons and implications for conflict management. Using the social-ecological system framework and social conflict theory, we conducted focus groups and interviews with relevant actors, collected secondary sources of information and conducted a qualitative content analysis. Results describe resource systems, resource units, governance systems, and actors. Conflict issues identified for both cases revolve around wildlife populations and wildlife impacts, disagreements about conservation, hunting, disputes among actors, as well as issues of inadequate involvement of actors. Results further indicate that similar drivers such as contrary values, different interests, structural problems, legislative issues and inadequate involvement contribute to conflict development. However, the contexts of the case studies within which these conflicts develop, basically differ. From our findings, we developed both general as well as case-specific management principles necessary for conflict management. The paper concludes that root causes of conflict emergence and social processes should be addressed to facilitate conflict management. If appropriate general and case-specific instruments are chosen, a solution to conservation conflicts can be possible.

In Internet of Things (IoT) ubiquitous environments, a high volume of heterogeneous data is produced from different devices in a quick span of time. In all IoT applications, the quality of information plays an important role in decision making. Data fusion is one of the current research trends in this arena that is considered in this paper. We particularly consider typical IoT scenarios where the sources measurements highly conflict, which makes intuitive fusions prone to wrong and misleading results. This paper proposes a taxonomy of decision fusion methods that rely on the theory of belief. It proposes a data fusion method for the Internet of Things (DFIOT) based on Dempster–Shafer (D–S) theory and an adaptive weighted fusion algorithm. It considers the reliability of each device in the network and the conflicts between devices when fusing data. This is while considering the information lifetime, the distance separating sensors and entities, and reducing computation. The proposed method uses a combination of rules based on the Basic Probability Assignment (BPA) to represent uncertain information or to quantify the similarity between two bodies of evidence. To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed method in comparison with D–S, Murphy, Deng and Yuan, a comprehensive analysis is provided using both benchmark data simulation and real dataset from a smart building testbed. Results show that DFIOT outperforms all the above mentioned methods in terms of reliability, accuracy and conflict management. The accuracy of the system reached up to $$99.18\%$$ on benchmark artificial datasets and $$98.87\%$$ on real datasets with a conflict of $$0.58 \%$$ . We also examine the impact of this improvement from the application perspective (energy saving), and the results show a gain of up to $$90\%$$ when using DFIOT.

Dempster-Shafer evidence theory is an efficient tool used in knowledge reasoning and decision-making under uncertain environments. Conflict management is an open issue in Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. There is no good practice that can be generally accepted until the presence of generalized evidence theory (GET). GET addresses conflict management in an open world, where the frame of discernment (FOD) is incomplete since uncertainty and lacking knowledge. With the in-depth study, however, the original generalized combination rule (GCR) still has its issue. As an example, based on the original GCR, the system judges whether the FOD is complete or not even though the GBPAs clearly indicate that the proposition is outside of FOD. In this paper, we proposed a modified generalized combination rule (mGCR) in the framework of GET. The mGCR satisfies all properties of GCR in GET, illustrating and modeling the real world more reasonably than the original. Numerical examples demonstrate that mGCR combines GBPAs effectively and has more distinct geometric and physical meaning than the original GCR. Several experiments using real data sets are presented at the end of this paper to evaluate the effectiveness of mGCR.

This paper explores reasons for the (un)willingness of the European Union (EU) to cooperate with its external partners such as Japan in promoting regional integration and conflict resolution outside of Europe. One of the key arguments made in the paper is that the EU has demonstrated a strong preference for independently promoting regional integration and conflict management. Moreover, it has evidenced little inclination to cooperate with partner countries in attempting to address regional problems. Furthermore, until now, the EU’s concept of a ‘strategic partnership’ may not have functioned sufficiently well to enable it to play any constructive role in conjunction with its partners in East Asia. Such tendencies have been strengthened by the problems currently affecting the Japan–EU relationship such as the EU’s preference of not ‘taking sides’ with respect to complex regional problems, Japan’s ongoing ‘expectation deficit’ towards the EU and the EU’s ever-worsening perception of Japan.

One of the founding principles of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the prevention of atrocities by punishing those most responsible for them. This paper builds on the literature that has both hailed and critiqued the prospects of the ICC’s ability to deter future atrocities, adding insights from criminology and psychology to enhance the understanding of the ICC’s deterrent capabilities. This will allow for a more careful analysis of how the deterrence process exactly works. The paper then uses these insights to examine the ICC’s experiences over the past 14 years with deterring offenders. The main findings are that, although the ICC can constructively contribute to a normative shift toward accountability and a change in international rules of legitimacy, its prospects for the direct and meaningful deterrence of future atrocities are slim. The current practice of relying on the ICC as a crisis management tool is therefore both unwise and unfair.

For fulfilling customer requests, enterprises are increasingly part of collaboration networks with peers. Such collaborations, also known as virtual enterprises (VE), are governed by pre-defined contracts that restrict the behaviour of each participating enterprise. However, since each enterprise is autonomous, the potential arises for conflicts during collaboration. In this paper, we extend our earlier work on virtual-enterprise modelling and address the existing gap of conflict modelling, management and resolution in VEs. Our approach works as follows: first, to detect a conflict by analysing the exceptions reported during execution; second, to uncover the conflict type, origin and impact of an exception; and third, depending on the nature of an exception, to implement the appropriate conflict negotiation and resolution strategy among the participating entities of a VE. Crucial to this approach, and serving as one of the key contributions of this paper, is the conflict ontology. This ontology helps to model conflict types along with related exceptions, negotiation and resolution strategies, thereby enabling conflict management and resolution. Throughout this paper, we illustrate our ideas with a running example and also present a detailed evaluation based on a case study from the automotive production domain.

Conflicts between the conservation of biodiversity and other human activities occur in all habitats and can impact severely upon socio-economic and biological parameters. In a changing environment, with increasing pressure on ecosystem goods and services and increasing urgency for biodiversity conservation, these conflicts are likely to increase in importance and magnitude and negatively affect biodiversity and human well-being. It is essential, however, to better understand what is meant by ‘biodiversity conflicts’ in order to develop ways to manage these effectively. In view of the complexity of the social and ecological contexts of conflicts, this paper explores ‘biodiversity impacts’ linked to agricultural, forestry and other sectoral activities in the UK. The paper then describes the transition from ‘biodiversity impacts’ to ‘biodiversity conflicts’, illustrating this concept with specific examples. While generalisations relating to conflict management are made difficult by their unique contextual settings, this paper suggests approaches for their management, based on the experiences of scientists who have been involved in managing conflicts. We consider the role of science and scientists; trust and dialogue; and temporal and spatial scales in biodiversity conflicts and highlight the combined role they play in successful biodiversity conflict management. Recommendations are also made for future research on biodiversity conflicts in a changing environment.

In the highland ecosystems where actions by some individuals or groups often generate off-site effects among a wide range of social actors and stakeholders, the use and management of natural resources are susceptible to multiple forms of conflicts. This paper examines the hypothesis that conflicts constrain the adoption of agroforestry technologies. Using empirical data from 243 households in Kabale-Uganda, the study identified over 780 different cases of conflicts, and found positive relationships between certain types of conflicts and adoption of agroforestry technologies. The results of this paper challenge the conventional wisdom that conflicts are pervasive, and that the prevalence of conflicts is a major barrier to the adoption of NRM technologies. On the contrary, they seem to suggest that conflicts may have some positive outcomes; they provide incentives for the adoption of NRM technologies, and can be a potential force for positive social change. Conflicts are an essential feature of NRM in the highland systems and cannot therefore be ignored. What matters is the ways such conflicts are managed and resolved, and transformed into a force for positive change. We found that three dimensions of social capital (collective action, byelaws implementation and linking with local government structures) have increased the ability of communities to manage and transform conflicts into opportunities for collective action. These findings suggest new areas for further investigation to improve understanding of adoption decisions and building local capacity for scaling up the impacts of agroforestry innovations.

This paper examines whether differentiating among types of intimate partner violence enhances the explanatory capacity of extant empirical models. The analysis uses national-level Canadian data to evaluate an alternative approach to operationalizing intimate partner violence, drawing upon Black's (1990) and Johnson's (1995) theoretical work. The main argument suggests that current efforts to explain intimate partner violence with victimization studies are inadequate because they typically do not measure key sociological variables. The failure to assess the contexts within which different types of violence occur further hinders explanatory efforts. The paper concludes with recommendations for innovative theoretical and methodological strategies to address these limitations.

In this paper consideration is first given to how community forestry practitioners have commonly understood the term participation, and why the concept of conflict does not seem to have overlapped with notions of participation. Failure to perceive conflict as inherent in participation is shown to have led to problems in implementation of community forestry programmes. The emerging awareness of conflict today is shown to be associated with the move away from community forestry in the form of village-based tree planting schemes towards community forest management, which involves devolution of state authority over natural forests. The paper presents a number of methods for managing conflict and discusses their strong and weak points. Using the experience of the introduction of participation as a comparison, the paper considers the extent to which conflict management might be adopted as standard practice by forest agencies in community forestry. The paper concludes that because of the limited mandate of forest agencies, it is unlikely that they will be able to use conflict management tools to bring about social justice in forest conflict situations. However, the paper suggests that use of such tools could result in heightened awareness of the importance of conflict and in this way improve forest practice.

This article is the second of a two-part series that examines the issue ofgroup development and its impact on the study and design of group supportsystems. It builds on the ideas developed in the preceding article anddiscusses the implications of group development for group support systems(GSS) research. Specifically, the paper examines the impact of computersupport systems on group development processes. Our previous paper reviewed models of development—based on two competingparadigms, sequential and nonsequential—proposed by various researchers.Despite differences between the two paradigms, individual models share somecommon aspects, from the types of processes experienced to the nature ofoutputs produced, that jointly help describe group development. Commonprocesses displayed in the evolution of a group, distilled from the variousmodels, include cohesiveness, conflict management, balance betweensocioemotional and task needs, effective communication, and involvement ingroup activities. Additionally, the various models also indicate that groupshave critical periods in their developmental path. This paper develops the idea that GSS structures can support groups withtheir developmental processes and help them deal with critical periods. MostGSS provide global structures like anonymity, simultaneity, and the capacityfor enhanced information processing. These structures, if appropriatedeffectively by groups, can influence their developmental paths over time. Inmany cases these structures can help the development of groups by improvingtheir ability to manage conflict, increasing their cohesiveness, developing asense of group identity, and enhancing open communication. This paperdevelops a set of testable propositions that can guide researchers of groupbehavior, organizational users of GSS, and developers of these systems.

The Montney Play Trend (MPT) is a 1090 km2 region in northeast British Columbia that produces approximately one-third of western Canada’s natural gas output. In response to a proposed expansion of the MPT in 2016, the Government of British Columbia launched a Regional Strategic Environmental Assessment (RSEA) to identify the necessary conditions to achieve sustainable environmental outcomes. In this paper, we describe the methods and scenario planning tools that were developed to estimate how the development of the MPT might affect the subsistence economies of First Nations in the region. To demonstrate the utility of our approach, two impact assessments—Prince Rupert gas transmission pipeline and the Coastal GasLink pipeline—are presented. While no scenario can provide a definitive portrayal of exactly what will happen in the future, the tools that were co-developed are serving as an effective starting point for exploring possibilities that are at least consistent with current knowledge and can serve as a platform for collaborative learning and conflict management.

Although managers spend over twenty percent of their time in conflict management, organization theorists have provided very few guidelines to help them do their job ethically. This paper attempts to provide some guidelines so that organizational members can use the styles of handling interpersonal conflict, such as integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising, with their superiors, subordinates, and peers ethically and effectively. It has been argued in this paper that, in general, each style of handling interpersonal conflict is appropriate if it is used to attain organization's proper end.

Most previous researches have only examined the linear and direct relationship between relationship conflict and team creativity. Drawing on the threat regulation theory, this paper aims to investigate the curvilinear relationship between relationship conflict and team creativity, as well as the mediating role of team learning and the moderating role of transformational leadership. A questionnaire survey was conducted to gather data in China. We received completed questionnaires from 83 teams comprised of 83 team managers and 466 team members. Relationship conflict had an inverted U-shaped relationship with team creativity, and team learning mediated this relationship. High level transformational leadership was found to alleviate the positive influence of low relationship conflict on team learning and mitigate the negative impact of high relationship conflict on team learning. The main limitation is the study’s cross-sectional nature, meaning that causality in relationships cannot be established. Despite these limitations, the present research still provides insights into conflict management, creativity, and leadership literature. This study’s findings offer some guidance on how to stimulate team creativity through relationship conflict. Furthermore, managers should maintain a moderate level of relationship conflict and adopt a high level of transformational leadership to facilitate team learning when teams are in a high level of relationship conflict. This study develops an exhaustive understanding of the impact of transformational leadership on the conflict–creativity relationship by illustrating the curvilinear relationship between relationship conflict and team creativity through team learning.

This exploratory paper focuses on the use of digital tools in service competence development. A digital training package about verbal judo (VJ) was tested using the diary method as 24 undergraduate students were asked to evaluate a VJ digital training package. The training package was created by Mielenrauha Ltd., which is an established company that specializes in security and conflict management training both in Finland and abroad. Overall, the respondents perceived the digital training package format as positive. Its ease of use and freedom from time and space were seen as positive elements that fit well with the general turbulence and lack of time in our society. The respondents were especially appreciative of the video elements, which received the most positive comments out of all the content elements. The respondents also considered it important to receive personalized feedback about their learning outcomes. Therefore, it would be extremely valuable to be able to include participants’ own experiences in the training framework, although this kind of personalization is technically challenging. The general outcome of the study indicates clearly that digital training packages are rapidly gaining in popularity. Therefore, more research in this area is needed.

Dempster–Shafer evidence theory is widely used in many applications such as decision making and pattern recognition. However, Dempster’s combination rule often produces results that do not reflect the actual distribution of belief when collected evidence highly conflicts each other. In this paper, a base belief function is proposed to modify the classical basic probability assignment before combination in closed-world. Base belief function focuses on making combination result intuitive especially when evidences highly conflict each other. Compared to other methods, the combination result produced by proposed method is logical and consistent with real world with less computational complexity and better performance. The advantage of base belief function is that it can avoid high conflicts between evidences and is especially suitable for the situation where the evidences appear in sequence. Several numerical examples as well as experiments using real data sets from the UCI machine learning repository for classification are employed to verify the rationality of the proposed method.

This paper presents research currently being conducted in Central Queensland, Australia to understand conflicts between coastal zone resource users and the associated sociocultural and political issues surrounding coastal zone management. Conflict occurs between stakeholders in the coastal zone over values, conservation and development trade-offs, access, and resource use rights. Decisions are currently made within a multi-stakeholder framework where there is limited understanding among stakeholders of each groups values and aspirations, and few, mechanisms for negotiation, or to ensure transparency of decisions and feedback on consultation. This paper reports on the contribution of stakeholder analysis and social mapping to conflict management and findings from their application. As it is applied here, stakeholder analysis and social mapping have been successful participatory tools used to document and feed back the values, interests, attitudes and aspirations of stakeholders. Understanding stakeholder conflict is essential in progressing a whole catchment approach to decision-making that secures the cooperation of a diverse range of social groups.

This research paper aims at investigating the impact of emotional intelligence on teacher׳s job performance in the education sector of Pakistan. Sample size consists of 166 teachers from universities in the area of central Punjab, Pakistan. Theories of emotional intelligence proposed by Salovey and Mayer (1989â1990) were used as the conceptual framework and its relationship with the job performance of teachers was examined. Reliability and validity of variables was tested through measurement model of PLS-SEM. The result indicated that emotional intelligence has a significant impact on the teacher׳s job performance. Key research finding revealed that emotional self-awareness, self-confidence, achievement, developing others and conflict management have a positive and significant relationship with the teacher׳s job performance. Keywords: Emotional intelligence, Performance, Teachers, Pakistan

Within public and academic spheres, the question of how civilians and police officers can effectively deal with violent assaults is discussed above all as a question of the “right self-defense system.” In the current paper, we advocate for a change from questions of system to questions of pedagogy. Based on the paradigm of nonlinear pedagogy and the underlying theories of complex dynamic systems, we present a model of representative learning design, whose analytical and practical use is presented. We conclude with a discussion of the role of nonlinear pedagogy for the professionalization of self-defense training in the civilian and law enforcement domains.

Coercive capacity matters for keeping stability of authoritarian regime. Yet governing conflict is more than deployment of coercion. State response to contentious politics can be classified by the form of power it uses to direct challenging behaviors. This paper suggests a typology of conflict processing mechanism and uses it to illustrate the diversity of China’s domestic security strategy and detect new signs of conflict management beyond coercive actions. The focus is an emerging social engagement approach—a conceptually distinct process through which contentious behavior is transformed by intermediate agencies. Despite its limits in handling large-scale conflicts, this approach of conflict resolution is able to contribute to regime stability from below by demobilizing and depoliticizing local and issue-based contentions.

The scientific response to the challenges of security for food systems, as well as other global topics such as climate change, has been to shift from research projects with a narrow focus on one or a few sectors of the food system to broader trans-disciplinary approaches. Such research settings are inherently complex and involve the potential for substantial conflict that can put the success of the entire research project at risk. Allocating time and resources to establish mechanisms that facilitate meta-communication among project members is increasingly advocated in order to minimize conflicts. The aim of this paper is to analyze and then facilitate the integration of conflict management programs as a tool within such research projects. This was achieved by establishing the framework characteristics that define the food security research environment as: (1) donor-funded; (2) temporary; (3) virtual; (4) international; (5) inter-organizational; and (6) trans-disciplinary; and by discussing their implications for the implementation of a conflict management program. A participatory and transdisciplinary food security research project active in Tanzania (Trans-SEC) was used as the case study, with qualitative research methods applied.

Activity conflict resolution as the core of scheduling process in activity-based modeling is a challenging step because the activity diary databases mostly report the outcome of the scheduling decisions and often fail to capture key factors influencing the resolution process itself. Consequently, most activity-based frameworks ignore modeling this process by using either predefined set of activity patterns or priority-based assumptions to schedule daily activities and prevent conflict occasions. ADAPTS is one of the few activity-based models that attempts to simulate the process of activity scheduling and resolve the conflicts as they occur. This paper advances the current rule-based conflict resolution model of ADAPTS by implementing an advanced and flexible non-linear optimization model. A set of linear optimization sub-models is then proposed that together perform the same task as the non-linear model, however they are much easier to implement and maintain, while fast to run and flexible to extend. The proposed approach defines an objective function, which aims to minimize the extent of changes in timing and duration of conflicting activities, while fitting them in the schedule. Comparing performance of the proposed model with TASHA scheduler and former resolution module of ADAPTS using CHASE scheduling process data reveals significant improvement in fitting the newly planned activities in the schedules with the minimal modifications in the timing and duration of activities.

In this paper we investigate how effective conflict management in conflict asymmetry situations impacts the quality of cross-functional management teams’ performance. During a 5-day business simulation, we explore the consequences of the relational conflicts and conflict asymmetry experienced by team members. We use two different measures of conflict asymmetry: the traditional group conflict asymmetry measurement of Jehn (Adm Sci Q 40:256–282, 1995) and a social networks method. We find that when some team members evoke more conflict than others, this affects the evolution of team dynamics (and ultimately the performance of the team) even more than high levels of conflict altogether; however, group emotional awareness can mitigate this negative effect and improve the team performance through the appropriate use of conflict management strategies. Since group emotional awareness can be fostered and trained within teams, this is of practical value to improve the performance of cross-functional management teams.

Significant heterogeneity exists in the public’s preferences and values for protecting agricultural ecosystems against invasive non-native species. Therefore, biosecurity decision-making is akin to conflict management characterised by not only technical, but also environmental, social and economic value judgements of different stakeholders. The key question then, is not whether values should be considered in the decision-making process—they are part of it anyway—but how they should be articulated and incorporated via a formal and structured analysis. In this paper, we propose to use Structured Decision Making (SDM) as a framework to incorporate diverse social values into response planning and management and demonstrate its use with three case studies. The first step of the process involves identifying the stakeholders in a response decision, followed by the critical step of systematically translating stakeholders’ major concerns into management objectives. Biosecurity decision-makers will also collaborate with the public to develop response alternatives and identify a preferred option by explicitly making trade-offs among different objectives. Ultimately, the SDM approach provides a transparent description of, and justification for, the response options considered and selected.

An understanding of transformational leadership has been developed for many spheres of management, but not previously for organizational conflict. This paper analyzes a successful conflict mediation attempt in the early Christian church and draws from it elements of a model of the transformational management of conflict that can be applied by managers in many contemporary work organizations. The elements include (a) reframing the conflict, (b) a focus on a shared organizational vision, (c) the placement of responsibility for dispute resolution in the hands of organizational members directly and indirectly involved in conflict, and (d) the use of communication devices consistent with the desired outcome. The paper suggests skills necessary for managers to implement the model and implications for research on it.

International river basins cover a vast majority of the land surface, international cooperation is therefore important for the proper management, and to assure equitable and effective use in the basins. Key elements to improve international cooperation are common understanding of the issues in the basin, understanding upstream-downstream impacts and sharing a common vision for the future. This article focuses on the role of games in international basin cooperation to create awareness and to support policy development. The paper analysed the effects of the game in creating awareness and upgrading knowledge amongst water and related professionals and in designing procedures for cooperation in transboundary river basins. This was analysed during the implementation of the game with 28 participants from the four Lower Mekong countries. The impact on creating awareness and upgrading knowledge was evaluated through the use of questionnaires and pre- and post evaluation questions and for the design of policies, a SWOT analysis was used to evaluate the usefulness of the policies and frameworks as well as to identify possible improvements to the framework. The game implementation proved to be an appropriate tool to provide a practical way for stakeholders to become acquainted with the administrative and technical tools available in the Lower Mekong Basin. Pre- and post test shows that participants gained substantial knowledge on transboundary cooperation and use of tools. The game was part of a longer training programme addressing all the issues, however, the participants gained additional knowledge and insight by playing the game, well above what they had learned during the earlier training workshops. Playing the game proved an important aspect in training and education of such complex systems. The study also shows the role games can play in policy analysis, in particular the way the game provided insight in the design of the policy and the development of procedures, and their function to review and update policies and procedures. A number of recommendations have been made to strengthen the role in both training and education as well as in design of procedures.

Wireless sensor network plays an important role in intelligent navigation. It incorporates a group of sensors to overcome the limitation of single detection system. Dempster-Shafer evidence theory can combine the sensor data of the wireless sensor network by data fusion, which contributes to the improvement of accuracy and reliability of the detection system. However, due to different sources of sensors, there may be conflict among the sensor data under uncertain environment. Thus, this paper proposes a new method combining Deng entropy and evidence distance to address the issue. First, Deng entropy is adopted to measure the uncertain information. Then, evidence distance is applied to measure the conflict degree. The new method can cope with conflict effectually and improve the accuracy and reliability of the detection system. An example is illustrated to show the efficiency of the new method and the result is compared with that of the existing methods.

Conflict is inherent to development, but the intensity of conflicts over small-scale projects is often severely underestimated. Effectively managed conflict can strengthen relationships and enhance productivity, but unresolved conflict undermines relationships, morale and projects. This paper examines conflict management during the development of ten South African outreach nurseries situated within communities experiencing high levels of poverty. Sources of conflict included: (1) Contestations over scarce or limited resources, or (2) ownership; (3) Disputes over accountability; (4) Struggles over social boundaries or (5) individual or collective identities; (6) Deteriorating interpersonal relationships; (7) Power struggles between community participants and (8) Structural imbalances between implementing organisations and community stakeholders. Conflicts spiraled into violence or near-violence in two cases, with threats of violence in two others. Fostering cooperative relationships and operational environments requires concerted effort from the outset, including the development of effective institutions. Development fundamentals cannot be exchanged for expediency; adequate time, staff, and resources have to be allocated to projects.

Given the history of South Africa, which has resulted in a significantly skewed pattern of access to scarce resources in favor of a wealthy racial minority, the issue of access to land and shelter is a central and emotive one. It is also a potential arena of conflict and social and political divisions. It is therefore important to understand, monitor, and resolve these conflicts. This paper is the first in a series of case studies, drawn from within greater Cape Town, which examine conflicts over land and housing and how these conflicts are being managed. This case is that of Wallacedene, a primarily informal settlement in the north of the city, which has been the subject of an informal settlement upgrading process. Different forms of conflict occur over the life cycle of an informal settlement. Community-based institutions form an essential component of conflict management strategies. However, there have to be checks and balances on how these institutions operate. Moreover, accurate, local level records of transactions in land rights, which are often informal transactions, are an essential part of land and housing delivery.

Emergence of conflicts-of-interests and of disputes in organizations, especially within and among work team systems, is inevitable. Cooperatives are self-governing organizations with democratic characters aimed at meeting the members’ needs and promoting social equity. Yet, internal organizational conflicts arise as conflicts-of-interests develop. Such conflicts can cause serious damages to the parties involved as well as harm the reputation of cooperatives as social and economic entities that tend to pursue social justice and fair distribution of income in society. This paper addresses conflict management in contemporary cooperative organizations. It is based on a preliminary research performed on factors causing conflicts in various types of cooperatives in Iran by analyzing 253 complaints made in 224 housing, consumer, transportation, producer procurement, and credit cooperatives within the central province of Tehran. It also offers some suggestions to improve conflict management within cooperative organizations.

Ethnic identity, information about the world of work, and mastery in specific career skills crucially impact the process of career development among minority adolescents. Identity and conflict management skills also affect one of the major stressors experienced by employees today: the work-family conflict. This paper presents a culturally appropriate career intervention program for increasing Israeli Arab adolescents’ self-efficacy to manage work and family roles, and feedback from 15 participants in a preliminary pilot intervention. The program comprised three units: identity exploration, information, and skill transfer. The intervention was grounded in the career development literature on minorities, on work-family conflict research, and on social cognitive career theory. The proposed strategy also included process variables comprising critical career intervention components. The program is seen as having potential for being implemented in other cultural contexts.

Collaborative management of natural resources requires that multiple stakeholders come together to negotiate agreements. Who is a stakeholder, what is the boundary and the definition of an issue, and who has legitimacy to convene are interrelated, systemic questions. To address this challenge, this paper provides a conceptual framework with nine Contextual Dimensions. A workshop on collaborative and conflict management of the fishery in Chile, designed and facilitated by the authors, serves as a case study where multiple stakeholders came together to vision desirable futures and explored organizational linkages that could accommodate the different agendas. The workshop is analyzed through a conceptual framework and some conclusions are drawn on the value of experiential learning and on the importance of the iterative consultations that must precede such collaborative management events.

Departing from frequent use of moral conflict cases in business ethics teaching and research, the paper suggests an elaboration of a moral conflict approach within business ethics, both conceptually and philosophically. The conceptual elaboration borrows from social science conflict research terminology, while the philosophical elaboration presents casuistry as a kind of practical, inductive argumentation with a focus on paradigmatic examples.

In this paper we investigate intergroup conflict and examine the impact of strategies to manage and hopefully reduce it. To do this, we use a probabilistic computer simulation model, based on feedback principles. The model examines how conflict between two groups evolves over time. Group differences and the occurrence of intergroup incidents drive the model. Intergroup hostility which depends on past history, recent conflict incidents, and group differences is the key variable that indicates the proclivity toward conflict between the two groups. We use the model to examine various cases and the effect of conflict management strategies. Based on the model results, we develop some conclusions about the applicability of the findings to actual situations, as well as directions for further research.

In this paper we analyze sanctioning policies in internationallaw. We develop a model of international military conflictwhere the conflicting countries can be a target ofinternational sanctions. These sanctions constitute anequilibrium outcome of an international political market forsanctions, where different countries trade politicalinfluence. We show that the level of sanctions in equilibriumis strictly positive but limited, in the sense that highersanctions would exacerbate the military conflict, not reduceit. We then propose an alternative interpretation to theperceived lack of effectiveness of international sanctions, byshowing that the problem might not be one of undersanctioningbut of oversanctioning.

The paper recommends a method of modelling that results in a computerised information system data model that reflects the conflicting and competing data and multiple perspectives of participants and stakeholders, and that improves interactivity and conflict management.

This article presents an introduction to understanding and addressing conflict in academic departments. Current philosophies toward conflict in organizations include a principled approach encouraging the positive benefits that conflict may bring to institutions. To utilize this approach it is important to understand the nature of conflict, identify effective response options, and develop skills in principled conflict resolution. This paper identifies the structures within organizations which inherently cause conflict. In addition, various strategies for dealing with conflict are outlined based on the Thomas/Killman response modes. Finally, Fisher and Ury's foundation for principled conflict resolution is applied to departments in higher education.

Advocates of employee rights, relying upon moral and legal perspectives, have used moral appeals and the threat of legal sanctions to persuade managers to act responsibly. Drawing on a behavioral perspective and analyzing interviews and literature about employee complaints, this paper develops the “practical view.” This view emphasizes employees' perceptions of their rights, as represented by eight broad categories of asserted rights, and the subtle costs that employees can impose when their standards of proper treatment are violated. While important differences between the behavioral, legal, and moral perspectives are identified, a general standards-setting framework is presented that indicates the complementarity of the three perspectives and the advantages of a multidisciplinary combination.