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Globally, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) advocates celebrate informality as a means to improve access to justice for poor people and to unburden courts, emphasizing the spoken dimensions of conflict resolution rather than the written product. Yet residents of El Alto, Bolivia, are preoccupied with the graphic artefacts produced by ADR programmes: conciliation accords. This article argues that Alteños pursue conciliation accords because of their isomorphism - shared physical traits - with legal documents. In mobilizing legal-like documents as avatars of coercive state authority, Alteños reveal how the urban poor marshal ambiguous bureaucratic documentary procedures to reorder untenable social relations and to give some teeth to oral arrangements amid economic insecurity and dubious judicial prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to challenge reductionist mental models widely used to evaluate the effects of conflicts or disputes. These models are frequently used intuitively by people, or recommended in the dispute resolution literature in fields such as negotiation or mediation. It is argued that they harm people's ability to deal effectively with conflicts and learn from them. The authors propose an alternative systemic framework for evaluating the results of conflicts, which is illustrated by making reference to a severe conflict, the Colombian guerrilla war. This case serves to show the advantages of using the proposed framework instead of more traditional models. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oman and its conflict management model are the focus of this paper. This model has crystalized out of the three stand‐alone but complementary systems of conflict resolution which evolved in an ad hoc fashion: the institute of tribal leaders; the reconciliation committees; and the formal judicial system. These systems offer a foundation for the current efforts of the local people to sustain a peaceful co‐existence among the vibrant and ethnically diverse Omani communities known for their turbulent past. The analyzed data obtained from interviews with Omani tribal leaders, reconciliation committee members, and lawyers shed light on both the strengths of the conflict management model and the modern challenges which the model faces. The findings confirm that this model represents a coherent entity run by an integrated constitutional‐tribal order. They also suggest that the model serves as a state mechanism for balancing power between the country's major players—the government and the institute of tribal leaders. The novel contribution of this paper lies in linking the origin and philosophy of each system with the "mediation identity" of Oman's foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflict behavior is thought to result from attitudes. Attitude which is a tendency to favor or disfavor is thought to be a function of perceptions. Perceptions are influenced by our cultural identity. In Kenya, different communities have been involved in violent identity conflicts which peaked in 2007/2008 during the post‐election violence. The role of politics and natural resource competitions as sources for conflicts in Kenya has been widely exposed. This paper enriches the discourse on manifestation of conflict by an in‐depth analysis of how cultural identity is communicated drawing examples from communities residing adjacent to Eastern Mau forests complex in Kenya. The main research question is that, since inter‐group conflict involves identity competition, how are attitudes expressed in this context? Qualitative data sources were obtained for this study through key informant interviews and Focus Group Discussions. Data analysis was through thematization, content and linguistic analysis. Results from this study reveal that conflicts involving different ethnic communities have escalated over time. The study further reveals that attitudes are expressed through figures of communication such as stereotypes and nicknames, metaphors, and naming of places. Conflicts in Eastern Mau seemed to persist, vacillating between periods of relative peace and periods of escalation. Mediation has been proposed in recent literature as a sustainable solution for intractable conflicts. This paper suggests that more research is needed on traditional dispute resolution in Eastern Mau with a view to understanding how mediation could be integrated in the existing formal conflict resolution in the study area and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds new light on the policy reality of the European Energy Union on the example of the EU natural gas market. The paper argues that, as the energy union preserves the treaty‐based parallelism between the competences of the EU and the member states, the resolution of conflicts between individual preferences and shared priorities has emerged as a measure of consolidation in the EU energy domain. Which logic prevails: the common good or the consensus will? The paper applies the concept of international society to test key hypotheses related to the pluralism/solidarism nexus in the European Energy Union. The paper concludes that individual interests and collective decision‐making in the EU natural gas market are reconciled along the premises of pragmatic solidarism with demonstration effects for the regional energy system, indicative of the EU's vanguard role as a regional regulator setting the rules of energy investment and trade in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online consumption communities play a significant role in the life of many consumers. These communities remove temporal and spacial boundaries, allowing consumers to convene online to connect over a shared consumption interest anytime and from anywhere. The objective of this special issue is to advance our understanding of online consumption communities and stimulate future research in this exciting research domain. Eight papers are included that present cutting-edge research exploring three issues: (1) governance and conflict management in online consumption communities, (2) implications of community membership for individual and societal well-being, and (3) drivers of community success under different ownership structures. In this introductory editorial, each of the papers and its contribution is briefly overviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research documents the experiences of business crisis management in wartime Ukraine. The goal of the paper is to contribute to our understanding of business crisis management in a conflict zone in wartime conditions, a significantly underresearched area. Based on interviews with the owners and managers of 20 Ukrainian companies spanning sectors and geography of the country, the paper provides insights into the various elements that characterize and distinguish war as a crisis type, including having an unknown end point, and, furthermore, what we can learn from how Ukrainian managers have approached this crisis. Among the key findings are how war situations appear to be "cosmology episodes" for which it is not possible to adequately prepare and for which the end point is unknown, both of which call for emergent, adaptive crisis management capabilities and leadership skills characterized by improvisation and other forms of resilience. Notwithstanding this, company wartime crisis management experiences have stimulated intention to more structured anticipatory and preparedness practices, as well as narratives of future renewal in communications with staff and stakeholders, which serve both as a guidepost and coping mechanism during the current crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of emotions in conflict resolution, explicitly focusing on mediation. Emotions are an inherent aspect of conflict and can significantly impact the negotiation process. Understanding the emotional landscape of mediation is crucial for effective conflict management. This paper discusses the various emotions that arise during mediation, the strategies for effective emotional control, and the role of the mediator in navigating the emotional terrain of the negotiation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Narrative discourse, or storytelling, is used in daily conversation and requires higher‐level language and social communication skills that are not always captured by standardised assessments of language. Many autistic individuals and individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) have difficulties with both social communication and language skills, and narrative discourse analysis offers an ecologically relevant approach to assessing those challenges. Aims: This study investigated narrative discourse in individuals with autism and FASD, as well as an age‐ and sex‐matched comparison group. Methods and Procedures: Narratives from 45 adolescents and adults, 11 with autism, 11 with FASD and 23 age‐ and sex‐matched comparison participants were elicited using a wordless storybook. They were then transcribed orthographically, formatted to the Systematic Analyses of Language Transcript (SALT) convention and scored based on the SALT Narrative Scoring Scheme (NSS), a standardised language analysis protocol. In addition to the NSS total score, which assesses the overall structure and cohesion of the narratives produced, local and global measures of language ability were also employed. The local language measures included the number of mental state and temporal relation terms produced, while the global language measures included mean length of utterance, total different words, total words, total utterances, rate of speech, the number of mazes (e.g., repetitions, 'um', 'uh' or self‐corrections) per total word and the NSS total score. Outcomes and Results: Using the SALT Language Sample Analysis tool, our results revealed that on global language measures, group differences were found on rate of speech, number of mazes per total words and the description of conflict/resolution in the narratives produced. The autism group produced significantly more mazes per total word and scored higher on the NSS conflict/resolution category score compared to the FASD and comparison groups. Both the autism and FASD groups spoke at a lower rate than the comparison group. On local language measures of narrative production, all groups were comparable, on average. Conclusions and Implications: While many aspects of narrative discourse in the autism and FASD groups were similar to each other and to the comparison group, we observed group differences on global measures of narrative production and significant individual variability within groups, suggesting that narrative abilities considered at an individual level may provide important clinical information for intervention planning. Future research should also consider additional variables that influence narrative discourse, such as motivation, distractibility or decision‐making of individual participants. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: Narrative discourse, or storytelling, is used in daily conversational interactions and reveals higher‐level language skills that may not be well captured by standardised assessments of language. Many autistic individuals and individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) show difficulty with pragmatic and expressive language skills. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: We found that many aspects of the narratives produced by the adolescents/young adults in the autism and FASD groups were comparable to each other and to the neurotypical group. However, the groups differed on three global measures of narrative production: rate of speech, number of mazes per total words and the description of conflict/resolution in the narratives produced. Also, significant variability was observed within groups, suggesting that narrative abilities should be considered at an individual level as opposed to their clinical groups. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: This study showed that narrative discourse is an appropriate task that can be added to routine clinical assessments of language abilities in autistic adolescents/young adults as well as those with FASD or typical development and has the potential to reveal higher‐level, real‐world language skills. An important clinical implication of this study is that narrative language abilities should be considered at an individual level and individual‐tailored interventions based on ability level due to the variability observed across individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the crisis of post‐politics has sparked an authoritarian turn in spatial planning in England. The proposed reform of the English planning system in 2020 is a defining moment, marking not only the failure of consensus‐seeking politics in governing dissents but also the rising authoritarian responses to fix it. This is manifest in the intensification of state control, strengthening of executive power, and decline of democratic institutions, with a shift of emphasis from techno‐managerial to executive‐punitive practices, and from seemingly consensual to openly antagonistic approaches. This drift to authoritarianism has been justified by invoking a "state of exception," whereby the established rules and procedures are displaced by the appeal to "exceptional" circumstances, such as emergencies, national securities, and global pandemics. We draw on a case study of shale gas "fracking" in England to show how authoritarianism has crept into planning processes through changes in legislation, reconfiguration of rules, rescaling of decision‐making, and shrinking of democratic spaces. We discuss the role of a "political moment" in the politicisation of fracking, arguing that the return of the political has engendered antagonistic and exclusionary practices, rather than the agonistic pluralism that planning scholars have called for. In managing planning conflicts, consent, compromise, and co‐option are increasingly complemented or replaced by discipline, control, and explicit exclusion. Instead of denying, neutralising, or suppressing antagonism by calling for consensus, authoritarian politics exaggerates it by establishing frontiers between legitimate and non‐legitimate voices of dissents. The paper concludes by emphasising that the authoritarian turn can only offer a contingent and fleeting solution to the failure of post‐political planning to deliver neoliberal pro‐growth goals. It cannot eradicate the crisis of legitimacy in planning, nor can it foreclose the political struggle for fixing its meaning and purpose. This paper argues that the crisis of post‐politics has sparked an authoritarian turn in spatial planning in England, and that the proposed reform of the English planning system in 2020 is a defining moment that marks the failure of consensus‐seeking politics in governing dissents and the rising authoritarian responses to fix it. We draw on a case study of shale gas "fracking" in England to show how authoritarianism has crept into planning processes through changes in legislation, reconfiguration of rules, rescaling of decision making, and shrinking of democratic spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust plays a pivotal role in numerous humans' interactions, and it affects relationships ranging from individuals to interstate levels. Any conflict and its resolution can therefore benefit from insights into trust dynamics. The deployment of computational trust management methods and agent technologies provide promising options. They have already been successfully applied in many domains, while in conflict research (and possible resolution policies) they are rather unexplored. This research paper therefore presents an approach that is based on a formalized, anthropocentric trust management method. It deploys it accordingly in agents' simulations to obtain new insights into the dynamics of trust in cooperation–conflict interplay, and to enable derivation of strategies for managing societies to drive them toward desired states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents commentary about a paper written by Kose John and Avner Kalay (J&K) entitled "Costly Contracting and Optimal Payout Constraints," which appeared in the May, 1982 edition of the "Journal of Finance." The author finds J&K's work insightful, carefully presented, and mathematically rigorous, but also excessively technical and difficult to digest. He summarizes J&K's key findings and notes a few reservations he has, including J&K's assumption that there is a positive tax advantage to debt.

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The paper highlights the establishment of the Ombudsman for Financial Services (OFS) in Malaysia as a good alternative avenue for the equitable settlement of disputes regarding financial services. It has been operating since 2016. However, its accessibility to reach wider financial consumers is restricted due to its limited monetary jurisdiction which is incompatible with the current market conditions. Adopting a qualitative content analysis approach, this study reviews the primary legal framework for implementing the financial ombudsman scheme in Malaysia under Financial Service Act 2013 (FSA), Islamic Financial Service Act 2013 (IFSA), Financial Services (Financial Ombudsman Scheme) Regulations 2015 and Islamic Financial Services (Financial Ombudsman Scheme) Regulations 2015 with special focus on monetary jurisdiction. The study has also analyses the jurisdiction of other countries, and the results found that the monetary jurisdiction of the law in Malaysia is still small and limited. Based on comparative analysis, this study suggests an agile approach in determining the monetary jurisdiction through a flexible provision allowing a review every 3 years based on the consumer price index and relevant reports. This way, its accessibility to wider financial disputes will be elevated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper used an evidence and gap map (EGM) to advance the scientific understanding of sibling relationship quality among children aged 2 to 18 years by synthesizing literature on 277 empirical studies from 1985 to 2022 to delineate patterns of study design, sampling, and measurement. Most existing research has utilized majority of White, middle‐to‐upper class, and/or two‐caregiver family samples. Nearly 85% (n = 235) of studies used quantitative methods to measure sibling relationship quality across eight domains: conflict, warmth/affection, quality, cohesion, hostility, power/control, positive engagement, and conflict management. A total of 122 studies used a measure of sibling relationship quality as a predictor of sibling behavior, social, psychological, cognitive, health, or physiological outcomes. Future directions for research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the system of judicial settlement of disputes by means of conciliation correlates with the rule of law, has fundamental disagreements with extrajudicial and, accordingly, less formal instruments for resolving disputes—mediation, negotiations. Moreover, the advantage of the judicial conciliation procedure lies in the ability to ensure the implementation of the decision and its compliance with generally accepted values, and the interpretation of legal provisions is the business of officially authorized officials, and not specialists who act privately. The purpose of the paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of the legal regulation of approbation of conciliation procedures in civil proceedings. In the process of writing the paper, scientific and legal approaches to the essence of the procedure for conciliation in civil proceedings were identified; a comparative legal analysis of the specific features of legal regulation of conciliation procedures in civil proceedings in the territory of the European Union and in the post‐Soviet space was carried out; the prospects for improving the investigated procedure were outlined. It can be concluded that the comparative study of the foundations of legal regulation of conciliation procedures in civil proceedings in the territory of the European Union and in the post‐Soviet space showed the flexibility of the procedure under study, the multivariance of approaches to its implementation, and unity in supporting this method of resolving disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of meta-analysis allows us to draw stronger inferences from past research than are possible from traditional literature. In this paper the general purpose of meta-analysis is discussed, and it is used to resolve a dispute regarding a collection of studies in strategic management dealing with devil's advocacy and dialectical inquiry. The use of meta-analysis leads to different conclusions from those drawn in an earlier review of these studies. At the end of the paper the limitations and potential uses of meta-analysis in strategic management are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s public dispute resolution in Ireland has undergone significant reform. The paper examines external and internal pressures for the reform of conflict resolution in Ireland and reveals the key roles played by senior public servants and conflict management professionals in a system where politics and political divisions had little effect on the reform process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of a structured antagonism lying at the heart of the employment relationship is widely cited but also commonly misinterpreted. The paper firstly returns to the origin of the concept to locate its approach to workplace industrial relations. It forms part of labour process analysis, within which its distinct emphasis is two‐fold: a focus on levels of analysis, such that the connections between the underlying antagonism and concrete behaviour can be interrogated; and a preference for comparative analysis, which allows the relevant processes to be identified. In this paper, we apply these themes to contemporary workplaces such as those in the gig economy. Recent research demonstrates substantial empirical and theoretical progress but can be taken further using the above two ideas. A methodological checklist emerges to guide a future programme of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning analytics (LA) has demonstrated great potential in improving teaching quality, learning experience and administrative efficiency. However, the adoption of LA in higher education is often beset by challenges in areas such as resources, stakeholder buy‐in, ethics and privacy. Addressing these challenges in a complex system requires agile leadership that is responsive to pressures in the environment and capable of managing conflicts. This paper examines LA adoption processes among 21 UK higher education institutions using complexity leadership theory as a framework. The data were collected from 23 interviews with institutional leaders and subsequently analysed using a thematic coding scheme. The results showed a number of prominent challenges associated with LA deployment, which lie in the inherent tensions between innovation and operation. These challenges require a new form of leadership to create and nurture an adaptive space in which innovations are supported and ultimately transformed into the mainstream operation of an institution. This paper argues that a complexity leadership model enables higher education to shift towards more fluid and dynamic approaches for LA adoption, thus ensuring its scalability and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current methods used to investigate emotional inference and conflict resolution knowledge are limited in their suitability for use with children with language disorders due to a reliance on language processing. This is problematic, as nearly 8% of the population are estimated to have developmental language disorder (DLD). In this paper, we present 'Zoti's Social Toolkit', a set of animated scenarios that can be used to assess emotion inferencing and conflict resolution knowledge. All animated scenarios contain interpersonal situations centred around a gender‐neutral alien named Zoti. Four studies investigated the face and construct validity of the stimuli. The final stimulus set can be used with children, who may or may not have language difficulties and is openly available for use in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper explores the surprising impact exerted by third elements on the escalation and de‐escalation of conflicts in business families. To this end, we draw on core concepts of Batesonian cybernetic theory to perform a reconceptualisation of pertinent literature on changing conflict dynamics gathered in family business research and consultancy. Based on this reconceptualisation, we identify explanations and key mechanisms for the impact of third elements on conflict dynamics. Our study thus contributes to research at the interface of family business research, conflict research and cybernetic theory development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper puts forth the foundation for a different type of negotiation that reflects in a more realistic way the behavior of human beings when making complex decisions, aligned with the cognitive process involved. The positive and the negative aspects of decisions reflect two components in the human brain: the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala. The first component deals with behavior related to rewards or potential gains, and the other with behavior related to risk aversion or potential losses. Negotiations require communication, learning, accommodation of positions, and development of alternatives and modification of constraints. Negotiation support systems help and advice negotiators; structure and analyze the problem; elicit preferences to construct a preference function; visualize different aspects of the problem and the process; and facilitate communication and learning. The methodology used is based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process previously employed in a retributive conflict in which each party calculates the incremental benefits it gets and the costs to its opponent. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is used to show the viability of the approach and the type of inputs we need to study conflicts with this approach. The negotiation platform that we describe here help the actors to start and engage a negotiation from noncooperative parties. It can also be used in human– negotiations to expedite reaching an agreement if one exists. However, we are not seeking automated negotiations. Advantages and risks of Artificial Intelligence contribution in negotiation support systems for cognitive and retributive conflict resolution based on AHP (CRCR‐AHP) are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a unique model for building an afternoon school for refugee children sustained by volunteers and refugee teachers and based on humanistic intercultural values. The methodology is participatory including the whole school, from children to teachers to volunteers and managers. Central themes in the findings include a synergetic focus on creative placemaking, conflict negotiation and formal studies. This points to a theoretical connection between informal and formal studies. The findings teach us about the needs of refugee children. A methodological contribution is the use of arts‐based methods to capture refugee children's lived experiences of school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research has revealed that multi‐vehicle coordinated decision making and control can achieve an improvement in both traffic efficiency and driving safety. In the multi‐lane scenarios, a typical coordination method is multi‐vehicle formation control. The existing formation control methods predefine the formation switching process and have not considered or explained the collision‐free behaviour of vehicles in detail. In this paper, a multi‐lane formation control strategy for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) is proposed. The planning framework is bi‐level, which can switch the structure of multi‐vehicle formation in different scenarios smoothly and effectively. In the upper‐level, the relative coordinate system is built to plan the collision‐free relative paths for vehicles. In the lower‐level, multi‐stage trajectory planning and tracking are modelled as an optimal control problem with path constraints. The case study verifies the function of the formation control method in three lane‐number‐changing scenarios. Large‐scale simulations in the lane‐drop bottleneck scenario are conducted under different input traffic volumes, and the numerical results indicate that the proposed formation control method reduces congestion and improves both traffic efficiency and fuel economy at high traffic volumes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will share highlights of an approach used to target professional development of faculty and staff at one of the largest public, land grant, research‐intensive universities in the United States. We will share a practical model designed to build individual and organizational capacity by integrating conflict management techniques that are based on social justice principles into higher education settings. This model has been successfully utilized for more than 2,500 faculty, staff, and students (undergraduate and graduate) at the university, and is an ongoing proactive and responsive strategy in creating a mindful culture and sustaining a cohesive workplace climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the assumption of perfect capital markets, the firm has been traditionally viewed as a homogeneous unit whose clear objective is to maximize its market value. However, in an environment of costly contracting, some recent research has portrayed the firm as a collection of competing groups whose interests can conflict. This paper concentrates on the conflict between the two major groups—the stockholders and the bondholders—and derives an optimal set of contractual arrangements which minimize the costs of this conflict. In our model, these contracts will determine endogenously the optimal investment levels and the dividend policy of a levered firm. This paper presents a rigorous theoretical analysis of the form and optimality of constraints on dividend payouts to be serf-imposed by the shareholders of a levered firm in debt contracts. These optimal contracts are derived endogenously in a multi-period model which allows for divergence of interests between stockholders and bondholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa Education White Paper 6 introduced the establishment of Institutional‐Level Support Teams (ILST) at school level to support the learning and teaching process by identifying and addressing learner, teacher and institutional needs. The core priority of these teams is to implement properly co‐ordinated learner and teacher support services. This paper therefore explores the effectiveness of the ILSTs in providing support services at Full‐Service Schools (FSS). In this article the Rubin, Plovnick and Fry's GRPI model of team effectiveness (1977) was used to explore the effectiveness of the ILSTs in selected schools. By means of focus group interviews, data was generated from two strata, namely ILST members and district officials working directly with FSS. The study was a case study within a qualitative research design. Data was analysed using an inductive analytical framework and a group interpretive data analysis method. The results indicate some efficacy of support provision, but with numerous challenges regarding attention to the desired results, agreement on the standards and expectations, misunderstanding of the boundaries in which ILSTs operate, individual and shared responsibilities, conflict resolution, and effective methods for dealing with conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of 2017 different groups of WTO members decided to launch talks on four subjects, setting aside the WTO consensus working practice. This paper argues that these 'joint statement initiatives' (JSIs) should seek to establish open plurilateral agreements (OPAs) even in instances where the outcome can be incorporated into existing schedules of commitments of participating WTO members. Designing agreements as OPAs provides an institutional framework for collaboration among the responsible national authorities, transparency, mutual review and learning, as well as alternatives to default WTO dispute settlement procedures which may not be appropriate for supporting cooperation on the matters addressed by the JSIs. In parallel, WTO members should establish enforceable multilateral principles to ensure OPAs are compatible with an open global trade regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomy arrangements short of secession have been popular among international actors as a solution to deadly self‐determination conflicts. However, the number of peace agreements incorporating autonomy, while clearly eliminating the possibility of secession, is limited in practice. According to the literature, this is because: (1) ethnic rebels are too weak militarily to extract substantial concessions from national governments; and (2) because the governmental offer of autonomy is not credible to rebels. Drawing upon the single case study of Aceh, this research examines how warring parties overcome these two obstacles and successfully settle ethnonational conflicts through autonomy. First, although ethnonational conflicts do not tend to be costly over a single year, they often last for decades, and the accumulation of this cost over years can be substantial. In light of this long‐term cost, national governments have incentives to offer substantial concessions to stop the conflict from persisting indefinitely. Second, rebels could sign the agreement if they perceive that their autonomy is internationally guaranteed in the long term. It is imperative for international policy makers to consider these points when they try to help resolve ethnonational conflicts through autonomy. Through the single case study of Aceh, this paper has investigated specific mechanisms warring parties in ethnonational conflicts could use to overcome the two obstacles for conflict resolution identified in the literature: no bargaining range, and commitment problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Question/Issue: Although both cognitive conflict and cohesiveness are quintessential for a supervisory board to fulfill its monitoring and advisory role, cognitive conflict may equally create tension that negatively affects board cohesiveness and performance. How boards manage this tension between conflict and cohesiveness is the key concern of this paper. Research Findings/Insights: Analysis of the multicase data from 17 Dutch two‐tier supervisory boards reveals that how boards manage the tension between conflict and cohesiveness depends on three attributes: (a) board cohesiveness, (b) the board's conflict norms formation and (c) the board's dominant conflict management style. These attributes shape volatile board conflict climates. Four conflict climates are identified: (a) compliance climate, (b) pseudocohesive climate, (c) conflict climate, and (d) agree‐to‐disagree climate. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our study makes three contributions. First, it suggests that boards avoid conflict but are nonetheless often not cohesive. Second, it reveals that boards have conflict management styles that include action patterns distinct from those reported in the extant literature since these patterns emerged from exploring what board members think and feel but do not openly say. Third, we develop new insights into how boards implicitly and continuously form conflict norms and propose that boards require explicit, conscious, and shared conflict norms to enact productive conflict management action patterns. Practitioner/Policy Implications: A conceptual model is proposed that facilitates reflection of board decision‐making and effectiveness and that maps out actions the boards can take to address the tension between cognitive conflict and cohesiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many new models of governance are presented as offering potential to more effectively confront environmental challenges in the Anthropocene by transforming the underlying logic of decision‐making. A common feature of these models is the imperative to integrate multiple forms of knowledge, disciplinary perspectives, and diverse networks of actors both within and outside the academy. These calls for pluralism are not just about it as a democratic principle, but part of improved 'knowledge governance' more equipped to address the multi‐faceted causes and consequences of environmental degradation. Yet the principles behind these improved practices can be lost in translation. While pluralism is elevated as ideal, when decision‐makers are faced with political and social realities of bringing in more voices, the result is often more populist than pluralist, and conflicts difficult to manage. This paper explores how these issues play out by examining co‐production in Australian wildfire governance, revealing concerns about whose knowledge is considered credible and legitimate and how knowledge is used to bolster narratives about both change and the status quo. It also contributes to debates about how populism influences the use of knowledge in policy, and how values influence interpretation and action in relation to new evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become an increasingly large part of the infrastructure program of governments around the world. They have been met with a high degree of academic interest, much of which has been critical. A significant strand of this criticism has focused on the drivers of governments that have chosen to employ PPPs. This article brings together an analysis of these scholarly criticisms and considers these assumed drivers against an agency theory framework. Until now, no scholarly article has considered the role of agency theory in the assumed drivers for governments to use PPPs. This paper finds that agency theory has strong explanatory power for the emergence of PPPs as the infrastructure delivery model preferred by governments and, in particular, has helped governments to manage the conflicting interests of citizen groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary geopolitical world is unipolar, with the US (aided by its Western allies) attempting to impose a specific ideological polity on the rest of the world. The analysis developed in this paper is that such an absolutist political approach is dangerous to the peaceful stability of the world order and fails to appreciate the dynamic, interleaved layering across economic, trade, monetary, security, and politico‐cultural functionality. These interactions are structuring the establishment of a limited number of supra‐regions, interacting functionally, within and across the wide geographical areas concerned. This strengthening tendency should be seen as a positive evolutionary strategy that may lead to a multipolar world order that can be effective in achieving a constructive and consensual approach to the peaceful resolution of global conflicts, while allowing essential politico‐cultural diversity. This approach and its implications for UN reform are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Armed conflict has the potential to disrupt water systems that are crucial to environmental and human wellbeing. Yet there is no comprehensive overview of scientific evidence on the impact of armed conflicts on water resources and their management. This paper assesses the relevant scientific evidence through a systematic literature review. We discern conceptual, empirical, and methodological approaches adopted in the reviewed publications and synthesize the overarching research results. Common research topics across the body of literature include the role of water resources in armed conflicts, either as a casualty or as a weapon used by conflict parties, and the implications of armed conflict on water resources management, such as basic service provision and water governance. The analysis also pinpoints the research field's focus on empirical studies based on a small number of cases, and highlights a lack of conceptual engagement with the notion of armed conflict. Future research on water resources and their management in conflict settings needs to be more transparent on conceptual frameworks and assumptions to facilitate knowledge integration across different studies. This article is categorized under:Planning Water > Engineering WaterWater Governance > Human Water [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that we should conceive of reconciliation spatially in order to unlock new insights into the process of reconciling divided societies. It seeks to respond to recent calls to put peace at the heart of geographical research, and suggests that one way in which the challenge of developing peace geographies can be meaningfully progressed is by exploring the spatial elements of the notion of reconciliation. The paper identifies four areas where a spatialised approach to reconciliation is beginning to emerge across the disciplines of urban planning, legal geographies, political science and international development. These include the role of the built environment as a facilitator of reconciliation, the existence of spatial barriers to reconciliation, the role of formalised spaces of reconciliation and the impact of everyday spaces of reconciliation. The paper interrogates the way that space creates possibilities for processes of reconciliation, and the ways that distinctive types of space are in turn created by these processes. Finally, it suggests fruitful avenues for future research, including by working across disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the human resource management literature on the management of workplace conflict. It suggests that workplace conflict is commonly viewed in the literature as a symptom of management failure: the notion that conflict may be intrinsic to the nature of work because employees and managers have hard-to-reconcile competing interests is given short-shrift. At the same time, the paper identifies important differences in the literature, which the authors call 'pathways', about the best methods to manage problems at the workplace. It is argued that four contrasting pathways can be detected in the literature with regard to how organizations approach workplace conflict management practices. Each pathway is examined fully and their respective strengths and weaknesses are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Israel's technologically advanced Iron Dome short‐range missile defence system as a deep empirical case study to examine how affective atmospheres mediate the relationship between state power and the agency of technological objects deployed to govern (in)security. Drawing theoretically from productive tensions between more‐than‐human theories of object‐oriented ontology, actor‐network theory and affect theory, it evaluates Iron Dome as a scintillating 'bright object' with variable capacities and limitations that exceed the sum of its components. Iron Dome both overreaches and contradicts the intentions and governance logics of state elites within a spatio‐temporally distributed array of architectures, infrastructures and practices. Within this milieu, its affective power is ambivalent and capricious, and can both enhance and undermine the atmospheric production of security in ways that exceed both instrumental functionality and human intentions. These findings indicate how a geography of security that attends to the affective dimension of object politics can account for the complex and non‐causal ways in which technologies can either reinforce or inhibit security as an anthropocentric endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hope is a ubiquitous experience in daily life and acts as a force to help individuals attain desired future outcomes. In the current paper, we review existing research on hope and its benefits. Building on this work, we propose a new model of hope in romantic relationships. Our model seeks to expand the study of hope, addressing limitations of past research by bringing hope into the interpersonal domain and adding a future‐oriented perspective. More specifically, we argue that relational hope encompasses three facets, including relational agency, relational pathways, and relational aspirations, or what we call the wills, ways, and wishes people have in their relationship. We outline specific ways that these three facets may promote well‐being in romantic relationships. First, we propose that relational agency—the motivation to achieve relational goals—fuels approach‐motivated goals, which in turn promotes higher quality relationships. Additionally, we posit that relational pathways—the perception of sufficient strategies to pursue relational goals—enhance self‐regulation to support effective communication and conflict management with a romantic partner. Finally, we propose that relational aspirations—the positive emotions felt in anticipation of future relationship outcomes—foster growth beliefs which in turn promote relationship maintenance and commitment over time. While our model posits that relational hope has many potential benefits for relationships, we also discuss key contexts in which hope may undermine relationships and well‐being. Overall, our proposed model of relational hope offers a new area of insight into how hope may shape well‐being in romantic relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the causal effects of different levels of mother's and father's education on child general and mental health, by applying a fixed effects instrumental variable panel data estimator with selection to nationally represented longitudinal data of over 13,000 observations in the United Kingdom from 2008 to 2019. The results reveal a negative association between mother's education and boys' mental health, potentially driven by relative rather than absolute levels of education between parents. Differences in educational attainment between parents signal unequal power and different values, which inhibits conflict resolution and commitment, leading to higher likelihood of breaking up, which in turn may negatively affect child mental health. On the contrary, no evidence is found of causal links between different levels of mother's and father's education on child health, indicating the relevance of potential environmental factors in the intergenerational transmission mechanism. This calls for more co-ordination of educational interventions with other economic policies, also taking economic cycle into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a behavioural framework to complement professional accounting firms' measures for managing conflicts of interest. Following an empirical examination of the process through which conflicts of interest affect accounting professionals' decision‐making, we develop guidance for practitioners that will enable them to incorporate behavioural interventions while establishing the context, assessing, treating, controlling and monitoring conflicts of interest. The interventions are aimed at strengthening accounting professionals' independence in fact by increasing the professionals' expectation that compliant decision‐making will result in positive outcomes, increasing their perception that making compliant decisions is less difficult than making the alternative decisions, facilitating the formation of highly ethical judgements and lowering their propensity to disengage. The data were collected through a quasi‐experiment with 105 professionals from the Big Four accounting firms in the UK. Our work offers practical implications for professional accountants, executive directors, regulatory bodies, executive training and academic research. Other professions facing the ramifications of conflicts of interest (e.g. law, engineering, medicine and architecture) may also use the proposed framework to improve their ethics policies and corporate governance codes for managing conflicts of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three years after the introduction of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience there remains no unanimously adopted definition of disaster resilience within Australia's emergency management sector. The aim of this study is to determine what the concept means to key stakeholders in the emergency management sector in the Australian State of Victoria, and how these conceptualisations overlap and diverge. Via an online survey, 113 people were asked how they define disaster resilience in their work in the emergency management sector. A data mining software tool, Leximancer, was employed to uncover the relationships between the definitions provided. The findings show that stakeholders see resilience as an 'ability' that encompasses emergency management activities and personal responsibility. However, the findings also highlight some possible points of conflict between stakeholders. In addition, the paper outlines and discusses a number of potential consequences for the implementation and the success of the resilience-based approach in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operators in air traffic control facing time‐ and safety‐critical situations call for efficient, reliable and robust real‐time processing and interpretation of complex data. Automation support tools aid controllers in these processes to prevent separation losses between aircraft. Issues of current support tools include limited 'what‐if' and 'what‐else' probe functionalities in relation to vertical solutions. This work presents the design and evaluation of two visual analytics interfaces that promote contextual awareness and support 'what‐if' and 'what‐else' probes in the spatio‐temporal domain aiming to improve information integration and support controllers in prioritising conflict resolution. Both interfaces visualize vertical solution spaces against a time‐altitude graph. The main contributions of this paper are: (a) the presentation of two interfaces for supporting conflict solving; (b) the novel representation of how vertical information and aircraft rate of climb and descent affect conflicts and (c) an evaluation and comparison of the interfaces with a traditional air traffic control support system. The evaluation study was performed with domain experts to compare the effects of visualization concepts on operator engagement in processing solutions suggested by the tools. Results show that the visualizations support operators' ability to understand and resolve conflicts. Based on the results, general design guidelines for time‐critical domains are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal conflicts between multinational firms and host governments are often decided by international arbitration panels—as opposed to courts in the host country—because of provisions in international investment agreements known as investor state dispute settlements (ISDS). Critics fear that investor protection such as ISDS make governments reluctant to adopt appropriate policies (regulatory chill). In this paper I develop a theoretical model in which the outcome of cases brought to court is uncertain owing to the vagueness of the law protecting investors and a court's inability to correctly identify a state of nature with certainty. I show that from a world welfare perspective there is no underregulation, only an overregulation problem. However, from a national welfare perspective "frivolous" lawsuits may lead to regulatory chill. I also identify conditions under which ISDS can lead to a Pareto improvement that involves simultaneous changes in compensation payments and protection rights relative to a national court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protests and opposition to land acquisition from displaced peasants for fair compensation occur on a daily basis in China and have become the most prominent social problem in rural parts of the country. Employing a procedural perspective on conflict, this paper aims to uncover the complexities and tensions that are triggered in the process by drawing on a case of a land confiscation in Jining City, a medium‐size city in Shandong Province, China. Our research shows that conflicts exist at various scales: both between the local governments and rural households and between the village officials and villagers. The paper argues that ambiguity in de jure and de facto land acquisition procedures has resulted in both an escalation of conflict and increasing inequality in the outcomes and benefits of the process. We discuss and conclude that the differences between de jure and de facto procedures in the process of land acquisition are a significant institutional barrier in the resolution of conflict in this important issue for rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (TPB) model to explain the formation of behavioral frameworks for conflict resolution. Using data about the Chengqi Earth building, UNESCO World Heritage Site, it puts forward an integrative TPB model with self‐regulation and social capital as a good fit to that data, which has better predictive power in relation to intentions than the original model. The results show that attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and self‐regulatory behavior positively affect intentions to seek conflict resolution. The paper concludes with insightful implications that can be applied to other areas of China and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of international peace mediation has become increasingly complex. Proliferation of actors that are able and willing to mediate has made multiparty mediation a standard format through which conflicts get managed. Due to their ad hoc nature, multiparty mediation efforts require specific mechanisms that will provide sufficient clarity and direction for the mediators involved. This paper departs by differentiating three distinct, yet highly interrelated, fundamental aspects that contribute to the overall success in multiparty mediation: cooperation, coordination and leadership. Treating coordination as a subset element of wider cooperation, this paper addresses the main challenges of achieving effective coordination in a given context. The paper highlights the relevance of information carrying capacity and premediated appointment of a leader when developing particular coordination mechanisms. Hybrid mediation is context dependent and the rules generated to resolve one conflict may not apply to another conflict. Hence, it is difficult to envision how hybrid mediation can become institutionalized as it yields, at best, weakly generalizable procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partnerships between organisations in humanitarian crisis situations generally are challenging, but at the apex are those established as part of remote management in a context of extreme insecurity. To date, little systematic research has been conducted on arrangements between local organisations that have access to crisis‐affected populations and international organisations that hold the purse strings. This paper presents the findings of nine months of qualitative research conducted with five Syrian local organisations and their international partners engaging in humanitarian action across the Turkey–Syria border, and presents insights into the components of successful partnerships. It redefines capacity along organisational and operational lines, and unpacks how monitoring and evaluation and donor requirements create tension and, at times, place local organisations at risk. The paper highlights the centrality of trust in successful partnerships, and describes the personalisation of the conflict by local organisations. Based on a historical case study of civil society in northern Iraq, it closes with some suggestions for long‐term sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine dilemmas arising during the negotiation process where negotiators claim their positions and threats reciprocally. To obtain an holistic view of the dilemmas, we first define the class of negotiation we will focus on and then argue that inconsistency between the claims leads to dilemmas. Then, after we define and classify six dilemmas rigorously in terms of a dramatic model, we show that these six dilemmas are all and only dilemmas arising in negotiation. This is the main finding of the paper. A holistic description of the inter-relationships among the dilemmas is also presented. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We start from the proposition that organizations' social and environmental policies and practices are influenced as much by stakeholders as by organizational management. Various types of organization–stakeholder relationship are outlined, from market-based (e.g. ethical consumerism) to participative (e.g. consultation and coalition). This organization–stakeholder network constitutes the problematic system of concern. The concept of responsibility and its attribution is critically considered, as is the likelihood of value-conflicts between members of this wider system. The tendency for ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) to be managed hierarchically within organizations, characterized by an over-reliance on enforced codes of conduct is critiqued on ethical and practical grounds. It is argued that individuals require a capacity for moral judgement in applying codes and, more generally, when resolving conflict and dilemmas within the wider system of organization–stakeholder relations. An appropriate approach from ethical theory is therefore offered. The paper concludes with a summary of aspects of CSR to which the systems discipline could usefully contribute. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]