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The purpose of this study was to investigate the associations between personal sense of power (PSP) and compliance as a function of the interaction between negative emotion intensity and emotion regulation tactics.

First, hypotheses linking PSP to different emotional reactions and to different levels of compliance with two types of conflict management styles were formulated. Subsequently, data were collected in three waves with a five-week interval between them to test the hypotheses.

Results based on principle component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis indicated that workers with high PSP reported lower internalized negative emotions (negative emotions directed to the self) in the workplace and were less inclined to comply with harsh tactics, in comparison to workers with low PSP. The importance of emotional components (suppression and negative emotions in the workplace) was underscored by the moderated mediation model: internalized negative emotions mediated the association between PSP and compliance with harsh tactics as a function of level of suppression such that the link between negative affect and compliance was negative only under high suppression, but not under low suppression.

The findings point to the deleterious influence of high emotional suppression of negative emotions on study behaviors, especially for employees with a low sense of power. Because the data were collected from a single source, which could raise concerns about common method variance and social desirability bias, future study should examine other-reports.

Recruitment and training of employees and managers should aim to create an open and safe organizational environment that encourages emotional expression and lessens emotional suppression.

The findings can help develop empowering interventional programs to coach employees to use suppression in an adaptive manner.

The current study sheds new light on the relationships between PSP and compliance from the emotion regulation perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Koslowsky and Schwarzwald’s (2009) recent conceptualization of the interpersonal power interaction model which assumed that the choice of power tactics in conflict situations is a sequential process including antecedents, mediators, and the choice of influence tactics. The mediation process is the new component of the model, thus the authors tested two potential mediators – perceived damage and negative emotions – in the choice process.

Managers (n=240) were presented with conflict scenarios involving one of their subordinates (low/high performing) and differed by conflict type (relations/task and principle/expediency). They indicated the influence tactics they would utilize in the given situation for gaining compliance and completed a series of questionnaires: perceived damage engendered by disobedience, resultant emotion, cognitive closure, and demographics.

Results indicated that perceived damage, directly and through the mediation of resultant negative emotions, influenced the tendency to opt for harsh tactics. This trend was further affected by the managers’ gender and cognitive closure.

The discussion addresses the empirical validity of the model, the role of rationality and emotion in the process of choosing influence tactics. Practical implications concerning the usage of harsh and soft tactics and the limitation of the self-report method were also discussed.

The contribution of the study is twofolded: proving the empirical validity of the new conceptualization of the model and explaining the dynamic involved in the choice of influence tactics.

The paper aims to examine whether power distance and management style predict social power choice and whether management style also acts as a mediator in a model linking all three variables.

The study was conducted within the Israeli Police Force using regular patrol and special patrol units. A total of 40 captains or officers and 151 policemen/women completed scales assessing power distance, captain's managerial style, and influence tactics chosen by them in conflict situations. The data were analyzed from two different perspectives: captains and policemen.

Harsh tactics were found to differ significantly by power distance whereas the parallel comparison for soft tactics was not significant. The mediation hypothesis tested separately on both samples was supported only for the subordinate group. Management style added significant variance for explaining the dependent variable and also mediated the relationship between power distance and harsh tactic choice.

Using alternative methods for the research design such as observational data or manipulating the independent variables with different scenarios would provide support for the robustness of the findings.

As power distance is increasing, the need to gain compliance in a task oriented situation increases the usage of harsh influence tactics. Conversely, for a similar power distance but in an interpersonal oriented situation, the supervisor may well decide to apply more soft tactics which are more likely to foster a free exchange of ideas and encourage compliance on the part of the patrolman.

Theoretically, the findings of a mediator effect aids in understanding power strategy choice. Specifically, managerial style is not independent of power distance but rather helps maintain the existing organizational culture. Methodologically, the use of two data sets, supervisors and subordinates, reduces bias attributed to common method variance.

Research has indicated that gender stereotypes, especially as they relate to women, are changing due to their growing numbers in the labor force. This research on power usage for gaining compliance in conflict situations examines whether a similar tendency exists for social power tactics, another aspect of the gender stereotype.

In two studies, one focusing on manager‐subordinates interactions (n=141) and the other on husband‐wife relationships (n=149), participants were presented with scenarios describing conflict situations relevant for each setting occurring in three time periods ‐ past, present, and future – and then estimated the frequency of power category (harsh/intermediate/soft) usage by men and women in each of these periods.

Findings indicated that gender stereotypical attributions eroded over time with a greater ascription of feminine tactics to males in the present and future. It was also found that harsh tactics usage was attributed to a greater extent in the work rather than the home setting.

In general, stereotype research assesses perceptions rather than reality. The perceptions measured here regarding past and future, though intrinsically informative, may reflect selective perception or social desirability.

This work indicated that the increasing involvement of women in the work force seems to have affected perceptions of the manner in which individuals exercise power in conflict situations. In particular, gender differences in power usage are viewed as diminishing over time; a tendency more discernible in the work world than at home.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the exercise of power by leaders is impacted by cultural factors. The authors present a conceptual framework to examine the interaction of various cultural dimensions with harsh and soft power bases, thereby delineating the cross-cultural appropriateness of various power bases that may be tapped by organizational leaders.

Compatibility of each cultural dimension with harsh of soft power bases is conceptually examined, in the context of Raven’s power interaction model of interpersonal influence.

Soft power bases are more likely to be activated by managers in cultures that are collectivist, loose, long-term oriented, but low on power distance and uncertainty avoidance. Harsh power bases are expected to be chosen for influencing subordinates in cultures that are tight, short-term oriented, and high in power distance.

This is only an initial attempt to look at the exercise of social power in the context of societal culture. The framework can be extrapolated to a more fine-grained examination of the phenomenon.

The conceptualization has potential implications for developing training programs aimed at improving managers’ cross-cultural competencies.

Using a cross-cultural lens to examine how a leader exercises power contributes to a holistic view of power and culture. A cross-cultural extension of the power/interaction model, as suggested by the authors, adds value to the field of management development thinking and practice.

This research aims to explore the notion of fit between subordinates’ need for cognitive closure and supervisors’ power tactics on organizational conflict management.

Two-hundred and ninety employees drawn from six different Italian organizations were recruited for the purpose of this study.

Results indicated that high-need-for-closure subordinates utilized more constructive (solution-oriented) conflict management strategies when their supervisors relied on harsh power tactics, whereas low-need-for-closure subordinates were more inclined to use solution-oriented conflict management strategies when their supervisors relied on soft power tactics. Additionally, results indicated that, overall, supervisors’ use of harsh power tactics increased subordinates reliance on maladapted (control-oriented) conflict management strategies, but even more so for subordinates with low need for cognitive closure.

This study highlights the importance of supervisor–subordinate fit to understand conflict management in organizational setting.

Understanding the effects trauma has on refugee parents and consequently, their children, is the first step in interrupting the intergenerational transmission of trauma. This study aims to investigate the impacts of parental exposure to trauma pre-settlement on parent and child reports of developmental difficulties as mediated by parental post-traumatic stress symptomology and harsh parenting.

The study included 414 refugee children (age M = 14.04, SD = 2.00; 48.3% female) and their caregivers (age M = 41.78, SD = 5.24, 77% female). The sample was drawn from the Building a New Life in Australia study, a large, representative cohort study of resettled refugees in Australia. Only data collected where both parents and their children could be matched were used in this study.

Results indicated that trauma was significantly associated with increased parental post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in all models and was negatively, albeit weakly, associated with lower levels of harsh parenting in the overall model which combined parent and child reports. Trauma also had a weak, positive indirect effect on developmental difficulties via parental PTSD in both the overall model and the model assessing parent-rated developmental difficulties. In all models, harsh parenting was associated with increased developmental difficulties, although harsh parenting did not act as a significant mediator of the effects of trauma or parental PTSD.

Results suggest that prior traumas had less of an adverse effect on parenting and child adjustment as was expected. Parenting, however, was strongly associated with poor child adjustment, indicating that this may be a key factor to encourage positive adjustment for refugee children.

This study aims to examine supervisors’ power preference (harsh/soft) for gaining compliance from subordinates in conflict situations using the updated Power Interaction Model (Koslowsky and Schwarzwald, 2009. The model assumes that the relationship between antecedents and power preference is mediated by cost/benefit considerations.

Four considerations were examined as mediators: acquiescence, relations, worker growth and conformity. A sample of 120 bank managers was given one of several conflict scenarios differing on severity (low/high) and subordinate worker’s performance ability (low/average/high). In addition, mangers’ leadership style and organizational commitment were assessed.

For the two manipulated variables, conflict (high significance, low significance) and worker performance (high, average, low), an interaction effect was tested with follow-up univariate analysis yielding significance only for harsh tactics. Structural equations modeling, used for comparing the fit generated for different mediators, indicated that acquiescence was the most salient mediator and provided adequate fit for the model predicting power tactics preference.

Although it is difficult to exclude cultural effects when applying the Interpersonal Power Interaction Model (IPIM) in a specific country, it should be noted that, as far as factor structure is concerned, a similar pattern was obtained for Israeli and American participants in previous research (Raven et al., 1998). Additionally, in the present study, the outcome measure was not observed but rather elicited through scenarios. The participant responses were derived from self-report questionnaires and are prone to percept–percept bias and common method variance.

For the first time, in a study where antecedent variables were manipulated, findings supported the revised IPIM. Power choice was demonstrated as a result of a sequential process with mediators serving as links between various organizational, situational and personal antecedents and outcomes.

An autonomous mobile robot requires efficient perception of the environment to perform various tasks in a challenging environment. The precise sensory information from the range sensors is required to accomplish prerequisites, such as SLAM, path planning and localization. But the accuracy and precision of the sensors become unreliable in harsh environmental conditions because of the effect of rain, dust, humidity, fog and smoke. The purpose of this paper is to generate robust mapping of the environment in harsh environmental conditions.

This paper presents a novel technique, averaging data with short range selection (ADWSRS), to reduce the effect of harsh environmental (rain, wind, humidity, etc.) conditions on sensory information (range) to generate reliable grid mapping. The sensory information on laser and sonar sensors in terms of probability values (occupied/unoccupied cell) in generating grid maps are fused after passing through two newly designed pre-processing filters: laser averaging filter and short range selection filter. This proposed approach relies on various aspects such as averaging laser data analogous to current pose of the sensor, selection of short range with respect to threshold value to remove the effect of specular reflection/crosstalk of sonar and a newly designed apparatus in which dirt cover (glass cover) and air blower are coupled to remove the influence of dirt, rain and humidity.

This proposed approach is tested in different environmental conditions, and to verify the consistency of the proposed approach, qualitative and quantitative analyses are carried out, which shows 42.5 per cent improvement in the probability value of occupied cells in the generated grid map.

The proposed ADWSRS approach reduced the effect of harsh environmental conditions such as fog, rain and smoke to generate efficient mapping of the environment, which may be implemented in diverse applications such as autonomous navigation, localization, path planning and mapping.

The Palermo Conference represents an important paradigm of civic responsibility that holds important global lessons for the kind of solidarity and cooperation necessary to transform the harsh reality of private and even public tyranny into the higher ideals of civic decency. It is the predicate that defends the rule of law precept as a stabilising and transformative component of a world order that honours and respects the dignity of all the people. The theme of the symposium where this paper was first presented was, of course, the rule of law in the global village. More specifically, the title here is ‘The Rule of Law: Lofty Ideal or Harsh Reality?’ How then does the UN convention against Transnational Organized Crime, in general, impact on the major themes just specified? What does the convention have to do with the rule of law and the earth‐space community, visualised as a global village?