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Family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent a substantial part of many economies. In these organizations, close and informal relationships between employers and employees often foster a mutual understanding of each other’s needs, facilitating the negotiation of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), special employment conditions tailored for individual employees. However, research on how i-deals are negotiated in family SMEs, especially regarding power dynamics and influence, remains limited. This study aims to identify the types of i-deals negotiated in family SMEs and explore the role of power and influence in these negotiations.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 employees and 15 employers from Spanish family SMEs. Data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti 8, and thematic analysis was performed.

The study concludes that task, flexibility, financial and development i-deals are particularly negotiated in family SMEs. It identifies that referent and expert power play an important role in initiating these negotiations. Furthermore, rational tactics are generally employed for negotiating work performance, soft tactics for employment-related aspects and hard tactics for work flexibility. Additionally, the study identified gender differences in the negotiation of i-deals.

This study enhances i-deal literature by highlighting the distinct characteristics of family SMEs and their impact on i-deal negotiations. The findings suggest that power dynamics and influence tactics in family SMEs differ from those in larger firms. Moreover, certain i-deals may encounter resistance due to concerns about organizational performance and economic implications. Understanding these factors is essential for developing effective negotiation strategies in family SMEs.

This study offers a dual perspective, analyzing the power and influence tactics used by both employees and employers in family SME i-deal negotiations and highlighting gendered dynamics in these processes.

This chapter focuses on the conservative Heritage Foundation's “Project 2025” and especially its comprehensive Mandate for Leadership, which provides a detailed plan for fundamental policy and administrative changes to be instituted in a Trump second term. It advocates an unparalleled concentration of executive power, elimination of the independence of the civil service and Department of Justice from the office of the president, and institution of permanent dominance of Trumpian conservatism. The specific focus is on the Mandate's proposed antienvironmental policies, which are weaved throughout the document and are designed to roll back sweepingly previous climate-change and environmental protection policies. Stressing maximal usage, production, and export of fossil fuel, the Trumpian “energy dominance agenda” is in polar contradiction to climate science policy aimed at decarbonizing the economy and society and averting catastrophic climate change and a “Hothouse Earth.” The Mandate's postfactual discourse combined with its advocacy of an all-powerful president and conspiratorial vision of the “woke” left as public enemy has definite protofascist overtones.

Strengths-based professional development has been associated with positive outcomes in academia and in the organizational workplace. Students pursuing their doctoral degrees in the biomedical sciences in the US are often on graduate assistantships, where they experience an academic component to their training integrated with an employee-like existence. The individual who serves as their academic and research advisor is often their supervisor, who pays their stipend. The traditional training structure poses unique challenges and may be accompanied by stress, burnout and imposter phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to utilize a strengths-based approach to equip students with essential personal and professional skills that build self-awareness and self-confidence further preparing them for their future in the scientific workforce.

The authors developed and implemented a novel strengths-based professional development cohort program for doctoral students in the biomedical sciences at a research-intensive (R1) institution. The program was designed to create a supportive and inclusive space for participants (n = 18) to explore their identity as a student and scientists and to develop and leverage their talents for more effective and strategic use. Program outcomes were evaluated through a mixed methods case study design using a post-program Likert-based survey (n = 10 participants) and participant interviews (n = 13). Explanatory sequential design was used in the interpretation of the findings.

The results show that the program had a positive impact on students’ perceptions of themselves as scientists, as well as on their self-efficacy, self-confidence and interpersonal interactions in the research setting.

This strengths-based professional development program demonstrates immense potential as a model to equip students with self-awareness and a new foundation of essential skills needed to supplement their technical and scientific training for their future careers in the team-based workplace.

This study demonstrates how professional development programming can complement scientific training by equipping students with self-awareness and other lifelong skills to navigate feelings of imposter phenomenon and interpersonal relationships in the team-based workplace.