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This paper aims to clarify the relationship between conflict, apologies, forgiveness and willingness to cooperate after a conflict event.

The paper used scenarios and quantitative measures to examine the connection between conflict, perceived apology sincerity, forgiveness and willingness to cooperate in 358 business undergraduates.

Data revealed that relationship conflict was significantly but negatively associated with forgiveness and willingness to cooperate. Additionally, attitudes toward forgiveness were directly and positively related not only to forgiveness but also to willingness to cooperate. Finally, forgiveness mediated the link between both perceived apology sincerity attitudes to forgiveness and willingness to cooperate.

Data were cross-sectional and may be subject to bias. Longitudinal studies are needed to further tease out the connection between the variables in the current study. Similarly, future research should explore the role of climate and individuals’ disposition and readiness to apologize, forgive and their willingness to cooperate at work.

The paper includes practical implications for managers interested in eliciting cooperation after a workplace conflict. Specifically, apology and forgiveness should be included in managers’ conflict management training programs.

Our findings indicated that apology and forgiveness are social skills that are important for conflict management and cooperation after a workplace conflict.

Beyond reconciliation, the current study provides new insights into the important role of actual forgiveness in whether employees are willing to cooperate after conflict at work. Practical assistance is offered to managers who are interested in fostering cooperation and increased performance after conflict episodes.

Little research has focused on the impact of organizational crisis on their internal stakeholders – the employees. This paper aims to fill this void by examining the impression management strategies used by senior managers in managing their employees during organizational crisis and the impact of these strategies on employees.

The authors collected qualitative data from three organizations and used multiple analytical lenses (such as thematic, content and trope) to explore patterns in senior managers’ management of employees during crisis.

Emerging patterns in the data revealed that the emotional state and reactions of employees (individual and collective) during crisis include anger, fear, shame, depression and shock. Additionally, data revealed two major contradictions (tensions) in managing employees during crisis: maintaining and compromising standard and managers’ wants versus employees’ desire in the way organization crisis is managed. Based on these preliminary findings and using affective event theory and the theory of collective emotions as a frame, the authors built a conceptual model that depicts the relationship between organizational crisis, impression management and emotion-driven employee attitudes and behaviors.

A major limitation in the current research is that authors’ data are largely composed of text (e.g. from newspaper and websites). Nevertheless, the textual data were based on actual interviews with stakeholders and victims and have more than compensated for the limitation. Theoretically, by examining the emotional states and reactions of internal (rather than external) stakeholders to organizational crisis, the authors extend the literature in the area of organizational crisis and crisis management, while the testable propositions in this conceptual model have a potential to open up new pathways for studying organizational crisis. Practically, it is imperative for managers to have skills to identify and manage key employees’ emotional states and reactions to crisis. Managers should align their words and actions during crisis management to increase employees trust. Also pre-crisis planning should include specific guidelines on how to identify and manage employees’ individual and collective emotions during crisis.

The results show that inappropriate impression management strategies may worsen employees’ emotional states and reactions (individual and collective) during crisis; therefore, it is imperative for managers to have skills in identifying key employees’ emotional states and reactions to crisis and the impression management strategies appropriate in managing them. A training that sharpens managers’ emotional intelligence will be helpful in managing the emotions of employees (individual and collective) during crisis. Also, pre-crisis planning should include specific guidelines on how to identify and manage employees’ individual and collective emotions during crisis, while senior managers’ words and actions during crisis need to be synchronized to engender employees’ trust.

This study demonstrates that beyond emotions of employees during crisis, there are contradictions and tensions in the senior manager’s management of their employees during crisis. Also, outcomes of a quantitative test of the conceptual model developed from the current study should improve the generalizability of the results and open up new pathways for future research in this area.

Although how leaders shape their followers’ behaviors and outcomes is core to the leadership literature, empirical research exploring how followers might impact their leaders’ behaviors is just emerging. Using a follower-centric approach, this study aims to examine the link between followers’ conflict behaviors, transformational leadership (TL) and the quality of team member exchange (TMX). Additionally, the authors hypothesized and tested the moderating role of TMX quality in the relationship between TL and teams’ work engagement.

Quantitative data were collected randomly from 261 employees in 41 teams to examine the connection between followers’ conflict behaviors, TL and TMX and team engagement.

Using bottom-up/bootstrapping approach, results showed followers’ problem-solving conflict behaviors were positively linked with team leaders’ TL behaviors while improving TMX quality. Additionally, TL was connected with high levels of team work engagement and this connection was enhanced by TMX quality. Implications of the results are discussed.

Although this conceptual model revealed followers as impacting TL and TMX, there is also a possibility that TL and TMX quality may be able to impact employees’ conflict behaviors. Additionally, the current study adopted a cross-sectional research design which does not allow for an assessment of cause and effect. Therefore, caution should be taken in interpreting the results. Finally, the authors studied employees from a single national culture. Yet, they know that national culture may influence the relationship between TL and conflict at the individual and team levels. Overall, the present research showed that individual followers’ conflict behaviors were associated with TL behaviors and TMX quality.

On a practical note, managers would be more successful in managing conflict in teams if they would observe their followers’ conflict behaviors and act as role models in displaying problem solving conflict behaviors – an approach that has been identified in this study to assist in eliciting transformational behaviors from the leader. Furthermore, training is indicated. Organizations should consider training leaders in TL given that our result shows that TL has a direct positive connection with employee’s work engagement. Specifically, the followers’ conflict behaviors should now be incorporated into the leadership (e.g. transformational) training programs. Finally, managers who need to boost team work engagement should consider increasing the quality of the TMX in the team.

The leaders behavioral style may partly be dependent on the followers’ conflict management behaviors.

Thus far, research on leadership have been leader-centric, and while the authors are aware that followers have an important role in shaping the leaders’ behaviors, research in this area has until recently ignored how followers might impact their leaders’ style, processes and the quality of employee interactions, especially at the team level. The authors found for the first time that problem-solving conflict behaviors were connected with team leaders’ TL style and TMX quality.

Research on the physical work environment and employee territorial behavior in the field of organizational behavior is limited. In particular, while the prevalence of territorial behaviors in organizations is not new, little is known about how the physical work environment (e.g. open-plan offices) may influence the enactment, interpretation and reactions to territoriality. The purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between the physical environment of work (e.g. open-plan office), employee territorial behaviors (including infringement) and affective environment.

Data were collected by means of in-depth-interviews from 27 participants from two large Australian public organizations involved in recruitment, marketing, consulting and education.

Results revealed that employees’ personalization in the open-plan office is driven by the nature of their tasks, appointment, duration of time spent on their desk, level of adaptation to the open-plan office configurations and the proximity of desks to senior managers, hallways and passers-by. Additionally, affective environment has a critical effect on employee personalization and the enactment and perception of territoriality and infringements in open-plan offices. Additionally, the authors found that the affective environment is dynamic and that employees in open-plan offices experienced emotional contagion (positive and negative).

Due to the demographic make-up of one of the participating organizations, less than a third of participants were male. While the data did not suggest any disparity in the territorial behaviors of male and female, future research should include an even representation of male and female participants. Similarly, the authors did not examine the impact of ethnicity and cultural background on employees’ territoriality. However, given that the workforce is increasingly becoming multicultural, future research should explore how ethnicity might impact the use of space, work processes and productivity in open-plan office. Additionally, scholars should continue to tease out the impact of affective environment (positive and negative) on team processes (e.g. conflict, communication, collaboration and the development of team mental models) in the open-plan office.

The results indicate some practical implications. Noise and distraction are indicated in the results. Therefore, human resource managers and organizational leaders should work with employees to develop some ground rules and norms to curb excessive noise in the open-plan office. Additionally, the authors found in the current study that the affective environment is dynamic and that employees in open-plan offices experienced emotional contagion (positive and negative). Managers should watch out for how individuals react to the prevailing emotions and moods in the open-plan office with the intention of diffusing negative emotions as quickly as possible, for example, by changing the topic under discussion in the open-plan office. The results speak to the need for more active collaboration and engagement between policy makers, workspace architects, designers and employees especially prior to the building of such workspaces.

The results suggest that effective employee interactions in open-plan office may be enhanced by positive emotional contagion and office affective environment.

So far, little is known about the impact of the physical work context (e.g. open-plan offices) on the enactment, interpretation and reactions to territoriality. The current paper explores the connection between the physical environment of work (e.g. open-plan office), employee territorial behaviors (including infringement) and affective environment. The findings demonstrate for the first time and especially in an open-plan office that ownership and personalization of objects and workspaces are more likely to be driven by the amount of time spent at one’s desk, the nature of employees’ appointments and tasks. Additionally, the present research is one of the first to report on affective environment dynamism in the open-plan office.