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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate what would happen if we were to ignore relationships when leading change. Many believe that project management, change management, and related fields, are a matter of marshalling stuff: working the right processes and tasks, writing the correct documents, having good governance mechanisms in place, etc. People just distract and get in the way. Some tend to concentrate on these technicalities working their computer tools, rather than leaning towards people. The result is huge waste. Organisational change will always cut across different business functions, boundaries and across silos of working. This is where stakeholder engagement leads to successful outcomes.

It is a surprise to many, but listening is probably the most powerful influencing strategy of all. The key is to ask the person you seek to influence, first for their thoughts, fears, and aspirations. If you can show you are genuinely interested, you begin to break down any barriers to change. This helps focus on the need for change rather than present the solution first. Yes, time is money, but often we can let this get in the way of engaging successfully. Conversations like this do take time. It feels counter-intuitive.

There is growing evidence that people who make better leaders have a leaning towards action, they are never victims of “paralysis by analysis”. The self-aware, pro-active manager leading change understands that relationships are central to success and are thinking about their relationships in a real and active way. They think about their mental landscape and on that landscape they see the vital importance of stakeholders and are prepared to spend a far higher proportion of their discretionary time devoted to engaging with other people, quite apart from the structured meetings and emails that we usually describe as “communicating”.

Most management books are written with the assumption that the business world is rational, but when it comes to change, it appears this is far from the case. We are taught to put a reasonable proposition to people, the business case, the plan, and so on, then expect people to mull it over for a while, then jump into action – reason – analyse – act. But nearly always the actual sequence is – see – feel – act. There is little doubt that people engage with their stakeholders better if there is some kind of emotional connection.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak thrust a spotlight on organizational leaders and the challenges that employees face during periods of organizational change. The purpose of the current study is to examine the influence of empathetic supervisor communication on employee turnover intention and the mediating role of affective trust toward supervisors and employee–organization relationship (EOR) quality. Informed by the social exchange theory and EOR literature, the authors develop a model in which affective trust toward supervisors and EOR quality mediates the relationship between empathetic supervisor communication and employee turnover intention.

This study recruited 417 employees based in the USA through an online panel operated by a professional survey company. Data collection that followed a quota sampling procedure lasted for about three weeks in October 2020. The authors used structural equation modeling to test the study hypotheses.

The findings of this study indicated that the extent to which supervisors adopted empathetic communication during organizational change had considerable repercussions on their supervisees' affective trust toward supervisors, relationship perception toward their organizations, and ultimately, their turnover intention.

This study is among the first that identifies empathetic communication as a pivotal force in driving employees' positive relational and behavioral reactions, reinforcing the growing expectation of supervisors in fulfilling communication functions during organizational change. Moreover, the authors contribute to understanding change management as an activity rooted in and enacted through communication between supervisors and subordinates. In addition, this study contributes to the organizational research of empathy during change.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education instructors were forced to make necessary changes in the conversion from face to face instruction to the use of online and virtual platforms. Even before this shift, scholars have long advocated the introduction of active and constructivist learning practices, and to move away from the traditional lecture as a means to disseminate information in the classroom. This chapter highlights ways in which active learning and constructivist-related activities such as motivational activities, critical-thinking activities, creative-thinking activities, and collaborative learning activities can be employed in the online classroom for successful teaching practice. Also detailed is a case study of the analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a Jigsaw activity used in a Master’s level human resource development (HRD) course. HRD as a field takes well to learner centered instruction, as it is an applied discipline that is deeply concerned with the aspirational development of adults in training, organization change, and careers. Lessons learned from the deployment of active learning and constructivist-related activities within the case are adaptable and applicable for online instructors both in and outside of the field of HRD who are interested in building such experiences for students in online programs.

This chapter compares student and facilitator perceptions of what supports learning in teams in online environments. The authors (one Italian and one British) draw on their experiences facilitating modules in a UK-based online international professional doctorate of Higher Education with students from across the globe, as well as a two-year research project on developing best practice in supporting online international graduate students to engage in virtual learning teams. The theories underpinning the educational use of learning teams are those of constructivism and social learning, all of which suggest a facilitative role for the tutor. However, there is disagreement about what this looks like and what it means for student autonomy and facilitator presence. Many students expect greater tutor involvement, especially when teams are not functioning at an optimal level. The chapter offers both an in-depth discussion of the literature that looks at student and tutor perspectives on virtual team learning,and a summary of findings from a mixed methods research project on students’ needs and tutors’ practice while working in dispersed learning teams. Finally, the chapter draws out implications for the development of e-pedagogy to support learning and engage international learners in online contexts at the graduate level.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating influence of organizational climate in the relationship between job stress and intent to stay.

This study has used a non-probability sampling design for data collection. A semi-structured questionnaire has been prepared and a street survey has been carried out at popular public places in Macau.

This study shows that stressful employees working in organizations characterized by unsupportive organizational climate had far less desire to stay with the organization than those working in organizations with supportive organizational climate.

Street intercept survey is a technique of convenience sampling. This makes it difficult to generalize the study’s findings to the entire population.

Few studies to date have paid attention to the influence of organizational climate between job stress and intent to stay. The multi-industry context from which the data are collected suggests that the results and findings are useful to managers and practitioners from across a broad range of business sectors.

The initiative featured here constructs a partnership between a refugee community with roots in South Sudan and the United States largest university writing program in an international resettlement city. The initiative positions inquiry, as a premise for authentic learning, in public as a participatory practice; it approaches difference as a resource for joint problem solving. Here, inquiry is something both public-workers-in-training and adult refugee learners do together – with one another and a host of other stakeholders with vested interests in the capacity of public institutions in order to become more responsive to diverse constituents resettling in Phoenix, Arizona, under conditions of forced migration. The research is presented across four phases. In counterpoint to the prevailing narrative of South Sudanese as a people “in need,” the culmination of the chapter presents interviews with citizens across South Sudan. These interviews bear witness to communities’ self-determination that instead casts education not only as their responsibility, but also their desire—one to which they have historically committed significant resources. In this fourth phase, findings with community members in South Sudan are put in conversation with the previous three phases wherein South Sudanese refugees tell of their encounters with credentialing institutions in Phoenix.

This paper discusses the benefits that arise from the use of a robot arm for guiding neurosurgical operations. The design and operation of the PathFinder, safety issues and the accuracies that can be obtained and the use of a robot held camera for system calibration are described.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of a leader’s communication style (LCS) on the quality of interpersonal exchanges between leaders and followers (LMX), and how this translates into the employee’s affective organizational commitment (AOC), in the context of Peru.

An integrated model of six dimensions is used to measure LCS. Using multiple hierarchical regressions and the Preacher and Hayes mediation model, the study focuses on determining the direct and indirect effect of each of the dimensions on LMX and organizational commitment.

The dimension preciseness shows a significant direct association to AOC. Four dimensions are significantly related with LMX: expressiveness, preciseness and questioningness with a positive sign, while verbal aggressiveness records an important negative one. The same four dimensions show an indirect effect on AOC through LMX. Emotionality and impression manipulativeness do not record significant results.

The research was carried out with a sample of 253 white-collar Peruvian professionals with high-level studies and managerial experience, which are not necessarily representative of the labor population. This research provides comprehensive evidence on how leaders’ communicative behavior may contribute to desirable outcomes such as employee commitment in a Latin American cultural context, although the findings may apply to other cultures.

This study contributes to clarify that each dimension of the LCS impacts differently on subordinate perceptions; leaders should understand this model and be able to make the necessary adjustments to their communication in order to obtain the desired results of leadership. The leader’s ability to communicate with a style characterized by expressiveness, precision, and questioning makes it easy to build high-quality LMX relationships for Peruvian employees. On the contrary, a communication style characterized by high levels of verbal aggressiveness may negatively affect subordinates, limiting the possibility of building high-quality LMX relationships. This, in turn, affects AOC of employees.

This study is a contribution to clarify that each feature of the LCS has a different impact on the perception of the subordinate, for which the leaders should be trained to understand this model and be able to make the necessary adjustments to obtain the desired results of leadership. The leader’s ability to communicate with a style characterized by expressiveness, precision and questioning makes it easy to build high-quality LMX relationships for Peruvian employees. On the contrary, a communication style characterized by high levels of verbal aggressiveness will negatively impact subordinates, limiting the possibility of building high-quality LMX relationships.

The value lies in revisiting the construct “leader’s communication style” to turn it into an instrument for the exercise of leadership. It is a contribution in favor of leaders becoming aware that their own communication style constitutes an instrument of effective leadership and a lever to optimize the commitment of their collaborators toward the organization.