Examines the relationship between internal communications and organizational learning and considers the effects of national differences in work organization on differences in internal communications, learning, and new product development. Compares small group performance in American startups, smaller Italian companies, and Japanese management…

Contemporary work-related education and training policy represents occupational competence as the outcome of individual performance at work. This paper presents a critique of this neo-liberal assumption, arguing that in many cases competence should be regarded as an attribute of groups, teams and communities. It proposes a theory of collective…

In a religion class of 26 bright creative sixth graders, one student demonstrates the power of peer pressure. Part of the morning ritual is to say prayer petitions. Students seems to be calmed by their expressions of care for their families, friends, pets, their military troops, victims of natural disasters, the homeless, etc. However, one student…

How do groups of 3 people establish common ground in problem-solving interactions differently from groups of 2? Do they do this differently when they are supported by videoconferencing technologies? The laboratory experiment reported here manipulated group size and video mediation for participants carrying out a laboratory map task that allowed…

In this lighthearted article, the author explores how the use of staffroom space can reflect significant hierarchies of power and influence in the school. She contends that who sits where in a staffroom can reflect wider power relations within a school, so understanding this may be a clue as to other ways in which people and groups will interact.

Are children as young as 2 years old able to interact in groups of three? The study applied the family triad model first introduced by Parke, Power, and Gottman (1979) to the case of peer interaction. In Experiment 1, the model was refined for use in studies of peer interaction and applied to an existing dataset of 16 triads of newly acquainted…

Many researchers have been inquiring into focus groups as a qualitative data collection method (Barbour & Kitzinger 1999; Krueger 1998; Morgan, 1998), but only a few have been able to analyze the different levels of understanding in focus groups, which we focus on in this article. The guiding research question is how do focus groups offer deeper…

Constructivist views of online interaction often refer to the power of stories and the role of storytelling in the sharing and construction of knowledge, and the creation of learning communities. No empirical evidence of the presence or character of stories in online conferences has been systematically reported, however. This study describes the…

It is widely agreed that college students do not fully participate in the political process. The most commonly cited reasons are apathy, indifference, and ignorance. This article presents an activity that aims to help students learn about communication dynamics in the context of political campaigns and develop an appreciation and confidence about…

Critical literacy has been a particular focus in literacy education in the past two decades. Literacy models such as the "four resources" model provide a significant framework for a critical understanding of texts and the social and cultural practices that inform them. In this paper, I draw on the "four resources" model to argue that the success…

This prospective study investigated the impact of group composition on the outcome of 2 forms of time-limited, short-term group therapy (interpretive, supportive) with 110 outpatients from 18 therapy groups, who presented with complicated grief. The composition variable was based on the patient's level of quality of object relations. The higher…

To test social and cognitive variables that may affect the development of subjective group dynamics, the authors had 224 children between the ages of 5 and 12 years evaluate an in-group and an out-group and normative and deviant in-group members under conditions of high or low accountability to in-group peers. In-group bias and relative…

Rehabilitation counselor education is experiencing an explosion of knowledge, which is becoming increasingly difficult to organize and disseminate to students. Communities of practice, a form of social learning, provide a way to organize and disseminate information. Distance-based education programs are increasing within the field of…

The rhetoric abounds concerning the types of effective, high trust, interactions that should exist for a school governing body. In practise, however, such interactions are often difficult to define, establish, maintain, and sustain. The study reported on in this paper attempted to identify interactions linked to perceptions of high trust via a…

This study investigates the relationship between creative personality composition, innovative team climate, and team innovation based on an input-process-output model. We measured personality with the Creative Person Profile, team climate with the Team Climate Inventory, and team innovation through team-member and supervisor reports of team…