Transforming Society from Theory to Practice: Celebrating the Achievements of Rubin Award Recipients from the International Association for Conflict Management

Abstract

This special issue of Negotiation and Conflict Management Research celebrates the scholarship and intellectual contributions of four recipients of the Jeffrey Z. Rubin Theory-to-Practice Award from the International Association for Conflict Management (IACM). The IACM Rubin Award recognizes individuals whose professional contributions over the span of a career emphasize their ability to move effectively and skillfully between theory and practice in their professional activities. Each article in this special issue highlights the scholarly impact of a recipient, offers insights for building an academic career, and identifies directions for future research in conflict management.The four Rubin award tributes featured in this special issue, Tricia Jones, Linda Babcock, Ellen Giebels, and Benjamin Broome, move effectively and skillfully between theory and practice in ways that contribute positively to society and provide conceptual development and application to critical societal issues. Each accomplished outstanding impact as disciplinary boundary spanners, building foundations between theory and research, and evolving new methodologies and approaches, all with a profound influence on policymakers, managers, and teachers. The articles contributed to this special issue help define new research questions and directions for future research, such as How does cooperation work in high-stakes conflict interaction? What are the processes that constitute ongoing repair in postconflict relationships? and describe new and future methodologies, such as how to measure true dyadic process constructs, the role of technology in conflict management research, and lead conflict management researchers and practitioners into the 21st century.The International Association for Conflict Management (IACM) Jeffrey Z. Rubin Theory-to-Practice Award was established by the IACM Board of Directors in 2002. Since that time, the award has been given every other year alternating with the IACM Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA). Jeffrey Z. Rubin was noted for his exceptional ability to focus on interesting and complex social phenomena, conduct rigorous research that had important practical implications, and translate findings in a manner accessible to both student and professional audiences (Signal, 2017). The Rubin Theory-to-Practice Award "seeks to spotlight and encourage those in the conflict management field whose research and practice sustains this tradition" (Signal, 2017, p. 28), and speaks to the policy and social change potential for scholarship (Jones, 2018). Social psychologist Jeffrey Z. Rubin served as IACM President-Elect in 1995, and as director of the Harvard Program on Negotiation (for further reading on Jeffrey Rubin, see Breslin, 1995). For this award, there is an open call for nominations; the selection committee, chaired by the IACM Negotiation and Conflict Management Research

NCMR's First Decade: An Empirical Examination

“…Examples include Thatcher and Phillips’ () issue on how parties to the same conflict or negotiation may have different, or asymmetric, perceptions of it; Kressel and Wall's () issue on the role that a mediator's tactics and behaviors have on resolving disputes; and Elliott and Kaufman's () issue on the growing use of conflict management theory and practice to address issues of the environment and sustainability. Other special issues have been broader in scope and have been opportunities for a certain kind of paper, such as the development of new theory for negotiation or conflict management problems (Cronin, ), conceptual reviews of a literature (Gross, Adair, & Neuman, ; and more recently Gross, ), or ways in which our theory and research can be more closely linked to our teaching and to practice (Ebner & Parlamis, ).…”

“…More recently, NCMR has had special issues celebrating the International Association of Conflict Management's (IACM's) Lifetime Achievement Award recipients (Gross, ) and Rubin Award recipients (Gross, ). These special issues and series of articles, which will continue to appear through Volume 12, highlight bodies of research‐based knowledge and the intellectual contributions of theory, methods, and practice by our field's most eminent scholars.…”