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Cranmer, G. A., & Myers, S. A. (2014). Sports teams as organizations: A leader-member exchange perspective of player communication with coaches and teammates. Communication & Sport, 1-19. doi:10.1177/2167479513520487

Sport teams by definition can be considered a type of organization; yet, the incorporation of an organizational perspective has not been utilized to examine athletes’ interactions. The current study utilizes leader–member exchange theory as theoretical lens to examine the influence that athlete–coach communication has on relationships and communication with coaches and teammates. A sample of 158 former high school athletes produced results that indicate that athletes with in-group relationships with coaches report more satisfaction and symmetrical communication with coaches, and more task cohesion, social cohesion, and cooperative communication with teammates. These results highlight the importance of athlete–coach communication for influencing perceptions of relationships and communication with coaches and teammates.

Oetzel, J. G., & Ting-Toomey, S. (2003). Face concerns in interpersonal conflict: A cross-cultural empirical test of the face negotiation theory. Communication Research, 30, 599-624. doi:10.1177/0093650203257841

This study sought to test the underlying assumption of the face-negotiation theory that face is an explanatory mechanism for culture’s influence on conflict behavior. A questionnaire was administered to 768 participants in four national cultures (China, Germany, Japan, and the United States) asking them to describe interpersonal conflict. The major findings of this study are as follows: (a) cultural individualism-collectivism had direct and indirect effects on conflict styles, (b) independent self-construal related positively with self-face and interdependent self-construal related positively with other-face, (c) self-face related positively with dominating conflict styles and other-face related positively with avoiding and integrating styles, and (d) face accounted for all of the total variance explained (100% of 19% total explained) in dominating, most of the total variance explained in integrating (70% of 20% total explained), and some of the total variance explained in avoiding (38% of 21% total explained) when considering face concerns, cultural individualism-collectivism, and self-construals.