The communication and exchange of information often takes place across certain hierarchies - be it in organizations between managers and employees, or in schools between teachers and school management or students. Power structures such as these bring with them freedom, but also a great deal of responsibility for the more powerful people. It can be particularly difficult to live up to this responsibility when working together over long distances (e.g. in virtual contexts).

Central questions in these projects are: When are powerful people aware of their responsibility? How can trust in the more powerful people be promoted in virtual contexts? And when are powerful people prepared to hand over a certain amount of responsibility to others?

Our projects have already shown that the expectation of virtual (rather than face-to-face) collaboration can reduce the perceived responsibility of powerful people, whereas, for example, attention to others (rather than oneself) and a strong sense of belonging to others strengthen the perception of responsibility. In addition, we were able to show with experiments and field studies how powerful people can communicate their sense of responsibility and thus strengthen others' trust in them. Among other things, the current projects are taking a closer look at which factors contribute to good virtual collaboration and when powerful people are willing to delegate responsibility to others (e.g. employees or students in class).