Correlations of Perceived Power Discrepancies with Ratings of Faculty Morale

Abstract

The present study examined the five discrepancies in power—coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, and expert—between faculty and the department head as predictors of faculties' job satisfaction, involvement, and alienation in department heads' influence system. The differences between subjects' ratings of their perceptions of the department heads' use of power and the ratings assigned to their preference for superiors' use of power constituted the operational definition of discrepancy in power. Analysis indicated that alienation was significantly and positively correlated with discrepancies in coercive, reward, and legitimate power; involvement had significant negative correlations with discrepancies in coercive, referent, and expert power; satisfaction had significant negative correlations with discrepancies in coercive and legitimate power. Discrepancy in rated use of coercive power had the most consistent and significant correlation with all three indexes of faculty morale. One might conclude that the measurement of discrepancies in power might predict morale of faculty.