Bases Of Social Power Research Articles

How boundary spanners wield influence by involving a third person: an exploratory study grounded in social control theory

PurposePower is one of the single most critical concepts for understanding industrial relations management. Yet, despite having been subject to much scholarly attention, existing research often implicitly assumes an organizational level of behavior or examines influence tactics within the confines of an individual-level dyad. This has led to a limited understanding of influence exercises involving a third person. Motivated to advance the understanding of this phenomenon, this study aims to explore how boundary spanners from a buying organization influence supplier representatives by involving a third person.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a longitudinal single case study design grounded in social control theory. Data consist of interviews, observations and documents collected over a period of 27 months in a global sourcing context.FindingsThe findings demonstrate how the influence agent from the buying organization can invoke a third person’s mediated and nonmediated social power base through either direct or indirect social control mechanisms. With these findings, this paper makes a novel theoretical contribution by developing a deeper understanding of underexposed social influence tactics unfolding in individual-level triads.Practical implicationsThis study offers boundary spanning managers with practical insights into subtle and indirect forms of social influence with which they can influence external exchange partners.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to draw on social control theory to examine interpersonal influence tactics in buyer-supplier relationships. By integrating this theoretical perspective with extant research on social power, this study emphasizes the importance of considering how the influence agent mobilizes a third person’s social influence base.

Bases of Social Power and Harassment at Work of University Professors

Bases of Social Power and Harassment at Work of University Professors

Against Method

Against Method

Embracing or relinquishing sources of power in interprofessional communication: implications for patient-centered speaking up

ABSTRACT Health professionals working in an interprofessional work environment are entrusted to speak up on behalf of patients. However, that environment is comprised of dynamic intra- and interprofessional hierarchies, characterized by power differentials that affect speaking up behaviors. Drawing on the social bases of power and on power/interaction theory, we analyzed focus group and interview transcripts of 62 health professionals’ accounts of speaking up. We focused on their primary sources of power, and described factors associated with health professionals’ embracing power to speak up for patient safety, as well as those associated with relinquishing power and remaining silent. Nurses primarily employed direct patient information as a source of power to advocate for patients. Senior nurses and attending physicians exercised their legitimate power through titles or expertise, and when embracing that power, often influenced the healthcare team’s speaking up behaviors and the team environment. Physician trainees perceived to have limited sources of power. Participants reported using hospital policies, relationships, and humor for engaging in speaking up behavior. Relinquishing power and remaining silent were associated with fear, anxiety, and lack of confidence. Given the complex, hierarchical environment in healthcare, leaders’ inclusive behaviors for setting a culture for speaking up, including modeling speaking up, are critical.

Power Bases and Power Tensions: A Critical Analysis of Education Inspection Policies and Practices in China

ABSTRACT This paper explores power bases and power tensions among education bureaux, inspection offices, and schools in China. The six bases of social power were applied as the analytical framework to scrutinize 13 policy documents and eight interviews with inspectors. The study uncovered three types of power tensions: education bureau’s informational power versus inspection office’s legitimate power, inspectors’ expert power versus referent power, and school’s expert power versus inspection office and education bureau’s legitimate power. China is developing a high-stakes accountability-based inspection system. Inspectors and schools are pressured to deliver prescribed educational goals. Education bureaux remains powerful in the power structure.

The Role of Power in Health Care Conflict: Recommendations for Shifting Toward Constructive Approaches.

The combination of power and conflict is frequently reported to have a detrimental impact on communication and on patient care, and it is avoided and perceived negatively by health care professionals. In view of recent recommendations to explicitly address power and conflict in health professions education, adopting more constructive approaches toward power and conflict may be helpful. This study examined the role of power in conflicts between health care professionals in different cultural contexts to make recommendations for promoting more constructive approaches. The authors used social bases of power (positional, expert, informational, reward, coercive, referent) identified in the literature to examine the role of power in conflicts between health care professionals in different cultural settings. They drew upon semistructured interviews conducted from 2013 to 2016 with 249 health care professionals working at health centers in the United States, Switzerland, and Hungary, in which participants shared stories of conflict they had experienced with coworkers. The authors used a directed approach to content analysis to analyze the data. The social bases of power tended to be comparable across sites and included positional, expert, and coercive power. The rigid hierarchies that divide health care professionals, their professions, and their specialties contributed to negative experiences in conflicts. In addition, the presence of an audience, such as supervisors, coworkers, patients, and patients' families, prevented health care professionals from addressing conflicts when they occurred, resulting in conflict escalation. These findings suggest that fostering more positive approaches toward power and conflict could be achieved by using social bases of power such as referent power and by addressing conflicts in a more private, backstage, manner.

Bertram H. Raven (1926–2020).

Memorializes Bertram H. Raven (1926-2020). Raven is best known for his theoretical and empirical work, beginning in the 1950s with John (Jack) French, on the bases of social power, a widely recognized framework for studying interpersonal influence. In 1956, Bert joined the UCLA faculty and played a leadership role in developing the social psychology area. Bert also served as president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and editor of the Journal of Social Issues. He was a fellow of five divisions of the American Psychological Association and received many significant recognitions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Impact of Technology Adoption on Manufacturer and Distributor Dyad: Exploring the Role of Power

Over 84% of global retail sales and 90% of Indian retail sales take place through the physical channel. In India, the distributor – wholesaler led channel further contributes to over 90% of this physical retail sale. This channel is facing numerous technology-led disruptions bringing it both threats and opportunities. However, research on technology adoption and its impact in this particular channel is scarce. We explore the impact of technology adoption in manufacturer – distributor dyad. Taking theoretical support from theory of relationship marketing, social bases of power and prior research on power and its application in marketing channels we posit that adoption of technology by the distributor, will impact manufacturer’s bases of power (reward, coercion and expert) which will further affect channel conflict and relational satisfaction in the manufacturer-distributor dyad. Utilising the research support of coercive/non-coercive dichotomisation of power sources, we also explore the impact of technologically induced altered power relationships on channel conflict & satisfaction.

The Impact of Institutional Power on Higher Degree Research Supervision: Implications for the Quality of Doctoral Outcomes

This paper examines the impact of power in the supervision process as experienced by the PhD students, the institutional influence upon this, and implications for the quality of the doctoral outcome. This research paper is based on findings of a larger, recently completed PhD with the aim to develop a participant-driven theory of the lived experience of being a PhD student. This was done by analyzing the reported experiences of 23 PhD students in various disciplines and stages of their PhD studying at Australian Universities over a period of 12 months. Participants were given the freedom to choose and prioritize the experiences to report on and how they reported on them. Core to the supervision findings was the issue of power and how institutional influences distort the power relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee. Adopting French and Raven's (1959) Bases of Social Power, the institutional power sources that play on the PhD candidate are enacted through 'actors' in the institutional process including the supervisor who are presented. The findings support the need for institutions to systematically review their practices to meet their duty of care to their PhD students to provide high quality HDR supervision and improve doctoral outcomes. This research addresses a gap in contemporary supervision literature by addressing the impact of institutional power and institutional practices on the academic supervisor and how these play out in the utilization of power on and over the PhD student and the doctoral outcome.

Infants distinguish between leaders and bullies

We examined whether 21-month-old infants could distinguish between two broad types of social power: respect-based power exerted by a leader (who might be an authority figure with legitimate power, a prestigious individual with merited power, or some combination thereof) and fear-based power exerted by a bully. Infants first saw three protagonists interact with a character who was either a leader (leader condition) or a bully (bully condition). Next, the character gave an order to the protagonists, who initially obeyed; the character then left the scene, and the protagonists either continued to obey (obey event) or no longer did so (disobey event). Infants in the leader condition looked significantly longer at the disobey than at the obey event, suggesting that they expected the protagonists to continue to obey the leader in her absence. In contrast, infants in the bully condition looked equally at the two events, suggesting that they viewed both outcomes as plausible: The protagonists might continue to obey the absent bully to prevent further harm, or they might disobey her because her power over them weakened in her absence. Additional results supported these interpretations: Infants expected obedience when the bully remained in the scene and could harm the protagonists if defied, but they expected disobedience when the order was given by a character with little or no power over the protagonists. Together, these results indicate that by 21 months of age, infants already hold different expectations for subordinates' responses to individuals with respect-based as opposed to fear-based power.

Euripides’ Medea and Jason: A Study in the Social Power of Love

Euripides’ Medea resonates with modern issues in intimate relationships. However, little has been written on this, especially from the social-psychological perspective. This paper explores the breakdown of the Jason-Medea marriage in terms of the social-psychological theory of love as an exchange in a power game in which a certain degree of imbalance in the exchange could account for such a breakdown. I analyse the Medea text in terms of Olson and Cromwell’s (1975) tripartite theoretical framework, namely: (a) the bases on which social power is built; (b) the processes by which social power is wielded; and (c) the outcomes produced by the use of social power. I find that Medea carried a greater burden of love towards Jason than Jason did towards her, fuelled and sustained by her enduring and greater need for security and happiness. And in intimate relationships, the principle of least interest (Waller and Hill 1951) works: the beloved tends to dominate the lover. Jason, however, overreached himself when he violated the minimum conditions of his own desirability – fidelity to and respect for Medea. I conclude that Medea’s violent reaction to Jason’s conduct indicates the fragility of love as a basis of social power in intimate relationships.

New higher education president integration: change and resistance viewed through social power bases and a change model lens

ABSTRACTThis study investigates how new presidents of higher education institutions struggle to understand their organisations, paying special attention to campus resistance, and how new presidents manage institutional dynamics and expectations. A qualitative study using a phenomenological approach is conducted with 11 single-campus presidents of four-year institutions, all of whom had been in post for less than four years. Lewin’s change model, along with French and Raven’s bases of power model, provides the conceptual framework for the study. Participant responses are categorised into four themes: disequilibrium, change/transition, resistance and change readiness. The results show that institutional discord was common and all presidents struggled to navigate the change process. All presidents found their position to be more challenging than expected. Presidents who utilised good data presentation and communication alongside transparent leadership often earned referential or expert power; these presidents were better prepared to influence change efforts and reduce resistance to change initiatives.

Power-Base Effects on Salesperson Motivation and Performance: A Contingency View

ABSTRACTPurpose: The sales literature shows that motivation is a key determinant of salesperson performance. The literature also suggests that how managers use social power will have an effect on important organizational outcomes, including salesperson performance. This study examines the five bases of social power that sales managers use (reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, and expert) as moderating influences in the salesperson motivation (extrinsic and intrinsic)—salesperson performance linkage.Methodology/approach: Data was collected from 128 salespeople using a cross industry survey. Eight hypotheses were developed and tested using SmartPLS (partial least squares).Findings: The authors found support for five of eight hypotheses. Results and significant findings suggest that sales managers can impact sales performance in extrinsically motivated salespeople by using coercive and legitimate power. For intrinsically motivated salespeople, sales managers can impact sales performance by using coercive, legitimate, and referent power.Research implications: Related to social power theory, the study suggests that salesperson performance is dependent upon a salesperson’s combined motivation orientation and the base of power used by the sales manager. The study also sets the stage for subsequent research on how managerial power can be studied as a moderator for other personal salesperson characteristics (e.g., self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control) and salesperson performance. In addition, understanding how these other personal characteristics interact with managerial bases of power to produce other organizational outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment) are questions that sales researchers may wish to pursue via further study.Practical implications: For practicing sales managers, the research study can provide guidance as to how they may tailor their use of power to best impact salesperson performance. For a manager to understand the motivational makeup of each salesperson, open communication and dialogue must occur at the onset of their relationship. Having the knowledge of what drives each salesperson, a manager can modify their leadership style (and choice of power base) to suit the situation. Customizing these sales management approaches may also have long-term benefits for the organization as studies show that doing so can lead to reduced levels of turnover as well as increased levels of performance.Contribution of the article: This study is important to sales research, theory, and practice. The authors contribute to the selling and sales management literature by extending motivation and social power theories into the sales domain by showing that managerial power may be a key moderating determinant between a salesperson’s motivation and his/her sales performance. For practicing sales managers, we provide some insight and guidance for understanding how to throttle or moderate their use of various social power bases when dealing with individual salespeople who may differ in their motivation orientation, age, and degree of selling experience.

The concepts of power in international business negotiations: An empirical investigation

ABSTRACTThis article examines the bases of social power, namely individual information power, expert power, legitimate power, and referent power on successful international business negotiations (IBNs). The author conducted an online survey among international business executives working in the UK for multinational corporation subsidiaries who were asked to report on the success of their most recent negotiating experience in terms of cooperative (integrative) and competitive (distributive) outcomes. Information power, expert power, and referent power were supported by these results in terms of significance. Unexpectedly, however, information power was positively correlated with integrative or cooperative outcomes and processes. The correlation related to legitimate power was negative but not statistically significant so this hypothesis was not supported. Our results not only contribute to international negotiation theory, but also can assist in the selection and training of practitioners. The academic contribution of this study also relates to model exploration. It brings causal statistical objectivity to qualitatively developed concepts as an essential step in development of knowledge. These theoretical and managerial implications of the study are examined. Furthermore, directions for future research that build on the findings of the study are indicated.

Euripides' Medea and Jason: a study in the Social Power of Love

Euripides’ Medea resonates with modern issues in intimate relationships. However, little has been written on this, especially from the social-psychological perspective. This paper explores the breakdown of the Jason-Medea marriage in terms of the social-psychological theory of love as an exchange in a power game in which a certain degree of imbalance in the exchange could account for such a breakdown. I analyse the Medea text in terms of Olson and Cromwell’s (1975) tripartite theoretical framework, namely: (a) the bases on which social power is built; (b) the processes by which social power is wielded; and (c) the outcomes produced by the use of social power. I find that Medea carried a greater burden of love towards Jason than Jason did towards her, fuelled and sustained by her enduring and greater need for security and happiness. And in intimate relationships, the principle of least interest (Waller and Hill 1951) works: the beloved tends to dominate the lover. Jason, however, overreached himself when he violated the minimum conditions of his own desirability – fidelity to and respect for Medea. I conclude that Medea’s violent reaction to Jason’s conduct indicates the fragility of love as a basis of social power in intimate relationships.

Legitimate, expert and referent power in physical education

ABSTRACTPhysical Education (PE) in school aims to help pupils experience the joy of movement through various forms of physical activity and to acquire a positive attitude to physical activity and exercise. The teacher's task is to mediate the joy of movement and instil a positive attitude to exercise in the pupils. Drawing on the methodology of van Manen [(2002). Writing in the dark: Phenomenological studies in interpretic inquiry. London: The Althouse Press], this article takes a closer look at mediating the joy of movement and conveying attitudes through legitimate, expert and referent power [French, J. R. P., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150–167). Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan] as narrated by an experienced Norwegian PE teacher. The teacher's narrative is interpreted within a framework where these typologies of power refer to the teacher's formal position in PE classes and the teacher's athletic skills and teaching qualities. The teacher's narrative indicates that legitimate, expert and referent power influence pupils’ views on PE, attitudes and effort in class. Referent power provides the potential to instil attitudes in the pupils, even to the point of getting them to enjoy taking exercise to the limit. It even embraces teachers’ potential to influence pupils by displaying their own active lifestyle, which goes beyond teaching itself. However, some problematic and unresolved issues are pointed out within this approach. A didactic approach, where the teachers use their own lifestyle as a pedagogical tool, may prompt a negative rather than a positive reaction from pupils, because they may be (mis)construed as being too eager and physically active to the extreme. Referent power depends on establishing credibility with the pupils, and conveying attitudes through referent power implies a didactic instability. On the other hand, the approach may be a good strategy for achieving what teachers should be trying to achieve, which is to convey and instil the joy of movement and a positive attitude to physical exercise in the pupils.

I Remember When Russia Was a Great Power

Russia is stuck in a prison of its own making. The name of that prison is great power identity. Time and again since the fall of the Soviet Union, we have heard Russians state that Russia has to be a great power, or it will be nothing. In this lecture, I will simply lay out to you how this claim has been made consistently by Russians now for half a millennium.2 When people shout about their status, one immediately knows that that status is insecure, for people who are secure in their status do not have to shout about it. As John Mearsheimer put the point in a criticism of the US invasion of Iraq, which he felt to be superfluous: If you’re the biggest guy on the block, why stand on the rooftop and shout about it? So, we have to ask, why is Russia shouting? The reason that emerges from the story I tell here is, I think, is a simple one. The Russian state is weak. In order to get things done at home, it has to shout, and in order to get recognition abroad, it has to shout. But why, we may then ask, does not Russia stop shouting, stop spending so much on the defence budgets, and start addressing the underlying problem, namely its weak social and economic power base? That, I think, is a question everybody who has observed Russia over some time has asked themselves. The answer that emerges from the story I will tell is, once again, a simple one, and time and again, it has been acknowledged by Russians themselves. Russia struggles to catch up with the political and economic dynamism to their west. Western powers keep coming up with new models for how to get society to do what the state wants them to do in more efficient and effective ways. In order to catch up, Russia has to learn. But a learner is not a great power – a great power is a power from which others learn, and not one that is itself basically a learner. So, Russia has been stuck with an historical choice: it

Maximum Security Correctional Officers: An Exploratory Investigation into Their Social Bases of Power

Correctional officers are responsible for maintaining prison order, establishing institutional security and managing inmate behavior. To accomplish these goals, officers are sometimes required to deploy available bases of power, which are mechanisms of behavioral control used to achieve certain objectives, and include reward, referent, legitimate, coercive and expert. While power bases have been researched at length across numerous organizational settings, they have received comparatively less attention within corrections. Using questionnaire data from a statewide population of maximum security correctional officers (N = 559), several ordered logistic regression models were estimated in order to explore the power bases upon which officers rely the most, as well as the antecedents to this decision. Referent and legitimate power ranked highest concerning their ability to control inmates, while measures of officer risk perceptions and work-related attitudes significantly predicted their power base reliance. To ensure inmate compliance with institutional regulations, it is recommended that correctional officers utilize softer forms of power such as referent and legitimate.

Changes in Livelihood and Caste Relations in Udipur

There have been changes in the economic and social relations in Nepal. The market has been providing opportunities for choosing livelihood options. Livelihood diversification, particularly non-farm, appears to be growing in extent and importance in recent years. Although local wage labor has increased in farm sector, agriculture is not a path out of poverty. The relationship between caste and hereditary occupations has been less significant and there has occurred a significant shift in the bases of power. There is an increase in class consciousness and a decrease in caste consciousness; wealth is replacing birth as the basis of social power and prestige. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hjsa.v6i0.10690 Himalayan Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol.6 2014: 86-102

Bases of social power, leadership styles, and organizational commitment

Affective organizational commitment reflects the extent to which organizational members are loyal and willing to work toward organizational objectives (Meyer & Allen, 1997). In particular, affective organizational commitment holds very important implications at all organizational levels (e.g., turnover rates, performance, and citizenship behavior). Whereas previous research has evinced the positive influence of transformational and charismatic leadership styles on affective commitment toward the organization (Bass & Avolio, 1994), little is known with regard to the nature of this relationship. In line with the interpersonal power/interaction model, the present investigation aimed to investigate the mechanism at play between transformational leadership style and affective organizational commitment. Specifically, we hypothesized that transformational leadership style would increase affective organizational commitment through its effect on willingness to comply with soft bases of power. In two studies, we subjected the foregoing hypotheses to empirical scrutiny. In Study 1, the proposed mediation model was empirically supported with Italian employees in the public sector. Attesting to the robustness of our findings, Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 with Italian employees from the public and private sectors. In addition, Study 2 replicated Study 1 using a different measure of transformational leadership. Both Study 1 and Study 2 provided results consistent with our hypotheses. Specifically, the present paper reports empirical evidence that (1) the more participants report having a transformational leader, the more willing they become to comply with soft (but not harsh) power bases, (2) in turn, greater willingness to comply with soft (but not harsh) power bases increases one's affective organizational commitment. These findings provide additional support for the interpersonal power/interaction model and pave the way for new research directions.