Low-power Positioning Research Articles

Auditor-Firm Conflict: Theoretical Concepts Application and Analysis of the Power Dynamics Involved

This study undertakes a theoretical analysis of the auditor-firm conflict. It relied on the review of literature methodology contextualized on auditor’s appointment , firm economic pressure , management bargaining power, auditor’s fear of losing a firm, firm’s management economic power over the auditor, auditor’s personal attributes and moral reasoning, auditor’s tenure, audit fees, audit market competitiveness, non-audit services, audit firm size and the firm’s financial condition. The study relied on Goldman and Barlev model, exchange and dependency theories to explain the likely power positions in the auditor-firm relationship. Deductively the study based on the contexts indicated the presence of an asymmetry power structure where the auditor and firm have low and high power positions. The study however, proffered resolution measures such as reputational and litigation costs; strengthening of audit committees; control over auditor’s appointment and remuneration; effective discipline of firms and auditors and strong enforcement of standards. The measures can curtail the auditor’s and firm actions in reducing violation of auditing standards; improving auditor’s independence, reduce the firm’s pressure on the auditor and bring about balance of power positions. The paper has implications for understanding the auditor-firm conflict situation and provides opportunities for strengthening audit policy and audit standards development.

An All-Electric Gate Valve Actuator for Subsea Production Control Systems, Part A: Prototype and Test

To bridge the gap that exists in the key equipment of the new subsea production control system, the all-electric subsea gate valve actuator, and exploit subsea oil and gas resources with high reliability and safety while saving energy, this paper proposes a novel concept prototype of an all-electric subsea gate valve actuator which has the key functions of a redundant drive, failsafe closing, auxiliary override, position indication, and low-power position holding. It satisfied the electrically-driven requirements of the subsea gate valves and achieved Safety Integrity Level 3. The prototype was developed and tested successfully. The all-electric subsea gate valve actuator is suitable for controlling subsea gate valves with various sizes and rated working pressures to minimize the power consumption for the purpose of keeping the valves open and safely closing them in the event of the electrical failure. An override and position-indicating mechanism is equipped for emergency operation and the visual indication of the status of subsea gate valves.

Law to Combat Harassment in Bangladesh RMG Industry

In 2014, the apparel sector employed approximately 60 to 75 million people worldwide. It is a significant, expanding sector driven by powerful retailers and marketers. Women account for at least three-quarters of all garment workers worldwide, making the garment industry a significant source of formal employment for women. Workplace harassment against both men and women is a widespread problem that affects all industries and occupations. It is especially prevalent in the garment industry, where many women work in lower-paying, lower-power positions. Bangladesh’s Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry plays a major role in the global apparel industry, ranking as the world’s second-largest supplier of ready-made garments. The industry employs over 4 million people, with 80 percent of them being women. Harassment is prevalent in the RMG sector for all workers, with female workers specifically encountering sexual harassment due to their gender. The article will concentrate on the underlying causes of harassment and evaluate the adequacy of labour and national laws, exploring gaps in both legislation and their implementation. It will also provide recommendations for amending existing laws and enacting new legislation to enhance the safety and security of female workers in factory environments.

Analysis of time-weighted LoRa-based positioning using machine learning

Localization systems have gained attention owing to the paradigm shift from human-centric communication systems (1G to 4G) to the machine-to-machine architectures (5G and beyond). The commercial localization applications standardized for 5G systems have served as a precursor to the cardinality of positioning technologies in the next-generation communication systems. The stringent requirements of these use-cases have motivated researchers to propose novel architectures and techniques to develop scalable, accurate, reliable, robust, and low-power positioning and tracking systems. Low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technologies have found their niche in the Internet-of-thing (IoT)-focused industrial and research communities, since they promise wide area coverage to many battery-operated devices. LoRaWAN, with regulatory features and high network density, has emerged as the widely adopted long-range, low-power solution for scheduled IoT applications. This paper explores the feasibility of LoRa technology for satellite navigation-independent positioning, using received signal strength indicator (RSSI) fingerprinting. We explore traditional path-loss models, machine learning and deep learning techniques to develop an accurate RSSI-to-distance mapping. We further use the analytically optimal model as the underlying ranging function for trilateration-based deterministic positioning. The results indicate that LoRa technology is a feasible alternate for fingerprinting-based positioning in line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight scenarios, with accuracies ranging from 6 to 15 m.

How Low Can You(r Power) Go? It Depends on Whether You are Male or Female

Three online experiments were conducted to determine whether gender differences in feelings of power are most evident in objectively lower or higher power situations (total n = 1360; Studies 1 and 2: 238 and 771 U.S. MTurk respondents respectively; Study 3: 351 Canadian university students). We focused on evaluating whether men’s and women’s responses were in line with a cushioning account, whereby the higher power generally accorded to men as a group essentially serves as a back-up power source for men in lower power positions. We also evaluated support for a ceiling account, whereby women’s feelings of power are limited in higher power positions. Results were consistent with the cushioning account: Men reported feeling more powerful than women did when imagining or recalling occupying a lower power position and in a control baseline, but no gender difference was evident under higher power conditions. Results further revealed that women’s feelings of power were more variable across lower versus higher power positions than were men’s and indicated that women’s feelings of power are quite responsive to situationally afforded high power when it is available. Overall our findings suggest that occupying a higher power role eradicates gender differences in feelings of power that are otherwise evident and thus has an equalizing effect.

To Have Control Over or to Be Free From Others? The Desire for Power Reflects a Need for Autonomy.

The current research explores why people desire power and how that desire can be satisfied. We propose that a position of power can be subjectively experienced as conferring influence over others or as offering autonomy from the influence of others. Conversely, a low-power position can be experienced as lacking influence or lacking autonomy. Nine studies show that subjectively experiencing one's power as autonomy predicts the desire for power, whereas the experience of influence over others does not. Furthermore, gaining autonomy quenches the desire for power, but gaining influence does not. The studies demonstrated the primacy of autonomy across both experimental and correlational designs, across measured mediation and manipulated mediator approaches, and across three different continents (Europe, United States, India). Together, these studies offer evidence that people desire power not to be a master over others, but to be master of their own domain, to control their own fate.

Middle-Power Inhibition: Uncertainty and Adherence to Organizational Norms

Decades of research have demonstrated that having or lacking power can influence how people think and behave in organizations. By contrasting high and low power positions, however, this research ha...

Don’t bring me down: Divergent effects of being the target of empathy versus perspective-taking on minority group members’ perceptions of their group’s social standing

This experiment examined how being the target of one of two commonly recommended strategies for improving intergroup relations—empathy or perspective-taking—affects minority group members’ sense of their group’s power and status in society. The main hypothesis was that the distinct status hierarchies implied by each of these mindsets would be communicated across face-to-face intergroup exchanges. Specifically, because empathy targets are typically in lower power positions whereas perspective-taking targets are typically in higher power positions, minority group members who were targets of a dominant group member’s empathy were expected to come away with a reduced sense of their group’s social standing relative to those who were targets of a dominant group member’s perspective-taking. Results were consistent with this prediction and further suggested that the mindset effect was partially mediated by a tendency for dominant group members’ efforts to empathize with minority targets to foster heightened imbalance in the levels of various power-relevant behaviors exhibited by each person.

Supplier–customer relationships: A case study of power dynamics

Against the backdrop of earlier research on power in supplier–customer relationships, our study focuses on the power dynamics, which lead low-power suppliers to re-balance their power relationship with strategic customers. An in-depth qualitative study is used to examine the case of a network made of several dyads (FMCG strategic customers/corrugated packaging suppliers).Our findings are slightly counter-intuitive: a new stream of literature tends to show that supplier performance is relationship-driven. We find here that the supplier performance is process-driven: to reach the targeted level of performance and to move out from a low-power position, the suppliers develop a two-step process. First, suppliers shift their focus from a product centric approach to a customer business process one, supplying “Process Support Services”. Second, suppliers initiate “Performance Process Services” to position themselves to outsource the customer’s business processes, hence creating interdependency and a countervailing power with the strategic customer.

How Do IT Outsourcing Vendors Respond to Shocks in Client Demand? A Resource Dependence Perspective

IT outsourcing vendors depend on projects from their clients to reap gains and develop capabilities. Because of this dependence, vendors are vulnerable to shocks in client demand. However, the extant literature on how vendors mitigate the damage from demand shocks is very limited. This multiple case study examined five pairs of relationships between Chinese vendors and their Japanese clients, drawing on resource dependence theory, which considers two response strategies: bridging and buffering. Our findings suggest that both bridging and buffering should be specified further on the basis of their explorative and exploitative dimensions, and that the choice of a particular strategy depended on the power relation between the vendor and client. Results show that when the client was in a highpower advantage, the vendor chose bridging. More specifically, if the vendor also had high power, it adopted explorative bridging; otherwise, it adopted exploitative bridging. When the client was in a low-power position, the vendor would pursue explorative buffering. Exploitative buffering was a common response to demand shocks, independent of the dyadic power relation.

Intuition's value for organizational innovativeness and why managers still refrain from using it

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to expand the knowledge about the value of intuition for organizational innovativeness and organizational factors inhibiting intuitive decision making.Design/methodology/approach– The study develops and tests a theoretical model that relates intuitive and deliberate decision-making styles to organizational innovativeness, and the application of either decision-making style to organizational size and decision maker's power position in an organization. Based on a survey conducted in 2011, data from 281 organizations was analyzed applying linear regression analysis.Findings– Intuitive and deliberate processing both relate positively to organizational innovativeness. Organizational size relates negatively to the application of an intuitive decision-making style, while power position relates positively to the application of an intuitive decision-making style.Research limitations/implications– The findings suggest that intuitive decision making is valuable for organizational innovativeness. Still, its application is suppressed if decision makers are in lower power positions or part of larger organizations.Originality/value– High demands on managers’ and entrepreneurs’ information processing capabilities require them to apply their full range of cognitive capabilities (i.e. deliberative and intuitive processing). Intuitive decision making, however, still seems to be confined to those who have least reason to fear critique from others.

Controlling others and controlling oneself: Social power and emotion suppression

Power is associated with living in reward-rich environments and causes behavioural disinhibition (Keltner, Grumfeld & Anderson, 2003). Powerful people also have greater freedom of emotional expression (Hecht & La France, 1998). Two studies were conducted with the aim of: a) analyzing the effect of dispositional power on emotion suppression, and b) exploring the simple and interaction effects of dispositional and situational power on emotion suppression. In a first correlational study, the power of individuals was found to be negatively correlated with emotion suppression. In a second experimental study, participants were assigned to a powerful or powerless position and negative emotions were induced with pictures. Participants were asked to suppress their emotions during the presentation of the pictures. Participants' emotion suppression was measured using the suppression subscale of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003). Results showed that dispositionally powerless participants suppressed their emotions more than dispositionally powerful participants only when they were assigned to a low power position. These results are discussed.

Network knowledge and the use of power

Complementing recent work on the effects of power on network perceptions, we offer a theory specifying how knowledge of network structures and exchange processes differentially affect the use of power by advantaged and disadvantaged positions. We argue that under certain conditions, network knowledge is beneficial to occupants of low-power positions, but not to occupants of high-power positions. Any low-power actor can benefit from having superior information, but if all low-power actors have equally sound knowledge, then all are worse off—a type of social trap. We tested these arguments by manipulating power and the availability of information on network structure and exchange processes in an experimental exchange network setting. The results were supportive.

Power and deception in ultimatum bargaining

In two experiments we investigated the relation between power and deception in ultimatum bargaining. Results showed that recipients of an ultimatum used deception to obtain better offers and that more recipients did so in a low power position. Further analyses showed that the recipient’s use of deception was mediated by concerns about receiving a low offer. For allocators, being in a low power position did not increase the use of deception. Instead, allocators increased their offer when they were in a low power position. The results are discussed in terms of an instrumental approach to deception. This approach incorporates the notion that bargainers (a) will use deception as a means to reach their goals in bargaining but (b) may refrain from using deception when they have alternative means to reach their goals.

Social power facilitates the effect of prosocial orientation on empathic accuracy.

Power increases the tendency to behave in a goal-congruent fashion. Guided by this theoretical notion, we hypothesized that elevated power would strengthen the positive association between prosocial orientation and empathic accuracy. In 3 studies with university and adult samples, prosocial orientation was more strongly associated with empathic accuracy when distinct forms of power were high than when power was low. In Study 1, a physiological indicator of prosocial orientation, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, exhibited a stronger positive association with empathic accuracy in a face-to-face interaction among dispositionally high-power individuals. In Study 2, experimentally induced prosocial orientation increased the ability to accurately judge the emotions of a stranger but only for individuals induced to feel powerful. In Study 3, a trait measure of prosocial orientation was more strongly related to scores on a standard test of empathic accuracy among employees who occupied high-power positions within an organization. Study 3 further showed a mediated relationship between prosocial orientation and career satisfaction through empathic accuracy among employees in high-power positions but not among employees in lower power positions. Discussion concentrates upon the implications of these findings for studies of prosociality, power, and social behavior.

Wanting to Be Boss and Wanting to Be Subordinate: Effects on Performance Motivation

Does dyad members' motivation to take on a high or low power position influence the dyad's performance motivation when assigned to hierarchical roles? Participants in 69 dyads (33 all‐women, 36 all‐men) indicated whether they preferred the high‐power role (owner of an art gallery) or the low power role (assistant to the owner). Power roles were then randomly assigned. The dyad's interaction during task solving was videotaped. Uninvolved coders rated performance motivation as the degree of quality of the superior's and the subordinate's task contributions and effort put into the task. Performance motivation was better if the boss preferred the high power to the low power role, irrespective of the subordinate's role preference. Leadership effectiveness is thus affected by the superior's power motivation.

If you build a remedial voice mechanism, will they come? Determinants of voicing interpersonal mistreatment at work

This study examined person-centered (gender, work self-esteem) and situational (hierarchical power relations, mistreatment severity, intentionality) variables that determine employee voice to remedy interpersonal mistreatment. Data were collected from graduate business students who responded to a scenario describing exposure to mistreatment by a work colleague. Results suggested that gender, work self-esteem, and relative hierarchical power were most predictive of remedial voice to an internal mediator. Power relations played an important moderating role such that lower power positions seemed to inhibit voice. That is, women would be more likely than men to voice but only when a co-worker (versus supervisor) was the offender. Individuals with low work self-esteem would be less likely to voice than individuals with high work self-esteem when mistreated by a supervisor (versus co-worker). The results support using a social-psychological perspective for identifying determinants of remedial voicing (or hesitation to voice) related to persons, situations, and their interactions.

Active Force Clamp Control of Optical Tweezers

In a typical high-resolution optical tweezers (OT) experiment a molecular motor changes the contour length of a trapped dumbbell-construct. Unless the inter-trap distance is actively controlled the OT increases the load on the molecular motor as it steps along the template. To counter this phenomenon we implement a real-time controller for the OT to be used in constant force measurements.We trap a dumbbell construct (bead-DNA-bead) in an inverted microscope by dividing a CW laser beam into a stationary trap and a steerable trap. Separate low power detection lasers and position sensitive detectors in the back-focal plane measure the position of both beads. The position of the bead in the stationary trap is used for constant-force feedback control. The feedback algorithm runs a Proportional-Integral-Derivative-controller on a field programmable gate array, and acousto-optical deflectors update the steerable trap position at a rate of 200 kHz.We test the force clamp control with a 10kb dsDNA molecule and present a theory explaining the power spectrum of the force clamped bead's position. We study the effect of controller bandwidth by digitally filtering the signal used for feedback control, and test the response time of our real-time controlled optical tweezers with a RNA hairpin opening/closing reaction.

Give a person power and he or she will show interpersonal sensitivity: The phenomenon and its why and when.

The goal of the present research was to investigate whether high or low power leads to more interpersonal sensitivity and what potentially mediates and moderates this effect. In Study 1, 76 participants in either a high- or low-power position interacted; in Study 2, 134 participants were implicitly primed with either high- or low-power or neutral words; and in Study 3, 96 participants were asked to remember a situation in which they felt high or low power (plus a control condition). In Study 4, 157 participants were told to identify with either an egoistic, empathic, or neutral leadership style. In all studies, interpersonal sensitivity, defined as correctly assessing other people, was then measured using different instruments in each study. Consistently, high power resulted in more interpersonal sensitivity than low power. Feeling respected and proud was partially responsible for this effect. Empathic power as a personality trait was related to more interpersonal sensitivity, and high-power individuals who adopted an empathic instead of an egoistic leadership style were more interpersonally sensitive.

Power Influences Self–Esteem

Two studies are reported where high-versus low-power positions were induced through recalling autobiographical events or by serving a supervisory or subordinate role in a task. Both affective states and global self–esteem increased as a result of elevated power while lowered power resulted in decreases in affect and self–esteem. Changes in self–esteem were completely mediated by changes in affective states. The results are discussed as supporting the approach–inhibition theory of power (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003).