Structure: Implications and Outcomes
Psychological Power : The Fifth Dimension of Power
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Humaira Mujib
Power is generally considered top-down and usually seen as coercive, manipulative and systemic. Coercive power is patronizing, where all the resources and decisions lie with the leaders, as seen between parents and children. Manipulating power brings to center the structural inequalities whereby the leaders bring only safe agendas to the table to politically manipulate their own interests. Systemic power is dominating whereby the leaders shape the thoughts of the subjects. All these three dimensions of power reside in the identity of a leader. However, Foucault argues that identity power is ubiquitous lying with both the leader and the follower. Foucauldian take of power is normative used to discipline human beings to live according to the societal expectations. People follow the societal expectations blindly but challenge it when inequality results in their sufferings: physical and emotional. In this way Foucault sees power as a disciplining and resisting force. Foucauldian normative (fourth dimensional) power envelops all the other three dimensions but is underdeveloped (Clegg, et al., 2006). The present research argues that Foucault’s power is underdeveloped in its psychological understanding; for example, a king due to his psychological power of being a king can exercise coercive, manipulative and systemic power. Similarly, human beings sufferings make them resist power initially at a psychological level and then at a physical level by using all the three dimensions. I call psychological power, the fifth dimension of power to understand its implications for organizations as seen in a power struggle between the management and employees.
Supervisor-Subordinate Conflict Negotiation: Examining the Core Concerns in Light of Communication Accommodation and Gender Roles
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Piyawan Charoensap-Kelly
Guided by the core concerns framework, communication accommodation theory, and gender role research, this quasi-experimental study examines the interplay of core concerns accommodative-ness, gender roles, perceived goodwill, emotion, and intended negotiation behavior in supervisor-subordinate conflict negotiation. A core concerns message is defined as a message that addresses one or more of the five core concerns (i.e., basic social and psychological needs including appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status, and role) that often underlie a conflict. Specifically, the study explores employees’ positive emotion and intended negotiation behavior when their male versus female managers delivered a core concerns message to them under-accommodatingly, accommodatingly, and over-accommodatingly. The research also examines how employees’ perceptions of the managers’ goodwill might mediate the effects of the core concerns accommodative-ness and its outcomes. Results showed that core concerns accommodative-ness has a positive linear relationship with integrative intention (i.e., the tendency to seek win-win solutions) and positive emotion, and a U-shaped curvilinear relationship with distributive intention (i.e., the tendency to seek win-lose solutions). Also, goodwill mediates the linear relationship between accommodative-ness and positive emotion. Male managers’ accommodative-ness has no direct relationship with integration but an indirect relationship through goodwill. However, for male managers, accommodative-ness has a Bell-shaped curvilinear relationship with integration and U-shaped curvilinear relationship with distribution. For female managers, accommodative-ness has direct relationship with emotion and integration regardless of perceived goodwill. Female managers’ accommodative-ness also has a U-shaped curvilinear relationship (approaching significant) with distribution but not as strong as in male managers. Practical and theoretical implications will be discussed.
