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While focusing on the renowned bases of social power put forth by French and Raven in 1959, this paper aims to address the history and future of this taxonomy within organizational settings. Topics include the evolution of the power taxonomy, the power/interaction model, and matters relevant to future research and practice.

First, a historical overview of the French and Raven power taxonomy is provided. Second, ways in which the taxonomy has been updated over the past several decades are discussed. Third, an overview of Raven's power/interaction model (1993) is presented. Lastly, implications for future research and practice within organizations are offered.

A review of the historic and contemporary writings dedicated to social power would indicate that the advances made to the original French and Raven power taxonomy have not been incorporated into the management and organizational behavior literatures.

Practitioners and scholars interested in issues related to influence in organizational settings would benefit from an understanding of the historical developments that have occurred to the power taxonomy over the past half‐century, as well as the formation of the power/interaction model.

This paper provides readers with a historical overview of the development of the French and Raven social power taxonomy, in addition to addressing the field's more recent developments. As such, the paper will be of value to anyone interested in influence within organizational settings.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the various ways in which a group of principals conceptualize the power basis of teachers within teacher–principal interactions.

The present study takes power as a potential to influence people as it was conceptualized in the taxonomy developed by French and Raven (1959/1968) and Raven (1993). This taxonomy was also used to discuss the conceptions emerged in the interview data. A total of 16 principals, 8 from public schools and 8 from private schools, were interviewed.

The phenomenographic analysis of the interviews with the 16 principals revealed five ways of understanding teachers’ power basis. These conceptions (in the form of categories of description) were: (a) the principal’s sense of reciprocity, (b) teachers’ field-specific knowledge, (c) teachers’ administrative experience, (d) teachers’ union affiliation and (e) teachers’ legal rights. Categories (a) and (b) were common to all the study’s participants. Category (c) was unique to participants from private schools, while categories (d) and (e) were unique to participants from public schools.

Three topics – the subtler forms of legitimate power, the issue of teacher tenure and the influence of unions on the educational system – appeared to have potential for interesting future studies in the field of educational management.

There is an apparent need to include social power as a course component in preparatory programs for educational administrators. The revised power taxonomy, which took its final form after the revisions made by Raven (1993), appeared to be an adequate explanatory theory to understand the teachers’ bases of power, and as such, it can be used to structure the content of the course about power interactions in school settings. In addition, the Turkish Ministry of National Education should handle the issue of unions’ improper influence over the educational system and take necessary measures in order to maintain the effective functioning of public schools.

To date, subordinates’ bases of power as a research subject has apparently been ignored. The present study is the first to reveal variations in the ways that school principals conceptualize teachers’ basis of power. Although the study data were collected in one city in Turkey, the research implications drawn from its findings can inspire interest in this neglected field of study all around the world.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the variations in the ways that principals conceptualize their basis of power in schools.

Phenomenography was used as the research method of this study. The interviewees consisted of 16 principals, eight from public schools and eight from private schools.

The analysis of the interviews revealed eight ways of understanding a principal’s power basis. These potential power bases were: teachers’ sense of reciprocity; teachers’ sense of responsibility; organizational rules and regulations; principals’ deep knowledge and experience; in-service training; principals’ reputation for being fair and impartial; teachers’ sense of identification with their principal; and principals’ control over teachers’ employment. Participants from public and private schools held generally similar conceptions. The conception of in-service training remained limited to private school principals. The power basis of principals’ control over teachers’ employment was not emphasized but could still be perceived as a conception in certain statements by participants.

Coercive power and legitimate power of reciprocity need to be investigated more thoroughly in the field of educational administration.

There is an urgent need for training for principals to raise their awareness of the adverse effect that coercive power has on teachers.

This study is the first known to explore variations in the ways that principals conceptualize their power basis.

The purpose of the paper is to identify how the intersection of power, context, subjectivity and directionality makes it possible for the targets of workplace bullying to deflate power imbalance between them and the perpetrators.

The paper is based on nine in-depth interviews with self-reported targets from different public sector organizations in India. The targets were purposively selected keeping in mind that they made deliberate attempts to counter bullying. Constructivist grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data.

Six themes emerged as sources of power imbalance and eight themes as the way of deflating power imbalance. The core category that emerged was “enhancing personal identity”, which was the underlying phenomenon leading to deflation of power imbalance, through the intersection of power, context, subjectivity and directionality.

The study indicates that power, context, subjectivity and directionality of bullying help the targets to identify effective strategies of deflating power imbalance. In the process, the targets indulge in personal identity enhancement. It further reinforces the understanding that power does not remain static and may shift from the perpetrator to the target of bullying.

The study provides various tactics that targets can use to counter workplace bullying. It implies that targets need not always leave the organization or succumb to the situation in order to deal with bullying. It encourages the targets of bullying and those who deal with bullying targets to indulge in personal identity enhancement through problem-focused strategies of tackling workplace bullying.

It also furthers our understanding of workplace bullying from the point of intersection of the four aspects of the phenomenon – power, context, subjectivity and directionality – which allows the targets of bullying to enhance their personal identity.

Power is the potential ability of one individual or organization to directly influence another (Dahl, 1957; Emerson, 1962, French & Raven, 1959). The potential to influence another emanates from a number of social power bases. Six bases of power have been enumerated in the literature: reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, expert, and informational (French & Raven, 1959; Raven, 1965, 1992). Reward power emanates from the capability of one party to reward another. Coercive power originates from one party's expectation that he/she will be punished by his/her partner if he/she fails to conform to the influence attempt. Legitimate power is derived from the internalization of values that dictate his/her partner has a legitimate right to influence him/her and he/she has an obligation to accept this influence. Referent power is defined by the identification of one partner with the other. Expert power is the extent that the knowledge that one partner attributes to the other provides for influence. Informational power is defined as the logical argument that a partner presents to another in order to implement change. The aggregation of the six power bases determines an individual's or organization's overall power.

This study tested a structural equations model of the five French and Raven bases of supervisory power (coercive, reward, legitimate, expert, and referent), styles of handling conflict with supervisor (problem solving and bargaining), and job performance. Employees (N = 1,116) completed questionnaires on power and conflict styles, and their job performance was evaluated by their respective supervisors (N = 398). The data were aggregated for the subordinates associated with a given manager (N = 398) to make sure that independent observation assumption is not violated. The LISREL 8 analysis of data indicates that legitimate power influenced referent power positively and coercive power negatively, and reward and legitimate powers positively influenced expert power, which in turn, positively influenced referent power. Referent power, in turn, positively influenced problem solving (i.e., using more integrating and less avoiding styles) and negatively influenced bargaining (i.e., using more dominating and less obliging styles) conflict‐management styles, and finally, problem solving style, but not bargaining style, positively influenced job performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine shelf management practices of grocery retail chains and their category captains (CCs) in the marketing of consumer packaged goods.

This is a qualitative, exploratory study that is set in a duopoly retail environment in the Asia-Pacific region. The study employed 18 in-depth interviews with executives and managers of two umbrella retail organisations and their suppliers/manufacturers. The method of data analysis employed was content analysis.

Despite CC input in merchandising decisions, it is the retail chains that have the final say on shelf matters. There is no risk of strategic loss of power in employing CCs to manage store product categories on behalf of, or in partnership with retailers provided the retail chains closely monitor the activities and decisions/recommendations of the captains.

The paper is developed from data obtained from the grocery retail industry of one economy. Future research would need to extend this study to other economies with similar as well as different conditions.

The research offers reassurance to grocery retail practitioners who may be contemplating lessening the burden of managing all their store categories by themselves and switching to CC arrangements. The reassurance is that the reported risk associated with loss of power is manageable.

The paper has created a typology termed the “category captain arrangement/grocery retail concentration matrix” and specific directions for further research.

Leadership educators are constantly looking for new and inventive ways to teach leadership theory. Because leadership educators realize principles of androgyny and experiential education work well with leadership theories, instructors find movies are a great way to infuse leadership theory with novel teaching methodology. “Movies, like Shakespeare, are becoming a staple of college curricula” (Hoffman, 2000, p.1).

The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) is a movie illustrating five power bases defined by Raven and French (1958). The rogue characters in this film use expert power, referent power, legitimate power, reward power, and coercive power to get the treasure, get the girl, get the curse lifted, and/or get freedom. Utilizing a three-hour block of time, an instructor can complete a mini lecture on power, watch the movie, and discuss the power bases shown. Results show students develop a deeper understanding of power after the class.

Over the past decade, the social power taxonomy has been applied in many organizational contexts. This study aims to examine the issue of organizational values as antecedents of social power.

A total of 187 Israeli MBA students participated in a study of power and values, as measured by organizational practices and behaviors.

Findings indicated that soft power bases were preferred over harsh, as expected. In addition, support for the hypothesis of an interaction affect was obtained as charismatic leaders in a complex work environment used punishment very rarely. The findings were discussed in terms of the use in organizations of power strategies as a function of values.

Although the main independent variables, organizational type (routine vs complex) and leadership style (transformational vs transactional), had each been studied independently, this was the first study of their interaction.

Power 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.

This 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.

The 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.

This study offers boundary spanning managers with practical insights into subtle and indirect forms of social influence with which they can influence external exchange partners.

To 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.