Power Dependence and Power Paradoxes in Bargaining

[Excerpt] What this article (and our larger program of work) is designed to demonstrate is that these very simple ideas represent a particularly suitable starting point for understanding the power struggle between parties who regularly engage in negotiation. Specifically, in this article we show that the approach contains certain paradoxes regarding the acquisition and use of power in an ongoing bargaining relationship. The dependence framework treats the ongoing relationship as a power struggle in which each party tries to maneuver itself into a favorable power position

Power Dependence in Individual Bargaining: The Expected Utility of Influence

This study examines the impact of certain dimensions of dependence on the expected effectiveness of an influence attempt in a two-person bargaining situation. Assuming the role of employer, employee, or outside observer, 1,056 college students estimated the utility of an attempt by an employee to influence his employer with respect to a pay raise under various conditions of dependence. The results show that respondents attributed greatest utility to the attempt when the employee had many alternatives (other job possibilities) and valued highly the outcomes at issue (a pay raise) and when the employer had few alternatives (other workers) and ascribed low value to the outcomes. The authors find that the power-capability hypotheses derived from power-dependence theory are supported by the two outcome-alternative dimensions but not by the two outcome-value dimensions. The latter are found to support commitment hypotheses

Power and Tactics in Bargaining

This paper develops and tests an analytical framework for analyzing the selection of tactics in bargaining. Using a variant of power-dependence theory, the authors propose that bargainers will use different dimensions of dependence, such as the availability of alternative outcomes from other sources and the value of the outcomes at stake, to select among different tactics. To test this model, the authors conducted two simulation experiments that portrayed an employee-employer conflict over a pay raise, manipulating four dimensions of dependence: employee\u27s outcome alternatives, employee\u27s outcome value, employer\u27s outcome alternatives, and employer\u27s outcome value. Within this context, respondents estimated the likelihood of each actor (employee, employer) adopting four tactics: self-enhancement, coalition, threat to leave, and conflict avoidance. The results of one experiment show that an actor\u27s own dependence, rather than his opponent\u27s dependence on him, is the primary basis for his evaluation and selection of tactics, and also that decisions regarding different tactics are determined by different dimensions of dependence. The results of the other experiment indicate that the opponent\u27s initial lactic affects the links between dimensions of dependence and an actor\u27s tactics, and the dimensions of dependence affect the propensity toward tactic matching

The Perception of Power

This study examines the impact of some basic exchange-theory variables, the value and scarcity of outcomes, on perceptions of Self and Other power in a conflict setting. Each respondent took the role of an employee in conflict with an employer, and assessed the magnitude of Self and Other (employer) power. Four variables are manipulated: Self’s outcome scarcity, the value of the outcome to Self, Other’s outcome scarcity, and the value of the outcome to Other. The results are consistent with predictions drawn from the Blau, and Emerson (a, b) treatments of dependence relations. The results suggest that the stakes contending parties have in a conflict encounter bear on power perceptions, and an elaboration of a recently formulated theory of power perception is undertaken on the basis of the data

Comparison of Dependence and Punitive Forms of Power

This paper deals with the impact of power on tactical action in conflict. The theory and research is organized around two conceptual distinctions: one between power based on dependence versus punitive capability, and the other between relative power (i.e., power difference) and total power in a relationship (i.e., across actors). The paper will argue that these distinctions are important on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Theoretically, they are important to explicate the connection between conceptions of power that stress the coercive foundation of power (Bierstedt 1950; Tedeschi, Schlenker & Bonoma 1973) and those that treat power as dependence (Bacharach & Lawler 1981; Cook & Emerson 1984; Cook et al. 1981; Emerson 1962, 1972a, 1972b; Molm 1985), as well as to understand the relation of power to tactical action. Empirically, these distinctions are important to the degree that different tactics available to actors are a function of disparate facets of the power relationship

Perceptions of Power in Conflict Situations

Subjects rendered judgments regarding the power of the participants in a series of conflictual circumstances where an adversary threatened a target. These situations manipulated four independent variables: (a) the adversary\u27s capacity to damage the target\u27s interests, (b) the adversary\u27s probability of actually attacking, (c) the target\u27s ability to block the impending attack, and (d) the target\u27s capacity to retaliate. Results showed that all of the independent variables affected the subjects\u27 judgments of the adversary\u27s power, while three of them (damage, blockage, and retaliation) affected judgments of the target\u27s power. Differences in the predictive equations for judgments of adversary power and target power were noted, and a theoretical model was formulated to explain these differences. This model, cast in terms of the patterns of control exercised over valued outcomes, sharpened the focus on remaining issues in power perception

Coordination when there are restricted and unrestricted options

One might expect that, in pure coordination games, coordination would become less frequent as the number of options increases. Contrary to this expectation, we report an experiment which found more frequent coordination when the option set was unrestricted than when it was restricted. To try to explain this result, we develop a method for eliciting the general rules that subjects use to identify salient options in restricted and unrestricted sets. We find that each such rule, if used by all subjects, would generate greater coordination in restricted sets. However, subjects tend to apply different rules to restricted and unrestricted sets

QUANTITATIVE NON-DESTRUCTIVE NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS OF SILVER IN COINS

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65909/1/j.1475-4754.1967.tb00617.x.pd

Searching for Radio Pulsars in 3EG Sources at Urumqi Observatory

Since mid-2005, a pulsar searching system has been operating at 18 cm on the 25-m radio telescope of Urumqi Observatory. Test observations on known pulsars show that the system can perform the intended task. The prospect of using this system to observe 3EG sources and other target searching tasks is discussed.Comment: a training project about MSc thesi