297

Journal of Applied Social Psychology 2004 34 2 pp 297-321Copyright copy 2004 by V H Winston amp Son Inc All rights reserved

Implicit Theories of Organizational Power and Priming Effects on Managerial Power-Sharing Decisions

An Experimental Study1

PETER T COLEMAN2

Department of Organization and LeadershipColumbia University

Over 60 years of research on participative leadership has documented the many benefits ofpower sharing in organizations However a common obstacle to power sharing is theunwillingness of those with power to share it An experimental study is presented thatinvestigated the effects of managersrsquo implicit theories of power in organizations on theirwillingness to share power with subordinates The study proposed that chronic differencesin implicit power theories (the degree of competitive vs cooperative beliefs and idealsregarding organizational power relations) would affect managersrsquo decisions to share orwithhold power Subliminal priming was predicted to temporarily enhance the accessibil-ity of these differences in implicit power theories thereby fostering or inhibiting sponta-neous decisions to share power Results indicate that the subliminal priming ofcompetitive theories of organizational power negatively influenced managersrsquo immediatespontaneous decisions to share power whereas chronic differences in their implicit theo-ries similarly affected their more systematic decisions to share power The theoretical andapplied contributions of the study are discussed

Beginning with the pioneering studies of participative leadership by LewinLippitt and White (1939) and Coch and French (1948) social scientists havebeen interested in studying the consequences of power sharing Since that timethe value and benefits of power sharing have been well documented for individ-uals (Bagarozzi 1990 Natiello 1990) groups (Gutierrez 1990 Home 1991)and especially organizations (Argyris 1964 Bradford amp Cohen 1984 Hollanderamp Offermann 1990 Kanter 1983 Likert 1967 McGregor 1960 Peters ampAustin 1985 Peters amp Waterman 1982 Stewart amp Barrick 2000 Tjosvold1981 1985a 1985b Vroom amp Jago 1988 Walls 1990 Yukl 1994)

Despite these findings power sharing is often resisted by organizationalpowerholders and the power gap between leaders and followers appears to be

1I wish to thank Morton Deutsch Carol Dweck Harvey Hornstein Tory Higgins and LeahDoyle for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper

2Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Peter T Coleman Box 53Department of Organization and Leadership Teachers College Columbia University 525 West 120thStreet New York NY 10027 E-mail pc84columbiaedu

298 PETER T COLEMAN

growing (Hogan Curphy amp Hogan 1994 Rudolph Ho amp Yuen 1993) In facta significant obstacle to the implementation of organizational power-sharing ini-tiatives (eg employee empowerment decentralization) is the unwillingness ofthose people with power in organizations to share their power (Jesaitis amp Day1992 OrsquoToole 1995) The social psychological variables contributing to thepowerfulrsquos resistance to power sharing have received very little attention bysocial scientists (Deutsch 1973) particularly in organizations where the power-ful have been able to shield themselves from study (Kipnis 1976)

Researchers have long proposed that the values and beliefs of managers ofteninterfere with developing an empowered workforce (Argyris amp Schon 19781996 Burke 1986 Conger amp Kanungo 1988 McClelland 1970 1975) Inrecent years the study of implicit theories (unarticulated beliefs and ideals) hasplayed an increasingly important role in understanding the impact of social-information processing on organizational phenomena such as motivation(Dweck 1996) achievement (Elliot amp Dweck 1988) employee goal orientation(Katz Block amp Pearsall 1997) leadership assessment (Offermann Kennedy ampWirtz 1994) and social judgment and decision making (Gervey Chiu Hong ampDweck 1999) However the link between managersrsquo implicit theories of powerin organizations and their decisions to share power with subordinates has yet tobe investigated

A study is presented that introduces the idea of implicit power theories andexamines the effects of managersrsquo implicit theories of power in organizations ontheir willingness to share power with subordinates The study proposes thatchronic differences in implicit power theories (the degree of competitive vscooperative beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power relations) willaffect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power Based on previousresearch subliminal priming (cooperative vs competitive) is predicted to tempo-rarily enhance the accessibility of these differences in implicit power theoriesthereby fostering or inhibiting spontaneous decisions to share power

Power Sharing

The decision by leaders of whether to share or withhold power from their fol-lowers has been a problem debated in the social sciences since the early philo-sophical deliberations of Plato and Aristotle over the benefits and consequencesof elite rule versus democratic participation in society (Allport 1969) Todayvarious forms of participation delegation and other power-sharing arrangementscontinue to be of considerable interest to leaders and followers of groups organi-zations and nations (Hogan et al 1994 OrsquoToole 1995 Siske 1997) In factorganizational scholars have found power-sharing behaviors to be the mostresearched category of leadership behavior after initiating-structure and consider-ation behaviors (Yukl 1994)

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 299

Working from a general definition of power proposed by Salancik andPfeffer (1977) as ldquothe ability to bring about desired outcomesrdquo (p 3) I definepower sharing as the act of enhancing supporting or not obstructing anotherrsquosability to bring about the outcomes he or she seeks In organizations power shar-ing can be manifested in various acts such as through sharing leadershipresources rewards and outcomes encouraging participation in decision makinggoal setting problem solving and change delegation of authority increasedworker autonomy and structural decentralization (Burke 1986 Yukl 1994)

Under the right conditions power sharing in organizations can result in avariety of benefits These include an increase in decision acceptance commit-ment and quality as well as enhanced employee development satisfaction andcommitment (Organ amp Bateman 1991) Power-sharing practices also have beenlinked to overall managerial success (Hall 1976 McClelland amp Burnham 1976)and to organizational success in the marketplace (Deming 1993 Kirkman ampRosen 1999 Lorsch 1995) Additionally Shashkin (1984) has argued thatbecause of the adverse psychological and physiological effects on employees offeeling powerless in organizations managerial power sharing should be viewedas an ethical imperative

Implicit Theories

According to Kellyrsquos (1955) theory of personality and Heiderrsquos (1958) theoryof social perception a major aspect of personality involves the naiumlve models orassumptions that individuals hold about the self and their social reality Theseimplicit theories function much like our scientific models in that they focus ourattention and guide the way we process and comprehend information about theself other people and social situations These theories are considered to bedomain-specific (Dweck Chiu amp Hong 1995) and to be derived from a personrsquosown personal history of social interaction and frequent experience with certaintypes of social behavior within that domain (Offermann et al 1994) Ultimatelythey contribute to the development of a meaning system that orients peopletoward particular goals strategies attributions evaluations reactions and a par-ticular interpretation of events (Dweck 1996)

The exact composition of these theories can differ For example researchon differences in implicit beliefs of intelligence (incremental theories vsentity theories) has accounted for differences in goal orientations and majorpatterns of adaptive (mastery oriented) and maladaptive (helpless) behavior(Dweck amp Leggett 1988 Dweck et al 1995 Henderson amp Dweck 1990) Otherresearch on implicit beliefs includes peoplersquos conceptions of personality andmoral character (Dweck 1996 Dweck Hong amp Chiu 1993) creativity andwisdom (Sternberg 1985) and ability (Gervey et al 1999 Levy Plaks ampDweck 1999) Chronic and induced differences in implicit beliefs have been

300 PETER T COLEMAN

demonstrated to affect such processes as task goal orientation (Dweck amp Leggett1988) stereotype formation and endorsement (Levy Stroessner amp Dweck 1998)attributions and coping strategies (Hong Chiu Dweck Lin amp Wan 1999) andsocial judgment and decision making (Gervey et al 1999 Levy et al 1999)

In contrast research on implicit leadership theories has demonstrated that fol-lowersrsquo unarticulated standards or implicit ideals for optimal leadership traits andbehaviors (eg competence and consideration) can influence their perceptions ofleaders and the attributions they make concerning leader behavior (Calder 1977Eden amp Leviathan 1975 Lord Foti amp DeVader 1984 Offerman et al 1994Rush Thomas amp Lord 1977) Similar claims have been made about implicittheories of subordinate performance held by superiors (Borman 1987)

Thus the research indicates that peoplersquos implicit theories are comprised ofboth implicit beliefs about and implicit ideals regarding social phenomena andthat both can affect information processing and behavior Little work has beendone however in investigating either implicit beliefs or implicit ideals in therealm of organizational power (for an exception see Aguinis Nesler Quigley ampTedeschi 1994)

Implicit Theories of Organizational Power

Managersrsquo core assumptions about organizational power remain unstated anduntested (Hollander amp Offermann 1990) And given the vast abstract nature ofthe construct it is difficult to know which of the many possible dimensions ofpower relations would be consequential to managerial decision making

In their research on the fundamental dimensions of interpersonal relationsWish Deutsch and Kaplan (1976) identified two of the primary dimensionspeople consider when in relation with others The first dimension was corpora-tion-competition Deutsch (1985) posited that a cooperative psychologicalorientation would incline one to emphasize egalitarianism (in an equal powerrelationship) or an obligation to employ power in such a way as to benefit the lesspowerful as well as oneself (in an unequal power relationship) In contrast acompetitive psychological orientation would authorize inequality and emphasizea winndashlose struggle for superiority (Deutsch 1985)

Burke (1986) in an article on leadership and empowerment found supportfor the prevalence of the cooperativendashcompetitive dimension of power in organi-zations He wrote ldquoMany perhaps most people believe that power is a zero-sumquantity to share power to empower others is to lose a certain amount of itrdquo(p 63) Others (Bennis amp Nanus 1985 Organ amp Bateman 1991 Tjosvold1981) have echoed this competitive conception of organizational power AsDeutsch (1973) argued the implicit assumption in this view of power is thatpower relations between people are intrinsically competitive the more power Ahas the less power is available for B

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 301

Mary Parker Follett writing in the 1920s about organizational life offered adifferent perspective on power Follett proposed that even though power was usu-ally conceived of as power over others (the power of A over B) it would be pos-sible to develop the conception of power with others She envisioned this type ofpower as a jointly developed coactive noncoercive power (Follett 1973) Follett(1924) wrote ldquoOur task is not to learn where to place power it is how to developpower Coercive power is the curse of the universe co-active power theenrichment and advancement of every human soulrdquo (p xii)

These contrasting views of power in organizations highlight an importantdimension on which managers may differ in their implicit theories One theorypresents organizational power as a fixed pie that because scarce sets up a winndashlose competitive struggle over power with employees The other theory viewspower as a process that can be developed and enhanced in cooperation withemployees Past research in organizations has demonstrated the critical role ofperceived cooperative interdependence in fostering constructive power dynamicsbetween managers and their employees (Tjosvold 1981 1985a 1985b TjosvoldJohnson amp Johnson 1984) Thus managers may differ in the degree of competi-tivenessndashcooperativeness of their implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organiza-tional power differences that would likely affect their decisions to share power

The second fundamental dimension of relationships identified by Wish et al(1976) is power distribution Peoplersquos beliefs and ideals regarding the equality orinequality of how power is distributed in organizations (eg between labor andmanagement men and women minorities and a majority) have been identified asa critical component of their understanding of organizational power (Organ ampBateman 1991) Despite empirical findings suggesting that power relationstend to be reciprocal mutual and ongoing rather than unilateral (CampbellDunnette Lawler amp Weick 1970) and that power is often broadly distributedthroughout the middle layers of organizations (Galbraith 1967) many peoplebelieve that power resides primarily at the top of the hierarchy in organizationsand that power is of a one-way (ie topndashdown) nature (Organ amp Bateman 1991)Therefore managers also may differ in the degree to which they believe power tobe equally distributed and the degree to which they ideally prefer power to bedistributed in organizations

The question remains however of how these differences in implicit idealsand beliefs regarding organizational power might affect the power-sharing deci-sions of managers First for theoretical purposes Deutsch (1973) traditionallyoperationalized cooperation and competition as polar ends of one continuum ofinterdependence in relations For purposes of consistency I will also operational-ize implicit theories along this same dimension from very competitive to verycooperative Second as Deutsch (1985) proposed we could expect correspon-dence between competitive and autocratic orientations so that more competitiveideals would correlate positively with autocratic ideals and more competitive

302 PETER T COLEMAN

beliefs would correlate positively with more autocratic beliefs Therefore forparsimony these two dimensions (cooperationndashcompetition and power distribu-tion) will be collapsed into single measures of cooperativendashcompetitive implicitpower ideals and implicit power beliefs (Appendix A) Third as Dweck (1996)outlined differences in managersrsquo implicit theories will contribute to the devel-opment of a meaning system that orients them toward particular goals and strate-gies Thus we could expect managers who hold more competitive implicit idealsfor organizational power relations to be more motivated to hold onto power andto compete with their employees for more power

Hypothesis 1 Managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power lessthan will managers with more cooperative implicit ideals

Implicit beliefs however are likely to operate differently Given the prevail-ing cooperative and democratic climate that operates in American companiesthese days and champions teamwork decentralization delegation and empower-ing the workforce (Burke 1986 Peters amp Waterman 1982 Stewart amp Barrick2000) holding the view that organizations tend to be places where one must com-pete for power may in fact have the paradoxical affect of motivating correctiveaction According to cognitive consistency theory this discrepancy between coop-erative organizational ideals and the reality of competitive organizations wouldmotivate change (Deutsch 1985 Festinger 1957 Heider 1958) Thus a morecompetitive implicit belief regarding typical organizational power relations couldmove managers to share power more in an attempt to redress these tendencies

Hypothesis 2 Managers with more competitive implicit beliefsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power morethan will managers with more cooperative implicit beliefs

Priming

The cognitive accessibility of knowledge structures (eg implicit theories)has been shown to be temporarily affected by priming stimuli in the immediateenvironment (Bargh Barndollar amp Gollwitzer 1995 Levy et al 1998) Theterm priming is used generally to describe the effects of onersquos prior context on hisor her interpretation of new information (Fiske amp Taylor 1991) but also mayrefer to any procedures that stimulate or activate some stored knowledge unit(Higgins 1996) Priming can vary in terms of the relative recency or frequencyof activation of the stored knowledge unit (Fiske amp Taylor 1991 Higgins 1996)which has implications for the duration of priming effects and the chronic activa-tion and use of cognitive structures

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 303

Priming was demonstrated previously to affect interpersonal orientations andrelated social behaviors In one study Herr (1986) primed subjects by exposingthem to pictures of moderately hostile famous individuals (Alice CooperBobby Knight) which led to the subjects rating and treating an ambiguouspartner in a more hostile competitive manner Similar results were found in aseries of studies on the effects of social information on the competitive and coop-erative behavior of males (Holloway Tucker amp Hornstein 1977 HornsteinLaKind Frankel amp Mann 1975) In another study either competitive or affilia-tive goals were primed by exposing subjects to goal-related words whichresulted in the competitively primed subjects performing better on a task (atthe expense of their partnerrsquos feelings) than the affiliatively primed subjects(Bargh 1994)

Given the predicted effects of chronic implicit power theories on the one handand the support for priming effects on the other how might we expect these fac-tors to work in concert to affect decision making

The HeuristicndashSystematic Model of Information Processing

The heuristicndashsystematic model of information processing (Chaiken Giner-Sorolla amp Chen 1996 Chaiken Liberman amp Eagly 1989 Chen amp Chaiken1999) is one of a set of influential dual-process models in contemporary socialpsychology (Chaiken amp Trope 1999) This model proposes that people processinformation on two distinct levels Heuristic information processing is quicksuperficial and requires little effort time or attention It involves focusing onsalient cues in the context which activates familiar decision rules (heuristics)allowing judgments attitudes intentions and decisions to be formed quickly andefficiently In contrast systematic processing is more complete careful andintensive and involves attempts to form more thorough and well-reasoned judg-ments attitudes and decisions Such processing entails much mental effortattention and the allocation of additional mental resources

The heuristicndashsystematic model predicts that recent priming would supply thecontextual cues that would activate those implicit theories of power that are con-sistent with the prime However these knowledge structures would only beexpected to affect superficial or quick spontaneous responses to ambiguous ques-tioning More explicit specific questioning on the other hand which requiresmore careful thought would shift the decision maker into a more systematicmode of information processing that particularly in the absence of sufficientcontextual information would encourage deeper reflection on their more chronicideals and beliefs regarding organizational power In other words it follows thatmanagers have different types of implicit theories of power (competitive andcooperative) available to them as cognitive structures and that even though theymay be chronically predisposed to one type of theory the recent priming of

304 PETER T COLEMAN

another type will temporarily make the primed theory more accessible for theheuristic-level processing of information

Hypothesis 3 Competitively primed individuals will decide toshare power less on the ambiguous heuristic-level measures in thestudy than will neutrally or cooperatively primed individuals

The effects of priming would be expected to be overridden when explicitquestioning of participants is introduced requiring more careful reasoning andmore systematic decision making At this point the individualsrsquo more chronicimplicit theories regarding power would be predicted to affect their decisions

The Present Study

The present study proposes that chronic differences in implicit power theorieswill affect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power in organizations It ispredicted that managers with more competitive implicit ideals regarding power inorganizations will share power less than will managers with more cooperativeimplicit ideals and that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs regard-ing power in organizations will share power more than will managers with morecooperative implicit beliefs Based on previous research subliminal priming (ofcooperative vs competitive ideals) is predicted to enhance the accessibility ofthese differences in implicit power theories thereby momentarily fostering orinhibiting heuristic-level decisions to share power

Method

The present research is an experimental study that involved 39 male and 59female participants who completed the implicit power theory questionnaire 2 to 4weeks prior to the laboratory study The experimental design of the laboratorystudy is a 3 2 (Prime Type Cooperative Neutral Competitive Gender)between-subjects design Participants were matched on gender and then ran-domly assigned to prime type conditions3

Participants

The participants were 98 Masters of Business Administration or Organ-izational Psychology Masters of Arts students whose native language wasEnglish and who had normal or corrected-to-normal vision Participants weresolicited from courses by offering one chance at a $1000 lottery for theirparticipation The sample ranged in age from 22 to 61 years (M = 29 years) andranged in work experience from 0 to 30 years (M = 7 years) An older sample of

3The findings regarding gender differences in this study are available from the author

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 305

business-oriented graduate students was targeted in order to assure the degree oforganizational experience necessary to allow participants to be familiar withmanagement and with actual power dynamics in organizations

Procedure

The Implicit Power Theory Questionnaire was developed for this study andwas administered in several courses 2 to 4 weeks prior to the laboratory studyeither by the instructors of the courses or by an experimenter other than the prin-cipal investigator Participants were informed that their responses to the surveywould be anonymous and that all information would be kept strictly confidentialNo association was made between the questionnaire and the laboratory study andpost-study inquiries with participants in a pilot study indicated no awareness ofthe association between the two

All participants in the laboratory study were recruited to participate in twopresumably unrelated tasks one concerning ldquoperceptionrdquo and the other concern-ing ldquomanagerial problem solvingrdquo Participants were first instructed to respond toa ldquoperceptual reaction taskrdquo on a computer monitor This task was the methodemployed in priming the participants Following this participants were asked toread a vignette regarding a managerial predicament that was provided separatelyon printed paper and then to respond to a series of questions that followed thevignette and included the various measures of the dependent variables Partici-pants were given a participant identification number to preserve confidentiality

For the ldquofirst taskrdquo participants were instructed to react to the stimuli pre-sented on the computer screen In front of the screen was a keyboard with twobuttons marked ldquoZrdquo and ldquoMrdquo Participants were told that there would be quickflashes of light appearing on the screen and that their task was to press the buttonon the keyboard corresponding with the side of the fixation point on which theflash appeared (ldquoZrdquo for the left side and ldquoMrdquo for the right side) Participantswere informed that the flashes were made up of a random series of letters num-bers and symbols After the participants were administered the priming induc-tion they were instructed to move directly to the second research task They werethen presented with a managerial vignette and then after a distraction exercisethe instrument that contained the power-sharing measures

Implicit power theories Scales for competitive versus cooperative implicitideals and beliefs were constructed for this study on the basis of previousresearch on implicit theories (Dweck et al 1995 Offermann et al 1994) and oninterpersonal relations (Wish et al 1976) Appendix A presents the items for theimplicit beliefs and the implicit ideals scales Sample items for implicit competi-tive beliefs (9 items) are ldquoIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsrdquoand ldquoThose at the top have all the powerrdquo Sample items for implicit competitiveideals (7 items) are ldquoIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

298 PETER T COLEMAN

growing (Hogan Curphy amp Hogan 1994 Rudolph Ho amp Yuen 1993) In facta significant obstacle to the implementation of organizational power-sharing ini-tiatives (eg employee empowerment decentralization) is the unwillingness ofthose people with power in organizations to share their power (Jesaitis amp Day1992 OrsquoToole 1995) The social psychological variables contributing to thepowerfulrsquos resistance to power sharing have received very little attention bysocial scientists (Deutsch 1973) particularly in organizations where the power-ful have been able to shield themselves from study (Kipnis 1976)

Researchers have long proposed that the values and beliefs of managers ofteninterfere with developing an empowered workforce (Argyris amp Schon 19781996 Burke 1986 Conger amp Kanungo 1988 McClelland 1970 1975) Inrecent years the study of implicit theories (unarticulated beliefs and ideals) hasplayed an increasingly important role in understanding the impact of social-information processing on organizational phenomena such as motivation(Dweck 1996) achievement (Elliot amp Dweck 1988) employee goal orientation(Katz Block amp Pearsall 1997) leadership assessment (Offermann Kennedy ampWirtz 1994) and social judgment and decision making (Gervey Chiu Hong ampDweck 1999) However the link between managersrsquo implicit theories of powerin organizations and their decisions to share power with subordinates has yet tobe investigated

A study is presented that introduces the idea of implicit power theories andexamines the effects of managersrsquo implicit theories of power in organizations ontheir willingness to share power with subordinates The study proposes thatchronic differences in implicit power theories (the degree of competitive vscooperative beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power relations) willaffect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power Based on previousresearch subliminal priming (cooperative vs competitive) is predicted to tempo-rarily enhance the accessibility of these differences in implicit power theoriesthereby fostering or inhibiting spontaneous decisions to share power

Power Sharing

The decision by leaders of whether to share or withhold power from their fol-lowers has been a problem debated in the social sciences since the early philo-sophical deliberations of Plato and Aristotle over the benefits and consequencesof elite rule versus democratic participation in society (Allport 1969) Todayvarious forms of participation delegation and other power-sharing arrangementscontinue to be of considerable interest to leaders and followers of groups organi-zations and nations (Hogan et al 1994 OrsquoToole 1995 Siske 1997) In factorganizational scholars have found power-sharing behaviors to be the mostresearched category of leadership behavior after initiating-structure and consider-ation behaviors (Yukl 1994)

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 299

Working from a general definition of power proposed by Salancik andPfeffer (1977) as ldquothe ability to bring about desired outcomesrdquo (p 3) I definepower sharing as the act of enhancing supporting or not obstructing anotherrsquosability to bring about the outcomes he or she seeks In organizations power shar-ing can be manifested in various acts such as through sharing leadershipresources rewards and outcomes encouraging participation in decision makinggoal setting problem solving and change delegation of authority increasedworker autonomy and structural decentralization (Burke 1986 Yukl 1994)

Under the right conditions power sharing in organizations can result in avariety of benefits These include an increase in decision acceptance commit-ment and quality as well as enhanced employee development satisfaction andcommitment (Organ amp Bateman 1991) Power-sharing practices also have beenlinked to overall managerial success (Hall 1976 McClelland amp Burnham 1976)and to organizational success in the marketplace (Deming 1993 Kirkman ampRosen 1999 Lorsch 1995) Additionally Shashkin (1984) has argued thatbecause of the adverse psychological and physiological effects on employees offeeling powerless in organizations managerial power sharing should be viewedas an ethical imperative

Implicit Theories

According to Kellyrsquos (1955) theory of personality and Heiderrsquos (1958) theoryof social perception a major aspect of personality involves the naiumlve models orassumptions that individuals hold about the self and their social reality Theseimplicit theories function much like our scientific models in that they focus ourattention and guide the way we process and comprehend information about theself other people and social situations These theories are considered to bedomain-specific (Dweck Chiu amp Hong 1995) and to be derived from a personrsquosown personal history of social interaction and frequent experience with certaintypes of social behavior within that domain (Offermann et al 1994) Ultimatelythey contribute to the development of a meaning system that orients peopletoward particular goals strategies attributions evaluations reactions and a par-ticular interpretation of events (Dweck 1996)

The exact composition of these theories can differ For example researchon differences in implicit beliefs of intelligence (incremental theories vsentity theories) has accounted for differences in goal orientations and majorpatterns of adaptive (mastery oriented) and maladaptive (helpless) behavior(Dweck amp Leggett 1988 Dweck et al 1995 Henderson amp Dweck 1990) Otherresearch on implicit beliefs includes peoplersquos conceptions of personality andmoral character (Dweck 1996 Dweck Hong amp Chiu 1993) creativity andwisdom (Sternberg 1985) and ability (Gervey et al 1999 Levy Plaks ampDweck 1999) Chronic and induced differences in implicit beliefs have been

300 PETER T COLEMAN

demonstrated to affect such processes as task goal orientation (Dweck amp Leggett1988) stereotype formation and endorsement (Levy Stroessner amp Dweck 1998)attributions and coping strategies (Hong Chiu Dweck Lin amp Wan 1999) andsocial judgment and decision making (Gervey et al 1999 Levy et al 1999)

In contrast research on implicit leadership theories has demonstrated that fol-lowersrsquo unarticulated standards or implicit ideals for optimal leadership traits andbehaviors (eg competence and consideration) can influence their perceptions ofleaders and the attributions they make concerning leader behavior (Calder 1977Eden amp Leviathan 1975 Lord Foti amp DeVader 1984 Offerman et al 1994Rush Thomas amp Lord 1977) Similar claims have been made about implicittheories of subordinate performance held by superiors (Borman 1987)

Thus the research indicates that peoplersquos implicit theories are comprised ofboth implicit beliefs about and implicit ideals regarding social phenomena andthat both can affect information processing and behavior Little work has beendone however in investigating either implicit beliefs or implicit ideals in therealm of organizational power (for an exception see Aguinis Nesler Quigley ampTedeschi 1994)

Implicit Theories of Organizational Power

Managersrsquo core assumptions about organizational power remain unstated anduntested (Hollander amp Offermann 1990) And given the vast abstract nature ofthe construct it is difficult to know which of the many possible dimensions ofpower relations would be consequential to managerial decision making

In their research on the fundamental dimensions of interpersonal relationsWish Deutsch and Kaplan (1976) identified two of the primary dimensionspeople consider when in relation with others The first dimension was corpora-tion-competition Deutsch (1985) posited that a cooperative psychologicalorientation would incline one to emphasize egalitarianism (in an equal powerrelationship) or an obligation to employ power in such a way as to benefit the lesspowerful as well as oneself (in an unequal power relationship) In contrast acompetitive psychological orientation would authorize inequality and emphasizea winndashlose struggle for superiority (Deutsch 1985)

Burke (1986) in an article on leadership and empowerment found supportfor the prevalence of the cooperativendashcompetitive dimension of power in organi-zations He wrote ldquoMany perhaps most people believe that power is a zero-sumquantity to share power to empower others is to lose a certain amount of itrdquo(p 63) Others (Bennis amp Nanus 1985 Organ amp Bateman 1991 Tjosvold1981) have echoed this competitive conception of organizational power AsDeutsch (1973) argued the implicit assumption in this view of power is thatpower relations between people are intrinsically competitive the more power Ahas the less power is available for B

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 301

Mary Parker Follett writing in the 1920s about organizational life offered adifferent perspective on power Follett proposed that even though power was usu-ally conceived of as power over others (the power of A over B) it would be pos-sible to develop the conception of power with others She envisioned this type ofpower as a jointly developed coactive noncoercive power (Follett 1973) Follett(1924) wrote ldquoOur task is not to learn where to place power it is how to developpower Coercive power is the curse of the universe co-active power theenrichment and advancement of every human soulrdquo (p xii)

These contrasting views of power in organizations highlight an importantdimension on which managers may differ in their implicit theories One theorypresents organizational power as a fixed pie that because scarce sets up a winndashlose competitive struggle over power with employees The other theory viewspower as a process that can be developed and enhanced in cooperation withemployees Past research in organizations has demonstrated the critical role ofperceived cooperative interdependence in fostering constructive power dynamicsbetween managers and their employees (Tjosvold 1981 1985a 1985b TjosvoldJohnson amp Johnson 1984) Thus managers may differ in the degree of competi-tivenessndashcooperativeness of their implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organiza-tional power differences that would likely affect their decisions to share power

The second fundamental dimension of relationships identified by Wish et al(1976) is power distribution Peoplersquos beliefs and ideals regarding the equality orinequality of how power is distributed in organizations (eg between labor andmanagement men and women minorities and a majority) have been identified asa critical component of their understanding of organizational power (Organ ampBateman 1991) Despite empirical findings suggesting that power relationstend to be reciprocal mutual and ongoing rather than unilateral (CampbellDunnette Lawler amp Weick 1970) and that power is often broadly distributedthroughout the middle layers of organizations (Galbraith 1967) many peoplebelieve that power resides primarily at the top of the hierarchy in organizationsand that power is of a one-way (ie topndashdown) nature (Organ amp Bateman 1991)Therefore managers also may differ in the degree to which they believe power tobe equally distributed and the degree to which they ideally prefer power to bedistributed in organizations

The question remains however of how these differences in implicit idealsand beliefs regarding organizational power might affect the power-sharing deci-sions of managers First for theoretical purposes Deutsch (1973) traditionallyoperationalized cooperation and competition as polar ends of one continuum ofinterdependence in relations For purposes of consistency I will also operational-ize implicit theories along this same dimension from very competitive to verycooperative Second as Deutsch (1985) proposed we could expect correspon-dence between competitive and autocratic orientations so that more competitiveideals would correlate positively with autocratic ideals and more competitive

302 PETER T COLEMAN

beliefs would correlate positively with more autocratic beliefs Therefore forparsimony these two dimensions (cooperationndashcompetition and power distribu-tion) will be collapsed into single measures of cooperativendashcompetitive implicitpower ideals and implicit power beliefs (Appendix A) Third as Dweck (1996)outlined differences in managersrsquo implicit theories will contribute to the devel-opment of a meaning system that orients them toward particular goals and strate-gies Thus we could expect managers who hold more competitive implicit idealsfor organizational power relations to be more motivated to hold onto power andto compete with their employees for more power

Hypothesis 1 Managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power lessthan will managers with more cooperative implicit ideals

Implicit beliefs however are likely to operate differently Given the prevail-ing cooperative and democratic climate that operates in American companiesthese days and champions teamwork decentralization delegation and empower-ing the workforce (Burke 1986 Peters amp Waterman 1982 Stewart amp Barrick2000) holding the view that organizations tend to be places where one must com-pete for power may in fact have the paradoxical affect of motivating correctiveaction According to cognitive consistency theory this discrepancy between coop-erative organizational ideals and the reality of competitive organizations wouldmotivate change (Deutsch 1985 Festinger 1957 Heider 1958) Thus a morecompetitive implicit belief regarding typical organizational power relations couldmove managers to share power more in an attempt to redress these tendencies

Hypothesis 2 Managers with more competitive implicit beliefsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power morethan will managers with more cooperative implicit beliefs

Priming

The cognitive accessibility of knowledge structures (eg implicit theories)has been shown to be temporarily affected by priming stimuli in the immediateenvironment (Bargh Barndollar amp Gollwitzer 1995 Levy et al 1998) Theterm priming is used generally to describe the effects of onersquos prior context on hisor her interpretation of new information (Fiske amp Taylor 1991) but also mayrefer to any procedures that stimulate or activate some stored knowledge unit(Higgins 1996) Priming can vary in terms of the relative recency or frequencyof activation of the stored knowledge unit (Fiske amp Taylor 1991 Higgins 1996)which has implications for the duration of priming effects and the chronic activa-tion and use of cognitive structures

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 303

Priming was demonstrated previously to affect interpersonal orientations andrelated social behaviors In one study Herr (1986) primed subjects by exposingthem to pictures of moderately hostile famous individuals (Alice CooperBobby Knight) which led to the subjects rating and treating an ambiguouspartner in a more hostile competitive manner Similar results were found in aseries of studies on the effects of social information on the competitive and coop-erative behavior of males (Holloway Tucker amp Hornstein 1977 HornsteinLaKind Frankel amp Mann 1975) In another study either competitive or affilia-tive goals were primed by exposing subjects to goal-related words whichresulted in the competitively primed subjects performing better on a task (atthe expense of their partnerrsquos feelings) than the affiliatively primed subjects(Bargh 1994)

Given the predicted effects of chronic implicit power theories on the one handand the support for priming effects on the other how might we expect these fac-tors to work in concert to affect decision making

The HeuristicndashSystematic Model of Information Processing

The heuristicndashsystematic model of information processing (Chaiken Giner-Sorolla amp Chen 1996 Chaiken Liberman amp Eagly 1989 Chen amp Chaiken1999) is one of a set of influential dual-process models in contemporary socialpsychology (Chaiken amp Trope 1999) This model proposes that people processinformation on two distinct levels Heuristic information processing is quicksuperficial and requires little effort time or attention It involves focusing onsalient cues in the context which activates familiar decision rules (heuristics)allowing judgments attitudes intentions and decisions to be formed quickly andefficiently In contrast systematic processing is more complete careful andintensive and involves attempts to form more thorough and well-reasoned judg-ments attitudes and decisions Such processing entails much mental effortattention and the allocation of additional mental resources

The heuristicndashsystematic model predicts that recent priming would supply thecontextual cues that would activate those implicit theories of power that are con-sistent with the prime However these knowledge structures would only beexpected to affect superficial or quick spontaneous responses to ambiguous ques-tioning More explicit specific questioning on the other hand which requiresmore careful thought would shift the decision maker into a more systematicmode of information processing that particularly in the absence of sufficientcontextual information would encourage deeper reflection on their more chronicideals and beliefs regarding organizational power In other words it follows thatmanagers have different types of implicit theories of power (competitive andcooperative) available to them as cognitive structures and that even though theymay be chronically predisposed to one type of theory the recent priming of

304 PETER T COLEMAN

another type will temporarily make the primed theory more accessible for theheuristic-level processing of information

Hypothesis 3 Competitively primed individuals will decide toshare power less on the ambiguous heuristic-level measures in thestudy than will neutrally or cooperatively primed individuals

The effects of priming would be expected to be overridden when explicitquestioning of participants is introduced requiring more careful reasoning andmore systematic decision making At this point the individualsrsquo more chronicimplicit theories regarding power would be predicted to affect their decisions

The Present Study

The present study proposes that chronic differences in implicit power theorieswill affect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power in organizations It ispredicted that managers with more competitive implicit ideals regarding power inorganizations will share power less than will managers with more cooperativeimplicit ideals and that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs regard-ing power in organizations will share power more than will managers with morecooperative implicit beliefs Based on previous research subliminal priming (ofcooperative vs competitive ideals) is predicted to enhance the accessibility ofthese differences in implicit power theories thereby momentarily fostering orinhibiting heuristic-level decisions to share power

Method

The present research is an experimental study that involved 39 male and 59female participants who completed the implicit power theory questionnaire 2 to 4weeks prior to the laboratory study The experimental design of the laboratorystudy is a 3 2 (Prime Type Cooperative Neutral Competitive Gender)between-subjects design Participants were matched on gender and then ran-domly assigned to prime type conditions3

Participants

The participants were 98 Masters of Business Administration or Organ-izational Psychology Masters of Arts students whose native language wasEnglish and who had normal or corrected-to-normal vision Participants weresolicited from courses by offering one chance at a $1000 lottery for theirparticipation The sample ranged in age from 22 to 61 years (M = 29 years) andranged in work experience from 0 to 30 years (M = 7 years) An older sample of

3The findings regarding gender differences in this study are available from the author

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 305

business-oriented graduate students was targeted in order to assure the degree oforganizational experience necessary to allow participants to be familiar withmanagement and with actual power dynamics in organizations

Procedure

The Implicit Power Theory Questionnaire was developed for this study andwas administered in several courses 2 to 4 weeks prior to the laboratory studyeither by the instructors of the courses or by an experimenter other than the prin-cipal investigator Participants were informed that their responses to the surveywould be anonymous and that all information would be kept strictly confidentialNo association was made between the questionnaire and the laboratory study andpost-study inquiries with participants in a pilot study indicated no awareness ofthe association between the two

All participants in the laboratory study were recruited to participate in twopresumably unrelated tasks one concerning ldquoperceptionrdquo and the other concern-ing ldquomanagerial problem solvingrdquo Participants were first instructed to respond toa ldquoperceptual reaction taskrdquo on a computer monitor This task was the methodemployed in priming the participants Following this participants were asked toread a vignette regarding a managerial predicament that was provided separatelyon printed paper and then to respond to a series of questions that followed thevignette and included the various measures of the dependent variables Partici-pants were given a participant identification number to preserve confidentiality

For the ldquofirst taskrdquo participants were instructed to react to the stimuli pre-sented on the computer screen In front of the screen was a keyboard with twobuttons marked ldquoZrdquo and ldquoMrdquo Participants were told that there would be quickflashes of light appearing on the screen and that their task was to press the buttonon the keyboard corresponding with the side of the fixation point on which theflash appeared (ldquoZrdquo for the left side and ldquoMrdquo for the right side) Participantswere informed that the flashes were made up of a random series of letters num-bers and symbols After the participants were administered the priming induc-tion they were instructed to move directly to the second research task They werethen presented with a managerial vignette and then after a distraction exercisethe instrument that contained the power-sharing measures

Implicit power theories Scales for competitive versus cooperative implicitideals and beliefs were constructed for this study on the basis of previousresearch on implicit theories (Dweck et al 1995 Offermann et al 1994) and oninterpersonal relations (Wish et al 1976) Appendix A presents the items for theimplicit beliefs and the implicit ideals scales Sample items for implicit competi-tive beliefs (9 items) are ldquoIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsrdquoand ldquoThose at the top have all the powerrdquo Sample items for implicit competitiveideals (7 items) are ldquoIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 299

Working from a general definition of power proposed by Salancik andPfeffer (1977) as ldquothe ability to bring about desired outcomesrdquo (p 3) I definepower sharing as the act of enhancing supporting or not obstructing anotherrsquosability to bring about the outcomes he or she seeks In organizations power shar-ing can be manifested in various acts such as through sharing leadershipresources rewards and outcomes encouraging participation in decision makinggoal setting problem solving and change delegation of authority increasedworker autonomy and structural decentralization (Burke 1986 Yukl 1994)

Under the right conditions power sharing in organizations can result in avariety of benefits These include an increase in decision acceptance commit-ment and quality as well as enhanced employee development satisfaction andcommitment (Organ amp Bateman 1991) Power-sharing practices also have beenlinked to overall managerial success (Hall 1976 McClelland amp Burnham 1976)and to organizational success in the marketplace (Deming 1993 Kirkman ampRosen 1999 Lorsch 1995) Additionally Shashkin (1984) has argued thatbecause of the adverse psychological and physiological effects on employees offeeling powerless in organizations managerial power sharing should be viewedas an ethical imperative

Implicit Theories

According to Kellyrsquos (1955) theory of personality and Heiderrsquos (1958) theoryof social perception a major aspect of personality involves the naiumlve models orassumptions that individuals hold about the self and their social reality Theseimplicit theories function much like our scientific models in that they focus ourattention and guide the way we process and comprehend information about theself other people and social situations These theories are considered to bedomain-specific (Dweck Chiu amp Hong 1995) and to be derived from a personrsquosown personal history of social interaction and frequent experience with certaintypes of social behavior within that domain (Offermann et al 1994) Ultimatelythey contribute to the development of a meaning system that orients peopletoward particular goals strategies attributions evaluations reactions and a par-ticular interpretation of events (Dweck 1996)

The exact composition of these theories can differ For example researchon differences in implicit beliefs of intelligence (incremental theories vsentity theories) has accounted for differences in goal orientations and majorpatterns of adaptive (mastery oriented) and maladaptive (helpless) behavior(Dweck amp Leggett 1988 Dweck et al 1995 Henderson amp Dweck 1990) Otherresearch on implicit beliefs includes peoplersquos conceptions of personality andmoral character (Dweck 1996 Dweck Hong amp Chiu 1993) creativity andwisdom (Sternberg 1985) and ability (Gervey et al 1999 Levy Plaks ampDweck 1999) Chronic and induced differences in implicit beliefs have been

300 PETER T COLEMAN

demonstrated to affect such processes as task goal orientation (Dweck amp Leggett1988) stereotype formation and endorsement (Levy Stroessner amp Dweck 1998)attributions and coping strategies (Hong Chiu Dweck Lin amp Wan 1999) andsocial judgment and decision making (Gervey et al 1999 Levy et al 1999)

In contrast research on implicit leadership theories has demonstrated that fol-lowersrsquo unarticulated standards or implicit ideals for optimal leadership traits andbehaviors (eg competence and consideration) can influence their perceptions ofleaders and the attributions they make concerning leader behavior (Calder 1977Eden amp Leviathan 1975 Lord Foti amp DeVader 1984 Offerman et al 1994Rush Thomas amp Lord 1977) Similar claims have been made about implicittheories of subordinate performance held by superiors (Borman 1987)

Thus the research indicates that peoplersquos implicit theories are comprised ofboth implicit beliefs about and implicit ideals regarding social phenomena andthat both can affect information processing and behavior Little work has beendone however in investigating either implicit beliefs or implicit ideals in therealm of organizational power (for an exception see Aguinis Nesler Quigley ampTedeschi 1994)

Implicit Theories of Organizational Power

Managersrsquo core assumptions about organizational power remain unstated anduntested (Hollander amp Offermann 1990) And given the vast abstract nature ofthe construct it is difficult to know which of the many possible dimensions ofpower relations would be consequential to managerial decision making

In their research on the fundamental dimensions of interpersonal relationsWish Deutsch and Kaplan (1976) identified two of the primary dimensionspeople consider when in relation with others The first dimension was corpora-tion-competition Deutsch (1985) posited that a cooperative psychologicalorientation would incline one to emphasize egalitarianism (in an equal powerrelationship) or an obligation to employ power in such a way as to benefit the lesspowerful as well as oneself (in an unequal power relationship) In contrast acompetitive psychological orientation would authorize inequality and emphasizea winndashlose struggle for superiority (Deutsch 1985)

Burke (1986) in an article on leadership and empowerment found supportfor the prevalence of the cooperativendashcompetitive dimension of power in organi-zations He wrote ldquoMany perhaps most people believe that power is a zero-sumquantity to share power to empower others is to lose a certain amount of itrdquo(p 63) Others (Bennis amp Nanus 1985 Organ amp Bateman 1991 Tjosvold1981) have echoed this competitive conception of organizational power AsDeutsch (1973) argued the implicit assumption in this view of power is thatpower relations between people are intrinsically competitive the more power Ahas the less power is available for B

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 301

Mary Parker Follett writing in the 1920s about organizational life offered adifferent perspective on power Follett proposed that even though power was usu-ally conceived of as power over others (the power of A over B) it would be pos-sible to develop the conception of power with others She envisioned this type ofpower as a jointly developed coactive noncoercive power (Follett 1973) Follett(1924) wrote ldquoOur task is not to learn where to place power it is how to developpower Coercive power is the curse of the universe co-active power theenrichment and advancement of every human soulrdquo (p xii)

These contrasting views of power in organizations highlight an importantdimension on which managers may differ in their implicit theories One theorypresents organizational power as a fixed pie that because scarce sets up a winndashlose competitive struggle over power with employees The other theory viewspower as a process that can be developed and enhanced in cooperation withemployees Past research in organizations has demonstrated the critical role ofperceived cooperative interdependence in fostering constructive power dynamicsbetween managers and their employees (Tjosvold 1981 1985a 1985b TjosvoldJohnson amp Johnson 1984) Thus managers may differ in the degree of competi-tivenessndashcooperativeness of their implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organiza-tional power differences that would likely affect their decisions to share power

The second fundamental dimension of relationships identified by Wish et al(1976) is power distribution Peoplersquos beliefs and ideals regarding the equality orinequality of how power is distributed in organizations (eg between labor andmanagement men and women minorities and a majority) have been identified asa critical component of their understanding of organizational power (Organ ampBateman 1991) Despite empirical findings suggesting that power relationstend to be reciprocal mutual and ongoing rather than unilateral (CampbellDunnette Lawler amp Weick 1970) and that power is often broadly distributedthroughout the middle layers of organizations (Galbraith 1967) many peoplebelieve that power resides primarily at the top of the hierarchy in organizationsand that power is of a one-way (ie topndashdown) nature (Organ amp Bateman 1991)Therefore managers also may differ in the degree to which they believe power tobe equally distributed and the degree to which they ideally prefer power to bedistributed in organizations

The question remains however of how these differences in implicit idealsand beliefs regarding organizational power might affect the power-sharing deci-sions of managers First for theoretical purposes Deutsch (1973) traditionallyoperationalized cooperation and competition as polar ends of one continuum ofinterdependence in relations For purposes of consistency I will also operational-ize implicit theories along this same dimension from very competitive to verycooperative Second as Deutsch (1985) proposed we could expect correspon-dence between competitive and autocratic orientations so that more competitiveideals would correlate positively with autocratic ideals and more competitive

302 PETER T COLEMAN

beliefs would correlate positively with more autocratic beliefs Therefore forparsimony these two dimensions (cooperationndashcompetition and power distribu-tion) will be collapsed into single measures of cooperativendashcompetitive implicitpower ideals and implicit power beliefs (Appendix A) Third as Dweck (1996)outlined differences in managersrsquo implicit theories will contribute to the devel-opment of a meaning system that orients them toward particular goals and strate-gies Thus we could expect managers who hold more competitive implicit idealsfor organizational power relations to be more motivated to hold onto power andto compete with their employees for more power

Hypothesis 1 Managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power lessthan will managers with more cooperative implicit ideals

Implicit beliefs however are likely to operate differently Given the prevail-ing cooperative and democratic climate that operates in American companiesthese days and champions teamwork decentralization delegation and empower-ing the workforce (Burke 1986 Peters amp Waterman 1982 Stewart amp Barrick2000) holding the view that organizations tend to be places where one must com-pete for power may in fact have the paradoxical affect of motivating correctiveaction According to cognitive consistency theory this discrepancy between coop-erative organizational ideals and the reality of competitive organizations wouldmotivate change (Deutsch 1985 Festinger 1957 Heider 1958) Thus a morecompetitive implicit belief regarding typical organizational power relations couldmove managers to share power more in an attempt to redress these tendencies

Hypothesis 2 Managers with more competitive implicit beliefsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power morethan will managers with more cooperative implicit beliefs

Priming

The cognitive accessibility of knowledge structures (eg implicit theories)has been shown to be temporarily affected by priming stimuli in the immediateenvironment (Bargh Barndollar amp Gollwitzer 1995 Levy et al 1998) Theterm priming is used generally to describe the effects of onersquos prior context on hisor her interpretation of new information (Fiske amp Taylor 1991) but also mayrefer to any procedures that stimulate or activate some stored knowledge unit(Higgins 1996) Priming can vary in terms of the relative recency or frequencyof activation of the stored knowledge unit (Fiske amp Taylor 1991 Higgins 1996)which has implications for the duration of priming effects and the chronic activa-tion and use of cognitive structures

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 303

Priming was demonstrated previously to affect interpersonal orientations andrelated social behaviors In one study Herr (1986) primed subjects by exposingthem to pictures of moderately hostile famous individuals (Alice CooperBobby Knight) which led to the subjects rating and treating an ambiguouspartner in a more hostile competitive manner Similar results were found in aseries of studies on the effects of social information on the competitive and coop-erative behavior of males (Holloway Tucker amp Hornstein 1977 HornsteinLaKind Frankel amp Mann 1975) In another study either competitive or affilia-tive goals were primed by exposing subjects to goal-related words whichresulted in the competitively primed subjects performing better on a task (atthe expense of their partnerrsquos feelings) than the affiliatively primed subjects(Bargh 1994)

Given the predicted effects of chronic implicit power theories on the one handand the support for priming effects on the other how might we expect these fac-tors to work in concert to affect decision making

The HeuristicndashSystematic Model of Information Processing

The heuristicndashsystematic model of information processing (Chaiken Giner-Sorolla amp Chen 1996 Chaiken Liberman amp Eagly 1989 Chen amp Chaiken1999) is one of a set of influential dual-process models in contemporary socialpsychology (Chaiken amp Trope 1999) This model proposes that people processinformation on two distinct levels Heuristic information processing is quicksuperficial and requires little effort time or attention It involves focusing onsalient cues in the context which activates familiar decision rules (heuristics)allowing judgments attitudes intentions and decisions to be formed quickly andefficiently In contrast systematic processing is more complete careful andintensive and involves attempts to form more thorough and well-reasoned judg-ments attitudes and decisions Such processing entails much mental effortattention and the allocation of additional mental resources

The heuristicndashsystematic model predicts that recent priming would supply thecontextual cues that would activate those implicit theories of power that are con-sistent with the prime However these knowledge structures would only beexpected to affect superficial or quick spontaneous responses to ambiguous ques-tioning More explicit specific questioning on the other hand which requiresmore careful thought would shift the decision maker into a more systematicmode of information processing that particularly in the absence of sufficientcontextual information would encourage deeper reflection on their more chronicideals and beliefs regarding organizational power In other words it follows thatmanagers have different types of implicit theories of power (competitive andcooperative) available to them as cognitive structures and that even though theymay be chronically predisposed to one type of theory the recent priming of

304 PETER T COLEMAN

another type will temporarily make the primed theory more accessible for theheuristic-level processing of information

Hypothesis 3 Competitively primed individuals will decide toshare power less on the ambiguous heuristic-level measures in thestudy than will neutrally or cooperatively primed individuals

The effects of priming would be expected to be overridden when explicitquestioning of participants is introduced requiring more careful reasoning andmore systematic decision making At this point the individualsrsquo more chronicimplicit theories regarding power would be predicted to affect their decisions

The Present Study

The present study proposes that chronic differences in implicit power theorieswill affect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power in organizations It ispredicted that managers with more competitive implicit ideals regarding power inorganizations will share power less than will managers with more cooperativeimplicit ideals and that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs regard-ing power in organizations will share power more than will managers with morecooperative implicit beliefs Based on previous research subliminal priming (ofcooperative vs competitive ideals) is predicted to enhance the accessibility ofthese differences in implicit power theories thereby momentarily fostering orinhibiting heuristic-level decisions to share power

Method

The present research is an experimental study that involved 39 male and 59female participants who completed the implicit power theory questionnaire 2 to 4weeks prior to the laboratory study The experimental design of the laboratorystudy is a 3 2 (Prime Type Cooperative Neutral Competitive Gender)between-subjects design Participants were matched on gender and then ran-domly assigned to prime type conditions3

Participants

The participants were 98 Masters of Business Administration or Organ-izational Psychology Masters of Arts students whose native language wasEnglish and who had normal or corrected-to-normal vision Participants weresolicited from courses by offering one chance at a $1000 lottery for theirparticipation The sample ranged in age from 22 to 61 years (M = 29 years) andranged in work experience from 0 to 30 years (M = 7 years) An older sample of

3The findings regarding gender differences in this study are available from the author

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 305

business-oriented graduate students was targeted in order to assure the degree oforganizational experience necessary to allow participants to be familiar withmanagement and with actual power dynamics in organizations

Procedure

The Implicit Power Theory Questionnaire was developed for this study andwas administered in several courses 2 to 4 weeks prior to the laboratory studyeither by the instructors of the courses or by an experimenter other than the prin-cipal investigator Participants were informed that their responses to the surveywould be anonymous and that all information would be kept strictly confidentialNo association was made between the questionnaire and the laboratory study andpost-study inquiries with participants in a pilot study indicated no awareness ofthe association between the two

All participants in the laboratory study were recruited to participate in twopresumably unrelated tasks one concerning ldquoperceptionrdquo and the other concern-ing ldquomanagerial problem solvingrdquo Participants were first instructed to respond toa ldquoperceptual reaction taskrdquo on a computer monitor This task was the methodemployed in priming the participants Following this participants were asked toread a vignette regarding a managerial predicament that was provided separatelyon printed paper and then to respond to a series of questions that followed thevignette and included the various measures of the dependent variables Partici-pants were given a participant identification number to preserve confidentiality

For the ldquofirst taskrdquo participants were instructed to react to the stimuli pre-sented on the computer screen In front of the screen was a keyboard with twobuttons marked ldquoZrdquo and ldquoMrdquo Participants were told that there would be quickflashes of light appearing on the screen and that their task was to press the buttonon the keyboard corresponding with the side of the fixation point on which theflash appeared (ldquoZrdquo for the left side and ldquoMrdquo for the right side) Participantswere informed that the flashes were made up of a random series of letters num-bers and symbols After the participants were administered the priming induc-tion they were instructed to move directly to the second research task They werethen presented with a managerial vignette and then after a distraction exercisethe instrument that contained the power-sharing measures

Implicit power theories Scales for competitive versus cooperative implicitideals and beliefs were constructed for this study on the basis of previousresearch on implicit theories (Dweck et al 1995 Offermann et al 1994) and oninterpersonal relations (Wish et al 1976) Appendix A presents the items for theimplicit beliefs and the implicit ideals scales Sample items for implicit competi-tive beliefs (9 items) are ldquoIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsrdquoand ldquoThose at the top have all the powerrdquo Sample items for implicit competitiveideals (7 items) are ldquoIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

300 PETER T COLEMAN

demonstrated to affect such processes as task goal orientation (Dweck amp Leggett1988) stereotype formation and endorsement (Levy Stroessner amp Dweck 1998)attributions and coping strategies (Hong Chiu Dweck Lin amp Wan 1999) andsocial judgment and decision making (Gervey et al 1999 Levy et al 1999)

In contrast research on implicit leadership theories has demonstrated that fol-lowersrsquo unarticulated standards or implicit ideals for optimal leadership traits andbehaviors (eg competence and consideration) can influence their perceptions ofleaders and the attributions they make concerning leader behavior (Calder 1977Eden amp Leviathan 1975 Lord Foti amp DeVader 1984 Offerman et al 1994Rush Thomas amp Lord 1977) Similar claims have been made about implicittheories of subordinate performance held by superiors (Borman 1987)

Thus the research indicates that peoplersquos implicit theories are comprised ofboth implicit beliefs about and implicit ideals regarding social phenomena andthat both can affect information processing and behavior Little work has beendone however in investigating either implicit beliefs or implicit ideals in therealm of organizational power (for an exception see Aguinis Nesler Quigley ampTedeschi 1994)

Implicit Theories of Organizational Power

Managersrsquo core assumptions about organizational power remain unstated anduntested (Hollander amp Offermann 1990) And given the vast abstract nature ofthe construct it is difficult to know which of the many possible dimensions ofpower relations would be consequential to managerial decision making

In their research on the fundamental dimensions of interpersonal relationsWish Deutsch and Kaplan (1976) identified two of the primary dimensionspeople consider when in relation with others The first dimension was corpora-tion-competition Deutsch (1985) posited that a cooperative psychologicalorientation would incline one to emphasize egalitarianism (in an equal powerrelationship) or an obligation to employ power in such a way as to benefit the lesspowerful as well as oneself (in an unequal power relationship) In contrast acompetitive psychological orientation would authorize inequality and emphasizea winndashlose struggle for superiority (Deutsch 1985)

Burke (1986) in an article on leadership and empowerment found supportfor the prevalence of the cooperativendashcompetitive dimension of power in organi-zations He wrote ldquoMany perhaps most people believe that power is a zero-sumquantity to share power to empower others is to lose a certain amount of itrdquo(p 63) Others (Bennis amp Nanus 1985 Organ amp Bateman 1991 Tjosvold1981) have echoed this competitive conception of organizational power AsDeutsch (1973) argued the implicit assumption in this view of power is thatpower relations between people are intrinsically competitive the more power Ahas the less power is available for B

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 301

Mary Parker Follett writing in the 1920s about organizational life offered adifferent perspective on power Follett proposed that even though power was usu-ally conceived of as power over others (the power of A over B) it would be pos-sible to develop the conception of power with others She envisioned this type ofpower as a jointly developed coactive noncoercive power (Follett 1973) Follett(1924) wrote ldquoOur task is not to learn where to place power it is how to developpower Coercive power is the curse of the universe co-active power theenrichment and advancement of every human soulrdquo (p xii)

These contrasting views of power in organizations highlight an importantdimension on which managers may differ in their implicit theories One theorypresents organizational power as a fixed pie that because scarce sets up a winndashlose competitive struggle over power with employees The other theory viewspower as a process that can be developed and enhanced in cooperation withemployees Past research in organizations has demonstrated the critical role ofperceived cooperative interdependence in fostering constructive power dynamicsbetween managers and their employees (Tjosvold 1981 1985a 1985b TjosvoldJohnson amp Johnson 1984) Thus managers may differ in the degree of competi-tivenessndashcooperativeness of their implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organiza-tional power differences that would likely affect their decisions to share power

The second fundamental dimension of relationships identified by Wish et al(1976) is power distribution Peoplersquos beliefs and ideals regarding the equality orinequality of how power is distributed in organizations (eg between labor andmanagement men and women minorities and a majority) have been identified asa critical component of their understanding of organizational power (Organ ampBateman 1991) Despite empirical findings suggesting that power relationstend to be reciprocal mutual and ongoing rather than unilateral (CampbellDunnette Lawler amp Weick 1970) and that power is often broadly distributedthroughout the middle layers of organizations (Galbraith 1967) many peoplebelieve that power resides primarily at the top of the hierarchy in organizationsand that power is of a one-way (ie topndashdown) nature (Organ amp Bateman 1991)Therefore managers also may differ in the degree to which they believe power tobe equally distributed and the degree to which they ideally prefer power to bedistributed in organizations

The question remains however of how these differences in implicit idealsand beliefs regarding organizational power might affect the power-sharing deci-sions of managers First for theoretical purposes Deutsch (1973) traditionallyoperationalized cooperation and competition as polar ends of one continuum ofinterdependence in relations For purposes of consistency I will also operational-ize implicit theories along this same dimension from very competitive to verycooperative Second as Deutsch (1985) proposed we could expect correspon-dence between competitive and autocratic orientations so that more competitiveideals would correlate positively with autocratic ideals and more competitive

302 PETER T COLEMAN

beliefs would correlate positively with more autocratic beliefs Therefore forparsimony these two dimensions (cooperationndashcompetition and power distribu-tion) will be collapsed into single measures of cooperativendashcompetitive implicitpower ideals and implicit power beliefs (Appendix A) Third as Dweck (1996)outlined differences in managersrsquo implicit theories will contribute to the devel-opment of a meaning system that orients them toward particular goals and strate-gies Thus we could expect managers who hold more competitive implicit idealsfor organizational power relations to be more motivated to hold onto power andto compete with their employees for more power

Hypothesis 1 Managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power lessthan will managers with more cooperative implicit ideals

Implicit beliefs however are likely to operate differently Given the prevail-ing cooperative and democratic climate that operates in American companiesthese days and champions teamwork decentralization delegation and empower-ing the workforce (Burke 1986 Peters amp Waterman 1982 Stewart amp Barrick2000) holding the view that organizations tend to be places where one must com-pete for power may in fact have the paradoxical affect of motivating correctiveaction According to cognitive consistency theory this discrepancy between coop-erative organizational ideals and the reality of competitive organizations wouldmotivate change (Deutsch 1985 Festinger 1957 Heider 1958) Thus a morecompetitive implicit belief regarding typical organizational power relations couldmove managers to share power more in an attempt to redress these tendencies

Hypothesis 2 Managers with more competitive implicit beliefsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power morethan will managers with more cooperative implicit beliefs

Priming

The cognitive accessibility of knowledge structures (eg implicit theories)has been shown to be temporarily affected by priming stimuli in the immediateenvironment (Bargh Barndollar amp Gollwitzer 1995 Levy et al 1998) Theterm priming is used generally to describe the effects of onersquos prior context on hisor her interpretation of new information (Fiske amp Taylor 1991) but also mayrefer to any procedures that stimulate or activate some stored knowledge unit(Higgins 1996) Priming can vary in terms of the relative recency or frequencyof activation of the stored knowledge unit (Fiske amp Taylor 1991 Higgins 1996)which has implications for the duration of priming effects and the chronic activa-tion and use of cognitive structures

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 303

Priming was demonstrated previously to affect interpersonal orientations andrelated social behaviors In one study Herr (1986) primed subjects by exposingthem to pictures of moderately hostile famous individuals (Alice CooperBobby Knight) which led to the subjects rating and treating an ambiguouspartner in a more hostile competitive manner Similar results were found in aseries of studies on the effects of social information on the competitive and coop-erative behavior of males (Holloway Tucker amp Hornstein 1977 HornsteinLaKind Frankel amp Mann 1975) In another study either competitive or affilia-tive goals were primed by exposing subjects to goal-related words whichresulted in the competitively primed subjects performing better on a task (atthe expense of their partnerrsquos feelings) than the affiliatively primed subjects(Bargh 1994)

Given the predicted effects of chronic implicit power theories on the one handand the support for priming effects on the other how might we expect these fac-tors to work in concert to affect decision making

The HeuristicndashSystematic Model of Information Processing

The heuristicndashsystematic model of information processing (Chaiken Giner-Sorolla amp Chen 1996 Chaiken Liberman amp Eagly 1989 Chen amp Chaiken1999) is one of a set of influential dual-process models in contemporary socialpsychology (Chaiken amp Trope 1999) This model proposes that people processinformation on two distinct levels Heuristic information processing is quicksuperficial and requires little effort time or attention It involves focusing onsalient cues in the context which activates familiar decision rules (heuristics)allowing judgments attitudes intentions and decisions to be formed quickly andefficiently In contrast systematic processing is more complete careful andintensive and involves attempts to form more thorough and well-reasoned judg-ments attitudes and decisions Such processing entails much mental effortattention and the allocation of additional mental resources

The heuristicndashsystematic model predicts that recent priming would supply thecontextual cues that would activate those implicit theories of power that are con-sistent with the prime However these knowledge structures would only beexpected to affect superficial or quick spontaneous responses to ambiguous ques-tioning More explicit specific questioning on the other hand which requiresmore careful thought would shift the decision maker into a more systematicmode of information processing that particularly in the absence of sufficientcontextual information would encourage deeper reflection on their more chronicideals and beliefs regarding organizational power In other words it follows thatmanagers have different types of implicit theories of power (competitive andcooperative) available to them as cognitive structures and that even though theymay be chronically predisposed to one type of theory the recent priming of

304 PETER T COLEMAN

another type will temporarily make the primed theory more accessible for theheuristic-level processing of information

Hypothesis 3 Competitively primed individuals will decide toshare power less on the ambiguous heuristic-level measures in thestudy than will neutrally or cooperatively primed individuals

The effects of priming would be expected to be overridden when explicitquestioning of participants is introduced requiring more careful reasoning andmore systematic decision making At this point the individualsrsquo more chronicimplicit theories regarding power would be predicted to affect their decisions

The Present Study

The present study proposes that chronic differences in implicit power theorieswill affect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power in organizations It ispredicted that managers with more competitive implicit ideals regarding power inorganizations will share power less than will managers with more cooperativeimplicit ideals and that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs regard-ing power in organizations will share power more than will managers with morecooperative implicit beliefs Based on previous research subliminal priming (ofcooperative vs competitive ideals) is predicted to enhance the accessibility ofthese differences in implicit power theories thereby momentarily fostering orinhibiting heuristic-level decisions to share power

Method

The present research is an experimental study that involved 39 male and 59female participants who completed the implicit power theory questionnaire 2 to 4weeks prior to the laboratory study The experimental design of the laboratorystudy is a 3 2 (Prime Type Cooperative Neutral Competitive Gender)between-subjects design Participants were matched on gender and then ran-domly assigned to prime type conditions3

Participants

The participants were 98 Masters of Business Administration or Organ-izational Psychology Masters of Arts students whose native language wasEnglish and who had normal or corrected-to-normal vision Participants weresolicited from courses by offering one chance at a $1000 lottery for theirparticipation The sample ranged in age from 22 to 61 years (M = 29 years) andranged in work experience from 0 to 30 years (M = 7 years) An older sample of

3The findings regarding gender differences in this study are available from the author

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 305

business-oriented graduate students was targeted in order to assure the degree oforganizational experience necessary to allow participants to be familiar withmanagement and with actual power dynamics in organizations

Procedure

The Implicit Power Theory Questionnaire was developed for this study andwas administered in several courses 2 to 4 weeks prior to the laboratory studyeither by the instructors of the courses or by an experimenter other than the prin-cipal investigator Participants were informed that their responses to the surveywould be anonymous and that all information would be kept strictly confidentialNo association was made between the questionnaire and the laboratory study andpost-study inquiries with participants in a pilot study indicated no awareness ofthe association between the two

All participants in the laboratory study were recruited to participate in twopresumably unrelated tasks one concerning ldquoperceptionrdquo and the other concern-ing ldquomanagerial problem solvingrdquo Participants were first instructed to respond toa ldquoperceptual reaction taskrdquo on a computer monitor This task was the methodemployed in priming the participants Following this participants were asked toread a vignette regarding a managerial predicament that was provided separatelyon printed paper and then to respond to a series of questions that followed thevignette and included the various measures of the dependent variables Partici-pants were given a participant identification number to preserve confidentiality

For the ldquofirst taskrdquo participants were instructed to react to the stimuli pre-sented on the computer screen In front of the screen was a keyboard with twobuttons marked ldquoZrdquo and ldquoMrdquo Participants were told that there would be quickflashes of light appearing on the screen and that their task was to press the buttonon the keyboard corresponding with the side of the fixation point on which theflash appeared (ldquoZrdquo for the left side and ldquoMrdquo for the right side) Participantswere informed that the flashes were made up of a random series of letters num-bers and symbols After the participants were administered the priming induc-tion they were instructed to move directly to the second research task They werethen presented with a managerial vignette and then after a distraction exercisethe instrument that contained the power-sharing measures

Implicit power theories Scales for competitive versus cooperative implicitideals and beliefs were constructed for this study on the basis of previousresearch on implicit theories (Dweck et al 1995 Offermann et al 1994) and oninterpersonal relations (Wish et al 1976) Appendix A presents the items for theimplicit beliefs and the implicit ideals scales Sample items for implicit competi-tive beliefs (9 items) are ldquoIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsrdquoand ldquoThose at the top have all the powerrdquo Sample items for implicit competitiveideals (7 items) are ldquoIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 301

Mary Parker Follett writing in the 1920s about organizational life offered adifferent perspective on power Follett proposed that even though power was usu-ally conceived of as power over others (the power of A over B) it would be pos-sible to develop the conception of power with others She envisioned this type ofpower as a jointly developed coactive noncoercive power (Follett 1973) Follett(1924) wrote ldquoOur task is not to learn where to place power it is how to developpower Coercive power is the curse of the universe co-active power theenrichment and advancement of every human soulrdquo (p xii)

These contrasting views of power in organizations highlight an importantdimension on which managers may differ in their implicit theories One theorypresents organizational power as a fixed pie that because scarce sets up a winndashlose competitive struggle over power with employees The other theory viewspower as a process that can be developed and enhanced in cooperation withemployees Past research in organizations has demonstrated the critical role ofperceived cooperative interdependence in fostering constructive power dynamicsbetween managers and their employees (Tjosvold 1981 1985a 1985b TjosvoldJohnson amp Johnson 1984) Thus managers may differ in the degree of competi-tivenessndashcooperativeness of their implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organiza-tional power differences that would likely affect their decisions to share power

The second fundamental dimension of relationships identified by Wish et al(1976) is power distribution Peoplersquos beliefs and ideals regarding the equality orinequality of how power is distributed in organizations (eg between labor andmanagement men and women minorities and a majority) have been identified asa critical component of their understanding of organizational power (Organ ampBateman 1991) Despite empirical findings suggesting that power relationstend to be reciprocal mutual and ongoing rather than unilateral (CampbellDunnette Lawler amp Weick 1970) and that power is often broadly distributedthroughout the middle layers of organizations (Galbraith 1967) many peoplebelieve that power resides primarily at the top of the hierarchy in organizationsand that power is of a one-way (ie topndashdown) nature (Organ amp Bateman 1991)Therefore managers also may differ in the degree to which they believe power tobe equally distributed and the degree to which they ideally prefer power to bedistributed in organizations

The question remains however of how these differences in implicit idealsand beliefs regarding organizational power might affect the power-sharing deci-sions of managers First for theoretical purposes Deutsch (1973) traditionallyoperationalized cooperation and competition as polar ends of one continuum ofinterdependence in relations For purposes of consistency I will also operational-ize implicit theories along this same dimension from very competitive to verycooperative Second as Deutsch (1985) proposed we could expect correspon-dence between competitive and autocratic orientations so that more competitiveideals would correlate positively with autocratic ideals and more competitive

302 PETER T COLEMAN

beliefs would correlate positively with more autocratic beliefs Therefore forparsimony these two dimensions (cooperationndashcompetition and power distribu-tion) will be collapsed into single measures of cooperativendashcompetitive implicitpower ideals and implicit power beliefs (Appendix A) Third as Dweck (1996)outlined differences in managersrsquo implicit theories will contribute to the devel-opment of a meaning system that orients them toward particular goals and strate-gies Thus we could expect managers who hold more competitive implicit idealsfor organizational power relations to be more motivated to hold onto power andto compete with their employees for more power

Hypothesis 1 Managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power lessthan will managers with more cooperative implicit ideals

Implicit beliefs however are likely to operate differently Given the prevail-ing cooperative and democratic climate that operates in American companiesthese days and champions teamwork decentralization delegation and empower-ing the workforce (Burke 1986 Peters amp Waterman 1982 Stewart amp Barrick2000) holding the view that organizations tend to be places where one must com-pete for power may in fact have the paradoxical affect of motivating correctiveaction According to cognitive consistency theory this discrepancy between coop-erative organizational ideals and the reality of competitive organizations wouldmotivate change (Deutsch 1985 Festinger 1957 Heider 1958) Thus a morecompetitive implicit belief regarding typical organizational power relations couldmove managers to share power more in an attempt to redress these tendencies

Hypothesis 2 Managers with more competitive implicit beliefsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power morethan will managers with more cooperative implicit beliefs

Priming

The cognitive accessibility of knowledge structures (eg implicit theories)has been shown to be temporarily affected by priming stimuli in the immediateenvironment (Bargh Barndollar amp Gollwitzer 1995 Levy et al 1998) Theterm priming is used generally to describe the effects of onersquos prior context on hisor her interpretation of new information (Fiske amp Taylor 1991) but also mayrefer to any procedures that stimulate or activate some stored knowledge unit(Higgins 1996) Priming can vary in terms of the relative recency or frequencyof activation of the stored knowledge unit (Fiske amp Taylor 1991 Higgins 1996)which has implications for the duration of priming effects and the chronic activa-tion and use of cognitive structures

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 303

Priming was demonstrated previously to affect interpersonal orientations andrelated social behaviors In one study Herr (1986) primed subjects by exposingthem to pictures of moderately hostile famous individuals (Alice CooperBobby Knight) which led to the subjects rating and treating an ambiguouspartner in a more hostile competitive manner Similar results were found in aseries of studies on the effects of social information on the competitive and coop-erative behavior of males (Holloway Tucker amp Hornstein 1977 HornsteinLaKind Frankel amp Mann 1975) In another study either competitive or affilia-tive goals were primed by exposing subjects to goal-related words whichresulted in the competitively primed subjects performing better on a task (atthe expense of their partnerrsquos feelings) than the affiliatively primed subjects(Bargh 1994)

Given the predicted effects of chronic implicit power theories on the one handand the support for priming effects on the other how might we expect these fac-tors to work in concert to affect decision making

The HeuristicndashSystematic Model of Information Processing

The heuristicndashsystematic model of information processing (Chaiken Giner-Sorolla amp Chen 1996 Chaiken Liberman amp Eagly 1989 Chen amp Chaiken1999) is one of a set of influential dual-process models in contemporary socialpsychology (Chaiken amp Trope 1999) This model proposes that people processinformation on two distinct levels Heuristic information processing is quicksuperficial and requires little effort time or attention It involves focusing onsalient cues in the context which activates familiar decision rules (heuristics)allowing judgments attitudes intentions and decisions to be formed quickly andefficiently In contrast systematic processing is more complete careful andintensive and involves attempts to form more thorough and well-reasoned judg-ments attitudes and decisions Such processing entails much mental effortattention and the allocation of additional mental resources

The heuristicndashsystematic model predicts that recent priming would supply thecontextual cues that would activate those implicit theories of power that are con-sistent with the prime However these knowledge structures would only beexpected to affect superficial or quick spontaneous responses to ambiguous ques-tioning More explicit specific questioning on the other hand which requiresmore careful thought would shift the decision maker into a more systematicmode of information processing that particularly in the absence of sufficientcontextual information would encourage deeper reflection on their more chronicideals and beliefs regarding organizational power In other words it follows thatmanagers have different types of implicit theories of power (competitive andcooperative) available to them as cognitive structures and that even though theymay be chronically predisposed to one type of theory the recent priming of

304 PETER T COLEMAN

another type will temporarily make the primed theory more accessible for theheuristic-level processing of information

Hypothesis 3 Competitively primed individuals will decide toshare power less on the ambiguous heuristic-level measures in thestudy than will neutrally or cooperatively primed individuals

The effects of priming would be expected to be overridden when explicitquestioning of participants is introduced requiring more careful reasoning andmore systematic decision making At this point the individualsrsquo more chronicimplicit theories regarding power would be predicted to affect their decisions

The Present Study

The present study proposes that chronic differences in implicit power theorieswill affect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power in organizations It ispredicted that managers with more competitive implicit ideals regarding power inorganizations will share power less than will managers with more cooperativeimplicit ideals and that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs regard-ing power in organizations will share power more than will managers with morecooperative implicit beliefs Based on previous research subliminal priming (ofcooperative vs competitive ideals) is predicted to enhance the accessibility ofthese differences in implicit power theories thereby momentarily fostering orinhibiting heuristic-level decisions to share power

Method

The present research is an experimental study that involved 39 male and 59female participants who completed the implicit power theory questionnaire 2 to 4weeks prior to the laboratory study The experimental design of the laboratorystudy is a 3 2 (Prime Type Cooperative Neutral Competitive Gender)between-subjects design Participants were matched on gender and then ran-domly assigned to prime type conditions3

Participants

The participants were 98 Masters of Business Administration or Organ-izational Psychology Masters of Arts students whose native language wasEnglish and who had normal or corrected-to-normal vision Participants weresolicited from courses by offering one chance at a $1000 lottery for theirparticipation The sample ranged in age from 22 to 61 years (M = 29 years) andranged in work experience from 0 to 30 years (M = 7 years) An older sample of

3The findings regarding gender differences in this study are available from the author

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 305

business-oriented graduate students was targeted in order to assure the degree oforganizational experience necessary to allow participants to be familiar withmanagement and with actual power dynamics in organizations

Procedure

The Implicit Power Theory Questionnaire was developed for this study andwas administered in several courses 2 to 4 weeks prior to the laboratory studyeither by the instructors of the courses or by an experimenter other than the prin-cipal investigator Participants were informed that their responses to the surveywould be anonymous and that all information would be kept strictly confidentialNo association was made between the questionnaire and the laboratory study andpost-study inquiries with participants in a pilot study indicated no awareness ofthe association between the two

All participants in the laboratory study were recruited to participate in twopresumably unrelated tasks one concerning ldquoperceptionrdquo and the other concern-ing ldquomanagerial problem solvingrdquo Participants were first instructed to respond toa ldquoperceptual reaction taskrdquo on a computer monitor This task was the methodemployed in priming the participants Following this participants were asked toread a vignette regarding a managerial predicament that was provided separatelyon printed paper and then to respond to a series of questions that followed thevignette and included the various measures of the dependent variables Partici-pants were given a participant identification number to preserve confidentiality

For the ldquofirst taskrdquo participants were instructed to react to the stimuli pre-sented on the computer screen In front of the screen was a keyboard with twobuttons marked ldquoZrdquo and ldquoMrdquo Participants were told that there would be quickflashes of light appearing on the screen and that their task was to press the buttonon the keyboard corresponding with the side of the fixation point on which theflash appeared (ldquoZrdquo for the left side and ldquoMrdquo for the right side) Participantswere informed that the flashes were made up of a random series of letters num-bers and symbols After the participants were administered the priming induc-tion they were instructed to move directly to the second research task They werethen presented with a managerial vignette and then after a distraction exercisethe instrument that contained the power-sharing measures

Implicit power theories Scales for competitive versus cooperative implicitideals and beliefs were constructed for this study on the basis of previousresearch on implicit theories (Dweck et al 1995 Offermann et al 1994) and oninterpersonal relations (Wish et al 1976) Appendix A presents the items for theimplicit beliefs and the implicit ideals scales Sample items for implicit competi-tive beliefs (9 items) are ldquoIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsrdquoand ldquoThose at the top have all the powerrdquo Sample items for implicit competitiveideals (7 items) are ldquoIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

302 PETER T COLEMAN

beliefs would correlate positively with more autocratic beliefs Therefore forparsimony these two dimensions (cooperationndashcompetition and power distribu-tion) will be collapsed into single measures of cooperativendashcompetitive implicitpower ideals and implicit power beliefs (Appendix A) Third as Dweck (1996)outlined differences in managersrsquo implicit theories will contribute to the devel-opment of a meaning system that orients them toward particular goals and strate-gies Thus we could expect managers who hold more competitive implicit idealsfor organizational power relations to be more motivated to hold onto power andto compete with their employees for more power

Hypothesis 1 Managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power lessthan will managers with more cooperative implicit ideals

Implicit beliefs however are likely to operate differently Given the prevail-ing cooperative and democratic climate that operates in American companiesthese days and champions teamwork decentralization delegation and empower-ing the workforce (Burke 1986 Peters amp Waterman 1982 Stewart amp Barrick2000) holding the view that organizations tend to be places where one must com-pete for power may in fact have the paradoxical affect of motivating correctiveaction According to cognitive consistency theory this discrepancy between coop-erative organizational ideals and the reality of competitive organizations wouldmotivate change (Deutsch 1985 Festinger 1957 Heider 1958) Thus a morecompetitive implicit belief regarding typical organizational power relations couldmove managers to share power more in an attempt to redress these tendencies

Hypothesis 2 Managers with more competitive implicit beliefsregarding power in organizations will decide to share power morethan will managers with more cooperative implicit beliefs

Priming

The cognitive accessibility of knowledge structures (eg implicit theories)has been shown to be temporarily affected by priming stimuli in the immediateenvironment (Bargh Barndollar amp Gollwitzer 1995 Levy et al 1998) Theterm priming is used generally to describe the effects of onersquos prior context on hisor her interpretation of new information (Fiske amp Taylor 1991) but also mayrefer to any procedures that stimulate or activate some stored knowledge unit(Higgins 1996) Priming can vary in terms of the relative recency or frequencyof activation of the stored knowledge unit (Fiske amp Taylor 1991 Higgins 1996)which has implications for the duration of priming effects and the chronic activa-tion and use of cognitive structures

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 303

Priming was demonstrated previously to affect interpersonal orientations andrelated social behaviors In one study Herr (1986) primed subjects by exposingthem to pictures of moderately hostile famous individuals (Alice CooperBobby Knight) which led to the subjects rating and treating an ambiguouspartner in a more hostile competitive manner Similar results were found in aseries of studies on the effects of social information on the competitive and coop-erative behavior of males (Holloway Tucker amp Hornstein 1977 HornsteinLaKind Frankel amp Mann 1975) In another study either competitive or affilia-tive goals were primed by exposing subjects to goal-related words whichresulted in the competitively primed subjects performing better on a task (atthe expense of their partnerrsquos feelings) than the affiliatively primed subjects(Bargh 1994)

Given the predicted effects of chronic implicit power theories on the one handand the support for priming effects on the other how might we expect these fac-tors to work in concert to affect decision making

The HeuristicndashSystematic Model of Information Processing

The heuristicndashsystematic model of information processing (Chaiken Giner-Sorolla amp Chen 1996 Chaiken Liberman amp Eagly 1989 Chen amp Chaiken1999) is one of a set of influential dual-process models in contemporary socialpsychology (Chaiken amp Trope 1999) This model proposes that people processinformation on two distinct levels Heuristic information processing is quicksuperficial and requires little effort time or attention It involves focusing onsalient cues in the context which activates familiar decision rules (heuristics)allowing judgments attitudes intentions and decisions to be formed quickly andefficiently In contrast systematic processing is more complete careful andintensive and involves attempts to form more thorough and well-reasoned judg-ments attitudes and decisions Such processing entails much mental effortattention and the allocation of additional mental resources

The heuristicndashsystematic model predicts that recent priming would supply thecontextual cues that would activate those implicit theories of power that are con-sistent with the prime However these knowledge structures would only beexpected to affect superficial or quick spontaneous responses to ambiguous ques-tioning More explicit specific questioning on the other hand which requiresmore careful thought would shift the decision maker into a more systematicmode of information processing that particularly in the absence of sufficientcontextual information would encourage deeper reflection on their more chronicideals and beliefs regarding organizational power In other words it follows thatmanagers have different types of implicit theories of power (competitive andcooperative) available to them as cognitive structures and that even though theymay be chronically predisposed to one type of theory the recent priming of

304 PETER T COLEMAN

another type will temporarily make the primed theory more accessible for theheuristic-level processing of information

Hypothesis 3 Competitively primed individuals will decide toshare power less on the ambiguous heuristic-level measures in thestudy than will neutrally or cooperatively primed individuals

The effects of priming would be expected to be overridden when explicitquestioning of participants is introduced requiring more careful reasoning andmore systematic decision making At this point the individualsrsquo more chronicimplicit theories regarding power would be predicted to affect their decisions

The Present Study

The present study proposes that chronic differences in implicit power theorieswill affect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power in organizations It ispredicted that managers with more competitive implicit ideals regarding power inorganizations will share power less than will managers with more cooperativeimplicit ideals and that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs regard-ing power in organizations will share power more than will managers with morecooperative implicit beliefs Based on previous research subliminal priming (ofcooperative vs competitive ideals) is predicted to enhance the accessibility ofthese differences in implicit power theories thereby momentarily fostering orinhibiting heuristic-level decisions to share power

Method

The present research is an experimental study that involved 39 male and 59female participants who completed the implicit power theory questionnaire 2 to 4weeks prior to the laboratory study The experimental design of the laboratorystudy is a 3 2 (Prime Type Cooperative Neutral Competitive Gender)between-subjects design Participants were matched on gender and then ran-domly assigned to prime type conditions3

Participants

The participants were 98 Masters of Business Administration or Organ-izational Psychology Masters of Arts students whose native language wasEnglish and who had normal or corrected-to-normal vision Participants weresolicited from courses by offering one chance at a $1000 lottery for theirparticipation The sample ranged in age from 22 to 61 years (M = 29 years) andranged in work experience from 0 to 30 years (M = 7 years) An older sample of

3The findings regarding gender differences in this study are available from the author

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 305

business-oriented graduate students was targeted in order to assure the degree oforganizational experience necessary to allow participants to be familiar withmanagement and with actual power dynamics in organizations

Procedure

The Implicit Power Theory Questionnaire was developed for this study andwas administered in several courses 2 to 4 weeks prior to the laboratory studyeither by the instructors of the courses or by an experimenter other than the prin-cipal investigator Participants were informed that their responses to the surveywould be anonymous and that all information would be kept strictly confidentialNo association was made between the questionnaire and the laboratory study andpost-study inquiries with participants in a pilot study indicated no awareness ofthe association between the two

All participants in the laboratory study were recruited to participate in twopresumably unrelated tasks one concerning ldquoperceptionrdquo and the other concern-ing ldquomanagerial problem solvingrdquo Participants were first instructed to respond toa ldquoperceptual reaction taskrdquo on a computer monitor This task was the methodemployed in priming the participants Following this participants were asked toread a vignette regarding a managerial predicament that was provided separatelyon printed paper and then to respond to a series of questions that followed thevignette and included the various measures of the dependent variables Partici-pants were given a participant identification number to preserve confidentiality

For the ldquofirst taskrdquo participants were instructed to react to the stimuli pre-sented on the computer screen In front of the screen was a keyboard with twobuttons marked ldquoZrdquo and ldquoMrdquo Participants were told that there would be quickflashes of light appearing on the screen and that their task was to press the buttonon the keyboard corresponding with the side of the fixation point on which theflash appeared (ldquoZrdquo for the left side and ldquoMrdquo for the right side) Participantswere informed that the flashes were made up of a random series of letters num-bers and symbols After the participants were administered the priming induc-tion they were instructed to move directly to the second research task They werethen presented with a managerial vignette and then after a distraction exercisethe instrument that contained the power-sharing measures

Implicit power theories Scales for competitive versus cooperative implicitideals and beliefs were constructed for this study on the basis of previousresearch on implicit theories (Dweck et al 1995 Offermann et al 1994) and oninterpersonal relations (Wish et al 1976) Appendix A presents the items for theimplicit beliefs and the implicit ideals scales Sample items for implicit competi-tive beliefs (9 items) are ldquoIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsrdquoand ldquoThose at the top have all the powerrdquo Sample items for implicit competitiveideals (7 items) are ldquoIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 303

Priming was demonstrated previously to affect interpersonal orientations andrelated social behaviors In one study Herr (1986) primed subjects by exposingthem to pictures of moderately hostile famous individuals (Alice CooperBobby Knight) which led to the subjects rating and treating an ambiguouspartner in a more hostile competitive manner Similar results were found in aseries of studies on the effects of social information on the competitive and coop-erative behavior of males (Holloway Tucker amp Hornstein 1977 HornsteinLaKind Frankel amp Mann 1975) In another study either competitive or affilia-tive goals were primed by exposing subjects to goal-related words whichresulted in the competitively primed subjects performing better on a task (atthe expense of their partnerrsquos feelings) than the affiliatively primed subjects(Bargh 1994)

Given the predicted effects of chronic implicit power theories on the one handand the support for priming effects on the other how might we expect these fac-tors to work in concert to affect decision making

The HeuristicndashSystematic Model of Information Processing

The heuristicndashsystematic model of information processing (Chaiken Giner-Sorolla amp Chen 1996 Chaiken Liberman amp Eagly 1989 Chen amp Chaiken1999) is one of a set of influential dual-process models in contemporary socialpsychology (Chaiken amp Trope 1999) This model proposes that people processinformation on two distinct levels Heuristic information processing is quicksuperficial and requires little effort time or attention It involves focusing onsalient cues in the context which activates familiar decision rules (heuristics)allowing judgments attitudes intentions and decisions to be formed quickly andefficiently In contrast systematic processing is more complete careful andintensive and involves attempts to form more thorough and well-reasoned judg-ments attitudes and decisions Such processing entails much mental effortattention and the allocation of additional mental resources

The heuristicndashsystematic model predicts that recent priming would supply thecontextual cues that would activate those implicit theories of power that are con-sistent with the prime However these knowledge structures would only beexpected to affect superficial or quick spontaneous responses to ambiguous ques-tioning More explicit specific questioning on the other hand which requiresmore careful thought would shift the decision maker into a more systematicmode of information processing that particularly in the absence of sufficientcontextual information would encourage deeper reflection on their more chronicideals and beliefs regarding organizational power In other words it follows thatmanagers have different types of implicit theories of power (competitive andcooperative) available to them as cognitive structures and that even though theymay be chronically predisposed to one type of theory the recent priming of

304 PETER T COLEMAN

another type will temporarily make the primed theory more accessible for theheuristic-level processing of information

Hypothesis 3 Competitively primed individuals will decide toshare power less on the ambiguous heuristic-level measures in thestudy than will neutrally or cooperatively primed individuals

The effects of priming would be expected to be overridden when explicitquestioning of participants is introduced requiring more careful reasoning andmore systematic decision making At this point the individualsrsquo more chronicimplicit theories regarding power would be predicted to affect their decisions

The Present Study

The present study proposes that chronic differences in implicit power theorieswill affect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power in organizations It ispredicted that managers with more competitive implicit ideals regarding power inorganizations will share power less than will managers with more cooperativeimplicit ideals and that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs regard-ing power in organizations will share power more than will managers with morecooperative implicit beliefs Based on previous research subliminal priming (ofcooperative vs competitive ideals) is predicted to enhance the accessibility ofthese differences in implicit power theories thereby momentarily fostering orinhibiting heuristic-level decisions to share power

Method

The present research is an experimental study that involved 39 male and 59female participants who completed the implicit power theory questionnaire 2 to 4weeks prior to the laboratory study The experimental design of the laboratorystudy is a 3 2 (Prime Type Cooperative Neutral Competitive Gender)between-subjects design Participants were matched on gender and then ran-domly assigned to prime type conditions3

Participants

The participants were 98 Masters of Business Administration or Organ-izational Psychology Masters of Arts students whose native language wasEnglish and who had normal or corrected-to-normal vision Participants weresolicited from courses by offering one chance at a $1000 lottery for theirparticipation The sample ranged in age from 22 to 61 years (M = 29 years) andranged in work experience from 0 to 30 years (M = 7 years) An older sample of

3The findings regarding gender differences in this study are available from the author

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 305

business-oriented graduate students was targeted in order to assure the degree oforganizational experience necessary to allow participants to be familiar withmanagement and with actual power dynamics in organizations

Procedure

The Implicit Power Theory Questionnaire was developed for this study andwas administered in several courses 2 to 4 weeks prior to the laboratory studyeither by the instructors of the courses or by an experimenter other than the prin-cipal investigator Participants were informed that their responses to the surveywould be anonymous and that all information would be kept strictly confidentialNo association was made between the questionnaire and the laboratory study andpost-study inquiries with participants in a pilot study indicated no awareness ofthe association between the two

All participants in the laboratory study were recruited to participate in twopresumably unrelated tasks one concerning ldquoperceptionrdquo and the other concern-ing ldquomanagerial problem solvingrdquo Participants were first instructed to respond toa ldquoperceptual reaction taskrdquo on a computer monitor This task was the methodemployed in priming the participants Following this participants were asked toread a vignette regarding a managerial predicament that was provided separatelyon printed paper and then to respond to a series of questions that followed thevignette and included the various measures of the dependent variables Partici-pants were given a participant identification number to preserve confidentiality

For the ldquofirst taskrdquo participants were instructed to react to the stimuli pre-sented on the computer screen In front of the screen was a keyboard with twobuttons marked ldquoZrdquo and ldquoMrdquo Participants were told that there would be quickflashes of light appearing on the screen and that their task was to press the buttonon the keyboard corresponding with the side of the fixation point on which theflash appeared (ldquoZrdquo for the left side and ldquoMrdquo for the right side) Participantswere informed that the flashes were made up of a random series of letters num-bers and symbols After the participants were administered the priming induc-tion they were instructed to move directly to the second research task They werethen presented with a managerial vignette and then after a distraction exercisethe instrument that contained the power-sharing measures

Implicit power theories Scales for competitive versus cooperative implicitideals and beliefs were constructed for this study on the basis of previousresearch on implicit theories (Dweck et al 1995 Offermann et al 1994) and oninterpersonal relations (Wish et al 1976) Appendix A presents the items for theimplicit beliefs and the implicit ideals scales Sample items for implicit competi-tive beliefs (9 items) are ldquoIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsrdquoand ldquoThose at the top have all the powerrdquo Sample items for implicit competitiveideals (7 items) are ldquoIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

304 PETER T COLEMAN

another type will temporarily make the primed theory more accessible for theheuristic-level processing of information

Hypothesis 3 Competitively primed individuals will decide toshare power less on the ambiguous heuristic-level measures in thestudy than will neutrally or cooperatively primed individuals

The effects of priming would be expected to be overridden when explicitquestioning of participants is introduced requiring more careful reasoning andmore systematic decision making At this point the individualsrsquo more chronicimplicit theories regarding power would be predicted to affect their decisions

The Present Study

The present study proposes that chronic differences in implicit power theorieswill affect managersrsquo decisions to share or withhold power in organizations It ispredicted that managers with more competitive implicit ideals regarding power inorganizations will share power less than will managers with more cooperativeimplicit ideals and that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs regard-ing power in organizations will share power more than will managers with morecooperative implicit beliefs Based on previous research subliminal priming (ofcooperative vs competitive ideals) is predicted to enhance the accessibility ofthese differences in implicit power theories thereby momentarily fostering orinhibiting heuristic-level decisions to share power

Method

The present research is an experimental study that involved 39 male and 59female participants who completed the implicit power theory questionnaire 2 to 4weeks prior to the laboratory study The experimental design of the laboratorystudy is a 3 2 (Prime Type Cooperative Neutral Competitive Gender)between-subjects design Participants were matched on gender and then ran-domly assigned to prime type conditions3

Participants

The participants were 98 Masters of Business Administration or Organ-izational Psychology Masters of Arts students whose native language wasEnglish and who had normal or corrected-to-normal vision Participants weresolicited from courses by offering one chance at a $1000 lottery for theirparticipation The sample ranged in age from 22 to 61 years (M = 29 years) andranged in work experience from 0 to 30 years (M = 7 years) An older sample of

3The findings regarding gender differences in this study are available from the author

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 305

business-oriented graduate students was targeted in order to assure the degree oforganizational experience necessary to allow participants to be familiar withmanagement and with actual power dynamics in organizations

Procedure

The Implicit Power Theory Questionnaire was developed for this study andwas administered in several courses 2 to 4 weeks prior to the laboratory studyeither by the instructors of the courses or by an experimenter other than the prin-cipal investigator Participants were informed that their responses to the surveywould be anonymous and that all information would be kept strictly confidentialNo association was made between the questionnaire and the laboratory study andpost-study inquiries with participants in a pilot study indicated no awareness ofthe association between the two

All participants in the laboratory study were recruited to participate in twopresumably unrelated tasks one concerning ldquoperceptionrdquo and the other concern-ing ldquomanagerial problem solvingrdquo Participants were first instructed to respond toa ldquoperceptual reaction taskrdquo on a computer monitor This task was the methodemployed in priming the participants Following this participants were asked toread a vignette regarding a managerial predicament that was provided separatelyon printed paper and then to respond to a series of questions that followed thevignette and included the various measures of the dependent variables Partici-pants were given a participant identification number to preserve confidentiality

For the ldquofirst taskrdquo participants were instructed to react to the stimuli pre-sented on the computer screen In front of the screen was a keyboard with twobuttons marked ldquoZrdquo and ldquoMrdquo Participants were told that there would be quickflashes of light appearing on the screen and that their task was to press the buttonon the keyboard corresponding with the side of the fixation point on which theflash appeared (ldquoZrdquo for the left side and ldquoMrdquo for the right side) Participantswere informed that the flashes were made up of a random series of letters num-bers and symbols After the participants were administered the priming induc-tion they were instructed to move directly to the second research task They werethen presented with a managerial vignette and then after a distraction exercisethe instrument that contained the power-sharing measures

Implicit power theories Scales for competitive versus cooperative implicitideals and beliefs were constructed for this study on the basis of previousresearch on implicit theories (Dweck et al 1995 Offermann et al 1994) and oninterpersonal relations (Wish et al 1976) Appendix A presents the items for theimplicit beliefs and the implicit ideals scales Sample items for implicit competi-tive beliefs (9 items) are ldquoIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsrdquoand ldquoThose at the top have all the powerrdquo Sample items for implicit competitiveideals (7 items) are ldquoIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 305

business-oriented graduate students was targeted in order to assure the degree oforganizational experience necessary to allow participants to be familiar withmanagement and with actual power dynamics in organizations

Procedure

The Implicit Power Theory Questionnaire was developed for this study andwas administered in several courses 2 to 4 weeks prior to the laboratory studyeither by the instructors of the courses or by an experimenter other than the prin-cipal investigator Participants were informed that their responses to the surveywould be anonymous and that all information would be kept strictly confidentialNo association was made between the questionnaire and the laboratory study andpost-study inquiries with participants in a pilot study indicated no awareness ofthe association between the two

All participants in the laboratory study were recruited to participate in twopresumably unrelated tasks one concerning ldquoperceptionrdquo and the other concern-ing ldquomanagerial problem solvingrdquo Participants were first instructed to respond toa ldquoperceptual reaction taskrdquo on a computer monitor This task was the methodemployed in priming the participants Following this participants were asked toread a vignette regarding a managerial predicament that was provided separatelyon printed paper and then to respond to a series of questions that followed thevignette and included the various measures of the dependent variables Partici-pants were given a participant identification number to preserve confidentiality

For the ldquofirst taskrdquo participants were instructed to react to the stimuli pre-sented on the computer screen In front of the screen was a keyboard with twobuttons marked ldquoZrdquo and ldquoMrdquo Participants were told that there would be quickflashes of light appearing on the screen and that their task was to press the buttonon the keyboard corresponding with the side of the fixation point on which theflash appeared (ldquoZrdquo for the left side and ldquoMrdquo for the right side) Participantswere informed that the flashes were made up of a random series of letters num-bers and symbols After the participants were administered the priming induc-tion they were instructed to move directly to the second research task They werethen presented with a managerial vignette and then after a distraction exercisethe instrument that contained the power-sharing measures

Implicit power theories Scales for competitive versus cooperative implicitideals and beliefs were constructed for this study on the basis of previousresearch on implicit theories (Dweck et al 1995 Offermann et al 1994) and oninterpersonal relations (Wish et al 1976) Appendix A presents the items for theimplicit beliefs and the implicit ideals scales Sample items for implicit competi-tive beliefs (9 items) are ldquoIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsrdquoand ldquoThose at the top have all the powerrdquo Sample items for implicit competitiveideals (7 items) are ldquoIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

306 PETER T COLEMAN

extremely competitiverdquo and ldquoMost of the power should be at the top in organiza-tionsrdquo Participants were asked to rate their responses on a 9-point scale rangingfrom 1 (agree) to 9 (disagree) Both scales demonstrated acceptable reliabilityCoefficient alphas for competitive implicit beliefs and ideals were 82 and 72respectively At the conclusion of the questionnaire participants were asked fordemographic information and for the last four digits of their Social Security num-bers (for the purpose of matching the questionnaire responses with the laboratoryresponses)

Pilot study The pilot study had 30 subjects who participated to explore thepsychometric qualities of the survey instrument Participants were interviewedand debriefed on the measure The results of the pilot study were essentially aspredicted Some minor revisions were made on the instrument prior to the onsetof the study

Stimulus words Two 100-word stimulus lists were composed consisting ofeither competitive (eg winner loser opponent rival victor) or cooperative(eg mutual shared collaborator coworker) words Each word list contained25 words that were each presented four times The word presentation order wasrandomized but it was the same for all participants These word lists werepiloted to determine their intended effects The prime for the neutral conditionconsisted of a string of asterisks followed by a letter mask

Parafoveal subliminal priming The stimuli were presented on a PC micro-computer using parafoveal subliminal priming in a manner found by others toprevent awareness of stimulus priming (Bargh Bond Lombardi amp Tota 1986Bargh amp Pietromonaco 1982 Neuberg 1988) At the beginning of each trialparticipants were instructed to focus on a fixation point that appeared in the cen-ter of the computer monitor In 2 to 7 s (randomly determined) after the appear-ance of the fixation point a stimulus word was flashed for 60 ms at one of fourpositions equidistant from the fixation point two to the right and two to the leftAll letters of the words appeared between 25 and 6 degrees of visual angle fromthe fixation point with respect to the eyes of the participant (within the parafovealfield when the participant is seated 70 to 75 cm from the monitor)

The location of each word was determined randomly with the constraint thateach of the 25 stimulus words appeared at each location once and that acrossthe 100 trials each location was represented 25 times Immediately followingthe presentation of the stimulus word a mask (XKHGRQWBMSWUX) waspresented in the same location that the stimulus word had appeared also for 60ms The sequence then repeated itself Altogether there were 110 trials 10 prac-tice trials and 100 experimental trials The experimenter randomly assignedparticipants to one of the three priming conditions The word lists were codedand the experimenter was blind to the condition of each participant

Managerial vignette Upon completion of the priming (perception-reactiontask) participants were asked to read a managerial vignette requesting that they

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 307

place themselves in the position of the decision maker in the organization Thevignette (adapted from Vroom amp Jago 1988 Appendix B) was selected from aset of 30 participative decision-making vignettes based on the criteria that (a) ithad the potential to be viewed as ambiguous in terms of cooperativendashcompetitivecontent (b) it fit the situational criteria for near-optimal participative decisionmaking (decision acceptance decision quality subordinate development andconcern for time Vroom amp Jago 1988) and (c) the decision had potential conse-quences for the managerrsquos power (in terms of his or her reputation social iden-tity and valued resources)

Power-sharing decision measures (heuristicndashsystematic) Managerial powersharing was operationalized for the purposes of this study in some of itsmore common organizational forms as resource sharing participatory decisionmaking and delegation of decision-making authority The heuristicndashsystematicresponse distinction was operationalized through the use of two separate mea-sures The heuristic-level measure asked participants to respond immediately tothe open-ended question ldquoHow would you respond to this situationrdquo in responseto the vignette (coded for spontaneous inclusion of subordinates in decision mak-ing and spontaneous sharing of resources) The systematic-level measure askedparticipants to respond to two Likert-type items that inquired explicitly aboutinvolving subordinates in the decision-making process (1 = unilateral decision7 = consensual decision) and delegating the decision to subordinates (1 = verydefinitely yes 9 = absolutely not)

Results

Several analyses were used to test the hypotheses Descriptive statistics forall variables in the study are presented in Table 1 Correlations among the twoimplicit theory variables and the four power-sharing variables are shown inTable 2

Hypothesis 1 proposed that managers with more competitive implicit idealsregarding organizational power would decide to share power less than wouldmanagers with more cooperative implicit ideals A MANCOVA was run forimplicit ideals and beliefs on the four measures of power sharing resource shar-ing participative decision making (spontaneous) delegation of authority andparticipative decision making (systematic) controlling for the effects of theprime condition (Table 3) No significant interactions were found between primetype and implicit ideals Results from this analysis supported Hypothesis 1Participants with more competitive implicit ideals regarding organizationalpower reported that they were significantly less likely to involve their subordi-nates in the decision-making process than did those with more cooperativeimplicit power ideals F(1 97) = 605 p lt 05 and said they were less likely todelegate the decision as well at a level near significance F(1 97) = 309 p lt 08

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

308 PETER T COLEMAN

As predicted implicit ideals did not affect the heuristic-level measures of powersharing

In contrast to implicit ideals Hypothesis 2 stated that managers with morecompetitive implicit beliefs regarding power in organizations would decide toshare power more than would individuals with more cooperative implicit beliefsThis hypothesis was also supported by the MANCOVA Participants who heldmore competitive implicit beliefs about organizational power reported that theywould delegate decision-making authority to their subordinates significantlymore than did participants who held more cooperative beliefs F(1 97) = 680p lt 01 In other words it appears that believing power relations to be typicallycompetitive in organizations leads to an increase in power sharing by managers

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Measures

N Minimum Maximum M SD

IPT beliefs 96 189 833 533 143IPT ideals 96 386 900 673 123

Participationndashheuristic 97 100 300 159 075Resource sharing 98 100 500 370 146Participationndashsystematic 93 100 700 419 195

Delegation 98 100 900 465 279

Note IPT = implicit power theory

Table 2

Study Variable Intercorrelations

Variable 2 3 4 5 6

1 IPT beliefs 004 -005 145 092 2052 IPT ideals mdash -051 089 262 248

3 Resource sharing mdash 271 -078 -1204 Participationndashheuristic mdash 326 0525 Participationndashsystematic mdash 280

6 Delegation mdash

Note IPT = implicit power theoryp lt 05 p lt 01

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 309

through delegation This is an important finding because it supports the idea thatalthough implicit theories are composed of beliefs and ideals these componentsmay act independently to hinder or enhance power sharing Implicit beliefs werenot found to significantly affect participative decision making This finding willbe addressed in the Discussion

Based on a dual-process model of information processing Hypothesis 3proposed that competitively primed individuals would share power less on thespontaneous heuristic-level measures in the study than would neutrally or coop-eratively primed individuals To test this hypothesis the open-ended question forpower sharing was content-coded by independent raters for the spontaneousinclusion of subordinates in the decision-making process (participative decisionmaking heuristic 3-point scale ranging from autocratic to benign autocratic toparticipative) and for spontaneous sharing of personal resources (resourcesharing 5-point scale ranging from explicit retention of resources to explicit

Table 3

MANCOVA of Implicit Power Theory Ideals and Beliefs on Power-Sharing Variables

Source Dependent variable F(1 97)

Prime type Resource sharing 1074Participationndashheuristic 301

Participationndashsystematic 002Delegation 000

IPT ideals Resource sharing 041

Participationndashheuristic 052Participationndashsystematic 605Delegation 309

IPT beliefs Resource sharing 141Participationndashheuristic 025Participationndashsystematic 005

Delegation 680IPT Ideals times IPT Beliefs Resource sharing 005

Participationndashheuristic 136

Participationndashsystematic 000

Delegation 005

Note IPT = implicit power theory

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

310 PETER T COLEMAN

sharing of resources) Three independent raters content-coded the open-endedquestion Interrater reliability was 93 for participative decision making and 87for resource sharing

A MANCOVA was conducted for prime condition (competitiveneutralcooperative) on the four measures of power sharing controlling for the effects ofthe implicit theory variables No significant interactions were found betweenimplicit theories and prime type for these measures Furthermore the implicittheory variables were not found to be significantly related to the heuristic-levelmeasures of power sharing and therefore were dropped from the model AMANOVA was run for prime on the heuristic-level measures which indicatedthat there were significant differences on the set of measures among the threepriming conditions (p lt 001 Table 4) The univariate F tests indicated signifi-cant differences between the competitive versus cooperative prime conditions onparticipative decisions (p lt 05) and resource sharing (p lt 001) and between thecompetitive versus neutral primes on participation (p lt 01) and resource sharing(p lt 05) but not between the cooperative versus neutral primes on the initialmeasures of power sharing

To summarize all three hypotheses were supported Managers who held morecompetitive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve theirsubordinates in the decision-making process than were those with more coopera-tive ideals while managers who believed organizational power relations to betypically more competitive displayed increased power sharing through delega-tion Also competitively primed participants were found to share power less onboth heuristic-level measuresmdashspontaneously involving subordinates less in thedecision-making process and spontaneously offering to share their own resourceslessmdashthan neutrally and cooperatively primed participants As predicted prim-ing did not impact the systematic-level measures of power sharing

Table 4

Differences on Heuristic Measures of Power Sharing Among the Three Priming Conditions

Prime typepower sharing

Competitive vs cooperativea

M

Competitive vs neutral

M

Participative decision making 132-169 132-180

Resource sharing 300-434 300-370

aA comparison of the means for the two prime conditionsp lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 311

Discussion

The theme of this research was straightforward Despite the numerous advan-tages of sharing power in managementndashemployee relationships many managersresist it This study offered a pioneering investigation of the role that implicitpower theories play in fostering such resistance in organizational life The resultsindicate that the priming of competitive theories of organizational power nega-tively influenced managersrsquo immediate spontaneous decisions to share powerwhereas chronic differences in their implicit theories measured weeks beforeaffected their more systematic decisions to share power

However an important difference between chronic ideals and beliefs wasidentified at the systematic processing level Managers who held more competi-tive implicit power ideals were significantly less likely to involve subordinates indecision making than were those with more cooperative ideals while managerswho viewed organizational power relations as typically more competitive sharedmore power through delegation than did those who believed them to be typicallymore cooperative This study has a variety of theoretical and applied implications

Implicit Power Theories

The findings from this research regarding the content and consequences ofpeoplersquos implicit theories of power in organizations are noteworthy although pre-liminary The variance on the implicit theory measures and the distribution of thescores from the study (Table 1) indicate that individuals do differ substantially intheir implicit ideals and beliefs of power in organizations along the competitiveto cooperative dimension and the findings from the study indicate that these dif-ferences can affect their systematic decisions regarding power sharing

Participants with more competitive implicit power ideals were found to be lesswilling to involve subordinates in decision making while individuals with morecompetitive implicit power beliefs were more willing to delegate authority Thissuggests that while people use implicit ideals as goals to move toward in organi-zational life they also may be motivated to correct discrepancies when they vieworganizations as tending in a direction (either competitive or cooperative) thatdiverges from their ideals The motivational influence of such idealndashactual dis-crepancies is consistent with current research in this area (Higgins 1987 1997)Therefore it is important that we develop a fuller understanding of the core ele-ments of managersrsquo implicit beliefs and ideals regarding organizational power aswell as a better understanding of the relationship between these beliefs and ideals

The study found that managers with more competitive implicit beliefs weremore willing to delegate authority but were not significantly more willing toinvolve their subordinates in the decision-making process This disparity is con-sistent with Leanarsquos (1987) depiction of delegation as not merely an extension of

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

312 PETER T COLEMAN

participation but as a conceptually distinct and more complete form of powersharing Leana proposed a separate theoretical rationale for delegation of author-ity that focuses on the development of individual autonomy in subordinates asopposed to the more common objective of engendering democratic processesthrough participation Perhaps more competitive implicit beliefs motivated awillingness to delegate alone because it was uniquely motivated to reduce dis-crepancy (between how things are in organizations and how things should be)and because managers experience delegation as an altogether different type ofpower sharing than participation

Situational Priming

The priming effects found in the study offer support to the proposition thatindividuals have both cooperative and competitive theories of power relationsavailable to them as cognitive structures but that the recent priming of one or theother of these theories makes the primed theory more accessible for heuristic-level decisions When more explicit systematic processing was required thepriming effects were overridden and the effects of the more chronic implicittheories appeared to prevail These effects may have been a result of differencesin the type of measure utilized (open-ended vs closed-ended questions) or to theslight time delay between the spontaneous and systematic measures (althoughthey were presented sequentially) Future research must control for these alterna-tive explanations

It is important to note however that the character of chronic implicit theoriesis thought to be shaped by exposure to consistent behavioral patterns (primingstimuli) over time (Offermann et al 1994) In this manner consistent situationalpriming may have long-term consequences It is important to investigate thishypothesized relationship between peoplersquos exposure to recurrent behaviors in agiven organizational environment (eg exclusivity and power hoarding by supe-riors) and their subsequent chronic theories regarding power relations in thatenvironment

The results also indicate that the relative effects of the competitive and coop-erative primes in the study were not diametrically opposed as might have beenexpected There are several alternative explanations for these differences Onepossibility is simply that competitive orientations to power are easier to induce inpeople than are cooperative orientations (particularly in a business context)Another possibility is that there may be a leniency bias when responding toothers in a study of this nature which could translate into a general cooperativebias And finally we should consider the possibility that the primed dimension ofcooperativendashcompetitive orientations might be better conceptualized as two sepa-rate but related dimensions a cooperative-to-uncooperative dimension and acompetitive-to-uncompetitive dimension

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 313

Limitations

The dependent variables this study involved reported hypothetical behavior inresponse to a managerial vignette In addition the sample for this study waslimited to business and organizational psychology graduate students (althoughwith an average of 7 yearsrsquo work experience) Therefore the findings are cur-rently limited in their generalizability to actual behavior in organizations untilreplicated by other laboratory and field studies

Applied Implications

Although preliminary the studyrsquos findings have implications for the design oftraining programs for managers and leaders in organizations The results indicatethat how managers think about power (their implicit ideals and beliefs regardingpower) may under certain conditions significantly affect their decisions withregard to power-sharing initiatives The more competitive a managerrsquos implicitideals of organizational power the less likely he or she will be to see the sharingof power as a worthwhile opportunity whereas the less competitive a managerbelieves organizational power relations to be the less likely he or she will bemotivated to share power (when this is consistent with his or her preferences)Therefore it may be useful for training interventions to be devised that aid inraising the level of awareness of these implicit theories their sources their con-tent and the repercussions of relying on them These interventions should explic-itly address differences between managersrsquo beliefs regarding organizationaltendencies and managersrsquo implicit ideals of how organizations should operateProviding managers with an awareness of their own chronic theories and withalternative methods of conceptualizing and approaching power and authorityrelations could begin to address the limitations that result from relying primarilyon more competitive theories

The results also indicate that the immediate organizational environment canmoderate peoplersquos use of implicit theories when interpreting social informationby priming and thereby making different theories of power more or less accessi-ble Therefore it is reasonable to think of organizations as key sources of contin-uous priming If competition is emphasized consistently in a system tasks arestructured competitively outcomes are distributed accordingly command-and-control leadership is modeled from above and the general climate stresses suspi-cion and territorialism then competitive theories will be most accessible Theseprimes may come to be institutionalized within a system automatically trig-gering relevant power theories and shaping the chronic content of these theoriesover time This would imply that interventions directed toward the task rewardoutcome structure and climate of groups and organizations are also necessary tobetter facilitate power-sharing initiatives

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

314 PETER T COLEMAN

The realm of social power is vast and the potential factors that may influencethe distribution of power in organizations are innumerable Yet amid this com-plex web of variables perhaps there are a few core components This studyexplored the interplay of two such variablesmdashimplicit power theories and con-textual primingmdashand examined their impact on power-sharing decisions in orga-nizations It is hoped that such research will lead to more effective power-sharingprocesses and to their well-documented benefits to organizational life

References

Aguinis H Nesler M S Quigley B M amp Tedeschi J T (1994) Perceptionsof power A cognitive perspective Social Behavior and Personality 22377-384

Allport G W (1969) The historical background of modern social psychology InG Lindzey amp E Aronson (Eds) The handbook of social psychology (2nd edVol 1 pp 1-80) Adison-Wesley

Argyris C (1964) Integrating the individual and the organization New YorkNY John Wiley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1978) Organizational learning A theory of actionperspective Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Argyris C amp Schon D A (1996) Organizational learning Vol II Theorymethod and practice Reading MA Addison-Wesley

Bagarozzi D A (1990) Marital power discrepancies and symptom developmentin spouses An empirical investigation American Journal of Family Therapy18 51-64

Bargh J A (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity Awareness intentionefficiency and control in social cognition In R S Wyer Jr amp T K Srull(Eds) Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed pp 1-40) Hillsdale NJLawrence Erlbaum

Bargh J A Barndollar K amp Gollwitzer P M (1995) Social ignition Auto-matic activation of emotional states Manuscript submitted for publication

Bargh J A Bond R N Lombardi W J amp Tota M E (1986) The additivenature of chronic and temporary sources of construct accessibility Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 50 869-878

Bargh J A amp Pietromonaco P (1982) Automatic information processing andsocial perception The influence of trait information presented outside ofconscious awareness on impression formation Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 43 437-449

Bennis W amp Nanus B (1985) Leaders The strategies for taking charge NewYork NY Harper and Row

Borman W C (1987) Personal constructs performance schemata and ldquofolktheoriesrdquo of subordinate effectiveness Explorations in an army officer

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 315

sample Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 40307-332

Bradford D L amp Cohen A R (1984) Managing for excellence The guide fordeveloping high performance organizations New York NY John Wiley ampSons

Burke W W (1986) Leadership as empowering others In S Srivastra andAssociates (Eds) Executive power How executives influence people andorganizations (pp 68-85) San Francisco CA Jossey-Bass

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Chaiken S Liberman A amp Eagly A H (1989) Heuristic and systematicinformation processing within and beyond the persuasion context In J SUleman amp J A Bargh (Eds) Unintended thought (pp 212-252) New YorkNY Guilford

Chaiken S L amp Trope Y (1999) Dual-process theories in social psychologyNew York NY Guilford

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Dweck C S (1996) Implicit theories as organizers of goals and behavior In PGollwitzer amp J A Bargh (Eds) The psychology of action The relation ofcognition and motivation to behavior (pp 69-90) New York NY Guilford

316 PETER T COLEMAN

Dweck C S Chiu C amp Hong Y (1995) Implicit theories and their role injudgments and reactions A world from two perspectives PsychologicalInquiry 6 267-285

Dweck C S Hong Y amp Chiu C (1993) Implicit theories Individual differ-ences in the likelihood and meaning of dispositional inference Personalityand Social Psychology Bulletin 19 644-656

Dweck C S amp Leggett E L (1988) A social-cognitive approach to motivationand personality Psychological Review 95 256-273

Eden D amp Leviathan U (1975) Implicit leadership theories as a determinantof the factor structure underlying supervisory behavior scales Journal ofApplied Psychology 60 736-741

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Festinger L (1957) A theory of cognitive dissonance Evanston IL RowPeterson

Fiske S T amp Taylor S E (1991) Social cognition (2nd ed) New York NYMcGraw-Hill

Follett M P (1924) Creative experience New York NY Longmans GreesFollett M P (1973) Power In E M Fox amp L Urwick (Eds) Dynamic adminis-

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IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 317

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318 PETER T COLEMAN

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IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 319

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320 PETER T COLEMAN

Appendix A

Implicit Power Theory Scales

Implicit Power Theory Ideals

Ideally an organization should encourage considerable employee empowermentand delegation of authority at all levels (Reverse scored)

In an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be extremely competitiveIn an ideal organization interpersonal relations would be extremely cooperative

(Reverse scored)People should always be willing to share power in organizations (Reverse scored)Most of the power should be at the top in organizationsGiven my current skills I would feel most comfortable and most effective work-

ing in a cooperative environment (Reverse scored)Given my current skills I would feel most comfortable and most effective work-

ing in a competitive environment

Implicit Power Theory Beliefs

Those at the top have all the powerInterpersonal relations tend to be very cooperative in organizations (Reverse

scored)Interpersonal relations tend to be very competitive in organizationsPower flows in one direction from the top downIn organizations managers and their employees tend to have incompatible goals

and desiresIn order for you to gain power in an organization someone else must lose powerPower relations in organizations tend to be autocraticIt is necessary to compete for power in organizationsEmpowering your employees could undermine your authority

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 321

Appendix B

Power-Sharing Vignette

You have recently been promoted to a high-level position in a large organiza-tion where you have been given the responsibility of heading up a new start-upoperation Your offices will be located at a new site which is presently underconstruction Your staff of five department heads has been selected and they arenow working on selecting their own staff purchasing equipment and generallyanticipating the problems that are likely to arise when you move into the site in 3months You are all working very hard and are under some pressure to open thesite on time

Yesterday you received from the architect a final set of plans for the buildingand for the first time you examined the parking facilities that are available Thereis a large lot across the road from the site intended primarily for hourly workersand lower level supervisory personnel In addition there are five spaces immedi-ately adjacent to the administration offices intended for visitor and reserved park-ing Your organizationrsquos policy requires that a minimum of one space be madeavailable for visitor parking leaving you only four spaces to allocate amongyourself and your five department heads There is no way of increasing the totalnumber of such spaces without changing the structure of the building

Up to now there have been no obvious status differences among your staffEach has recently been promoted to a new position drives to work and expectsreserved parking privileges as a consequence of their new status From past expe-rience you know that people feel strongly about things that would be indicativeof their status

A decision needs to be made on this issue This is the first high-profile deci-sion that you have been faced with in your short tenure as leader of the new siteand you need to consider the long-term repercussions and precedence of such adecision and how it is made

IMPLICIT POWER THEORIES 321

Appendix B

Power-Sharing Vignette

You have recently been promoted to a high-level position in a large organiza-tion where you have been given the responsibility of heading up a new start-upoperation Your offices will be located at a new site which is presently underconstruction Your staff of five department heads has been selected and they arenow working on selecting their own staff purchasing equipment and generallyanticipating the problems that are likely to arise when you move into the site in 3months You are all working very hard and are under some pressure to open thesite on time

Yesterday you received from the architect a final set of plans for the buildingand for the first time you examined the parking facilities that are available Thereis a large lot across the road from the site intended primarily for hourly workersand lower level supervisory personnel In addition there are five spaces immedi-ately adjacent to the administration offices intended for visitor and reserved park-ing Your organizationrsquos policy requires that a minimum of one space be madeavailable for visitor parking leaving you only four spaces to allocate amongyourself and your five department heads There is no way of increasing the totalnumber of such spaces without changing the structure of the building

Up to now there have been no obvious status differences among your staffEach has recently been promoted to a new position drives to work and expectsreserved parking privileges as a consequence of their new status From past expe-rience you know that people feel strongly about things that would be indicativeof their status

A decision needs to be made on this issue This is the first high-profile deci-sion that you have been faced with in your short tenure as leader of the new siteand you need to consider the long-term repercussions and precedence of such adecision and how it is made