Investigation of the Distribution of Power and Leader Effectiveness in Matrix Organizations.

摘要

This thesis developed and validated new measures of power, based on the widely accepted framework proposed by French and Raven (1959). A review of the literature revealed that previous field studies employing the French and Raven power taxonomy suffer from several methodological limitations -- no power base measures currently exist with adequate reliability and validity. A list of desirable psychometric properties was assembled from several sources, and a well-planned, detailed program of item development and scale testing was carried out to assure that the newly developed measures would possess the desired properties. Five theoretical construct definitions were developed for reward, coercive, legitimate, expert, and referent powers, based on French and Raven's work. Next, items were generated for each power base that were consistent with the theoretical power definitions. The resultant items were then subjected to a three-phase pilot study to determine those most suitable for further examination. The retained items were next administered, along with various dependent variables, to a sample of project personnel working in matrix organizations. Respondents were asked to describe the behavior of their functional and project managers in terms of power scales. (kr)