| With the popularity of group work,group performance is increasingly and particularly prominent for the survival and development of organizations.Power is common within groups and power imbalance is the basic fundamental structures of any group.The presence of power disparity could exist within groups ranging from front line workers all the way up to top management groups.A better understanding of power disparity in groups and how it influences group outcomes,therefore,should be the key to improve group performance and should be of great interest to both scholars and practitioners.However,related literature is still relatively lack and research conclusions are not consistent,which makes us unable to fully understand the relationship between power disparity and team performance,and unable to provide effective practical advice.Consistent with the previous conceptual and theoretical literature,the results suggest that power disparity may be a driver of important behavioral and group outcomes,and the mechanism of power disparity is complicated and dynamic,which is a topic worthy for further exploration.In fact,the existing researches are mainly based on western culture,researches based on Chinese culture are relatively lagging behind.But Chinese culture is quite different from western culture,and has its special source of power named relational power.Consequently,conceptualizations of different sources of power that overlap,or confound the variables,are likely to miss out on the group outcomes that make each social hierarchy unique.Therefore,this research extends three-dimensional power,including position power,personal power and relational power,and discusses influential theories of power disparity.Differences in power disparity are the basis for social relations and interactions within groups.While a small body of research has investigated the.consequences of power disparity in groups,there is a necessity in the extant literature to consider different types of power disparity independently,even though they can be causally related and mutually reinforcing.Therefore,the purpose of this dissertation is to explicate the contents of position power disparity,personal power disparity and relational power disparity in groups and also investigate the joint influence of these three types of power disparity on group process and group performance.Distinguishing position power disparity,personal power disparity and relational power disparity in groups,and also investigating the joint effects,are important advances to the existing group research,which has often confounded different sources of power.Additionally,clearly understanding the distinct group processes and outcomes that emerge from each group structure may mitigate any possible harmful effects that may occur in work groups.Study 1:Based on the brief overview of the central constructs and theory investigated in front of this dissertation and data obtained through in-depth interviews with 18 group members,sturyl provides conceptual and theoretical Chinese contexts for the exploration of the central constructs,including position power,personal power and relational power.Moreover,this study extends the content of relational power.Specifically,based on grounded theory analysis,the data were encoded and the structural dimensions of relational power were obtained,including interpersonal power,equity power,and social debt power.Study 2:Based on previous literature and the results of study 1,in accordance with the development process of the measuring tool,study 2 designed and verified the three-dimensional scale for power.First,this study established a three-dimensional scale for power through expert recommendations and group discussion of target respondent.Then,the three-dimensional scale for power was verified through EFA and CFA.it shows that the three-dimensional scale for power had good reliability and validity.The formal scale included twenty items is suitable for measuring group power in Chinese enterprises.Study 3:This study describes the hypothesized model,whereas three-dimensional power is predicted to lead to different behaviors of group members.Specifically,I explore the mechanism that whether position power,personal power and relational power have influenced knowledge sharing in a different way.I am also testing potential moderators in group members’ engagement in knowledge sharing based on group work environment and individual trait.The results show that:(1)Position power and personal power have a positive relationship with responsibility while relational power have a negative relationship with responsibility;(2)Responsibility mediates the relationship between position power,personal power,relational power and and knowledge sharing;(3)Procedure justice plays a moderated role in the relationship between position power and responsibility while power motivation plays a moderated role in the relationship between relational power and responsibility.Study 4:This study explores different types of power disparity will have different influences on group process(cooperative conflict management)and group performance.It is suggested that although formal power disparity(position power disparity)and informal power disparity(personal power disparity and relational power disparity)may be causally related and mutually reinforcing,formal power disparity and formal power disparity engender opposing group processes,which in turn,may influence group performance.Based on hierarchy theory and approach-inhibition theory,this study found that:(1)personal power disparity has a positive relationship with cooperative conflict management;(2)cooperative conflict management mediates the relationship between personal power disparity and group performance;(3)group power distance moderated the relationship between personal power disparity and cooperative conflict management.With this research,I offer several contributions to the existing literature on power and group performance.First,I proposed a three-dimensional power model,which was position power,personal power and relational power,to answer how the context of culture change would influence power’ source.This three-dimensional power model not only extended the problem of the lack of Chinese contextual specificity in previous research,but also amended the perspective of the relationship between individual interaction and power.Second,we discovered the theoretical connotation of three-dimensional power model and developed a reliable,valid measurement.Third,we used the new three-dimensional power scale developed in study 2 to test the hypothesized model in study 3.As predicted,I found that position power,personal power and relational power have different functional mechanism.Fourth,I differentiated position power disparity,personal power disparity and relational power disparity,and explained their influence on group performance.Therefore,I extend existing literature on three-dimensional power as well as three-dimensional power disparity by theorizing about their connection and influence on group members’ behaviors and group performance.This research also has practical significance.It could not only help group members promote their motivation to share knowledge and cope with the challenges from group changes better,but also give suggestions to organizations’ human resource management which could help its success in dealing with inequality of power.These studies not only justify the role of group power disparity should be fully understood,but also identify procedure justice,group power distance can be important factors for groups to successfully accomplish their tasks and improve their performance. |
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