Organizational Power and Dependence

Ranging from Weber's ideal‐typical analysis of bureaucratic domination to Burt's structural hole theory, the analysis of the determinants and consequences of power have played an important role in organization theory. Research in organizational power and dependence follows, however, not a single line of development but disparate and at times contradictory approaches. These include views of power as emerging from bureaucratic structures, shifting political coalitions, structural contingencies and resource dependencies, organizational demography, institutional logics and organizational networks. These multiple approaches have not come together into a unified understanding of power and dependence, but reflect instead an organized anarchy of diverse research problems and theoretical solutions all identifying the ubiquity and criticality of organizational power, but relying on different mechanisms to explain its determinants and consequences.