When More Power Makes Actors Worse Off
Turning a Profit in the American Economy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2959747 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mikołaj Jan Piskorski (0000-0001-6260-7367, Harvard University Press, corresponding author), T Casciaro (0000-0003-3757-4756, Harvard University Press) |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 85 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 1011-1036 |
| Publication date | 2006-12-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Forces (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-7732 • E-ISSN: 1534-7605 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1353/sof.2007.0021 |
| OpenAlex | W2103566584 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 24 |
We propose a theory which predicts that an increase in an actor's relative power reduces the actor's rewards in high mutual dependence dyads. Our argument is based on the premise that higher relative power gives the more powerful actor a greater share of surplus, but it also reduces dyadic exchange frequency, which lowers the expected magnitude of that surplus. As mutual dependence increases, fairness issues associated with power imbalances reduce exchange frequency and expected surplus at an increasingly higher rate. Thus, at a certain level of mutual dependence, the more powerful actor obtains a greater share of a much smaller exchange surplus leading him or her to be worse off than he would be in an equal-power dyad. We support this prediction with data on profit rates in American industries from 1977 through 1992
Argument (complex analysis) · Bargaining power · Dyad · Econometrics · Economics · Exchange rate · Microeconomics · Monetary economics · Power (physics) · Premise · Profit (economics) · Purchasing power parity · Relative purchasing power parity · Surplus value · Economic Theory and Institutions · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Law · Psychology · Social Power and Status Dynamics · Social Psychology
Corporate profits and cooptation
Bargaining, power, tactics, and outcomes
Economic Action and Social Structure
Coercive Power in Social Exchange
Structural Holes
Politics of Strategic Decision Making in High-Velocity Environments
Toward a structural theory of action
The Social Structure of Competition
Power-Dependence Relations
Two Approaches to Social Structure
The Sources and Consequences of Embeddedness for the Economic Performance of Organizations
Power in exchange networks
The Incidence of Exchange Networks
Networks, Exchange and Coercion
A formal theory of social power
Structure, Action, and Outcomes
Power and the Emergence of Commitment Behavior in Negotiated Exchange
Commitment in Exchange Relations
Exclusion and Power
Power Processes in Bargaining
Network Connections and the Distribution of Power in Exchange Networks
The Distribution of Power in Exchange Networks
Restricted Access in Networks and Models of Power
Autonomy in a Social Topology
| Citations per year | 0.21 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2012 - 2026 (15) |
| Highly cited | No |