Dysfunction and Power

Internal team threats

We postulate that internal team factors that create a perceived threat to members' (personal) resources make members more likely to act out on their power sensitivity. Namely, internal team threats implicitly threaten members' power position, and thereby encourage power-sensitized teams to engage in power struggles. Internal factors that create threats to members' resources are aspects of the internal team environment which make power in the team unstable and therefore more easily contested. Such factors can include great power inequities within the team, illegitimate power dispersions, easily mutable power dispersions, and factionalization within the team. All of these factors make members of high power-level and high power-dispersed teams concerned about their personal resource control and power position, and thereby provoke members of power-sensitive teams to fight for their own position, triggering team outcome-detracting internal power struggles.

When power sensitive teams have great perceived inequities, they are more likely to get embroiled in power struggles. Inequity is inherent to power dispersion. However, the degree of inequity may vary in power-dispersed teams. Power dispersion can be greater or smaller, meaning that there are more or less inequities between members. The larger the inequities between members (i.e., the greater the power dispersion), and the more unequally resources are distributed, the more likely members will engage in power struggles. That is, lower ranked members may consider the power distribution to be unfair, and may start to revolt. Higher ranked members may also be extra afraid to lose their powerful position (i.e., the more you have, the more you can lose), and may start to actively defend their position. Support for this idea comes from research on management teams, which shows that more inequitable distributions of power increase political behaviors and power struggles. Related research also shows that when inequity is highlighted in the layout of how passengers board airplanes (they have to walk by first class seats to get to economy seats), conflict is more likely (i.e., air rage incidents). Finally, the Arab Spring also illustrates how great inequities may lead to power struggles. In the countries of the Arab Spring, inequity had become extreme − dictators had all the power and the people had none. Such extreme inequity provoked the people into rising up and deposing (or trying to depose) their leaders in a violent way. Therefore, great inequities are expected to amplify the relationship between intra-team power sensitivity and power struggles.

Illegitimate power dispersions are also more likely to become contested. Power dispersions can be perceived as illegitimate, or based on reasons which are unfair or undeserving, due to several reasons. One reason could be that the process through which power positions are obtained is seen as unreasonable or unfair (e.g., high rank is obtained due to nepotism rather than meritocracy or democracy). Another reason may be that the criteria on which the power dispersion is based are seen as fraudulent (e.g., the power dispersion is dominance rather than competence based). Last, the norms, rules, and parameters that regulate the ongoing stability of power dispersion may be viewed as incorrectly, illegally, or unfairly established. When power dispersion is perceived as illegitimate, this tends to lead lower ranked members to rebel against the current distribution of power. Support for this comes from the organizational justice literature which shows that perceptions of organizational injustice are positively associated with a wide variety of protests. Illegitimacy may also promote dominant and competitive behaviors from higher ranked members, who perceive their powerful position to be less secure and hence try to acquire more power to strengthen their position. As such, power illegitimacy encourages members to try to change the current power structure, and thus to act on the power sensitivity within the team.

When power positions are mutable, i.e., the power dispersion is less rigid and stable, competitions over power between members are more common. When there is greater mutability in a power distribution, there is greater opportunity for upward mobility, which motivates members to compete over power, as they hope to advance in the hierarchy. Greater mobility does not only motivate lower ranked members to try to promote their rank, it also motivates higher ranked members to protect their rank, as they may feel threatened in their position. Indeed, in power dispersions that are less stable, higher ranked members are known to act in self-serving manners, and at times even to pre-emptively strike, in order to safeguard their own position. This suggests that when power is salient and positions are mutable, members will be focused on promoting and protecting their own individual position in the team. Therefore, in teams with high position mutability, power sensitivity is more likely to result into intra-team power struggles.

When teams are more factionalized, the relationship between power sensitivity and power struggles is also expected to become stronger. Teams become factionalized when members put themselves and each other into social categories, rather than seeing each other as individuals. In start-up teams, early stage founders often struggle to keep sales people and engineers from factionalizing into subgroups that compete with each other. When teams become factionalized, the threats posed by us-versus-them conflicts within the team may spark underlying power sensitivities, leading power differences to ignite turf wars between the factional groups. For example, Eisenhardt and Bourgeois found that when team power dispersions are prone to inequality or factionalization, members are more likely to engage in intragroup politics. Similarly, Zahra and Pearce suggested that power factionalization among high-power board members heightens disagreement and fighting.

However, when internal resource threats are absent, members are less likely to act on their power sensitivity. For example, when the distribution of power is more equitable, members are less likely to engage in political activities in order to expand their own resource control. And work by Anderson and colleagues has shown that people, in legitimate power dispersions, are careful to not overstep their position, as such oversteps can be heavily punished by their team members. Moreover, when members' power moves in teams are seen as legitimate, the upcoming power transitions within the team tend to take place smoothly and eventually benefit team effectiveness. Therefore, we propose that power-sensitized teams (i.e. high-power teams and teams with high power-dispersion) will only have team outcome-detracting power struggles when teams experience internal threats to member resources. When threats are absent, power sensitivities will not lead to downstream negative consequences for teams.

Proposition 2

When members in teams perceive personal resource threats within the team, such as from perceiving positions in the team as inequitable, illegitimate, mutable, or factionalized, power sensitivity will increase intra-team power struggles.