Hierarchy is such a defining feature of organizations that its forms and basic functions are often taken for granted in organizational research. In this chapter, we revisit some basic sociological and psychological elements of hierarchy to explain why hierarchy is so pervasive across groups and...

Three experiments demonstrated that the experience of power leads to an illusion of personal control. Regardless of whether power was experientially primed (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated through manager-subordinate roles (Experiment 2), it led to perceived control over outcomes that were...

Power affects the behavior of people in the workplace. Communication is a prime example of a behavior that can be affected by the level of power that a person holds in an organization. Statements can have both semantic and pragmatic implications. The semantic implication of a statement concerns...