Reconsidering the Higher-Order Legitimacy of
French and Raven's Bases of Social Power
in the Information Age
Owen Ambur, University of Maryland University
College, July 15, 2000
French and Raven have identified seven types of power
exhibited by people interacting socially. (Andrews &
Baird) Social power may be defined as "the capacity to
exert influence over others." (Larison) Power and
authority are not synonymous. Power does not necessarily imply a
commonly accepted authority ("right") to exert
influence over others. Moreover, the legitimacy of power is
relative to the time, place, and circumstances in which it is
wielded. This paper questions the higher-order legitimacy
of several of French and Raven's seven forms of power in the
information age.
As distinguished by French and Raven, the seven types of
social power are: 1) reward, 2) coercive, 3) referent, 4)
legitimate, 5) expert, 6) informational, and 7) connectional.
Reward power results from the ability to provide
positive reinforcement for desired behavior. Conversely, coercive
power reflects the potential to inflict punishment. In a
sense these are not so much two different types of power as they
are opposite ends of a continuum. The common and essential
element for both reward and punishment is that they are
controlled by the "superior" person and are conferred
upon subordinates based upon relationships that are less than
perfectly aligned with their behaviors. In other words, if
the "inferior" individuals are perfectly able to
control the results of their actions, the role of the superior is
superfluous. The consequences speak for themselves and merely
constitute the results - degrees of accomplishment or failure -
rather than rewards or punishments.
Referent power is a function of the respect and esteem
accorded to an individual by virtue of personal attributes
with which others identify. By contrast, legitimate
power is based upon authority recognized in accordance with position
in an organizational structure. Referent power is
person-oriented, while legitimate power is depersonalized.
Larison observes that referent power does not require action by
the "superior" individual. Instead, the referring
individual voluntarily molds him or herself to the
referent person.
Paradoxically, unless it is well supported by other forms,
legitimate power lacks higher-order legitimacy. Lack
of such legitimacy is why organizational hierarchies are often
ignored and bear relatively little relationship to the supply
chains by which value is actually delivered. The rumor
mongering and griping about the "bosses" that are
endemic in bureaucratic organizations are symptomatic of the
illegitimacy of so-called legitimate power. Employees
simply fail to volunteer referent power to those occupying
superior positions in the organizational hierarchies.
Lower-order, bureaucratic legitimacy is powerless to do
anything about it, since referent power cannot be enforced
through punishment nor bought with "rewards".
The legitimacy of power structures embedded in old-style
bureaucracies is threatened with irrelevancy by virtue of the
growing ease with which information can be shared outside the
confines of those artificial and outmoded constructs.
However, to the degree that they are insulated from the impact of
or are more potent than other forms of power, legitimate powers
may prevail for extended periods of time, even though their most
efficacious usages may be merely to support themselves.
Moreover, notwithstanding the fact that legitimate power is
depersonalized, the individual human beings who are able to
accrue it are personally motivated to maintain their share of it
through application of other forms of power that they possess.
Expert power is a form of referent power resulting from
recognized expertise while, as defined by French and Raven, informational
power is a variation of legitimate power stemming from the
ability to control the availability and accuracy of information.
Larison observes that expert power is grounded in substantial
differences in the knowledge of two individuals on particular
subjects. Expert power is limited to the topic of expertise and,
thus, is more delimited than referent power. However, it should
be noted that expertise may be the most important form of
referent power in the information age.
The evolution of information technology (IT), most notably the
revolution that is the Internet and particularly the World Wide
Web, is rendering moot French and Raven's definition of
informational power, as more and more knowledge becomes
"common". In the reality of the cyberage, the
information power wielded by old-style hierarchies is becoming
restricted to information about the organization itself,
information that it is either incapable or unwilling to share
freely, honestly, and efficiently with others - a circumstance
the portends poorly for the longevity of those
bureaucracies. At the same time, the explosion of
information technology and thus the availability of common
knowledge threatens to render as commodities much of the personal
expertise that has been previously highly valued.
For organizations, the clear and widely aired implication is
that hierarchies must be "flattened" and made more
responsive to internal as well as external stakeholders. In
other words, the legitimacy of organizational power structures
must be reevaluated. For individuals, the implications are
somewhat more complex. For example, as increasing quanta of
knowledge and expertise are commoditized, embedded into
technology, and more widely and freely distributed, other, more
qualitative forms of referent power may become more highly
valued. At the same time, the individual expertise that is
highly valued will become more narrowly focused, ever expanding
the boundaries of knowledge in highly specialized areas.
Finally, connectional power reflects the influence that
leaders possess as a result of whom they know and the support
they engender from others as a result (i.e., the bandwagon
effect). Connectional power is also a variation of referent
power. However, like legitimate power, it is depersonalized
in the sense that it reflects attributes of others with whom the
individual is associated, rather than attributes that are
directly inherent to the person him or herself. As the face
and force of organizational constructs change, so too must the
connectional power vectors.
A commonly recognized example is the impact upon lobbying
firms from the changing of the guard that occurs when the party
in power loses the majority in an election. A less direct
but equally informative example - which also illustrates the
overlap of connectional and informational power - is the
substitution of hyperlinks and search engines on the Internet for
the intermediaries and gatekeepers whose personal and positional
powers previously provided the only effective keys to
information. In many circles, whom one knows is still far
more important than what one knows. However, those
power vectors too are being pressed by IT.
While those who have come to occupy previously recognized
positions of authority may feel threatened by these changes, it
is important to recognize that legitimacy relates only to
commonly accepted practice and implies no higher-order degree of
truth, logic, honor, or justice. As Larison puts it, legitimate
power stems from internalized values supporting the belief that
the manager has a right to exert power and the individual has an
obligation to accept it.
For example, a king may legitimately exercise dominion over
his subjects simply because heredity has long been the accepted
means by which such power is conferred. Likewise, steep
hierarchies and bureaucratic organizational structures bestow
legitimate, reward, coercive, informational, and connectional
power upon individuals regardless of the relevance of their
referent or expert powers in net present value chains. (pun
intended) In short, legitimacy implies self-justification,
i.e., the means justify themselves without regard to the merits
of the ends (results).
Larison notes the importance of legitimacy to effective
leadership. However, he also draws a critical distinction:
"Power and authority come from the person being
influenced - not the person in the more powerful position.
If the follower chooses to not follow them, they are no longer
leaders. Leadership is really followership."
(emphases added)
He also notes that no one is entirely bereft of influence but
"some people have more net influence than others and hence
... more power." Whether he intended it as such or
not, his use of the word "net" has a dual meaning in
this context. First and most obviously, it relates to the
power of individual's influence to overcome competing
influences. Second, it highlights that influence is exerted
within a network of influences, including the
informational power of the Internet (the Net).
Hayden (2000) excludes connectional power from his analysis
and reiterates that among the other six bases of social power,
some are positional and some are personal. Legitimate,
reward, and coercive powers are based upon an individual's
position in an organization, while expert, informational, and
referent powers are based upon personal attributes.
Insightfully, he avers: "Those who possess only positional
power are bureaucrats. Those who possess only
personal power are leaders. Those who possess
all six are [good] managers." (emphases added)
Hayden suggests individuals have two types of power upon
becoming a manager - the legitimate power of the position and the
expert power that led to their appointment. In addition,
reward and coercive power generally accompany legitimate
power. Thus, in Hayden's conceptualization, managers may
have four of the six powers by default.
However, he acknowledges that managers may not in fact have
expert power - a tacit admission of the seventh power
(connectional), which is excluded from his analysis, as well as
the rapid degradation of expertise in a dynamic,
information-based economy. Moreover, managers may be given
the benefit of the doubt on informational power and expertise,
meaning that such power is theirs to lose, based upon their
performance as perceived by others.
The broadest type of power - referent power - must be earned
through expanded expert power sustained by a high degree of
professional knowledge and integrity. Credibility on one
topic may carry over into other areas of expertise and it can be
fostered via the effective use of informational power.
Hayden also notes that legitimate power often encompasses the
power of access to information.
Hayden quotes John P. Kotter: "Americans, as a rule, are
not very comfortable with power or with its dynamics... And this
misunderstanding is becoming increasingly burdensome because in
today's large and complex organizations the effective performance
of most managerial jobs requires one to be skilled at the
acquisition and use of power."
Toward that end, Hayden suggests the keys to wielding power
successfully are to: 1) be sensitive to the sources of power and
be consistent with the expectations of others; 2) recognize the
costs, risks, and benefits of the different bases of power and
draw on whichever is appropriate to the situation and person; 3)
appreciate that each power base has merit; 4) possess career
goals that allow development and use of each type of power; 5)
act maturely and exercise self-control, avoiding impulses and
egotistical displays; and 6) understand that power is necessary
to get things done. He concludes that effective managers
use all six social bases of power. If it had been included
in his list, undoubtedly he would argue they should use
connectional power too.
However, assertions that Americans should be more receptive to
the application of power in large, bureaucratic organizations
should not be accepted uncritically, regardless of whatever
personal or positional powers Kotter and Hayden may claim for
themselves. Instead, the far greater risk may be that
Americans, indeed citizens of all nations, are already much too
amenable to the application positional powers, whereby the means
are deemed to justify the ends.
With reference to so-called legitimate authority and other
forms of power run amok, consider Suedfeld's (1999) succinct
summarization of the results of research on why people
participate in the pursuit of patently unjustifiable aggressive
acts against others:
Milgram's research has shown the prevalence ... of
obedience to what appears to be legitimate authority; Kelman,
French and Raven, and others have analyzed how a leader's
perceived expertise, attractiveness, power, and arguments can
make trust and obedience more likely. Asch and Schachter
demonstrated that even under unthreatening laboratory
conditions, conformity to peer-group norms and pressures
makes it difficult to dissent when those around us are fully
convinced that they are right... groupthink, a combination of
ingroup pride, conformity, and leader-worship, may lead to
the unthinking approval of decisions that are both immoral
and disastrous. Kelman and Hamilton's model of how moral
inhibitions against violence are weakened...by the approval
of an authority figure...seems valid for what they call
"sanctioned massacres" ... Ervin Staub has traced
the step-by-step indoctrination and training - the
"continuum of destruction" - that turns an innocent
military conscript into a torturer, as well as the conditions
that can turn an artistically advanced, scientifically
sophisticated nation into a culture of mass murder.
The focus of Suedfeld's remarks is the cause and historical
context of the Holocaust. In a more positive and
forward-looking vein, addressing human requirements for living
aloft, NASA (2000, ch8-2) observes that prolonged separation from
Earth may undermine the bases of legitimate power. They
cite Haythorn as follows:
Leadership and other behavioral patterns are clearly
determined to some degree by role expectations and behavioral
prescriptions of larger segments of organizations and
societies than are fully represented in the small group. When
groups are isolated from contact with (such larger segments)
these prescriptions and expectations cannot be as frequently
and strongly reinforced as they normally are .... Leadership
under such circumstances is unable to rely as strongly on
formal role relationships and must depend more on the
individual capabilities of the men to whom leadership is
assigned.
NASA (ch8-5) notes further that hierarchical control requires
that individuals at one hierarchical level have the power to
influence individuals at subsequently lower levels. They
suggest that each of the bases of power defined by French and
Raven may be undermined during a space mission of extended
duration, and that the norms supporting legitimate power may not
be sufficiently reinforced in space. In particular, they
say:
The satisfactions and sanctions that underlie reward and
coercive power on Earth may prove unavailable or unreliable
in space. On extended-duration missions, the decline of
unused technical skills, cross-training, and the mounting
likelihood of appearing foolish may undermine expert power.
Finally, interaction under conditions of isolation,
confinement, and risk may decrease interpersonal attraction
and erode referent power... It is expected that crews will
become increasingly autonomous as they involve more people,
last longer, and travel farther from Earth. If an acceptable
level of Earth-based or centralized control is to remain
possible, communications problems must be solved, and new
means must be identified for setting bounds on the behavior
of crewmembers.
Thus, it seems that self-justified, so-called legitimate and centralized
power is threatened by physical space (distance) and
elapse of time, as well as by the immediate and growing presence
of cyberspace. NASA suggests that further research
is needed to reinforce the bases for legitimate power.
However, a more pertinent topic for study might be the very
bases of the higher-order legitimacy of so-called legitimate
power itself. Extended travel to outer space may
provide a unique perspective from which to view this issue, but
for most of us - including anyone who has a serious interest in
the future of our socio-organizational constructs - cyberspace
provides a far more relevant and timely focus for such discourse.
In the information age, there is good cause to believe that
the greatest good for the greatest number of human beings would
be well served by a fundamental reexamination of the higher-order
legitimacy of so-called legitimate power and its associated
powers of position. Chansler (1997) reports
"scores of studies ... suggest that the use of expert power
by leaders is most acceptable and effective with followers and
that coercive power is least likely to result in follower
compliance."
By definition, in any line-authority hierarchy there are more
subordinates than supervisors, meaning: a) that power is
concentrated among relatively few people, and b) most people are
relatively disempowered. Thus, it is not surprising that
Klein (1998) found correlation lacking between supervisory power
bases and subordinate satisfaction with work. Since
employees are disempowered by supervision, why should it matter
which form of power the supervisor uses, and why should we be
surprised if employees draw no satisfaction from it?
Consistent with other studies, Klein did find a relationship
between satisfaction with supervision and the use of expert
and referent power bases. In other words, to the
degree they are doomed to subservience, employees are happier
with superiors who possess expert knowledge and who are commonly
recognized for it and/or for other personally attractive
attributes (i.e., referent power.) Even then, however,
Klein found no relationship between employee satisfaction with
the work itself and the forms of power exerted by their
leaders. She viewed that as a cause for concern and further
study.
Indeed, the pursuit of greater knowledge is a very worthy
cause but a more appropriate objective is just the opposite
of Klein's proposition, which is to look for ways to bolster
employee work satisfaction derived from the followership.
Instead, the charge is well captured in the old anarchists
slogan: "Question authority!" In somewhat less
confrontational terms, it is well stated in Savage's (1996)
admonition to "push back" until the truth is
known. In more idealistic terms, it is articulated in
Martin Luther King's famous truism: "The truth will set us
free" ... free from enslavement to bureaucratic positional
powers - "powers-that-be" first and foremost for their
own self-preservation.
The quest for truth is unending. It is the essence of
the human condition. To suggest that legitimate power is
devoid of truth may be exaggeration but, at best, legitimacy is
an expedient short-cut - one that may have been necessary in
earlier times but seems significantly outmoded and vastly
over-rated in the information age.
There is little doubt that: a) the higher-order cause of truth
is well served through the free and open application of personal
informational, expert, and referent powers, and b) lower-order
legitimate positional powers are commonly used to thwart
the free and open application of higher-order personal
powers.
People do not need to prove their worth as human beings, at
least they shouldn't be expected to do so in a land where
"all [persons] are [deemed to have been] created
equal." Instead, the organizational and positional
artifacts that groups of people have collectively imposed upon
themselves and others should be rigorously and continuously
subjected to reality checks, as to their efficacy in supporting
and upholding the dignity and creativity embodied in each and
every individual human being. In the final analysis, it is
highly doubtful that the higher-order legitimacy of many existing
pseudo-legitimate power structures can be sustained. How
long they and their legitimacy can last in the information age
remains to be seen.
Technology and IT in particular may be morally neutral, taking
on the intents ascribed by the human beings who wield it.
However, technology empowers people, thereby embodying the
potential to reshape the socio-organizational artifacts through
which human beings have traditionally resolved their personal and
social shortcomings. To the degree that those with
positional power are permitted to magnify and lord it over others
through the application of IT, the fate of the masses may be in
grave jeopardy.
However, since lower-order legitimacy relies upon tacit
followership, it bears the seeds of its own destruction. A
higher-order form of legitimacy is the likely result - ushering
in a golden age of personal rather than positional power.
References
Andrews, P.H., & Baird, J.E. (2000). Communication for
Business and the Professions. 7th Edition. New
York, NY: McGraw Hill. pp. 371 - 373
Hayden, William D. The Power Theory of Leadership. Kent State
University, Stark Campus. Downloaded from the Web on July 1,
2000, at: http://www.stark.kent.edu/~bhayden/PrinMgt/Notes/PowThe.htm
Klein, Carin Joyce. (1998). French and Raven's Bases of Social
Power in a Not-for-Profit Health Care Facility: Perceptions and
Satisfaction. Dissertation Abstracts. 59, no. 07A: 2605.
Larison, Robert. (1997, October 5). Course Syllabus, BA 321,
Principles of Management, Eastern Oregon University School of
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1, 2000, at http://www.eosc.osshe.edu/~blarison/mgtsyll.html
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and http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-483/ch8-5.htm
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Generation Management: Co-Creating Through Virtual Enterprising,
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Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 248.
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