Effects of organizational context and hierarchical level on a manager's power and use of influence tactics with subordinates

Current research on managers power and use of influence tactics has looked into the patterns of use of influence tactics according to the agent's influence objectives and the direction of influence (upward, lateral, and downward). In general, researchers have pooled respondents from different organizations and have ignored possible effects of organizational context and hierarchical level on manager power and use of different influence tactics. The purpose of this study was to show how managers' power and use of influence tactics are affected by organizational context and hierarchical level. Positive results showed that, as expected, the position power of managers varies according to their hierarchical level. Position power was also shown to vary across different types of organizations, as defined in Mintzberg's typology, and the private/public sector dichotomy. These differences were in agreement with predictions based on the different organizational characteristics of each organizational context. There were also unexpected results for personal power, but these results were very weak.; This study showed also how managers' use of influence tactics varies across hierarchical levels and organizational context. While some of the differences in use of the tactics corresponded to similar differences in position power, there were other differences that seem to be independent of differences in manager power. Thus, it is possible that hierarchical level of managers and organizational context have more direct effects on the use of some of the tactics. This study complements other pieces of research looking at the variables accounting for managers' differences in power and use of influence tactics. It is, thus, a contribution to the largely overdue explanation of these phenomena.