61: Power & Influence in Organizations -- Dan Brass (Part 1)

What is power and influence? Although power appears as a multilevel concept, the early organizational literature tended to view it as wielded by people--measured as skills, traits, or competencies. This would change in the 1980s, in large part to a classic empirical study providing evidence that one's position within an organizational structure was more likely to translate into one's source of power. Dan Brass' article, "Being in the Right Place: A Structural Analysis of Individual Influence in an Organization" from Administrative Science Quarterly is the subject of this episode. In Part 1, we focus on where this article fits in the broader context of power and influence in organization studies. Joining us in the studio for this episode is Sarah Otner, a junior research fellow at the Imperial College in London.