Principals’ conceptions of their current power basis revealed through phenomenography
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-10-2016-0120 |
| Date | 09 April 2018 |
| Published date | 09 April 2018 |
| Author | Gökhan Özaslan |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Principals’conceptions of their
current power basis revealed
through phenomenography
Gökhan Özaslan
Department of Education Sciences, Necmettin Erbakan Universitesi,
Konya, Turkey
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to describe the variations in the ways that principals conceptualize
their basis of power in schools.
Design/methodology/approach –Phenomenography was used as the research method of this study.
The interviewees consisted of 16 principals, eight from public schools and eight from private schools.
Findings –The analysis of the interviews revealed eight ways of understanding a principal’s power basis.
These potential power bases were: teachers’sense of reciprocity; teachers’sense of responsibility;
organizational rules and regulations; principals’deep knowledge and experience; in-service training;
principals’reputation for being fair and impartial; teachers’sense of identification with their principal; and
principals’control over teachers’employment. Participants from public and private schools held generally
similar conceptions. The conception of in-service training remained limited to private school principals.
The power basis of principals’control over teachers’employment was not emphasized but could still be
perceived as a conception in certain statements by participants.
Research limitations/implications –Coercive power and legitimate power of reciprocity need to be
investigated more thoroughly in the field of educational administration.
Practical implications –There is an urgent need for training for principals to raise their awareness of the
adverse effect that coercive power has on teachers.
Originality/value –This study is the first known to explore variations in the ways that principals
conceptualize their power basis.
Keywords Phenomenography, Bases of power, French and Raven, School administration
Paper type Research paper
Principals develop varied conceptions of power basis in their own ways, shaped by the
formative influence of their dispositions, previous experience as educationalists, and formal
education and training. These conceptions, especially when investigated in regards to their
variations, hold great potential to provide valuable clues about the atmosphere of schools.
Power, due to its obvious importance, is one of the most well-researched topics in
administrative science, but even so, it is still possible for a researcher curious about power
relations to find interesting questions in this field of study. Accordingly, the present study
was aimed at describing variations in the ways that principals conceptualize their power
basis in their schools. The taxonomy introduced in 1959 by Bertram H. Raven and his
former Thesis Advisor John R.P. French (French and Raven, 1959/1968) and further
developed by Raven (1993) was adopted as the theoretical framework for the present study.
Although French and Raven are not the only Theorists to have focused on the
conceptualization of power (Wood, 2014), a brief review of the relevant literature suggests
that their taxonomy is one of the most well known in the field of social power. The current
form of the taxonomy is considerably detailed, so it is necessary to briefly review its content
before proceeding to the investigation of principals’conceptions of their power basis.
In French and Raven’s (1993, 2008) taxonomy, power is presented as an agent’s (hereafter A)
potential to exercise social influence on its target (hereafter T). The most well-known version of
this taxonomy is six dimensional, but in its original form in 1959, it consisted of five dimensions:
the coercive, reward, legitimate, expertise, and referent power bases. Raven added the sixth
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 56 No. 2, 2018
pp. 220-235
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-10-2016-0120
Received 12 October 2016
Revised 21 June 2017
Accepted 23 June 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
220
JEA
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basis of informational power, which he has also called persuasion (Raven, 1993). In a seminal
paper, French and Raven (1959/1968) acknowledged that any instance of power rarely has only
one source, and there likely are many other possible bases of power.
According to Raven’s (2008) concise summary of power bases, reward power is based on
positive incentives that A gives to T in return for his or her compliance. Coercive power
includesA’s threats of negative consequencesto prevent T’s non-complianceand, as such, has
a greater chance of causing ill feelings toward A. Reward and coercive powers share a
common denominator in that that they aredependent on A and require surveillance by A for
the influence to occur.On the other hand, legitimate, expert, and referent powers are socially
dependent on A, but theydo not require surveillance by A. Terms suchas obliged or should
evoke the existence of legitimate power, which is based on the right of influence that
T attributes to A. Referent power stems from T’sdesiretoidentifywithoremulate
A, for example , thinking “I really admiremy supervisor and wish to be like him/her”(p.3). If T
decides to comply withA by saying “even though I don’t really understan d the reason”(p. 3),
then A probably possesses expert power. The lack of understanding of A’sreasonisthe
differencebetween expert power and informational power. Thelatter emerges in A’s efforts to
persuade T withreasonable explanations. Thispower use brings about a socially independent
change because T accepts the explanation; thus, surveillance is unimportant as well.
Raven (1993) continued to improve the taxonomy by renaming the original forms of
coercive and reward powers to impersonal coercive and reward powers. In addition, he
added the personal forms of coercive and reward powers to the taxonomy. This modification
was based on the view that approval and rejection from A, who is valuable for T, can serve
as bases for reward and coercive powers, respectively. Raven (1993) further modified the
taxonomy by adding four sub-dimensions to the legitimate power. In its original form,
legitimate power was based exclusively on A’s formal position, and other legitimate sources
that come from subtle social norms remained unnoticed. Raven (1993, 2008) addressed this
shortcoming by creating the sub-dimensions of legitimate power of reciprocity, which stems
from T’s obligation to return A’s previous favor; legitimate power of equity, which
stems from T’s obligation to compensate for the wrong that he or she did to A; legitimate
power of responsibility/dependence, which stems from T’s obligation to help A, who is
dependent on T; and legitimate position power, which is based on T’s tendency to obey
those who are in superior positions.
Raven also felt the need to touch on the negative forms of referent and expert power
bases, which had been described only in positive terms in the original form of the taxonomy
(French and Raven, 1959/1968). However, Raven’s (1993) explanation of negative expert
power was too short to be understandable. In comparison, Turner and Schabram’s (2012)
explanation seems to be much clearer. It states that if T does not trust the expertise of A,
he or she may do the opposite of what A wants. The same form of power was explained by
Elias (2008) in the context of the selfish use of expertise, which results in negative
consequences for A from the influence attempt. Similarly, negative referent power yields the
opposite outcome due to T’s dislike for A (Elias, 2008; Turner and Schabram, 2012).
Another one of Raven’s (1993) modifications to the framework was to create the indirect
form of informational power, in which A tries to persuade T by presenting reasons
indirectly (e.g. making T overhear reasons) in the hope that this way of presentation might
be more effective. Raven (1993) called his last modification “invoking the power of third
parties”(p. 16), but this addition, as is evident from his later comments (Raven, 2008), is not a
subdivision for a particular power basis; rather, it is A’s way of supplementing his or her
power by drawing on any basis of power possessed by someone else.
Raven et al. (1998) demonstrated that these 11 power bases can be discussed in terms of
a soft vs harsh dichotomy. This dichotomy is based on the amount of freedom that T has
over whether or not to comply with A’s demands. Accordingly, coercion, reward,
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Principals’
conceptions
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