Title: Power dynamics, leadership and ingratiation: a study on Indian public sector

Authors: Biswajeet Pattanayak, Phalgu Niranjana, Somdatta Ganguly

Addresses: IBAT School of Management, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Deemed University, Bhubaneswar 751024, India. ' IBAT School of Management, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Deemed University, Bhubaneswar 751024, India. ' CA 27, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700 064, India

Abstract: The objectives were to find out the effect of age of organisation and level/hierarchical positions of employees on ingratiation and the differential perception of employees with regard to bases of power, leadership styles and ingratiation, to make a network analysis of these three variables and explain their inter-relationships. It was 2 (age of organisation) x2 (level of employees) factorial design with 400 samples from old and new public sector organisations. Three standardised questionnaires were used. Findings revealed that inter-group difference exist with regard to all three variables. Executives of new public sector use more reward and expert power and authoritarian, task-oriented styles of leadership, whereas in old public sector they use more referent power and nurturant, bureaucratic styles of leadership. Executives of old public sectors indulge in more ingratiatory behaviour comparative to supervisors. An integrated analysis shows that leadership is a power function and contributes to influence strategies of ingratiation.

Keywords: power dynamics; leadership; ingratiation; public sector; India; employee perception; factorial design; influence strategies; authority.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRDM.2005.005985

International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 2005 Vol.5 No.1, pp.57 - 68

Published online: 17 Jan 2005 *

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