Content area
Abstract
America's businesses leaders are challenged with responding to the career advancement expectations of an increasing segment of the work force at a time when the supply of advancement opportunities is in rapid decline. Using a power-dependency model, this study investigated the relationship between the experience of career plateauing and subordinate influencing attempts in leader-member resource exchanges. Through survey research of a medium-size food processing firm in the Midwest, this study investigated the relationship between career plateauing, group status, subordinate growth-need strength, the management style of a subordinate's leader subordinate dependency on the leader, and subordinate propensity to influence the resource exchange. Further, this study sought to determine which of the variables made significant contribution toward predicting the selection of subordinate influencing strategy in leader-member resource exchanges.
The results of this study suggest that the experience of a career plateau was likely to influence the power-dependency relationship between a subordinate and the work unit leader. The shift in power was observable in decreased dependency behaviors demonstrated by the subordinate toward the leader. While the decreased dependency of a plateaued subordinate on the work unit leader did not appear to be associated with the propensity to influence the leader, there was evidence that decreased dependency may have impacted the subordinate's selection of an influencing strategy. Further, there was evidence that decreased dependency behaviors resulting from experiencing a career plateau may have been modified by the strength of a subordinate's need for growth and achievement, and the strength of a subordinate's need for growth and achievement may have impacted the selection of an influencing strategy.
