Coping with Powerlessness: The Relationship of Gender and Job Dependency to Empowerment-Strategy Usage

Abstract

The author would like to express her thanks to Rosabeth M. Kanter, J. Richard Hackman, Cheryl Tromley, and Mark Shanley for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Special thanks go to David M. Mangini for his statistical assistance. The anonymous reviewers and editors of ASQ also provided useful feedback on the article. A critical-incident interviewing method was used to determine the strategies employed by men and women in organizational situations. Ninety-eight male and female participants provided an example of a frustrating workplace situation in which they were powerless because they were dependent on others and the action they took in response to the situation. Measures of job dependency, taken as a measure of relative power for each job, were also assessed. Chi-square, correlational, and log-linear results indicated that while men and women did not differ in the relative power of the jobs they held, women tended to use an acquiescence strategy to a greater extent than men in coping with their powerlessness. When examined, relative job dependency, however, had a greater effect than gender on the use of this strategy.,