There is a gap in the literature concerning personal perceptions of one's own power in organizations. Information Technology (IT) personnel are positioned to be an excellent target group for researching this subject. Status Construction Theory (SCT), Mintzberg's model of organizational structures, and Network Exchange Theory (NET) provide a useful lens for considering the results of this exploratory study. Because power is a widely contested term, a dimensional view of power was used in this study. Twelve indicators of power were identified in the literature and used to create a quantitative survey instrument. Survey participation was solicited online from 350 employees of a small private university in the southwest with a 33% response rate (N=116). In addition, qualitative interviews were conducted with 17 IT professionals and compared with the survey results in a mixed methods approach. The survey did not work as expected. A factorial analysis was used to examine the survey results. However, the factors did not match the twelve power indicators as expected. Also, because of the small sampling size of the survey site, differences between groups were not significant enough for comparison. However, two significant factors did emerge which were interpreted as representing "respect" and "control", indicating that IT personnel at the survey site may be respected for what they do and recognized as having legitimate control of information systems. Even so, these factors of respect and legitimate control do not translate into a perception of significant power advantage for IT. The interview responses supported this conclusion. It was found that for these participants, while IT personnel are in positions to be more powerful members of their organizations, they typically do not seek out or take advantage of such power. The predominant concern for IT, however, was not the exercise of power per se, but rather having the influence to make the organization better. This was evidenced by IT members feeling left out of key decision-making processes. SCT, NET, and Mintzberg's organizational model offer several possibilities for enhancing IT's power and influence by improving their professional status among organizational members.

<p>The aim of this paper is to analyse the perceived power structures in ethnic and non-ethnic football clubs in the way that they are manifested by their respective leadership/administration. For this, three clubs from each respective group (six in total) have been chosen and representatives of each group have been interviewed. Additionally, a qualitative analysis is applied when dealing with the material which in this case implied that they are analysed through an original model that is based on Steven Lukes’s conception of the three dimensional views of power. The point of departure lies in the interviewed representatives giving their accounts of how their respective clubs utilises their control and how they handle certain situations and conflicts. Their accounts invariably reflect upon a particular approach which can be fitted into one or more of Lukes’s dimensional views, which will ultimately provide an overall picture of the perceived power structure within that association. The subsequently comparison of results can then be expected to indicate if there is any difference in perceived power structures between that of ethnic and non-ethnic football clubs. The result of this study would ultimately show that while some notable difference could be manifested on a macro level, there were such great disparities on the micro level that there were in fact greater differences between the individual clubs themselves than that between the clubs as ethnic/non-ethnic groups.</p>

Syftet med denna forskningsöversikt är att undersöka hur makt och maktrelationer beskrivs och teoretiseras i forskningen mellan socialsekreterare och klient med fokus på klientens beskrivningar. Denna studie är en integrativ och kvalitativ forskningsöversikt med en abduktiv ansats, där 29 tidigare studier har tematiserats och analyserats med hjälp av maktens fyra ansikten. Studien påvisar att maktbegreppet är ett komplext och svårdefinierat begrepp. Studien visar hur makten kan betraktas utifrån maktens fyra ansikten inom det sociala arbetet i mötet mellan klienten och socialsekreteraren. Vidare diskuteras rekommendationer gällande maktaspekten för det sociala arbetet utifrån olika studier samt rekommendationer för fortsatt forskning. Det är viktigt att klienternas perspektiv, såsom upplevelsen av makt och kontroll, tas upp angående deras möte med de professionella. Eftersom mötet och relationen mellan socialsekreterare och klient är en av de grundläggande faktorerna för ett bra samarbete är studier som denna viktiga att genomföra. Studien påvisar även hur viktigt det är att uppmärksamma maktobalansen, detta för att kunna medföra en medvetenhet hos de professionella inom socialt arbete om den påverkan och upplevelse som klienterna erfar av de ojämlika maktrelationerna. / The purpose of this research review is to examine how power and power relations are described and theorized in research between social worker and client, focusing on the client's descriptions. This study is an integrative and qualitative research review with an abductive approach where 29 previous studies have been thematized and analyzed by means of the four dimensions of power. This study demonstrates that the concept of power is a complex and difficult concept to define. The study shows how power in social work can be viewed with the perspective from the four dimensions of power in the interaction between the client and the social service worker. Furthermore the study discusses different recommendations regarding the power dimensions in social work based on various studies and recommendations for further research. It is important that the clients' perspective, such as the experience of power and control, is noticed regarding their encounters with the professionals. Since the encounter and the relationship between the social service worker and the client are one of the main factors for a good collaboration studies like these are important to conduct. The study also shows the importance of bringing awareness to the imbalance of power, to thenceforth bring awareness to the professionals of social work about the impact and experience which clients experience in unequal power relations.

Despite a comprehensive research of South Africa’s power status, the available literature does not provide a satisfactory explanation of whether South Africa is an emerging power or not. Countries in the Global South with a vigorous economic growth are often offhandedly assigned an emerging power status. Since power is built on more than economics, more specific indicators of how to measure South Africa’s power status need to be applied, in order to draw legitimate conclusions about whether it is an emerging power or not, which this study aims to do. When South Africa’s power status is identified, the observance of changes in international power distribution and understanding of powerful states’ influence on the international arena may increase. It may also be easier to predict how their power statuses can favour or disfavour other countries. This investigation is conducted through a qualitative text analysis and a single case study with a deductive approach. South Africa’s power status is analysed through the glasses of the analytical framework of Sven Biscop and Thomas Renard’s “seven dimensions of power”. The findings suggest that South Africa is an emerging power, since the country succeeds in five out of seven dimensions of power, and partly succeeds in two dimensions, but has also made a great progress in most power dimensions.

Refugee camps have long been considered places of extreme population control. Yet the Za’atari camp, created in Jordan in 2012, soon became famous for frequent refugee demonstrations, sit-ins and stone-throwing. This important capacity for mobilization has been linked to the informal leadership network of ‘street leaders’ that emerged a few months after the camps’ creation (Clarke, 2018). This network challenges the representations of refugees as voiceless victims, and questions the ability of aid organizations to foster community empowerment. It also highlights the power implications of regular organizational practices in refugee camps, and showing how NGOs affect their beneficiaries, it is relevant to the discussion of downward accountability. Thus, studying Za’atari’s power dynamics is crucial to identify conditions of refugee empowerment and improve downward accountability frameworks. In this thesis, this analysis of power dynamics is undertaken with the four-dimensional framework developed by Lukes (1974) and following scholars, which has never been used on refugee camps. The first dimension has to do with individual capacity to influence other’s choices, the second with the limits brought by institutional practices, the third with the meanings assigned to behaviors and the fourth with the socialization processes that teach self-discipline. The thesis studies how a four-dimensional analysis of Za’ataricamp can capture both the extent of camp authorities’ control on residents and the refugees’ capacity to empower themselves. Through the analysis of organizational, journalistic and academic literature, it identifies dimensions of power exercised by and on the camp’s actors at two moments: the street leaders’ rise, and the difficulties of a governance plan implemented to reestablish control. The thesis shows that street leaders were allowed to emerge due to limits in the camp governance’s first dimension and inability to use the second and third dimension, which street leaders, as part of thecommunity, could yield. Moreover, the governance’s plan to restore control encountered difficulties because it was founded on a restrictive one-dimensional view of power linked to the perception of street leaders as mafia-like bosses, refugees as helpless victims and camps as places of containment and order, limiting the authorities’ third dimension. By identifying new factors that were not present in other studies of Za’atari, the findings demonstrate the relevance of the framework to render the complexity of humanitarian settings and encourages its use on other cases. It also reminds the need for aid professionals to work with their beneficiaries’ agency to provide quality services.