Where Power Resides in Committees
- Author(s)
- Georg D. Granic, Alexander K. Wagner
- Abstract
The power to control decisions is rarely distributed equally in committees. In a small voting committee, in which members have conflicting interests, we study how the decision right to break ties (formal power) translates into effective control over outcomes (real power). Two controlled experiments show that the level of real power held by the chair is larger than predicted by rational-choice theory. We also provide causal evidence that the legitimacy, but not the salience, of holding formal tie-breaking power affects voting behavior and thus the distribution of real power in the committee. Attitudinal measures related to the perceived attractiveness of the decision right to break ties exhibit a strong asymmetry between the one holding the decision right and those who do not.
- Organisation(s)
- Vienna Center for Experimental Economics, Department of Economics
- External organisation(s)
- Erasmus University Rotterdam
- Journal
- The Leadership Quarterly
- Volume
- 32
- No. of pages
- 15
- ISSN
- 1048-9843
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.02.001
- Publication date
- 03-2019
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 502045 Behavioural economics, 502057 Experimental economics, 502027 Political economy
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Business and International Management, Sociology and Political Science, Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/where-power-resides-in-committees(dc9517f3-767b-4e18-a586-079022bdcfd6).html