Home> Archive> 2022> Volume 12 Number 3 (Aug. 2022)
IJSSH 2022 Vol.12(3): 130-136 ISSN: 2010-3646
doi: 10.18178/ijssh.2022.V12.1079

Perceptions of Power and Organizational Sentiment: Analysis of One-Word Descriptions

Ross A. Jackson, Edward M. Slover, and Brian L. Heath

Abstract—Ambiguity surrounds the use of power within organizations. Positively, power provides a basis for clarity in direction and a means for the execution of work. Negatively, power resides at the nexus of subjugation and coercion. In all its inherent complexity, power is more than an external force that buffets those within organizations. Those employed within organizations also have power regardless of their organizational strata. At a minimum, each member has the power to conform or rebel. The results of this study suggest that the degree to which one perceives this power influences one’s organizational sentiment. In terms of the research methods, an author-created survey, developed in SurveyMonkey, was made available to those with accounts in LinkedIn to participate in this study examining linkages between perceptions of power and organizational sentiment. Survey participants provided one-word descriptions of their organizations, which were assessed for positive or negative sentiment using the Bing sentiment lexicon. Using cross-tabulations of these data revealed that accounting for perceptions of power reduced the error of predicting organizational sentiment as measured by Goodman and Kruskal’s lambda. The error was reduced further when the moderating demographic variables of age and gender were included. Whereas these results were limited by the potential for self-selection bias and sample size (n = 24), they are useful for those concerned with organizational performance and human resource management.

Index Terms—Business, motivation, philosophy, semantics.

R. A. Jackson and B. L. Heath are with Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH 45501 USA (e-mail: jacksonr@wittenberg.edu, heathb@wittenberg.edu).
E. M. Slover is with Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, AZ 85017 USA (e-mail: Ed.Slover@gcu.edu).

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Cite: Ross A. Jackson, Edward M. Slover, and Brian L. Heath, "Perceptions of Power and Organizational Sentiment: Analysis of One-Word Descriptions," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 130-136, 2022.


Copyright © 2022 by the authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).

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