AUTHORITY AT WORK - INTERNAL MODELS AND THEIR ORGANIZATIONAL CONSEQUENCES

This article focuses on how organization members authorize and de-auth orize both others and themselves in the course of doing their work. We argue that these authorizing processes are shaped, in part. by enduri ng, often unacknowledged stances toward authority itself. In turn, we suggest that these stances are enacted in similar ways across hierarch ical and collaborative work arrangements and across various roles and positions. These stances are-as Hirschhorn (1990) suggested-internaliz ed models. Working from a theoretical framework that combines concepts from developmental and clinical psychology, group dynamics, and organ izational behavior, we define and illustrate three types of internal m odels of authority: dependence, counterdependence, and interdependence . We offer propositions about how these internal models influence orga nization members' behaviors during task performances generally, and mo re specifically, as members of hierarchical dyads and work teams. We a lso suggest propositions about how these internal models of authority are triggered and change in the context of organizational life. Finall y, we offer research methods and strategies by which to empirically ex amine these propositions.