ACTORS RESPONSES TO OUTCOMES IN EXCHANGE NETWORKS - THE PROCESS OF POWER DEVELOPMENT

Leading theories of power in exchange networks make assumptions about actors' reactions to being included in or excluded from exchanges. The se assumptions, that actors consistently included increase their deman ds on others and that actors consistently excluded decrease their dema nds, provide the behavioral mechanism by which structural differences in position convert into power advantages or disadvantages. We test th ese assumptions with data gathered by experiment from five different n etworks. We find that while actors generally respond as assumed, the p arameters of response to inclusion and to exclusion are not symmetric, depend on the level of experience of the subjects, and interact both with type of network (strong power versus weak power) and with network position.