A Research on Authority Relations in Organizations

Abstract

This study aims to investigate employees' general attitude against the authority. It has been voiced for a few decades that management has been much more participative and employees have been more autonomous. This paper will discuss employees' reaction to authority in-between obedience and self-determination. For this aim, 46 employees from 5 different organizations were interviewed to get data and then it was analyzed. Results show that employees working in public sector obey much more to the authority. And high-skilled work force is more autonomous than low-skilled ones.

(Dis)obedience in U.S. American young adults: A new way to describe authority relationships

“…Authority relationship, obedience, and disobedience are fundamental components of everyday life within family dynamics ( Bray & Harvey, 1992 ; Darling, Cumsille, & Loreto Martínez, 2007 ; Fromm et al, 1936 ), the workplace ( Özcan, 2014 ) and school ( Xiao, 1999 ). As such, social scientists have been investigating these topics for decades ( Fromm, Horkheimer, Mayer, & Marcuse, 1936 ; Moraro, 2014 ).…”