Resource Dependence Theory

Question 1

Which article?

Answer 1

Pfeffer & Salancik (1997)

Question 2

Focus

Answer 2

To understand behavior of organizations, one must understand how organizations relate to other social actors in their environment
-> Organizations comply with the demands of others, or they act to manage the dependencies that create constraints on organizational actions.

Question 3

What do organizations need to survive?

Answer 3

Resources

Question 4

Inclusion is partially

Answer 4

social actors can be part of different organizational structures

Question 5

Boundary of an organization

Answer 5

the organization’s control over the actions of participants relative to the control of other social entities over these same activities

Question 6

Control is never absolute

Answer 6

Control is the ability to initiate or terminate actions at one’s discretion
There are always competing claims of others

Question 7

Sources of control of an organization:

Answer 7

o The ability to empower individuals to act on its behalf;
o The ability to regulate use, access, and allocation of organizationally generated resources.

Question 8

Power in organizations

Answer 8

Power organizes around critical and scarce resources. To the extent participants furnish resources that are more critical and scarcer, they obtain more control over the organization. Power is, therefore, determined by the definition of social reality created by participants as well as by their control over resources.

Question 9

Organizations have a social control. There are 8 conditions

Answer 9

1. The possession of some resource by the social actor
2. The importance of the resource to the focal organization; its criticality for the organization’s
   activities and survival
3. The inability of the focal organization to obtain the resource elsewhere.
4. The visibility of the behavior or activity being controlled.
5. The social actor’s discretion in the allocation, access, and use of the critical resource.
6. The focal organization’s discretion and capability to take the desired action
7. The focal organization’s lack of control over resources critical to the social actor
8. The ability of the social actor to make its preferences known to the focal organization

Question 10

How is the environment known to the organization?

Answer 10

The environment is not an objective reality: it is enacted

Question 11

Process of enactment

Answer 11

Perceptions, attention, and interpretation by organization members come to define the context for the focal organization

Question 12

Environment in RTD

Answer 12

nvironment is populated by other social actors that possess and control resources

Question 13

autonomy-dependency dilemma:

Answer 13

• Organizations attempt to avoid influence and constraint by restricting the flow of information about them and their activities, diversifying their dependencies, and manipulating information to increase their own legitimacy.
• At the same time organizations seek to avoid being controlled, they seek stability and certainty in their own resource exchanges.
• On the one hand, organizations want to maximize discretion to modify (future) actions
  (autonomy);
• On the other hand, organizations need resources owned by other social entities (dependency).

Question 14

Demands for certainty and the quest for discretion lead to

Answer 14

merger, joint ventures, cooptation, growth, political involvement, the restriction on the distribution of information

Question 15

How to acquire necessary resources?

Answer 15

The development of interorganizational structures of coordinated behaviour (interorganizational organization)

Question 16

Ironic result:

Answer 16

to gain some control over the activities of another organization (to acquire resources), the focal organization must surrender some of its own autonomy.

Question 17

How to cope with Resource dependency

Answer 17

Environment-action Linking organizational environments with organizational actions: Appointing leaders and adopting structured favoured by actors in the environment

Question 18

Managing resource dependencies:

Answer 18

Buffering
Bridging

Question 19

Buffering

Answer 19

using resources to protect your core system (technical system, where things are
produced). Organizations want those core systems to be stable. Organizations can make this
stable by having buffers around that system (a buffer around the core technical system).

Question 20

Bridging

Answer 20

making ties with other actors in your environment. You can lower the dependency
by making these ties. The role of the leader: how the leader can play a role in managing dependencies. It is about the interaction between the leader, the organization, and the environment.

Question 21

3 managerial role

Answer 21

1. symbolic
2. responsive
3. discretionary

Question 22

The symbolic role of management

Answer 22

p. 68

Question 23

The responsive role of management

Answer 23

p. 68

Question 24

The discretionary role of management

Answer 24

p. 68

Question 25

How to cope with Resource dependence?

Answer 25

1. Scanning the environment
2. Loosening dependencies
3. Coping with conflicting external demands

Question 26

Establishing inter-Organizational linkages:

Answer 26

• Ownership (internalization, gain ‘say’, reduce dependency)
• Contracts, joint ventures (through contract you secure the inflow of resources)
• Cooptation, interlocking directorates (business term for: one CEO becomes part of board of
  directors of another organization, e.g. Rabobank gets a seat in the management of Philips)
• Executive recruitment
• Advertising, public relations

Question 27

Controlling the Environmental Domain:

Answer 27

• Change of domain
• Political activity, regulation (e.g. trying to influence the EU government through an office in
  Brussels, lobbying)
• Trade associations
• Illegitimate activities

Question 28

Assumptions

Answer 28

1. Organizations are open systems. By this, there is interaction with the outside world, with other organizations. A long time, people thought that organizations were closed systems.
2. Organizations are not self-sufficient. For accomplishing a goals, organizations need resources. Organizations don’t own/control all those recourse (RDT).
3. Organizations cannot generate all the necessary resources internally. Organizations don’t have the capacity/ability to produce all those resources.
4. Organizations must mobilize resources from other organizations in their environment if they are to survive (Yuchtman & Seashore, 1967). When I, as an organization, can’t have everything and when I can’t produce anything, I need others/I’m dependent of others.