Dynamics of (un)healthy organizations: the role of social dominance and power

Within Social Dominance Theory the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) captures the extent of individuals’ desires for group-based dominance and inequality. Thus, subordinate and dominant groups higher on SDO concur in preserving hierarchies for maintain the “stability”, inequalities and discriminations into a specific social system like the organizational work settings. Within this framework, the present study is aimed at deepening how supervisors and subordinates maintain the system stability of hierarchies in two different work contexts depicted, following the Social Dominance Theory as hierarchy-attenuating (HA) and hierarchy-enhancing (HE) organizations, endorsing specific social power tactics (“harsh” vs. “soft”). In both HA and in the HE organization, high-SDO supervisors and high-SDO subordinates endorse harsh power tactics showing an “ideological congruence” accordingly with their SDO and with the characteristics of the organization that can, in different degree, promote and sustains inequalities. Moreover, within an HA work environment, high-SDO supervisors and subordinates – coordinate themselves also in opposing toward soft interpersonal power tactics because these tactics does not collapse with their desire for group-based dominance neither with a type of organization which tends to attenuate hierarchies. Interventions for improving work-related well-being and reduce inequalities for healthy organizations will be discussed.