The relationships between foreign buyers' mediated power and Bangladeshi suppliers' psychologically defensive workplace behavior
Abstract
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The study examined the relationships between the mediated social power of buyers from developed countries and the psychologically defensive workplace behavior of the suppliers from developing countries, in this case, Bangladesh. According to French and Raven (1959), social power is the ability of one person or group to cause another person or group to change in the direction intended by the influencer. In addition, the defense against the stress and anxiety found in an individual, interpersonal, group, and organizational social system is termed as psychology defensive workplace behavior (PDWB) (Allcorn & Diamond, 1997). These theories formed the theoretical background of the study. After conducting an online survey among Bangladeshi textile and apparel (T&A) managers and quantitative analysis of the data, the results show that Bangladeshi T&A managers' perfectionistic behavior, arrogant-vindictive behavior, and narcissistic behavior were affected by foreign buyers' reward and coercive power. Particularly, perfectionistic and narcissistic behavior showed an interaction effect of buyers' coercive and reward power, suggesting a need for fine balance between the two power bases to discourage such negative workplace behavior. This study will help foreign buyers to better negotiate with Bangladeshi suppliers to maintaining proper workplace condition and compliances. This study will also help industry professionals and educators to better educate factory suppliers on how to deal with workplace pressure and manage subordinates.
Degree
M.S.
Thesis Department
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