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Authority in Organizations

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance

  • 648 Accesses

Synonyms

Control; Government; Hierarchy; Influence; Jurisdiction; Leadership; Legitimacy; Management; Power; Rule; Sovereignty

Definition

Authority is a social relationship between two or more people or objects where one is accorded the right to direct the others in some respect.

Introduction

Authority is perhaps one of the defining characteristics of organizations, and it tends to be taken for granted, yet it is seldom the object of reflection or research. This is all the more surprising as it was an object of reflection in the work of Max Weber, one of the founding figures of sociology, and was the object of research in Stanley Milgram’s experiments into obedience to authority, one of the most famous and controversial social psychology experiments.

The definition of authority used in this entry – that authority is a social relationship between two or more people or objects where one is accorded the right to direct the others in some respect – is developed from Weber’s ideas. This...

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References

  • Freud S (1922) Group psychology and the analysis of the ego. The International psychoanalytical press, London/Vienna

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  • McClelland DC (1975) Power: the inner experience. Irvington Publishers: distributed by Halsted Press., New York

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  • Milgram S (1974) Obedience to authority: an experimental view. Harper and Row, New York

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  • Weber M (1978) Economy and Society: an outline of interpretive sociology (trans: Roth G, Wittich C). University of California Press, Berkeley.

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  • Wrong DH (1995) Power: its forms, bases, and uses. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Dermot O’Reilly

Authors
  1. Dermot O’Reilly
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dermot O’Reilly .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA

    Ali Farazmand

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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O’Reilly, D. (2016). Authority in Organizations. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_140-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_140-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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