Content area
Full Text
While classical exchange theorists excluded bargaining from the scope of their theories, most contemporary theorists have done the opposite, concentrating exclusively on negotiated exchanges with binding agreements. We analyze how the form of social exchange-negotiated or reciprocal-affects the distribution of power in exchange networks. These two forms of exchange differ in fundamental ways that affect how actors use power and the kinds of risk and uncertainty they face. We predict that these basic differences will affect the relation between the availability of alternative partners and actors' use of power, and will produce lower power use in reciprocal exchange than in negotiated exchange. We test our predictions in a laboratory experiment. The results support the underlying logic of our theory, partially support its specific predictions, and raise new questions about the importance of the different time perspectives required by negotiated and reciprocal exchange.
For the last 15 years, analyses of power have dominated research on social exchange (for reviews see Molm and Cook 1995; Willer and Markovsky 1993). Most of this work concentrates on a specific form of exchange in which actors negotiate the terms of strictly binding agreements (e.g., Cook et al. 1983; Markovsky, Willer, and Patton 1988). Classical exchange theorists, in contrast, typically excluded bargaining and negotiation from the scope of their theories. Homans ff 1961] 1974) observed that explicit bargaining is rarely part of enduring relationships, while Blau (1964) argued that the absence of negotiation distinguishes social from economic exchange.
Although a few researchers have studied nonnegotiated, or reciprocal, exchanges (Burgess and Nielsen 1974; Michaels and Wiggins 1976; Molm 1997), no theory or research has systematically compared the two forms of exchange or studied their effects on power, justice, or related concerns. We begin that task here. Using Emerson's (1972a, 1972b) analysis of power-dependence relations as our framework, we propose that key distinctions between negotiated and reciprocal exchange affect the relation between the structure of exchange networks and the use of power. In the absence of negotiation, exchange partners perform individual acts that provide benefits for another (e.g., giving advice to a coworker or help to a friend), without knowing whether, when, or to what extent the other will reciprocate. But when exchanges are negotiated, actors jointly bargain over the terms of...