{"title":"The impact of consultants' power dynamics on clients' self-efficacy and managerial stress.","authors":"Rotem Lachmi, Batia Ben-Hador, Yael Brender-Ilan","doi":"10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1515277","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Power bases in management are crucial for leaders to effectively influence their teams and achieve organizational goals. Management consultants leverage various power bases, particularly Expert and Referent power, to influence client organizations and drive change. While previous studies have examined factors distinguishing successful consultants and the power they need to motivate clients, they focused solely on consultants' perspectives. This study investigates the relationship between consultants' power bases (principally Expert and Referent) and clients' self-efficacy and managerial stress. The aim is to determine how consultants' use of their power base affects clients' experience and outcomes. One hundred clients participated in a study testing the correlation between consultants' power bases and clients' self-efficacy and stress management. Using moderation statistical models, a significant correlation was found between consultants' Expert power and clients' self-efficacy, with managerial stress moderating this relationship. Consulting success is measured by the extent to which it enhances clients' self-efficacy, enabling them to effectively achieve their organizational goals and overcome challenges. The results show that Expert power is crucial in boosting clients' self-efficacy, except under conditions of high managerial stress. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting a key power base and offering new insights into power dynamics in management consulting. Additionally, it provides practical benefits for enhancing consulting outcomes, influencing both client and consultant perspectives, and potentially improving the overall effectiveness of management consulting engagements.</p>","PeriodicalId":12525,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Psychology","volume":"15 ","pages":"1515277"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11790657/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1515277","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Power bases in management are crucial for leaders to effectively influence their teams and achieve organizational goals. Management consultants leverage various power bases, particularly Expert and Referent power, to influence client organizations and drive change. While previous studies have examined factors distinguishing successful consultants and the power they need to motivate clients, they focused solely on consultants' perspectives. This study investigates the relationship between consultants' power bases (principally Expert and Referent) and clients' self-efficacy and managerial stress. The aim is to determine how consultants' use of their power base affects clients' experience and outcomes. One hundred clients participated in a study testing the correlation between consultants' power bases and clients' self-efficacy and stress management. Using moderation statistical models, a significant correlation was found between consultants' Expert power and clients' self-efficacy, with managerial stress moderating this relationship. Consulting success is measured by the extent to which it enhances clients' self-efficacy, enabling them to effectively achieve their organizational goals and overcome challenges. The results show that Expert power is crucial in boosting clients' self-efficacy, except under conditions of high managerial stress. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting a key power base and offering new insights into power dynamics in management consulting. Additionally, it provides practical benefits for enhancing consulting outcomes, influencing both client and consultant perspectives, and potentially improving the overall effectiveness of management consulting engagements.
期刊介绍:
Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.