Mantenimento della dominanza di gruppo in organizzazioni lavorative: Relazioni tra orientamento alla dominanza sociale, tattiche di potere e bisogno di chiusura cognitiva.

Abstract Social dominance theory posits that subordinate groups high in social dominance orientation (SDO) comply with their supervisors in endorsing harsh hierarchy-enhancing power tactics to maintain social hierarchies. We deepened the relationship between subordinates’ SDO and harsh power tactics, examining the person-environment (P-E) misfit and fit between employees’ SDO in hierarchy-attenuating and hierarchy-enhancing organizations. We hypothesized that need for cognitive closure (NFCC) sustained the maintenance of unambiguous group-based hierarchies, inhibiting the uncertainty due to P-E misfit characterized by the mismatch between subordinates’ high SDO level and the organization’s hierarchy-attenuating function. We recruited participants in a hierarchy-attenuating organization and in a hierarchy-enhancing organization. The study’s variables were measured by administering an anonymous questionnaire. A three-way interaction analysis revealed that both the organization function and NFCC moderate the association between subordinates’ SDO and harsh power tactics. Confirming our hypothesis, the simple analysis also showed that the association between subordinates’ SDO and harsh power tactics is statistically significant and only occurs in the hierarchy-attenuating organization at the conditional level of high (vs. low) NFCC; in the hierarchy-enhancing organization, NFCC did not moderate the association between SDO and harsh power tactics.