Hierarchical Role Immediacy and Superordinate Control Orientation: Notes Toward a Theory

Abstract

This paper, which is a structural‐functional attempt to explain a restricted domain of interpersonal perception within the school as an organization, presents some of the author's findings as a clue to one possible effect of the hierarchically contrived authority system of the school on certain of the organizational participants' perceptions of one another. If the findings and theory are valid, they may help to explain one of the explicit ways in which the school may he exploitive of the individual—exploitive in the sense that not all of the individual's interpersonal needs may be equally relevant to the organization's strivings towards goal attainment. The economy necessarily associated with organizational goal attainment and the resulting expediency for an adequate flow of organizational authority may operate to induce a lack of organizational recognition of certain of the individual's vital interpersonal needs. The author proposes his notes toward a theory in an effort to explain how and why people come to perceive certain other people as they do within the context of the school as an organization.

Citation

BRUMBAUGH, R.B. (1969), "Hierarchical Role Immediacy and Superordinate Control Orientation: Notes Toward a Theory", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 160-171. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009640