Stamps of Power and Conflict: Imprinting and Influence in the U.S. Senate, 1973-2005

Abstract

Gains in power are often assumed to lead to greater influence. Yet people vary in their ability to convert power into influence. We bring a temporal, historical perspective to account for this heterogeneity. We propose that — even when they have had considerable prior experience — people can acquire organization-specific imprints when they join a new organization and that these career imprints can affect how influential they become when they later gain or lose power. We theorize about two such imprints: a stamp of power, which refers to rigidities that accrue to individuals who enter an organization as part of a dominant coalition; and a stamp of conflict, which references the learning benefits that people gain when they participate early on in conflictual work groups. We propose that the former negatively moderates, while the latter positively moderates, a person’s ability to translate downstream changes in power into influence. We evaluate and find support for these propositions in analyses of the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2005. We discuss implications for research on power, conflict, and imprinting.

Keywords: Power, Influence, Imprinting, Conflict, Networks, Collaboration