Potentiality: Power in Interorganizational Relationships

Researchers have long been intrigued by the actions and consequences of power in interorganizational relationships. However, power is fundamentally about a partner’s potential to influence its counterparty. To examine power as potentiality in interorganizational relationships, we develop a framework linking their organizational features with various facets of power, which we call power regimes. Our review of the literature highlights how the development and displacement of conceptual ideas have contributed to a partial understanding of power and the neglect of power regimes in interorganizational relationships. We identify research opportunities to study the fundamentals of potentiality (variety of interorganizational arrangements, cognition), the dynamics of power regimes (domination, resistance, regime trajectories), and contextual factors (industry networks, algorithmic interfaces).