Need for power, collective identity, and political skill: an investigation in Taiwan

Research on power motivation and political skill suggests that high need for power individuals who are oriented toward others will be perceived by supervisors as being politically skilled. McClelland (1973) theorized that high need for power individuals who reflect an orientation towards others will be perceived more favorably than those who are geared toward their own self-interest. In an employee-supervisor matched sample of 149 employees in a Taiwanese financial services organization, need for power was found to interact with an orientation toward others (collective identity) to affect supervisor ratings of political skill such that high need for power individuals exhibited greater political skill when they had a strong collective identity. This finding provides empirical evidence for the importance of the socialized view of power (McClelland, 1973) and shows when need for power relates to political skill using supervisor ratings rather than a self-report measure.     

Do Normative Facts Need to Explain?

Much moral skepticism stems from the charge that moral facts do not figure in causal explanations. However, philosophers committed to normative epistemological discourse (by which I mean our practice of evaluating beliefs as justified or unjustified, and so forth) are in no position to demand that normative facts serve such a role, since epistemic facts are causally impotentas well. I argue instead that pragmatic reasons can justify our continued participation in practices which, like morality and epistemology, do not servethe function of causal explanation.