American International Journal of Social Science

Who Wants Power More, Men or Women? A Cross-Cultural Comparison (U.S. V. Spain)
James Ike Schaap, Miguel Blanco Callejo

Abstract
These two studies examined gender differences of various types of leaders in the United States and Spain in acquiring and exerting power. This paper followed, at least obliquely, the format used by French and Raven (1959) when examining the impact of gender differences regarding the use of referent, expert, reward, coercive, and legitimate power. The research question, for both studies, was: Do men or women, from a cross-cultural standpoint, use power more; and what technique do they employ most often to achieve success? The results from both studies, suggest that women want power more than men do in order to make a positive contribution to the organization. The findings also indicate that a high percentage of people, at least in the United States, have witnessed leaders, when exerting power, use coercion, rewards, special knowledge, legitimacy, and respect to get subordinates to comply with their requests.

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