Abstract

The superiors’ power bases on work autonomy and satisfaction with supervision in Malaysian manufacturing companies was investigated.  The influence of superiors and subordinates age and length of service were also explored.  210 data was collected from technical staff of manufacturing companies indicated that supervision of industrial people were most acceptable through the exercise of referent power, expert power and reward power.  Among the power bases, reward power was most often exercised when the work autonomy is high.  The work autonomy was found to be positively associated with the satisfaction with supervision.  The perception of expertise was found to be associated more with superior and subordinate age differential rather than their length of service.

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