The 10-year research project consisted of two distinct phases: an initial phase that compared equivalent structures of reward and punishment power and tested exploratory hypotheses about differences in structural effects, and a second phase that constructed and tested a theory of coercive power in social exchange.

This chapter describes the research and results of the first phase; the next four chapters are devoted to the second. This rather unequal division of labor reflects the greater importance of the second phase of theory construction. Theories are rarely built in a vacuum, however, and deductive theorizing is most productive when it builds upon an initial knowledge base. As Chapter 3 illustrated, that base was small and inconsistent at the beginning of the project. The five experiments in the first phase expanded and strengthened it, and shaped the direction of the subsequent work.

The chapter begins with a discussion of each of the five experiments: their objectives, design, results, and implications. The analyses in this portion of the chapter focus on how the manipulations of structural power affect the frequency and distribution of exchange in the relation. Then, in the second part of the chapter, I use the combined data set from all five experiments to examine the dynamic process of exchange and actors' exchange strategies.