ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the ways power that is seen to function as a social dynamic in democratic contexts within social structures. It explains how these understandings apply in the context of higher education institutions and, more specifically, the framework of the supervision of doctoral students in the development of a thesis. Government has a deeply vested interest in ensuring that education outcomes are directed towards national interests, with the pursuit of knowledge increasingly directed towards national economic interests. The concepts of power related to organisations and their social structure are pertinent to higher educational institutions. Dispositional power is the power of structures, the rules or parameters that are embedded in social and political systems. The notion of agency, the capacity of groups and individuals to express preference, to attempt to realise individual desires, is consistently related to concepts of power. Personal agency and an environment that supports that agency are essential to working in collective or team contexts.
