Abstract:

With the diversification of employment arrangements, hybrid employment teams have become an important organizational form for enhancing flexibility and integrating external resources. However, in practice, such teams do not necessarily realize the expected collaborative advantages; instead, they often encounter cooperation dilemmas, including coordination failures, insufficient knowledge sharing, and declining willingness to cooperate. Existing studies have largely explained these phenomena from the perspectives of institutional arrangements or contractual governance, while paying relatively limited attention to the micro-level collaboration between standard and non-standard employees. Addressing this gap, the present study adopts a power asymmetry perspective to examine the origins and formation mechanisms of cooperation dilemmas in hybrid employment teams and to explore feasible mitigation pathways.

Drawing on power dependence theory, this study develops a multi-level analytical framework to systematically explain the formation and regulation of cooperation dilemmas from the team level, the individual level, and the level of intervention mechanisms. The core argument is that differences in employment status solidify structural power asymmetry, which reshapes task organization, interaction patterns, and psychological experiences, thereby generating cooperation dilemmas. Specifically, the study contains three key components. First, at the team level, structural power asymmetry produces cooperation dilemmas by distorting team work design. Power-advantaged members are more likely to dominate task boundaries and responsibility allocation, causing the task system to deviate from efficiency-oriented principles. This distortion manifests as task structure fragmentation, task content ambiguity, and task environment segmentation, making it difficult for team members to form clear shared responsibility. Coordination increasingly relies on procedures rather than relationships, and collaboration thus shifts from a stable cooperative system to constrained, transactional interaction. Work design distortion therefore serves as a crucial mediating pathway through which power asymmetry intensifies cooperation dilemmas.

Second, at the individual level, the study shows how power asymmetry elicits differentiated behavioral responses across employment groups, thereby reinforcing cooperation dilemmas. For standard employees in power-advantaged positions, asymmetric dependence is more likely to activate dominant control behaviors, including excessive task intervention, restriction of information flows, unilateral decision-making, and boundary setting that favors their own interests. These behaviors may protect positional advantages but suppress mutual adjustment and shared learning. In contrast, for non-standard employees in power-disadvantaged positions, power asymmetry more readily induces defensive silence, reflected in reduced voice behavior, risk avoidance, and lower proactive engagement. Under asymmetric dependence, they are more likely to perceive higher interpersonal and career risks, which weakens psychological safety and the social foundation of cooperation. The dominant control of standard employees and the defensive silence of non-standard employees interact to form a self-reinforcing cycle, making distortions in work design difficult to correct.

Third, in terms of intervention strategies, the study proposes a multi-level regulatory mechanism to mitigate the negative effects of power asymmetry. Structural empowerment and institutional design optimization help reduce power concentration stemming from employment status differences by clarifying authority boundaries, increasing procedural transparency, and strengthening safeguards for fair allocation. Social integration practices reshape team members’ cognitive perceptions of power and dependence, build shared identity, cross-status trust, and cooperative expectations, and weaken purely instrumental interaction. At the individual level, reducing standard employees’ perceived status threat can curb dominant control tendencies, while enhancing non-standard employees’ contingent self-esteem can reduce defensive silence and promote constructive voice. Working together across levels, these mechanisms transform asymmetric power relations into more functional interdependence, thereby improving cooperation in hybrid employment teams.

By introducing power dependence theory into the context of hybrid employment teams, this study clarifies how structural power asymmetry influences collaboration through work design distortions and behavioral differentiation, extending prior research on teamwork and flexible employment that assumes power balance or emphasizes one-sided adaptation. The model integrates institutional structure, team work design, and individual behavioral responses to provide a more complete micro-level explanation. At the same time, the multi-level mitigation framework offers organizations a systematic path to identify and manage power asymmetry risks, underscoring that effective collaboration requires the joint operation of institutional design and relational integration rather than reliance on contractual control alone. These theoretical insights provide a stronger foundation for future research on the antecedents of power asymmetry, the evolution of cooperation mechanisms, and the boundary conditions of interventions, while offering actionable implications for managers seeking to maintain employment flexibility without sacrificing team cohesion and cooperative performance.

Key words: employment relationship, power asymmetry, distortion of work design, alienation of cooperative behaviors, team cooperation dilemmas