Resource Dependency Theory

Resource dependency theory (RDT) is a strategic management theory used to explain organizational behavior and effectiveness. RDT is concerned with how the need for resources affects an organization's actions within its environment. In public relations, it helps explain why organizations develop relationships with other organizations and publics. The theory demonstrates how and why public relations can contribute to organizational effectiveness through the relationships that provide resources organizations need to survive and flourish.

Resource dependency theory views an organization's environment as containing resources necessary for its survival. That environment consists of networks of interorganizational relationships that influence access to resources. Resources are anything on which an organization depends to survive, such as financial, material, cultural, or symbolic resources. Without the proper mix and amount of resources, an organization will eventually fail. Resource dependency theory consequently assumes that organizations lacking in certain resources will seek to establish relationships with individuals or entities that can provide those resources. The theory reasons that organizational actions are related to particular dependencies. In other words, organizations will engage in actions designed to fulfill their resource needs.

Resource dependency theory is linked to systems theory in that both perspectives recognize that organizations are interdependent with other actors in their environment. Resource dependency theory conceives of organizations as open systems that interact with other systems—other organizations or publics—in the environment. Organizations are interdependent with others because individual organizations do not control all of the conditions necessary to successfully function. Thus, other actors influence the goals of an organization and the extent to which it can achieve those goals as they grant or withhold needed resources. Consequently, the business and management literature has noted that organizations will try to reduce uncertainty and gain control over their environment through acquiring resources that will enhance their power and minimize dependence on other organizations, while at the same time increasing the dependence of other organizations on themselves.

In RDT, power is defined as the control over scarce resources on which others depend, such as information, expertise, credibility, prestige, access to higher echelon members, and control of money, rewards, and sanctions (cf. Clegg, Courpasson, & Phillips, 2006). A complete list of resources is impossible, as “different phenomena become resources in different contexts” (Clegg et al., p. 127). A scarcity of certain resources may cause one organization to become dependent on another. Resource dependency theory cautions that power is situational and contingent upon changing relationships and environmental conditions. Uncertainty increases when organizations are highly dependent on others. Organizations must cope with and adapt to their environments by building relationships so that critical resources may be exchanged even in the most challenging of conditions.