that equate politics with
any
use of power [e.g.,Martin & Sims, 1956], the Mayes and Allen defini-tion underlines the discretionary nature of organiza-tional politics. In spite of formal systems designed tocontrol the use of power, organizational memberscan and do exercise political power to influence theirsubordinates, peers, superiors, and others [Schein,
1977].
And coalitions may employ politics in theirreaction to policy changes that threaten their owninterests [Crozier, 1964; Pettigrew, 1973].When individuals and coalitions move outsideformal sanctions, the traditional authority/respon-sibility linkage is broken, and important ethicalissues emerge. However, current treatments oforganizational politics either beg the ethical issuesentirely [e.g., Kotter, 1977] or offer simplisticethical criteria. For example. Miles asserts that "it is. . . important to recognize that politics need not bebad, though common parlance uses the term in a pe-jorative sense. The survival of an organization maydepend on the success of a unit or coalition in over-turning a traditional but outdated formal organiza-tion objective or policy" [1980, p. 155]. However,there are a host of political actions that may bejustified in the name of organizational survival thatmany would find morally repugnant. Among theseare such Machiavellian techniques as "situationalmanipulation," "dirty tricks," and "backstabbing."There
is,
then, a clear need for a normative theoryof organizational politics that addresses ethicalissues directly and from the standpoint of the exer-cise of discretion. Unfortunately, the business andsociety literature, where one might expect to findsuch issues discussed, offers little guidance in thisregard. The emphasis in this literature is on institu-tional interactions (e.g., government regulations)and on broad human resource policy issues (e.g.,affirmative action), and not on the day-to-day poli-tical decisions made in the organization.Discussions of political tactics in the managementliterature also offer little guidance. The literature is,of course, rich with political guidelines: there areleadership theories, lateral relations prescriptions,notions about how to design and implement rewardand control systems, conflict resolution strategies,and the like, all of which provide fodder for thedevelopment of political behavior alternatives(hereinafterPBA).However, the form of these theo-retical notions tends to reduce decisions to
cal-culations
based
on effect
—
that is, they provide themanager with an understanding and prediction ofwhat PBAs are likely to evoke in terms of an out-come or set of outcomes. Armed with contemporaryleadership theories, for example, managers canpresumably determine the type of face-to-face direc-tion that will result in the desired level of perform-ance and satisfaction. This calculative emphasisdefines theoretical debate over ethics in terms of
the
desirability of outcomes and tends to ignore thevalue of the activities, processes, and behaviors in-volved, independent of the outcomes achieved.What a manager
should do
is thus determined by
the
desirability of the outcomes and not by the qualityof the behaviors themselves. Such an emphasis in-evitably leads to a kind of ends-justify-the-meanslogic that fails to provide guidance for managersbeyond linking alternatives to outcomes. Considerthe following case.Lorna is the production manager of a noncohesivework group responsible for meeting a deadline thatwill require coordinated effort among her subor-dinates. Believing that the members of the workgroup will pull together and meet the deadline if
they
have a little competition, Lorna decides in favor of aPBA. She tries to create the impression among hersubordinates that members of the sales departmentwant her group to fail to meet the deadline so thatsales can gain an edge over production in upcomingbudgetary negotiations.How might we evaluate this PBA? Managementtheory tends to focus our attention on consequences.One might argue that if it works arid Loma's grouppulls together and meets the deadline, it's okay.
Or,
a
more critical observer might argue that even if
the
ob-
jective
is
accomplished, an important side effect
could
be the loss of a cooperative relationship between thesales and production departments. What we tend tolose sight of, though, is that "creating an impression"is a euphemism for lying, and lying may not beethically acceptable in this situation.This example illustrates what may be termed theteleological or goal-oriented form of managementtheory [Keeley, 1979; Krupp, 1961; Pfeffer, 1978].This leads managers and management scholars
alike
to restrict normative judgments about organiza-tional behavior to outcomes (e.g., performance,satisfaction, system effectiveness) rather than con-sider the ethical quality of the means employed.In contrast, the field of normative ethics providesfertile ground on which to develop a normative
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