Organisational Governance & Politics

Organisational
Governance & Politics

Chapter 12 Study Questions
 What are power and influence in an
organization?
 How are power, obedience, and formal
authority intertwined in an organization?
 What is empowerment?
 What is organizational politics?

Study Question 1: What are power
and influence in an organization?
 Power.
– The ability to get someone to do something
you want done.
– The ability to make things happen in the way
you want.
 Influence.
– Expressed by others’ behavioral response to
your exercise of power.
 Position power derives from a person’s position
in the organizational hierarchy.
 Types of position power.
– Reward power.
– Coercive power.
– Legitimate power.
– Process power.
– Information power.
– Representative power.
 Reward power.
– The extent to which a manager can use extrinsic and
intrinsic rewards to control other people.
 Coercive power.
– The extent to which a manager can deny desired
rewards and administer punishment to control other
people.
 Legitimate power.
– The extent to which a manager can use subordinates’
internalized values or beliefs that the boss has the
“right of command” to control other people.
 Process power.
– The control over methods of production and analysis
that a manager has due to being in a position to
influence how inputs are transformed into outputs.
 Information power.
– The access to and/or control of information. .
 Representative power.
– The formal right conferred by the firm to speak for a
potentially important group composed of individuals
across departments or outside the firm.
 Personal power derives from individual

sources.
 Types of personal power.
– Expert power.
– Rational persuasion.
– Referent power.
 Expert power.
– The ability to control another person’s behavior
through the possession of knowledge, experience, or
judgment that the other person does not have but
needs.
 Rational persuasion.
– The ability to control another person’s behavior by
convincing the other person of the desirability of a
goal and a reasonable way of achieving it.
 Referent power.
– The ability to control another’s behavior because the
person wants to identify with the power source.
 Ways to build position power.
– Demonstrating work unit relevance to
organizational goals and needs.
– Increasing task relevance of one’s own
activities and work unit’s activities.
– Attempting to define tasks so they are difficult
to evaluate.
 Ways to build personal power.
– Building expertise.
• Advanced training and education, participation in
professional associations, and project involvement.
– Learning political savvy.
• Learning ways to negotiate, persuade, and
understand goals and means that others accept.
– Enhancing likeability.
• Pleasant personality characteristics, agreeable
behavior patterns, and attractive personal
appearance.
 Ways that managers increase the visibility
of their job performance.
– Expanding contacts with senior people.
– Making oral presentations of written work.
– Participating in problem-solving task forces.
– Sending out notices of accomplishment.
– Seeking opportunities to increase name
recognition.
 Controlling decision premises.
– Executives attempt to control, or at least
influence, decision premises.
– A decision premise is a basis for defining the
problem and for selecting among alternatives.
– Executives who want to increase their power
will make their goals and needs clear and
bargain effectively.
 Common techniques for exercising
relational influence.
– Reason.
– Friendliness.
– Coalition.
– Bargaining.
– Assertiveness.
– Higher authority.
– Sanctions.
Study Question 2: How are power, obedience,
and formal authority intertwined in an
organization?
 Important practical issues in the exercise

of power and formal authority.
– Why should subordinates respond to a
manager’s authority (or “right to
command”)?
– Given that subordinates are willing to obey,
what determines the limits of obedience?
organization?
 The Milgram experiments.
– Designed to determine the extent to which people
obey the commands of an authority figure, even if
they believe they are endangering the life of another
person.
– The results indicated that the majority of the
experimental subjects would obey the commands of
the authority figure.
– Basic conclusion was that people tend to comply with
and be obedient to authority.
organization?
 For a directive from a superior to be
accepted as authoritative, the subordinate:
– Can and must understand it.
– Must feel mentally and physically capable of
carrying it out.
– Must believe that it is consistent with the
organization’s purpose.
– Must believe that it is consistent with his or
her personal interests.
organization?
 Zone of indifference.
– In exchange for certain inducements,
subordinates recognize the authority of the
organization and its managers to direct their
behavior in certain ways.
– A zone of indifference is the range of
authoritative requests to which a subordinate
is willing to respond without subjecting the
directives to critical evaluation or judgment.
organization?
Study Question 3: What is
empowerment?
 Empowerment.
– The process by which managers help others to
acquire and use the power needed to make
decisions affecting themselves and their work.
– Provides the foundation for self-managing work
teams and other employee involvement groups.
– Empowerment emphasizes the ability to make
things happen.
empowerment?
 Changing position power.
– Moving power down the hierarchy alters the
existing pattern of position power.
– Changing this pattern raises the following
important questions:
• Can “empowered” individuals give rewards and
sanctions based on task accomplishment?
• Has their new right to act been legitimized with
formal authority?
empowerment?
 Expanding the zone of indifference.
– Management needs to recognize the current zone of
indifference and systematically move to expand it.
– Management should show how empowerment will benefit
people and provide the needed inducement.
– .
empowerment?
 Power as an expanding pie.
– Employees need to be trained to expand their
power and their new influence potential.
– The key is to change from a view stressing
power over others to one emphasizing the use
of power to get things done.
empowerment?
 Power as an expanding pie.
– Clearer definition of roles and responsibilities
helps managers empower others.
– All mangers need to emphasize different ways
of exercising influence.
– Special support may be needed for individuals
to become comfortable.
Study Question 4: What is organizational
politics?
 Machiavellian tradition of organizational

politics.
– Emphasizes self-interest and the use of
nonsanctioned means.
– Organizational politics is defined as the
management of influence to obtain ends not
sanctioned by the organization or to obtain
sanctioned ends through nonsanctioned
influence means.
politics?
 Alternate tradition of organizational

politics.
– Politics is a necessary function resulting from
differences in the self-interests of individuals.
– Politics is the art of creative compromise
among competing interests.
– Politics is the use of power to develop socially
acceptable ends and means that balance
individual and collective interests.
politics?
politics?
 Subunit power.
– Line units are typically more powerful than
are staff groups.
– Units toward the top of the organizational
hierarchy are often more powerful than those
toward the bottom.
– Power differentials are not as pronounced
among units at or near the same level in an
organization.
politics?
 Political actions for influencing lateral,

intergroup relationships.
– Workflow linkages.
– Service linkages.
– Advisory linkages.
– Auditing linkages.
– Approval linkages.
politics?
 Important aspects of corporate political strategy.
– Absence of a political strategy can be damaging.
– Corporate political strategy should be targeted toward

turning the government from a regulator against industry to a
protector of it.
– Need to make decisions about when and how to get involved

in the public policy processes.
politics?
 Avoidance is quite common where the employee

must risk being wrong or where actions may
yield a sanction.
 Common techniques for avoiding action and risk
taking.
– Working to the rules.
– Playing dumb.
– Depersonalization.
– Stalling.
politics?
 Common techniques for redirecting
accountability and responsibility.
– Passing the buck.
– Buffing (or rigorous documentation).
– Preparing a blind memo.
– Rewriting history.
– Redirecting.
• Scapegoating.
• Blaming the problem on uncontrollable events.
• Escalating commitment.
politics?
 Defending turf.
– Defending turf is a time-honored tradition in most large
organizations.
– Defending turf results when:
• Managers seek to increase their power by expanding the jobs
their groups perform.
• Competing interests exist among various departments and
groups.
politics?
 Agency theory.
– An important power problem arises from the
separation of owners and managers.
– Managers are “agents” of the owners.
– Public corporations can function effectively

even though its managers are self-interested.
politics?
 Key arguments of agency theory.
– By protecting stockholder interests, all the
interests of society are served.
– Stockholders have a clear interest in greater
returns.
– Managers are self-interested and must be
controlled.
politics?
 Types of controls instituted for agents.
– Pay plan incentives that align the interests of
management and stockholders.
– The establishment of a strong, independent
board of directors.
– Stockholders with a large stake in the firm
taking an active role on the board.
politics?
 Resource dependencies.
– The firm’s need for resources that are controlled by
others.
 The resource dependence of an organization
increases as:
– Needed resources become more scarce.
– Outsiders have more control over needed resources.
– There are fewer substitutes for a particular type of
resource controlled by a limited number of outsiders.
politics?
 Organizational governance.
– The pattern of authority, influence, and acceptable
managerial behavior established at the top of the
organization.
– Organizational governance establishes the following:
• What is important.
• How issues will be defined.
• Who should and should not be involved in key
choices
• Boundaries for acceptable implementation.
politics?
 Negative views of organizational governance.

– Unbalanced organizational governance by some
United States corporations may limit their ability
to manage global operations effectively.
– Organizational governance is too closely tied to
the short-term interests of stockholders and the
pay of the CEO.
politics?
 Positive views of organizational governance.

– The governance of U.S. firms extends well beyond the
limited interests of the owners.
– Organization governance should be based on three
ethical criteria.
– When the three ethical criteria cannot be fulfilled, the
criterion of overwhelming factors should be invoked.
– Choosing to be ethical often involves considerable
personal sacrifice.

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Organisational

Governance & Politics

 What is organizational politics?

 Personal power derives from individual

 Important practical issues in the exercise

 Machiavellian tradition of organizational

 Alternate tradition of organizational

 Political actions for influencing lateral,

 Important aspects of corporate political strategy.

– Absence of a political strategy can be damaging.

– Corporate political strategy should be targeted toward

– Need to make decisions about when and how to get involved

 Avoidance is quite common where the employee

– Public corporations can function effectively

 Negative views of organizational governance.

 Positive views of organizational governance.

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