Power in Organizations.

by Jeffrey Pfeffer
Review by: Karl E. Weick
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 88, No. 3 (Nov., 1982), pp. 605-608
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2779127 .
Accessed: 13/12/2014 11:30

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
American Journal of Sociology.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:30:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Book Reviews

(e.g., recent work in psychology on perception of risk), gives a cautious

and balanced account of some of the difficultiesof decision making, and is
written in a lively style ("The fact that no major dam in the United States
has been left unfinished once begun shows how far a little concrete can go
in defining a problem" [p. 13]), this odd little book is ultimately unsatis-
factory. On the one hand, it aspires to be a consumers'guide to decision-
making methods, but on the other it is a treatise on the need for a new
academic field (acceptable-risk decision making).
As a consumer guide, the book will probably prove unsatisfactory be-
cause its coverage of key problems is too superficial.If you do not already
know how standards are set and what relation standards bear to profes-
sional judgment, you will not find out by reading this book. It is even
unclear precisely who are "professionals,"what kinds of people perform
risk analyses, or who employs the bootstrap method. A few sustained exam-
ples of each type of procedurewould help a lot.
Unfortunately, the book makes its case for the interdisciplinarynature
of the field negatively as well as positively. Academics will find that the
authors neglect bodies of literature that are central to their concerns. If
ever there were a case to which March and Simon's conclusion (that de-
cision makers satisfice rather than maximize applied, this is clearly it, but
the authors fail to discuss organizational limits on either calculative or
adaptive rationality. When they discuss the problems of making decisions
that affect the entire society, it is somewhat surprising that they neglect
the literature on collective decision making and the collective irrationalities
that can result from aggregatingindividual preferences. In discussing areas
as fraught with conflict as nuclear power, the authors do not discuss either
class conflict or interest group processes. Such sociological phenomena are
clearly as important in determiningthe ultimate effectiveness of a decision-
making method as the technique itself.
If a field of acceptable-riskdecision making does emerge, one can safely
bet that this book will be the classic work read by everyone in the field.
But it is still worth reading now.

Power in Organizations. By Jeffrey Pfeffer. Marshfield, Mass.: Pitman,

1981. Pp. xiv+391. $19.95 (cloth); $9.95 (paper).

Karl E. Weick
Cornell University

For some time organizationalscholars have been bothered by their inability

to analyze power and politics in organizational settings. That shortcoming
has been made less severe by the publication of Jeffrey Pfeffer's political
approach to organizationalanalysis. Power in Organizationsrepresents an
important synthesis of the literature on power, a synthesis groundedin the

605

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:30:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
American Journal of Sociology

sociological assertion that power is basically a structural phenomenon re-

sulting from the division of labor. Pfeffer's argument spreads across nine
chapters and covers the assessment, use, creation, perpetuation, symbo-
lizing, and managing of power as it flows through decision-making pro-
cesses in organizations.
The heart of Pfeffer's analysis is the proposal that power and politics
vary as a function of the interdependenceof differentiated units, hetero-
geneity of goals, heterogeneity of beliefs about technology, scarcity of re-
sources, importance of the issues involved, and the dispersal (rather than
centralization) of power. As these five variables increase, organizationsare
likely to become more politicized.
A flavor of the insights that flow from Pfeffer's analysis is evident in the
following excerpts:
1. "The power of organizational actors is fundamentally determined by
two things, the importance of what they do in organizationsand their skill
in doing it" (p. 98).
2. "Interestingly enough the push to implement such [rational] manage-
ment practices [as linear programming, PPBS, zero-based budgeting] is
often intensified during times of financial problems or resource scarcity.
Thus, just at the very moment when the decision making process is likely
to become even more politicized because of the increasing level of scarcity,
an attempt may be made to impose a procedure requiring assumptions of
goal consistency" (p. 95).
3. "Failure [of a policy] is justified to argue for more resources [e.g.,
we're doing the right thing, we just haven't done enough of it] and many
of these resourcesare provided to those in power to enhance the implemen-
tation of policies already undertaken; these resources,then, serve to further
institutionalize the power of those already in the dominant coalition in
the organization. Indeed, nothing may succeed like failure, at least for a
while" (p. 298).
4. "Ironically, at the very time the organizationfaces a crisis which may
have resulted from inattention to the demands of the environment or from
failures of policy, psychological dynamics [such as tightened control and
centralizationof authority] are set in motion which reduce contact with the
external environment,place a premium on loyalty and commitment to al-
ready chosen policies, and define as treasonous any kind of deviation from
the adopted line" (pp. 324-25).
5. "Among the critical skills which are needed by managerswho are fill-
ing administrative roles in organizations in which power and politics play
an important part are a tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity and the
ability to confront and manage conflict and advocacy. Training in advo-
cacy, case preparation and presentation, and power and politics including
the use of symbolic acts and language, may be more appropriate training
for the managerin a political organization; at least such skills can be useful
as supplements to the technical analytic skills that seem now to dominate
business education" (p. 354).

606

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:30:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Book Reviews

The most striking feature of this book is that it has much wider value
than its title implies. This is more than just a book about power and in-
fluence. It is a thoughtful, precise introductionto the study of organizations
in general. The first four chapters, for example, provide one of the best
available introductions to the field of organizational analysis. Chapter 1,
by itself, informs the reader of four major perspectives on organizations
(rational decision making, bureaucratic,decision process, political) and in-
dicates where each makes predictions not handled by the other three. In
addition, the first chapter introduces the tension between applied and basic
work, describes political issues that infuse the field itself, and illustrates
ways to differentiatethe four positions on issues where they seem to be say-
ing the same thing.
What is even more remarkableis that, even though the book avowedly
employs a macro perspective grounded in basic empirical sociology, it is
extremely strong in its treatment of social psychology (e.g., commitment,
informationalinfluence,escalation); process variables (e.g., tactics of power
utilization); cognitive accompanimentsof structure (e.g., definitions of the
situation); and organizational change (e.g., institutionalization reduces
adaptability).
This book is neither derivative nor merely eclectic. It has a distinctive
voice. The chapters cohere and are tied together by common themes. There
is an emphasis on accurate exposition that is evident in the detailed outlines
that organize sections, the informative chapter headings, and the avoidance
of clever but opaque phrases. Examples are abundant and tend toward set-
tings that even researcherswho have not ventured outside academe are fa-
miliar with (e.g., schools of management, university budget making, pro-
fessional societies).
With the publication of this book the field of organizationalstudies now
seems to have a critical mass of literature that provides an accurate repre-
sentation of the field. Relevant items include: R. Scott, Organizations:
Rational, Natural and Open Systems; J. Pfeffer and G. Salancik, The Ex-
ternal Control of Organizations; J. March and J. Olsen, Ambiguity and
Choice in Organizations; H. Aldrich, Organizations and Environments;
J. March and H. Simon, Organizations; R. Hall, Organizations:Structure
and Process, 2d ed.; M. Meyer, Environments and Organizations; J. Gal-
braith, Designing Complex Organizations; K. Weick, Social Psychology
of Organizing, 2d ed.; Robert Miles, Macro OrganizationalBehavior and
Coffin Nails and Corporate Strategies; B. Staw and L. Cummings, series
on Research in Organizational Behavior; A. Van de Ven and E. Joyce,
Perspectives on Organization Design and Behavior; G. Allison, Essence
of Decision; W. Ouchi, Theory Z; R. M. Kanter, Men and Women of
the Corporation; B. Nystrom and W. Starbuck, Handbook of Organiza-
tional Design; and forthcoming volumes by T. Peters, M. Hannan and
J. Freeman, and W. McKelvey. Given the existence of this critical mass of
resources in the understandingof organizations, this seems like the right
time to initiate "new wave" organizationalstudies that begin to edit, prune,

607

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:30:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
American Journal of Sociology

apply, and synthesize what we have in order to see what we do not have
yet, what we have too much of, and what we agree on as the basics. What
makes this assessment plausible is the fact that Pfeffer has shown that the
several perspectives now dotting the field can converge more strongly on a
problem than mere lists of propertiescan.
The legacy of Graham Allison's analysis of the Cuban missile crisis has
been the implication that to study organizations by using multiple per-
spectives requiresattaching the perspectives, one at a time, to see what they
do and do not highlight. And the result of that sequential one-at-a-time
application is the analysis. Pfeffer does not do that. He applies multiple
perspectives simultaneously to a durable puzzle in organizationsand shows
not only that power is less puzzling than we thought but also that all per-
spectives we are currently working with have something to say about how
that puzzle can be untangled most meaningfully.
In doing so, Pfeffer has made a major contribution in the form of an
important book.

Corporate Control, Corporate Power. By Edward S. Herman. New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. xv+432. $18.95.

David Swartz
Boston University

Debate over the separation of ownership from control has framed most of
the theoretical and empirical work on the issue of power and structure of
the modern corporation.Initially articulated in 1932 by Berle and Means,
the idea that managerial control has replaced the prerogatives of owners
has found expression in theories of organizationalbehavior, social stratifi-
cation, and political sociology.
Managerial theory has been firmly buttressed by input from organiza-
tional sociology. If managementis freed from the dictates of stockholders,
then corporationscan be equated with bureaucracieswhere organizational
interests rather than profits become the overriding concern. This way of
articulating the issue has had profound consequencesfor political sociology
and stratification theory. For if there is a non-owningmanagerialclass that
oversees the large corporations, then the distribution of economic power
would seem to be pluralistic, and organizational position and expertise
rather than property relations would represent the key stratificationdimen-
sions of Americansociety.
Major contributors to this debate have tended to take sharply opposing
positions, either asserting the autonomy of non-owning managers (Bell,
Burnham, Dahrendorf, and Galbraith) or directing their efforts to docu-
menting the continued importance of family ownershipand growing domi-

608

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:30:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions