Organizational Behaviour

Canadian Edition
Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie

Prepared by: Joan Condie

 Chapter 15

Power and Politics

Questions
 What is power?
 How do managers acquire the power that is
needed for leadership?
 What is empowerment and how can managers
empower others?
 What is organizational politics?
 How are managers and management affected by
organizational politics?

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Power
 Power = ability to get someone else to do
something one wants done, or the ability to make
things happen or get things done the way one
wants
 Sources of power:
 Position power (from organizational sources)
 Personal power (from individual sources)

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Position Power
 Legitimate power
 Formal authority; how much the manager can use
the “right of command”; strong basis of power
 Reward power
 Use of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards
 Coercive power
 Use of threats or actual denial of rewards or
administration of punishment

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Position Power (cont’d)
 Process power
 Control over methods of production and analysis
 Information power
 Access to and/or control of information
 Representative power
 Formal right to speak for and to, a potentially
important group

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Personal Power
 Expert power
 Having knowledge, experience, or judgement that
the other person needs but does not have
 Rational persuasion
 Control behaviour through efforts that convince the
person that a goal is desirable and the way to
achieve it is reasonable
 Referent power
 Influence through the other person wanting to
identify with the power source or be like that person
Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Use of Power Sources
 With superiors:
 Upward influence relies on personal power
 With colleagues:
 Lateral influence relies on personal power
 With subordinates:
 Downward influence is based on both position and
personal power
 So an effective manager needs to build and
maintain both personal and position power
Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Building Position Power
 By showing one’s unit is very relevant to
organizational goals and urgent organizational
needs
 E.g.,
• Have information filtered through manager
• Make some of job responsibilities unique
• Expand network of communications contacts
• Occupy office close to main flows of personnel
• Become internal coordinator or external representative
• Provide unique services and information to other units
in time of change

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Building Personal Power
 By building expertise
 Advanced training, participation in professional
organizations, involvement in early stages of
projects
 By becoming politically savvy
 Improve skills in negotiation and persuasion,
understand others’ priorities
 By increasing referent power
 Sincere hard work, agreeable behaviour

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Building Combined Personal
and Position Power
 Increase visibility of job performance
 Expanding contacts with senior people
 Make oral presentations of written work
 Participate in problem-solving task forces
 Seek opportunities to make name known
 Control access to critical info and key organizational
decision-makers
 Developing and using coalitions and networks
 Influence decision premises

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Strategies for
Exercising Influence
 For influencing subordinates, most popular are:
reason, friendliness, assertiveness, bargaining,
higher authority
 Reason (most popular overall)
 Friendliness
 Coalition
 Bargaining
 Assertiveness
 Higher authority
 Sanctions

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Obedience
 Tendency to follow instructions is high and defiance is rare,
as shown by Milgram’s experiments
 Barnard specified that a subordinate only takes orders
when the subordinate:
• Understands the directive
• Feels capable of following the directive
• Believes the directive is consistent with the purpose of the
organization
• Believes the directive is consistent with personal interests
 Obey when in “zone of indifference” – the range of
authoritative requests that a subordinate is willing to follow
without first critically evaluating or judging the directives

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Empowerment
 Empowerment = the process a manager uses to help
others get and use the power they need to make
decisions that affect themselves and their work
 Modern managers are expected to be effective at (and
comfortable with) empowering the people they work
with
 Assumes power to be shared by all in an organization,
not hoarded at the top

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Introducing Empowerment
 Views power as the ability to make things happen, with
a focus on problems and opportunities, not individuals
 Changes position power – what are the legitimate
rights now?
• Need clear definition of roles and responsibilities
 Dynamics between supervisor and subordinates now
change

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Introducing Empowerment
 Employees need to be trained to expand their
power and their new influence potential
• Inducements for thinking and acting, not just
obeying
• Provide opportunities for creative problem-
solving
 Influence strategies must match empowerment
• Friendliness, bargaining, appeals to reason; NOT
coercion, higher authority, sanctions, orders for
compliance
Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Organizational Politics
 Two traditions:
 Politics = managing influence to obtain
ends not approved by the organization
or to obtain approved ends in ways
that are not approved (Machiavellian
approach)

 Politics = the art of creative

compromise among competing self-
interests

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Organizational Politics
 Politics not automatically good or bad
 Dysfunctional:
• Distract from organizational goals
 Functional:
• Provide way of overcoming personnel inadequacies
• Make it easier to adapt to change
• Substitute for formal authority

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Organizational Politics and
Self-Protection
 Using politics to watch out for self
 Three common self-protection strategies:
 Avoidance
• Working to the rules, playing dumb,
depersonalization, stalling
 Redirecting responsibility
• Passing the buck, rigorous documentation, rewriting
history, scapegoating, increasing commitment to
losing cause
 Defending turf
Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Politics, Managers, and Subunits
 Managers linked formally to each other
through intergroup relations:
 Workflow
 Service
 Advisory
 Auditing
 Approval
 More power in line units than staff groups, in units near
top of organization than those at bottom, from approval
and auditing relations, than workflow, advisory; least
power in service relations
Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Politics and Executive Behaviour
 One political role of executives is to develop
workable compromises among competing resource
dependencies
 Resource dependencies increase as needed
resources are harder to get, outsiders gain control
over them, fewer substitutes
 E.g., reduce resource dependence through acquiring
resources in merger, influence external resources
through protection from trade barriers, strategic
alliance to access scarce resources and new
markets
Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Politics and Executive Behaviour
 Importance of political strategy:
 Whether to passively wait for changes or to actively
participate in public political process
 When and how to get involved in the public policy
process
 Trying to transform government from being a
regulator against the industry to being one of its
protectors

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Organizational Governance
 Organizational Governance = the pattern of authority,
influence, and acceptable managerial behaviour that is
decided at the top of the organization
 Key to understanding: the dominant coalition of
powerful individuals
 Daily practice of organizational governance is the
development and resolution of issues
 Used to be an internal and private issue, now more
public and openly controversial, with expectations of
global political savvy and ethical behaviour
Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Ethics in Organizational
Governance
Ethical criteria:
1. Leads to greatest good for greatest number of people?
2. Respects the rights of all affected ?
3. Respects the rules of justice?
Exceptions allowed if:
 Conflicts among or within criteria, or unable to use
criteria
Common rationalizations for unethical behaviour:
 Not illegal so could be moral
 In firm’s best interests
 Won’t be detected
 Shows loyalty
Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Currie Organizational Behaviour, Canadian Edition Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Copyright
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