Chapter Eleven

1. Chapter Eleven Power, Politics, And Conflict Thomson South-Western Wagner & Hollenbeck 5e

2. Chapter Overview • This chapter examines the following topics: • Power in Organizations • Interpersonal Sources of Power • Conformity Responses to Interpersonal Power • A Model of Interpersonal Power: Assessment • Structural Sources of Power • The Critical Contingencies Models: Assessment • Politics and Political Processes • Personality and Politics • Conditions That Stimulate Politics • Political Tactics • Managing Destructive Politics • Conflict in Organizations • Is Conflict Necessarily Bad? • Conditions That Stimulate Conflict • Effects of Conflict • Negotiation and Restructuring • Managing Diverging Interests • Managing Structural Interdependence

3. Introduction • Power, politics, and conflict in firms can increase productivity and efficiency or reduce them substantially • Understanding power, politics, and conflict is critical to managerial success and survival in today’s business organizations

4. Power in Organizations • Power is the ability both to influence the conduct of others and to resist unwanted influence in return • According to David McClelland, people are driven to gain and use power by a need for power • This need for power can have several different affects on the way people think and behave

5. In their pioneering research, John French and Bertram Raven identified the major bases or sources of power in organizations Reward power: based on the ability to allocate desirable outcomes Coercive power: based on the distribution of undesirable outcomes Legitimate power: based on norms, values, and beliefs that teach that particular people have the legitimate right to govern or influence others Referent (or charismatic) power: possessed by someone who is highly admired Expert power: derives from the possession of expertise, knowledge, and talent Interpersonal Sources of Power

6. Conformity Responses to Interpersonal Power • Three distinctly different types of reactions are likely to occur as people respond to attempts to influence their behavior • Compliance: ensues when people conform to the wishes or directives of others so as to acquire favorable outcomes for themselves in return • Identification: occurs when people accept the direction or influence of others because they identify with the power holders and seek to maintain relationships with them • Internalization: people may adopt others’ attitudes and behaviors because this course of action satisfies their personal needs or those attitudes and behaviors are congruent with their personal values

7. A Model of Interpersonal Power: Assessment • French and Raven describe the different kinds of interpersonal power used in organization and Kelman identifies how people respond to this use • Although valuable as a tool for understanding power and its consequences, the model integrating these ideas is not without fault • Questions arise as to whether the five bases of power are completely independent or whether they are so closely interrelated as to be virtually indistinguishable • The idea that reward, coercive, and legitimate power often derive from company policies and procedures has led some researchers to subsume these three types of power in a single category labeled organizational power • Similarly, because expert and referent power are both based on personal expertise and charisma, they are sometimes lumped together into the category of personal power • The model created by joining French and Raven’s classification scheme with Kelman’s theory is useful in analyzing social influence and interpersonal power

8. Structural Sources of Power • Power also derives from the structure of patterned work activities and flows of information found in every organization • Characteristics of organizations that shape power relations include: • Uncertainty reduction • Substitutability • Centrality • These three variables combine to form the critical contingencies model of power

9. Critical contingencies are the things that an organization and its various parts need to accomplish organizational goals and continue surviving Ways to reduce uncertainty include: Resource control Information control Decision-making control Reducing uncertainty depends partly on their substitutability If others can serve as substitutes and reduce uncertainty, then individuals or departments that need help in coping can turn to a variety of sources for aid The less substitutability present in a situation, the more likely that a particular person or group will be able to amass power Uncertainty ReductionSubstitutability

10. Centrality • The ability of a person or group to acquire power is also influenced by its centrality or its position within the flow of work in the organization

11. The Critical Contingencies Model: Assessment • Research strongly supports the critical contingencies model’s suggestion that power is a function of uncertainty reduction, substitutability, and centrality • An intriguing piece of evidence supporting the critical contingencies model was discovered by Michel Crozier • Government-owned tobacco company example • The critical contingencies model appears to describe the structural bases of power quite accurately • Its utility for contemporary managers lies in the observation that the roots of power lie in the ability to solve crucial organizational problems

12. Politics and Political Processes • Politics can be defined as activities in which individuals or groups engage so as to acquire and use power to advance their own interests • In essence, politics is power in action • Although political behavior can be disruptive, it is not necessarily bad • Politics can enhance organizational well-being by ridding companies of familiar but dysfunctional ways of doing things • Research indicates that politicking does occur and has measurable effects on organizational behavior

13. Personality and Politics • Researchers have suggested that people who exhibit the personality characteristic of machiavellianism, the tendency to seek to control other people through opportunistic, manipulative behavior, may also be inclined toward politics • Studies have indicated that self-conscious people may be less likely than others to become involved in office politics because they fear being singled out as a focus of public attention and being evaluated negatively for engaging in politics

14. Conditions That Stimulate Politics • Certain conditions encourage political activity in organizations: • Uncertainty • Organizational size • Hierarchical level • Membership heterogeneity • Decision importance • Politicking is more prevalent in larger organizations than small ones and more common among middle and upper managers • Important decisions stimulate more politics than unimportant decisions

15. Political Tactics • When personal characteristics and surrounding conditions favor them, a variety of political tactics may surface • Each tactic is intended to increase the power of one person or group relative to others • When power increases, so does the likelihood that the person or group will be able to seek out and acquire self-interested gains

16. Forming coalitions or political affiliations with each other represents an important way for people to increase their power and pursue political gain beyond their individual grasp In cooptation, former rivals become transformed into allies, often by involving them in planning and decision-making processes Ingratiation, the use of praise and compliments to gain favor and acceptance of others, and impression management, involves behaving in ways intended to build a positive image, can be used to build and maintain political relationships Controlling the supply of a critical resource gives people power over those whose success or survival depends on having that resource Political players often attempt to control access to important resources, information, and the people who are the sources of important information or expertise To succeed as a political tactic, controlling access to important resources, information, or people requires eliminating substitutes for these critical resources and discrediting alternative definitions of what is critical Acquiring Interpersonal Power: Forming AffiliationsAcquiring Structural Power: Controlling Critical Resources

17. Negative Politics • If all else fails, a person may gain the political upper hand by attacking or blaming others or making them scapegoats for failures • Another tactic is to denigrate or belittle others’ accomplishments • Either approach involves a direct attack on the interpersonal sources of power that others might possess in an attempt to weaken their political positions • Negative politicking can justify the creation of substitute sources of critical resources or information or reduction of the degree of centrality enjoyed by a person or group

18. Managing Destructive Politics • Some of the consequences when people band together, hoard resources, or belittle each other for no other reason than to get their own way include: • Morale may suffer • Battle lines between contending individuals or groups may impede important interactions • Energy that should be go into productive activities may be spent on planning attacks and counterattacks • Controlling political behavior is a major part of every manager’s job

19. Managing Destructive Politics • Managing destructive politics includes: • Setting an example • Communicating openly • Reducing uncertainty • Managing informal coalitions and cliques • Confronting political game players • Anticipating the emergence of damaging politics

20. Conflict in Organizations • Conflict, a process of opposition and confrontation that can occur in organizations between either individuals or groups, occurs when parties exercise power in the pursuit of valued goals or objectives and obstruct the progress of other parties • The keys in this definition include the idea that conflict involves the use of power in confrontation, that it is a process, and is a problem managers must be able to control

21. Conflict might seem inherently undesirable, but contemporary theorists argue that conflict is not necessarily bad Current research suggests that conflict is often functional, having positive effects Conflict can serve as a red flag signaling the need for change For conflict to occur, three key conditions must exist: Interdependence: where there is dependence on each other for assistance, information, feedback, or other coordinative relations Political indeterminism: the political pecking order is unclear and subject to question Divergence: there must be differences or disagreements worth fighting over Other conditions contributing to conflict include: time orientations, resource allocations, practices used to evaluate and reward, status discrepancies, jurisdictional disputes, and differing values, assumptions, and general perceptions Is Conflict Necessarily Bad?Conditions That Stimulate Conflict

22. Effects of Conflict • Conflict affects relationships among people and groups in many ways: • Increased group cohesiveness • Stimulates an emphasis on task performance • Submission to autocratic leadership • Structural rigidity • “We-they” attitudes • Distorted perceptions of opposing groups • Decrease in communication

23. Negotiation and Restructuring • A variety of conflict-management techniques have been developed to help resolve conflict and deal with the negative effects • In general, these techniques are of two types, bargaining and negotiation procedures that focus on managing divergence among the interests of conflicting parties and restructuring techniques that focus on managing interdependence between conflicting individuals and groups

24. Managing Diverging Interests • Bargaining between conflicting parties consists of offers, counteroffers, and concessions • Negotiation is the process in which the parties decide what each will give and take in the exchange • Five general approaches to managing divergent interests exist that are characterized by different mixes of assertiveness and cooperativeness: • Competition • Accommodation • Avoidance • Collaboration • Compromise • The appropriateness of each of these approaches depends on the situation and the time pressure for a negotiated settlement

25. Conflict requires interdependence It can be managed or resolved by restructuring the connections that tie conflicting parties together Ways to accomplish this goal include: Develop superordinate goals Expanding the supply of critical resources Clarify existing relationships Modifying existing structural relationships Decoupling mechanisms of slack resources and self-contained tasks Unit-linking mechanisms: Network information systems Lateral linkage devices: Liaison position Representative groups: task force and standing committees Managing Structural Interdependence

26. Managing Structural Interdependence • When neither liaison positions nor representative groups solve intergroup conflict problems, a third type of linkage device called an integrating manager, can be used • In rare instances a fourth type of lateral linkage device called the matrix organization structure is employed