BA 5201 Organization and Management Power and politics

1. BA 5201Organization and ManagementPower and politics Instructor: Çağrı Topal

2. Authority • Rationally based formal right to make decisions and influence behavior through instructions or directions to implement those decisions based on formal organizational relationships • Based on private property ownership • Associated with the responsibility to protect the interest of the organization and the owner

3. Managerial authority • Right to make and enforce decisions • Possessed by all managers • Larger with the increase in the hierarchical level • Based on the principle of parity of authority and responsibility

4. Staff authority • Right to make suggestions and recommendations • Possessed by everyone in an organization • Based on the assumption that individuals should know best about their jobs • Not exercised much in practice

5. Situational authority • Right to make binding decisions within a very restricted area or scope • Containing elements of both managerial and staff authority • Delegated to an expert staff by a manager

6. Operative authority • Right to determine certain components of the work and to work without undue supervision • Regarding specific tasks and duties and work conditions • Applying to all levels • Supposed to be reasonably exercised

7. Power • Potential or actual ability to impose one’s will on others • Ability of one person to affect the behavior of someone else in a desired way • Influence that does not necessarily depend on but nevertheless may extend from formal organizational relationships • Not necessarily reflecting hierarchical relationships • Based on single individual characteristics or dependency relationships

8. Individual basesRational or legal or traditional power • Acceptance that its exercise, by another person, agrees with some set of rules or laws or traditions considered legitimate by both parties • Called legitimate power • Function of culture when tradition-based • Identical with authority when rule- or law-based

9. Individual basesReward power • Ability to control and dispense benefits to others • Ability to shape the behavior of others by the act of dispensing or withholding benefits • Based on the size of the reward and the belief that it will be dispensed • Depending on the measurement of the behavior to be rewarded • Indicating a dependency relationship

10. Individual basesCoercive power • Ability to coerce into something or punish another person • Effective to the extent that punishments are considered as punishing actually, strong enough, and likely • Depending on the measurement of desired behaviors or task accomplishments • Changing behaviors • Potentially leading to avoidance and estrangement

11. Individual basesReferent power • Identification with a person in a power position • Not depending on explicit recognition • Indicating role modeling • Observed in hero worship or master/apprentice relationship • Creating strong commitment

12. Individual basesCharismatic power • Influence or power based on one’s personality • Involving no special effort • Helping followers attain personal goals • Possible to involve referent power • Indicating leadership qualities • Easily attracting others • Retained long after loss of official power positions or life

13. Individual basesExpert power • Based on knowledge or special skills or academic and professional credentials • Irrespective of hierarchical positions • Involving a dependency relationship

14. Dependency basesControl of resources • Power of individuals or departments who control critical or scarce resources within an organization • Influencing organizational decisions through control of resources

15. Dependency basesSolving critical contingencies • Power through possessing and using information, knowledge, and special skills • Solving key problems facing an organization or reducing uncertainty • Depending on the degree of pervasiveness of threats or uncertainty

16. Dependency basesSubstitutability • Power of individuals and departments with non-substitutable or difficult-to-substitute skills, expertise, and resources • Outside availability and insiders’ loss of power • New dependency relationships with outsiders

17. Dependency basesLocation in the organization • Being located near power sources • Controlling the availability of decision-makers • Network centrality and access to critical information

18. Dependency basesPosition in the organization • Power based on formal dependency relationships between hierarchical levels • Emergence of informal dependencies • Scarcity of expertise at middle and lower levels due to downsizing • Reliance on sophisticated new technologies used by lower levels • Longer organizational tenure • Vacuum created by a transition in leadership • Following organizational rules strictly

19. How to assess power • Power determinants • Consequences of decisions made by various organizational actors • Power symbols • Representational indicators of power

20. Dominant coalition in power • Group holding extensive power and authority that may be separate from formal power • Key group of decision-makers • In-group members

21. Stickiness of power • Individuals or groups trying to retain power as long as possible • Transition of power problematic and costly • Existing dominant coalitions reframing problems in line with their competencies • New coalitions emerging and struggling for power

22. Politics and power • Different groups different interests and goals • Stakeholder-specific effectiveness • Uncertainty and bounded rationality • Dissociation of formal and informal power • Organizational politics: those activities taken within the organization to acquire, develop, and use power and other resources to obtain one’s preferred outcomes in a situation in which there is uncertainty or a lack of consensus about choices

23. Rational vs. political organizations • Agreement on goals vs. multiple and conflicting goals • Compatibility vs. incompatibility between formal and informal power, and centralized vs. decentralized power • Low to moderate uncertainty overcome by more information vs. extensive uncertainty resulting in power games with information • Rational-economic decision-making vs. bounded rational decision-making