Organizational Strategies with Power (Part 2)

Controlling Strategic Contingencies – How Subunits Obtain Power

• Subunit Power: the degree of power held by various organizational subunits, such as departments
• Strategic contingencies: critical factors affecting organizational effectiveness that are controlled by a key subunit. This means that the work of other subunits perform is contingent on the activities and performance of a key subunit.
  • Scarcity
    • Differences in subunit power are likely to be magnified when resources become scarce. If budget cuts occur, differences in power will become apparent. Subunits tend to acquire power when they are able to secure scarce resources that are important to the organization as a whole.
  • Uncertainty
    • Organizations hate the unknown. Unanticipated events wreak havoc with financial commitments, long-range plans, and tomorrow’s operations.
  • Centrality
    • Subunits whose activities are most central to the work flow of the organization should acquire more power than those whose activities are more peripheral.
  • Substitutability
    • A subunit will have relatively little power if others inside or outside the organization can perform its activities. If the subunit’s staff is nonsubstitutable, however, it can acquire substantial power.

Organizational Politics – Using and Abusing Power

• The Basics of Organizational Politics
  • Organizational politics: the pursuit of self-interest in an organization, whether or not this self-interest corresponds to organizational goals. Politics involves using means of influence that the organization does not sanction or pursuing ends or goals that are not sanctioned by the organization.
    • Sanctioned means/sanctioned ends: power is used routinely to pursue agreed-on goals. Familiar, accepted means of influence are employed to achieve sanctioned outcomes
    • Sanctioned means/nonsanctioned ends: acceptable means of influence are abused to pursue goals that the organization does not approve.
    • Nonsanctioned means/sanctioned ends: ends that are useful for the organization are pursued through questionable means
    • Nonsanctioned means/nonsanctioned ends: Exemplifies the most flagrant abuse of power, since disapproved tactics are used to pursue disapproved outcomes.
• The Facets of Political Skill
  • Political skill: the ability to understand others at work and to use that knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one’s personal or organizational objectives. Political skill involves: social astuteness (good politicians are careful observers who are tuned in to others’ needs & motives), interpersonal influence (politically skilled have a convincing and persuasive interpersonal style but employ it flexibly to meet the needs of the situation), apparent sincerity (influence attempts will be seen as manipulative unless they are accompanied by sincerity)
  • Networking: establishing good relations with key organizational members and outsiders to accomplish one’s goals. It is an effective way to develop informal social contacts.
• Machiavellianism – The Harder Side of Politics
  • Machiavellianism: a set of cynical beliefs about human nature, morality, and the permissibility of using various tactics to achieve one’s ends.  Machiavellianism is a stable personality trait.
  • High Machs are more likely to advocate the use of lying and deceit to achieve desired goals and to argue that morality can be compromised to fit the situation in question. High Machs assume that many people are excessively gullible and do not know what is best for themselves. High Machs are exceedingly practical mannered, assuming that the ends justify the means. High Macs also do not feel guilty. High Machs are able to accurately identify situations in which their favoured tactics will work.
• Defensiveness—Reactive Politics
  • Reactive politics attempts to reduce threats to one’s own power by avoiding actions that do not suit one’s own political agenda or avoiding blame for events that might threaten one’s political capital. They use the following: stalling, overconforming (sticking to your job description), buck passing (having someone else take action to avoid damage to self)
  • Avoiding blame tactics: buffing (carefully documenting information showing that an appropriate course of action was followed), scapegoating (blaming others when things go wrong)

Ethics in Organizations

• Ethics: systematic thinking about the moral consequences of decisions
• Stakeholders: people inside or outside of an organization who have the potential to be affected by organizational decisions.
• Causes of Unethical Behaviour
  • Gain: It is critical to recognize the role of temptation in unethical activity. The anticipation of healthy reinforcement for following an unethical course of action, especially if no punishment is expected, should promote unethical decisions
  • Role conflict: Many ethical dilemmas that occur in organizations are actually forms of role conflict (ch. 7) that get resolved in an unethical way. Consider ethical corporate social responsibility. An executive’s role as a custodian of the environment (do not pollute) might be at odds with his or her role as a community provider (do not close the plant that pollutes). A very common form of role conflict that provokes unethical behaviour occurs when our “bureaucratic” role as an organizational employee is at odds with our role as the member of a profession.
  • Competition: Stiff competition for scarce resources can stimulate unethical behaviour. This has been observed in both business game simulations and industry studies of illegal acts, in which trade offences, such as price fixing and monopoly violations, have been shown to increase with industry decline.
  • Personality: Business game simulations have shown that people with strong economic values  are more likely to behave unethically than those with weaker economic values
• Whistle-blowing
  • Whistle-blowing: disclosure of illegitimate practices by a current or former organizational member to some person or organization that might be able to take action to correct these practises.

Category: Organizational Behaviour