Welcome to

1

• Welcome to
• Bu 288P
• Class 21 Power and Politics

2
Agenda

• Agenda
• Power Who has it and how to get it!
• Organizational Politics
• Reducing the Political Threat
• Ethics in Organizations

3
What is Power?

• Power is the capacity to influence others who are
  in a state of dependence. Both conditions must be
  present
• Any one can be influenced in the organization if
  the right conditions apply staff, peers and
  bosses.

4
The Bases of Individual Power

• There are five bases of individual power
• Legitimate power position authority
• Reward power influence positive outcomes
• Coercive power threat of punishment
• Referent power well liked identify with the
• individual
  interpersonal
• Expert power - special information or
• expertise that is valued

5
Employee Responses to Bases of Power

• Employees are likely to have the following
  response to each base of power
• Legitimate power ? Compliance
• Reward power ? Compliance
• Coercive power ? Compliance
• Referent power ? Commitment
• Expert power ? Commitment

6
How Do People Obtain Power?

• Activities that are more likely to lead to power
  are
• Extraordinary actions and/or achievements
• Highly visible projects and leadership
• Is involved in and can find solutions for
  important organizational problems
• Developing informal relationships with the right
  people

7
Empowerment

• INVOLVES giving people the
• Authority
• Opportunity
• Motivation to take initiative and solve problems
• DOES NOT MEAN LOADING UP PEOPLE WITH MORE WORK
  BECAUSE OF DOWNSIZING OR COST CUTTING
• SHIFTS the power to the individual or group where
  it is most effective
• OUTCOME leads to effective performance when
  people have sufficient power to carry out their
  jobs.

8
Influence Tactics Situational

• Converting Power into Actual Influence over
  others
• Assertiveness
• Ingratiation
• Rationality
• Exchange
• Upward appeal
• Coalition formation

9
Who Wants Power?

• Reliable personality characteristic
• (n Pow) - need to have influence over others.
• Effective in good or corrupt circumstances
• Institutional managers
• Have a high n Pow.
• Use their power to achieve organizational goals.
• Adopt a participative or coaching leadership
  style.
• Are relatively unconcerned with how much others
  like them.
• More effective than personal or affiliative
  managers

10
Who Wants Power? (continued)

• Personal power managers - use their power for
  personal gain
• Affiliative managers, who are more concerned with
  being liked than with exercising power.
• Subunit power - degree of power held by various
  organizational departments etc.
• Subunits gain power by controlling strategic
  contingencies.

11
Whose Got the Power?Controlling Strategic
Contingencies

• Conditions under which subunits control strategic
  contingencies
• Scarcity procurement and/or control of limited
  resources
• Uncertainty coping and/or the ability to adapt
• Centrality large influence on central process
  and high impact on the quality and quantity of
  key products or services.
• Substitutability difficult to replace or
  outsource

12
Organizational Politics

• The pursuit of self-interest does it benefit
  the individual or a sub-unit of the organization?
  Good or Bad?
• Most people will resist political influence
• Political activity is self-conscious and
  intentional.
• Can have positive outcomes through questionable
  or unethical tactics

13
4 Dimensions of Organizational Politics

• Sanctioned means/sanctioned ends
• Nonpolitical job behaviour
• Sanctioned means/nonsanctioned ends
• Organizationally dysfunctional political
  behaviour
• Nonsanctioned means/sanctioned ends
• Political behaviour potentially functional to the
  organization
• Nonsanctioned means/nonsanctioned ends
• Organizationally dysfunctional political
  behaviour

14
Enabling Politics to Flourish

• What is it about the following conditions and
  locations
• Middle and upper management levels.
• Subunits with vague goals and complex tasks.
• Resource scarcity (e.g., budget allocation,
  staffing etc.).
• Uncertainty
• Bandwagon culture

15
Machiavellianism

• Set of beliefs about what is acceptable in order
  to meet ones goals
• Using various, sometimes undesirable tactics to
  achieve ones ends, often at the expense of
  others.
• High self esteem and high self confidence.
• Alliances with powerful people achieve desired
  goals.
• End often justify the means.

16
Machiavellianism (continued)

• High Machs use their tactics best in the
  following kinds of situations
• Face-to-face encounters.
• Fairly emotional circumstances.
• The situation is fairly unstructured, with few
  guidelines for appropriate forms of interaction.

17
Networking

• Subtle form of political behaviour is networking.
• Involves establishing good relations with key
  organizational members and/or outsiders in order
  to accomplish ones goals.

18
Reducing the Threat - Reactive Politics

• Concerns the defense or protection of
  self-interest.
• Goal
• avoiding actions reduce threats to ones own
  power and political agenda
• Sometimes the best action is no action at all
• avoiding blame for events that might threaten
  ones political capital.

19
Defensive Behaviours

• Avoiding taking direct action
• Stalling
• Over conforming
• Buck passing
• Avoiding personal blame
• Buffing
• Scapegoating

20
Ethics in Organizations

• Ethics systematic thinking about the moral
  consequences of decision making.
• Moral consequences can be framed in terms of the
  potential to harm any stakeholders in the
  decision.
• Perception of what is ethical can vary greatly
• Tradeoffs (cost/benefit)
• Harm (to who and by how much?)
• Short or long term?

21
The Nature of Ethical Dilemmas

• Top 4 Ethical dilemmas
• Conflicts of interest
• Questionable gift giving
• Sexual harassment
• Workplace fraud

22
Common Ethical Considerations for Managers

• Honest communication
• Fair treatment
• Special consideration
• Fair competition
• Responsibility to organization
• Corporate social responsibility
• Respect for law

23
Causes of Unethical Behaviour

• The anticipation of healthy reinforcement or
  gain.
• Role conflict - bureaucratic role vs
  professional membership role
• Stiff competition for scarce resources.
• Certain personality types are more prone to
  unethical behaviour (e.g., economic values, high
  need for personal power).
• People who are more self-conscious about moral
  matters are more likely to avoid unethical
  decisions.
• The culture of an organization and an
  organizations industry can influence ethics.

24
Sexual Harassment

• Unethical power not consensual
• Abuse of position power
• Gender power imbalance in the workplace.
• Involves coercion of sexual cooperation by threat
  of job-related consequences
• Unwanted and offensive sex-related verbal or
  physical conduct.
• Most likely in male-dominated industries and
  organizations.
• Organizations are slow to react to complaints
  -known as the deaf ear syndrome.

25
Resolving Sexual Harassment

• Recommendations for dealing with sexual
  harassment
• Examine the characteristics of deaf ear
  organizations.
• Foster management support and education.
• Stay vigilant.
• Take immediate action.
• Create a state-of-the-art policy.
• Establish clear reporting procedures.

26
Creating an Ethical Culture

• Communicate and discuss impending decisions with
  all affected stakeholders
• Identify the true costs (risks) and benefits
• Consider the moral expectations that surround a
  particular decision.
• Anticipate common ethical dilemmas
• Convert your ethical judgments into appropriate
  action.
• Training and education in ethics