Power,stakeholders and AR

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Action and Case Research in Management and
Organizational Contexts
Power,stakeholders and AR
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How might power affect an organisation?
About power?

• Internal politics rival departments or
  managers
• External and internal stakeholders
• Everyone involved in the discourse of the
  organisation can affect it in some way
• Other ways

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Faces of Power
Positive Socialised need to initiate, influence
and lead, enabling power Negative Unsocialised
need to dominate over submissive others, seek
control. (McClelland, D., 1961, and 1995).
AR would seek to encourage Positive power,
through involvement and empowerment of a range
of stakeholders
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Management attitudes

• Management may legitimately use Mendelows
  theories to manage some external stakeholders,
  such as Government and Competitors
• It may be less acceptable when managing internal
  stakeholders
• See following diagrams.

AR would seek to encourage Positive power,
through involvement and empowerment of a range
of stakeholders
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Power/Interest matrix ( Mendelow,1991) A
management view
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Power/Dynamism matrix (adapted from Mendelow,1991)
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These attitudes can be challenged by

• Co-opting people with various skills from
  different stakeholder groups
• Presenting a united front
• Learning and using knowledge from the group
• See also Tempered Radicalism (to be discussed
  later, Myerson, 2003).

AR would seek to encourage Positive power,
through involvement and empowerment of a range
of stakeholders
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Sources of power

• Legitimate
• Reward
• Coercive
• Referent (charismatic)
• Expert.

(French Raven,1959.)
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Action science

• Action science can address coercive power (and
  even charismatic and expert power
• By uncovering double binds
• Undiscussability
• Winning/losing behaviour.

(French Raven,1959.)
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Types of power
Associative deriving from the support of a
strong mentor or sponsor, in a position to supply
information and advice and to promote ones
career. Assigned the power that comes from
making oneself indispensable to someone senior,
by taking on tasks which they dislike and would
other wise have to do. Political becoming
politically involved in groups, committees,
unions which have access to information and are
involved in decision making.
(Garavan, et al.,1993)
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• Action research can use some of Garavans types
  of power, especially by using action learning
  sets to influence and exercise power.
• By mobilisation of the groups knowledge
• Group action
• Communication
• Questioning.

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References
French, J. R. P., Raven, B. (1959). The bases of
social power. In Cartwright, D., and Zander, A.,
(Eds.), Group dynamics. New York Harper
Row. Garavan, G.N., Barnicle, B. and Heraty, N.
(1993). The Training and Development Function
Its Search for Power and Influence in
Organizations, Journal of European Industrial
Training, Vol 17, Iss. 7. McClelland, D.C.,
(1961). The Achieving Society New York Van
Nostrand Reinhold, McClelland D.C and Burnham
D.H. (1995). 'Power is the Great Motivator',
Harvard Business Review, 73 January-February
126-39. A. Mendelow, A., (1991). Proceedings of
the Second International Conference of
Information Systems, Cambridge, MA. Meyerson, D.,
(2003). Tempered Radicals how everyday leaders
inspire change at work. Harvard Business School
Press.