9061 MBR Spring 2012: Intra-organizational relationships continued... Lecture 19 Power Lecture 20 Political Behaviour (and Conflict) Lecture 21 Revision

Lecture 19 Power Aims:  Consider nature of power including Lukes’s dimensions  Identify (some) sources of power – both vertical and horizontal  Dependence, vulnerability and subordinate power  Cross-cultural dimensions in Lecture 20.

Power is pervasive in the life of organisations  Customer/client/consumer power  Stakeholder power  For our purposes now the focus on power relationships within organisations

Legitimacy and the birth of modern organizations

Power defined  Dahl (1961) A and B model A has power over B to the extent s/he can get B to do something they (B) would not otherwise do A process therefore which could involve could involve Rational persuasion Manipulative persuasion Inducement Threat/coercion Physical force

Subtlety and visibility Lukes (2005) Dimension 1 Securing decisions for agreement Dimension 2 Decision-making agendas Dimension 3 Institutionalised power

But what about the ‘electronic parent’? Self-monitoring...or saving 25$ per day in human intervention

Classical Sources of Power. French & Raven (1958)  Legitimate power. Authority due to rank and/or position  Expert power. Relevant and ‘superior’ knowledge  Reward power. Access to valued rewards (psychological contract?)  Coercive power. Penalty and sanction.  Referent power. Normally viewed as inversely related Golf club analogy again?

Normally applied to ‘vertical’ and top-down’ power

Some More Recent Thoughts  Imagery and language  Gender e.g. Morgan (1986): Queen Elizabeth 1, Amazon, Delilah, etc strategies Or Henry VIII, Warrior, Playboy, Father,etc strategies

Horizontal Power Strategic Contingencies. Relate to departments or other sub-units.  Dependency materials through to information.  Financial resources (follow the money.)  Centrality...e.g. in a university?  Non-substitutability  Dealing with uncertainty...e.g. HRM post-2008.

Dependency and ‘lower-order’ power  Scarce knowledge...see Lamborghini story in Reading Pack  Centrality to process Crozier (1964) parallel power of the maintenance men or 21 st century ‘techie’ power Ways of overcoming such power?

Everyday Mischief and Organisational Misbehaviour -see Lecture 20.  Negotiation of everyday power relations and the indulgency pattern

Summary.  Power relations are pervasive within organisations...’a continual battle’ – see Robbins in Reading Pack.  Power therefore not a negative topic.  Subtle definitions and levels.  Sources of power.  Power and dependency – so not just top-down.  Link to politcal behaviour.