1. Chapter 10 Power and Politics
Build capacity to get things done

2. Chapter 10 Study Questions
What are power and influence?
What are the key sources of power and influence?
What is empowerment?
What is organizational politics?
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

3. What are power and influence?
The ability to get someone to do something you want done
The ability to make things happen in the way you want
Influence
Expressed by others’ behavioral response to your exercise of power
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4. What are power and influence?
Interdependence
Legitimacy
Obedience
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5. What are power and influence?
Acceptance of authority
Subordinates accepted or followed a managerial directive only if subordinate :
must understand the directive
must be capable of carrying out the directive
must believe directive is consistent with organization’s purpose and personal interests
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

6. What are power and influence?
Zone of indifference
range of authoritative requests to which a subordinate is willing to respond without subjecting the directives to critical evaluation or judgment
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7. Figure 10.1
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8. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Position power
derives from a person’s position in the organizational hierarchy
stems from roots associated with the position
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

9. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Types of position power
Legitimate power
Reward power
Coercive power
Process power
Information power
Representative power
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

10. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Legitimate power
The extent to which a manager can use subordinates’ internalized values or beliefs that the boss has the “right of command” to control their behavior
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

11. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Reward power
The extent to which a manager can use extrinsic and intrinsic rewards to control other people
Coercive power
The extent to which a manager can deny desired rewards and administer punishment to control other people
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

12. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Process power
The control over methods of production and analysis that a manager has due to being in a position to influence how inputs are transformed into outputs for the firm
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

13. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Information power
The access to and/or control of information
Representative power
The formal right conferred by the firm to speak for a potentially important group composed of individuals across departments or outside the firm
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14. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Personal power
resides in the individual
independent of that individual’s position
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15. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Bases of personal power
Expertise
Rational persuasion
Reference
Coalitions
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16. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Expert power
The ability to control another person’s behavior through the possession of knowledge, experience, or judgment that the other person does not have but needs
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17. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Rational persuasion
The ability to control another person’s behavior by convincing the other person of the desirability of a goal and a reasonable way of achieving it
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18. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Referent power
The ability to control another’s behavior because the person wants to identify with the power source
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19. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Coalition power
ability to control another’s behavior indirectly because the individual owes an obligation to you or another as part of a larger collective interest
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20. Figure 10.2
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21. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Building influence
Power-oriented is action directed primarily at developing relationships in which other people are willing to defer to one’s wishes
Downward, upward, lateral
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22. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Ways to build position power
Demonstrating work unit relevance to organizational goals and needs
Increasing task relevance of one’s own activities and work unit’s activities
Attempting to define tasks so they are difficult to evaluate
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

23. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Ways to build personal power
Building expertise
Advanced training and education, participation in professional associations, and project involvement
Political savvy
Learning ways to negotiate, persuade, and understand goals and means that others accept
Enhancing likeability
Create personal attraction in relationships with other people
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

24. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Ways that managers increase the visibility of their job performance
Expanding contacts with senior people
Making oral presentations of written work
Participating in problem-solving task forces
Sending out notices of accomplishment
Seeking opportunities to increase name recognition
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25. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Controlling decision premises
A decision premise is a basis for defining the problem and for selecting among alternatives
Executives who want to increase their power will make their goals and needs clear and bargain effectively
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26. What are the key sources of power and influence?
Perfecting influence techniques
Reason
Friendliness
Coalition
Bargaining
Assertiveness
Higher authority
Sanctions
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27. What is empowerment? Empowerment
The process by which managers help others to acquire and use the power needed to make decisions affecting themselves and their work
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

28. What is empowerment? Changing position power
Moving power down the hierarchy alters the existing pattern of position power
Changing this pattern raises the following important questions:
Can “empowered” individuals give rewards and sanctions based on task accomplishment?
Has their new right to act been legitimized with formal authority?
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29. What is empowerment? Expanding the zone of indifference
Management needs to recognize the current zone of indifference and systematically move to expand it
Management should show how empowerment will benefit people and provide the needed inducement
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30. What is empowerment? Power as an expanding pie
Employees need to be trained to expand their power and their new influence potential
The key is to change from a view stressing power over others to one emphasizing the use of power to get things done
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

31. What is organizational politics?
Machiavellian tradition of organizational politics
Emphasizes self-interest and the use of nonsanctioned means
Organizational politics is defined as the management of influence to obtain ends not sanctioned by the organization or to obtain sanctioned ends through nonsanctioned influence means.
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

32. What is organizational politics?
Alternate tradition of organizational politics
Politics is a necessary function resulting from differences in the self-interests of individuals
Politics is the art of creative compromise among competing interests
Politics is the use of power to develop socially acceptable ends and means that balance individual and collective interests
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

33. Figure 10.3
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34. What is organizational politics?
Subunit power
Line units are typically more powerful than are staff groups
Units toward the top of the organizational hierarchy are often more powerful than those toward the bottom
Power differentials are not as pronounced among units at or near the same level in an organization
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

35. What is organizational politics?
Avoidance is quite common where the employee must risk being wrong or where actions may yield a sanction
Common techniques for avoiding action and risk taking
Working to the rules
Playing dumb
Depersonalization
Stalling
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36. What is organizational politics?
Common techniques for redirecting accountability and responsibility
Passing the buck
Buffing (or rigorous documentation)
Preparing a blind memo
Rewriting history
Redirecting
Scapegoating
Blaming the problem on uncontrollable events
Escalating commitment
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

37. What is organizational politics?
Defending turf
Defending turf is a time-honored tradition in most large organizations
Defending turf results when:
Managers seek to increase their power by expanding the jobs their groups perform
Competing interests exist among various departments and groups
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38. What is organizational politics?
Agency theory
Suggests that public corporations can function effectively even though their managers are self-interested and do not automatically bear the full consequences of their managerial actions
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39. What is organizational politics?
Key arguments of agency theory
By protecting stockholder interests, all the interests of society are served
Stockholders have a clear interest in greater returns
Managers are self-interested and must be controlled
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

40. What is organizational politics?
Types of controls instituted for agents
Pay plan incentives that align the interests of management and stockholders
The establishment of a strong, independent board of directors
Stockholders with a large stake in the firm taking an active role on the board
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

41. What is organizational politics?
Resource dependencies
The firm’s need for resources that are controlled by others
The resource dependence of an organization increases as:
Needed resources become more scarce
Outsiders have more control over needed resources
There are fewer substitutes for a particular type of resource controlled by a limited number of outsiders
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

42. What is organizational politics?
Organizational governance
The pattern of authority, influence, and acceptable managerial behavior established at the top of the organization
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.