Organizational Behavior

Eighteenth Edition, Global Edition

Chapter 11
Power and Politics

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Learning Objectives (1 of 2)
11.1 Contrast leadership and power.
11.2 Explain the three bases of formal power and the two
bases of personal power.
11.3 Explain the role of dependence in power
relationships.
11.4 Identify power or influence tactics and their
contingencies.

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Learning Objectives (2 of 2)
11.5 Identify the causes and consequences of abuse
of power.
11.6 Describe how politics work in organizations.
11.7 Identify the causes, consequences, and ethics of
political behavior.

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Define Power and Contrast
Leadership and Power (1 of 2)
• Power refers to a capacity that A has to influence the
behavior of B, so that B acts in accordance with A’s
wishes.
– Power may exist but not be used.
• Probably the most important aspect of power is that it is
a function of dependence.
– A person can have power over you only if he or she
controls something you desire.

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Define Power and Contrast
Leadership and Power (2 of 2)
• Leaders use power as a means of attaining group goals.
– Goal compatibility
 Power does not require goal compatibility, merely
dependence.
– The direction of influence.
 Leadership focuses on the downward influence on
one’s followers.
– Leadership research emphasizes style.

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Explain Formal Power and Personal
Power (1 of 2)
• Formal Power
– Coercive Power
– Reward Power
– Legitimate Power
• Personal Power
– Expert Power
– Referent Power

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Explain Formal Power and Personal
Power (2 of 2)
• Which Bases of Power Are Most Effective?
– Personal sources are most effective.
– Both expert and referent power are positively related
to employees’ satisfaction with supervision, their
organizational commitment, and their performance,
whereas reward and legitimate power seem to be
unrelated to these outcomes.
– Coercive power can be damaging.

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Explain the Role of Dependence
in Power Relationships (1 of 3)
• The General Dependency Postulate
– When you possess anything others require but that you
alone control, you make them dependent upon you
and, therefore, you gain power over them.
– Dependence, then, is inversely proportional to the
alternative sources of supply.

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Explain the Role of Dependence
in Power Relationships (2 of 3)
• What Creates Dependence?
– Importance
– Scarcity
– Nonsubstitutability

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Explain the Role of Dependence
in Power Relationships (3 of 3)
Exhibit 11-1 An Organizational Sociogram

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Identify Power or Influence Tactics
and their Contingencies
• Influence tactics:
– Legitimacy
– Rational persuasion
– Inspirational appeals
– Consultation
– Exchange
– Personal appeals
– Ingratiating
– Pressure
– Coalitions

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Identify Nine Power or Influence
Tactics and their Contingencies (1 of 4)
• Some tactics are more effective than others.
– Rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, and
consultation are most effective when the audience
is highly interested in the outcomes.
– Pressure tends to backfire.
– Both ingratiation and legitimacy can lessen the
negative reactions from appearing to “dictate”
outcomes.

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Identify Nine Power or Influence
Tactics and their Contingencies (2 of 4)
Exhibit 11-2 Preferred Power Tactics by Influence Direction

Upward Influence Downward Influence Lateral Influence

Rational persuasion Rational persuasion Rational persuasion
Blank Inspirational appeals Consultation
Blank Pressure Ingratiation
Blank Consultation Exchange
Blank Ingratiation Legitimacy
Blank Exchange Personal appeals
Blank Legitimacy Coalitions

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Identify Nine Power or Influence
Tactics and their Contingencies (3 of 4)
• People in different countries prefer different power tactics.
– Individualistic countries see power in personalized
terms and as a legitimate means of advancing their
personal ends.
– Collectivistic countries see power in social terms and
as a legitimate means of helping others.

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Identify Nine Power or Influence
Tactics and their Contingencies (4 of 4)
• Applying Power Tactics
– People differ in terms of their political skill: their ability
to influence others to enhance their own objectives.
 The politically skilled are more effective users of all
the influence tactics.
– Cultures within organizations differ markedly: some are
warm, relaxed, and supportive; others are formal and
conservative.
 People who fit the culture of the organization tend to
obtain more influence.

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Causes and Consequences of Abuse
of Power (1 of 4)
• Does power corrupt?
– Power leads people to place their own interests ahead
of others.
– Powerful people react, especially negatively, to any
threats to their competence.
– Power leads to overconfident decision making.
– Power doesn’t affect everyone in the same way, and
there are even positive effects of power.

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Causes and Consequences of Abuse
of Power (2 of 4)
• Sexual harassment: any unwanted activity of a sexual
nature that affects an individual’s employment and creates
a hostile work environment.
– Organizations have generally made progress in the
past decade toward limiting overt forms of sexual
harassment.
• Managers have a responsibility to protect their employees
from a hostile work environment, but they also need to
protect themselves.

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Causes and Consequences of Abuse
of Power (3 of 4)
• Mangers should:
– Make sure an active policy defines what constitutes
sexual harassment, informs employees they can be
fired for sexually harassing another employee, and
establishes procedures for how complaints can be
made.
– Reassure employees that they will not encounter
retaliation if they issue a complaint.

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Causes and Consequences of Abuse
of Power (4 of 4)
• In addition, managers should:
– Investigate every complaint and include the legal
and human resource departments.
– Make sure offenders are disciplined or terminated.
– Set up in-house seminars to raise employee
awareness of the issues surrounding sexual
harassment.

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Describe How Politics Work in
Organizations (1 of 2)
• Political behavior: activities that are not required as part
of one’s formal role in the organization, but that influence
the distribution of advantages within the organization.
– Outside of one’s specified job requirements.
– Encompasses efforts to influence decision- making
goals, criteria, or processes.
– Includes such behaviors as withholding information,
whistle-blowing, spreading rumors, and leaking
confidential information.

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Describe How Politics Work in
Organizations (2 of 2)
OB POLL Importance of Organizatoinal Politics from

Source: Based on D. Crampton, “Is How Americans Feel about Their Jobs Changing?” (September 28, 2012),
http://corevalues.com/employee-motivation/is-how-americans-feel-about-their-jobs-changing.

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Causes and Consequences of
Political Behavior (1 of 7)
Exhibit 11-3 Factors That Influence Political Behavior

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Causes and Consequences of
Political Behavior (2 of 7)
Exhibit 11-4 Employee Responses to Organizational Politics from

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Causes and Consequences of
Political Behavior (3 of 7)
Exhibit 11-5 Defensive Behaviors
Avoiding Action
Overconforming. Strictly interpreting your responsibility by saying things like “The rules clearly
state...”or “This is the way we’ve always done it.”
Buck passing. Transferring responsibility for the execution of a task or decision to someone else.
Playing dumb. Avoiding an unwanted task by falsely pleading ignorance or inability.
Stretching. Prolonging a task so that one person appears to be occupied—for example, turning a
two-week task into a 4-month job.
Stalling. Appearing to be more or less supportive publicly while doing little or nothing privately.
Avoiding Blame
Bluffing. Rigorously documenting activity to project an image of competence and thoroughness,
known as “covering your rear.”
Playing safe. Evading situations that may reflect unfavorably. It includes taking on only projects with
a high probability of success, having risky decisions approved by superiors, qualifying expressions of
judgment, and taking neutral positions in conflicts.
Justifying. Developing explanations that lessen one’s responsibility for a negative outcome and/or
apologizing to demonstrate remorse, or both.

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Causes and Consequences of
Political Behavior (4 of 7)
[Exhibit 11-5 Continued]

Scapegoating. Placing the blame for a negative outcome on external factors that are not entirely
blameworthy.
Misrepresenting. Manipulation of information by distortion, embellishment, deception, selective
presentation, or obfuscation.

Avoiding Change

Prevention. Trying to prevent a threatening change from occurring.

Self-protection. Acting in ways to protect one’s self-interest during change by guarding information
or other resources.

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Causes and Consequences of
Political Behavior (5 of 7)
• Impression management (IM): the process by which
individuals attempt to control the impression others form of
them.
– Mostly high self-monitors.
– Impressions people convey are not necessarily false –
they might truly believe them.
– Intentional misrepresentation may have a high cost.
• The effectiveness of IM depends on the situation.

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Causes and Consequences of
Political Behavior (6 of 7)
• The Ethics of Behaving Politically
– Questions to consider:
 What is the utility of engaging in politicking?
 How does the utility of engaging in the political
behavior balance out any harm (or potential harm) it
will do to others?
 Does the political activity conform to standards of
equity and justice?

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Causes and Consequences of
Political Behavior (7 of 7)
Exhibit 11-7 Drawing Your Political Map

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Implications for Managers (1 of 2)
• To maximize your power, increase others’ dependence on you.
For instance, increase your power in relation to your boss by
developing a needed knowledge or skill for which there is no
ready substitute.
• You will not be alone in attempting to build your power bases.
Others, particularly employees and peers, will be seeking to
increase your dependence on them, while you are trying to
minimize it and increase their dependence on you.
• Try to avoid putting others in a position where they feel they
have no power.

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Implications for Managers (2 of 2)
• By assessing behavior in a political framework, you can better
predict the actions of others and use that information to
formulate political strategies that will gain advantages for you
and your work unit.
• Consider that employees who have poor political skills or are
unwilling to play the politics game generally relate perceived
organizational politics to lower job satisfaction and self-reported
performance, increased anxiety, and higher turnover. Therefore,
if you are adept at organizational politics, help your employees
understand the importance of becoming politically savvy.

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