Dr Selen Kars SU 2: Power & Politics

5X219
Selen.Kars@uwe.
ac.uk Lecture 1 – Organisations:
Rational or Political?
 #1 Xi Jinping
General
Secretary,
Communist Party,
China
      
PHOTO BY KRISZTIAN BOCSI/BLOOMBERG
An Overview
AN INTRODUCTION
What do we mean by ‘politics’ and ‘power’?

ORGANISATIONS: RATIONAL OR POLITICAL?

Rational Political

Unitarist View Pluralist View Radical View

Politics… decision making… conflict and resistance

What is
power and why it
is important?
 Setting the Scene

“Authority and power … [are] political issues, which

“Power and organisational politics are
establish specific forms of superior-subordinate
indisputable parts of everyday life, of every
relations” (Odih and Knights, 2007: 311)
social relationship imaginable, and are at the
heart of organisation. Everyone has to deal
with or will be affected by power and politics
in their organisations”(Fulop and Linstead,
2009: 278) “Power and organisational politics are absolutely
central to a great deal of what normally goes on in
organisations” (Clegg, 2005: 162)

but.... What do we mean by ‘politics’ and ‘power’?

 Understanding
Organisational Politics

“Organisational politics arise when people think

differently and want to act differently” (Morgan,
2006: 152)

• As organisations only have limited

resources, we see on-going ‘turf-wars’
(Lencioni, 2006) to negotiate who gets
what...
• Ultimately, politics refers to recognising
situations of competing interests
Politics = Power in Action
Politics in organizations involves activities
taken to acquire, develop and use power
in order to obtain one’s preferred
outcomes.

Power is the ability to get others to do

what you want them to do, even if this
was against their will. (Weber, 1974)
- Power is the basis of influence.
- Power can be seen as the ability to
resist others.
The Paradox of
Power
Lack of power and its abuse
are equally counter-productive.
This is what Dacher Keltner (UC
Berkeley Haas Business School)
calls the Paradox of Power.

But to be effective and ethical on the

job managers should understand how
power works in organisations.
 So where does power come from?

Rational System Natural System

• Power derived from formal • Different sources of power

position in the hierarchy having to do with relationships
• Legitimate power & formal • Networks, personal
authority because of where you relationships, informal positions,
sit in the organisation chart access to and control over to
critical resources
Some ways of increasing power (Adapted from
Morgan, 2006: 167)

• Formal authority
• Control of scarce resources
• Use of organisational
structure, rules, regulations
• Control of decision processes
• Control of knowledge and
information
• Ability to cope with
Dependency
uncertainty Creation!
Creating dependency to increase power
“anyth
Centrality & Non-substitutability contex
ing can
b
t – the e a resource
(Clegg con in t
• How valuable are the resources in et al 20 text is what he right
08) is impo
rtant”
question? Theref
ore
themse , possessing
• How dependent are we on those lv sc
place o es will not gu arce resource
fa ar s
resources? the spe uthority unle antee power in
c if ic c o ss we u in
ntext ndersta
• Are there alternatives to those nd
resources?
Which
on
more v e is
alu
in a de able
sert?
 n c e p t t h a t e n co m passes
“Power is the c o
m e ch a n is m s, p ro cesses, and
the
p o sitio n s th a t t ry , not always
dis o ple act
to e n s u re th a t pe
successfully, e g a me ”
t h e ru le s o f th
according to
(Clegg, 2005: 153)

So where does power

come from?
French and Raven (1959) – The bases of
power
 Legitimate power
 Reward power
 Coercive power
 Expert power
 Referent power
Unitarism:
Organisation as
a happy family
“What pattern of behaviour do we
expect from the members of the
successful and healthy functioning
team? We expect them to strive
jointly towards a common objective,
each pulling his [sic] weight to the
best of his ability. Each accepts his
place in his function gladly,
following the leadership of the one
so appointed. There are no
oppositionary groups or factions,
and therefore no rival leaders within
the team. Nor are there any outside
it; the team stands alone, its
members owing allegiance to their
own leaders but no others” (Fox,
1966: 87)
Unitarism
• The organisation is a ‘happy family’...

• Assumed to be the perspective most commonly

held by managers POLITICS:
• If politics refers to the management of
• Organisations are an “integrated and harmonious competing interests, and unitarism
functions on the assumption that
whole existing for a common purpose” (Farnham interests are objectively shared, then...
and Pimlott 1991: 31) • Politics don’t (or shouldn’t) exist
• Many managers and unitarists treat
politics as a ‘dirty’ word- something to be
• Employees are loyal to the organisation, and denied, decried and discarded (Kanter,
managers are in charge 1979: 65)
Unitarism and Decision-making
• Decision-making is a rational and straightforward
process, enacted through top-down and
hierarchical structures (Knights and Willmott, 2012)
• Managers’ ‘right to manage’ emphasises managers
acting in the interests of all in the organisation
because they know best (Fournier and Grey, 2000)
• Restore property and decision-making rights to
managers
• Employees have no place or voice in decision-
making
But what happens
Let’s listen to Harvard Business
when employees Professor and Consultant, John
disagree with Kotter, to find out how he’d deal with
it.
management’s
decisions?

How conflict and

disagreement are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdroj6F3VlQ

dealt with?
Unitarism and Conflict / Resistance
• Conflict and resistance is irrational, pathological and
dysfunctional (Thomson, 2000; Knights and Willmott,
2012) – everybody should be a member of the same team
• It undermines managerial prerogative... Managers should
be able to manage their organisations however they
choose, free from dissenting voices

nflict and re sistance be en dealt with?

How has co
1st Face of Power • Removal of support for colle
aining to widen basis
ctive barg
ia l de cision-making
(Lukes, 1973) of supp or t fo r m an ag er
sla tion to cu rb an d in extreme cases
More active role fo r legi
Calling out the shots •
st rikes an d ot her in du stria l action – restore the ‘right
outlaw
to manage’
 Some issues with unitarism
The unitarist view assumes that…
• Employees possess goals that conform to and are compatible with
those around them.
• Employees’ actions are directed towards the achievement of these
goals.

HOWEVER…
• Why should managers’ values be accepted unquestioningly?
• Why should we assume values of organisation are equal to
those of individuals and groups?
• How sensible is an approach which assumes an
unquestioning acceptance of managerial prerogative?
• We know that conflict does exist in organisations, how do
unitarists explain this?
 References

Clegg, S. (2005) Managing and Organisations. Sage.

Clegg, S. R., Kornberger, M., & Pitsis, T. (2015). Managing and organizations: An introduction to theory and practice.
Sage.
Farnham, D and Pimlott, J. (1990). Understanding Industrial Relations. Cassell.
Fournier, V. and Grey, C. (2000) ‘At the critical moment: Conditions and prospects for critical management studies’.
Human Relations, 53(1): 7-32.
Fox, A. (1966). Industrial Sociology and Industrial Relations: An Assessment of the contribution which industrial
sociology can make towards understanding and resolving some of the problems now being considerd by the Royal
Commission. London: HMSO
French, J. and Raven, B. (1959) The bases of Social Power. In: Cartwright, L. and Zander, A. (eds.) Group Dynamics,
Research and Theory. Tavistock.
Fulop, L. and Linstead, S. (2009) Power and politics in organizations. In: Linstead et al. (eds.) Management and
Organization. A Critical Text. Palgrave Macmillan. 
 References

Knights, D. and Willmott H. (2017) Introducing Organisational Behaviour and Management (3rd edition) Cengage
Learning
Lencioni, P. (2006) Silos, politics and turf wars: A leadership fable about destroying the barriers that turn colleagues
into competitors. Jossey-Bass.
Lukes, S. (1973). Power: A Radical View. Macmillan
Morgan, G. (2006) Images of Organisation. Sage.
Odih, P. and Knights, D. (2007) Political organization and decision-making. In: Knights, D. and Willmott, H. (eds.)
Introducing organizational Behaviour and Management. Thomson.