Lecture 8: Power school Flashcards
What is the key of the powerschool?
Uniqueness; not everybody has the same interest - Individuals within organization do not have the same interests.
Examples;
- Middle and top managers have their own targets
- middle and top managers have ambition to become more powerful
- To gain power; politics is used
What is power?
The exercise of influence beyond the purely economic, most of the time political.
What is politics in management theory?
The management of influence to obtain ends not sanctioned by the organization.
strive for something which is not given by the organization -> strikes
What are types of political behaviour?
- Forming coalitions
2. Withholding and manipulating information
What are the premises of the power school?
- Strategy formation is shaped by power and politics
- Micro power sees strategy formation as a process involving coaltion formation and persuasion and bargaining
- Strategies tend to be emergend (and take form of positions and ploys more than perspectives)
- Macro power sees the organization as promoting its own welfare by controlling or cooperating with other organizations.
What are the two levels of power?
Micro -> the use of power within otganization
Macro -> the use of power by the organization
What are the three social movements within organizations according to Zald and Berger?
- Coup d’état = seizure of power from within; objective is to displace authority holders while keeping authority intact.
- Insurgency = changing an aspect of organizational function
- Mass movements = collective attempts to express grievances and discontent or to promote/resist change
What are underlying assumptions of strategy formation premise?
- Organisations are coalitions of individuals and interest groups
- Coalitions can be different per decision depending on their differences in values, beliefs, information, interests and perceptions of reality
- Most important decisions involve the allocation of scarce resources (budget)
- Scarce resources and these differences give conflict a central role in strategic decision-making
o Power becomes relevant - Decisions get made based on bargaining, negotiation and jockeying for position among coalitions
The emergent character impacts strategy formation by;
- Strategies are formed trhough acts of negotioation
- Some groups will be more powerfull
- others will still change strategy based on own interests
- result; emergent strategies
- Patchwork strategies -> loose collection of different elements
What are benefits of power and politics?
- politics can ensure that the strongest become leaders
- Can break the status quo
- Politics can ensure that all perspectives of an issue are debated
- Required to stimulate change that is blocked by more legitimate systems of influence
What are negative aspects of politics and power?
People fight for their own interests, this means there are fewer contributions to the overall organizational goals.
and fighting takes time
What is micro power?
Sees strategy as the interplay through persuasion, bargaining and sometimes direct confrontation in the form of political games and shifting coaltions.
What is macro power?
Sees the organization as promoting its own welfare by controlling/cooperating with other organizations using strategic maneuvering as well as collective strategies in various kinds of networks and alliances
What are limitations of the power school?
- Organizations are also collaborative communities; it is not about war and death
- Power school is not well developed, it is very difficult for researchers to understand how politics occur and what effects they have
What are the contributions of the power school?
Individuals within organization do not always have the interests of the organization in mind, but have their own interests as well
very realistic perspective on a topic that is almost never discussed
