Political School Flashcards
Organizational political climate
Landells & Albrecht
Shared perceptions about the building and use of power in practices and workarounds regarding policies and procedures to influence decision-making, resource allocation and the achievement of individual, team and organizational goals.
> The organizational political climate can both be functional and dysfunctional.
How are Power and Politics are associated with each other?
Landells & Albrecht
Power bases can be applied to the conceptualization and measurement of organizational political climate. These bases are build and used to influence organizational decision making. These bases accommodate positive, neutral and negative accounts of organizational politics.
Positional power:
Landells & Albrecht
this incorporates legitimate and coercive/reward power. Attributed to the individual’s position. The allocation of resources= power in the organization. Can be used neg/pos.
- Build by seeking positions with influence/power.
- Use to influence decisions.
Personal power:
Landells & Albrecht
this incorporates referent/expert power. Associated with reputation, charm, charisma, worth and right to respect from others. It can be build by demonstrated by showing expertise, experience or success. (could be overexaggerating)
Informational power:
Landells & Albrecht
convincing others to comply based on clear, logical information. Access to information that is valuable to others.
- Build by investigating the political terrain, understanding other’s agenda’s.
- Use by knowing what the real way is to get things done.
Connection power:
Landells & Albrecht
is related to the notion of networking and relationship building. It can be derived from internal networks, external networks and network centrality.
These four power bases can be used positively and negatively and can lead to functional or dysfunctional organizational political climate.
Example of the functional/positive outcome?
Landells & Albrecht
Organizational politics can benefit organizations and individuals through:
- improved communication,
- the achieving of organizational goals and objectives,
- improved decision-making,
- individual career advancement,
- the provision of individual recognition,
- the promotion of new ideas, and
- the building of networks of useful contacts.
What will be a key determinant in whether the organizational political climate is functional or dysfunctional?
Landells & Albrecht
Perceived motives or intentions regarding whether behaviors are undertaken in self-interest or in the best interests of the organization.
Incremental Change
Dunphy & Stace
Change is planned and transitions orderly. Incremental organizational change increases confidence amongst employees, reducing organizational dependence to provide the momentum for change. Evolutionary change.
Transformative Change
Dunphy & Stace
There could be no one internally equipped for the change, so externally imposed change is necessary:
- Environmental creep: environment changes radically.
- Organizational creep: organization drifts from the environment (which is relatively stable).
- Diversification, acquisition, merger & shutdown.
- Industry reorganization: e.g. deregulation; cannot foresee it.
- Technological breakthroughs: e.g. tech that increases efficiency or reduces costs. Need to comply otherwise the organization cannot keep up with the market anymore.
Incremental or Transformation Strategies
The approaches are complementary to each other and the question is not what to apply, the question is when to apply what approach:
Dunphy & Stace
Incrementalism strategies apply when the organization fits the environment, but small adjustments are needed to be made. If there is no fit, there should be time to do this approach.
Transformational strategies apply when organization is out of fit with environment or when drastic changes need to be made in order to survive.
Collaborative modes
Dunphy & Stace
will facilitate the development of a common organizational vision based on shared values. Also, to overcome resistance, harmonize interests. An informal, participative change process.
Constellation of logics and emotions?
Zadeh & Zilber
The research suggests that to maintain the desired ‘constellation of logics’, in which the universalistic logic was the dominant one, the organization and its members employed emotional control: eliciting emotions that are related to the logic of universalism and inhibiting emotions that are related to the logic of ethno-nationalism.
Institutional logics
Zadeh & Zilber
Are macro-level systems of material and symbolic prescriptions for individual, organizational, field and societal life. They serve as scripts for thought and action, which issues are salient, who to evaluate them, and personal/organizational goals. Organizations are influenced by multiple logics at the same time.
Socially dominant institutional logics are powerful in emotion-evoking manners, and that organizations that try to replace them with alternative ones have to bear this power in mind.
Emotional contents
Zadeh & Zilber
discrete emotions that are thematically associated with the logic.
Emotion rules
Zadeh & Zilber
determine what should be felt (emotional experience) and how it should be expressed (emotional display). Defines legitimate and illegitimate emotional contents and processes. Organizationally enforced emotion rules can effectively stabilize a desired constellation of logics in routine times, even when such a constellation is antithetic to the constellation of logics in society.
Emotion work
Zadeh & Zilber
Ensuring that private feelings are suppressed or concealed “so that we can attain the socially acceptable emotional face”. Emotional control reflects internal, continuous efforts, manifested through material design, texts and interaction and material spaces and materiality- they can disembed members from their dominant logic.
The link of emotional-institutional dynamics to systemic power (2):
Zadeh & Zilber
- Emotional control preserves elites or uncomfortable emotions challenge the elites (power system).
- Emotion work maintains social divisions and the inequality between social groups through its effect on the construction of social identities. Emotion work keeps disadvantaged social groups complicit in the order of domination.
Name the 4 forms of power of the Organizational political climate
Landells & Albrecht
- Positional Power
- Personal Power
- Informational Power
- Connection Power
Incremental or Transformation Strategies
Name all 4 Strategies in de model
Dunphy & Stace
- Participative Evolution
- Charismatic Transformation
- Forced Evolution
- Dictatorial Transformation
