The Critical Perspective

Question 1

Summarize the overview of the critical perspective

Answer 1

Based on relativism and sociology of radical change.

Research assumes a conflict perspective, even if it is not open and visible. Consensus is seen as something that requires an explanation (what is taken for granted, dominant, which interests does it serve).

Research should raise awareness and perhaps be part of changing some domination systems. If reality is socially constructed, it is possible to imagine new ways of organising/understanding.

The aim is to show how arbitrary our truths are and that they are ideological and only serve certain interests.

Question 2

What is the view on power from a functionalist perspective?

Answer 2

Power is reduced to power to do/influence something, usually seen as legitimate. Assumed that conflict and exercise of power is easily identified. (orthodox studies and Lukes first dimension)

Question 3

What is the view on power form a critical perspective?

Answer 3

More interest in the power over people/groups, concentrating on oppressive/unjust exercise. Lukes 2nd and 3rd dimensions. Conflicts/power dynamics are not easily identifiable, often hidden behind neutral categories.

Question 4

What are three main categories that Acker discusses?

Answer 4

Class, Gender and race, and how they lead to production of inequality

Question 5

What is a main point of Acker’s text regarding the three categories?

Answer 5

It is not enough to only study one category, since they often intersect and influence the situation in different ways simultaneously

Question 6

What is power generally defined as?

Answer 6

the capacity or potential to influence others in relation to their beliefs, attitudes or activities.

Question 7

What was Karl Marx’s view on power?

Answer 7

He argued that class interests (capitalist versus worker) follow from social relations concerning ownership/control of means of production, implying that power and conflict are structured into organization design (criticised for exaggerating).

Question 8

What is Max Weber’s theory of power?

Answer 8

Power is derived from ownership of means of production, but from knowledge and expertise needed to operate the means as much as the ownership.

The two crucial elements to the system of domination are:
- The legitimacy of the organizational leader’s power, and the followers’ perceptions of this as legitimate for those subject to it.
- The creation of an administrative apparatus where followers carry out the commands of the leader.

Question 9

What is the focus in French and Raven’s theory of power?

Answer 9

Potential ability of one individual to influence another within a certain social situation.

The theory assumes that the “resource” possessed by the individual that will have utility in one situation, will have that usefulness in all situations, and that this usefulness can be judged correctly.

Question 10

What are French and Raven’s five bases of power?

Answer 10

1. Referent
2. Expert
3. Legitimate
4. Reward
5. Coercive

Question 11

What two resources influence and constrain power (French & Raven)?

Answer 11

• Allocative resources: control over physical things such as monetary rewards
• Authoritative resources: involve control over management practices.

Question 12

How does Lukes’ model treat power?

Answer 12

As a relational construct, and not solely the property of an individual. It is a three-dimensional phenomenon.

Question 13

What are the three dimensions of Lukes theory of power?

Answer 13

1. Focus on individual’s ability to enact commands in observable conflicts. Outcome is observable and shows which side is powerful.
2. Extends the analysis by examining the ability of social actors to control the agenda, which is overlooked in the first dimension.
3. Sometimes people act without coercion in ways that appear contrary to their self-interests. Manipulation of desires. The social processes where those with power induce the powerless to behave/believe as the power holder wishes, without coercion. Seldom identified.

Question 14

What are common views on power between Weber’s and Lukes’s concepts of power?

Answer 14

• Power is possessed by the individual.
• Power resides in social elites
• Powerful dominates powerless, resistance futile
• Power is negative and repressive
• Power is visible, exercised when needed
• Knowledge of power sources is empowering

Question 15

What are common views on power between Foucault’s and Gramsci’s concepts of power?

Answer 15

• Power is relational and pervasive
• Power is found in everyday social practice
• People build their own web of power, resistance possible
• Power is creative and contributes to social order
• Power is imperceptible through everyday routines
• Knowledge buttresses the web of power

Question 16

What is Foucault’s theory of power?

Answer 16

Power operates within all social institutions, at all levels of interaction and through all individuals.

Followers are both the perpetrators and victims of the power that constrains their behavior (may be self-coerced).

Viewing power as this relational activity widens the focus to the “how” of power, policies and practices.

Power prevents some beahviors while at the same time encouraging others.

Power and knowledge are closely interconnected and reinforce each other.

Question 17

Hoe have theorists used Foucault’s theories to identify how organizations can resist negative sides of organizational life?

Answer 17

By thinking of power as something not held by individuals, but engendered by the adjustments of dominance and resistance that occur in society more generally, there is a possibility to use power to optimize and grow organization environments and ensure that they contribute better to wider society.

Question 18

What is Gramsci’s theory of power?

Answer 18

A key term in Gramsci’s model is hegemony, which acknowledges the complexity and mixture of consensus and conflict:
- Truth and power
- Normality and power
- Self discipline/control and power
- Knowledge and power
In essence, it expresses the relationships of leadership and domination that produce a general sense of coordinated reality for most people.

Followers’ behavior must not align with the basic goals of the organization (reproduce hegemonic order).

Power in organizations is often revealed in different forms of resistance. Human capability is different from other resources since followers’ cooperation and commitment always have to be won and sustained by leaders. Power is a consequence and a cause of followership; leaders only become powerful if followers follow.

Question 19

What produces the power balance necessary for coercion to be effective?

Answer 19

The subordinate’s dependency on the leader (job, income, resources).

Question 20

Why do leader-coercive behavior occur according to research?

Answer 20

Due to the inability of the victim to defend himself due to a power imbalance

Question 21

What effects can leader-coercive behavior have?

Answer 21

• Psychological stress-related symptoms
• Physical harm
• Negative effect on coworker, affecting loyalty, commitment and performance

Question 22

What two perspectives is the debate around power generally divided into?

Answer 22

• Orthodox theories: traditional: power as a phenomenon within hierarchical structures and control systems of organizations. A critical analysis is deemed unnecessary, and hence, power is normalized.
• Dispersed leadership theories: emphasis on promotion of empowerment through transfer of leadership responsibilities to lower levels. Advocate sharing power between leaders and followers.

Question 23

What is focus primarily on in dispersed leadership theories?

Answer 23

• self-leadership. Employees take responsibility for their own work processes and direction.
• team-based leadership. Centers around autonomous work teams, which have their own leader.

Question 24

What are Fleming and Spicer’s four sites of organizational power?

Answer 24

1. Power in organizations. Struggles around formal organizational boundaries and the exercise of managerial command structures.
2. Power through organizations. The organization itself becomes a vehicle to further interests or goals.
3. Power over organizations. Draws attention to how elites might compete to influence how an organization develops.
4. Power against the organization. Attempts to use extra-organizational spaces to engage in political activity and create change within the sector.

Question 25

How has human resource management been conceptualized?

Answer 25

The employment contract can be seen as incomplete according to Townley, since it only includes external conditions. Drawing on Foucault’s work, he conceptualises HRM as a set of practices to close the gap between the expectations of performance and what is realized. Pre-screening processes provide knowledge on the applicants, so they know how to manage/evaluate them. Critical literature suggests that in makes individuals objects of knowledge, manageable.

Question 26

What are inequality regimes?

Answer 26

Loosely interrelated practices, processes, actions and meanings that result in and maintain class, gender and racial inequalities within particular organizations.

Question 27

How is inequality in organizations defined by Acker?

Answer 27

Systematic disparities between participants in power and control over goals, resources and outcomes:
- workplace decisions such as how to organize work
- opportunities for promotion and interesting work
- security in employment and benefits
- pay and other monetary rewards
- respect
- pleasures in work and work relations

Question 28

Are inequality regimes fluid?

Answer 28

Yes, they tend to be fluid and changing, linked to inequality in the surrounding society and its politics, history and culture

Question 29

What is class inequality?

Answer 29

• Enduring and systematic differences in access to and control over resources for provisioning and survival.
• Position within the organization
• Class as a function of economic, cultural and social capital.

Question 30

What is gender inequality?

Answer 30

• Socially constructed differences between men and women and the beliefs and identities that support difference and inequality
• Male as rational, goal-oriented, and decisive, and female as empathetic, relational and nurturing

Question 31

What is race/ethnicity inequality?

Answer 31

• Socially constructed differences based on physical characteristics, culture, and historical domination and oppression, justified by entrenched beliefs.

Question 32

In what sense are hierarchies often gendered and racialized?

Answer 32

White men in the top positions.

Question 33

Are flat organizations good for females (reduced gender inequality)?

Answer 33

• May provide professional women more equality and opportunity, but only if they function like men (masculine stereotype patterns of behaviors). May cope with it but still feel like outsiders.
• May not reduce: is often associated with less supervisors, but the power of the higher managerial levels is usually not changed

Question 34

Why may labor unions still be favouring inequalities?

Answer 34

Since they have historically been dominated by white men, women and people of colour have not have increases in power equal to those of white men.

Question 35

What are some organising processes that produce inequality according to Acker?

Answer 35

• Organising the general requirements of work. The unencumbered man.
• Organizing class hierarchies. Bureaucratic techniques that reproduce existing inequalities.
• Recruitment and hiring. Current employees at least partially define who is suitable for a position. Decision-maker’s position can affect judgment.
• Wage setting and supervisory practices. Inequalities affect assumptions about skills/fair wages.
• Informal interactions while doing the work. Assumptions about those we interact with.

Question 36

In what ways does patterns of visibility of inequality vary with the inequality basis?

Answer 36

• Gender: Difficult to see, embedded in organising practices.
• Class: invisible, hidden by talk of management. Lower levels may not identify inequalities as related to class
• Race: usually evident, visible, but segregated, denied and avoided. Different views on racism occurrences between white and people of colour.

Question 37

Which organizations are likely to find inequalities legitimate/illegitimate?

Answer 37

• Illegitimate: cooperatives, voluntary organizations with democratic goals. Want to minimise inequality
• Legitimate: Rigid bureaucracies.

Legitimacy also varies with political and economic conditions (social movements)

Question 38

What enhances possibilities for change regarding inequalities?

Answer 38

High visibility and low legitimacy

Question 39

What are some mechanisms for exerting control (Acker)?

Answer 39

• Direct control. Bureaucratic rules and punishments for breaking them. Rewards, coercion, physical and verbal violence.
• Unobtrusive or indirect controls. Control through technologies; monitoring calls or time spent online, or restricting information flows. Selective recruitment of powerless workers (immigrants).
• Internalized controls. Often invisible controls. Organizing relations. Those with the most powerful and affluent combinations of interests are apt to be able to control others with the aim of preserving these interests. But self-interest becomes a control on one’s own behavior.

Question 40

What is a likely reason to why efforts to changing inequality regimes fail?

Answer 40

Owner and managerial class interests and the power those can mobilize usually outweigh the class, gender, and race interests of those who suffer inequality.

Men may insist on continuing as they are doing, because changes can be seen as assault on dignity and masculinity.

Question 41

What are two common characteristics of successful change projects (inequality)?

Answer 41

• Change efforts target a limited set of inequality producing mechanisms
• Efforts appear to have combined social movement and legislative support outside the organization with active support from insiders.

Question 42

In what ways have variations in US inequality regimes increased?

Answer 42

• Shape and degree of inequality has become more varied.
• White working- and middle-class men’s advantages seem threatened by job export to low-wage countries, but they still find new employment faster than other groups.
• Inequalities of power within organizations increase with the present dominance of corporations free market ideology, decline in labor unions, and less job security.
• Organizing processes that create and recreate inequalities may have become more subtle, but also more difficult to challenge.
• Inequality becomes a sign of success for those who wins
• Controls that ensure compliance with inequality regimes have become more effective and more varied.