W&O ch.10 - Power Flashcards
Power
Potential to change attitudes and behaviors of others
What are three basic characteristics of power?
- it is based on target’s perception that powerholder controls valuable resource
- it involves unequal dependence
- it requires minimal level of trust by both parties (that resources will be delivered)
Countervailing Power
- ability to keep the more powerful person in an exchange relationship
- power held by person B that creates asymmetric dependence
General model of power
- person A holds power over person B
- person B has countervailing power over person A
- person B believes that person A controls valuable resources that can stop him from achieving goals
What are the sources of power?
- legitimate
- reward
- coercive
- expert
- referent
What are the contingencies of power?
- nonsubstitutability
- centrality
- visibility
- discretion
Legitimate power
- agreement that people in certain positions can request behaviors from others
- employees also have legitimate power (norm of reciprocity)
- comes from:
> job prescription and from informal rules of conduct
> informational control (gatekeeping of information)
What is the restriction of legitimate power?
Zone of indifference
> limited domain of behaviors that can be asked
> e.g. boss can ask to turn off social media during working hours but cannot ask to work 40 hours consecutively
What factors influence the size of the zone of indifference? (and consequentially the impact of legitimate power)
- trusted leaders have wider zone of indifference
- some people obey more due to personality (conformity, tradition, …)
- culture of organization (e.g. high power distance)
Reward Power
- person’s ability to:
> control allocation of valuable resources
> remove negative sanctions (negative reinforcement) - employees can also have reward power with:
> coworkers (through organizational citizenship)
> boss (through feedback)
Coercive Power
- ability to apply punishment
- employees can also have coercive power through:
> peer pressure to change behavior
Expert Power
- capacity to influence others by possessing knowledge or skills valued by them
- e.g. perceived ability to manage uncertainties
How can expertise help coping with uncertainties?
- Prevention
> preventing environmental changes
> e.g. preventing cash shortage - Forecasting
> predicting environmental changes
> e.g. ability to spot upcoming trends and acting on them so that organization gains advantage - Absorption
> absorbing or neutralizing impact of environmental changes
> e.g. ability of maintenance crews to come to rescue when machine breaks down
Referent Power
- capacity to influence others when others identify, like or respect powerholder
- associated with charisma
> set of self-presentation nonverbal behaviors and characteristics
Deference to Power
- submission to or extreme respect for someone’s power
- especially towards legitimate and expert power
- can become problematic (unfounded belief that person holds power)
Nonsubstitutability
- power increases if it is not substitutable (decreases if there are alternative sources)
- no one else should be source of same power (e.g. you’re the only one that has knowledge on that topic)
- resources should also be nonsubstitutable (cannot be achieved through other means)
How can nonsubstitutability be increased?
- control access to resource
> e.g. restric access to profession and education for profession - differentiate resources from alternatives
> e.g. giving new name to package of services in a hotel
> e.g. through developing personal brand (something about company that’s new and different from others)
Centrality
- interdependence with powerholder
- e.g. how many are affected by your absence at work? how much?
Visibility
- “power flows only to those who are visible”
- achieved through:
> social interaction (e.g. sitting in desk close to boss)
> power symbols (e.g. lab coat for doctors) - “face-time” (spending more time at work to look more productive)
Discretion
- freedom to exercise judgement
- making decisions without referring to specific rule or asking for permission
- increases with more job autonomy
Consequence of power
a) feeling empowered
- perceived power over themselves and freedom from others
- independent power (no influence from others)
b) power over others
- sense of duty and responsability towards people that powerholder has power over
- interdependent power
- more mindful, less sstereotyping
> they are not contradictory (both can be present)
What are the consequences of feeling empowerd?
🟢 increse in motivation, performance, job satisfaction and organizational commitment
🔴 less mindful thinking, less empathy, less accurate perceptions and more stereotyping
- can lead to dysfunctional leadership
Social Networks
- social structures of individuals connected to one another by various forms of interdependence
- derive from drive to bond
- reinforce self-concept
Social capital
- knowledge, opportunities and resources available to members of social network
–> increase mutual trust, support, reciprocity and coordination
–> facilitates sharing of resources - social networks generate power through social capital
How does social capital maintain and enhance power?
- information (increases expert power)
- visibility (more likely to think of people inside network and recommend them)
- referent power (more trust in one another and more reciprocity)
How can social capital be gained through social networks?
depends on:
- strength of ties (strong vs weak)
- variety of ties
- number of ties (many ties)
- centrality of ties (social network centrality)
Strong ties vs Weak ties
Strong ties:
- how often we interact with specific people, how much psychological closure, …
- more and quicker resources
Weak ties:
- acquaitances who differ from us
- provide unique opportunities, new resources, …
- sometimes even more important than strong ties
Social Network Centrality
- if more central in network-> more social capital
- determined by:
> betweenness (how in between others you are in network)
> degree (percentage of connections you have within network)
> closeness (strong ties)
Structural hole
- gap between social networks
- filled in by “Broker” (person that becomes link between two clusters of people in one social network)
What is an issue of social networks?
- can lead to exclusion
- e.g. social networks based on gender
Influence
- behavior that attempts to alter someone else’s attitudes or behaviors
- power in motion
what are some tactics to influence others?
- silent authority
- assertiveness
- information control
- coalition formation
- upward appeal
- persuasion
- impression management
- exchange
Silent Authority
- person complies to requests because of legitimate power of authority and role expectations
- deference to authority
- works best in high power distance countries
- behavior influenced by requests or mere presence of authority
Assertiveness
- “vocal authority”
- actively applying legitimate and coercive power
- reminding target of task, constantly checking target’s progress, workplace bullying, …
Information Control
- controlling how much and what information is given to whom
- wheel formation (1) vs all-channels formation (2)
- 1: one person has high information control
- 2: everyone has low information control
Coalition Formation
- if power is insufficient when acting alone->form coalition
- influencial in three ways:
> pools power
> symbolizes that issue is legitimate (if more people support issue, it seems more important)
> influence through social identity
Upward Appeal
- claiming to have support of higher authority
- also when reminding others that your request is consistent with the values of the organization
Persuasion
- using facts, logical arguments and emotional appeals
-> to change beliefs and attitudes
-> to change behaviors
What does the effectiveness of persuasion depend on?
- persuader (expertise, credibility, appearing neutral)
- message content (strong, few arguments)
- communication channel (more persuasion if channel is high in social presence and media richness)
- audience being persuaded (persuasion less efficient if audience has high intelligent and high self-esteem)
Inoculation Effect
- persuasion strategy
- warning listeners that others will try to influence them in the future and they should be wary of opponent’s arguments
- as a consequence, the opponent’s next persuasion effect will be less persuasive
Impression Management
- actively shaping others, perceptions and attitudes of us
- occurs through “self-presentation” (e.g. way employee dresses)
- plays a role in “personal brand”
- ingratiation
Ingratiation
- attempt to increase being liked by or perceived as similar to targeted person
- e.g. portraying similar views as boss, ask boss for advice, …
- generally leads to increase in carreer but if perceived as too much-> becomes counterproductive
Personal brand
- forming and displaying accurate impression of person’s own distinctive competitive advantage
- impression management plays a role in this
Exchange
- promise of benefits and resources in return to person’s compliance
- negotiation, reciprocity, social networks
What are the consequences of Influence?
- commitment
- compliance
- resistance
Commitment
> feels that influence is legitimate
people identify with requests
highly motivated
Compliance
> not want to face consequences
extrinsic motivation to implement requests
no more effort than required
Resistance
> oppose behavior desired by influencer
refusal to engage in behavior
performing tasks poorly or while vocally complaining
What forms of power are associated to hard and soft tactics?
- Hard tactics -> legitimate, reward or coercive power (position power)
- Soft tactics -> expert and referent power (personal power)
What are the contingencies of influence? (how to choose which tactic is more effective)
- type of power held (if expert power, then soft tactics are best)
- person being influenced is at lower, same or higher status in workplace
- personal, organizational and cultural values (e.g. in high power distance country like Hong Kong, ingratiation doesn’t work)
Organizational Politics
- use of influence tactics for personal gains and at expense of organization and/or others
- more if dark triad personality
How can Organizational Politics be minimized?
- provide sufficient resources
- clarify resources allocation clearly
- manage change effectively (change creates ambiguity->leads to O.P.)
- discourage political behavior
