Ch12

Organizational Organizational Behavior, 9/EBehavior, 9/E

Schermerhorn, Hunt, and Schermerhorn, Hunt, and OsbornOsborn

Prepared byMichael K. McCuddyValparaiso University

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 12 2

Chapter 12 Study Questions

What are power and influence in an organization?

How are power, obedience, and formal authority intertwined in an organization?

What is empowerment?

What is organizational politics?


Study Question 1: What are power and influence in an organization?

Power.– The ability to get someone to do something

you want done.– The ability to make things happen in the way

you want. Influence.

– Expressed by others’ behavioral response to your exercise of power.



Position power derives from a person’s position in the organizational hierarchy.

Types of position power.– Reward power.– Coercive power.– Legitimate power.– Process power.– Information power.– Representative power.



Reward power.– The extent to which a manager can use extrinsic and

intrinsic rewards to control other people.

Coercive power.– The extent to which a manager can deny desired

rewards and administer punishment to control other people.


Study Question 1: What are power and influence in an organization? Legitimate power.

– The extent to which a manager can use subordinates’ internalized values or beliefs that the boss has the “right of command” to control other people.

Process power.– The control over methods of production and analysis

that a manager has due to being in a position to influence how inputs are transformed into outputs.


Study Question 1: What are power and influence in an organization? Information power.

– The access to and/or control of information. .

Representative power.– The formal right conferred by the firm to speak for a

potentially important group composed of individuals across departments or outside the firm.



Personal power derives from individual sources.

Types of personal power.– Expert power.

– Rational persuasion.

– Referent power.


Study Question 1: What are power and influence in an organization? Expert power.

– The ability to control another person’s behavior through the possession of knowledge, experience, or judgment that the other person does not have but needs.

Rational persuasion.– The ability to control another person’s behavior by

convincing the other person of the desirability of a goal and a reasonable way of achieving it.



Referent power.– The ability to control another’s behavior because the

person wants to identify with the power source.





Ways to build position power.– Demonstrating work unit relevance to

organizational goals and needs.– Increasing task relevance of one’s own

activities and work unit’s activities.– Attempting to define tasks so they are difficult

to evaluate.


Study Question 1: What are power and influence in an organization?Ways to build personal power.

– Building expertise.• Advanced training and education, participation in

professional associations, and project involvement.– Learning political savvy.

• Learning ways to negotiate, persuade, and understand goals and means that others accept.

– Enhancing likeability.• Pleasant personality characteristics, agreeable

behavior patterns, and attractive personal appearance.



Ways that managers increase the visibility of their job performance.– Expanding contacts with senior people.– Making oral presentations of written work.– Participating in problem-solving task forces.– Sending out notices of accomplishment.– Seeking opportunities to increase name

recognition.



Controlling decision premises.– Executives attempt to control, or at least

influence, decision premises.– A decision premise is a basis for defining the

problem and for selecting among alternatives.– Executives who want to increase their power

will make their goals and needs clear and bargain effectively.


Study Question 1: What are power and influence in an organization?Common techniques for exercising

relational influence.– Reason.– Friendliness.– Coalition.– Bargaining.– Assertiveness.– Higher authority.– Sanctions.


Study Question 2: How are power, obedience, and formal authority intertwined in an organization?

Important practical issues in the exercise of power and formal authority.– Why should subordinates respond to a

manager’s authority (or “right to command”)?

– Given that subordinates are willing to obey, what determines the limits of obedience?



The Milgram experiments.– Designed to determine the extent to which people

obey the commands of an authority figure, even if they believe they are endangering the life of another person.

– The results indicated that the majority of the experimental subjects would obey the commands of the authority figure.

– Basic conclusion was that people tend to comply with and be obedient to authority.



For a directive from a superior to be accepted as authoritative, the subordinate:– Can and must understand it.– Must feel mentally and physically capable of

carrying it out.– Must believe that it is consistent with the

organization’s purpose.– Must believe that it is consistent with his or

her personal interests.



Zone of indifference.– In exchange for certain inducements,

subordinates recognize the authority of the organization and its managers to direct their behavior in certain ways.

– A zone of indifference is the range of authoritative requests to which a subordinate is willing to respond without subjecting the directives to critical evaluation or judgment.




Study Question 3: What is empowerment?Empowerment.

– The process by which managers help others to acquire and use the power needed to make decisions affecting themselves and their work.

– Provides the foundation for self-managing work teams and other employee involvement groups.

– Empowerment emphasizes the ability to make things happen.


Study Question 3: What is empowerment?Changing position power.

– Moving power down the hierarchy alters the existing pattern of position power.

– Changing this pattern raises the following important questions:

• Can “empowered” individuals give rewards and sanctions based on task accomplishment?

• Has their new right to act been legitimized with formal authority?


Study Question 3: What is empowerment?Expanding the zone of indifference.

– Management needs to recognize the current zone of indifference and systematically move to expand it.

– Management should show how empowerment will benefit people and provide the needed inducement.

– .


Study Question 3: What is empowerment?Power as an expanding pie.

– Employees need to be trained to expand their

power and their new influence potential.

– The key is to change from a view stressing

power over others to one emphasizing the use

of power to get things done.


Study Question 3: What is empowerment?Power as an expanding pie.

– Clearer definition of roles and responsibilities helps managers empower others.

– All mangers need to emphasize different ways of exercising influence.

– Special support may be needed for individuals to become comfortable.


Study Question 4: What is organizational politics?

Machiavellian tradition of organizational politics.– Emphasizes self-interest and the use of

nonsanctioned means.– Organizational politics is defined as the

management of influence to obtain ends not sanctioned by the organization or to obtain sanctioned ends through nonsanctioned influence means.



Alternate tradition of organizational politics.– Politics is a necessary function resulting from

differences in the self-interests of individuals.– Politics is the art of creative compromise

among competing interests.– Politics is the use of power to develop socially

acceptable ends and means that balance individual and collective interests.





Subunit power.– Line units are typically more powerful than

are staff groups.– Units toward the top of the organizational

hierarchy are often more powerful than those toward the bottom.

– Power differentials are not as pronounced among units at or near the same level in an organization.



Political actions for influencing lateral, intergroup relationships.– Workflow linkages.– Service linkages.– Advisory linkages.– Auditing linkages.– Approval linkages.



Important aspects of corporate political strategy.

– Absence of a political strategy can be damaging.

– Corporate political strategy should be targeted toward

turning the government from a regulator against

industry to a protector of it.

– Need to make decisions about when and how to get

involved in the public policy processes.



Avoidance is quite common where the employee must risk being wrong or where actions may yield a sanction.

Common techniques for avoiding action and risk taking.– Working to the rules.– Playing dumb.– Depersonalization.– Stalling.


Study Question 4: What is organizational politics? Common techniques for redirecting

accountability and responsibility.– Passing the buck.– Buffing (or rigorous documentation).– Preparing a blind memo.– Rewriting history.– Redirecting.

• Scapegoating.• Blaming the problem on uncontrollable events.• Escalating commitment.



Defending turf. – Defending turf is a time-honored tradition in most

large organizations.

– Defending turf results when:• Managers seek to increase their power by expanding the jobs

their groups perform.

• Competing interests exist among various departments and

groups.



Agency theory.

– An important power problem arises from the

separation of owners and managers.

– Managers are “agents” of the owners.

– Public corporations can function effectively

even though its managers are self-interested.



Key arguments of agency theory. – By protecting stockholder interests, all the

interests of society are served.

– Stockholders have a clear interest in greater returns.

– Managers are self-interested and must be controlled.



Types of controls instituted for agents. – Pay plan incentives that align the interests of

management and stockholders.

– The establishment of a strong, independent board of directors.

– Stockholders with a large stake in the firm taking an active role on the board.



Resource dependencies.– The firm’s need for resources that are controlled by

others. The resource dependence of an organization

increases as: – Needed resources become more scarce.– Outsiders have more control over needed resources.– There are fewer substitutes for a particular type of

resource controlled by a limited number of outsiders.


Study Question 4: What is organizational politics? Organizational governance.

– The pattern of authority, influence, and acceptable managerial behavior established at the top of the organization.

– Organizational governance establishes the following:• What is important.• How issues will be defined.• Who should and should not be involved in key

choices• Boundaries for acceptable implementation.



Negative views of organizational governance.– Unbalanced organizational governance by

some United States corporations may limit their ability to manage global operations effectively.

– Organizational governance is too closely tied to the short-term interests of stockholders and the pay of the CEO.



Positive views of organizational governance.– The governance of U.S. firms extends well beyond the

limited interests of the owners.– Organization governance should be based on three

ethical criteria.– When the three ethical criteria cannot be fulfilled, the

criterion of overwhelming factors should be invoked. – Choosing to be ethical often involves considerable

personal sacrifice.


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