Power and politics in organizations: implications for OD professional practice

Power and politics are major factors that cannot be ignored by anyone interested in understanding how organizations work. Despite this recognition, the field of OD has been very slow in addressing these issues. Due to an increasing role for power and politics in organizations today, there is a need to assess and determine the implications of power and politics for OD professional practice. This paper provides a review of literature of power and politics in organizations, its sources and how it is managed. Considering the literature review, a discussion of the implications for OD professional practice is provided.     

Bureaucratic Politics and Administrative Reform: Why Politics Matters

Administrative reform is a political, not managerial, issue. This study argues that administrative reform is highly influenced by realities of bureaucratic politics. Reforms usually mean the struggle over power between involved actors. There are evidences of patterns of power struggle among and between politicians and bureaucrats. Including contestation among bureaucrats that are responsible for public management reform. These power struggles and contestations explain the decision-making processes for designing and implementing administrative reform policies and shifts of power relations. This article proposes a new framework to advance the concept of bureaucratic politics, with reference to administrative reform policy. It highlights the missing link between public policy and public management reform literature by revisiting the power of politicians and bureaucrats in making reform policies.     

Politics and Power within Multinational Corporations: Mainstream Studies,Emerging Critical Approaches and Suggestions for Future Research

Given the increased public interest in the use and misuse of power in multinationals in the aftermath of the financial crisis, it is notable that power relations in multinational corporations (MNCs) have not gained enhanced attention in the academic community. What is missing so far in the study of MNCs is a systematic examination of how power and politics within MNCs have been addressed in mainstream international business (IB) and sociological research studying the MNC. This paper starts by critically reviewing these two mainstream approaches in the study of MNCs as organizations and seeking to understand the shortcomings of former research. Next, it reviews new emergent critical perspectives, which the authors call socio‐political studies of MNCs, where power and politics are addressed not just more prominently, but also differently, from a more bottom‐up and actor‐centred perspective. After reviewing this emergent stream of research, the authors propose that future studies should take a more micro‐political perspective and focus in more detail on the micro‐foundations of power relations. In the concluding section, the authors show how future studies of MNCs can learn from both critical interactionist and discursive theories when analysing organizational politics and power relations. A framework is proposed for the study of micro‐level political game‐playing in MNCs, based on a three‐dimensional framework for organizational power (episodic, rules of the game and domination), and some key research questions for future studies are suggested.     

„Er ist als Wissenschaftler eine Niete und hat sich deshalb der Universitätspolitik verschrieben“

In the university three cultures are converging, as illustrated in the film “The Campus”: the “old” culture of the savant who is interested in truth, painted in a idealized manner; the “new” culture of the politicized group university, painted in a satirical manner, and the culture of neutral rules of law, represented in the administration. Science, politics and law could inspire each other, but for it a power would be needed which could connect them with their properties. Because of the absence of this power, a continuous politicization of the university develops which loses their identity as organization of science and his cultural core.     

Decentralized administration and citizen participation in community planning

The shift from politics to expertise changes the rules for exercising power, and alters the structure of previous power networks. As a result, the involvement in planning of people who are ill-equipped to deal with the presentation of issues in a technical framework tends to lag. The effort in planning, as in much of private and public activity, must be directed to balance the demands for ever-increasing central bureaucratic control, against the demands for increased concern for the unique requirements of local, specialized, interests.     

You Stab My Back,I'll Stab Yours: Management Experience and Perceptions of Organization Political Behaviour

This paper reports the findings of a survey of 250 British managers, exploring their experience and perceptions of organization politics. Political behaviour appeared to be common. Most managers viewed political behaviour as ethical and necessary, and aspects of organizational effectiveness, change, resourcing and reputation were attributed to political tactics, although 80% had no training in this area. Tactics experienced frequently included networking, using ‘key players’ to support initiatives, making friends with power brokers, bending the rules, and self‐promotion. Tactics experienced as rare, but not unknown, included misinformation, spreading rumours, and keeping ‘dirt files’ for blackmail. A consistent pattern of responses concerning willingness to engage in politics, the need to act ruthlessly and the appropriateness of reciprocity when faced with political behaviour implies an attitude of ‘you stab my back, I'll stab yours’. Findings are discussed using an ‘antecedents–behaviours–consequences’ framework of perceived organization politics to guide research.     

Social Structures and Resistance to Strategic Change: British Manufacturers in the 1980s1

This article examines the refusal of two UK manufacturers to adapt their strategic ‘repertoires’ to the recessionary and structural changes of the 1980s. From being industry leaders in 1980, both companies were relegated to overseas control by the end of the decade. Developing both institutionalist and contextualist approaches to organization, the article argues that this fatal resistance to change derived from the deep social structural roots of these two companies' politics and cultures. Conservative managers were able to defy new capitalist logics by drawing upon alternative social structural sources of power, legitimacy and inspiration. The article concludes by considering the implications of this plural structuring of organizations both for organizational theory and for the management of change in practice.     

Safety culture: Key theoretical issues

The organizational preconditions to major systems failures are seen as increasingly important for risk management. However, existing empirical attempts to study safety culture and its relationship to organizational outcomes have remained fragmented and underspecified in theoretical terms. This is despite the existence of a number of well-developed theories of organizationally induced accidents and disasters. Reasons for this disfunction of theory and practice are first considered. The paper then outlines four key theoretical questions for safety culture researchers: the fact that culture acts simultaneously as a precondition both for safe operations and for the oversight of incubating hazards (the paradox of 'safety' culture); the challenge of dealing with complex and ill-structured hazardous situations where decision makers are faced with deep forms of uncertainty represented by incompleteness of knowledge or ignorance; the need to consider the construction of risk perceptions in workgroups, and to view risk acceptability as the outcome of a process of social negotiation; and the fact that institutional politics and power are critical for determining the achievement of safety culture goals, and in particular that of organizational learning.     

Safety culture: Key theoretical issues

Abstract

The organizational preconditions to major systems failures are seen as increasingly important for risk management. However, existing empirical attempts to study safety culture and its relationship to organizational outcomes have remained fragmented and underspecified in theoretical terms. This is despite the existence of a number of well-developed theories of organizationally induced accidents and disasters. Reasons for this disfunction of theory and practice are first considered. The paper then outlines four key theoretical questions for safety culture researchers: the fact that culture acts simultaneously as a precondition both for safe operations and for the oversight of incubating hazards (the paradox of ‘safety’ culture); the challenge of dealing with complex and ill-structured hazardous situations where decision makers are faced with deep forms of uncertainty represented by incompleteness of knowledge or ignorance; the need to consider the construction of risk perceptions in workgroups, and to view risk acceptability as the outcome of a process of social negotiation; and the fact that institutional politics and power are critical for determining the achievement of safety culture goals, and in particular that of organizational learning.     

试论中国管理研究的话语权问题

新中国成立以后,中国管理研究与实践经历了3个阶段,其话语权经历了从萌芽到催生到完全西化的演进过程.西方管理学在中国的话语权可以解构为:引领学术共同体的学者;先入为主成为管理理论的主流;自诩为普世的管理学理论;控制大量国际学术期刊;借力强势组织管理实践活动;扩散和推广其研究方法与范式;依托国际化的英语语言等.当前,需要统筹"中国管理的理论"与"中国的管理理论"2条研究路线,在争取话语权利的同时,提升自己的话语能力,并以国内话语权的建构为切入点,继而争取国际话语权.在此过程中,要借助一切可以借助的力量,在学者个体话语权和中国管理研究集体话语权2个方面齐头并进,坚持问题导向的本土化研究思路,通过理论研究与组织管理实践的共同努力,最终重构中国管理研究的话语权.     

Maybe Bacon Had a Point: The Politics of Interpretation in Collective Sensemaking 1

Despite major contributions to theories of organizational knowledge from socially situated, practice‐based approaches, there remains a blind‐spot in this literature concerning power and politics. This paper makes some initial attempts to address this absence by thinking about how far alternative theories of power/knowledge can strengthen and extend practice‐based approaches to knowledge. The need for a detailed analytic of the multiple techniques, strategies, and expressions of power/knowledge in concrete social situations and the different ways in which they come together through specific episodes of enactment is highlighted. To illustrate this, we draw on an ethnographic study of an inter‐organizational collaboration in the telecommunications sector. This illustration focuses on struggles over meaning during a problem‐solving encounter during the later stages of a project for developing and implementing new software for telephone exchanges.     

How power relations structure the evaluation process for HRD Programmes

Centring on the impact of power and politics embedded in the evaluation of training programmes, this study aimed to understand how organizational power relations affect the evaluation process for a training programme. A qualitative case study for the managerial leadership development programme of a Korean insurance company was designed. The HRD practitioners held control throughout the evaluation, and their dominant power was maintained and reproduced by other stakeholders' recognition of their expertise in training and development area. However, due to the structural relationship between the HRD unit and the corporate management, the HRD practitioners perceived themselves as marginalized. Unequal power relations were sustained in the evaluation mostly by stakeholders' self-regulation of their conduct in terms of norms, standards and expectations about their roles. This study found that despite the immense criticism of reaction measures, their continuing use in evaluation could be traced to their meaning as a political bargaining tool.     

绩效考核政治性对个体知识共享行为影响的实证研究

随着组织政治和管理伦理成为理论界和实践界共同关注的热点问题,越来越多的学者开始研究管理者在绩效考核过程中的政治性操作对员工工作场所行为的影响.基于结构方程技术的实证分析发现,积极绩效考核政治性对员工知识共享行为具有显著正向作用,消极绩效考核政治性对员工知识共享行为具有显著负向作用;绩效考核政治性通过成就感知、个人兴趣、集体情感与责任动机的完全中介作用间接影响员工知识共享行为;绩效考核政治性与员工知识共享动机和行为之间的关系并不随着员工工作控制点的差异而变化.研究结论既具有理论价值,又富含管理启示.     

Organizational politics: did you hear?

How do you define organizational politics? The underground system of communication, the grapevine, what's really going on in the organization, rumors, knowing who really has the power? However you define it, all sources agree you'd better not ignore it. According to one physician executive: "Organizational politics is how things really get done, who really has the power, how decisions get made. Things are not always what they appear to be on the organizational chart." Presented here are some thoughts about organizational politics from physician executives and their stories of when it helped or hurt their careers or prevented them from accomplishing something in their organizations.     

Seven deadly assumptions for new physician managers

You've just been, or are about to be, named to a management position, your first. Success will not be easy, but it can be achieved. Just avoid seven common assumptions that are the chief culprits in the demise of many a physician executive: All human beings make rational decisions, so the way to resolve conflicts is by giving people more data. Clinical teams are the same as management teams. Your new title confers all the decision-making authority, trust, and power needed to do the job. Bedside communication techniques are the same ones used in the board room. A financial statement is pretty much the same as a checking account statement. There are no politics in management. Just reading every important management text will make you a great manager.     

Emotion in strategic management: A review and future research agenda

Emotion in strategic management has attracted increasing scholarly interest during the past twenty-five years. Researchers have demonstrated the nature and significance of emotion in strategic management from a broad range of perspectives across different levels of analysis. Given the expanding research on the topic, the time is ripe to synthesize this diverse and multifaceted body of knowledge. In a thematic synthesis of the literature, we address the following questions: how does emotion influence strategic management, and how can the field be further developed? We review emotion constructs used in the extant literature and identify three themes related to how emotions influence strategic management: the nonconscious influence of emotions, emotion regulation, and collective emotions. Based on these themes and our analysis, we propose three areas of future research to inspire the field to develop further: (1) scope conditions of emotion research in strategic management; (2) capturing emotion in strategic management; and (3) the ethics, power and politics of emotions in strategic management.     

Allocation Processes in Mergers and Acquisitions: An Organizational Justice Perspective

This paper contributes to the understanding of allocation processes in mergers and acquisitions by applying an organizational justice perspective. This is a perspective that has been neglected in past research on mergers and acquisitions, but which is important in understanding the challenges managers face in allocating human resources and other resources of symbolic importance. In particular, the paper examines the trade-offs between multiple goals in selecting distributive and procedural justice rules, and identifies factors that constrain these choices. Mergers and acquisitions are typically driven by multiple motives. The findings presented in this paper suggest that there are different approaches to applying justice rules in mergers and acquisitions and that these approaches have different implications for meeting multiple goals. The choice of equity in combinations with fair procedural rules is an approach which complies with the two goals of maximizing economic productivity and fostering relationships. However, the choice of this approach rests upon an unbalanced power relationship and relatively low ambiguity. When there is a high degree of ambiguity and a balanced power relationship, management has to make trade-offs between maximizing economic productivity and fostering relationships.     

Effects of constructive politics and market turbulence on entrepreneurial orientation–performance relationship: A moderated mediation model

The study examines the interaction effects of constructive politics and market turbulence on the entrepreneurial orientation–performance relationship. The proposed structural model tests the mediating role of constructive politics between the entrepreneurial orientation and performance constructs and the moderation effect of market turbulence on this mediating relationship. Data were collected from 145 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United Arab Emirates. The results suggest that entrepreneurial orientation indirectly affects performance through constructive politics. Furthermore, the results indicate that the relationship between constructive politics and the firm's performance was stronger during low market turbulence. Findings suggest that entrepreneurial-oriented SMEs should embrace constructive politics where influence and power can be channeled to enhance financial performance, especially in market stability.     

Bureaucracy and Democracy: A Theoretical Analysis

This article addresses the relationship between bureaucracy and democracy, bureaucratic politics and democratic politics. Bureaucratic theories and politics are discussed, democratic theories and politics are analyzed, and the argument in favor of reconciling bureaucracy and democracy is analyzed with implications for democratic theory and public administration. Persistence of bureaucracy is stressed, deficiencies in democratic theory and practice are noted, and the importance of a functionally balanced and professionally competent bureaucracy is reminded for administration of sound governance in both developed and developing societies. It is hypocrisy to speak of functioning democracy without a balanced professional bureaucracy.