I. What Is Power?

Power is the capacity to influence others who are in a state of dependence. This does not necessarily imply that a poor
relationship exists between the power holder and the target, as most friendships involve reciprocal influence processes.

Power can flow in any direction in an organization, although members at higher levels typically have more power. Power is
a broad concept that applies to individuals as well as to groups.

II. The Bases of Individual Power

Power can be found in the position that you occupy in the organization or the resources that you are able to command.
Legitimate power is dependent on one's position or job. The other bases (reward, coercion, referent, and expert power)
involve the control of important resources.

A. Legitimate Power

Legitimate power derives from a person's position or job in the organization. It constitutes the organization's judgment
about who is formally permitted to influence whom, and it is often called authority. As we move up the organization's
hierarchy, we find that members possess more and more legitimate power. Legitimate power works because people have
been socialized to accept its influence. Even across various cultures, employees cite legitimate power as a major reason for
following their boss's directions.

B. Reward Power

Reward power exists when the power holder can exert influence by providing positive outcomes and preventing negative
outcomes. It corresponds to the concept of positive reinforcement. It is often used to back up legitimate power.

C. Coercive Power

Coercive power is available when the power holder can exert influence by the use of punishment and threat. Although it too
is employed as a support for legitimate power, its use by managers is generally ineffective and can provoke employee
resistance.

D. Referent Power

Referent power exists when the power holder is well liked by others. It is potent because it stems from identification with
the power holder and represents a truer or deeper base of power than reward or coercion. Second, anyone in the organization
may possess referent power.

E. Expert Power

Expert power is derived from having special information or expertise that is valued by an organization. This power can be
obtained by lower-level organizational members and is especially likely to exist for those members in scientific and technical
areas. Of all the bases of power, expertise is most consistently associated with employee effectiveness. Employees perceive
women managers as more likely than male managers to be high on expert power.

III. How Do People Obtain Power?

People get power by doing the right things and cultivating the right people.

A. Doing the Right Things

Activities lead to power when they are extraordinary, highly visible, and especially relevant to the solution of organizational
problems.
Extraordinary Activities. Excellent performance in unusual or nonroutine activities is required to obtain power. Such
activities include occupying new positions, managing substantial changes, and taking great risks.

Visible Activities. Extraordinary activities will fail to generate power if no one knows about them. Therefore, people who
seek power must try to publicize their efforts and ensure that they are visible.

Relevant Activities. Extraordinary, visible work may fail to generate power if no one cares. Activities must be relevant to the
needs of the organization for power to accrue. Therefore, being in the right place at the right time and doing the right things
are important in the effort to gain power.

B. Cultivating the Right People

To obtain power, one must develop informal relationships with the right people. The right people can include organizational
subordinates, peers, and superiors as well as crucial outsiders.

Outsiders. Establishing good relationships with key people outside one's organization can lead to increased power within the
organization.

Subordinates. An individual can gain influence if she is closely identified with certain up-and-coming subordinates.
Subordinates can also provide power when a manager can demonstrate that he or she is backed by a cohesive team.

Peers. Cultivating good relationships with peers is mainly a means of ensuring that nothing gets in the way of one's future
acquisition of power. As one moves up through the ranks, favours can be asked of former associates.

Superiors. Liaisons with key superiors probably represent the best way of obtaining power through cultivating others.
Mentors, for example, can provide special information and useful introductions to other "right people."

Power need not be seen as something of fixed quantity which must necessarily be in short supply at the bottom of the
organization if it is largely held at the top. Empowerment gives people the authority, opportunity, and motivation to take
initiative and solve organizational problems. Authority comes from pushing legitimate power down to lower levels so that
decisions can be made by those with the information to make them. Opportunity means freedom from bureaucratic barriers
and any relevant training and information about the impact of one's actions on other parts of the organization. The
motivation part of empowerment works when people are intrinsically motivated by power and opportunity and see their
rewards linked to their performance. People who are empowered have a strong sense of self-efficacy, the feeling that they
are capable of doing their jobs well and "making things happen." Empowering lower-level employees can be critical in
service organizations, where providing customers with a good initial encounter or correcting any problems that develop can
be essential for repeat business.

V. Influence Tactics-Putting Power to Work

Power is the potential to influence others. Influence tactics are tactics that are used to convert power into actual influence
over others. These tactics include assertiveness, ingratiation, rationality, exchange, upward appeal, and coalition formation.
Which tactics are used may be influenced by the power bases of the individual exercising power and who you are trying to
influence. Men using rationality as an influence tactic received better performance evaluations, earned more money, and
experienced less work stress. A particularly ineffective influence style is a "shotgun" style that is high on all tactics with
particular emphasis on assertiveness and exchange.

VI. Who Wants Power?

The old concepts of power seekers were that they were neurotics covering up feelings of inferiority; striving to compensate
for childhood deprivation; and substituting power for lack of affection. There is little doubt that these characteristics do
apply to some power seekers and some seek it for its own sake and use it irresponsibly.

According to psychologist David McClelland, power can also be used responsibly to influence others. Need for power is the
need to have strong influence over others. It is a reliable personality characteristic.

Some individuals have a need for power which can make them effective managers when used in a responsible and controlled
manner. In addition to having a high need for power, they use their power to achieve organizational goals; they adopt a
participative or "coaching" leadership style; and they are relatively unconcerned with how much others like them.
McClelland calls these managers institutional managers because they use their power for the good of the institution. He
stresses the greater effectiveness of these managers compared to personal power managers, who use their power for personal
gain, and affiliative managers, who are more concerned with being liked than with exercising power.

VII. Controlling Strategic Contingencies - How Subunits Obtain Power

Subunit power is the degree of power held by various organizational subunits, such as departments. They obtain this power
through the control of strategic contingencies, which are critical factors affecting organizational effectiveness that are
controlled by a key subunit. This means that the work performed by other subunits is contingent on the activities and
performance of a key subunit. Again, we see the critical role of dependence in power relationships. The conditions under
which subunits can control strategic contingencies involve scarcity, uncertainty, centrality, and substitutability.

A. Scarcity

Subunits tend to acquire power when they are able to secure scarce resources that are important to the organization as a
whole. When resources such as budget dollars become scarce, subunits that are able to secure additional resources from
outside the organization can obtain power. For example, university departments that have the ability to bring in external
funding through consulting contracts and research grants gain power in this way.

B. Uncertainty

Since organizations dislike uncertainty, those subunits with the ability to cope with the unexpected are most likely to obtain
power. Those functions that can provide the organization with greater control over what it finds problematic and can create
more certainty will acquire more power. The intervention of governments into human resource policies in recent years has
allowed human resource departments to gain power by coping with the various uncertainties.

C. Centrality

Subunits whose activities are most central to the workflow of the organization are more apt to obtain power than those
whose activities are more peripheral. They are central to the extent that they influence the work of most other subunits; when
they have an especially crucial impact on the quantity or quality of the organization's key product or service; or their impact
is more immediate compared to other subunits.

D. Substitutability

A subunit will have relatively little power if others inside or outside the organization can perform its activities. If the
subunit's staff is nonsubstitutable, however, it can acquire power. One crucial factor here is the general labour market for the
specialty performed by the subunit. For example, engineers will have more power when there are few of them, than when
their numbers increase. Having refined technical skills also impacts substitutability as does the ability of an organization to
subcontract for skills outside. If work can be contracted out, the power of the subunit that usually performs these activities is
reduced.

VIII. Organizational Politics - Using and Abusing Power

Not all uses of power constitute politics as described below.

A. The Basics of Organizational Politics

Organizational politics is the pursuit of self-interest in an organization, whether or not this self-interest corresponds to
organizational goals. Generally, this activity is self-conscious and intentional, and it is possible for benefits to accrue to the
organization even though outcomes are achieved by questionable tactics. Politics can be conceived as either an individual
activity or subunit activity.

Politics involves using means of influence that the organization does not sanction and/or pursuing ends or goals that are not
sanctioned by the organization. A means/ends matrix may be used to explore these relationships. It is the association
between influence means and influence ends that determines whether activities are political and whether these activities
benefit the organization.

I. Sanctioned means/sanctioned ends. Here, power is used routinely to pursue agreed-on goals.
II. Sanctioned means/nonsanctioned ends. In this case, acceptable means of influence are abused to pursue goals that
the organization does not approve.
 III. Nonsanctioned means/santioned ends. Here, ends that are useful for the organization are pursued through
questionable means.
IV. Nonsanctioned means/nonsanctioned ends. This quadrant may exemplify the most flagrant abuse of power, since
disapproved tactics are used to pursue disapproved outcomes.

Political activities tend to occur under particular conditions and locations in an organization such as among middle and upper
management levels; in subunits with vague goals and complex tasks; and issues such as budget allocation. In general, scarce
resources, uncertainty, and important issues provoke political activity.

B. Machiavellianism - The Harder Side of Politics

Machiavellianism is a set of cynical beliefs about human nature, morality, and the permissibility of using various tactics to
achieve one's ends. For example, compared with "low Machs", "high Machs" are more likely to advocate the use of lying
and deceit to achieve desired goals. High Machs are especially adept at getting their way when situations are unstructured
and face-to-face dealing under emotional circumstances is the mode of interaction. They are cool and calculating and assume
that many people are excessively gullible and do not know what is best for themselves. In summary, high Machs are likely to
be enthusiastic organizational politicians.

C. Networking - The Softer Side of Politics

A more common and more subtle form of political beahviour involves networking. Networking can be defined as
establishing good relations with key organizational members and/or outsiders in order to accomplish one's goals. If these
goals are beneficial to the organization, we can describe networking as functional political behaviour. In essence, networking
involves developing informal social contacts to enlist the cooperation of others when their support is necessary. Some
networking is a function of one's location in the organization's workflow and formal communication channels.

D. Defensiveness-Reactive Politics

Political behaviour can also involve the defence or protection of self-interest. The goal here is to reduce threats to one's own
power by avoiding actions that do not suit one's political agenda or avoiding blame for events that might threaten one's
political capital.

Blake Ashforth and Ray Lee suggest a number of tactics for avoiding actions and blame. Avoiding action may be
accomplished by stalling, overconforming, or buck passing. Avoiding blame can involve bluffing or scapegoating.

IX.Ethics in Organizations

Ethics can be defined as systematic thinking about the moral consequences of decisions. Moral consequences can be framed
in terms of the potential for harm to any stakeholders in the decision. Stakeholders are people inside or outside of an
organization who have the potential to be affected by organizational decisions.

A. The Nature of Ethical Dilemmas

A recent survey indicated that conflicts of interest, questionable gift giving, and sexual harassment top the list of ethical
concerns. Especially noteworthy is the high percentage of firms that report problems in dealing with foreign business
practices that are contrary to their own ethical norms. A standardized set of moral standards for decision making that
managers can strive to achieve can help them to deal with ethical dilemmas including honest communication, fair treatment,
special consideration, fair competition, responsibility to the organization, corporate social responsibility, and respect for the
law.

B. Causes of Unethical Behaviour

Although difficult to research, evidence does suggest a number of causes of unethical behaviour.

Gain. The anticipation of healthy reinforcement for following an unethical course of action, especially if no punishment is
expected, should promote unethical decisions.

Role Conflict. Many ethical dilemmas that occur in organizations are actually forms of role conflict that get resolved in an
unethical way.

Competition. Stiff competition for scarce resources and the absence of competition can stimulate unethical behaviour.
Personality. An individual with a strong economic value orientation is more likely to behave unethically as well as those
with a high need for personal power (especially a "high Mach"), and a relatively unsophisticated understanding of moral
issues.

Organizational and Industry Culture. Aspects of an organization's culture (and its subcultures) can influence ethics. The
ethical values of a given organization are often shaped by how the behaviour of highly visible role models is rewarded. Also,
some industries seem to have more ethical crises than others although competition may be a factor.

C. Is Playing Politics Ethical?

Different stakeholders such as political opponents, employees, and the organization itself have legitimate interests when
politics are played. Although politics are natural in all organizations, by definition, they promote an individual's self-interest.
Thus, whether or not the playing of politics is ethical may depend on the ends that one pursues (in the case of the
organization) as well as the influence means that are used (in the case of who "gets hurt" along the way).

D. Sexual Harassment - When Power and Ethics Collide

Sexual harassment is near the top of the list of ethical concerns. Sexual harassment is a form of unethical behaviour that
stems in part from the abuse of power and the perpetuation of a gender power imbalance in the workplace. While the most
severe forms of sexual harassment are committed by supervisors, the most frequent perpetrators are actually co-workers.
Sexual harassment is also prevalent in hostile work environments that perpetuate the societal power imbalance between men
and women.

Many organizations are slow to react to complaints of sexual harassment and many do nothing about it until the complainant
has reported it. This phenomenon has been refereed to as the "deaf ear syndrome" which refers to the "the inaction or
complacency of organizations in the face of charges of sexual harassment".

Organizations can effectively deal with allegations of sexual harassment and increase their responsiveness by taking a
number of important measures:

 Examine the Characteristics of Deaf Ear Organizations.

In general, organizations that are responsive to complaints of sexual harassment have top management support and
commitment, comprehensive education and training programs, continuously monitor the work environment, respond to
complaints in a thorough and timely manner, and have clear policies and reporting procedures.

E. Employing Ethical Guidelines

Many organizations have invested in ethical programs. There is evidence that formal education in ethics does have a positive
impact on ethical attitudes. Some simple guidelines should help in the ethical screening of decisions. The point is to think
seriously about the moral implications of your decisions before they are made.

 Identify the stakeholders.

These guidelines should enable you to recognize ethical issues, make ethical judgments, and then convert these judgments
into behaviour. Training and education in ethics have become popular in North American organizations and does have a
positive impact on ethical attitudes.