OB 23042024

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Siksha Srijan Academy ( OB ) 2nd

Semester
ORGANIZATIONAL POWER AND POLITICS
 DEFINITION OF POWER
Power refers to the capacity that a person (A) has to influence
the behavior of another person (B) so that that person (B) acts
in accordance with his (A) wishes. Power therefore remains a
capacity or potential because someone can have power but not
use it.
One important aspect of power is the function of dependence.
The greater B depends on A, the greater A’s power in the
relationship.
 DEFINITION OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS

Organizational politics focuses on the use of power to affect
decision making in an organization or on self and
organizationally unsanctioned behavior. In other words political
behavior in an organization consists of activities that are not
required as part of an individual’s formal role but that influence,
or attempt to influence the distribution of advantages and
disadvantages within the organization.
 Source of power
 Interpersonal Sources of Power
French and Raven identity five interpersonal sources of power:
reward power, coercive power, legitimate power, expert power,
and referent power.
 Rewardpower: Reward power is an individual's ability to
influence others' behaviour by rewarding their desirable
behaviour. Employees comply with requests and directives
because of the authority of managers to grant rewards in
the form of praise, promotions, salary increase, bonuses,
and time-off. Reward power can lead to better
Prepared by Joy Bhowmick

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performance, but only as long as the employee sees a

clear and strong link'between performance and rewards.
 Coercive power: Coercive power is an individual's ability
to influence others'behaviour by means of punishment for
undesirable behaviour. For example, subordinates may
comply because they expect to be punished for failure to
respond favourably to managerial directives. Punishment
may be major or minor, depending on the nature of
omission or commission.
 Legitimate Power: Legitimate power most often refers to
a manager's ability to influence subordinates' behaviour
because of the manager's position in the organisational
hierarchy. Subordinates may respond to such influence
because they acknowledge the manager's legitimate right
to prescribe certain behaviours. Legitimate power is an
important organisational concept. Typically, a manager is
empowered to make decisions within a specific area of
responsibility, such as quality control, accounting, human
resource, marketing, and so on.
 Expert power: Expert power is an individual's ability to
influence others' behaviour because of recognised skills,
talents, or specialised knowledge. To the extent that
managers can demonstrate competence in analysing,
evaluating, controlling, and implementing the tasks of
subordinates, they will acquire expert power.
 Referent power: Referent power is an individual s ability
to influence others' behaviour as a result of being liked or
admired. For instance, subordinates' identification with a
manager often forms the basis for referent power,
Thisidentification may include the desire of the
subordinates to emulate the manager. Referent power is
usually associated with the individuals who possess
admired personality characteristics, charisma, or a good
reputation.
 Structural Sources of Power

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Much of the attention directed at power in organisations tends

to focus on the power of managers over subordinates. An
additional perspective is that the characteristics of the situation
affect or determine power. Important structural sources of
power include knowledge, resources, decision making and
networks.
 Knowledge as power: Organisations are information
processors that must use knowledge to produce goods and
services. The concept of knwledge as power means that
individuals, teams, groups, or departments that possess
knowledge are crucial in attaining the organisation's goals.
Intellectual capital represents the knowledge, know-how,
and competency that exists in the organisation. This
intellectual capital can provide an organisation with a
competitive edge in the marketplace.
 Resources as power: Organisations need a variety of
resources, including money, human resources, equipment,
materials, and customers to survive. The importance of
specific resources to an organisation's success and the
difficulty in obtaining them vary from situation to
situation. The departments, groups, or individuals who can
provide essential or difficult-to-obtain resources acquire
more power in the organisation than others.
 Decision making as power: The decision making
process in an organisation createsmore or less power
differences among individuals or groups. Managers
exercise considerable power in an organisation simply
because of their decision making ability. Although decision
making is an important aspect of power in every
organisation, cultural differences make for some
interesting differences in the relationship. For example, in
Chinese organisation, decision making power was more
decentralised in manufacturing firms than in service
organisations. The reverse wastrue in British firms, with
power being more decentralised in the service
organisations than in the manufacturing firms.

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 Networks as power: The existence of structural and

situational power depends not only on access to
information, resources and decision making, but also on
the ability to get cooperation in carrying out tasks.
Managers and departments that have connecting links
with other individuals and departments in the organisation
will be more powerful than those who don't have.

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Siksha Srijan Academy ( OB ) 2nd

 DEFINITION OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS

Prepared by Joy Bhowmick

performance, but only as long as the employee sees a

Prepared by Joy Bhowmick

Much of the attention directed at power in organisations tends

Prepared by Joy Bhowmick

 Networks as power: The existence of structural and

Prepared by Joy Bhowmick

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