Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior

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  ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOR FIVE BASESOF POWER
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  What is aPower? An ability to get something done the way a person wants it done and it includes the ability to gather physical and human resources and put them to work to reach a goal, it is essential to leadership and management functions. Power refers to a capacity that A has to influence the behavior of B so B acts in accordance with A’s wishes. Probably the most important aspect of power is that it is a function of dependence. The greater B’s dependence on A, the greater A’s power in the relationship.
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  Example : Your alternativesare highly limited and you place a high degree of importance on obtaining a passing grade. Similarly, if you’re attending college on funds totally provided by your parents, you probably recognize the power they hold over you. You’re dependent on them for financial support. But once you’re out of school, have a job and are making a good income, your parents’ power is reduced significantly.
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  WHY IS POWERIMPORTANT IN ORGANIZATION?  Power is essential for smooth functioning of any organization. An organization usually consists of many people and the activities of these people need be channeled and coordinated in particular ways to achieve the organizational objectives.  When examining it from the top down elements, power and authority can help to give structure to an organization, it assist employees in performing better and allow short and long term goals to be reached.
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   People inan organization draw such power from many sources such as formal authority defined by organizational structure and policies, expert knowledge and skill, ability to control resources and interpersonal skills.  The power exercised by managers over their subordinates to direct and control their activities.  Power may be exercised by individual and groups of individual to achieve their personal objectives; it may interfere with achievement of organizational objectives.
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  5 Bases ofPower: Coercive Power Reward Power Legitimate Power Expert Power Referent Power Personal Power Formal Power
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  Formal Power Formal poweris based on an individual’s position in an organization. It can come from the ability to coerce or reward, or from formal authority Coercive Power: The coercive power base depends on fear of the negative results from failing to comply. It rests on the application, or the threat of application, of physical sanctions such as the infliction of pain, frustration through restriction of movement, or the controlling by force of basic physiological or safety needs.
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  Reward Power: The oppositeof coercive power is reward power, with which people comply because it produces positive benefits; someone who can distribute rewards others view as valuable will have power over them. These rewards can be either financial such as controlling pay rates, raises, and bonuses or nonfinancial, including recognition, promotions, interesting work assignments, friendly colleagues and preferred work shifts or sales territories.
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  Legitimate Power: In formalgroups and organizations, probably the most common access to one or more of the power bases is through legitimate power. It represents the formal authority to control and use organizational resources based on structural position in the organization. Legitimate power is broader than the power to coerce and reward. Specifically, it includes members’ acceptance of the authority of a position. We associate power so closely with the concept of hierarchy that just drawing longer lines in an organization chart leads people to infer the leaders are especially powerful, and when a powerful executive is described, people tend to put the person at a higher position when drawing an organization chart.
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  Personal Power Personal powercomes from an individual’s unique characteristics. There are two bases of personal power: expertise and the referent. Expert Power: Expert power is influence wielded as a result of expertise, special skill or knowledge. As jobs become more specialized, we become increasingly dependent on experts to achieve goals. It is generally acknowledged that physicians have expertise and hence expert power.
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  Referent Power: Referent poweris based on identification with a person who has desirable resources or personal traits. Referent power develops out of admiration of another and a desire to be like that person. It helps explain, for instance, why celebrities are paid millions of dollars to endorse products in commercials. Marketing research shows people such as LeBron James and Tom Brady have the power to influence your choice of athletic shoes and credit cards. Some people who are not in formal leadership positions nonetheless have referent power and exert influence over others because of their charismatic dynamism, likability, and emotional effects on us.
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  RESEARCH Unfortunately, some ofthe strategies associated with the exercise of legitimate power may have limited utility. Schein (1990) noted that organizational climate is only the surface manifestation of culture, and “many organizational change programs that failed probably did so because they ignored cultural forces in the organizations in which they were to be installed”. Trevino (1986) found that ethical codes of conduct were not effective unless those codes were consistent with the organizational culture and were enforced. Similarly, almost 25 years later, a meta-analysis by Kish- Gephart, Harrison, and Trevino (2010) revealed that the existence of codes of conduct had no noticeable impact on employees’ ethical choices.
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  RESEARCH There is achallenge with the use of coercive power. Employees may choose not to engage in unethical conduct for “the wrong reason.” They may not participate in an unethical act due to a fear of being caught, rather than because they believe that the action is intrinsically unethical. As Bazerman and Tenbrunsel (2011) observed, a sanctioning approach to unethical conduct may increase the probability that employees contemplating an unethical act will engage in a cost-benefit analysis rather than evaluate the behavior on its own merits. If employees assess that there is a low probability of detection for engaging in unethical conduct, the impact of coercive power to shape an ethical climate may be limited.
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  Thank you