MGMT 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Flattening, False Consciousness, Governmentality
Week 7: Managing Power and Politics
Learning Objectives
- Sources of Power
- Politics
- Domination & Authority
- Soft Domination
Introduction
- Power
o Power is the chance of an actor to realise their own will in a social action, even against the
resistance of others
o The actor may be an individual or a collective entity
o Power can mean forcing others to do things against their will
o Power can also be far more positive and less mechanical when it shapes and frames what
others want to do
- Organisational Politics
o Organization politics refers to the network of social relations between people in and around
organizations – whether willingly or not, in practices of power
French and Raven
- Expert power: knowledge/expertise what’s best
- Referent power: identification (e.g., admire, want to be like, look up to person)
- Legitimate power: acceptance of right (e.g., I should do what my boss asks, norms, culture)
- Reward Power: positive incentive for the target to comply (e.g., a raise in pay, a promotion, or
special work privileges)
- Coercive power: threats (e.g., demotion, termination, or undesirable work assignments)
Sovereign Power
- Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1676)
Bureaucratic Power
- Max Weber (1864 – 1920)
Legitimacy/Authority and Power
- Legitimacy attaches to something, whether a particular action or social structure, when there is
a widespread belief that it is just and valid
- Legitimacy is achieved through what Pettigrew called the ‘management of meaning’ a double
action as it seeks to create legitimacy for one’s actions as it simultaneously seeks to de-
legitimise those it opposes
Obedience, Responsibility and Ethics
- The Milgram experiment
Embedded or Structural Theories on Power (Critical Theory)
- Marx (1818 – 1883), ideology represents particular interests of dominant few
- Gramsci (1891 – 1937), hegemony or manufactured consent
- Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984), power-knowledge
o Discourses as disciplinary processes
o Surveillance as a form of power
o Bio-power – constituting the normal (health, education, lifestyle, etc.)
o Control is exercised through the management of freedom, or self-regulation
Two Ways of Exercising Power
- Winning acquiescence or consent
- Coercion of others
4 Faces of Power in Organisations
- The first face of power is coercion and involves one individual getting others to follow his/her
orders
- The second face involves the manipulation of agendas through behind the scenes politicking
- The third face of power is domination over the preferences and opinions of others.
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Document Summary
Organisational politics: organization politics refers to the network of social relations between people in and around organizations whether willingly or not, in practices of power. Referent power: identification (e. g. , admire, want to be like, look up to person) Legitimate power: acceptance of right (e. g. , i should do what my boss asks, norms, culture) Reward power: positive incentive for the target to comply (e. g. , a raise in pay, a promotion, or special work privileges) Coercive power: threats (e. g. , demotion, termination, or undesirable work assignments) Legitimacy attaches to something, whether a particular action or social structure, when there is a widespread belief that it is just and valid. Legitimacy is achieved through what pettigrew called the management of meaning" a double action as it seeks to create legitimacy for one"s actions as it simultaneously seeks to de- legitimise those it opposes. Embedded or structural theories on power (critical theory) Marx (1818 1883), ideology represents particular interests of dominant few.
