Organizational behavior: concepts, theories, and practice

Organizational Behavior

Power and influence are two critical aspects of the ways that people in organizations interrelate. Power is relatively simple -- it is about how you get what you want. Influence is trickier -- the text understands it as the reaction to power.

The author discusses issues relating to obedience. The acceptance of authority is discussed, and the author proposes that there are four conditions that must be met in order for authority to be accepted; these are not supported with evidence. The author then discusses what the reactions are to orders -- the different levels at which obedience manifests in the organization. There is a zone of indifference, which is basically those instructions that are carried out without any critical evaluation on the part of the person doing the job. Sometimes, however, an employee may feel that they are getting poor value out of their relationship with the organization, and may resist some instructions.

There are many sources of power and influence within the organization. Legitimate power comes from formal authority. Reward power comes from one's ability to reward people for their efforts and coercive power derives from the ability to punish people for their lack of compliance. Process power is when the person has control over resources and processes of the organization. Sometimes this will be closely aligned with formal power, but not always -- process power and formal power are often separated on job sites where tradespeople have the process power and the foreman the formal power. In offices, there is usually a closer alignment between these two forms of power.

Information power is related -- the more information one has the more power one has. Expert power is similar -- people who are viewed as experts are usually ascribed power even when they have little formal authority. Think of the long-serving veteran employee, who may hold a low post, but whom people turn to with their questions because that person knows everything about the company. Referent power and coalition power relate to one's ability to leverage interpersonal relations for power.

The next section discusses how to build power. When you understand the different sources of power -- above -- you can find ways to realize the maximum extent of your power in an organization, rather than simply relying on formal power. Knowledge of the different ways that one can acquire power is important politically, because it helps you to build the power you need to get what you need out of the job. This is political savvy -- knowing how to build power, and then utilize it in your dealings with others to get what you want. Influence capacity is the degree of influence that you could have; it is your potential influence. How you use that is your choice.

Managers play a key role in an organization. They have formal power -- and often other forms as well -- but they can also help others to acquire power. This is the process of empowerment. Essentially, empowering people is to give them the power that they need to do their jobs, and make their own decisions. Remember that there are many sources of power, including expert and informational, so empowerment does not just refer to giving out more formal authority; it can also mean giving people knowledge and confidence. There are limits to empowerment, however. Empowerment changes the power structure within the organization; power is not necessary a zero sum game but nor is it infinite.

There are two traditions of organizational politics -- the management of influence to get what you want (self-interest) and the other tradition looks at politics as leverage the self-interest of the people in the organization, usually for the benefit of the organization. In organizations, power tends to be split between formal and informal structures. With the self-interested view, people use a number of different political tactics to avoid problems, to redirect responsibility, and to defend turf.

Lastly, the author mentions governance. Managers may have self-interest, but ultimately they are supposed to be agents for the shareholders, and act according, in the interests of the shareholders. So there are sometimes conflicts between these interests in the organization. At the organisational level, a lot of the way power is structured in the organization is done at the top levels.

Chapter 13: This chapter focuses on leadership. The first point is to differentiate between management and leadership. Leadership is more about influencing individuals; management is more about allocating resources. They are related, and work together, but they are not the same thing.

Leadership theory has evolved quite a bit over the course of several decades. It used to be viewed that leadership was based on traits -- if you had these traits you would probably be a good leader. Trait theory then evolved to behavior theory -- it wasn't the traits that were important, it was how those traits manifested themselves in behavior. Since then, many other leadership theories have been argued as well.

One model is situational-contingency, which argues that leaders will change their leadership style based on different situations. So for one problem a leader might be more autocratic, and for another more of a supporting leader. There are probably leaders who fit this style, but some leaders are fairly rigid in their style, to their detriment often. One particular type of contingency leadership is path-goal theory, where the leader will change the path depending on the nature of the goal. Among the different styles identified within this context are directional, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented. So a leader can influence by setting people in the right direction, but providing them with the support resources, by getting involved or by setting goals. Hersey & Blanchard developed the situational leadership model to describe the situations under which each of these might be optimal.

There is a category of leadership study that focuses on what are known as "follower-centric" approaches. While the other types of leadership theories have focused on the leaders themselves, follower-centric approaches seek to understand leaders through the lens of the people being led. Implicit leadership theories focus on different "cognitive categories" of leadership, and different categories of follower response. Some followers are passive in their response, so mostly deferential and waiting leadership direction. Others are more proactive, and may respond better to leaders who provide direction and support, but otherwise are not heavy-handed in their leadership style.

There is a discussion of charismatic leaders, as there is some reason to believe that one's personal charisma is an important aspect of leadership, because it engages followers. There is also the concepts of transactional and transformational leaders. The transactional leader is geared towards routine performance. While sometimes given short shrift, most of the best companies in the world got to their place through routine excellence. Transformational leadership makes for better headlines -- this is a leader who can change the vision or culture of a company, transforming it into something new. This type of leader is better when the company is struggling, or in a changing industry, or otherwise has some impetus to transform itself -- charisma and inspiration play a big role in transformational leadership.

Lastly, the chapter touches on leader-member exchange theory. This posits that leaders will develop different relationships with different subordinates -- some are high quality relationships and others less so, but this affects the leader's influence, and evidence has shown that work outcomes are different…worse in the low quality relationships.

Case Study #12 -- Faculty Empowerment and the Changing University Environment

1. I would prefer to be in a school with less standardization, given the choice. Standardization in education does not provide the opportunity to get ahead -- you merely tread the same water as the rest of the class. It is good to learn the basics, but the cost of education is high, and you want to feel that you are getting superior value for your investment.. Where the instructor has a higher degree of empowerment doubtless has more risk. If the instructor isn't very good, being empowered with flexibility will not help. So the empowerment has to derive from a number of different sources -- not just being able to modify the assignments and choose different materials but having the skills to do so as well. A good instructor will flourish in an empowered environment, and I want to be at a school with good instructors who are empowered to do a superior job. The upside is higher.

2. Moving a faculty from one that is more empowered to one that is less empowered is an interesting challenge. First, on a formal basis, it may be difficult to justify stripping formal powers away from, well, anybody. The school will have to rely on its formal authority, because even if it has a high degree of influence, reducing autonomy tends not to work well with adults. On an informal basis, this is just as difficult. Part of empowerment is not just allowing people to do things, but giving them the training and tools to do them. A faculty that is trained to have a high level of autonomy in their work is more skilled, more valuable than a faculty that has no such training. The work itself will be less fulfilling because the instructor will no longer have any personal ownership or stake in the work. So this is about more than just changing the nature of the job. This might sound like the instructor would be defending turf, but for scholars that turf is fairly central to their mission in life, so it will be defended and probably quite vigorously -- it's quite different from telling the fry cook he has to work drive-thru now.

If I was in university administration, I would find this difficult. Profs have tenure, some of them, and thus job security. Ideally if the school is being run like a business, the school would want cheaper instructors, because they do not need to be highly-skilled in a disempowered environment. Dealing with the personnel issues will be challenging. Ultimately, influence may be important in the short run, but in the long run it will be difficult to meet the needs of the instructors as they are not accustomed to this business model, and this might conflict with their reason for being there. Remember that people are less likely to respect an order or follow it if that order conflicts with their personal interests. Management needs to be prepared for this, prepared to lose people (a lot of them, quickly) and hire new people to replace them.

3. On this, I am not sure. I am not an expert in education. I do not really feel that there is a compromise available, because I am putting myself in the shoes of one of these instructors -- I'd be out the door first chance I got, being disempowered like this. That's really what it comes down to -- it's not a matter of going sideways. Administration must specifically disempower some of its staff. The case notes that adult learners can be quite different from one another, but if your traditional focus of empowerment has been on material, that is quite a bit different from being asked to shift focus to empowerment on the point of helping with delivery. Online, this is even worse, because there are more constraints with respect to one-on-one interactions and being able to identify individual differences. I just see disempowerment as something that would be quite toxic in a workplace, and there's no way to tell a scholar (a critical thinker) that up is down -- they will know you're trying to feed them a line. It's not a workable compromise if the instructors are disempowered and unhappy about that. Better to get the attrition going, and bring in new instructors who will not have anything taken away.

Case 13 -- the New Vice President

Part A. Not knowing what a Vice-President of a university does, I would say Jennifer has potential. She's knows a lot about how universities work and will be dedicated to her job -- the sort of person who you can envision learning and getting better. Her management/leadership style will be supportive. That is speculation, but she seems hands-on, and thus should understand what the different people need in order to perform their tasks. She will be quite sympathetic to the hiring freeze issue, too. Some people will be taking on extra work because of the hiring freeze. Her dedication and breadth of knowledge are definite strengths, but her lack of managerial and leadership experience might be an issue. With the latter, you never know until someone's been tested.

Part B. There are a couple of major problems for Jennifer. She has not managed her power well, which has caused performances issues (decision-making, time management) and she has also not managed her influence very well, instead resting on her job title. Others trust neither her expertise nor, it seems, her competence. In her position, I would start to work on the influence. Maybe it's too late, but she should try because she still has time to build some influence. She has some expert knowledge, which would be utilized. She needs to repair her relationship with the president, too, because that was a source of referential influence that she seems to have squandered. Would a man have the same experience? Maybe, maybe not. That's a whole other can of worms. Men have underperformed and been marginalized too, but this case doesn't give the information needed to answer that question without bias. Her management style, at this point, is not holding up. She needs to be more aware of her power and influence, but also she has to have a better sense of dealing with others -- she has to be able to make difficult decisions.

Part C. No, I would not have accepted the job if I was Jennifer. The number two shouldn't be a "yes man," but someone with a high level of input into decision making. Her desire for the title was a weakness that has been exploited here. As new, permanent VP, I would do the following. I would heed the advice on organization -- if that's a weakness holding me back, I want to fix that. I would not be a yes man. The #2 should be a valuable contributor -- she was hired for her expert authority, it seemed, so she would be crazy to marginalize that. Her knowledge of how the school works is her greatest strength. But she will not change her management style -- it's been two frustrating years and no indication of changes. People do not easily change management styles; it is possible but most people struggle with that. My prediction is a poor future, unless she asserts her expertise and influence a lot more than she has.

Part D. If I'm the president, I don't throw good money after bad. The VP has to be able to make decisions. That she is so indecisive is one of the reasons why the Deans are going rogue. She should already know the tenor of the campus, and be able to talk to key people quickly to get feedback on issues; this shouldn't take months. If I was Jennifer, I would have quit a long time ago. The expectations that she had for the position were not aligned with what her bosses needed; this was clear when she was confirmed as permanent. It's time to move on for all concerned.