Compare and contrast power and politics in organizations. Give real-world example(s) of how politics impacts power.
Need at least three examples of power and politics and comparison of power and politics in different organizations
Politics - use of power by a person (or department) to influence organizational decisions in order to achieve outcomes it (the person or department) desires .
Dual view of organizational politics as:
1) Self serving behavior in pursuit of personal ambitions (and therefore disreputable or "tacky")
2) Natural organizational process for resolving differences among interest groups (and therefore almost inevitable and ultimately useful to the organization)
Surveys of managers in organizations have found that most managers
a) Have a negative view of organizational politics and believe that politics more often hurts than helps the organization
b) Believe politics are common in all organizations
c) Politics occurs more often at upper rather than lower levels of an organization
d) Politics occurs in certain decision domains, such as structural changes, but not in others, such as handling employee grievances
The political metaphor helps to understand power relationships in day-to-day organizational relationships. If we accept that power relations exist in organizations, then politics and politicking are an essential part of organizational life .
Politics is a means of recognizing and, ultimately, reconciling competing interests within the organization. Competing interests can be reconciled by any number of means. For example, resorting to "rule by the manager" might be seen as an example of totalitarian rule. On the other hand, politics may be a means of creating a noncoercive, or a democratic work environment.
As mentioned, organizations need mechanisms whereby they reconcile conflicting interests. Hence, organizations, like governments, tend to "rule" by some sort of "system". This "system" is employed to create and maintain "order" among the organization's members.
Systems of rule within organizations range from autocratic to democratic at the extremes. Between these extremes we find bureaucratic and technocratic systems. Whatever the system, each represents a political orientation with respect to how power is applied and distributed throughout the organization. Each type of organizational "rule" simply draws on ...
Power and politics in organizations are compared and contrasted . Real-world example(s) of how politics impacts power are given.