Organizational

Behavior, 9/E
Schermerhorn, Hunt, and
Osborn
Prepared by
Michael K. McCuddy
Valparaiso University
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Chapter 12 Study Questions

What are power and influence in an

organization?
How are power, obedience, and formal

authority intertwined in an organization?

What is empowerment?
What is organizational politics?
Organizational Behavior:

Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Power.
The ability to get someone to do something

you want done.

The ability to make things happen in the way
you want.

Influence.
Expressed by others behavioral response to

your exercise of power.

Organizational Behavior:

Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Position power derives from a persons position

in the organizational hierarchy.

Types of position power.
Reward power.
Coercive power.
Legitimate power.
Process power.
Information power.
Representative power.

Organizational Behavior:

Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Reward power.
The extent to which a manager can use extrinsic and

intrinsic rewards to control other people.

Coercive power.
The extent to which a manager can deny desired

rewards and administer punishment to control other

people.
Organizational Behavior:

Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Legitimate power.
The extent to which a manager can use subordinates

internalized values or beliefs that the boss has the

right of command to control other people.

Process power.
The control over methods of production and analysis

that a manager has due to being in a position to

influence how inputs are transformed into outputs.
Organizational Behavior:

Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Information power.
The access to and/or control of information. .

Representative power.
The formal right conferred by the firm to speak for a

potentially important group composed of individuals

across departments or outside the firm.

Organizational Behavior:

Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Personal power derives from individual

sources.
Types of personal power.
Expert power.
Rational persuasion.
Referent power.
Organizational Behavior:

Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Expert power.
The ability to control another persons behavior

through the possession of knowledge, experience, or

judgment that the other person does not have but
needs.

Rational persuasion.
The ability to control another persons behavior by

convincing the other person of the desirability of a

goal and a reasonable way of achieving it.
Organizational Behavior:

Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Referent power.
The ability to control anothers behavior because the

person wants to identify with the power source.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?

Organizational Behavior:

11

Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Ways to build position power.
Demonstrating work unit relevance to

organizational goals and needs.

Increasing task relevance of ones own

activities and work units activities.

Attempting to define tasks so they are difficult

to evaluate.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Ways to build personal power.
Building expertise.
Advanced training and education, participation in

professional associations, and project involvement.

Learning political savvy.

Learning ways to negotiate, persuade, and
understand goals and means that others accept.
Enhancing likeability.
Pleasant personality characteristics, agreeable
behavior patterns, and attractive personal
appearance.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Ways that managers increase the visibility

of their job performance.

Expanding contacts with senior people.
Making oral presentations of written work.
Participating in problem-solving task forces.
Sending out notices of accomplishment.
Seeking opportunities to increase name

recognition.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Controlling decision premises.
Executives attempt to control, or at least

influence, decision premises.

A decision premise is a basis for defining the
problem and for selecting among alternatives.
Executives who want to increase their power
will make their goals and needs clear and
bargain effectively.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 1: What are power

and influence in an organization?
Common techniques for exercising

relational influence.

Reason.
Friendliness.
Coalition.
Bargaining.
Assertiveness.
Higher authority.
Sanctions.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 2: How are power, obedience,

and formal authority intertwined in an
organization?

Important practical issues in the exercise

of power and formal authority.

Why should subordinates respond to a

managers authority (or right to

command)?
Given that subordinates are willing to obey,

what determines the limits of obedience?

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 2: How are power, obedience,

and formal authority intertwined in an
organization?
The Milgram experiments.
Designed to determine the extent to which people

obey the commands of an authority figure, even if

they believe they are endangering the life of another
person.
The results indicated that the majority of the
experimental subjects would obey the commands of
the authority figure.
Basic conclusion was that people tend to comply with
and be obedient to authority.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 2: How are power, obedience,

and formal authority intertwined in an
organization?

For a directive from a superior to be

accepted as authoritative, the subordinate:

Can and must understand it.
Must feel mentally and physically capable of

carrying it out.
Must believe that it is consistent with the
organizations purpose.
Must believe that it is consistent with his or
her personal interests.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 2: How are power, obedience,

and formal authority intertwined in an
organization?

Zone of indifference.
In exchange for certain inducements,
subordinates recognize the authority of the
organization and its managers to direct their
behavior in certain ways.
A zone of indifference is the range of
authoritative requests to which a subordinate
is willing to respond without subjecting the
directives to critical evaluation or judgment.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 2: How are power, obedience,

and formal authority intertwined in an
organization?

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 3: What is

empowerment?
Empowerment.
The process by which managers help others to

acquire and use the power needed to make

decisions affecting themselves and their work.
Provides the foundation for self-managing work

teams and other employee involvement groups.

Empowerment emphasizes the ability to make

things happen.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 3: What is

empowerment?
Changing position power.
Moving power down the hierarchy alters the

existing pattern of position power.

Changing this pattern raises the following

important questions:
Can empowered individuals give rewards and

sanctions based on task accomplishment?

Has their new right to act been legitimized with

formal authority?
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 3: What is

empowerment?
Expanding the zone of indifference.
Management needs to recognize the current zone

of indifference and systematically move to expand

it.
Management should show how empowerment will

benefit people and provide the needed inducement.

.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 3: What is

empowerment?
Power as an expanding pie.
Employees need to be trained to expand their

power and their new influence potential.

The key is to change from a view stressing

power over others to one emphasizing the use

of power to get things done.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 3: What is

empowerment?
Power as an expanding pie.
Clearer definition of roles and responsibilities

helps managers empower others.

All mangers need to emphasize different ways

of exercising influence.
Special support may be needed for individuals

to become comfortable.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Machiavellian tradition of organizational

politics.

Emphasizes self-interest and the use of

nonsanctioned means.
Organizational politics is defined as the
management of influence to obtain ends not
sanctioned by the organization or to obtain
sanctioned ends through nonsanctioned
influence means.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Alternate tradition of organizational

politics.

Politics is a necessary function resulting from

differences in the self-interests of individuals.

Politics is the art of creative compromise
among competing interests.
Politics is the use of power to develop socially
acceptable ends and means that balance
individual and collective interests.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Subunit power.
Line units are typically more powerful than
are staff groups.
Units toward the top of the organizational
hierarchy are often more powerful than those
toward the bottom.
Power differentials are not as pronounced
among units at or near the same level in an
organization.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Political actions for influencing lateral,

intergroup relationships.
Workflow linkages.
Service linkages.
Advisory linkages.
Auditing linkages.
Approval linkages.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Important aspects of corporate political strategy.
Absence of a political strategy can be damaging.
Corporate political strategy should be targeted toward

turning the government from a regulator against

industry to a protector of it.
Need to make decisions about when and how to get

involved in the public policy processes.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Avoidance is quite common where the employee

must risk being wrong or where actions may

yield a sanction.
Common techniques for avoiding action and risk
taking.
Working to the rules.
Playing dumb.
Depersonalization.
Stalling.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Common techniques for redirecting

accountability and responsibility.

Passing the buck.
Buffing (or rigorous documentation).
Preparing a blind memo.
Rewriting history.
Redirecting.
Scapegoating.
Blaming the problem on uncontrollable events.
Escalating commitment.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Defending turf.
Defending turf is a time-honored tradition in most

large organizations.
Defending turf results when:
Managers seek to increase their power by expanding the jobs

their groups perform.

Competing interests exist among various departments and

groups.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Agency theory.
An important power problem arises from the

separation of owners and managers.

Managers are agents of the owners.
Public corporations can function effectively

even though its managers are self-interested.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Key arguments of agency theory.
By protecting stockholder interests, all the

interests of society are served.

Stockholders have a clear interest in greater

returns.
Managers are self-interested and must be

controlled.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Types of controls instituted for agents.
Pay plan incentives that align the interests of

management and stockholders.

The establishment of a strong, independent

board of directors.
Stockholders with a large stake in the firm

taking an active role on the board.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Resource dependencies.
The firms need for resources that are controlled by

others.

The resource dependence of an organization

increases as:
Needed resources become more scarce.
Outsiders have more control over needed resources.
There are fewer substitutes for a particular type of

resource controlled by a limited number of outsiders.

Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Organizational governance.
The pattern of authority, influence, and acceptable

managerial behavior established at the top of the

organization.
Organizational governance establishes the following:
What is important.
How issues will be defined.
Who should and should not be involved in key
choices
Boundaries for acceptable implementation.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Negative views of organizational

governance.

Unbalanced organizational governance by

some United States corporations may limit

their ability to manage global operations
effectively.
Organizational governance is too closely tied
to the short-term interests of stockholders and
the pay of the CEO.
Organizational Behavior:

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Study Question 4: What is organizational

politics?
Positive views of organizational governance.
The governance of U.S. firms extends well beyond the

limited interests of the owners.

Organization governance should be based on three
ethical criteria.
When the three ethical criteria cannot be fulfilled, the
criterion of overwhelming factors should be invoked.
Choosing to be ethical often involves considerable
personal sacrifice.
Organizational Behavior:

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Organizational Behavior:

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