Organizational Behavior Exam 2 Study Guide

Pondy's Model of Org Conflict

1) Latent Conflict 2) Perceived Conflict 3) Felt Conflict 4) Manifest Conflict 5) Conflict Aftermath

Examples of tactics in regards to functions and divisions to gain informal power

1). managers can work to become irreplaceable 2). Managers may develop specialized skills or knowledge about a certain product or technology that is becoming increasingly important to an organization so that they can control a crucial contingency facing it. 3). Managers can try to become more central in an organization by deliberately accepting responsibilities that bring them into contact with many different functions or managers.

Ways that power and politics can help an organization

1). when different managers champion different solutions to a problem and use their power to promote these solutions, ensuing debates over the appropriate course of action 2). different managerial perspectives can promote change that allows an organization to adapt to its changing environment

When is charismatic power abused

A leader who has a mistaken or evil vision, no checks or balances exist to resist the leader's directives, no matter how outrageous they may be.

Principal source of power for top managers

Ability to control and generate resources.

Characteristics of Central Functions/ Divisions

Activities are needed by many other functions, have access to a lot of info, gives them power in dealings with other functions

What functions or divisions are irreplacable

All of them are to a certain degree.

Sources of Power

An aspiring manager who can accurately identify the source of the power of different managers an then choose to follow the manager who has the best chance of rising to the top.

How can someone know how they affect what is going on around them

Analyzing the sources of power at the functional, divisional, and organizational levels and by identifying powerful people, and observing their approach to leadership.

Compromise

Bargaining and negotiation motivated by the desire to reach a solution acceptable to both parties

Whose responsibility is it to manage organizational politics

CEO because this role possesses the legitimate power to exercise control over all other managers

What happens when division do not get enough funds

Cannot hire new skilled employees, buy new technology, reduces their potential performance in long run.

What can be used to ensure that coercive power and reward power are used properly?

Clearly specified rules and procedures that govern how both powers are used.

Ability to control and generate resources

Control the purse strings of an organization and have the ability to give or withhold rewards.

What do politically astute managers cultivate?

Cultivate both people and information and are able to build up a personal network of contacts in organization - can use to pursue goals

Political decision making

Decision making characterized by active disagreement over which organizational goals to pursue and how to pursue them

Controlling the Agenda

Deliberately limit the range of issues decision makers will confront to increase the chance they will choose the courses of action the most powerful members are championing

Controlling the Agenda

Determine which specific issues and problems will be brought to the attention of decision makers and which will be ignored

How can someone increase their chances of promotion

Develop a personal power base to increase their visibility and individual power.

Recognizing who has power

Developing the ability to recognize who has power in org and then using knowledge to know which managers to influence and impress.

Three main causes of interpersonal and intergroup conflict

Differentiation, task relationships, and scarcity of resources

Bringing in an Outside Expert

Disagreement emerges > subunit fighting to safeguard own interests >objective views of expert to support their position and protect their functions at the cost of others

What must be in place for managers to use reward power to influence and control behavior

Employees value the rewards

What is the function of review boards and promotion committees

Ensure that people are being promoted on the basis of merit and what they know, not whom they know.

Examples of Informal Power

Expert, referent, charismatic

Types of individual power

Formal and Informal

Primary source of power in organizationals

Formal individual power, particularly legitimate power

Status Inconsistencies

Functions whose activities are the most central and essential to a company's operations come to view themselves as more important > reults in attempt to achieve goals at expense of others

Example of why a manager might engage in organizational politics

Higher-paying jobs are a scarce resource

Manifest Conflict

Hostility between parties in conflict leads them to engage in openly aggressive behaviors

What determines the degree of irreplaceability

How easy it is to find a replacement for their expertise

Centrality

How vital or crucial its activities are to the operation of the entire organization and the degree to which it is positioned to gain access to important information from other functions.

Effects of supporting and becoming indispensable to a specific manager whose power is growing/influences

Increases a managers chance of rising up with that person in hierarchy

Referent Power

Informal power that stems from being liked, admired, and respected.

Expert Power

Informal power that stems from superior ability or expertise in performing a specific task or role

Charasmatic Power

Intense form of referent power stemming from a person's unique personality, personal strengths, or other capabilities that induce others to believe in or follow that person.

What replaces extrinsic rewards when budgets are tight

Intrinsic rewards (praise and interesting job assignments)

Symbols of Power

Job titles (Vice president chief ___ officer), ability to use company assets, corner office with a view

Ultimate source of individual's power in an organizational

Legitimate power

Examples of Formal Power

Legitimate, reward, coercive, information

What is an effect of controlling the agenda

Limit the consideration of alternative choices of action.

What happens to legitimate, reward, and coercive power when charismatic power exists?

Lose their significance because followers give the charismatic leader the right to hold the reins of power and make decisions that define the vision and goals of an org. and how its members should behave.

What can cause a decline in performance by org conflict

Manager conflict gets out of control and organization fragments into competing interest groups

2 main ways power and politics can help an organization

Managers can use power to control people and other resources so that they can cooperate to achieve an organization's goals and Managers can also use power to engage in politics and influence the decision-making process to promote new, more appropriate organizational goals.

Building Coalitions and Alliances

Managers joining together and forming coalitions that have the power necessary to achieve their common interests and goals.

Example of a function in regards to contingency

Marketing company has control / power over manufacturing company because they can forecast potential demand ( a possible contingency facing manufacturing )

The division whose products provide an organization with the most revenue and profit

Most important division in organization.

Representational Indicators

Number of roles a person holds and the range of their responsibilities. Membership on a committee, occupy central administrative roles or access to important information increasing their ability to make good decisions and alter the bargaining power in their favor

What is a characteristic of the most effective organizations in regards to information power

Organizational members share, not hoard, information.

Task Relationships

Overlapping authority, task interdependencies , incompatible evaluation systems,

Leads to a more effective use of organizational resouces

Political decision making

Principal means of directing and controlling organizational goals and activities

Power

Difference between power and influence

Power is the potential to affect the behavior of others in a particular way, Influence is the actual ability to affect the behavior of others.

Information Power

Power stemming from access to and control over important organizational facts, data, and decisions.

Informal Power

Power that stems from personal characteristics, such as personality, skills and capabilities

Concerns about centrality

Power to control and hide important information because of centrality can result in managers behaving in unethical or illegal ways.

Coercive Power

Power to give or withhold punishment.

Reward Power

Power to give pay raises, promotion, praise, interesting projects, and other rewards to subordinates

Personal Reputation

Reputation and the esteem the manager is held in by colleagues > Stories told about certain managers and their achievements or failures

5 things to consider when measuring the relative power of different managers

Sources of power, consequences of power, Symbols of power, personal reputations, representational indicators

What is conflict a symptom of

Symptom of underlying problems and or issues that need to be explicitly addressed

What results of a balance of power

The decisions that result from the political process are more likely to favor the long term interests of or

What happens when managers have more information?

The easier it is for managers to resolve problems facing subordinates and so subordinates come to rely more on their managers.

The more managers are able to access and control important information...

The greater is their informational power

Effects of higher level in hierarchy

The higher a manager rises, the more difficult it is to continue to rise because fewer jobs are available at upper levels. Competitions

The greater the manager's legitimate power and authority..

The more accountable and responsible the manager is for using organizational resources to increase performance.

Why is ability to control and generate resources so important

The more money a division receives, the more people it can hire and the more money it can spend which will increase its chances of future success

Consequences of Power

The people who have the most power can be identified by an assessment of who benefits the most from the decisions made in an org. Ex- ability to obtain access to scarce resources through budgeting process shows how much power

Nonverbal communication

The sharing of information by means of facial expressions, body language, and mode of dress

Organizational Conflict

The struggle that arises when the goal-directed behavior of one person or group blocks the goal directed behavior of another person or group

When subordinates assume more responsibility for organizational performance...

They often feel more motivated to perform highly.

A function or division has power over others if it can reduce the uncertainty they experience or manage the contingency or problem that is troubling them True or False

True

True or False: The functions or divisions that can solve the organization's problems and reduce the uncertainty it experiences are the ones that have the most power in an organization.

True

Example of corporation use of referent power

Use film stars and athletes to advertise a product because their referent power will attract their admirers to buy those products

Way of controlling the decision making process to support individual manager interests

Using power to engage in politics.

What usually happens with people with expert power

Usually promoted up in the hierarchy of individuals > Informal power gives them formal power.

Dark side of charismatic power

When followers of the charismatic leader blindly follow the leader and fail to take personal responsibility for their actions because they come to believe that leader knows what is best.

Irreplaceability

When no other function or division can perform its activities

Perceived Conflict

When one party becomes aware of its goals that are being thwarted by the actions of another party. Each party searches for the origin of conflict, defines why it is emerging, analyzes the events, and constructs a scenario that accounts for the problems it is experiencing. Conflict escalates as functions start to argue about origin of conflict

When do a division or function become powerful

When the tasks that it performs give it the ability to control the behavior of other divisions or functions or make them dependent on it which allows it to increase its share of organizational resources.

Filtering

a sender's withholding part of a message becuase the sender thinks the receiver does not need or will not want to receive the information.

Organizational Politics

activities in which managers engage to increase their power and pursue goals that favor their individual and group interests

Personality trains of referent power

agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, willingness to help others

Contingency

an event or problem that might occur therefore must be planned for, having the people and resources in place to deal with it should the event arise.

noise

anything that hampers or interferes with the communication process

Effects of information distortion and filtering

avoided by establishing trust in an org because one way to establish trust is to create a policy of not blaming the sender for bad news.

What does bringing in an outside expert avoid for a function

avoids politically motivated or self interested actions

Old view of organizational conflict

bad or dysfunctional because leads to lower organizational performance. Occurs because managers have not designed an organizational structure that allows cooperation

Formal Individual Power

based on the authority that stems from a person's position in an organization's hierarchy

why is the communication cycle cyclical or ongoing

because communication depends on information being transferred back and forth between people to clarify and improve upon the information being exchanged.

Felt conflict

begins developing negative feelings about other party; performance and effectiveness declines

Avoidance

both parties refuse to acknowledge the real source of the problem and act as if no problems existed > do not engage in manifest conflict

Information Distortion

change in meaning that occurs when a message traavels through a series of different senders to a receiver

five factors that determine how persuasive a message will be

characteristics of the sender, active listening, content of message, medium it was send, characteristics of receiver

Resolving Conflict : 5 forms of negotiation

compromise, collaboration, accommodation, avoidance, and competition

Effective communication

depends on messages being as clear and complete as possible

Diverity

describing personal experiences and difficulties, work for a period of time with people are are different from themselves

Messages encoded with jargon

effective when senders and receivers are a part of the same group

How can conflict can increase performance

exposes weaknesses in organizational decision making and design which prompts changes; realign the power structure and shift balance of power in favor of group that can best meet current needs

Collaboration

find a solution because they are motivated by their own goals and goals on other side; both compromise and collaboration enable the parties in dispute to solve their differences and to find ways to work together to increase their combined performance

Competition

greatest and most visible kind of conflict; each party is focused only on pursuing their interests.

Coalitions

groups of managers who have similar interests

Accommodation

handling conflict in which one party recognizes they lack the resources and power to negotiate equitably with the other party so they allow the other party to dictate a solution

Examples of Manifest conflict

heated arguments, physical violence

What must members need to be able to recognize because of power and politics

how they affect what is going on on around them > the kinds of rules that are made, people who get promoted, ways rewards are distributed.

What do managers fear about informational power

if subordinates know as much as they do, their power to control and shape their behavior will be lost.

Importance of clarity

important regardless of the content of the messaage whether it relates to performance feedback, task force findings and conclusions or an org response to regulations

Decoding

interpreting or trying to make sense of a sender's message

Sender

is the person group or org that wants or needs to share information with some other individual group or org to accomplish one or more of the four functions of communication

examples of noise

jargon, poor handwriting, lost cell phone, heavy workload that delays a receiver reading mssages, bad mood

Result of avoidance

lack of cooperation and lower performance

Choosing a medium

must choose on the receiver pays attention to on a regular basis, select one that is appropriate to the kind of message the sender wishes to convey to the receiver and to use several media if necessary

Encoding issues

must make sure the message is sent in a form the receiver can understand

Latent Conflict

no actual conflict, there is potential for it to arise. sources of conflict can cause it to suddenly or gradually arise.

Functional Orientations

occurs when different functions develop different beliefs about the right way to increase a performance

Differentiation

occurs when employees and tasks are split up into different groups; leads to different functional orientations and makes status inconsistencies apparent

Receiver

person group org for which the information is intended

Examples of encoding

putting ideas into words, summarizes meetings into wordsa and statistics

What do power struggles do to an organization

sap the strength of an org, waste resources, and distract the org from achieving goals.

When information in message is important

sender needs to prepared to back up the written communication with oral communication

Jargon

specialized terminology or language that members of a profession occupation or group ddevelop to improve communication among themselves not their clients

Verbal communication

spoken or written

How can an org avoid power struggles

strong CEO, who can manipulate and balance its power structure so that no manager or coalition of managers can become strong enough to threaten the future effectiveness of org.

Examples of punishments

suspension, demotion, termination, unpleasant job assignments, or withholding praise ad goodwill

Power

the ability of one person or group to cause another person or group to do something they otherwise might not have done.

Medium

the conduit or pathway through which an encoded message is transmitted to a receiver

Message

the information the sender needs or wants to share with other people

What can CEO's influence

the outcomes of political struggle and contests between managers so that they help rather than harm an organization.

Legitimate Power

the power to control and use organizational resources to accomplish organizational goals.

Why might a manager use political behavior

to gain a promotion or to influence organizational decision making in their favor

Encoding

translating a message into symnols or language that a receiver can understand

New Current view of organizational conflict

unavoidable, can increase organizational performance if carefully managed or negotiated

Importance of completeness

when it contains all information necessary to achieve a common understanding between the sender and the receiver

What makes a message clear

when it contains information that is easily interpreted or understood