Power, Politics, And Culture Business & Marketing Research Paper

Power, Politics, and Culture
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Institution
Power, Politics, and Culture
Introduction
Power and politics are very influential in any business organization because they determine how employees interact with each other, and how decisions are made. Power refers to the ability to influence other people, while politics refer to the activities undertaken by people to acquire power and influence in the organization (Omisore & Nweke, 2014). When power and politics are used negatively, they affect organizational culture and productivity negatively. This paper addresses the influence of power, politics, and leadership on organizational culture.
Influence of Politics and Power
Politics in an organization are influenced by the power struggle between different groups within the organization. Individuals in each group usually have a common interest or goal, thus the struggle of power between them and individuals in other groups with different goals (Omisore & Nweke, 2014). As such, it is clear that groups play a role in facilitating politics in the organization.
Politics and power influence the organizational culture at my place of work through resource allocation. According to Shafritz, Ott, and Jang (2016), politics and power affect the distribution of scarce resources because it is those with power that determine what resources are to be allocated to which departments. In some instances, I have seen some department being favored when it comes to allocation of human resources, mainly because the heads of those departments understand politics and power play. As such, employees now understand that if they want anything, the best way is to approach those with power. This has resulted in the undermining of some managers at the workplace, thus affecting the organization’s culture of taking orders from those with authority. As noted by Omisore and Nweke (2014), it is possible for a person to have the authority but lack the power to do something. This is the case with most managers because they lack the power although they have the authority, which more than often result to conflict among managers as they struggle for power. The organization used to have a culture that encourages supportiveness but now it has depreciated over time because of the imbalanced and unfair allocation of resources. As opined by Alsalamah (2015), favoritism in the allocation of scarce resources discourages a supportive organizational culture, thus affecting the productivity of employees negatively.
Sources of Power
There are five sources of power that leaders can derive and utilize to influence employee productivity and organizational performance. The first source of power is expertise and information, which allows leaders to derive power that is referred to as expert power (Bolman & Deal, 2017). As such, leaders who have the information and skills to solve problems and issues in the workplace have more power. The second source of power is coercive power, which is derived from punishing or controlling others (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg, & Coulter, 2015). It is based on the ability to interfere with other people's activities by either punishing them or blocking those activities. The third source of power is legitimate power. This refers to the power that is derived from position or authority. For instance, a CEO can have power solely because of his position, although he can derive more power from other sources such as coercion. The fourth source of power is the referent power, derived from preferred and desirable traits. In this case, the personal characteristics of the leader put him in a position of power. The last source of power is the reward, which involves controlling rewards (Bolman & Deal, 2017). In this case, the ability to give followers rewards for good performance usually gives the leader some power. The organization’s management can greatly benefit from the use of reward and expert sources of power. Since reward power rests on the ability of a leader to give rewards (Bolman & Deal, 2017), employees can be highly motivated if they are well rewarded and recognized for their performance. This can encourage im...