Distribution of Power & Influence in Organisations - Example

title page) Introduction This paper will attempt to assess the role organisational structure plays in the distribution of power throughout the organisation. In order to do this, a definition of power will first be explored, along with the ways in which it manifests itself and can be measured. Following that, some studies that examine the distribution and use of power in some specific types of organisations will be described. As a contrast to that, other studies that look at how power influences specific types of activities will also be examined. The Difference between Power and Politics, and the Nature of Conflicts Frost and Egri (1990) define power within organisations as the “…capacity to get others to do things they might otherwise not want to do and/or to resist others' efforts to get them to do what others want them to do.” (Frost & Egri, 1990, p. 17) Simply having power does not make one ‘powerful’ within an organisation, but rather it is the manner in which that power is used to achieve a desired outcome, or as Frost and Egri put it, “Politics is ‘enacted power’, action towards a self-interested goal that is resisted if detected by others with different self-interests.” (Ibid.) The definition is important because it establishes that all actors within an organisation have some degree of power, even if that degree is very small. It suggests that the real basis of comparison and assessing power within an organisation is not the power itself, but the opportunities different people in the organisation have to exercise it. In order to study power in an organisation, then, one must look at how it is employed in conflicts. ‘Power struggles’ take two forms: either conflicts between interdependent actors with different objectives and preferences for or actual control of information resources each pursuing different pathways to accomplishing an organisational task, or competition between potential collaborators when the resources and overall outcome are unclear or subject to dispute. (Frost & Egri, 1990) In the first instance, an example might be a dispute among different builders as to the most efficient order in which to construct a building of a known design, whereas the second instance might describe a conflict between architects in developing the design for the building in the first place. Piercy (1985, p.29) takes note of these different kinds of conflicts as well, noting that a complicating factor is that the opposite parties often have legitimate reasons and rational evidence to support their positions, meaning that objective or empirical solutions to the conflict are of no help, and it must be decided on the basis of each party’s political application of power. Neumann, Miller, and Holti (1999) take note of the same definition of power in their critique of conventional motivational techniques which rely on variations of organisational theory built around managers as subjects and workers as objects. In a top-down organisation this can either be mechanistic or loyalty-based, with the main difference between the two being that the latter does not assume dependency of the organisation on the worker, i.e. the job roles are such that workers can easily be replaced. (Neumann, Miller, & Holti, 1999, p. 218) In a horizontal organisation, however, the relationship of manager to employee is more subject-subject than subject-object. Employee power derives from their choice as to the degree of psychological investment they wish to make in their task, while employer power is based on competence rather than position. (Ibid., p. 219) The definition of power by Frost and Egri and supported by the work of Neumann, Miller, and Holti follows the work of Mary Parker Follett, whose contribution is discussed further below, who took a “dynamic and holistic” view (Eylon, 1998, p. 25) towards the distribution of power and influence in organisations. Even if an organisation is of a fixed and easily-identifiable structure, it may not necessarily follow that power and influence will have the same characteristics and follow the same patterns in every organisation of the same kind. In the following section, the distribution and use of power and influence is examined in terms of three different examples of ‘horizontal’ or collaborative, rather than hierarchical organisations. Distribution of Power & Influence in Organisations Nigel Piercy (1985) examines organisational structure from the perspective of marketing, in particular in organisations where the marketing activities are central to the organisation’s operations, and where the marketing department has an interdependent relationship with all or most of the other departments in the company. As a result of his study, he develops what he calls the Information-Structure-Power (ISP) Theory of marketing. Where the organisational structure affects the use of power is in how the marketing functions of the organisation are departmentalised, which is defined in Piercy’s theory by the level of control over information that different departments have. Information theory links structure to environment, in that the sources, nature, and flow of information determines the shape of the organisation. His contention, however, which is specifically applied to marketing outcomes but can also be applied to other kinds of organisational decisions, is that political influences affect results as much as rational or bureaucratic choices. (Piercy, 1992, p. 39) This is a result of the uncertainty inherent in information coming from outside the organisation; information can be incomplete, or can be contradicted by information available to another department, and because marketing lies at the centre of these various inputs it becomes the focus of conflicts. (Piercy, 1992, p. 35) What Piercy seems to be suggesting is that the intensity of conflict involving a particular department is another way of quantifying the amount of power – which is itself quantified by the amount of information to which the department has access –the department has. This represents a pluralist view, which assumes that power only exists when it is manifested in action and response. (Dahl, 1986, p. 40-41) The centralised marketing departments in Piercy’s studies are the one point in the organisations to which all the information eventually travels. Many of the decisions of the marketing department are resisted by some other part of the company because the other part does not have as much information at its disposal. If the marketing department gathers and manages information effectively, it can exercise power in two ways: First, by simply prevailing in a conflict, and second, by passing the ‘information capital’ along to other departments. In a study of different decision-making styles among smaller organisations, specifically small printing factories in the UK, Savery (1982) found that more ‘democratic’ organisations, where workers were given some degree of influence over decisions that affected the entire workforce, tended to perform more efficiently and with a greater degree of internal control than top-down ‘bureaucratic’ organisations. Paradoxically, managerial and executive influence was found to be comparatively stronger in ‘democratic’ organisations – what we might today refer to as a ‘horizontal’ management structure – than in hierarchical ones. The reason for this seems to be that providing workers the opportunity to give input on enterprise-wide decisions both reinforces their ‘personal connection’ to the business and increases trust in the management, although one can presume that only happens when employees see their inputs actually reflected in the resulting decisions. (Savery, 1982, pp. 36-37) The results of Savery’s study illustrate some very old concepts originally developed by Mary Parker Follett in the early part of the 20th century. In her studies of leadership, she concluded that the most effective organisations – and consequently, the most effective leaders – were those who understood and delineated clear roles of mutual influence among leaders and co-workers, what she called “circular response.” (McLarney & Rhyno, 1999) The decisions of the leader will be influenced by the responses of the workers; in Follett’s view, this should be recognised by the organisation from the outset and used to its best advantage. (Eylon, 1998) This is another way of describing a horizontal organisation, one in which the differences in power and influence among different parts or individuals in the organisation is described in terms of areas of responsibility and use rather than in terms of degrees. Where Follett’s understanding of organisational relationships differs from the conclusions drawn by Savery is that Follett considers the responsive change in the organisation itself from the ‘circular response’ in addition to the responsive change of people in relationships. Piercy’s ISP Theory recognises how the shape of an organisation can affect power relationships, but does not take into account how those relationships affect the shape of the organisation. Both Piercy and Savery describe – unintentionally, perhaps – what Eylon (1998) calls the “empowerment paradox”: The natural state of organisational relationships as recognised by Follett is one in which all actors are mutually influential, and the modern idea of “empowerment” – expressed in such ideas as works councils, quality circles, and other facilitators of employee inputs to decision-making – still necessarily works from a perspective of power being ‘given’ by one party to another. (Eylon, 1998, pp. 19-20) It is, after all, what the very word ‘empowerment’ means. An example of the ‘empowerment paradox’ can be found in one type of organisation which was specifically designed to overcome it and failed to do so. Addicott & Ferlie (2007) conducted a study of Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs) for cancer patients in the UK and found that these networks, which were conceived to apply patient services more efficiently by being consultative, horizontal organisations very quickly fall into patterns of traditional hierarchy with direction coming from a central authority, in most cases, the most powerful of the medical professionals within the individual networks. (Addicott & Ferlie, 2007, pp. 400-402) The reasons for this seem to be based in the distance from the policy-setting, which was with the NHS, and the implementation, which was left to the responsibility of the individual network co-ordinators. (Ibid., p. 400) There was a common objective – providing more efficient care for cancer patients – but the apparent perception of some of the medical professionals was that the objective could be achieved in ways other than through the division and re-distribution of power and responsibilities. For the professionally-influential doctors at the major hospitals, holding large amounts of information and resource capital, ‘empowering the network’ simply meant giving some of that power to others, which they were not willing to do. Without the policy-setters being involved enough in providing guidance to all the stakeholders through the policy implementation process, all those concerned fell back on a pattern that was familiar to them, which was to defer to the senior medical professionals at the biggest hospitals. The Effects of Power & Influence on the Organisation’s Activities Frost and Egri (1990) examine organisational power and politics from the perspective of how they affect innovative change in organisations. This is a good perspective from which to look at how power influences activities, because a broad range of organisational tasks can be defined under the concept of “innovation”, and it is in making changes to existing patterns that issues of power and influence are most likely to be apparent. Product innovations are in general adopted from the bottom-up; in other words, an individual develops an idea, convinces his superiors of its potential, and the new product is adopted and made to grow by the organisation. A successful example of such a product is 3M’s Post-It Notes. (Frost & Egri, 1990, p. 23) Administrative or social innovations, such as changes in business processes or organisational structure, are more often adopted from the top-down; they are generally conceived by the organisation’s leadership, who then ‘sells’ them to the organisation and oversees their implementation. Frost and Egri refer to the first type of innovation, product innovation, as the “asking forgiveness” form, and the second, administrative type of innovation as the “asking permission” form. (Frost & Egri, 1990, p. 19) In product innovation, the organisation’s existing structure and resources are used to produce something new and outside the normal range of the organisation’s activities, meaning that the innovator is essentially “asking forgiveness” for doing something that was not in the ordinary and expected pattern. In administrative innovation, the existing structure and organisational relationships are acknowledged, and “permission” is sought to make changes to them. Organisational power and politics affect the two types of innovation in different ways, and between the two, administrative innovation is the most likely to succeed because it is adapted to work within the existing power structure; political conflicts “nearer the surface” and are therefore much easier to manage. Where innovation of either type threatens powerful self-interests, it is not or is not as successful. Product innovations can simply be stopped, and administrative innovations weakened. If the innovation presents something which does not particularly threaten the existing balance of power, then it is likely to be successful. (Frost & Egri, 1990, p. 24) Farrell and Schroder (1999) study the use of particular kinds of influence strategies in the context of decisions by firms whether or not to purchase advertising services, a rather specific application. They cite their earlier work – which was of a more generalised nature – that “...suggest that the influence strategies of rational persuasion, consultation and inspirational appeals are effective in influencing decision outcomes. Conversely, the influence strategies of personal appeals, legitimate pressure, coalition and exchange were found to be ineffective in influencing decision outcomes. This finding supports previous studies (Case et al., 1988; Dosier et al., 1988; Falbe and Yukl, 1992; Venkatesh et al., 1995; Yukl and Falbe, 1991; Yukl and Tracey, 1992) and suggests that strategies that rely on authority and pressure (legitimating pressure), or which do not attempt to change or internalise favourable attitudes (personal appeals, exchange, coalition) are unlikely to be effective.” (Farrell & Schroder, 1999, p.1161) According to Farrell and Schroder, there are two factors which determine what influence strategy will be used and whether it will be effective: the source of the influence, and the expectations of the target of the influence as to what kind of influence will be used. (Farrell & Schroder, 1999, p. 1162) For example, a ‘legitimate pressure’ strategy, which develops in a hierarchical organisation, would not be expected by someone in a more ‘horizontal’ kind of organisation, and consequently would probably not be effective. By contrast, a person in a more traditional manager-subordinate role would not likely be able to contribute productively if he is suddenly presented with an opportunity to consult on a management decision (and share the reward or negative consequences for its outcome), simply because he is not accustomed to doing so. The trouble with that notion is that the results of Farrell and Schroder’s study did not really support it; in the specific application of purchasing advertising services, the likelihood that a person would influence a buying decision using the strategy suggested by the form of the organisation was not certain, and it was found that the strategies that should have been ‘unexpected’, and therefore ineffective, actually worked at least some of the time. (Farrell & Schroder, 1999, p. 1168) The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the effects of power and influence might not be uniform throughout any particular kind of organisation, and might depend on the specific kind of activity as much as on the form of the organisation. Conclusion The relationship between the structure of the organisation and the use of power within the organisation is not always clear-cut. Farrell and Schroder’s work (1999) seemed to establish a straightforward connection between the source of influence and the expectations of the influenced, but could not exactly confirm the results of their earlier work. Savery (1982), on the other hand, found a clear link between organisational format and effectiveness, one that could be described in terms of the use of power in the organisation. But given the ambiguity of Farrell and Schroder’s results, one has to wonder if effectiveness is really the outcome of a particular organisational structure, or if there might be some other aspect of these organisations that might play a role. Following the early organisational theory work of Mary Parker Follett (Eylon, 1998, and McLarney & Rhyno, 1999), it seems logical that a more collaborative, ‘horizontal’ form of organisation perhaps better suits the way that people in groups naturally interact with each other and their environment. The “empowerment paradox” (Eylon, 1998), and the demonstration of the structuralist view shown by Piercy (1992), however, indicate that some sort of subject-object role exists in any organisation, and is virtually impossible to eliminate. The very word “empowerment” implies a transfer of power from a subject to an object and indicates an unequal relationship. Likewise, Piercy demonstrated that power is meaningless without some terms of access to resources – in the case of his study, information – and the means to apply them. To sum up the role of organisational structure in the distribution of power, it might be appropriate to say that in general, the specific effect of the structure is to moderate the strength of the subject in relation to the object. In collaborative organisations the subject is less different in strength than in hierarchical organisations. Even if all the potential subjects and objects could be expected to respond to power in a consistent and predictable way – which, being people, they cannot – there is no organisational structure in which power can be distributed exactly evenly. And, as was seen from the example of the managed clinical networks (Addicott & Ferlie, 2007), the distribution and use of power plays a role in shaping the organisational structure, sometimes to ill effect. For organisational designers, Follett’s concept of ‘circular response’ – that people and their environment are all mutually influencing each other all the time – is probably a thought that should be kept at the forefront of any planning or design endeavour. References Addicott, Rachael, and Ferlie, Ewan. (2007) “Understanding Power Relationships in Health Care Networks”, Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 21, No. 4/5, pp. 393-405. Retrieved from Emerald: www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/14777260710778925. Dahl, Robert. (1986) “Power as the Control of Behaviour”, in Lukes, S. (Ed.), Power, pp. 37-58. Oxford: Blackwell. Eylon, Dafna. (1998) “Understanding Empowerment and Resolving its Paradox”, Journal of Management History, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 16-28. Retrieved from Emerald: www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/13552529810203905. Farrell, Mark, and Schroder, Bill. (1999) “Power and Influence in the Buying Centre”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 33, No. 11/12, pp. 1161-1170. Retrieved from Emerald: www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/03090569910292320. Frost, Peter J., and Egri, Carolyn P. (1990) “Influence of Political Action on Innovation: Part I”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 17-25. Retrieved from Emerald: www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/01437739010142512. McLarney, C., and Rhyno, Shelley. (1999) “Mary Parker Follett: Visionary Leadership and Strategic Management”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 14, No. 7, pp. 292-304. Retrieved from Emerald: www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/09649429910291131. Neumann, Jean E., Miller, Eric J., and Holti, Richard. (1999) “Three Contemporary Challenges for OD Practitioners”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 216-221. Retrieved from Emerald: www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/01437739910277028. Piercy, Nigel. (1985) “The Corporate Environment for Marketing Management: An Information-structure-power Theory of Marketing”, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 23-40. Retrieved from Emerald: www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/eb045708. Savery, Lawson. (1982) “Influence and Trust of Members Within Small Firms”, Management Decision, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 32-37. Retrieved from Emerald: www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/eb001287. Read More