chapter 14 power - university of toronto

chapter 14Power

� ere is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege …. � ese are institutions that are subject to human will and that must face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past.

chapter outline

™ Introduction™ Power: matter of defi nitions™ Power: evidence from the workplace™ Chapter summary™ Key concepts™ Chapter review questions™ Further reading™ Chapter case study: Las Vegas general strike™ Notes

chapter objectives

After completing this chapter, you should be able to:

™ recognize and explain key debates concerning the concept of power in the context of the organizational behaviour (OB) fi eld

™ understand and explain the following key concepts: systems of power, authority, infl uence, hegemony

™ compare and contrast major macro-theoretical approaches to the concept of power in the writings of Mann, Foucault, Lukes, Weber and Gramsci

™ discuss possible implications of theories and research for workplace practice.

Power chapter 14 371

Before proceeding with your reading of the

chapter, take a moment to think about your defi nition of the term ‘power’.

Do you hold any of the ‘common-sense’ views on power discussed above?

As you make your way through the reading be sure to keep in mind that a good defi nition of

power should off er you the capacity to see the areas through which it might be

questioned, challenged or altered where warranted.

Introduction

In the fi eld of physics, ‘power’ is defi ned as a quantity expressing the rate at which energy is transformed into work. In fact, thermodynamic laws see energy as fl owing in one direction only. In addition, power is active. � e concept that slows it down, ‘resistance’, is passive. We begin with these points for a reason. Simply put, some of these basic principles appear remarkably persistent in many common-sense views about the notion of ‘power’ in its more general forms, what it is and how it works.

� is chapter takes up the issue of power and behaviour in work organizations. It provides an introduction to a range of thinking and research. � roughout, it explic-itly rejects the common-sense view of power expressed above. We argue that power is not simply something the powerful have and the powerless lack. Power, to borrow from Michel Foucault, is not possessed – it is exercised. In addition, power does not simply limit what people do (that is, it does not simply ‘say no’), but rather is productive too (it also says ‘yes’ to certain behaviour). Across the work of the many intellectuals we discuss in this chapter, some looking at macro phenomena, some looking at micro phenomena and others focusing on the many elements in between, the most astute understandings of learning see power as being, at its heart, rela-tional or interactive in nature.

Although it is most often a charge levelled at the work of others, it has been fairly common in recent OB writing to note that ‘power’, as a concept, is underdeveloped in this literature. In fact, it has been noted in the editorial introduction to a special journal issue devoted to the concept of power that very little has been written by behavioural analysts on the topic. It runs like a thread throughout the chapter that building on what has just been established, power is not an individual phenomenon.

Despite the fact that there appears in all our lives the fi gure of the ‘powerful per-son’, in fact there is no individual who creates, constitutes or sustains ‘power’

as such.Imagine, for example, the power of a police offi cer, a judge, a professor

or a chief executive offi cer (CEO). What are all the ‘things’ – the history, the traditions, the institutions, the distribution of resources, the socially granted authority and so on – that are necessarily in place to create this seemingly individual embodiment of ‘power’? Take away the vastly networked, social, material, historical, cultural and ideological dimen-sions of the phenomenon, and what we fi nd is that the person’s ‘power’

virtually disappears. While individuals may embody a variety of traits that seem to constitute and legitimize their ‘power’, we must not confuse

individual traits with power as such, because where changes occur across the many dimensions of power, the meaning of these traits can be radically

transformed.

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372 part 4 GROUPS AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

Source:plate City of Toronto employees picked an ideal moment to leverage their power by going on strike in summer

In this sense we begin, as we usually must, with the matter of defi nitions and re-lated but distinct terms. Indeed, a sizeable proportion of this chapter must grapple directly with these matters of defi nition.

Power: matters of defi nitionA reasonable starting point for many discussions of power is some version of the sociologist Robert Dahl’s much-quoted phrase, ‘A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do’. Closely related is a defi nition by French and Raven which likewise focuses on the potential ability of one individual to infl uence another within a certain social system. In fact, French and Raven went on to develop fi ve bases of power, the most important of which, fi rst suggested by Warren, are those related to systemic reward and coercion.

Our goal in this chapter is to incorporate such statements into a more compre-hensive understanding of power, then test the current analyses of power in work organizations in relation to this new understanding. In doing this we might add to Dahl’s basic defi nition to relate it directly to the paid workplace: power is the ability to say no to certain behaviours, yes to others, and to shape how something should be done.

� is, of course, is inseparable from many of the other issues addressed in the text including equity and diversity, the organization of labour processes, the selection of technologies, the technical and social divisions of labour, and the accountabil-ity and reporting structures and pacing that shape, or rather infl uence, ‘power’ in organizations.

It is vital that we recognize that to further complicate matters, the concept of ‘power’ is often confused with the relatively distinct questions of ‘infl uence’ and ‘authority’. We see this in the defi nitions of both Dahl and French and Raven, in fact. � e goal of our defi nition here is to recognize that authority is closely related to, but analytically distinct from, the concept of power. ‘Authority’ as it is defi ned in social science literature also tends to have a complex relational dimension, but can be said to involve power granted by some form of active or passive consent – whether the consent is linked to specifi c individuals, groups or institutions – which bestows on it some level of legitimacy.

Some theorists use these words in ways that overlap a good deal. For example, the German sociologist Max Weber’s work deals with issues of power but mostly elaborates on types of authority.

power: a term defi ned in multiple ways, involving cultural values, authority, infl uence and coercion as well as control over the distribution of symbolic and material resources. At its broadest power is defi ned as a social system which imparts patterned meaning.

authority: the power granted by some form of either active or passive consent which bestows legitimacy


Industrialism(Transformation of nature: development of the ‘created environment’; in other words, all aspects of natural places have been refashioned in some way; there is not true wilderness any more)

Military power(Control of the means of violence in the context of the industrialization of war, the use of advance industry in the help to fight wars)

Surveillance(Control of information and social supervision; for example, the use of CCTV)

Capitalism(Capital accumulation, the accumulation of profits, in the context of competitive labour and productive markets)

� e issue of legitimacy opens up a range of important questions, which we dis-cuss more directly below. Legitimacy depends on one’s perspective in communities, organizations, institutions and the world (as a world-view). What is legitimate for some may not be legitimate for others, and this can and does change over time.

Even here, in these conceptually humble beginnings, we see that our rejection of individual models of power in favour of relational ones holds fi rm. In order to move further beyond conventional discussions of power, we can look beyond organiza-tional-based literatures to some of the most general, macro approaches.

Traditionally sociology has under-stood the concept of power in broad macro terms. Indeed, there is a notice-able preoccupation with how the state, the church, the military, and sometimes corporations and economic systems, may or may not be involved in systems of power. One of the key writers of this type is Michael Mann. His Sources of Social Power is considered a key text in these theoretical discussions, and builds from detailed study of ancient Rome and world religions. � e ‘sources of social power’ are determined to be ideological, military, political and eco-nomic. Indeed, he goes on to say that the object of this type of social power approach should be the development of an analysis of ‘multiple overlapping and intersecting socio-spatial networks of power’.

Power, under this approach, is diff use and what we might call ‘infra-structural’. It can be understood, according to Mann, by taking into account a specifi c set of universal relations or dynamics: universalism–particularism, equality–hierarchy, cosmopolitanism–uniformity, decentralization–centralization and civilization–mil-itarism. Each is concerned with the dynamic between control and diff use freedoms, and when applied to his four sources of social power, produces a way of thinking about power that has been infl uential in social theory as well as history.

Mann’s type of approach more or less rejects the explanation of power as simply a form of ‘institutionalization’ (which we discuss in relation to Weber below), but another key example that is infl uential in the mainstream sociological tradition is the work of Anthony Giddens. His work on the ‘central problems of social theory’ seeks to provide an overarching theory while avoiding what he sees as the pitfalls of many broad social theories of power (from schools of social theory such as Marx-ism, phenomenology and structural-functionalism). His theory of ‘structuration’ is intended to demonstrate the complex interrelations of human freedom (or agency) and determination (or structure), and emphasizes that in the modern world there has been a fundamental shift based on the enormous growth in the resources (what he refers to as ‘containers’) of power. Central to Giddens’ thesis are societal surveil-lance, capitalist enterprise, industrial production and centralized control over the ‘means of violence’ by the state (see Figure .).

It is important to the theory of structuration that these sources of power are not ‘out there’ but rather the result of specifi c forms of human interaction mixed with ‘authority’ and a distribution of ‘resources’, which together shape and control time and space. � is is important, in part, because of its lack of what we would

legitimacy: a term describing agreement with the rights and responsibilities associated with a position, social values, system and so on

fi gure . Giddens’ model of power

structuration: a concept focusing on balancing the dichotomies of agency, or human freedom, and social organization, or structures where individual choices are seen as partially constrained, but they remain choices nonetheless


call ‘closure’. � at is, power is always an open, historical question; things can and do change. Although we do not review it here, it is worth noting the meta-theory of German social theorist Jürgen Habermas. He describes ideology as structure of communication (in his theory of communicative action) that has been systemati-cally distorted by power in such a way as to mostly exclude the realm of daily human activity (what Habermas calls the ‘lifeworld’) when its activity does not align with dominant institutions and their unique interests and needs.

Such domination comes to penetrate individuals’ life-world, personal identity and inner mental experience – on the same level of analysis as Giddens’ approach to human interaction deals with – leading to their further domination by social systems. Finally, we should note that for Giddens, all individuals ‘have power’, but this power is infl uenced and constrained by the distribution of diff erent types of resources. In this model, there are ‘allocative resources’, which refers to control over physical things such as money or property, and there are also ‘authoritative resources’, which involve control over people’s practices. For example, a business owner has the authoritative resources granted by our legal institutions to set her workplace up in the way she feels most appropriate.

� is can lead us to a deeper discussion of the relations between power and authority. Max Weber’s work on the basic types of authority is closely linked to, though not the same as, the theories of power we have outlined. � at is, Weber’s theory of authority can be much more closely related to individuals, despite the fact that ultimately his approach too is a relational one. Authority necessarily involves others who grant this authority or legitimacy through complex systems of power.

Weber outlines three types of authority:

™ Charismatic authority refers to leaders who are able to exercise power based on their personal traits.

™ Traditional authority is dependent on a historical trajectory of past authority.™ Rational authority. Weber is most widely known for his analysis of this in his

writing on bureaucracy. Here authority rests on a specifi c system of laws or rules which establish a hierarchy in, for example, a public or private-sector work organization.

Weber’s perspective on authority is echoed in the work of Wrong, who lays out a basic model of the relations between infl uence and power (see Figure .).

ideology: multiple uses but in particular refers to perceptions of reality distorted by class interests and the ideas, legal arrangements and culture that arise from class relations

fi gure . Wrong on infl uence and power Source: Wrong ()

Influence

Unintended Intended = Power

Force

Physical Psychic

Violent Nonviolent

Coercive Induced Legitimate Competent Personal

Manipulation Persuasion Authority


plate � ere are many deep social roots or sources of power, including the infl uence of wealth and politics

Source: G

etty

Imag

es

Another key body of writing on the concept of power is Steven Lukes’ Power: A radical view. Lukes’ theory is partially is summarized in Figure .. Lukes un-derstands power and authority with the notion of ‘bringing about consequences’, not unlike, for instance, the way a teacher might seek to encourage students to

fi gure . Steven Lukes’ vision of power

Conflict of interests No conflict of interests

Manipulation

Force

Coercion

InducementEncouragement

Persuasionetc. Influence

Power

Observable(overt orcovert)

Latent

A u t h o r i t y


Take a moment to think

back to your own employment experiences (or those of friends or

family members, if you have none as yet). How can you distinguish between the Weber’s concept of ‘authority’ and broader systems of power as discussed in Lukes or

Giddens? How has the social infrastructure of power systems supported the

‘authority’ of those in charge?

complete their reading assignments prior to lectures. Part of this type of analysis is the recognition that obtaining compliance can require a multi-faceted eff ort. It can be secured by the use of force or by people choosing to surrender to others. In fact, usually both are involved, as we shall see in our discussion of Gramsci later on. When people choose to accept the will of others as legitimate, according to Lukes we can describe the relationship as one of authority. Some of the studies of behav-iour in organizations that we discuss in the following section of this chapter appear to draw on this type of approach.

Equally important to Lukes’s explanation are the conditions of a confl ict of interest. � e identifi cation of structural and idiosyncratic confl icts of interest is a key challenge for OB literature. Where, for example, is confl ict just a matter of fi ne-tuning existing organizational structures, and where might confl ict be so deeply rooted in a structure that to challenge it is to simultaneously challenge the very nature of the organization itself? As Figure . shows, where such structural con-fl icts of interest do not exist Lukes uses the word ‘infl uence’. Where such conditions do exist he uses the word ‘power’. Both planned decision making (overt or covert varieties) and latent (or unintended) uses of power play a role in Lukes’ model, while issues of authority, not unlike those outlined by Weber, operate in both non-

confl ict and confl ict of interest contexts.Michel Foucault is another key thinker in this fi eld. His work in, among

many other texts, Discipline and Punish and Power/Knowledge, though oriented by a stated interest in the ‘micro-politics’ of power and preoc-cupied with individual identity or ‘subjectivity’, is in the end a very broad macro theory as well. In this way Foucault, like Giddens, is interested in breaking down the distinction between individuals and society, or ‘agency’ and ‘structure’. Unlike Lukes, however, Foucault’s defi nitions of power make it particularly clear that there is a double edge to power. It

prevents some behaviours while at the same time positively encouraging others, both at the broadest political and historical levels and at the deep-

est level of individual identity:

[I]t seems to me now that the notion of repression is quite inadequate for cap-turing what is precisely the productive aspect of power. In defi ning the eff ects of power as repression, one adopts a purely juridical conception of such power, one identifi es power with a law which says no, power is taken above all as car-rying the force of a prohibition. Now I believe that this is a wholly negative, narrow, skeletal conception of power, one which has been curiously widespread. If power were never anything but repressive, if it never did anything but to say no, do you really think one would be brought to obey it? What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn’t only weigh on us as a force that says ‘no’, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. It needs to be considered as a productive network which runs through the whole social body, much more than a negative instance whose function is repression.

For Foucault, power is all-pervasive. Indeed power constitutes what we know as a society, including, of course, how we think about work organizations. Power is everywhere: ‘there are no “margins” for those who break with the system’. � us, in his analysis power is discussed in terms of the many ways through which it is exer-cised – ‘economies of power,’ ‘regimes of power,’ ‘networks of power,’ ‘technologies of power’ – as well as using a concept that perhaps requires some further discussion, ‘hegemonies’.

Hegemony is an important term in critical social theory which involves the complexity and mixture of consensus and confl ict, and hence power relations in

confl ict of interest: a condition in which the needs of one party (such as an individual or group) run counter to the needs of another

hegemony: a conception of power that includes both confl ict as well as consent and leadership by generating a particular world-view or ‘common sense’ on relevant and appropriate action.

STOP AN D R E F L E C T


CR

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a broad sense. It derives from the Greek, where it originally referred to a leader or ruler (egemon), but was taken up in the English language in the nineteenth century, and has come to describe a very nuanced form of sociopolitical predominance. It describes control that is both direct and indirect, and rests on the notion of a whole way of seeing the world, a ‘normal reality’ or ‘common sense’.

Specifi cally, the term ‘hegemony’ can express two types of power relations. � e fi rst describes a group’s domination over other groups, and the second describes a group’s leadership. � e concept represents a whole body of practices as well as expectations, assignment of energies, and ordinary understandings of the world in terms of meanings and values. In essence, the concept expresses the relationships of leadership and domination that produce a general sense of coordinated reality for most people. However, it is a concept that lends itself to wider discussion than Foucault’s thesis encourages. Power is seen as all-pervasive in the sense that there can also be something called ‘counter-hegemony’. Counter-hegemony is composed of and expresses competing ways of seeing the world and behaving, although this behaviour can at times be clandestine and underdeveloped.

� e term ‘hegemony’ is now most closely associated with the writings of a early twentieth-century Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci used a historical analysis of specifi c periods of French and Italian society in order to refer to a system of alliances within a ‘hegemonic bloc’ of interests. � is may contain signifi cant dif-ferences but it is unifi ed on some core principles. � is bloc was dependent on what Gramsci referred to as the ‘powerful system of fortresses and earthworks’ of civil society, including the multitude of social, economic, cultural organizational, group and corresponding ideologies amongst which there is signifi cant room for compro-mise (although only on non-hegemonic terrain). As the English cultural studies theorist Raymond Williams notes, however, much infl uential work on counter-hegemonic practices has ignored contemporary scenes of consensus and confl ict, including work organization. � is is not without problems.

An important contribution to our general understanding of power, and in turn of power as it relates to work organizations and behaviour, comes from the notion of emergent forms of practice that lie in some form of opposition to a dominant or hegemonic bloc in the sense that Gramsci and Williams described. First, the notion provides a basic framework for understanding the character of alternative (resistant) practices in opposition to a complex of dominant presumptions. An entire subschool of industrial sociology/organizational studies literature has specifi cally addressed the issue of resistance. Building from this notion, we can see that OB emerging from non-dominant (that is, workers’ rather than managers’) standpoints need not strictly reproduce a particular hegemonic order. It can at times run tangentially to it, and possibly even in direct opposition to it. In both cases it represents an active, living process in which alternatives struggle against incorporation.

Based on your own current or past employment experiences, try to apply Gramsci’s notion of a ‘hegemonic bloc’ by tracing the key groups that hold sway in an organization. Look at how they diff er and what principles they share a commitment to. Finally, consider

any ‘counter-hegemonic’ groups in the organization. How unifi ed are they? How is their degree of unity related to how they challenge the hegemonic bloc?


The example of going to the movies can

readily be extended to a work context. How might you go about a

micro-analysis of the following exchange?

Woman: Tell me how to fi x this Xerox machine.Male: Oh, don’t you worry about

this, honey. Leave it to me.

Now take a next step and continue the exchange, taking account of the distinct

backdrops of power and/or gender relations.

In less abstract terms, we are talking about people’s behaviour that is rooted in processes that align with the basic assumptions and structures of the organization, have little to do with these dominant assumptions, or in some cases actively resist the major premises upon which the organization is based. To put this in the lan-guage of social class, we are talking about OB that can be easily incorporated into capitalism, is somehow outside this logic, or opposes capitalism in some way (and everything in between).

� ese macro theories of power in studies of society set the context. We can now turn to a consideration of theories of power in local, everyday interaction or behav-iour. Analyses of micro-interaction form another distinct set of theories on power. For example, we can ask what Nietzsche’s ‘will to power’ (a term that defi nes social interaction as an ongoing contest between people striving to exercise power over others) might mean in terms of behaviour in organizations. Is the will to power a generalized (overt or covert) phenomenon, as Nietzche’s work suggests, or are there other central motivations in people’s lives?

� e work of another famous micro-sociologist, Erving Goff man, is also relevant in this context. His analysis of ‘contests’ as a major frame of social interaction of-fers a fascinating exploration of how people think and negotiate order in their daily interactions. Another concept that has similarities, although it is not the same as Goff man’s notion of ‘contests’, comes from the school of sociology called game theory. � is is a subset of the rational choice tradition, and is popular among economists and economic sociologists for its apparent pragmatism.

� is school of thought invites us to understand individual actors as acting in a way that they believe will provide the best outcome for them, given their objectives, resources, and circumstances as they see them. Its focus is on voluntary actions and inter-actor exchange, and it encompasses both confl ictual and cooperative games. It begins from the rather traditional economic assumption that individuals act to maximize their utility (that is, to do as well as is possible in the circumstances).

We can also consider micro-interactions through the work of discourse analyst Robin Tolmach Lakoff , which is discussed by Krippendorf. How might ‘power’ be evident in this simple, everyday exchange?

Man: Wanna go to the movies?Woman: Oh, I don’t know. Do you?

Krippendorf correctly points out that this is one example of a very common, gen-dered ‘language game’ that allows us to explore a host of possibilities. � e male makes a proposal. � e female has several options in response, including ignoring,

accepting, counter-proposing and clarifying (and in fact a vast array of others). Her diff erent options (including the response she gives above) allow us to

consider the system of power in operation at the micro-level. For example, a counter-proposal might signal some sort of equal power relation; a stern

rejection might signal an unequal power relation; a deferral (as in her response above) might signal another form of unequal power relation; and of course any and all of the possibilities might be part of a clever, expanded set of negotiations which defy simplistic categorization.

In this exchange, of course, the word ‘power’ is never used. � e point here is that we can quite easily, even in this smallest of examples,

draw into our analysis the concept of power. We can also see how it can include a whole infrastructure of, for example, gender relations.Finally, returning to the work of Erving Goff man for a moment, mi-

cro-power can also be understood as part of people’s ‘presentation of self in everyday life’. It is echoed in the work of range of others such as Finkelstein,

who writes extensively on how people’s physical appearance or self-presentation

will to power: the notion that people are inherently driven to develop and expand power and control in their environments

game theory: a social theory premised on the notion that people do what is best for themselves given their resources and circumstances, as in some form of a competitive game

S TOP AN D R E F L E C T


Can the management of appearances hold the

balance between success and failure in organizations? What instances of this have you

seen in your own experiences? How are appearances given meanings in relation to broader ‘systems of power’

within and beyond a specifi c work organization?

Explore company dress codes as best you can over the web. While some dress-code demands are related to health and safety, others are not. How does power in organizations work in terms of a dress

code? What ideological values are represented in such codes?

A recent book by Ruth Rubenstein discusses Dress Codes: Meaning and messages in American culture. What further details does it give

you about the relationship between appearance and power?

involves a whole range of broader ‘macro-forces’ or systems of power. In a particu-larly striking section of her book, she gives an example of a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. His memoirs show him taking incredible pains to keep himself ‘respectable’ in appearance. As the prisoner notes, his captors’ gen-eral beliefs about his ‘respectability’ could in fact hold the balance between life and death: ‘He needed no more than his spruce suit and his emaciated and shaven face

in the midst of the fl ock of his sordid and slovenly colleagues to stand out and thereby receive benefi ts from his captors.’ � is is an extreme example,

but the point is that the micro-management of appearances has been understood for some time to be a vital component of how ‘power’

operates. It provides a mechanism of sorting, in Finkelstein’s terms of ‘social passport and credential’, for how people can

participate in the systems of power they are presented with.

Power: evidence from the workplace� rough the s and into the new millennium, the number of strikes by employees in industrialized countries around the world has tended to decline. What are we to

make of this? Should we conclude that the power struggles in organizations have been reduced, giving way to greater

consensus? Not according to some researchers. Collinson’s work is worth looking at in detail for its discussion of power in

organizations. It represents an important type of research that has linked past discussions from industrial sociology and labour process

theory (a stream in the fi eld of sociology of work) to more contemporary concerns about individuals, identity and meaning under what are sometimes

referred to as ‘postmodern’ conditions of globalization and the (apparently) ‘new’ knowledge or information economy.

Collinson argues that despite the decline of formal workplace disputes, the power struggle continues to rage on in diff use and pervasive forms. Power is exemplifi ed not simply by either domination or resistance in organizations, but rather domina-tion and resistance. In this context, power is to be found in situations of apparent consent and domination as well where there is resistance. Collinson maintains that labour process theory has made a distinctive contribution to the analysis of work by highlighting the ‘irreducible interrelationship between employee resistance and managerial control … [e]mphasizing the extensive power asymmetries in contem-porary organizations’. He goes on to claim that the founding preoccupations of traditional labour process theory with scientifi c management and Taylorism are still relevant, and so is the classic critique off ered in the work of Harry Braverman.

Collinson’s specifi c contribution, however, emerges from his assessment that knowledge and information are key aspects of power. He draws on the work of Foucault, on writers who make use of Mann’s work on power and the ‘game metaphor’, but he goes on to say that despite the seemingly uneven distribution of access to organizational knowledge and information, other forms of knowledge are available to workers (that is, technical and production-based knowledge). � ese alternative resources can be mobilized through a wide variety of strategies, and this variety in turn accounts for the very uneven and variegated results of power struggles in organizations.

� e fi rst of the two main strategies he outlines is ‘resistance by distance’, in which workers restrict information from management. � is is referred to as a type of ‘es-cape attempt’ and a denial of involvement or interest in work processes. � e second

S TO P A N D R E F L E C T


strategy, ‘resistance through persistence’, involves eff orts to extract information from management. In a sense, this involves voluntarily increasing involvement and interest in work processes. Of course, management in this framework tries to use the opposite strategies of extracting and restricting information respectively, and this results in a complex spiral of control resistance, greater eff orts at control and so on, or rather a series of strategies and counter-strategies.

Finally, Collinson emphasizes the role played by both management and workers’ personal identities, or we might say social background, which signifi cantly shapes which strategy is used. He qualifi es his conclusions, which depend heavily on the exact context, but in general concludes that ‘resistance through persistence’ turns out to be a more eff ective strategy. However, as he notes, neither strategy consti-tutes a deep challenge to the structure of power (that is, management rights) in organizations.

� e key point for this chapter is that although power is often revealed in overt forms of confl ict and resistance (such as strikes or sabotage), both subtle and alter-native forms of resistance can also be identifi ed. You should be able to understand that better in the light of the various conceptual frameworks we explored earlier in the chapter.

Even the existence of consensus can be used to support the claim that work orga-nizations are in many ways constituted by power relations. Drawing on Collinson as well as Kondo, we can note that eff ective resistance requires elements of conformity to a rival power source. Collinson sees this as discursive and knowledge-based, but we would suggest that this concept can easily be extended to include well-function-ing communities of workers: bargaining units, neighbourhoods, social movements or occupational groupings. � is brings us back in a sense to Giddens’ claim that ‘everyone has power’ but it is expressed in diff erent ways depending on their (al-locative and authoritative) resources. � ere is the power of enforcing democracies, forcing people to learn, and ultimately there is the power to remake existing power relations into something better.

Although there is not exactly a fl ood of interest in power issues in most of the recent empirical research outlined in the main OB journals, they nevertheless reveal signifi cant consideration of issues of power. Studies in this area deal with a variety of topics, such as practical governance and managerial practices in work organiza-tions. Often, though not exclusively, there is a particular interest in organizational change initiatives. Below we explore some key fi ndings of the most recent studies that touch on important issues in the fi eld. � e aim is to balance our earlier concep-tual discussion with some more concrete fi ndings.

In a provocative study of relations between supervisors and their subordinates, Elangovan and Xie explore the results and perceptions of supervisory ‘power’. Even this brief introductory line reveals that they conceive power in a way that is partially, though not absolutely, at odds with the relational perspective we have developed here. � e focus is on employees and supervisors, which is obviously a relational is-sue, but Elangovan and Xie tend to see power largely as something a supervisor has, rather than as a dimension of the social system (on the macro or micro level) which is put into eff ect by all individuals subjected to the system. Nevertheless they off er some important fi ndings on how power is experienced by the individuals subject to it.

Among the important issues in workplaces today are motivation, on the one hand, and stress and people’s individual and collective responses to it, on the other. � ese authors fi nd that people’s backgrounds play an important role in their behaviour. For example, they focus on the issue of ‘self-esteem’. � is is seen as a product of nur-ture as opposed to nature: that is, it is inextricably linked to people’s lives inside the workplace, but also to their lives outside work, and indeed developmentally before


they ever began to work. Broader theories of power also see these expansive con-nections as important. Elangovan and Xie conclude that those with low self-esteem show signs of higher motivation and lower stress as their perceptions of supervisory power increase. Importantly, those with high self-esteem actually show lower moti-vation and increased stress when they give a higher score to the perceived power of their supervisor.

� is has important implications for the types of worker that the typical work organization appears to favour. Elangovan and Xie go on to explore the concept of ‘locus of control’ which we discussed earlier, looking at workers with internal or external orientations. � ose with an internal orientation were seen to respond to diff erent types of power, authority and infl uence (the authors tend to see these as equivalent). � eir motivation levels drop in relation to the perceived rewards and the levels of coercive power that they associate with supervisors. � ose with a predominantly external locus of control had lower stress levels when they gave higher assessments of expert power to their supervisors.

Broadly similar dynamics to those analysed by Elangovan and Xie are seen in two other important recent studies. Overbeck and Park, and Rahubir and Valenzuela, explore the relationship between positional power and the strategic use of ‘social in/attention’ in diff erent work team contexts. Like Elangovan and Xie, these research-ers make some important observations, particularly about how managerial decision making takes place, but the way in which they frame ‘power’ in organizational behaviour as involving individual/positional use of resources tends to downplay the broader systemic nature of power as something that is exercised.

Collinson’s approach to resistance can be applied to these fi ndings. For example, the changing levels of motivation and stress can be interpreted as representing a form of resistance. � is might be turned inwards in the form of stress or loss of psy-chological commitment to the organization, but it is still apparent. Both motivation and stress are, of course, also the roots of more outward resistance, which could lead to expression in the form of political action (say, becoming more active in an employee association or union), industrial action or at its most individualist level sabotage, or simply resigning from the organization.

Self-esteem is seen to be such an important variable, but how does it come to be established? Mann’s goal of identifying ‘overlapping socio-spatial networks of power’ might off er us some help in this context. � e work of Richard Sennett provides an accessible exploration of how deep wounds to self-esteem are infl icted in the form of ‘hidden injuries’ and a ‘corrosion of character’. � ese writers help to show how visible symptoms have ideological roots. To what degree could Giddens’ interest in exploring the power of ‘surveillance’ be brought to play in looking at how stress develops in relation to perceived power issues? Might increased surveillance in the workplace actually force confl ict inward to produce these eff ects?

� e issue of ‘exit and voice’, has long been a subject of debate in industrial sociology. We touch on it above, and it is dealt with in the OB tradition by the researchers Mayes and Ganster. In a rich and detailed look at the responses of public service workers to questions posed in questionnaires and interviews, they detail the relationship between ‘voice’ (or ‘political action’) and ‘exit’ behaviours on the one hand, and job stress on the other. Importantly, this analysis builds from observations which can be roughly aligned with Collinson’s model of alternative, countervailing sources of power.

In Mayes and Ganster’s terms, the countervailing source lies outside the bounds of the employee’s formal, legitimate role in the organization. For these authors, what is at the heart of the matter is the fi t between the employee and the environment. � ey note that when employees sense ‘ambiguity’ in their role in the organization, this is a immobilizing factor: it prevents their achieving ‘voice’ via political action

exit and voice: ‘exit and voice’: a concept referring to the basic choice that defi nes an important part of employees’ experience at work: they can either exit (leave) or exercise ‘voice’ (have a say) in how the workplace is run


Source: B

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in the workplace. � is sense of ambiguity is found, they add, despite high levels of organizational commitment.

How can we understand variables such as worker–organizational ‘fi t’ and ‘commitment’ in relation to our opening set of theoretical discussions? Certainly Foucault’s and Gramsci’s discussion of domination and consent as two sides of the same ‘power coin’ is useful here. Commitment, for example, is the side of power that Foucault speaks of when he describes ‘induce[ing] pleasure, form[ing] knowledge, produce[ing] discourse. It needs to be considered as a productive network.’ � at is, commitment is what comes out when power works in a positive and productive way. We could also tentatively link this to Lukes’s distinction between power in the context of ‘confl icts of interest’ which may or may not be apparent. When confl icts of interest are evident, power is refl ected as coercion, force and manipulation, while when they are not, it is expressed as inducement and encouragement. It is not hard to see that stress, resistance, exit and voice fl ow from the former a good deal more often than from the latter.

One of the most fascinating and recent sets of exchanges on the matter of ‘power’ in the organizational behaviour tradition is to be found in a special issue of the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management. At the centre of the debate is the work of Sonia Goltz and Amy Hietapelto, and the question of resistance to organizational change. Goltz and Hietapelto’s operant and strategic contingency models of power are based on the behavioural approach, as the concept of ‘operant’ might suggest. � ey are linked to the founder of this psychological tradition (B. F. Skinner), to the management of stimulus response, and in some sense to punish-ment and reward. Despite its classical behaviourialist stance, this model includes some form of relational analysis. To extend this, we might say it focuses on the rela-tions of the distribution of authority over the application of consequences. Built on well-established operant principles their model states that ‘the power an individual has’ is based on:

™ how many reinforcing and aversive stimuli the power holder controls™ which important dimensions of these stimuli, such as magnitude, delay and

frequency, the power holder controls™ which particular combinations and dimensions of the reinforcing and aversive

stimuli the power holder controls™ for how many people the power holder controls these stimuli.

If we set aside the obvious major shortcoming of this model (the suggestion that people ‘have’ power: see our discussion of Foucault above), we can see that it mar-shals a range of valuable evidence, including that power is subject to both intentional and unintentional results. We might compare this with, for example, Wrong’s model outlined above. One very interesting component of the model, which fi ts into the broad perspective on power introduced here, is that both those who lead and those who follow are subject to this leadership experience, and behave in ways consistent with notions of ‘resistance’ in organizations. � e authors also insist that a central unit of analysis for power and resistance is the change to pre-existing relationships of action and consequence.

� e special issue of the journal also includes a range of articles that provide critiques of Goltz and Hietapelto, and constructively extend or challenge their thinking. Quite separate from each author’s critique of Goltz and Hietapelto, we can also apply many of the basic conceptual observations we have developed over the course of this chapter. In Boyce’s contribution, for example, we might note that there is a need for conceptual clarity. Boyce’s work raises some questions when seen in the light of Collinson’s observations, for example. How is ‘resistance’ related to power, and from whose perspective is power and resistance defi ned?

plate Michel Foucault conceived power as an universal, inescapable feature of all human relationships, because it constitutes the very way we talk and think about ourselves.


Visit the following websites:www.colostate.edu/Depts/Speech/rcc/theory.

htm for Foucault on power/knowledge;http://www.educationforum.co.uk/

sociology_/power.htm www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/depts/sml/journal/vol/kate.htm for a review

of power models in organizational analysis

Another contributor, Malott, takes Goltz and Hietapelto to task for their pre-sumptuous leaps from laboratory fi ndings to real-world applications, while Geller extends the discussions further. Control over the consequences someone controls and/or is subject to in any organizational structure is shown to be an expression of organizational power. In support of the Goltz and Heitapelto model, Geller goes on to show that power can, in fact, be measured in terms of quality and quantity of control over consequences.

To conclude this section we can briefl y look back at the work of Mann and others in posing the question, ‘How on earth can students of OB see the linkages between practice in workplaces and such broad ideological, military and political-economic sources?’ To accomplish this intellectual jump, you fi rst need, as we have seen, to move from individual to relational perspectives on power. It is not diffi cult to under-standing how broader national ideologies or local ideological cultures surrounding particular workplaces are implicated in ‘power’. Of course, it should be obvious that political economic factors, such as market dynamics, industrial relations and

employment law, and trade policy, all deeply aff ect the phenomenon of power. However, even in highly developed capitalist countries, the

military (including the police) provide an important foundation to the industrial relations legal regime. In many cases in history in North America and Europe, the police and even the army have been called out to intervene in workplace-based confl icts. � ey do this whenever worker–managerial confl ict reaches levels, or

is concerned with issues, that those in power judge to be unac-ceptable to the principles of the economic system. � ese principles

include challenges to private ownership of economic resources (such as factories or even forests).

Chapter summary

# In this chapter we began with broad theory, to provide a basis for a better appreciation of grounded research at the work organization level. Common-sense views of power were outlined to explore the half-truths in them. Power appears to us to be ‘embodied’ in individuals, as something they possess and exert. However, macro theories of power show that there are many deep social roots or ‘sources’ of power systems, including the infl uences of ideology, military, politics and economics Gramsci and Foucault outlined perhaps the most extensive theories of power, noting that it is anywhere and everywhere, because it constitutes the very way we talk and think about ourselves, let alone our organizational surroundings. Importantly, these two authors argue that power is a coin with two sides: on the one, consent, accommodation and domination; on the other, lack of commitment, stress, resistance, political action and ‘voice’.

# This knowledge was then applied to a critical look at key examples of work organization research. Collinson is a representative example of the new social analysis of organization, which links old industrial sociology with labour process theory and contemporary analysis of meaning and identity in the workplace. We then explored some key examples of OB research that deal directly with the concept of ‘power’. The OB fi eld has hardly seen a fl ood of research into ‘power’, and when it does consider this, it usually adds the prefi x ‘perceived’, further limiting the strength of its analysis. Nevertheless, some fascinating and provocative fi ndings and debates were detailed.

W

EB L I N K


# Clearly not all power, authority and infl uence is bad. Good parenting, teaching, policing, political advocacy, and in a certain sense management, can be understood as positive infl uences. The question of legitimacy, which in turn evokes questions of larger political and economic systems, comes into play as we recognize that there are two main justifi cations for disobedience to authority. One is when a subject is commanded to do something outside the legitimate range of the commanding authority, and the other is when the history of acquiring the commanding authority is no longer considered legitimate or acceptable (which includes being an unjust burden).

# These types of challenge to authority, building from the Gramscian and possibly the Foucauldian models above, start with recognizing people’s complicity in the taken-for-granted nature of systems of power, or rather hegemonic blocs of assumptions. Challengers dare to articulate these taken-for-granted assumptions in order to engage in rational analysis of legitimacy. What some refer to as a crisis in organizational commitment or loyalty may be the thin edge of this kind of wedge. That is, it represents the removal of blind obedience, an erosion of the ‘other side’ of the power coin, consent and complicity. Managers as well as workers (and students of OB!) have a right to think through and question the sources of their legitimacy. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others operated on the principle of removal of consent, which for our purposes relates directly to a broad, social perspective on power.

Key concepts

authority power/motivation/stress relations

hegemony relational perspective on power

infl uence sources of countervailing power

micropolitics of power sources of social power

Chapter review questions. What is the substance of the diff erent social theoretic models of Mann, Giddens,

Foucault, Weber, Lukes and Gramsci?. What is the diff erence between power and authority?. What is the relationship between power and resistance?. What is meant by the phrases ‘power is relational’ and ‘power is not possessed, it is

exercised’?. What are the strengths and weaknesses in current conceptualizations of ‘power’ in OB

research?

Further reading

Clegg, S. () Frameworks of Power, London: Sage.Foucault, M. () Power/Knowledge, ed. C. Gordon, New York: Pantheon.Lukes, S. () Power: A radical view, Basingstoke: Macmillan.French, J. R. P. and Raven, B. H. (). ‘The bases of social power’, pp. – in D. Cartwright

(ed.), Studies of Social Power, AnnArbor, Mich.: Institute for Social Research.Sennett, R. () Authority, London: Faber and Faber.


Chapter case study: Las Vegas general strike

This is an imaginary ‘historical case study’, drawing on experiences in key industrial disputes around the world.

In , the dismissal of a gaming worker for taking unauthorized toilet breaks galvanized co-workers across the casinos of Las Vegas in eff orts to seek legal union recognition. After additional dismissals of what the Las Vegas Casino Management Association (LVCMA) spokesperson Chuck Stoddart called ‘recently hired agitators’ (that is, workers who were trying to organize the unions), an organized walk-out occurred, leaving the casino fl oors virtually empty. Workers vowed to stay away from work for as long as it took to achieve their goals.

A series of complex events tumbled forward. A protest outside the famous Star Dust Hotel was met with rubber bullets, resulting in the death of two blackjack dealers from complications from the wounds they sustained. Following this the entire city was polarized across class lines, and a range of various workers from across the city joined in the industrial action. The Las Vegas police department proved unwilling to challenge the workers, many of whom were their spouses, friends, parents or children.

In a dramatic evening broadcast, the television channels carried press conference comments from the US President denouncing the work stoppages as an attack on the American way of life, an attack on hard-working consumers who just wanted to enjoy themselves, and an attack on the rights of business owners who had a legal right to run their operations without the interference of a union.

Following the shootings of the blackjack workers, an unusual clandestine meeting took place between union organizers and various middle management and pit supervisors for several hotels.

‘What can we do to help put this horrible situation behind us?’ began Michelle Watkins, the outspoken, informal leader of the management contingent who helped arrange the meeting. ‘We know there need to be changes to how we run day-to-day operations. We know there is plenty of room for employees to have more voice in how we do things, and solve the types of problems that arise here and there.’

Janice Wilkins, one of the lead organizers, who had been a close friend of one of the dead workers and had also been denounced as an ‘agitator’ by the LVCMA, looked around and said, ‘You’re right. It is about having a voice. It’s about sharing power. That’s all.’

Task

Either alone or in a group, analyse the relational perspectives on power in this confl ict, and develop some recommendations that address power in its many guises. Draw on the concepts reviewed in this chapter.

First, complete the conversation above between Watkins and Wilkins in whatever way you feel is appropriate.

Ask yourself these questions:. How is power in this confl ict perceived diff erently from the perspectives of the President

of the United States, the casino owners, the pit supervisor, the gaming workers and the consumer?

. Is the confl ict ‘idiosyncratic’ or ‘structural’, and would the changes your group recommends fundamentally challenge the way casino organizations are run?

. How do concepts such as authority, infl uence and legitimacy relate to the power of the President, the casino owners, pit bosses and workers?

Additional information

A similar event occurred in Winnipeg, Canada, in .You might check out the website for clues as to how such events might unfold: www.geocities.com/CapitolHill//win.htm


Note

This case study was written by Peter Sawchuk, University of Toronto, Canada.

Web-based assignment

The discussion in this chapter provided the basis for a comparison of diff erent theories of power. Take some time to obtain and read the discussion of power in the special issue of Journal of Organizational Behavior Management. Also visit the following websites:

http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Speech/rccs/theory.htm for Foucault on power/knowledge.

After reviewing the material, do as we began to do in the last section of this chapter: test the assumptions of the conceptualizations of power in this issue against the broader social theories of power we outlined in the fi rst half of the chapter.

OB in fi lm

The fi lm Oleanna, written and directed by David Mamet, is an ideal study of power as a highly complex phenomenon, in this case in the context of working and studying at a university.

In fi rst half of the fi lm you will notice a display of a variety of subtle and not-so-subtle forms and processes of power, authority and coercion. In the second half there is a reversal of power relationships. Watch carefully and try to note the myriad processes at play,. See whether you can identify many of the concepts discussed in this chapter.[box ends]

Notes

Noam Chomsky as quoted in Albert (, Part ).

Austin ()

Dahl (: –).

French and Raven ().

Warren ().

A fascinating treatment of this notion of coercion, consent and legitimacy can be read in the analysis of the American system of slavery as documented in Genovese ().

Mann ().

Mann (: ).

See for example Giddens ().

Giddens (: ).

Wrong ().

Lukes ().

Foucault () and () respectively.

Foucault (: ).

Foucault (: ).

Gramsci (: ).

Williams ().

Roscigno and Hodson ().

See for example Coleman and Fararo ().

Krippendorf ().

Goff man ().

Finkelstein ().

Finkelstein (: ).

Rubenstein ().

Krahn and Lowe ().


See for example Collinson (), Aligisakis ().

Collinson (: ).

Braverman ().

See for example Clegg ().

See for example Burawoy ().

Kondo ().

Elangovan and Xie ().

Overbeck and Park (), Raghubir and Valenzuela ().

Sennett and Cobb ().

Sennett ().

Mayes and Ganster ().

Foucault (: ).

Volume , Issue .

Goltz and Heitapelto ().

Boyce ().

Malott ().

Geller ()

Volume , Issue .

chapter 14 power - university of toronto

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