What are the sources of managerial power?

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Sources of power vary upon people’s perception of power and what it can be used for. By using the political metaphor (Morgan, 1986) to better understand the connection between an organisation and its political rule, three main viewpoints have been developed on the basis of the organisation’s interests, and their stance on power and conflict. Aside from the radical view (Lukes, 1974) that were inherently based on left-wing political ideals at the time of writing, the unitary and pluralist ideals align themselves with the rationalist and behaviourist schools of thought that have been running through organisational management so far. Essentially, managerial power resides in the ability to control resources, rules, decisions, knowledge and technology.

Types of Power

Dahl defines power as the relationship between A and B, such that “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do” (reproduced in Hatch, 1997, p.254). Dahl sees power as the ability to force someone to do something, whether that be due to the modernist concepts of sovereign power, where control resides in the person, or due to hierarchical power where supremacy lies within in a position. On the other hand, Lukes (1974) views power as the social conditioning put around an individual to make them believe that they are functioning in their best interests which conveniently coincides with the manager’s interests. Lukes’ perspective on managerial control is interesting as it highlights “aspects of the impact of behavioural controls on members’ subjective apprehensions of themselves and the organisational situations they engage” (Johnson and Gill, p.145). In terms of organisational culture, having a set of shared values and beliefs would be a more effective method of uniting the employees together to achieve a common goal, regardless of whether they had been tricked into believing their interests or not. However, the foundations of his argument rest on the existence of “interests outside situations in which power is exercised insidiously” (Johnson and Gill, p.148). This is where his line of reasoning breaks down as it is very difficult to determine the exact nature of these interests especially when he himself suggests that these interests would only become apparent in situations that were free from control and power.

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The unitary and pluralist themes detailed by Morgan, tie in with modern and postmodern views described by Hatch. Unitary and modern takes on power emphasise the scientific and systematic approach to resolving organisational conflict, which is similar to the observe-and-implement methodology used by Taylor and the bureaucratic role culture illustrated by Weber. Unitarists largely ignore the role of power as a device to settle conflicts of interest in organisational life as they effectively stamp them out because they are seen as counter-productive and transient. Conversely, the pluralist and postmodern concepts place emphasis on the diversity of individual and group interests, where power is a crucial variable that can be used to alleviate conflicts of interests, which they consider to be innate characteristics of any organisation. This is analogous to the debate on whether culture is something a firm must find and nurture or whether it is something that a firm has and needs to control. Despite there being two arguments on the position of power as a tool in managing organisations, the root of power in either the position held by the individual or in the individual’s characteristics, still remains.

French and Raven (1959) drew attention to formal power that was based on a position in the hierarchy of the firm, in which coercive power was the ability to enforce control due to fear and opposing that was reward power that gave benefits relative to good performance. Performance based pay operates on the confidence that good performance can actually be measured, scaled and thus able to be given a monetary value, yet that is not the case for a lot of jobs especially in the service sector. Access and control to information is an employee’s main form of leverage over a manager, particularly in industries that rely heavily on creativity and specialised individual skills, as managers are more willing to accommodate for the needs of the employee rather than losing them to a competitor. Power does not only take the form of an individual’s qualities, but it can also arise from the ability to control resources that the firm has at its disposal.

Sources of Power

By taking examples of organisations that follow the unitary, pluralist and radical schools of thought, it can be seen that the sources of power (Morgan, 1986) and relative significance of each source varies with each of these views and the industry that these firms are in. Although unitary managerial power is not as popular as it used to be, it is still evident in firms in less economically developed countries that mass produce base products like textiles. Workers in Shakti Industries in Haora, New Delhi have no control over the decision process of making man hole covers (The New York Times, November 26 2007) nor do they have the chance to participate in any counter organisations or trade unions that would have a significant impact on their working lives. The managers have autocratic control over the workers and demand long working hours in terrible working conditions because they provide money, which is an extremely scarce resource for people with few skills.

Pluralist power control is apparent in the open-source software industry where creators of source codes allow beta testers of the software to access the code and solve any potential bugs that have been found (Raymond, 1999). A technocratic approach has been adopted by treating the users as co-developers and giving them freedom over the control and knowledge of information by using technology as a means of communication as well as progress for the source code. In this case, the use of power is does not consume any resources when dealing with uncertainty whereas in the radical view, taking the example of my secondary school (The Tiffin Girls’ School), controlling rules, regulations and boundaries was down to senior management who were paid more to help with the functioning of the school rather than to teach. The bureaucratic control in terms of rules and regulations was extreme to the point that staff were monitored on how many of their students got A or B grades in individual modules sat at AS and A2 level. Teachers also had to provide class reports detailing exactly what was to be taught and how that related to the syllabus, leaving little room for deviation from the course structure.

However as students, we voluntarily granted power to the Senior Management Team at school as we felt they had the legitimate right to be in a superior position and have the ability to control the situation. We did not have a say in who was chosen to work as a part of the Senior Management Team, yet we had to abide by their rules without being able to contest their opinions. Additionally, Robbins (2003) accentuates the fact that power can be derived from an individual’s personality hence why it is sometimes difficult to replace an influential leader or on in contrast, choose a manager that doesn’t have these qualities and is therefore unable to use managerial power effectively. An example of this is when the board of directors at Ford were given an ultimatum by Henry Ford II to either lose him or to fire the president of the time, Lee Iacocca.

Conclusions

Though the radical school of thought provided some interesting insights into ways of using power to manipulate employees’ interests, the unitary and pluralists themes have been more apparent in organisations. By sharing a culture and belief, there is less of a need to use power to resolve conflicts. The parallels between planned business strategy and unitary thought, in addition to emergent strategy and pluralist thought has shown that power can originate from many different sources, such as the control of scarce resources, information and ability to subtlety impose a unified common interest that helps to achieve the firm’s goals.

Bibliography and references

French, J.R.P. jr. and Raven, B. (1959), Studies in social power, MI: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan

Hatch, M.J. (1997) Organization theory: modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives, New York: Oxford University Press

Johnson, P. and Gill, J. (1993) Management control and organizational behaviour: Paul Chapman

Lukes, S. (1974) Power: a radical view, Macmillan

Morgan, G. (1986) Images of organization, Sage

Raymond, E. (1999) The Cathedral and the Bazaar, O'Reilly

Robbins, S. (2003) Organizational behaviour, Prentice Hall

The New York Times (online), New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India, (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/nyregion/26manhole.html)

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