Sources of Power
The Model of Relational Power is one of the three frameworks from which workplace relationships can be approached and analyzed, the positional and the expertise ones being the remaining two. Promoting unity and cooperation among staff members, the identified framework can be viewed as the primary tool for managing conflicts and promoting the required organizational behaviors among the staff members. As a result, by applying the model in the workplace, a manager can improve the staff’s performance by promoting a better communication strategy, enhancing information sharing, and contributing to the cooperation between the employees (Baldwin, 2016).
Expertise power as another source of exerting influence serves as the means of encouraging each staff member individually to excel in their performance. The identified source of power should be utilized as the means of encouraging the team members to come up with unique and original solutions to the problems that the company faces. Furthermore, the levels of initiative among the employees are bound to rise with the adoption of the specified strategy and using the promotion of individualism in the workplace as the source of power (Kadushin & Harkness, 2014).
Finally, the positional power, which can be defined as the traditional, authoritative approach toward managing the staff, needs to be mentioned. The specified framework can be used to enhance the company’s performance by assigning the employees to a set of clear and unique roles and responsibilities. While lacking communication between the employees and the manager, the framework serves as the foundation for promoting orderliness in the workplace (Kadushin & Harkness, 2014).
A Recent Crisis
Due to the challenges that the global economic environment incorporates, numerous companies have witnessed serious crises over the past few decades. However, the title of by far the most infamous one should be given to Volkswagen’s emission case. It has been taking immensely powerful efforts for the company to recover, yet even now, it faces hostility from a range of organizations and numerous customers. The case is simple yet quite embarrassing; trying to cheat the emission test, the company equipped its new vehicles with the defeat device that was supposed to mask the high levels of emission. Upon the discovery of the fraud, the firm faced serious legal repercussions and a rapid drop in popularity (Rhodes, 2016).
The problems in the design of corporate ethics, the problems with the communication process, and the inadequate use of the company’s resources should be viewed as the key constituents of the crisis. If Volkswagen’s leaders had been promoting the corporate values and ethical standards actively, the instance of fraud would not have been a possibility. Similarly, with the proper information management strategy, the issue would have been disclosed before the cars were sold. Finally, it was the problem with financial resources that compelled the managers to design the cheat device; therefore, the financial problems should have been addressed.
To avoid the problem, the company leaders should have promoted corporate ethics and values more actively. Furthermore, tighter control over the financial processes should have been established. Finally, the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility could have helped prevent the issue from happening (Rhodes, 2016).
Therefore, the crisis was avoidable. With a change in the financial strategy and more sensible use of the available resources, the firm could have addressed the flaws in the product design and delivered a better performance. However, Volkswagen preferred to cheat, which has made the use of cheat devices a truly infamous case (Rhodes, 2016).
References
Baldwin, D. A. (2016). Power and international relations: A conceptual approach. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kadushin, A., & Harkness, D. (2014). Supervision in social work. New York, NY: CUP.
Rhodes, C. (2016). Democratic business ethics: Volkswagen’s emissions scandal and the disruption of corporate sovereignty. Organization Studies, 1(1), 1-18. Web.