Introduction
Organizations are systematically structured bodies of individuals or groups. They are neither the functional, unified entities celebrated in administrative theory nor the spheres of calamitous class encounter predicted by the proponents of Marxism. Instead, it might be contended, a more reasonable thought lies someplace between the two, an idea of organizations as politically arranged orders (Omisore & Nweke 2014). The continued existence of any organization is an act of politics. Therefore, organizational existence is subjugated by political relations. Organizational politics entail strategic utilization of power to maintain or get hold of typical resources (Barcharach & Lawler 1980).
Organizational structures are new entities, which are as a result of sentient political decisions of specific players and vested parties. The studies on organizations by sociologists in the past forty years have, in general, embraced a political perspective of organizations. This perspective might be ascribed to a limited translation of earlier approaches to organizations. Sociologists have invested a substantial amount of time and energy attempting to demonstrate or discredit the credibility of the earlier concept of organizations, for instance, Max Weberâs theory of bureaucracy (Omisore & Nweke 2014).
According to Donaldson and Preston 1995, there are three important groups that are crucial to the development of organizational politics. These groups are workgroups, interest groups, and coalition. The workgroups may be classified based on departmental differences, work differences, or as prescribed by the chain of command. On the other hand, interest groups are players who are conscious of the shared goals and shared characteristics of their destiny past their interdependence as regards the nature of work. Last but not least, coalitions are alignments of interest groups that are dedicated to the achievement of shared goals. They are pegged on mutual activities of two or more interest groups against other vested parties (Donaldson & Preston 1995).
Organizational politics is concerned for the most part with the nature of power crosswise over interest groups or coalitions in the organizations and the description of strategies and counterstrategies that they use. The actions of these groups are capable of influencing organizational structure and operations (Donaldson & Preston 1995). This essay presents a well-researched paper on the relationship between politics, power, and stakeholder management. This will be achieved through the exploration of different theories and concepts and key arguments between theorists and different theoretical positions.
Politics and power
Organizational politics identifies with conducts that are outside those in which the organization has taken a particular stance in support or against. The conducts are intended to acquire self-centered and personal ends that are against the ends of other individuals in the organization (Ford, Ford & DâAmelio 2008). Organizational politics may concentrate on the objectives of individuals, as well as groups and they may well include practices that are damaging to the organization.
They tend to be unavoidable but they vary from one organization to another. Moral matters so often come to the fore and negotiations are very crucial in organizational politics (Kotter 1995). Moreover, organizational politics create extremely conflicted reactions since individuals view the entire process both suspiciously and confidently, depending on the specific viewpoint they have as a main priority. Be that as it may, the individuals who are effective in organizational politics are likely to be viewed positively on the grounds that they are efficacious rivals in different regards (Omisore & Nweke 2014).
Recent studies have shown that political issues of this nature are a frequent point of discussion and that frequent issues are interdepartmental harmonization, allocation of power, and elevations, or relocations. A typical concern is the promotion of incompetent individuals based on partiality. Intrinsic in this and numerous others politicized state of affairs are the influencing of performance appraisals, decidedly for oneself and adversely for contenders, and the influencing of power allotments, as between workgroups or amongst the executive and subordinates. It is vital to clarify that organizational politics turn out to be more predominant and more vital for individuals at the top level of management or higher as rivalry becomes more intense (Kannabiran & Petersen 2015).
Organizational politics is triggered and encouraged by individual characteristics, decision characteristics, structural characteristics, and, organizational change (Weick & Quinn 1999). Individual characteristics include personal beliefs and ambitions, as well as the desire for vengeance and reprisal. Decision characteristics simply refer to the decision-making approach in the organization, which may be structured or unstructured.
Organizational structures give rise to various vested parties that can prompt political behaviors. Lastly, the organizational change normally creates disputes in an organization, and those who are not in support of the change process often fight back (Abbas & Asghar 2010).
Politics in organizations is from time to time described as the power in action. The power, in this case, is the underlying capacity, whereas the political strategy is how individuals exercise it (Omisore & Nweke 2014). According to Donaldson and Preston (1995), âpower simply refers to the capacity to influence other peopleâs behavior, while politics basically refers to activities associated with powerâ.
There are three main forms of power, namely: coercive power, remunerative power, and normative power. Coercive power rests on the capacity to sanction threats. Remunerative power is pegged on the control of tangible assets and rewards. Normative power, on the other hand, is pegged on the control of symbolic rewards. The main sources of these powers include hierarchical positions, individual characteristics and, unofficial aspects of informal or formal positions. Effective usages of these powers bring about desired ends and objects. On the contrary, the ineffectual use of these powers is one of the major causes of system failure (Donaldson & Preston 1995).
Michel Foucault, a philosopher, was a crucial figure in the essential discussion of power relations. The term “power” is usually understood as ownership, something that somebody has to control/misuse/oblige. However, Foucault inspires us to move past this perception of power as suppression of the weak by the influential individuals or groups to an analysis of the way that power works in ordinary relations amongst individuals and establishments (Kannabiran & Petersen 2015).
Rather than concentrating on where power originates from or who possesses it, Foucault turns us to examine local types of power, and the manner they are continually arranged by people and organizations within a certain system. He contends that power must be seen as “something which revolves, or as something which operates as a chain. For this reason, people are just mere drivers of power and not their points of application (Kannabiran & Petersen 2015).
Taking into account Foucault’s works, his idea of power can be said to be characteristic of the following: power ought to be seen as a methodology and not as ownership, a verb not a thing, something that has to be continually performed and not just achieved; power flows and works in a type of a network through the different levels of the framework instead of being simply situated in an organization or controlled by a person; power is sanctioned and effectively challenged among different specialists in a framework instead of simply being connected to somebody or something; where there is power, there must be a resistance which is considered a fundamental condition for power to exist and such resistance ought not to be decreased to an irregularity or to a solitary wellspring of opposition and; lastly, it is not possible to exercise power without knowledge.
Knowledge is a critical component of power and by producing knowledge an individual can claim power (Kannabiran & Petersen 2015).
Studies show that most leaders, including managers, do play politics. In other words, they exercise their powers. Organizational politics is still distasteful for numerous individuals. Nonetheless, the subject is very important in creating individual awareness, as well as the awareness of other peopleâs behavior (Donaldson & Preston 1995).
Power, politics and stakeholder management
A stakeholder is an individual or a group that can affect or be affected by the result of a change or realization of the organization’s goals. Organizations by themselves are viewed as groupings of stakeholders and their purpose is to manage the interest, needs, and standpoints of various stakeholders (Omisore & Nweke 2014). Stakeholder management is supposed to be satisfied by the managers of an organization.
The managers ought to from one perspective manage the organization for the advantage of its stakeholders keeping in mind the end goal to guarantee their rights and the contribution in basic leadership and then again the administration must go about as the stakeholder’s agents to guarantee the survival of the organization to secure the long haul stakes of every group (Omisore & Nweke 2014). When pondering about change management, a number of individuals presume that organizations are excellently coordinated entities in which people operate symphonically. A section also believes that judgments are made sensibly and lucidly and that individuals share the same outlook regarding their surroundings and act to enhance the organization’s interest (Kotter 1995).
Generally, organizations can are conceptualized as an assortment of people, teams, and communities of practice, each chasing their specific goals. When there is a difference in opinion it is the power and influence of the individuals involved that defines the results instead of rationality and lucid reasoning. As a result, individuals responsible for change management cannot be able to disregard matters of power and influence. Change often destabilizes the equilibrium of power. Some will defend the present state of affairs and others will look for change to enhance their position (Omisore & Nweke 2014).
Individuals will oppose change due to: the threat from the expected future state, the risk from the procedure used to implement change, general involvement, communication procedures used, availability of knowledge or information, and lack of confidence in the top leadership (Ford, Ford & DâAmelio 2008). With a specific end goal to oversee change effectively change managers should be aware of the identity of indispensable stakeholders and to their predisposition to either back or oppose the change. A few partners are more capable than others and can act in a manner that either backs or opposes change (Weick & Quinn 1999).
This power is not bound to the individuals who have been given the power to decide how certain things are done. In most cases, persons and groups that do not have any genuine authority often have more influence than genuinely delegated managers (Freeman1999).
The stakeholder groups that are most effective are those that: are in a position to manage critical issues confronting the association; have control over huge assets esteemed by others; are fortunate or sufficiently gifted; are centrally linked to the workstream of the organization; are not easily supplanted and; have effectively utilized power in the past (Kannabiran & Petersen 2015). This brings us to the question of whether change managers should consider all or just a selected group of stakeholders.
As per the normative or moral-based theories of stakeholder management, the interests of all groups or coalitions have inherent value and ought to be considered when arranging and actualizing change. The essential reason for instrumental theories is that managers will just take care of the interests of stakeholders to the degree that those stakeholders have their interest at heart. For this reason, managers always tend to be biased in nature and are not concerned about the interest of all the stakeholders (Kannabiran & Petersen 2015).
The underlying reason is that organizations face numerous challenges and risks at various stages in their life cycle. Subsequently, after some time, some stakeholders turn out to be more critical than others in view of their capacity to fulfill basic organizational needs (Donaldson & Preston 1995). Resource necessities vary from one stage to another in the project life cycle. At the point when the fulfillment of resource requirements is hampered change managers embrace risk minimization strategies and only communicate proactively with those stakeholders who control vital assets.
However, when the resource requirements are not threatened in any way, they normally follow risk-averse tactics, and vigorously involve all stakeholders. In other words, stakeholder management is often based on the project life cycle. It is conceivable to distinguish which stakeholders are likely to be more or less crucial at every phase of the project life cycle. The strategy that is utilized to manage every stakeholder relies upon the significance of that stakeholder with respect to the different stakeholders (Donaldson & Preston 1995).
The above sentiments are supported by Kannabiran and Petersen (2015) who stress that change managers have a tendency of focusing on groups or coalitions that control critical resources in the organization. Their arguments are mainly based on the resource dependency theory. A firmâs resources include management strategies, a firm’s characteristics, and a firm’s assets that help the organization to create management decisions that will enable them to achieve a competitive advantage. The resources are the strengths that firms can use to conceive of and implement their strategies. For this reason, stakeholders who control key resources in the organization must be given high priority (Kannabiran & Petersen 2015).
In contrast, Freeman (1999) believed that the long-term success of any organization depends on the formulation and implementation of processes that fulfill the interests, needs, and standpoints of all the stakeholders. The principal undertaking in this process is the management and integration of various relations and interests of different working groups or coalitions to attain the long-term objectives of the organization.
Piderit (2000) explains that success in the current business environment is neither an easy affair nor an accidental event. This is made possible by decisions made by managers. It is the obligation of managers to follow up on the organization’s interior and outside situations, build organization assets and abilities, monitor industry patterns, look for new opportunities, identify emerging threats, and develop vision and mission for the organization. All the above constitutes what is commonly referred to as strategic management. It is difficult to exaggerate the significance of tactical managers in stakeholder management. It is one of the crucial elements considered fundamental to an organization’s capacity to adjust, develop, and succeed in the midst of a turbulent environment (Piderit 2000).
Conclusion
Organizations that are on the brink of success ought to carry along the partial interest so as to lessen dissatisfaction, friction, and encounters. Organizations are neither the discerning, concordant entities celebrated in administrative theory nor the coliseums of prophetically catastrophic class strife anticipated by Marxists. Instead, it might be contended, a more reasonable thought lies somewhat between these two â an idea of organizations as politically arranged orders.
Embracing this perspective, it can be viewed, that organizational stakeholders in their day to day activities constantly bargain, over and again shape and change alliances and continually embrace different survival tactics. In this manner, survival in an organization is an act of politics. Organizational politics entail the strategic utilization of power to hold or gain control of genuine or typical assets. Individuals with more power are considered more important than others on account of their capability to fulfill basic organizational needs. It is conceivable to recognize which partners are likely to be pretty much essential at every stage.
The system that is utilized to manage every stakeholder relies upon the significance of that partner with respect to different partners. The stakeholder network is presented as a valuable device for distinguishing the power of stakeholders and their inclination to bolster or restrict change.
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