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13: Power and Politics

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    34452
    • Anonymous
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    • 13.1: Focus on Power: The Case of Steve Jobs
      This page highlights Steve Jobs as a transformative figure in business, recognized by Fortune as a powerful leader. He impacted industries with innovations like the Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone. Jobs demonstrated various forms of power, often exhibiting a demanding leadership style. After facing setbacks, including his ousting from Apple, he made a significant comeback to revitalize the company, showcasing his extraordinary influence referred to as a “reality distortion field.”
    • 13.2: The Basics of Power
      This page discusses the nature of power, its influence on behavior, and the potential for both positive and negative outcomes. It examines classic research on conformity by Milgram, Asch, and Zimbardo, illustrating how authority can lead individuals to act against their morals. The Stanford prison experiment highlights the rapid adoption of roles and the resulting abusive behaviors.
    • 13.3: The Power to Influence
      This page examines power and influence in organizations, identifying six sources of power and various influence tactics that lead to resistance, compliance, or commitment. It highlights the role of impression management, emphasizing strategies for effective communication and relationship building.
    • 13.4: Organizational Politics
      This page examines organizational politics, highlighting their dual nature as both beneficial and detrimental. It discusses how political behavior, influenced by individual traits and organizational factors, can impact employee outcomes such as commitment and job satisfaction. While effective politics can improve relationships and outcomes, unhealthy politics may result in negative effects like anxiety and reduced satisfaction.
    • 13.5: Understanding Social Networks
      This page discusses the importance of social networks in organizational dynamics and job hunting, highlighting their role in uncovering unadvertised job opportunities. Social network analysis (SNA) identifies key roles within these networks and emphasizes the benefits of strong and weak ties. Effective networking fosters better communication and collaboration, and recommends strategies for building social networks through collaboration and socializing.
    • 13.6: The Role of Ethics and National Culture
      This page examines the relationship between ethics, power, and national culture in organizations. It focuses on how power can create ethical dilemmas, especially for CEOs with conflict of interest in compensation decisions. The case of Richard Grasso's excessive pay exemplifies power abuse. Additionally, it discusses how cultural differences in power distance shape organizational dynamics, decision-making, and leadership, affecting employee relations and collaboration across different countries.
    • 13.7: Getting Connected: The Case of Social Networking
      This page emphasizes the importance of networking for career advancement, highlighting how it establishes connections and access to information. It mentions online platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook as tools for maintaining professional relationships and potential job opportunities. However, it cautions about the scrutiny of social media profiles by employers.
    • 13.8: Conclusion
      This page discusses the relationship between power, politics, and organizational dynamics, highlighting that while power can lead to influence, it may also result in conformity, corruption, and perceived unfairness in resources. The level of an individual's power is tied to others' dependence on them, and social networks are pivotal in power dynamics, enabling those at the center to control others. Strengthening social networks is recommended for improved outcomes in organizational contexts.
    • 13.9: Exercises
      This page discusses an ethical dilemma related to a performance appraisal, focusing on an employee's choices about correcting their manager or providing feedback. It also presents an individual exercise for mapping social networks to evaluate connections and influence, highlighting network characteristics. Finally, it includes a group exercise analyzing roles and power bases within organizations.

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