Organization as Political System

View of the organization: an arena for conflict

Key concepts: power & influence, interests, dominant
coalition, stakeholders
Key processes: conflict, negotiation, coalition building
Role of the leader: forging coalitions, identifying and
leveraging interests, negotiating
Stimuli for change: shifts in dominant coalition, in
power of stakeholders
Obstacles to change: entrenched interests
 BUILDING BLOCKS

Goals and Interests:

Goal Complexity and Goal Conflict

Contested Interests

Power and Politics:

Power is the ability to get things done in an Organization

Politics is mobilizing the ability to get things done.

Bases of Power and Stakeholders:

Bases of power are invested in and so are at stake

Understanding stakeholders and their bases of power is a key political
skill.
 BASES OF POWER

Resources and Specialized

Skills and Knowledge that
OFare:
POWER
Essential
Scarce or Critical
Non-Substitutable

Formal Power through position,

legal prerogatives, or ownership

Networks that access the

above
 BASES OF POWER
Formal Authority

Control over scarce resources

Rules, structure, regulations, standard operating procedures

Control over decision processesaccess to decision making

Information, knowledge, or specialized (scarce) skills

Gate-keeping or control over the flow of information or access

Ability to cope with uncertainty and ambiguity

Alliancesability to call on powerful resources

Symbolic use of powercreating the perception of influence

Countervailing powerability to create new institutions

Empowerment of weaker partiesuse of third parties or legal rights

 Negotiating skillsshaping the process
 Stakeholder Analysis Chart

Divisive Issues System Architecture Urgency Capabilities & Open Leadership and Cost and Cost
and EIS Access Roles Allocation
David Carlson

Helen Freeman

Paul Stokes

Jack Morris

Divisive Issues System Architecture
and EIS
David Carlson 1You see a corporate
wide EIS as a competitive
advantage. You like the
status of MIS as a strategic
tool. You see this as a
technical solution.
Stakeholder Analysis Chart
Urgency Capabilities & Open Leadership and Cost and Cost
Access Roles Allocation
1Youve got to hit 1You want uniformity 1You are in charge 4You dont care how
Bauers 8 month across all groups. You and your head is on it is paid for.
deadline and prefer a want open corporation your credibility and
corporate wide rollout. access. This is your job is o the line.
technical vision for the
organization.

Helen Freeman 2You see a corporate
wide system as the way to
go. You would be willing
to live with a smaller scale
version.
Paul Stokes 3You wish it would go
away and use your system
corporate wide. You want
Carlson to prove that the
new systems is worth the
cost (and their prying
eyes).
Jack Morris 4You doubt the value of
a corporate wide EIS. Its
expensive, takes too much
of you time, and threatens
to reveal information that
you would prefer to keep
hidden.
2You prefer a timely 2You prefer uniformity
corporate wide rollout across all functions and
so your leadership role open access.
will be a success.
3You want the time 4You want uniformity
line to be extended and in hardware and software,
prefer a staged rollout. but local variation to
define cost and your own
functional analysis. You
strongly oppose an open
corporation.
4You want a staged 3You want some
rollout. You want to uniformity, but local
delay your involvement variation in cost definition
for a yearuntil after and separation. You want
much of you growth active participation in
costs are through the insuring Division
system. specific analyses.
2It is important to 2You prefer cost
you to remain the head allocation based on
of the overall effort required to
hardware/software implementespecially
accounting analysis. since your system is
almost up and running.
3Carlson is in 1Avoiding cost is
charge and that is a your top priorityso
good thing. You costs should be shared
would like a equally. Costs should
leadership role in cost not be a proportion of
definitions and revenue.
financial analyses.
4You dont care 3Costs shouldnt be
much other than an shared equally. You
ability to influence want Stokes to pay his
how costs are defined larger share. Share by
and how the revenue or by profits.
functional analysis
will be performed.
 Stakeholder Analysis Map

URGENCY

L H

CAPABILITIES & OPEN ACCESS

 Stakeholder Analysis Map

Carlson

URGENCY
Stokes Freeman

Morris

L H

CAPABILITIES & OPEN ACCESS