Define power from an organizational behavior perspective. What is the difference

Question

Define power from an organizational behavior perspective. What is the difference between power and influence?

What are the six forms of position power and the four forms of personal power? Briefly describe each form.

What is leadership and how does it differ from management?

What is meant by the concept of substitutes for leadership?

Define shared leadership. Define the key distinction between shared leadership and traditional models of leadership.

Define transformational change and incremental change. Discuss the role of change agents.

Briefly discuss how managers build, reinforce, and change culture.

What is organizational culture? What is corporate culture? Is a firm’s culture important? Why or why not? (Hint: this requires a longer response than the others: multiple parts.)

9.What is organizational learning? How do organizations acquire knowledge?

10.Discuss the emergence of the virtual organization.

Explanation / Answer

1. Power is the ability to get things done, sometimes over the resistance of others. Power is the ability to influence another person. The process by which we affect the thoughts, behavior, and feelings of another person is called influence. Authority is the right to influence another person. Most individuals prefer to use influence rather than authority to get things done.

2. six forms of position power:

A. Legitimate Power:

Also called "positional power," this is the power individuals have from their role and status within an organization. Legitimate power usually involves formal authority delegated to the holder of the position.

B. Referent Power:

Referent power comes from the ability of individuals to attract others and build their loyalty. It is based on the personality and interpersonal skills of the power holder. A person may be admired because of a specific personal trait, such as charisma or likability, and these positive feelings become the basis for interpersonal influence.

C. Expert Power:

Expert power draws from a person's skills and knowledge and is especially potent when an organization has a high need for them. Narrower than most sources of power, the power of an expert typically applies only in the specific area of the person's expertise and credibility.

D.Reward Power:

Reward power comes from the ability to confer valued material rewards or create other positive incentives. It refers to the degree to which the individual can provide external motivation to others through benefits or gifts. In an organization, this motivation may include promotions, increases in pay, or extra time off.

E. Coercive Power:

Coercive power is the threat and application of sanctions and other negative consequences. These can include direct punishment or the withholding of desired resources or rewards. Coercive power relies on fear to induce compliance.

F. Informational Power:

Informational power comes from access to facts and knowledge that others find useful or valuable. That access can indicate relationships with other power holders and convey status that creates a positive impression. Informational power offers advantages in building credibility and rational persuasion. It may also serve as the basis for beneficial exchanges with others who seek that information.

four forms of personal power:

A. Support: based on the ability to stimulate the involvement of peers, superiors,subordinates, and others (inside and outside the organization) in organizationalendeavors.

B. Knowledge: related to skills, experience, information, practice, and expertise relevant tothe job and to the organization.

C. Interpersonal competence: based on communication skills, empathy, authenticity,caring, respect, trust, and capacity for intimacy. Involves primarily the informal web of relationships.

3. The difference between managers and leaders is the way they motivate the people who work or follow them, and this sets the tone for most other aspects of what they do. Some other differences are:

– The manager maintains; the leader develops.

– The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.

– The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.

– The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

– The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader’s eye is on the horizon.

– The manager imitates; the leader originates.

– The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

4. Substitutes for Leadership Model states that when followers are both ready and able to direct themselves they do not need leadership: other tasks and organizational characteristics substitute for task and relationship oriented styles of leadership.

5. Shared leadership occurs when two or more individuals in a group share responsibility for directing it toward its goals.Shared leadership requires team members be willing to extend their feedback to the team in a way that aims to influence and motivate the direction of the group.The team must overall be disposed to accept and rely on feedback from other team members.

The traditional leadership style is based on the belief that power is bestowed on the leader, in keeping with the traditions of the past.

6. Transformational change moves the organization toward a radically different, and sometimes, unknown, future state. Incremental change is relatively small in scope, and as such, results in small improvements.

A change agent is an individual or group that undertakes the task of introducing and managing a change in an organization. Change agents can be either internal or external, and both have advantages and disadvantages. Internal change agents know the past history of the organization, its political system, and its culture, but may be too close to be objective or may not have the trust of coworkers. External change agents may have a greater ability to be objective and impartial, but possess limited information about the organization and may be view with suspicion.

7. Manager build culture by modifying the visible aspects of culture, like language, stories, rites, rituals and sages. They can change the lesson drawn from common stories and encourage the employees to see the reality that they see.They can create new rites and rituals, and with the assistance of executives they can back these initiatives with their actions and words. Managers can help to foster a culture that provides answers to important questions and concerns that happen with external adaptation and internal intergration. Managers must work to emphasize long-term eonimic performance, emphasis with stockholders, and customers. The reward system is also a good thing for manager to do, in addition to that they can set the tone for a culture and for cultural change.

8. Organizational culture refers to a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations. In other words. Organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs how people behave in organizations. These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs. Every organization develops and maintains a unique culture, which provides guidelines and boundaries for the behavior of the members of the organization. Let's explore what elements make up an organization's culture.

Corporate culture refers to the beliefs and behaviors that determine how a company's employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions. Often, corporate culture is implied, not expressly defined, and develops organically over time from the cumulative traits of the people the company hires. A company's culture will be reflected in its dress code, business hours, office setup, employee benefits, turnover, hiring decisions, treatment of clients, client satisfaction and every other aspect of operations.

YES, a firm’s culture is important. Because a company’s culture is the only truly unique identifier. Things like your products, your strategies and even your techniques can be duplicated. The only truly unique identifiers are the values and norms of the organization.

9. Organizational learning is the process of creating, retaining, and transferring knowledge within an organization. An organization improves over time as it gains experience. From this experience, it is able to create knowledge.

Knowledge acquisition refers to the knowledge that a firm can try to obtain from external sources. External knowledge sources are important and one should therefore take a holistic view of the value chain. Sources include suppliers, competitors, partners/alliances, customers, and external experts. Communities of practice can extend well outside the firm.

10. A virtual organization or company is one whose members are geographically apart, usually working by computer e-mail and groupware while appearing to others to be a single, unified organization with a real physical location.

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