Affect of power relations on organizational change and development - Essay Example

?Affect of Power relations on Organizational Change and development Introduction to power Power has many perspectives in relation to an organization.This has major impact on the organizational change process because of the “institutionalization of power and behavior of interest groups in and around it” as per Mintzberg (1983), Pettigrew (1973) and Pfeffer (1992) (cited in Boonstra and Gravenhorst 1998). Power dynamics within organizations have changed drastically owing to the consolidation requirements mandated by the various crises and stiff competition. The consolidation exercises resorted to by the various organizations have made the companies leaner and flatter as management levels are being eliminated. Organizations are now trying to reduce bureaucracy and make the executives directly responsible and accountable for their tasks. Political as well as institutional systems play an important role in the power dynamics during any organizational change process. Some of these forces resist change due to changing dynamics while others stimulate them for the same reason (cited in Boonstra and Gravenhorst 1998). During any change process, CEO and the management along with consultants etc try to use their power to influence the process of change. At times this use of power to influence others can cause resistance while at other times it can facilitate the change process as noted by Fable and Yukl (1992) (cited in Boonstra and Gravenhorst 1998). Power dynamics can be displayed openly or invisibly by the agents involved. For example, Bachrach and Baratz (1962) say that management can exclude participation by keeping certain decision from being open to discussions during a change process (cited in Boonstra and Gravenhorst 1998). In open display of power dynamics, managers hold meeting and discussions where they try to convince and influence others through facts, expertise or experiences. Theories of power dynamics and change management Boonstra and Gravenhorst (1998) look at power dynamics under five different perspectives. They build on the various researches that have studied the bases of power and root their first perspective on these. They say that “change in organizations is demanded by the top management and they need their position and power in order to effect change” (Boonstra and Gravenhorst 1998). In the second perspective they say that personal power is also used and thought the starting point of change is power, logical arguments and facts to support change are presented. The next two perspectives are based on the research in organization theory and management. In the fourth perspective, they see the role of agencies in exerting power to control processes and the various “interest groups” use power to negotiate the direction in which the change process should go. So far, the use of power was prominently observable in the various perspectives. In the fifth perspective, this is more subtle. The change agents tend to instill values, norms and perceptions through “management of meaning” and emphasize on the usefulness aspects of the desired change. The fifth perspective is about using the models developed by the organizational learning and organizational schools. They say that these models use the power of discussions and employee participation to bring about the desired change. Earlier literature on power viewed it as the ability of the change agent to influence the subjects to accept that change within a particular reference context (French and Raven 1959). Boonstra and Gravenhorst (1998) say that Bass in 1960 described two sources of power – personal and position. In the position power, a manager has received authority to act by virtue of his position in the organization. This is the dominating power of the management and any confrontations to proposals put forward by the management are considered as resistance and hence are intolerable as per Hardy and Clegg (1996) quoted by Boonstra and Gravenhorst (1998). Bouwen (1995) describe this authoritarian model of change as “Power Model”. Here the management uses its authority to use “power-coercive” strategies to push change. Various interest groups then have to comply with the directives to avoid any economic and other sanctions against them. Models of change based on power-coercive strategies do not usually reach the desired goals as they lack people participation. French and Raven (1959) and Beer (1980) identified various power strategies that management can successfully use in place of the Power Model described earlier. These are – expert power (achieved through competence), multiple relationships (networking with people at various levels and departments), reputation (a person with positive reputation can gain trust), group support, control over resources and knowledge, information and charisma. Bouwen (1995) and Boonstra (1997) describe Expert Model that carries a combination of all these power strategies as per Boonstra and Gravenhorst (1998). This model is however bogged down by the fact that it does not take into account the cultural and political elements that are major sources of resistance to change. Power dynamics have been seen to be displayed in many ways. Boonstra and Gravenhorst (1998) have cited studies by many researchers on this aspect. For example, Pettigrew and McNulty showed that experience of board members was an important factor in deciding their influence on other members. They also found that the board member use various power strategies like information, multiple relations and group power etc. during the dismissal process of the chairperson. Another view on power is the pluralist view. Various departments within organizations are interdependent in terms of resource sharing or for inputs that are needed for the outputs. Hence, they have to work in coalition with each other. However, the powers of various departments vary based on the type of work they are doing (Boonstra and Gravenhorst 1998). Hickson et al. (1971) recognize ability to deal with uncertain situation, the ability to keep it functions sustainable and dependency of various departments as the key determiners of powers of a department. “Conflict management and resolution” is the change model used in the pluralist approach. Exchange strategy is used when the situation is politically sensitive. This involves negotiations based on discussions about the advantages that each party is going to get post implementation of the desired change. A study by Munduate and Dorado supports the pluralist view of power and prove that “effective conflict handling by management is based on the informal power sources and integrating and compromising styles in negotiation processes by interest groups” (Boonstra and Gravenhorst 1998). Sales model is a strategy related to cultural perspective of power. This model is based on the manipulative methods used by the change agent. This is done to change people’s values, relationships and attitudes towards new paradigms and away from old ones. Another view on power is that it “arises through patterned talking” (Cameron and Green 2009). This patterned talking is what defines the power of a person. Thus, if a particular working style is “in” (say quality control systems) then those who are skilled in that style will be considered “in” while those with a different working style (say chaos and emergence) will find themselves misfit in the system (Cameron and Green 2009). Resistance to change Any change within an organization brings about a feeling of insecurity in the employees with regards to their position and power. Many of the employees gain expert positions by virtue of being in the line position over long periods of time in the areas hitherto being the responsibility of a professional expert. These employees feel threatened by the change as their power position is changing and they may not be able to gain the same position in the new job, one because they will take time to learn the new skills and attain expertise in it and second because they may not get a position above their educational qualifications or skill sets (a position they have already attained due to work experience). Drenth, Thierry and Wolf (2001) quote the work of Boonstra (1991) which says that existing power relations are responsible for resistance to change. He also propagates the use of “political use of influence” to break the inertia with an aim of initiating the change process. Case study We will look at a case of implementation of a new process in the IT services department of an Australian University studied by Attygalle, von Hellens and Potter (2010). The IT services department underwent a major structural change for the purpose of achieving strategic goals of the department by improving productivity and efficiency. This department had many sub departments. All these undertook a wide variety of projects which were both technical and non-technical in nature. The responsibility of tracking the projects, allocating budgets as well as overseeing the adherence to right methodology was with the Project Development and Services subunit. NOESIS was a system module which the management introduced with the purpose of capturing and sharing learning from various projects undertaken by the subunits so as to increase departmental knowledge. Current status of the new system post implementation It was observed that the present system was not producing the desired results. Of the total projects undertaken by the various subunits of the IT services department, only 5% were captured by NOESIS. Besides this lack of usage, there was no effort towards promoting this system by the senior management within the department. The system is currently being used more as an induction tool for the new managers rather than an interdepartmental information sharing tool. The major reason for the implementation of the new software was the attempt of the management to change the power relation existing within the department. Power relations and choice of tactics It was observed that the power relation within the department was more of a bureaucratic setup. Here the “functional areas were centrally driven by the hierarchy of senior managers” (Attygalle, von Hellens and Potter 2010). However, Message Services Team, which came to be known as the Notes Team claimed an expert power over all others because they were the administrators of critical communication software called Lotus Notes. These people thus had the special power to influence other teams. This was perceived as a possible threat by the senior management and they wanted them to share their knowledge with other teams and thereby assume a less threatening position. Thus, the management used political tactics to implement the new system. This is similar to the manipulation strategy of change (Doorward, Benschop and Brouns 1997) as observed by Boonstra and Gravenhorst (1998). The importance of this “political use of influence” has also been quoted in the works of Drenth, Thierry and Wolf (2001) as discussed in the earlier sections. The management was aware of the position held by the Message Services Team within the department and its power to influence other in resisting change. Hence, they started by using invisible power exhibition where they introduced the new system but did not roll out any guidelines for using it. This implicit tactic ensured that various teams developed their own system of using the new software. Thus they used the sales model (discussed earlier) in introducing the system which let it absorb in the work culture naturally rather than forcibly. They also used their control over systems resources by mounting the new system on earlier system where the employees had to compulsorily access NOESIS every time they worked on the old system though there was no compulsory guideline on usage. Other tactic they applied was the use of power by virtue of their position. Some department managers asked their teams to use NOESIS for their activities. Resistance to change As seen in the earlier discussion, any change within an organization is seen as a threat to the power position by the existing employees and hence resistance in inevitable. In the literature of organizational behavior, many sources of power have been identified. Some of them are “formal authority, control of knowledge and information, control of scarce resources, use of organizational structure and regulations, control of technology and interpersonal alliances etc.” (Morgan 1998). It is also observed that in technologically dependent organizations or processes, the power to control technology greatly influences the power of the technical experts in disrupting or smoothening out the working of the other departments. Of these, the one that are impacting this organization are the control of knowledge and information as well as control of technology. “The fact that technology has a major impact on power relations is an important reason why attempts to change technology often create major conflicts between managers and employees and between different groups within an organization” (Morgan 1998). The employees of the Notes team had their power embedded in both these sources. The basic premise of NOESIS was to share knowledge with other departments. If the Notes team did that, there power position would be greatly diminished. As the other departments were dependent on this team for solving their problems, they would have lost that unique position had they shared the troubleshooting skills with these departments. Moreover, the Notes team had developed interpersonal relationships with the other units because of their power position. The department used this influence on those units to create a collaborative resistance against the proposed changes. They voiced their opinions about the non-suitability of the new system over the older one. Change in power equations Senior managers started using NOESIS more than the others leading to an increase in their knowledge power. This can be seen from the fact that other team members started referring them for NOESIS related activities. This display of change in power equation is supported by the study done by Zuboff (1988) who found that power is not necessarily derived from position or ownership of a system but also by self acquired knowledge of its working. Though the senior management did not forcefully change the power status of the Notes team, by introducing the system they created a future direction to changing their knowledge position. As this system was mainly put to use for new manager training, the management was subtly changing the culture of the organization. New managers were more used to NOESIS and were in a better position to improve its functionality over time. The management also looked at the resistance points of the Notes team and used them at the departmental levels. Thus, the team felt that in some way NOESIS had increased their power. The introduction of NOESIS was later followed by structural changes where the centralized Power Development and Services unit was reshuffled and a new unit, Central Project Portfolio Office, was setup. Thus, the management redistributed execution to functional levels and become more decentralized implying redistribution of power. Impact of power relation on change and development The above case implies the fact that power relations can change the way change is implemented within an organization. For example, when the management saw the hold of the Notes team on other teams, they made the introduction of NOESIS more subtle which would not sound very threatening. They changed their tactic by using it as induction software which was not the actual purpose of implementation of the change. This was due to the impact of power relation of the target team with the other departments. The multiple relationships developed by this function increased their influence on other departments and support the pluralist view of power. The management did not use direct coercive means or negotiations to use the exchange strategy. This resulted in distrust as the team understood the underlying objectives of the management. However, the management was able to use its position power to influence implementation decision and indirectly introduced the new system. The team on its part showed resistance to change by using their expert power as well as political tactics. Political tactics used by the Notes team were voicing opinion against the suitability of the current system (Attygalle, von Hellens and Potter 2010). This was because the team felt that their interests and power position was under attack (Drenth, Thierry and Wolf 2001) Another theory that this example supports is the work done by Lant et al. (1992) and Gordon et.al (2000) as quoted by Greve and Mitsuhashi (2007). As per their theory, new CEO led to strategic change in an organization because they bring about new set of ideas and different thinking process. This can be seen from the fact that the restructuring of various units and creation of new units started immediately when the new Pro Vice Chancellor (PVC) joined the department. He diluted the function of Project development and Services team and setup a new function called Central Project Portfolio Office. He also initiated the restructuring of the organization from bureaucratic setup to a matrix organization. Conclusion The above case study shows that power equation within an organization has a major impact on the direction of change. The management might initiate a change with a particular objective, but they need to change the direction of implementation so as to adjust with the power dynamics in the organization. If the change is directed at re-structuring the power equation within the organization, the ulterior motives are usually visible and hence there is resistance to change. This can be seen from the fact that though NOESIS was introduced with an aim of building a knowledge sharing platform and reduce the expert power of a particular subunit, it was ultimately put to use as an induction tool rather than the desired objective because the management failed to mitigate the knowledge position of the Notes Team. Another important finding that comes out from the case is about the tactics employed by the management to initiate the change. They used their power positions in various ways at times subtly (like introducing the system without set guidelines) and at other times more openly (as in some teams managers made it mandatory to use NOESIS. Thus, there is no single formula for the use of power to impact changes. The process is dynamic. 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