Organizational politics - Essay Example

Human temperament or characteristics are indeed the prime cause of all politics in any setup but there are certain core environmental factors for all human behavior and it would be mandatory to study and understand them in an effort to understand the reasons for organizational politics. This is also necessary given the central role that politics plays in any work environment. In this presentation it has suggested that power plays a critical role in the politics of an organization (McShane and Travaglione).

At all levels the distribution of power is vital to the running of a company. While the types of power vested in a person or group is important in itself, the impact that this power has on the employees is our prime concern here. Power provides a person with the authority to allocate a resource (which is important if resources are scarce), to punish or reward people and to judge their performances. This in turn causes people to attempt build a better picture of themselves in the eyes of the people in whom power is vested.

This can be done either by maligning coworkers or by creating circumstances where coworkers promote your image. The dynamics of interpersonal relationships between co workers and also the relationship of managers and team members comes into force in such cases. Ambition and drive which are subjective characters also come into play here. While such reasons present a dark image of . In recent years in particular, there has been much effort to chanelize the power of politics and turn it into a useful tool for the running of organizations and this indeed is the way to go!

ManuscriptExplore the main reasons for political behavior in organizations"32% of managers believe it simply isn't possible to use office politics constructively because human nature is so appallingly selfish that people will always guard their turf and abuse their role power" Park, 2002This quote accurately summarizes the main reasons for political behaviour in organizations. Human temperament or characteristics are indeed the prime cause of all politics in any setup! But then what is it that we call politics in organizationsPolitics in OrganisationsThe use of power and influence for personal gains within an organizational set up is by far the bets definition of politics.

It is distinctly different from nation-state politics in involving more interpersonal relationships (Provis 2002) and involves interplay of ethics morality and personal interest. It is also now increasingly being recognized as inevitable in organizations.The prime cause of politics is the distribution of power in an organization. A widely accepted model for the bases of power in an organization has been described by Foucault, (1980). He refers to several plausible sources of origin of and refers to them as Reward power, coercive Power, legitimate power, expert power.

All these manifestations of power are found in any organization and while there is an ongoing debate on which power base is the best in terms of outcome, a functional consequence of any of them is know to be organizational politics.It is interesting to study the correlates of power and politics! Some primary and