POWER & POLITICS IN ORGANIZATIONS

Power & Politics in Organizations

Power & Politics in Organizations

Robbins (2001) states that there are two different forms of office politics i.e. legitimate and illegitimate politics. The normal everyday politics such as “complaining to your supervisor, bypassing the chain of command, forming coalitions, obstructing organization policies or…” (Robbins 2001). Illegitimate politics are acts of sabotage, whistle-blowing, different types of protest such as group coming in to work late or not coming in at all.

The negative impacts can be described by past scandals resulting in the crash of corporations, non-accountability in the accounting industry, and lack of ethical direction from boards of directors and have cost thousands of people their jobs and taken millions of peoples' retirement funds to zero. On a positive side of power and politics organizations have also been found to be responsible and able to promote trust. Take Johnson & Johnson for example, when Tylenol was tampered with leaving several people ill, they did not listen to their lawyers who were trying to prevent lawsuits, they admitted there was a problem and pulled all products from off the shelves. They did not hide behind the organization shirttails' of attorneys', they faced up and proved to society to be trust worthy. Which in turn, they gained respect from the general public.

Scandals grow larger and more intensive day-by-day for organizations. In part certain government laws have provided guidelines to follow as a check and balance for the unethical behaviour amongst large organizations. Sarbanes-Oxley being one to keep company's honest in bookkeeping and allowing documentation to be proof that the organization is doing what is ethical.

Organizations must make sound business decisions and have good intentions. They must have processes in place in order to insure upper management remains objective. Organizations can be easily influenced by outside ...