Week 5 Question 3

Concept and application of power

Introduction

Power in organizations and their role is an important concept and has drawn considerable attention since the past few decades. Researchers have identified various sources of power processes in organizations of which the most commonly cited are those developed by French and Raven (1959). These bases of power that they have identified continue to be a part of literature in this regard but there can be seen some extensions in the bases that they identified. If we look at the structure of an organization such as Wal-Mart, then it can be seen that these bases of power concepts are still evident. Wal-Mart is regarded as one of the leading public organizations in the world and has thousands of stores in the US and has also expanded internationally to around 26 countries of the world.

Summary and Analysis of power concepts in literature

One of the most influential theories of power are those developed by French and Raven, who provided the five sources of power that leaders or various authoritative people in an organization use to influence others. These included reward power, coercive power, legitimate power, expert and referent. These sources are further categorized into two categories i.e. organizational power and personal power. Recent researchers have though extended the list of the bases of power in an organization making them as long as 11 power bases as those by Raven (1992) and Raven et.al. (1998). Bases such as nonmaterial reward and nonmaterial punishment were among those added. Legality was another addition which is another kind of power relative to legitimate power while there are some other categories added to legitimation. These include legitimation via the norm of reciprocity, legitimation via the norm of equity and legitimation via the norm of social responsibility. Identification, expert power and ...