Research Paper on:
Power and Politics in Organizations

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
of the union and the way that unions try to use collective power in order to protect the interests of their members may be seen as clashing with the power  of the management and their control; over jobs and the way that political strategies may be used to gain support from employees or their stakeholders. A good example of the  use of political manoeuvring has been seen with THE management of British Airways, the UK flag carrier, where cabin crew have announced that they will hold a strike over the  Easter period in 2010. The management have got the press and the government involved with the arguments that the actions they are taking is not fair ion the passengers and  they are causing suffering, taking a political spin on the events, ignoring the underlying issues. In order to assess the way that power and politics manifest within organization the  first consideration may be the sources of power. French and Raven describe a power taxonomy which provides a useful foundation for analysis of power within an organization. This model  uses five types of power; reward, coercive, legitimate, expert and referent, along with these there are three potential outcomes where power is used, compliance, commitment or resistance (French and Raven,  1959). The most effective outcome is commitment, but compliance may also be acceptable for a manager. Legitimate power is seen where a legitimate request is made. The perception of  the legitimacy of the request is also viewed with reference to the perceived authority of the person making the request as well as the actual request (French and Raven, 1959).  This is seen in the different level of management and basic models of motivation, the human relations approach that uses a high trust, less authoritarian approach than scientific management low