Problem Solving Case Study and Proposal Report
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PowerControlandCoalition.pptxOrganisational Analysis Power, Control and Coalition
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Organisational Power, Control and Conflict
Objectives:
Introduce the concepts of power, control, conflict and coalition
Understanding a subjectivist approach to analysis
Powerful internal and external stakeholders
Analysing the roots of dissatisfaction, dissent, suspicion and coalition
Is worker coalition the answer?
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Critical Organisational Analysis and Strategy Development
Strategy Development
Resource Based View
External Environment
External Stakeholders
Internal
Stakeholders
Inward Looking
Outward Looking
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PESTEL
Political
Economic
Social
Technology
Environment
Legal
Strategy Development Framework
Outwards looking organisations
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A Precarious Balance of Power for Organisations
In strategic management:
We look at resources within the organisation
Internal stakeholder engagement
And we look outside organisational boundaries
External stakeholder engagement
Identifying social and environmental issues that matter most to performance in order to improve decision-making and accountability.
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Critical Theory as an Analytical Tool
Critical Theory as enabling managers to understand both sides of an argument
Understand that arguments are intractable because they emanate from people holding different assumptions
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The Need to Go Beyond “Rationality”
Organisations are portrayed as systems of oppression, rather than as systems of order
Stories of social divisions, power, exploitation, inequality and conflict within organisations
Social classes in organisations exist and are in conflict
Emergence of pejorative language in the description of organisations:
“Capitalist organisations alienate and exploit workers” (Burawoy, 1979)
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Critical Theory Analysis
Critical Theorist: Systems of Oppression
Systems of Production: Places of Work
Capitalist organisations alienate and exploit workers
Worker emancipation requires the establishment of a more democratic and egalitarian organisation
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Critical Theory Analysis
Organisations are analysed as capitalist class relations (i.e. owner and labourer).
Organisations are portrayed in terms of
Capitalist mode of production characterised by exploitation and alienation of the workers by the owners of the means of production
Calls for worker emancipation, and for the establishment of a more democratic and egalitarian organisation
The emergence of a ‘critical’ organisational discourse.
In the US:
C. Wright Mills (1956) The Power Elite
Alvin Gouldner (1954) Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy
(1955) Wildcat Strike
In the UK:
Ralf Dahrendorf (1959) Class and Class Conflict In An Industrial Society
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Justification for Critical Theory Analysis
If organisations do not recognise and address problems, then these problems are often exposed in more uncomfortable settings:
Social media
News reports
“Haterade” (excessive negativity, criticism, or resentment)
“Clicktivism”
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Understanding the Critical Theory Viewpoint
Organisations experience social divisions from within and outside
Differences stem from ideological differences
Major influence Karl Marx (1818-1882)
Concerned with social divisions, power, inequality and conflict within organisations and broader society
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Limitations of Functional Analysis
Organisational ‘Truths’ are only partially represented by process models
What is missing from Process Models?
Are Process Models incomplete?
Analysis of Organisations through Critical Theory
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Critical Theory
Ontology (World View)
There is an objective reality about organisations
But
Accounts of organisations are discovered through subjectivist interpretations
‘Nature cannot be seen as it ‘really is’ or ‘really works’ except through a value window’
Guba (1990: 24)
By “world view” it means some are ideologically oriented to see “capitalist” organisations as exploitative and thus disputes occur
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The uncovering or “reveal” of ideology
Inductive: a process of developing theory from observation and interpretation:
Reflexive
Historical
Discourse Analysis
Self-awareness
Introspection
Critical Theory Analysis
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Previously: Application of Science to Control Workers
Machine paced labour (Scientific Management Strategies):
Grounded in a technical rational paradigm that advantages quantifiable information
Increase efficiencies by simplifying the production process into specialised tasks
Management develops precise scheduling and organising of work activities
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Inequality Regimes within Organisations
Critical Theory Analysis of Inequality Regimes
All organisations have inequality regimes (gender, age, etc)
Organisational members are misled by those in power
Systems of inequality are reinforced, embedded, routinised
Defined as loosely interrelated practices, actions, meanings that result in and maintain class, gender, and racial inequalities within particular organisations
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Unequal Systems and Resistance
How do workers redress the reduction in bargaining power or inequalities?
How is freedom from oppression and exploitation attained?
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Calls for Emancipation: Workers as Active Agents Within Organisational Relationships
Workers’ resistance to unequal power in the workplace:
Individual action:
Verbal complaints
Go-slows
‘Cheating’
Absenteeism
Looking for other work
Sabotage
Theft
Collective Action:
Strikes
Go-slows
‘Sick-out’
The formation of trade unions
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A Different Portrayal of Management
A more ‘critical’ analysis of dominant organisational ideas and management practices.
‘critical theorists have shifted the image of management and the theoretical agenda ‘from saviour to problem’
Crowther and Green (2004: 119).
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Critical Theory Analysis
Unpacking stories from opposing perspectives
The organisation’s narrative is not only internal communications, websites, annual reports, etc.
The organisation’s story comprises a totality of narratives
Allows us to interrogate, critically, the nature of any institutionalised pattern of social relationships within a society (and organisation) in the context of manifest imbalances of power, i.e. between advantaged and disadvantaged
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Critical Theory: Discourse Analysis
Let us step through a number of examples of narratives
What is the truth?
What people accept as being the truth ‘Knowing’ the ‘truth’ is ‘tainted’ by dominant ideology and values of the those seeking ‘truth’.
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How do disputes manifest?
Linking awareness and human emancipation or improvement
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The Corporate Point of View
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Critical Studies of Power and Control
Portrayal of organisations as places exploitation
Organisations are excessively or obsessively driven by capital accumulation
Greater the exploitation of labour—greater the profit.
Extension of the working day (for the same wages)
Efficiency drive to produce more in the same amount of time for the same wages
Technological development (reduction of wages)
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Understanding why people resist
People resist systematic disparities in organisations
Unrest
Coalition, workforce organisation against management, corporate greed
Managers need to be aware of the organising processes that constitute inequality regimes in organisations, that are related to the “economic decision making that results in dramatically different local and regional configurations of inequality”
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Giving Voice to the Exploited
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Emancipation through Worker Coalition
Organisational members (workers) are misled by those in power
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Issues are heavily contested
The purpose is, therefore, to develop appropriate organisational practices to address the problems
What Outcome are We Trying To Achieve?
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Do Coalitions, themselves, become Exploitative?
THE former Health Services Union leader was leading a charmed life.
Kathy Jackson appeared to be a wealthy woman who was living in luxury.
She travelled the world and bought expensive cars and designer clothing.
But her world has come crashing down as she has been charged with 70 theft and deception offences by union corruption investigators…………………
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Do Coalitions, themselves, become Powerful?
Construction unions using bikies as 'hired muscle' in industrial disputes: Victoria Police
Updated 8 Jan 2016, 2:50pm
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Summary: Why Critical Theory?
Contrasting a Modernist-Functionalist mindset with a Critical Theory mindset (ontology)
To show different world-view (ontological) assumptions
Ideologies have fundamental different assumptions
Explains why some ideologies conflict
Managers have to analyse the roots of conflict
Some organisational problems are intractable
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References
Dahl, R. A. (1957). The concept of power. Behavioral science, 2(3), 201-215.
Freund, J. (1969). TheSociology of Max Weber.
Giddens, A. (1985). The nation-state and violence (Vol. 2). Univ of California Press.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life.
Hamilton, P. (Ed.). (1991). Max Weber, Critical Assessments 2 (Vol. 2). Taylor & Francis.
Hatch, M. J., & Cunliffe, A. L. (2012). Organization theory: modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives. Oxford university press.
Dahrendorf, R. (1959). Class and class conflict in industrial society. Stanford University Press.
Durkheim, E. (2014). The division of labor in society. Simon and Schuster.
Gouldner, A. W. (1954). Patterns of industrial bureaucracy.
Guba, E. G. (Ed.). (1990). The paradigm dialog. Sage Publications.
Mills, C. W. (1999). The power elite. Oxford University Press.
Guy, G. (2011). Language, social class and status. In R. Mesthrie (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of sociolinguistics (1st ed., Vol. 1, pp. 159–185
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