组织行为学：权力与政治
Power has been described as the last dirty word最脏的词. It is easier for most of us to talk about money or even sex than it is to talk about power. People who have deny it, people who want it try not to appear to be seeking it, and those who are good at getting it are secretive about how they got it. But OB researchers have learned a lot in past decade about how people gain and use power in organizations.
A major theme is that power is a natural process in any group or organization. As such, you need to know how it's acquired and exercised if you're going to fully understand organizational behavior
如果你想完全了解组织行为，你就必须要知道如何获得和运用权力. While
you may have heard the phrase “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” power is not necessarily bad权力不一定都是坏的.
As one author has noted, most medicines can kill if taken in the wrong amount and thousands die each year in automobile accidents, but we do not abandon chemicals or cars because of the dangers associated with them. Rather, we consider danger an
incentive to get training and information that’ll help us use these forces productively.
The same applies to power. It’s a reality of organization life and it’s not going to go away. Moreover, by learning how power works in organizations, you will be better able
to use your knowledge to help you be a more effective manager.
WHAT IS POWER?
Power refers to a capacity that A has to influence the behavior of B, so B does something he would not otherwise do. This definition implies ① a potential that need not be actualized to
be effective, ② a dependency relationship, and ③ the assumption that B has some discretion over his own behavior.
Power may exist but not be used. It is, therefore, a capacity or potential. One can have power but not impose it.
Probably the most important aspect of power is that it is a function of dependency. The greater B’s dependence on A, the greater is A’s power in the relationship (the greater power A has over B). Dependence, in turn, is based on alternatives that B perceives and the importance that B places on the alternatives that A controls. A person can have power over you only if he controls something you desire.
If you want a college degree and have to pass a certain course to get it, and your current instructor is the only faculty member in the college who teachers that course, he has power over you. Similarly, if you’re attending college on funds totally provided by your parents, you probably recognize the power they hold over you. You are dependent on them for financial support.
For A to get B to do something he otherwise would not do means B must have the discretion to make choices.
LEADERSHIP AND POWER
The concepts of leadership and power are closely intertwined. Leaders use power as a means of attaining group goals. Leaders achieve goals, and power is a means of facilitating their achievement.
What differences are there bwteen leadership and power?
One difference relates to goal compatibility目标的一致性. Power does not require goal compatibility, merely dependence. Leadership requires some congruence between the goals of the leader and the led.
A second difference relates to the direction of influence影响的方向. Leadership focuses on the downward influence on one’s subordinates. It minimizes the importance of lateral and upward influence patterns. Power does not.
Still, another difference deals with research emphasis. Leadership research, for most part, emphasizes style. It seeks to answer to such questions as: how supportive should
a leader be? How much decision making should be shared with subordinates? In contrast, the research on power has tended to encompass a broader area and focus on tactics for gaining compliance. It has gone beyond the individuals as exerciser because power can be used by groups as well as by individuals to control other individuals or groups.
DEPENDENCY: SOURCES OF POWER
Probably the most important aspect of power is that it is a function of dependency. Here we show how an understanding of dependency is central to furthering your understanding of power itself.
GENERAL DEPENDENCY POSTULATE
General postulate: the greater B’s dependency on A, the greater A has over B. When you possess anything that others require but you alone control, you make them dependent on you and, therefore, you gain power over them. Dependency, then, is
inversely proportional to the alternative sources of supply.
If something is plentiful, possession of it will not increase your power. If everyone is intelligent, intelligence gives no special advantage. Similarly, among the super rich, money is no longer power. But, as the old saying goes “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!”
If you can create a monopoly by controlling information, prestige, or anything other
crave, they become dependent on you. Conversely, the more you can expand your
options, the less power you place in the hands of others.
This explains, for example, why most organizations develop multiple suppliers
rather than give their business to only one. It also explains why so many of us aspire to financial independence. Financial independence reduces the power that others
can have over us.
WHAT CREATES DEPENDENCY?
Dependency: B’s relationship to A when A possesses something that B requires.
Dependency is increased when the resource you control is important, scarce, and nonsubstitutable. To create dependency, the things you control must be perceived as being
important. A resource needs to be perceived as scarce to create dependency. The more a resource has no viable substitutes, the more power control over that resource provides. This is illustrated in a concept we call the elasticity of power which is the relative responsiveness of power to changes in available alternatives
组织行为学：权力与政治
