Chapter 8: Political Organizations and Decision Making

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Chapter 8 Political Organizations and Decision
Making
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Chapter aims

• Give an account of classical (unitary) and
  pluralist models of political organizations and
  decision making as part of the mainstream
  perspective
• Examine significant mainstream studies
• Discuss major critical studies
• Explore the strengths and weaknesses of critical
  approaches

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Introduction

• Political analysis highlights organizations as
  systems of government
• Inclined towards authoritarian or democratic
  forms of rule
• Mainstream thinking acknowledges politics, but
  views it as negative
• Something to be eradicated to improve
  organizational performance
• Critical perspectives see politics as inevitable
• Cannot or should not be eradicated
• Connected to wider power relations in society

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Overview

• Mainstream approaches
• Classical (unitary)
• Pluralist
• Mainstream structuralism

• Critical approaches
• Critical structuralism

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Mainstream approaches Introduction

• Political behaviour
• Extends beyond the formal authority that
  accompanies a persons position in the chain of
  command
• Involves the informal use of power to cultivate
  allies and control information
• Is directly linked to decision making
• Incorporates both unitarist and pluralist
  perspectives

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Unitarism and Pluralism

• Unitarism
• Assumes the view of top management shared by all
  employees
• Conflict the result of poor communication by
  management or the intervention of troublemakers
  (e.g. unions)
• Aims is eradication of conflict

• Pluralism
• Recognises a diversity of interests in an
  organization
• Conflict inevitable and normal
• Aims is negotiation and bargaining over competing
  interests

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Key concepts in the classical (unitary) tradition

• Focus on the formal structure of the organization
• Concern to identify the right formal organization
• Belief in the existence of one best form of
  organization
• Seeking to describe organizational rules, often
  called principles
• Belief that organizational principles are
  applicable to all types of formal organization
• Keenness to identify the best way of dividing up
  the task to be done
• Stress on the need for clarity in role
  specification and performance
• Placing emphasis on hierarchical control and
  similarities between members
• Insufficient attention paid to the diversity of
  problems experienced in different types of
  organizations

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Organizations as political systems

• Burns and Stalker (1966)
• Study of firms in electronics industry
• political structure a key factor in effective
  management
• i.e. the balance of competing pressure from each
  group recognizing a common interest for a larger
  share of all or some benefits or resources
• Key findings
• The form and function of an organization depends
  on internal politics and not just external
  environmental conditions
• Organizations have 3 levels of social systems
• Formal authority structure
• Covert co-operative systems based on negotiation
  and bargaining
• Political system

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Key issues in mainstream approaches

• Typologies of political rule
• How rules are maintained
• How conflict is contained
• How legitimacy is sustained

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Steps in rational decision making

• Define problem
• Identify decision criteria
• Allocate weights to decision criteria
• Develop alternatives
• Evaluate alternatives
• Implement chosen course of action
• Monitoring

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Conflict process in mainstream pluralist theory
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Mainstream structuralist approach

• Shares the pluralist assumption that
  organizations are complex social units where
  individuals interact
• Focuses on the conditions which determine the
  decisions that can be made
• March Simon (1958)
• Model of limited rationality
• Satisficing
• Demonstrates the large influence of
  organizational structures on decision making

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Mainstream approaches Limitations

• Classical (unitary)
• Fail to recognise the importance of power,
  competition, conflict and limits to rationality
• Pluralist and mainstream structuralist
• Acknowledges diverse interests, competition and
  conflict but conception of power is shallow
• Politics and negotiations are minor issues and do
  not challenge prevailing structures
• Managers are not presumed to have their own
  interests
• Big issues of conflict (e.g. poverty, the
  environment) are marginalized

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Critical approaches Overview

• Connect politics and decision making to the wider
  political and economic context
• Assume that internal dynamics reflect broader
  patterns of power and inequality in society
• E.g. Marxist analysis links work organizations to
  the dynamics of the capitalist system

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Critical structuralism

• Origins in Marxist analysis
• View of conflict
• Originates in capitalist relations
• Is deep seated and systemic and therefore not
  easily negotiated and settled
• Limitation
• Emphasis on structures neglects the influence of
  individual behaviour

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Challenges to a functional view of power

• Functional focus on how politics can be managed
  to removed its disruptive effects and improve
  organizational performance
• Problems with the functional view
• Takes for granted existing structure of power
  relations
• Sees politics as negative and something to be
  eradicated
• Sees organizations as aggregation of individuals
  rather than communities
• Fails to see politics as a mode of resistance to
  legitimate concerns e.g. incompetent management

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A critical approach to power

• Seeks to question existing structure of power
  relations
• Sees politics as necessary to secure
  compliance/consent
• Perceives power as a relationship, where its use
  is dependent on compliance/consent