Who Gets Power and How They Hold on to It
Poiver adheres to those who can cope ivith the critical problems of the organization. As such, power is not a dirty secret, but the secret of success.
And that's the path power follows, until it becomes institutionalized— which makes administration the most precarious of occupations.
Who Qets Power-MdMow
Zkey Mold OH to
A Stmtegic-ContiHgemti
Model of Power
Gerald R. Salancik
Jeffrey Pfeffer
^
is held by many people to be a dirty word or, as Warren Bennis has said, "It is the word organization's last dirty secret."
This article will argue that traditional "polidcal" power, far from being a dirty business, is, in its most naked form, one of the few mechanisms available for aligning an organization with its own reality.
However, institutionalized forms of power— what we prefer to call the cleaner forms of power: authority, legitimization, centralized control, regulations, and the more modem
"management information systems"—tend to buffer the organization from reality and
obscure the demands of its environment.
Most great states and institutions declined, not because they played politics, but because they failed to accommodate to the polidcal realities they faced. Political processes, rather than being mechanisms for unfair and unjust allocations and appointments, tend toward the realistic resolution of conflicts among interests. And power, while it eludes definition, is easy enough to recognize by its consequences—the ability of those who possess power to bring about the outcomes they desire. The model of power we advance is
Organizational Dynamics, W'mter 1911. © 1911, AMACOM, a dhiston of
American Managemem Associations. All rights reserved.
an elaboration of what has been called strategic-contingency theory, a view that sees power as something that accrues to organizational subunits (individuals, departments) that cope with critical organizational problems. Power is used by subunits, indeed, used by all who have it, to enhance their own survival through
And that's the path power follows, until it becomes institutionalized— which makes administration the most precarious of occupations.
Who Qets Power-MdMow
Zkey Mold OH to
A Stmtegic-ContiHgemti
Model of Power
Gerald R. Salancik
Jeffrey Pfeffer
^
is held by many people to be a dirty word or, as Warren Bennis has said, "It is the word organization's last dirty secret."
This article will argue that traditional "polidcal" power, far from being a dirty business, is, in its most naked form, one of the few mechanisms available for aligning an organization with its own reality.
However, institutionalized forms of power— what we prefer to call the cleaner forms of power: authority, legitimization, centralized control, regulations, and the more modem
"management information systems"—tend to buffer the organization from reality and
obscure the demands of its environment.
Most great states and institutions declined, not because they played politics, but because they failed to accommodate to the polidcal realities they faced. Political processes, rather than being mechanisms for unfair and unjust allocations and appointments, tend toward the realistic resolution of conflicts among interests. And power, while it eludes definition, is easy enough to recognize by its consequences—the ability of those who possess power to bring about the outcomes they desire. The model of power we advance is
Organizational Dynamics, W'mter 1911. © 1911, AMACOM, a dhiston of
American Managemem Associations. All rights reserved.
an elaboration of what has been called strategic-contingency theory, a view that sees power as something that accrues to organizational subunits (individuals, departments) that cope with critical organizational problems. Power is used by subunits, indeed, used by all who have it, to enhance their own survival through
Bibliography: used, and what its effects are. Mayer Zald 's edited collection Poauer in Organizations (Vanderbilt University Press, 1970) is one of the more useful sets of thoughts about power from a sociological perspective, while James Tedeschi 's edited book. The Social Influence Processes (Aldine-Atherton, 1972) represents the social Power and Conflict in the University (John Wiley & Sons, 1971) and Andrew Pettigrew 's study of computer purchase decisions in one English firm (Politics of Organizational Decision-Makings Tavistock, 1973) both present insights into the acquisition and use of power in Press, 1975), and the study of hospital administrator succession will appear in 1977 in the Academy of Management journal.