Organizational Politics: From Conflict-Suppression to Rational Conflict-Management

ISBN-13: 9783409190978 / Angielski / Miękka / 1993 / 186 str.

Wolfgang Dorow; Dan Farrell; G. Nther Dlugos

Opis

The political analysis of organisations has gained increasing significance in the last 10 years. In the Anglo-American research in particular the most significant and up-to-date questions from the broad research field of Organizational Politics, have been taken up and examined from a scientific perspective that is essentially empirical. Much attention has been paid to the phenomena of power, the generation and handling of conflict in organisations (with emphasis on the managerial viewpoint), as well as to industrial conflict as a conflict between employers and trade unions. Interesting research results have been achieved in these areas, which can also be found in the German literature. Despite this progress, no consensus can yet be traced in the existing literature upon the definition of the object of research, the problem formulation and the research goal. In view of the different perspectives of the object of research that exist, the integration of multiple research results presents difficulties: the advantage of cooperative, particularly international research results cannot be exploited to the full, and as a result of the absence of a complete research "road map", gaps in the research are discovered more by chance, rather than being identified and elaborated systematically. Furthermore, the economic problems of power, conflict and conflict-handling, which are of great significance for business corporations have received surprisingly little attention. Another weakness is the rather loose relationship that exists with Political Science, which provides important impetus, but which is as yet unsufficiently used as a permanent corresponding discipline.

Spis treści

Content.- What do we really Mean by Power and Politics? A Review of the Literature.- The Study of Power and Politics in Management.- Definitions of Power and Politics.- What Do we Know about Power and Politics?.- Conclusion: The Research Challenge.- A Systems View of Organizational Politics.- Abstract.- A Systems View of Organizational Politics.- The Theoretical Context of the Political Subsystem: The Negotiated Order.- The Role of the Political Subsystem and the Areas It Addresses.- The Elements that Configure the Political Subsystem,.- Conclusion.- Temptations and Dilemmas in the Interpretive Perspective on Organizational Politics.- Organizational Politics from Multiple Perspectives.- A Comparison of Functionalist and Interpretive Perspectives on Politics.- A Case Study of Organizational Budget Setting.- Analysis.- Conclusion.- Towards the Business Politics Approach and the Field of Research.- Types of Political Activities.- The Different Meanings of Policy and Politics.- Central Focus of the Business Politics Approach.- Areas of Investigation.- Conceptual Framework: Relevance and further Development.- Towards a System of Business Political Goal Formulation.- The Elements and Processes of Business Political Goal Formulation.- The Influence of Disposable Power Basis on the Business Political Scope of Action.- The Consequences of Alternative Business Political Actions.- Concluding Remarks.- Conflict Relationships in Organizations A Concept of Measurement.- Why Measurement of Conflicts?.- Previous Methods of Measurement.- Measuring Conflicting Relationships.- Summary and Conclusion.- Conflict-Handling in Industry-Wide Codes.- Definition and Contents of Industry-Wide Codes.- Causes of Conflict in Industry-Wide Codes.- Alternative Methods of Conflict-Handling.- Environmental Delimitation.- Methods of Goal Delimitation.- Conclusion.- The Political Consequences of Organizational Cultures: Mergers, Acquisitions, and Joint Ventures.- Politics and Culture.- Political Consequences.- Information Processing.- Cultural Patterns.- A Typology of Organization Culture.- Implications or Managers.- Conclusion.- The Business-Political Dimension of the Internationalization of Enterprises.- A Case Example of Internationalization.- The Distinction between Strategic and Business Political Decisions of Internationalization.- The Apolitical Approach of Transaction-Cost Theory.- The Perspective of the Business-Politics Concept.- Business-Political Alternatives of Conflict-Handling.

O autorze

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Dorow ist ist Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre, inbesondere Unternehmensplanung, Organisation und Personalwesen an der Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder.