Management Experience and Perceptions of Organization Political Behavior - Literature review Example

Summary of the 8 Articles The traditional approach towards business and managing an organization provides a great deal of emphasis on the aspects of business ethics, philosophy and issues regarding social responsibility. However, with advancement in the arena of business administration there has been a dynamic shift in such traditional observations. In the article, “Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse”, author Tomi J. Kallio has, thus, observed despite people have provided less importance to aspects issues like developing a clear face of business to consumers and its ethics, which mostly have been regarded as naïve, but plights of organizations like Parmalat, Worldcom and Enron have given the business world to rethink on the matter. At the same time, taboos like corporate greening and business ethics are also attracting a great deal of focus of the modern business personalities and leaders, “While corporate greening and business ethics literature have from time to time been accused of being rather naı¨ve … there appears to be a trend towards a more critical discourse. Most scholars in the field now seem to recognize the disparity between what is said and what is done, and understand the challenges that disparity creates in business ethics research” (Kallio, 2006, p. 165). With the desire to support his arguments regarding the importance on taboos, the author has reflected over the aspect of myth from modern cultural perspective and also has tried to evaluate importance of myth and taboo in the contemporary environment of business administration. According to the author’s observation, “While myth is – in most cases, more or less – untrue, taboo represents something that is explicitly real, at least for many people” (Kallio, 2006, p. 166). Aftermath his discussions on issues like amoral business taboos, taboos of continuous economic growth and political taboos have ultimately led him to conclude that unless the modern business environment does not aspire to go beyond established boundaries of established taboos it would not be possible to create a new business tend, which would be favorable for customer and service provider relationship (Kallio, 2006). Kallio’s observation receives a stronger foundation with the observation of Ronald R. Sims, as he has cited the integral connection between corporate social responsibility and ethics. According to Ronald R. Sims, each organization has its distinguished culture, “its own lore … its own taboos and political don’ts” (Sims, 2003, p. 107). However there are several instances where positive aspects of an organizational culture are used for the purpose of enhancing publicity; rather than fulfilling their respective social responsibilities. Just the manner Kallio has attempted to show that surrounded by myths and taboos, companies mostly attempt to enhance their image to the people, the same observation has received a almost the same treatment through Ronald R. Sims’ research. The article by Tillmann Wagner, Richard J. Lutz, & Barton A.Weitz, “Corporate Hypocrisy: Overcoming the Threat of Inconsistent Corporate Social Responsibility Perceptions” has taken another step forward in this issue and has clearly identified certain aspects related to social responsibility of corporate environment as hypocritical as in most cases organizations in modern business environment come under shadows of the issue of regarding social responsibility to develop their stance regarding connection with customers, “When making purchase decisions, consumers, particularly those in developed countries, are placing more importance on the social responsibility of firms. Social responsibility perceptions affect the image of brands and firms, the propensity of consumers to buy brands and patronize retailers, and the financial performance of firms” (Wagner, Lutz, & Weitz, 2009, p. 77). However, hypocritical approach of modern business organizations to develop their publicity stunt under the masquerade of social responsibility is increasingly becoming a failure due to factors like media initiatives and increasing rate of consumer awareness. In order to elucidate their discussion, the authors have provided considerable focus on the theory of corporate social responsibility, “Corporate social responsibility is defined as a company’s obligation to exert a positive impact and minimize its negative impact on society” (Wagner, Lutz, & Weitz, 2009, p. 78); additionally, the authors also have discussed the perceptions regarding corporate social responsibilities with the help of empirical data. Their also have attempted to define corporate hypocrisy and consequences of this vice on consumers. It has also been revealed through their research that in most cases companies use their respective strategies of communication to provide an impression of corporate social responsibility to the customers. Despite the fact that research of the authors have attempted to provide a clear picture adoption of such hypocritical approach can hamper people’s perception regarding an organization, it is a matter of serious concern whether the companies would finally learn from mistakes or keep on pursuing the path of hypocrisy. At the same time, if an attempt is made in relation to the article “Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse” by Tomi J. Kallio, it can clearly be said that companies have not really taken some serious initiatives for breaking up conventional taboos and provide customers with a true impression regarding corporate social responsibility. Just the manner conventional ideas regarding an organization’s social responsibility have undergone drastic change in the recent era, a dynamic change also has occurred in the context of corporate leadership. It is generally perceived that leaders always play a very crucial role when it comes to success of an organization and managers, in this context, undertake highest degree of responsibility. However, looking at the actual scenario of management and role of a manager in organizational context, it can be said that a huge gap exists between perceived and actual role of manager in an organizational context. The article “The Manager’s job: folklore and fact” by Henry Mintzberg clearly provides a considerable amount of focus when it comes to understanding difference of opinion regarding perceived role of a manager in an organization and their actual behavioral or functional roles. In order to establish arguments in support of his observation, the author has provided evidences both from qualitative and quantitative perspectives. However, apart from performing regular works, role of a manager from decision making and leadership perspective is most important. At this point the difference between a good and a poor manager often becomes annihilated as a poor manager’s understanding of situation and a good manager’s lack of anticipation of results place both of them on a same plain, “No organization can be so well run … that it has considered every contingency in the uncertain environment in advance. Disturbances arise not only because poor managers ignore situations until they reach crisis proportions, but also because good managers cannot possibly anticipate all the consequences of the actions they take” (Mintzberg, 2008, p. 57). Thus, for the purpose of more effective management, a manager needs to develop a systematic base to share his information, provide adequate degree of attention to the matter that requires immediate and most serious attention and finally managing his time in order to ensure a proper management as well as leading from organizational context (Mintzberg, 2008, p. 60-61). In his article “What Leaders Really do”, John P. Kotter has attempted to distinguish between managerial and leadership qualities. In the context of his discussion the author has supported Mintzberg’s observation regarding actual management and myths, which are associated with it. According to him it is due to the gap between perception of managing an organization and the actual situation most of the organizations are “overmanaged and underled” and in this context he mainly has focused on U.S. organizations (Kotter; Mintzberg, 1998, p. 38). The author observes that management is actually about managing complexities whereas leadership mainly attempts to solve issues regarding changes (Kotter; Mintzberg, 1998, p. 39-40). The general confusion that occurs between perceived role of managers and their actual implication is a result of the dilemma between leadership and managerial qualities. David A. Buchanan’s article “You Stab My Back, I’ll Stab Yours: Management Experience and Perceptions of Organization Political Behaviour” provides particular focus on role of a manger in the context of organizational politics. The survey to support the research of the author has been conducted on 250 managers in British context and it has been found that in most cases managers play important role in orienting politics within an organizational domain. The main behind undertaking such role is the belief among modern managers that political behavior is important from ethical perspective and it also helps a manager to enhance his effectiveness in organizational context. In order to asset his arguments the author has interpreted role of a manager in organizational politics from micro and macro political perspective and issues like subjective experience among managers, theoretical implications of the subject have attracted special attention from the author (Buchanan, 2007, p. 52-54). Ultimately findings of the researcher have asserted the fact that, “Political behaviour was not seen as a senior management preserve; 83% agreed that ‘politics is played at all organizational levels’. It is not surprising, therefore, that 84% agreed that ‘I am prepared to play politics when necessary’, 87% agreed that ‘politics is a natural part of the management job’ and 93% agreed that ‘most managers, if they want to succeed, have to play politics at least part of the time’” (Buchanan, 2007, p. 56). Additionally, 70% of all the managers have asserted the fact that they also have been hurt by politics from others; however, it has not creased them from participating in politics. The research findings have also emphasized over the fact that 60% of the managers are of opinion that complex organizational changes have provided further scope to organizational politics, 79% are of opinion that politics helps in initiate necessary changes, 81% have supported organizational politics as they think it would act as a “resistance to change”, 85% opines that important changes can be “steered” with the help of politics and 91% of managers have supported organizational politics as they think it would retard initiatives for change (Buchanan, 2007, p. 58). It becomes evident from the author’s discussion that despite political behavior in organizational context definitely has certain negative implications but it is not essentially an evil. This observation has also been supported by Debra L. Nelson and James Campbell Quick, “…organizational politics is not necessarily negative; it is the use of power and influence in organizations” (Nelson, and Quick, 2007, p. 256). On several occasions, though, managers receive a negative feedback due to organizational politics, proper utilization of this aspect can also ensure them proper exercise of their power in the context of managing. However, it is up to the manager’s context whether he/she should use the organizational politics for the purpose of exaggerating his/her power in a negative manner. Thus, it becomes quite clear from the article of Buchanan that complex organizational culture and changes become important factors that have provided a broad foundation for organizational politics to be implemented. Automatically, these two factors attract special attention of scholars and students so that the nature of change can be understood properly. Bernard Burnes’ article, “Complexity theories and organizational change” in this context has provided us with considerable understanding of the fact. The author has supported opinion of scholars like Burnes, Cummings, Worley, Dawson, Kanter et al., Pettigrew, Stace, Dunphy, Weick, and Wilson that ways of organizational change can be classified in terms of two approaches, namely, planned and emergent (Burnes, 2005, p. 74). The complexity theories in organizational context, according to the author, are responsible for “emergence of order in dynamic non-linear systems operating at the edge of chaos” and due to their unpredictable nature the complexity theories gives birth to a “process of self-organization” finally leading to “a small number of simple order-generating rules” (Burnes, 2005, p. 77). The complexity theory and organizational change are helpful in giving birth to new trends in organizational management and it also helps an organization to survive in hostile and extremely competitive environments (Burnes, 2005, p. 82). Finally, through this analysis of complexity theories the author has reached the conclusion that “though complexity theories may be bringing about a fundamental reevaluation of how we view the natural world, it is difficult to support the claim that they also have the potential to bring about the same sort of fundamental re-evaluation of the nature, purpose and operation of organizations” (Burnes, 2005, p. 87). Raymond Caldwell, in the context of complexity theories and organizational change, has observed that despite all adversities change, within the domain of organizational development is a coherent process (Caldwell, 2006, p. 106). However, according to observation of theorists like Van de Ven and Poole, an organization operates within a pluralist world, where the issues of organizational development are constantly colliding and conflicting each other (Caldwell, 2006, p. 102). The complexity theories are actually aimed at synthesizing these issues so that the process of organizational development can occur in a smooth manner (Caldwell, 2006, p. 103). Organizational politics, its changes and complex structure have often received a great deal of influence through national culture. Barry Gerhart’s article “How Much Does National Culture Constrain Organizational Culture?” discusses the nature of changes incited by cultural aspects and to which extent culture of a nation constrains the culture of a nation. The author is in agreement with the theory that “Management theory recognizes that organizations face pressures to be similar to other organizations as well as opportunities to be different from other organizations” (Gerhart, 2008, p, 243-244). The institutional theory of management provides special attention to the fact that success of an organization is very much dependent on the environment and when it comes to building the environment people like investors and customers play a crucial role. The author has also discussed his understanding of national culture and has also used detailed empirical evidences in order to show effect of national culture on organizational ambiance, “These findings do not mean that national culture differences, or more broadly, country differences, are unimportant. ...Countries certainly do differ and such differences must be considered when designing and executing management strategies and practices and in setting organizational culture objectives. Further, differences between any two countries can be smaller or larger than what we have observed as the average differences in this study” (Gerhart, 2008, p. 254). Thus, in order to enhance their acceptability among customers and to ensure development of a harmonized as well as perfectly oriented organizational culture the companies are under requirement to provide more discretion in the context of localizing or standardizing “organizational culture and related management practices than is suggested by conventional wisdom” (Gerhart, 2008, p. 255). Gender also plays an important role in determining culture of an organization. Despite the fact that in modern context issues of gender discrimination has lessened considerably both in organizational and social context, but there is a strong undercurrent of such discrimination. In this context the authors of the article “How Women Engineers Do and Undo Gender: Consequences for Gender Equality” have asserted, “Women are typically viewed as ‘honorary men’ or ‘flawed women’ for attempting to participate in fields traditionally dominated by men” (Powell, Bagilhole and Dainty, 2009, p. 412). Simone de Beauvoir’s understanding of social perception regarding women have played an important part in discussion of the authors within scope of the article and the author have also supported her observation that women are not regarded as individual entities; rather they have always been interpreted as a reflection of social construction (Powell, Bagilhole and Dainty, 2009, p. 414). In the field of engineering, role and efficiency of a woman in organizational context have also been judged from the same angle of outlook towards the gender. Consequently, women have remained as minority factors, and their inefficiency to play the desired in organizational context has been focused from various angles, such as, their lack of counseling power, and lack of socializing capacity. In this context, women engineers have also received hostile support from their associates both from social and organizational perspective. Thus, in order to ensure their survival in such an environment, women engineers generally follow certain steps, namely, to act like their male counterparts or to accept the fact of gender discrimination or to struggle to earn reputation in organizational context so that they earn respect from their male counterparts with the help of their potentials or by adopting “an ‘anti-women’ approach (Powell, Bagilhole and Dainty, 2009, p. 418-421). Achieving organizational success is not a separate process but in the post globalization period it has become a highly integrated system, where relationship of an organization with its international client base becomes highly important. In the article “International relationship marketing: The importance of psychic distance” by Tony Conway and Jonathan S. Swift, provides clear support in agreement of such observation. The theoretical approach of relationship marketing suggests, “organisations gathering information about their customers and then deciding with whom they can develop a dialogue; it allows buyers and sellers to work together in joint problem solving, easing the pressures on the buyer” (Conway and Swift, 2000, p. 1391). Factors like, commitment, trust, empathy for customers, performing according to their satisfaction and maintaining a communication process with consumers, play important role in relationship marketing (Conway and Swift, 2000, p. 1393-1397). Now, fulfillment of all these factors become tough for an organization in the international context as there are various types of cultural assimilation and cross-cultural interaction. Thus, in order execute the relationship marketing properly an organization needs to focus step by step approach, which would start from pre-contact stage and would end in developing mature relationship with customers (Conway and Swift, 2000, p. 1406-1407). References Buchanan, D.A. 2007. “You Stab My Back, I’ll Stab Yours: Management Experience and Perceptions of Organization Political Behaviour”. British Journal of Management, Vol. 19, 49–64. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd Burnes, B. 2005. “Complexity theories and organizational change”. International Journal of Management Reviews Volume 7 Issue 2 pp. 73–90. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd Caldwell, R. 2006. Agency and change: rethinking change agency in organizations. London: Routledge Conway, T. and Swift, J.S. 2000. “International relationship marketing: The importance of psychic distance”. European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 34 No. 11/12, 2000, pp. 1391-1413. West Yorkshire: MCB University Press Dainty, A. Bagilhole, B. and Powell, A. 2009. Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 16 No. 4. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd Gerhart, B. 2008. “How Much Does National Culture Constrain Organizational Culture?” Management and Organization Review 5:2 241–259. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd Kallio, T.M. 2006. “Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse”. Journal of Business Ethics (2007) 74:165–175. New Mexico: Springer Kotter, J.P. 1998. “What Leaders Really do”. Harvard Business Review. Massachusetts: Harvard Business School. Lutz, R.J. Weitz, B.A. and Wagner, T. 2009. “Corporate Hypocrisy: Overcoming the Threat of Inconsistent Corporate Social Responsibility Perceptions”. Journal of Marketing Vol. 73 (November 2009), 77–91. New York: American Marketing Association Mintzberg, H. 2000. “The manager’s job: folklore and facts”. Harvard Business Review. Massachusetts: Harvard Business School. Nelson, D.L. and Quick, J.C. 2007. Understanding Organizational Behavior. Ed: 3. Connecticut: Cengage Learning EMEA Sims, R.R. 2003. Ethics and corporate social responsibility: why giants fall. California: Greenwood Publishing Group. Read More