Term
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Definition
Organizations = sites of domination
Goals of Critical Theory:
To advocate the interests of working people rather than the interests of corporate leaders and share holders typically favored by management theory and practice
To challenge the unfair exercise of power
To question the status quo – how it came to exist, whose interests it serves, and how it marginalizes and devalues some people while privileging others |
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Term
| Principles of Critical Theory |
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Definition
. Certain social structures and processes lead to imbalances of power
2. These imbalances of power lead to exploitation, alienation, and oppression
3. The critical theorist reveals these imbalances to the oppressed group
4. Emancipation is then possible
Critique of Critical Theory: it pits people against profits;
it underestimates the need of companies to remain profitable |
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Term
| Power (traditional definition) |
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Definition
| Power = Ability to change beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors of others. |
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Term
Power
Personal / Soft Power |
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Definition
derives from the individual’s personality
Expert- power based on one’s perceived credibility/expertise in one area
Referent-= power based on another’s liking and admiration; mentors and charismatic leaders have that kind of power |
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Term
Power
Positional / Hard Power |
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Definition
derives from the individual’s formal position in organization
Legitimate = power based on recognition and acceptance of a person’s authority; A has a higher position in the hierarchy
Reward = The ability to reward (reinforce) a desired behavior
Coercive = the ability to punish undesirable behavior
The types of power are related to each other and used together.
The more one uses the Coercive power, the less one is liked -> less Personal power
The more Legitimate power one has, the more Reward and Coercive power one has. |
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Term
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Definition
Covert power: People believe they have freedom of choice even though their options are limited.
Sources of covert power:
1. Control of Means of Production
2. Control of Gender Issues
Modern organizations are patriarchal (see legislation for maternity leave)
3. Control of Organizational Discourse |
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Term
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Definition
Definitions:
a) A system of ideas that serve as the basis of a political or economic theory
b) The taken-for-granted assumptions about reality that influence perceptions of situations and events.
Functions of Ideology:
1)The IBM story on p. 170 suggest that all org members should uphold the rules. What is obscured however, is the fact that the rules were created by the corporate elite to protect their interests and technologies
2) Contradiction: story suggest no-one is above the law, but if Watson really would have been subject to the same rules, the story would have little significance. Watson really had the power to disobey the rule
3) Reification – abstract notions come to be perceived as real, objective and fixed, such that members forget their contribution in the meaning making; IBM – the rule, the hierarchy, and traditional gender roles are reified, such that they appear “just the way things are”
4) Control – by creating an unquestioned agreement about how things “really” are, ideology furthers the control of dominant groups. Hegemony works most effectively when the worldview articulated by the ruling elite is taken up and pursued by the subordinate groups. |
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Term
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Definition
Organizations are held together by social legitimization
Capitalist societies are characterized by manufactured consent - employees willingly enforce and legitimize the power of the organization.
E.g. “human resources” |
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Term
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Definition
three strategies of organizational control
Simple control – authoritarian, personal (boss-employees)
Technological control – technology controlling people (e.g. assembly line)
Bureaucratic control – hierarchically based rules that reward compliance and punish noncompliance
Tompkins and Cheney (1985)
4) Concertive control – shift in the locus of control from management to the workers. E.g. self-managing teams |
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Term
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Definition
Power is in the network of relationships
Discourse is not just shared meaning, but a site of power struggle over competing versions of knowledge, truth and the self. |
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