Question

What power theories have you seen in action in your current or prior organizations? Were they need driven or ego driven? Discuss, giving examples.

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Answer 1

The job that I had with the Pizza Hut, a brand reputed for its fast food in the US used Herbert Kelman’s theory of Social Influence and Attitude change theories. This identified three theories of power in the organization as:

Compliance: The adherence to the rules and laws of the business and the organizational culture. Thus the hierarchy is one part of such power structure in a hierarchy based business. Here one has more power over others in making the decisions that are to be complied with.

Identification: The right person for the right job with adequate power of autonomy is the process of identification which makes the people have the best of their capacity development in the business with time.

Internalization: The internal acceptance of the position of power has to internalized by the business where the people should be aware of what is to be done and how and with whom. The people internalize the structure of the business within their culture to make the power equalities or basis right for the business .

The example of the Pizza Hut where I have experienced the power structure at the East end of Hyde Park in New York is been taken here. The hierarchy is simple where there is some supervision for the teams like production, services, distribution, and housekeeping. This is the power structure which is simple but efficient which is based on the need. A competent person with the knowledge of operations and leading skills are been chosen to be the team leader for the operations who also makes sure that the teams are well integrated to the operational goals. Hence this adhered to the organizational compliance of need-based power deployments after identifying the right man for the job with the right skills. Once its completed the ideas of the power for the operations are communicated and are used as the basis of operations as per the power theory proposed on the need-driven basis in the business.