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work and office politics
case study on office politics
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Office politics are an inevitable part of every organization and are often acknowledged by employees when it is seen in action, yet many find it difficult to define. It is critical to not only recognize office politics, but to know when it will be beneficial to participate. Often, office politics are seen as something negative. However, this may not necessarily be the case. By using a few unwritten rules, one can win at office politics and hopefully advance in their career objectives. This paper will discuss the unwritten rules of office politics and how I respond to them in my work environment. Rule number one in office politics is to never do anything that will permanently anger or demean anyone that will help you in the advancement of your career. This especially holds true for making the boss look bad. You never know when a senior person may be the deciding factor on whether you get promoted or get accepted for another position. Therefore, it is best to give credit where credit is due. In my organization, my boss assigns all of her employees additional duties, based on orders f...
Politics or politicking is a game that is more ostensible and reserved for the political arena; however, metaphorically, much of the political discourse can also be found within organizations. Politics in organizations, then, is design for groups to reconcile differences between interests, conflicts, and power (Morgan, 2006). The case study to be analyze (Cutting Back at City Hall) is one that illustrates all three aspects of interests, conflicts, and power as the City of Smithville, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the International Association of Firefighters (IAF), and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) deliberate the city’s proposed budget.
Look up the word conflict in the dictionary and you will see several negative responses. Descriptions such as: to come into collision or disagreement; be at variance or in opposition; clash; to contend; do battle; controversy; quarrel; antagonism or opposition between interests or principles Random House (1975). With the negative reputation associated with this word, no wonder people tend to shy away when they start to enter into the area of conflict. D. Jordan (1996) suggests that there are two types of conflict: good, which is defined as cognitive conflict (C-type conflict) and, detrimental, defined as affective conflict (A-type conflict). The C-type conflict allows for creativity, to pull together a group of people with different opinions or ideas, to combine and brain storm all thoughts to develop the best solution for the problem. The A-type conflict is the negative form when you have animosity, hostility, un-resolveable differences, and egos to deal with. The list citing negative conflicts could go on forever. We will be investigating these types of conflicts, what managers can do to recognize conflict early, and what strategies they can use to resolve conflicts once they have advanced.
At the young age of 23, Jim Davis has a promising career at Hereford National Bank. In three months, he has been promoted to Business Development Manager, tasked with developing a new strategy for the bank. His first big initiative of selling bank services through branch managers is at risk due to a twenty-five year veteran’s (Patty Mathews) reluctance to participate. How will Jim leverage his position and personal power to ensure success?
Stating the problem and asking for suggestions about how the problem can be solved. When there is a problem, we should follow the proper protocol to get the problem resolved. The breakdown in communication between the police officers and city management caused an unnecessary conflict because city management acted out of fear and the mayor possibly losing an election due to the overtime pay the police officers were receiving, which was mandatory because of the promise made by the mayor to lower crime by increasing police patrols in high-crime
Individuals have their own personalities that can influence their enthusiasm and productivity within an organization. In addition, individuals also form groups and are part of teams that work together to reach a common goal within organization. According to Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly, and Konopaske (2009) dedicated and cohesive teams can have a tremendous impact on organizations effectiveness and the global market. However, all of this happens within the frame-work of office politics and can hinder or enhance the organization’s effectiveness. Therefore, it is important to not only understand individuals, but also groups, teams and office politics within the organization. This will help leaders to plan, organize and motive individuals and groups for the best possible outcome for the organization.
In different industries, there are companies that operate for a purpose, but the bottom line is the management style between supervisors and subordinate can break or make an organization. Organizations and businesses have to run their management a certain way in order to motivate their employees. The main type of organization management is the Classical Theory which contains Theory X. There are five key employee conflict management styles. Building relationships between employees and managers is crucial for an organization to function and execute their purpose whether it is to provide a service or product. Both theories and conflict strategies were present in the film “Office Space” to demonstrate the negatives of corrupt management and ongoing conflicts which were not resolved that led to destruction.
Ensure that the conversations that you partake in is upbeat and positive in all aspects. Meaning that, you should avoid the possibility of bragging, cursing, complaining or correcting. Ideally, you'll want to avoid topics that surround office policies, dark humor, religion, politics, etc.
In several occasions, conflict occurs in the communication of one or two people. Several people have thought of conflict as cases involving pouring of furious anger in a communication process. Nonetheless, conflict is the misinterpretation of an individual’s words or values (Huan & YAzdanifard, 2012). Conflict can also be due to limited resources in an organization (Riaz & Junaid, 2010). Conflict may as well arise due to poor communication or the use of inappropriate communication channel of transmission of information between the involved parties. Management of conflict has various conflict management styles that include avoidance style, forcing style, passive-aggressive style, accommodating style, collaborating style and compromising style. Workplace conflict comes in two different kinds: task involving conflict, which focuses on the approaches used in resolving the problem and blaming conflict that has the aspects of blame and never brings element of resolving problems between the conflicting parties. In the perception of several individuals, relationship conflict is negative.
Political deviance is the use of one’s influence to harm others in a company. This occurs in many workplace as “company politics” and is considered a form of workplace deviance.Poltical deviance take place in many different forms such as favoritism, rumor spreading, falsely blaming co-workers, and much more. These deviant acts contributes towards a negative working environment which breeds hostile work environment, demoralizing employee morale and destroying leader- member and/ or managers-employe...
Office politics can have advantages that may motivate certain employees and cliques. It can be very productive, as they usually know each other well and can utilize each person’s talent in a team setting. How a supervisor or manger deals with office politics can ultimately lead to his or her success or demise. It can also be the most unproductive and destructive problem in the workplace; which can derail the best laid business plans. It can eventually take down what was once a profitable smooth running business if it is allowed to continue or if upper management is a participant.
(Tost, Gino & Larrick 2013) argues that “when a formal leader experiences a heightened subjective sense of power, he or she tends to dominate group discussions and interactions, which leads other team members to perceive that their views and perspectives are not valued”. This perceived imbalance definitely hampers any attempt at managing workplace conflict. When employees feel that they have no authority or empowerment they tend to be disengaged, and disengaged employees effect productivity. Low productivity can be considered a form of dissatisfaction and thus labelled a conflict that must be addressed by both employee and manager.
"I sometimes wish I had a corporate decoder for each relationship," one woman laments. "It's very hard to know what people are feeling in my office and how I should respond." Her comment prompts a discussion about the difficulty in the workplace of finding a balance between reasonable openness and respectful discretion.
Conflict exists in every organization as a result of incompatible needs, goals, and objectives of two people while aligning to the overall business requirements. Though disagreement is linked with negative impact, the approach has healthy considerations (Leung, 2008). For instance, some conflicts create an avenue for the exchange of ideas and creativity to meet the set organizational purposes. However, damaging disagreement in organizations results in employee dissatisfaction, turnover, and poor services and reduced productivity. The paper establishes different types of interpersonal conflict and key resolution strategies used to address the problem. Human resource managers need to have the capacity to identify different levels of conflicts and the best methods to negate them.
Conflict in the workplace may periodically engage between the two, but such occurrences are believed abnormalities in a relationship that is naturally prone to be cooperative. Those holding this perspective see managers and employees as having a common interest in the survival of their organisations, such that when conflicts occur it is unlikely to manifest itself to a point that will render it insolvent. Divisions that do exist are assumed to be the product of personality disorders, inappropriate recruitment and promotion practices, the deviance of dissidents, or poor communication. To ensure such division does not impact the ‘natural order’ it is thought that the rational management team must pay careful attention to removing the sources of potential conflict. (Fox, 1966) To this end it must ensure that recruitment and promotion processes are fair and equitable, that communication systems are in place to alert employees of where their interests lie, and that deviant individuals are suppressed or dismissed. It must finally ensure that the organization is promoted amongst the workforce as the single source of authority as Trade unions are regarded as competitors for employee commitment and cooperation, interfering with managements’ right to manage (Fidler, 1981, pp.
As far back as history can be told mankind has struggled between balancing culture, power and politics. Many wars have been fought and many people have placed their lives on the line in order to stand up for what they believe in. The combinations of culture, power and politics have spilled over into the workplace. In today’s business environment individuals have much more to worry about than just completing their assigned tasks. Organizational culture, power and office politics influence day to day operations as well as govern the atmosphere within the organization. The amount of impact that power and politics have in the workplace, directly reflect the organization’s culture formally as well as informally.