Case Study: Power, Authority, Influence And Politics

The first part of this essay will introduce the theoretical synthesis of why employees resign from their jobs based on the Eight Motivational Forces (Jr & Griffeth 2004). The second part of this essay will discuss the consequences to the organisation left behind by the employee. The third part will then focus on strategies for organisations to retain their highly talented and motivated employees.

Tyco International Ltd is a diverse manufacturer who grew tremendously in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. The company had big ambitions with an aggressive program of acquisitions during this period where they spent an estimated $62 billion to purchase more than 1,000 companies. However, unbeknownst to the shareholders of Tyco and the world, Tyco was led by a management team and CEO (L. Dennis Kozlowski) that did not use wise or truthful business practices and organizational behavior. In the following paper, I will examine the failure that occurred at Tyco, compare, and contrast contributions of leadership, management,

This case study examines the proposed merger of Vulcan Materials and Martin Marietta both providers of construction aggregates. A stock-for-stock merger had the potential of making the company a global leader in construction materials, but was marred by disagreements over executive succession, location of new headquarters and the stock exchange proposed by Martin Marietta. Furthermore, as negotiations deteriorated Martin Marietta attempted a hostile takeover of Vulcan and also tried to get its directors appointed to

There are two types of turnover, voluntary turnover happens when the employee makes the decision to leave and involuntary turnover is when employees has no choice in their termination (Schmitz, 2012). Every month or sooner managers experience some of their exceedingly qualified employees leave the company. After realizing that their company is becoming less profitable is when they begin to wonder why and brainstorm on ways to retain them. In Information Technology, “the cost of recruiting new staff is high and the loss of continuity when staff leave can also be very expensive” (Bott, 2005, p. 111). In IT, human resources strive to maintain their highly skilled employees while employees’

Our case study deals with Mass Merger. Since the 90s, together with the globalization of business, Mergers and Acquisitions have developed at an incredible pace. Thus, companies from all over the world can be lead to work together as one single corporation. Moreover, the world has become interdependent not only economically, but also culturally, that is to say one culture may influence another one or different cultures can be mixed. It is then obvious that intercultural issues have to be solved.

Power and influence go together because power is influence. There is no greater power than having the ability to influence an individual, group of people, or situation. Leaders, followers and the situation can have influence and obtain power at some point. There are five sources of leader power that are used. These sources have been used in situations that I have personally handled. I have also seen these used, by observing some of my leaders. I will review these sources and situations that I have handled throughout this paper. I will discuss the outcome and how effective they were in each situation (Bethel University, 2011).

Intrinsic factors, such as achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth seem to be related to job satisfaction. When respondents questioned felt good about their work, they tended to attribute those factors to themselves. On the other hand, when they were dissatisfied, they tended to cite extrinsic factors such as company policy, administration and supervision. Herzberg deduced from these experiments that the opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction, as was believed. He found that removing dissatisfying characteristics from a job does not necessarily make the job satisfying. He thus proposed a dual continuum, where the opposite of satisfaction would be no satisfaction and the opposite of dissatisfaction would be no dissatisfaction (Robbins,1993) According to Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation, organizations cannot begin to motivate employees until that which dissatisfies them has been removed. Hygiene Factors such as salary, working conditions and supervision are not motivators even when they are being met. Other types of hygiene factors include, company policy, poor interpersonal relations and job security. The meeting of lower-level needs of employees is not motivating, but can have a de motivating impact if not met. True motivation only kicks in when an employee’s higher-level needs are met (La Motta,

The end result of a lack of employee motivation in their jobs is turnover. When one is not happy with their career or job choice and it becomes clear that an employer is only looking out for the profit line of the corporation, employees will actively seek out new employment opportunities. The cost of turnover to an organization is tens of thousands of dollars now vying to be spent on interviewing, selecting, and training a replacement.

The executive branch in the government has the responsibility of enforcing the laws in the United States of America. There have been some cases where executive power has been used. In this essay I will talk about the following: Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, Korematsu v. United States, and Ex Parte Merryman.

Have you ever felt overworked or unappreciated for your job? Throughout the film, Modern Times, there are strong illustrations of overwork and abuse of power. Tensions between the upper management and the employees are exponential.

All over the globe retaining employees is a most critical factor for the organisations. High employee turnover is more common in private sector as compared to public. In construction industry, to reduce employee turnover and to improve the productivity of an organisation, organisations have to be aware of the reasons why an employees quit the organisation?. Employee turnover can be explained as the expenses, in term of money, time, and quality of work, that an organisation bear while replacing an employee. If an organisation fails to satisfy the needs of its employees then it is obvious that the employees will look forward to fulfill their necessities. This chapter discuss the reasons why employees quit their jobs.

Power and politics have always been around but seldom openly discussed. Power is learned at an early age through family and schools. Ordinary people such as scholars hesitate to talk about power. It is often equated with force brutality, unethical behavior, manipulation, connivance, and subjugation.

The authors of this article give the misconceptions of employee turnover by systematically breaking down myths that organizations tend to believe cause employees to leave the workplace. The misconceptions are replaced with evidence based strategies that show the underlying factors beyond pay compensation that drive turnover in addition the employee morale. One of the meta-analytical relationships that

According to Herzberg, the factors leading to job satisfaction are distinctly different from those that lead to job-dissatisfaction. Therefore, the managers who seek to eliminate factors that create job-dissatisfaction can bring about peace at the workplace but cannot motivate the employees. These factors are termed as hygiene factors comprising administration, supervision, working conditions, salary and wages etc. While absence of hygiene factors will lead to dissatisfaction, mere presence of these factors will not satisfy (i.e. motivate) the employees. In order to motivate the employees, managers must resort to ‘motivators’ (those factors that motivate the employees towards better performance) such as recognition, challenging assignment, responsibility, opportunities for growth and self-fulfillment etc.

Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology is devoted to the study of employee behavior in the workplace and understanding the issues facing organizations and employees in today’s complex and ever changing environment. Motivation refers to the set of forces that influence people to choose various behaviors among several alternatives available to them. An organization depends on the ability of management to provide a positive, fostering and motivating environment for its employees in order to increase profits, productivity and lower turnover rates of its employees. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and compare six academic journal articles and explore the behavior, job, and need based theories of motivation that can aid management in motivating and understanding their employees. Finding that delicate balance to can sometimes be elusive so effectively learning how to motivate by understanding, controlling and influencing factors to manipulate behavior and choices that are available to employees can produce the desired outcome.