Political Behavior In Organizations

A highly effective guide to the use of organizational politics using strategies and tactics derived out of scholarly research.

First Published in 2012. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Why are some countries better than others at science and technology (S&T)? Written in an approachable style, The Politics of Innovation provides readers from all backgrounds and levels of expertise a comprehensive introduction to the debates over national S&T competitiveness. It synthesizes over fifty years of theory and research on national innovation rates, bringing together the current political and economic wisdom, and latest findings, about how nations become S&T leaders. Many experts mistakenly believe that domestic institutions and policies determine national innovation rates. However, after decades of research, there is still no agreement on precisely how this happens, exactly which institutions matter, and little aggregate evidence has been produced to support any particular explanation. Yet, despite these problems, a core faith in a relationship between domestic institutions and national innovation rates remains widely held and little challenged. The Politics of Innovation confronts head-on this contradiction between theory, evidence, and the popularity of the institutions-innovation hypothesis. It presents extensive evidence to show that domestic institutions and policies do not determine innovation rates. Instead, it argues that social networks are as important as institutions in determining national innovation rates. The Politics of Innovation also introduces a new theory of "creative insecurity" which explains how institutions, policies, and networks are all subservient to politics. It argues that, ultimately, each country's balance of domestic rivalries vs. external threats, and the ensuing political fights, are what drive S&T competitiveness. In making its case, The Politics of Innovation draws upon statistical analysis and comparative case studies of the United States, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Turkey, Israel, Russia and a dozen countries across Western Europe.

Focusing on organizational politics, this title is part of a series that considers the theoretical, methodological and research issues relevant to organizational sociology. It emphasizes micro and macro sociological approaches.

This exciting Handbook offers a broad perspective on the intriguing phenomena of power, influence and politics in the modern workplace, their meaning for individuals, groups and other organizational stakeholders, and their effect on organizational outcomes and performances. The contributors illustrate the fact that organizational politics has many facets and definitions, all relating to the use of personal or aggregate power in influencing others and better achieving goals in the workplace. However, politics in organizations is difficult to study, as neither employees nor management are keen to divulge the political secrets and dynamics that help them to promote their own ideas and goals and to advance in the workplace. In the face of this challenge, the Handbook presents a comprehensive collection of original studies and theoretical discussions from across the globe. Providing a starting point for new research in the area, issues dealt with include: politics, personality and leadership ethics, fairness and prospects of trust in workplace politics organizational politics and employees well-being strategy, change and decision-making as a political process human resource management and consulting in a political sphere. Offering a fresh and up-to-date take on the topic, this highly original Handbook will be a fascinating read for academics, students and researchers in the fields of management and organizational behavior. The wide range of perspectives presented in this book, written by some of the leading scholars and researchers in the field, will also be invaluable to practitioners in management and to individuals in organizations who require a better understanding of the meaning of power and influence in the modern workplace.

The Handbook of Organizational Politics offers a broad perspective on the intriguing phenomena of power, influence and politics in the modern workplace; their meaning for individuals, groups and other organizational stakeholders; and their effect on organizational outcomes and performances. Comprising entirely of new chapters and insights, this second edition revisits the theory on organizational politics (OP) and examines its progress and changes in emphasis in recent years. This timely and informative book provides a comprehensive set of state-of-the-art studies on workplace politics based on experiences from around the world. The contributors highlight topics such as political skills, political will, politics and leadership, compensations, politics and performance, and politics and the learning climate. Students and scholars will benefit from the up-to-date collection of studies in the field of OP. This Handbook will also be of interest to practitioners and managers from public and private sectors looking for better explanations of internal processes in business.

The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. Each volume focuses on a particular part of the discipline, with volumes on Public Policy, Political Theory, Political Economy, Contextual Political Analysis, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Law and Politics, Political Behavior, Political Institutions, and Political Methodology. The project as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with each volume being edited by a distinguished international group of specialists in their respective fields. The books set out not just to report on the discipline, but to shape it. The series will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone working in political science and adjacent disciplines. What does democracy expect of its citizens, and how do the citizenry match these expectations? This Oxford Handbook examines the role of the citizen in contemporary politics, based on essays from the world's leading scholars of political behavior research. The recent expansion of democracy has both given new rights and created new responsibilities for the citizenry. These political changes are paralleled by tremendous advances in our empirical knowledge of citizens and their behaviors through the institutionalization of systematic, comparative study of contemporary publics--ranging from the advanced industrial democracies to the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, to new survey research on the developing world. These essays describe how citizens think about politics, how their values shape their behavior, the patterns of participation, the sources of vote choice, and how public opinion impacts on governing and public policy. This is the most comprehensive review of the cross-national literature of citizen behavior and the relationship between citizens and their governments. It will become the first point of reference for scholars and students interested in these key issues.

This is a collection of articles exploring the issue of power in relation to organizations. It asserts that any attempt to understand the large literature on power must extend beyond the confines of organization and management theory. The argument underlying the volume is that broad exploration is essential because management studies of power have been for the most part, severely constrained, tending to view power from a functionalist perspective. In so doing issues of how power becomes embedded in existing organizational structures, cultures, practices, rules and regulations have been ignored.