Analysis of the Dynacorp Case

The political lens looks at an organization from the perspective of "how power and influence are distributed and wielded, how multiple stakeholders express their different preferences and get involved in or excluded from decisions, and how conflicts can be resolved" (Ancona, Kochan, Scully, Van Maanen and Westney – M2-10) . It is an arena for competition and conflict among individuals, groups and other organizations whose interests and goals differ dramatically. The roots of conflict lie in different and competing interests and disagreements require political action, including negotiation, coalition building and the exercise of power and influence. The steps in using the political lens for an effective …show more content…

The change may supply the customers with a likelihood of getting satisfying service/product, but for team members a totally new thinking of collecting information on customer needs and developing solutions will be a great challenge. Obviously, the senior managers, share the same interests. They want to agree on and advocate the change, while the team members and some middle managers feel a little ill-assorted, or at least indifferent. Therefore, we can say the interests of the senior managers, team members and middle managers are not compatible. However, only if the interests of the company can be realized, the interests of the teams can also be met.

Power

Power as defined by Jeffery Pfeffer is, "the potential ability to influence behavior, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance and to get people to do things that they would not otherwise do" (Pfeffer, 1992, 30). There are three variants to power -influence, authority and coercion. Authority in organization is associated with formal positions in the organizational hierarchy. In Dynacorp, Carl Greystone, has the position of authority. Influence deals with informality and is often used in interactions where someone does not have formal authority, but develops the authority to persuade others to act in the way that they not act in the absence of that influence. In Dynacorp, Ben Walker has a position of influence. Coercion means, the control of the behavior by one individual over another, who