CHAPTER 10

QUESTION 3
You have just been hired as a brand manager of toothpaste for a large consumer products
company. Your job mainly involves encouraging the advertising and production groups to
promote and manufacture your product more effectively. These departments aren't under your
direct authority, although company procedures indicate that they must complete certain tasks
requested by brand managers. Describe the sources of power you can use to ensure that the
advertising and production departments will help you to make and sell toothpaste more
effectively.
Introduction Power refers to possession of an authority and the influence over other
people. Power is considered as a tool which depends on usage, which could lead to either a
positive or a negative outcome in an organization.
There are five sources of power, namely: coercive, referent, legitimate, expert and
reward power. 5 Sources of Power in Organizations as the following:
1. Coercive Power is obtained from a person's capability to inspire the others through
threats, sanctions, or punishments. Since I would be in a position to demand the work
from them, and since they are demanded to report to me, I could use coercive power.
Coercive power is, therefore, a person's ability to punishments, fire or criticize
another employee. Coercive power helps control the behaviour of employees by
securing that they stick to the organization's policies and norms. This would make
them work as per my instructions.
2. Reward Power arises from the ability of a person to influence allocation of
incentives within an organization. These incentives can include salary, positive
appraisals increments and promotions. Since I am not at a position to decide their
incremental or decrease in pay I cannot directly utilize this source of potency. But I
can indirectly reward the marketing people by giving them good ratings in their
performance appraisal. Additionally homogeneous way I can appreciate the
production personnel in their appraisal.
3. Legitimate Power is also known as positional power. It's extracted from a position
which a person holds in an organization's hierarchy. Job descriptions, for example,
require junior workers to report to managers and give managers the power to assign
duties to their juniors. For positional power to be exercised effectively, the person
holding it must be thought of to have earned it legitimately. An example of legitimate
power is that held by a company's CEO.
4. Expert Power is derived from possessing cognizance or expertise in a particular
area. Such people are highly valued by organizations for their quandary solving skills.
People who have expert power perform critical tasks and are consequently deemed
indispensable. The opinions, conceptions and decisions of people with expert power
are held in high regard by other employees and hence greatly influence their actions.
Possession of expert power is customarily a stepping stone to other sources of power

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 such as legitimate power. For example, a person who holds expert power can be
promoted to senior management, thereby giving him legitimate power.
5. Referent Power is derived from the interpersonal relationships that a person
cultivates with other people in the organization. People possess reference power when
others reverence and like them. Referent power arises from charisma, as the
charismatic person influences others through the administration, respect and trust
others have for that person. Referent power is additionally derived from personal
connections that a person has with key people in the organization's hierarchy, such as
the CEO. It's the perception of the personal relationships that she has that engenders
her power over others.

QUESTION 4
How does social networking increase a person’s power? What social networking strategies
could you initiate now to potentially enchance your future career success?

Social networking usually increase a person’s power by 3 methods. The first method
is enchancing your expert power in the organization as a result of the valuable information
that you receive from those within your network.
The second method is enchancing your referent power as a result of being the
beneficiary of decision made by others in your network.
The third method is increasing your visibility and possibily, centrality because your
skills are more likely to be known and recognized by others.
Ican utilize social networking to enchance future career success by making social
relationship with others that is utilizing skills for future usage. For example is the Accounting
Club in UNITEN that give new experince to their members to professional accountants that
are able to help with future jobs requitment. I can also network with faculty and staff of
UNITEN for better personal refernce that will assist me in future job search reference. I can
maintain network with the current students to provide a source of potential employers and
organizational contracts thoughout my career.

QUESTION 5
List eight influence tactics described in this chapter in terms of how they are used by students
to influence their course instruction. Which influence tactics is applied most often? Which is
applied least often, in your opinion? To what extent is each influence tactics considered
legitimate behaviour or organizational politics?

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 The eight influence tactics are silent authority, assertiveness, information control
coalition formation, upward appeal, persuasion, ingratiation and impression management and
exchange.
Silent authority is used most often because most people that wield the real power
don’t need to make reference of having that power. The least used one will be exchange,
because it implies that any resources sought can’t be obtained by any either mean by
promising benefits or resources in exchange for target’s compliance.
Legitimate behaviours are considered to be “hard” tactics which consist of agreement
among organizational members. Organizational behaviour are the “soft” tactics which is the
friendly persuasion and subtle ingratiation.

CHAPTER 11
QUESTION 1
Distinguish task conflict from relationship conflict and explain how to engage in the former
with minimal levels of the latter.
The distinction between task-related (constructive) and relationship conflict is one of
perceptions and emotions towards the conflict. Task-related conflict occurs when the parties
view the conflict experience as something separate for them. Differences of opinion are
viewed as constructive events in which the parties can learn different perspectives and
possibly develop new ideas.
Relationship conflict, on the other hand, occurs when the parties view their
differences as threatening personal attacks. Rather than focusing on the issue, each party
starts to see the other person as the problem. The discussion becomes emotionally charged, so
that perceptual biases are introduced and information processing is impeded.
One way to encourage constructive conflict and minimize relationship conflict is by
keeping the participants focussed on the issue and its resolution as opposed to individuals.
With this in mind experts have identified three strategies:
1. Emotional intelligence. Participants are less likely to resort to personal attacks
when they have high emotional intelligence. Such individuals are known to have
control over their emotions, and are better able to use the emotions of others as
information.
2. Cohesive teams. Members in such teams tend to be more forgiving of team mates
with differing viewpoints. This allows them to avoid felling personally offended when
other within the team voice opposing arguments.
3. Supportive team norms. If the team encourages frank and open debate while
discouraging personal attacks, it can help minimize if not avoid relationship conflict.
The norms may include an acceptance of appropriate humour to maintain positive
relations.

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 QUESTION 2
The chief executive officer of Creative Toys read about cooperation in Japanese companies
and vowed to bring this same philosophy to the company. The goal was to avoid all conflict,
so that employees would work cooperatively and be happier at Creative Toys. Discuss the
merits and limitations of the CEO’s policy in reducing conflict.
The merits and limitations of the CEO’s policy that he wants in place could be general
issues with his employees and the policy. In which, I mean the problems could arise if they
are employees in different departments of the toy company that do not exactly see eye to eye.
But the CEO’s policy could also bring issues to surface and he could have a meeting with the
different managers and decide to trim the negative fat throughout the company. Also it could
help the CEO see more emotions in the workplace either positive or negative and again if he
does see that negative emotion or poor productivity he could relieve the employee of work
stress.

QUESTION 4
Three levels of interdependence (pooled, sequential, reciprocal) exist in interpersonal and
intergroup relationship. Identify examples of these three levels in your work or school
activities. How might these three levels of interdependence create conflict for you?
Task interdependence is the extent to which activities are dependent on each other. That is
the degree to which activities are related. There are three categories of task interdependence
(in reverse hierarchical order):
 The pooled interdependence : when inter-dependent task are undertaken
simultaneously and the final result of each activity is put together (or 'pooled'); such
dependency is the easiest of the three to manage because each group could work on
the activity independently and then come together for the final stage where all items
are put together. Pooled interdependence is the loosest forms of three. In this the
departmental unit is likely to perform the completely separate functions. This causes
the indirect dependence where the performance of other can lead to the failure to the
overall process.
 The sequential interdependence : when one task is completed then handed off for
the next stage; this type of relationship often requires dense information flows at
points of transfer (between one activity to the next. Refers to work of one unit that is
necessary to performance of another department or unit.
 The reciprocal interdependence : refers that the output of one department becomes
the input of other department and these are cyclical in nature. When task are
conducted with repeated interaction among each other; this type of activity requires
sustained interaction between individuals for the task to be completed and is the most
difficult to manage. This is the most difficult interdependence to manage.
The university event also had three interdependence in various activities and it had
created conflict for me to manage as during the programmes of concerts, there were many

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 people performing the tasks separately such as electrician fitting the sound boxes and mouth
speaker where I had constantly tell him to raise the sound of speaker. Some people who were
host of the program were performing the sequential interdependence tasks where I had to
remind them about the allotted time that was reserved for them so that next activity such as a
dance performance could take place. I was also a part of managing the band and when the
performance began, I had to manage the activities of performers so that synchronization
could take place and there was again conflict with the performers that how it could be
achieved.

QUESTION 5
Jane has just been appointed as purchasing manager of Tacoma Technologies Corp. The
previous purchasing manager, who recently retired, was known for his winner-take-
all approach to suppliers. He continually fought for more discounts and was skeptical about
any special deals that suppliers would propose. A few suppliers refused to do business with
Tacoma Technologies, but senior management was confident that the former purchasing
manager's approach minimized the company's costs. Jane wants to try a more collaborative
approach to working with suppliers. Will her approach work? How should she adopt a more
collaborative (problem solving) approach in future negotiations with suppliers?

In a more collaborative approach, interests are not ‘perfectly opposing’ such as in the
win-lose model, and both parties share trust openness and allow time to share information.
The problem, however, is that since more information is shared, the other party might use it
to their advantage. I believe her approach will work, but it may not offer the same discounted
rates as before since both parties are equally satisfied. Since Jane is mending relationships
with other suppliers, her choice may introduce supplier competition and better prices. She
should find a way to work with the supplier to find a solution to both of their problems or
needs. Information sharing is imperative since common ground is needed.

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