HR essay: organizational power & politics and ethical behavior

This essay talks about both organizational power & politics and ethical behavior. In addition, a film ‘Wall Street’ has been chosen to support the ethical theories. The film is based on organizational power and ethical behavior of the people associated. The paper has explained interlink between these two organizational complexities. Afterward, paper has attempted to illustrate the approaches to ethical and power behavior used in the organization with the help of Wall Street film. Additionally, the practice of such organizational behavior has also been represented in the theoretical discussion of this paper.

The first aspect that that has to be discussed is power and political behavior in the organization. Power refers to the capacity which a person holds against others to influence those who are dependent. It is not necessary that there is always a poor relationship between the dependent target and power holder, mutual influence processes can also be there. Next discussion topic for this paper is ethical behavior in the organization. Ethical behavior is concerned with an organization’s assurance that all the actions, decisions and interactions with stakeholders match with the ethical and professional values and principles of the organization. Ethical behavior also takes power and politics into consideration and it is ensured that power is not being used negatively or for personal profit. Before starting with both the theoretical discussions, it is necessary to provide the outline of Wall Street movie to be used as a support for theories, approaches and model of power, politics and ethical behavior (Betz & Joseph, 1998).The story revolves around Bud Fox, a junior stockbroker at Jackson & Steinem Company, Gordon Gekko, a Wall Street player and Carl, father of Bud Fox and foreman at Bluestar airlines and Bud. Bud, who wanted to be involved with Gekko anyhow tried to impress him but could not. Then, he picked another way and start provided inside information about his fathers’ company to Gekko. Afterward, Gekko started making big money through Bud’s spying on other companies’ and their business as well. But after realizing the exact planning of Gekko about dissolving and selling off Bluestar, Bud plotted against Gekko with Bluestar’s other union presidents. Thus, Gekko was trapped by Bud as per the scheme planned by him and revived his father’s company back to the same position.Consequently, Wall Street can be used to support the theories that have to be discussed. The idea of the movies provides the general concept of power, politics and unethical behavior used. From an organizations’ point of view, power is held with a position which an individual occupies in a company. Similarly, there are various types of power which are used in the organizations on the basis of present conditions and nature of the work. These powers are legitimate, coercion, referent, reward and expert power. Every individual uses different type of power as per the current work situation. First, legitimate power compels from an individual’s position in the organization. This power is named as authoritative power and judges that who has been officially permitted to influence whom (John & Sakes, 2010).

This concept of legitimate power can be supported from the point of view of Wall Street. According to movie, Gordon Gekko who was a corporate raider and a ruthless Wall Street player had the legitimate power to influence others. Therefore, Bud Fox who was a junior stockbroker at the company named Jackson Steinem was influenced by Gekko and wanted to be at the top by making him impress at any cost. In this regard, Gekko made use of him and received the important information about Bluestar Airlines run by Bud’s father Carl. Thus, it can be noticed in this case that Gekko used his legitimate power to use Bud in order to make gain for his organization. Next is reward power which exists when the holder of power applies his/her influence by giving only positive results and averts all the negative results. This power is generally used in the organizations to back up legitimate or authoritative power (Martires, Concepcion Rodil, 2006).Furthermore, coercive power is a support to legitimate power. With the hold of this power, a power holder applies influence by the use of either punishment or any kind of threat. Referent power is available when the power holder is being liked by others properly. In addition, anyone in the organization may hold referent power. On the other hand, it can also be interpreted that powers is used in both positive and negative terms. Similarly in the case of Wall Street, Where Gekko used his power and got the inside information from Bud. Not only had he collected the information about Bluestar, but also watched over Sir Lawrence Wildman who was a British corporate raider by assigning this task to Bud to spy on him. Gekko had an authority and big power through which he forced Bud to do this and made big money with Bud’s spying. Bud told Gekko about Lawrence’s next move and that he is going to make an offer for a steel company (Yahoo, 2012).

On the other hand, there are different types of politics running in the organization. Some of them are attacking and blaming, controlling information, forming coalitions, cultivating networks and managing impressions. Politics also involves excuses, flattery, favours and association. Excuses are made by the owner or the boss in order to minimize or prevent the perceptible ruthlessness of the dilemma. Moreover, power holder compliments others on their qualities and competencies at an organizational level in order to make oneself imported, valuable and perceptive (Kinicki, 2008). These are some political terms which are used to make the best of their qualities and key competencies. This can be supported with an example of Wall Street film, in which Bud was provided some capital by Gekko to manage his stocks; however, he lost his money. Gekko played politics with Bud and appreciated him for providing himself inside information about his father’s company Bluestar. Bud started wealthy perks offered by Gekko to, including a wonderful penthouse which was located at the upper east side of Manhattan and a beautiful girlfriend named Darien. This flattering, favors and association to Bud by Gekko helped him maximizing his business and inside information of other companies (Zaleznik, 2012).

Moreover, it is said that others attitude and behavior can be changed through power and politics because it presents the act or realized potentiality of an individual. In other words, politics in an organization can change a number of vital functions such as overcoming capital relates issues, personnel adequacies, dealing with change and reserving for formal power or authority. On the other hand, there can be two perspectives of a political organization. One is unitary perspective in which it is believed that each member of a firm or an organization has parallel interests and therefore they will easily accept the common goals and objectives of the organization and direct their efforts towards those goals’ achievement. A very few political terms are used in such organizations because there are less chances of conflicts and opposition. Thus, a political organization approaching unitary perspective needs proper involvement and strong leadership from management’s top level. Alternatively, second approach is pluralist, according to which there are a number of different interests among the members of the organization. This raise a situation of multiple ranges of conflicts and oppositions as every member tries to put his/her interest forward and pursue them anyhow. This was similar in the case of Wall Street where Gekko and Bud had different interests and goals and both of them were keen to pursue them at any cost. Neither Gekko nor Bud was following ethical behavior in their business and wanted to achieve their objectives of gaining and making big money to their business (Go Articles, 2012).

Besides, Burns & Stalker also talked about organizational structure such as mechanistic and organic structure. From mechanistic structure’s perspective, they revealed that when the environment of an organization is stable, structure works best. They also added that where mechanistic structured organizations have low integration between the departments and functional areas, organic structured organizations have high level of integration. Apart from this, they also illustrated the political structure of an organization and revealed that it is the balancing of contending pressure from the groups acknowledging general/common interest for all (Burns & Stalker, 2010).Furthermore, ethical behavior can be interlinked with power and political behavior of the organization. There are some principles, models and values under ethical behavior which are guided by ethical leaders. The principles mainly distinguish right from wrong. It is said that senior leaders should take initiative an act as role models for such principles, and value systems. There are various models related to ethical behavior such as leadership, organizational culture and ethics pledge. Leadership is the primary way through which organizations develop proper ethical behavior. In this context, leaders and top level management is concerned with having the responsibility to conduct the business in ethical and moral way. If a leader him/herself fails to present appropriate ethical behavior, workers may be reluctant to recognize ethical guidelines of the company (Carroll, 2001).

Therefore, improper ethical behavior of the leaders may result in failure of the business and end the long-term viability of the organization. An example can be presented over here from Wall Street film where Gekko lost his company by his unethical behavior in the organization. He became unethical in doing his business and followed every unnecessary and illegal means to gain inside information and the share of other companies to make great money. At the end, he was trapped by Bud himself who recorded his encounter and handed that over to the authorities who made him imprisoned. On the similar façade of this film, Bud also had to go up the step of the courthouse for his crimes as he had also made unethical behavior in doing his business with Gekko and cheated with his own father Carl (Trevino, 1986).

In sum, it has been made a point to be noticed out that if attention is paid to ethics and moral values, it makes a good sense to one’s business. Apart from this, goodwill is created for the business and there are brighter chances of getting success when obligations are met in accordance with ethical principles and moral values. In other words, ethical behavior includes ethics, morals, integrity, character of a person and laws. It was absent in the case of Wall Street where both Gekko and Bud did not follow ethics, moral values and laws and worked against. Bud provided all the information to Gekko about his father’s company which was against his moral values and ethics. Gekko spiked on Lawrence and his deals and destroyed his business which was also against the law and ethical values of a person during the business (FM Link, 2012).

Moreover, there is a problem about business ethics that there is no harmony as to what is ethical and what is unethical in business terms. Some business people usually do unethical activities which are ethical according to them and vice versa. Therefore, there should be some ethical guidelines, principles and ethical code of conducts to be followed by everyone in the organization. This will overcome the problem of business ethics and demonstrate the difference between what is ethical and what is unethical. On the other front, power & politics and ethical behavior interlink with each other as if power is used in positive way and from the perspective of organizations’ profit, it would represent ethical behavior of people in the company. Alternatively, if politics is played within the company among a few people to make their personal profits and power is used to coerce others, it would represent unethical behavior. Consequently, there is proper need to balance power and business ethics from each and every angle so that negative results can be prevented (Steel, 2004).

Interlink between ethical behavior and power can also be explored from Wall Street’s point of view. Gekko had power to influence others as he was a strong corporate raider. He played politics with Bud for his business and did unethical activities to gain more. Subsequently, there are a number of areas requiring good conduct of ethics and use of power and politics. Code of ethics can be developed in the organization in order to defense moral values, principles and ethical behavior. A professional ethical code establishes a standard for each member involved in the business. On the other hand, it also protects the well-being of people and decorum of business. First category for ethical standard is loyalty which may be represented in business practice. It illustrates that personal interest of earning money or gaining profit should not be a priority and an individual should be loyal with its goals and objectives that are to be met (Thomas, Lawrence & Terry, 2001).Next concept of political ethical behavior is human relations. It states about the concept of fairness and concerns on how one treats with other people. Ethical behavior should be followed to treat the people with full integrity. Another important factor involved in ethical behavior is over personal actions of a person. According to this concept, one should never try to cheat the company out of anything. Ethical behavior can be represented well in practice if a person doing business earns profit or make good money at the cost of not cheating others’ companies (Stanley, 2002).

Furthermore, talking about the representation of power and politics in the business practices, the discussion can be made on organizational politics and power. In this context, concept of Machiavellianism about the harder and softer side of politics came forward. He described that there are particular conditions in a company under which political activities tend to take place. In this case, harder side of politics is represented in business practice where organization starts working in an unstructured way and conducts all the activities in an unethical manner. As a result, business may get failure and the people associated are trapped on account of cheating other firms which is unethical. On the other hand, there is a softer side of politics as well. This starts with networking which suggests that a good and strong relationship or networking can be established within the organization and with outsiders in order to accomplish organizational goals. This will result in good ethical practices in the organization and confirm the success of the business (Odih & Knights, 2007).Additionally, it is also noticed that rivals’ interests are also resolved through the political system. This can be supported by an example taken from Wall Street where Lawrence got his business back and also bought Bluestar as he was involved in the scheme planned by Bud Fox to dissolve the business of Gekko. The political system played by bud resolved the issue of Lawrence who was the rival of Gekko. This framework presented that how power is applied, distributed and used at business level. In sum, a leader who has power to exert the influence can also influence the political system and climate of the organization through his/her decisions and ideas. They should represent their power in a manner so that they could handle the conflicts, support to the organization and move the political system to a softer side (F.S Networks, 2004).

Another aspect of political organization is impression management that is required to be maintained within an organization. For that a positive culture should be promoted that would value integrity, fairness and respect within the organization and keep interests and energy of people away from negative impression of power & politics. In this term, ethical leadership may be approached for effective and inspirational practice of ethical behavior in the organization. Wrong doing and insider trading are considered as unethical behavior. There are large number of people from top management to bottom are found involved in insider trading and wrong doing by using wrong use of authority and knowledge about confidential information. In this framework, there should be a concept of voice and exit in order to communicate discomfort with an opposition of one’s wrong doing and unethical behavior in the organization. Besides it, organizational leaders should verbally develop the environment of ethical behavior in order to maintain a culture upholding honest and ethical behaviors. In turn, it will also lead the right use of power and politics in the organization (Collins & Denis, 2007).On the basis of above discussion, it can be concluded that power has the potential to influence others. That can be done by many types of powers such as referent, coercive, legitimate, reward, etc. There are different basis of individual power. It is noticed that power comes with the position of an individual in an organization from business point of view. On the other hand, ethical behavior refers to the confirmation that decisions made and activities done are in coordination with principles and ethical values of the organization. It refers to the systematic thinking about decisions’ moral outcomes. Furthermore, the theories presented regarding power, and ethical behavior complexities, practices in the organization have been supported with a film chosen Wall Street. This movie has talked about unethical behavior, power & politics used by Gekko and Bud for their businesses. For a conclusion, it was found noticed that Gekko played politics with Bud to make good money and received inside information from Bud about Bud’s father’s company Bluestar. At the end, Bud got to know the reality about Gekko and his planning of selling off Bluestar and plotted against Gekko. It represented that Gekko’s unethical behavior and continuity of playing politics made him imprisoned and destroyed his business at the end. Not only this had happened with Gekko, But Bud also had to face the justice for the crimes done by him. Afterward, softer side of political organization, proper use of power and conduct of ethical behavior has been discussed to be represented in business practice. The paper has also presented the theories of Machiavellian, Burns & Stalker to support the theoretical discussion made about ethical behavior and use of power & politics at an organization level.

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