Politics is an aspect of everyday life within organizations, and is a force that inhibits individual and collective behaviour. If not fully understood, it can impede organizational change and development. In order to minimise the political aspects of organizational dynamics there is a need to understand the extent to which organizational culture brings about politicised conformance and how individuals shape their behaviour through self-interest to conform—sense-giving and sense-making nexus—thus moderating the degree of change initiatives.
The Politics of Organizational Change explores the relationship between self-interest, power, politics and managing organizational change from a theoretical perspective. It encourages the fundamental questioning of the relationship between self-interest, power and control inherent within organizational change, and discusses the attendant implications for managing change. It will be of value to those who require a text that goes beyond set patterns of coverage found in textbooks dealing with managing change.
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
1. Self-Interest And Political Behaviour
The root of self-interest
Locus of power
Politicised behaviour within organizations
Maintaining position through political behaviour
2. Political Narratives Of Change
Organizational change narratives
Individual narratives
Mutually assured delusion
Moving into the "white space"
3. Illusion of Control
Power through politics: organizational and individual
The politics of resistance
Who controls and shapes change?
Political reorientation of psychological contracts
4. Implications For Managing Change
Realpolitik of change
The illusion of control
Politics, power and conflict
Rational emotional response to change
5. Managing The Political And Power Dynamic Of Change
Managing the unmanageable
The antitheses of political behaviour
From rhetoric to action: Shaping organizational political dynamics through polyarchic orientation
Index
Biography
Robert Price is Senior Lecturer in Organizational Change Management and Leadership at Suffolk Business School, University of Suffolk (UK), and is Chair of the Organizational Studies Track, British Academy of Management.
