Week Seven - Critical Approaches

An important underlying thread which connects all of the approaches we have looked at is the political frame of reference.  This can be broken down into three parts:

·    Unitary frame of reference

There are common organizational goals, conflict is seen as negative, and power is given to management (seen in classical approaches).

·    Pluralist frame of reference

There are many groups with power and varying interests, and conflict is seen as a positive (seen in systems and cultural approaches).

·    Radical frame of reference

Power is very important but unequally distributed.  This is related to power in society such as in legal systems and education.

An important concept in each of these frames of reference is power.  There are many different ideas as to definitions of power and who holds it.  This can range from whoever has information, authority, control of resources, control over gender relationships, identification with the organization, control of modes and means of production, and control of organizational discourse (Miller 2009).  Haunschild, Nienhueser and Weiskopf (2009) state that “power appears as a functional medium, which is fluid, changing over time, changeable and moving from one person to the other”

There are four very important concepts which are influenced by power:

·    Ideology

The ideas people have pre-conceived which influence their perceptions (Miller 2009)

·    Hegemony

“class-based ‘organic’ worldviews and the production of ‘spontaneous’ consent to the ideas of the ruling classes” (Grijp 2011).

·    Emancipation

Freeing people’s minds from the specific ideas that have been placed there by the influence of others (Alvesson & Willmott 1992).

·    Resistance

Resistance of power

Critical approaches also take feminism into consideration including sexual harassment, women-owned businesses, women at the top of the hierarchical structure et cetera.  This is demonstrated through the video ‘September Issue’ watched in the lecture about Vogue.  Anna Wintour is the editor-in-chief and is a well-known and feared, powerful woman.  Her power is partly explained by Robert Greene’s 48 laws (also seen in the lecture).  She maintains her reputation, she keeps people dependent on her, she says less than necessary, she controls options et cetera.

The importance of power is critical to understanding communication in organizations today.

References

Alvesson, M & Willmott, H 1992, ‘On the idea of emancipation in management and organization studies’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 432-464

Grijp Pvd 2011, ‘Why accept submission? Rethinking asymmetrical ideology and power’, Dialectical Anthropology, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 13-31

Haunschild, A, Nienhueser, W & Weiskopf, R 2009, ‘Power in organizations – power of organizations’, Management Revue, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 320-325.

Miller, K 2009, Organizational communication: approaches and processes, 6th ed, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, Boston, MA.