Organizational power practices
Overview: In another project informed by critical management studies, we conceptualized and investigated organizational power practices – informal, tacit, and taken-for-granted organizational practices (such as gatekeeping, selective information sharing, bartering, etc.) that allow certain organizational members access to material and social resources in organizations, while denying others (Coleman & Voronov, 2003; Voronov & Coleman, 2003). Our aim was to identify how discrepancies between “official” doctrines and policies regarding participatory authority and inclusion and “actual” organizational practices that are exclusive emerge and are maintained. For instance, most corporations operate under “official” Equal Opportunity regulations and guidelines regarding fair hiring practices and fair treatment of minorities. Yet today, White males actually hold 95 percent of all top corporate jobs vice president and above. Our work in this area was an attempt to identify some of the covert forces at work in sustaining such inequities, and resulted in the development of an applied framework for intervention with groups and organizations (Coleman & Voronov, 2003). The framework can help groups identify and explore those normative practices that operate in ways that are automatic and virtually imperceptible. These mundane practices, such as rules of politeness and the way work is routinely done, appear neutral and natural but in fact systematically reproduce hierarchies based on gender, race, sexual orientation, and so forth.Publications from this project
Tuesday, January 18, 2000
Coleman, P. T. and Voronov, M. (2003). Power in groups and organizations. In M. West, D. Tjosvold, & K. G. Smith (Eds.) The International Handbook of Organizational Teamwork and Cooperative Working (pp. 229-254). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Tuesday, January 18, 2000
Coleman, P. T. and Voronov, M. (2005). Power in groups and organizations. Reprinted in M. West, D. Tjosvold, & K. G. Smith (Eds.) The Essentials of Teamworking: International Perspective. New York: John Wiley & Sons.