Michelle Artus
Organizational Behavior
Case Analysis – Beyond Flextime: Trashing the Workweek

What influence tactics and power bases are evident in this case? Explain.

Research initiated by David Kipnis and his colleagues in 1980, reveals how people influence each other in organizations. The Kipnis methodology involved asking employees how they managed to get their bosses, coworkers or subordinates to do what they wanted them to do. Statistical refinements and replications by other researchers over a 13 year period eventually yielded nine influence tactics which I have indicated below. The first five are considered soft tactics because they are friendlier than and not as coercive as the last four tactics which are considered hard tactics because they involve more overt pressure (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 437- 438).

NINE TACTICS (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 438)

* Rational persuasion – trying to convince someone with reason, logic or facts

* Inspirational appeals – trying to build enthusiasm by appealing to others emotions, ideas, or values

* Consultation – getting others to participate in planning, making decisions, and changes

* Ingratiation – getting someone in a good mood prior to making a request; being friendly, helpful and using praise or flattery

* Personal appeals – referring to friendship and loyalty when making a request

* Exchange – making express or implied promises and trading favors

* Coalition tactics – getting others to support your effort to persuade someone

* Pressure – demanding compliance or using intimidation or threats

* Legitimating tactics – basing a request on one’s authority or right, organizational rules or policies, or express or implied support from superiors

The influence tactics working in this case are inspirational appeals, consultation, exchange and legitimating tactics.

Inspirational appeals are used by management to build enthusiasm by appealing to employees’ emotions, ideals or values. Making employees more enthusiastic about their work will make them happier, more content and more productive. An example of this is shown when Judy Wentlandt was able to leave work to take her grandson to a museum and to attend her father’s birthday party. These were events that she valued and prior to the implementation of ROWE, she wouldn’t have been able to attend or would have had to use vacation time.

Consultation tactics can be viewed by J.A. Counter employees when they asked their boss, Ms. Linda Skoglund how the receptionist, Judy Wentlandt would participate in ROWE because she always needs a backup. Ms. Skoglund told her employees to figure it out. Two weeks later they came back to her with a simple plan. The employees used consultation tactics because they participated in planning, decision making and company changes. Another example of consultation tactics is when the managers of J.A. Counter, when preparing the change to ROWE, met with their direct reports and wrote out detailed job descriptions, with expectations and measurements. They became mini – entrepreneurs, managing their own schedules and focusing on delivering results (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 462-463).

Legitimating tactics are evident because the employees were given authority to make decisions about their work schedules and held accountable for their job performance.

Social power is the ability to get things done with human, informational and material resources. A popular classification scheme for social power goes back 50 years to the work of John French and Bertram Raven. They proposed that power arose from five different bases and each involves a different approach to influencing others. They are noted below (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 442).

Reward power – a manager has reward power to the extent that he or she obtains compliance from employees by promising or granting rewards

Coercive power – threats of punishment or actual punishment to get a task done

Legitimate power – anchored to one’s formal position or authority

Expert power – obtaining compliance through one’s knowledge or information

Referent power – obtaining compliance through charisma or personal attraction

In this case reward power, legitimate power, and expert power are at work. Reward power can be observed when the employees of J.A. Counter are given the reward of flexible schedules for delivering performance. Legitimate power is observed because the employees of J.A. Counter are given the formal authority to make decisions, participate in planning and making changes. Expert power is viewed because the employees can schedule their hours of work around the knowledge they have about how to best get their jobs accomplished, i.e. time it takes to get the job done, best hours to work to get the job done, where to work to get the job done, etc.

Where would you plot J.A. Counter’s ROWE program on the empowerment grid in Figure 15-2? Explain.

Empowerment involves sharing varying degrees of power and decision making authority with lower level employees to tap their fullest potential. Empowerment is not an either-or, all-or-nothing proposition. It can range from merely consulting with employees, to having them actively participate in making decisions, to granting them decision-making authority through delegation (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 461).

The evolution of power grid in 15-2 describes four types of power (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 447).

* Authoritarian Power – manager/leader imposes decisions

* Influence Sharing – manager/leader consults followers when making decisions

* Power Sharing – manager/leader and followers jointly make decisions

* Power Distribution – followers granted authority to make decisions

I would plot J.A. Counters ROWE program on the empowerment grid as power distribution. In power distribution, followers are granted the authority to make decisions. At J.A. Counter, all employees are granted the authority to make decisions regarding their schedules to deliver results. Sloglund had managers meet with their direct reports and were given detailed job descriptions with expectations and measurements. The employees acted like entrepreneurs managing their time and tasks to produce results (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 462).

Although power distribution is the general theme in this case, influence sharing was also demonstrated when Sloglund, managers and staff were consulted to discuss the changeover to ROWE and were involved in the implementation (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 462).

Has employee empowerment been taken too far in this case? Explain.

Prior to implementing ROWE, J.A. Counters profits had been sluggish and the company was lagging 15 percent behind industry benchmarks for revenue per employee. Skoglund had started doing more comprehensive performance reviews, increased the company’s sales goals, cut expenses, and fired a couple of employees. Those measures slightly bettered the bottom line but had consequences. Morale was affected due to the changes. People feared for their jobs. Ms. Skoglund, at this time, felt that she was constantly focusing on putting out minor fires instead of concentrating on sales. To improve productivity and boost morale, Ms. Skoglund implemented a results only work environment that allowed employees to leave work anytime they wanted without telling anyone where they were going or why. Employees make their own hours (few or many); however, they are accountable to deliver results (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 462).

According to Kreitner & Kinicki (2010), empowerment is recognizing and releasing into the organization the power that people already have in their wealth of useful knowledge, experience, and internal motivation (p. 445). J.A. Counter’s employees are empowered to use their knowledge, experience and motivation to deliver results working the schedule each employee wants.

In my opinion, I don’t think ROWE is for every company. Changing a company’s work philosophy can be very difficult. However, it seems to have worked at J.A. Counter. Improved productivity has resulted as well as better morale. Given these results, I don’t think empowerment has been taken too far. Ms. Sloglund needs to consistently monitor the results and if productively is there, ROWE should continue.

What impact do you expect the ROWE program to have on organizational politics at J.A. Counter? Explain.

Organizational politics involves intentional acts of influence to enhance or protect the self-interest of individuals or groups. An emphasis on self-interest distinguishes this form of social influence. Managers are constantly challenged to achieve a workable balance between employee’s self-interest and organizational interests. Political behavior becomes a negative force when individual interests erode of defeat organizational interests (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 452).

Political maneuvering is triggered by uncertainty. Five common sources of uncertainty within organizations are unclear objectives, vague performance measures, ill-defined decision processes, strong individual or group competition and any type of change. Whenever an organization attempts to make a change, the political subsystem becomes active. Vested interests are almost always at stake and the distribution of power is challenged (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010, p. 453).

At J.A. Counter, I believe that objectives and performance measures are clear and the decision process is defined, however, there may be some strong individual or group competition and certainly there is change. Because of this uncertainty, there will be some impact on organizational politics and it will probably be mixed.

Some employees will adapt well to the new system. They will do what it takes to make it work. They will help others with their duties and others will help them to ensure all of the work is done and results are delivered. These employees will enjoy the new system because they are able to participate in planning and decision making and enjoy the benefits of flex time. These employees will not allow their self-interests to become more important than company interests.

Other employees will take advantage of the system to serve self-interests. These employees will not pull their own weight, take off too much time and expect their co-workers to do more. Political tactics will occur when blame is placed on those who don’t pull their own weight and finger pointing is done to those who are abusers of the flextime system.

Because some employees will engage in company politics, this system should be monitored closely. Employees who do not deliver results should not be able to work flex time.

What are your own feelings about the ROWE concept? Would you like to work in such an unstructured situation? Explain why or why not.

I believe that working under a ROWE concept could be positive as long as it is monitored and everyone is held accountable for completing their assigned tasks. Allowing employees to make their own decisions regarding work schedules would boost morale and make it a better place to work. Because I have children who are still in school, I need to take time off for doctor appointment, school events, meetings with teachers, etc. Currently, I have to use my personal or vacation time to take time off from work. If I was able to work my schedule around this, I would make me a happier employee. Being a working Mom can be very stressful. Working with a ROWE concept would reduce my overall stress and make my job more fulfilling. I have been in the workforce for 32 years and have always worked a routine schedule (8-4 M-F) and would welcome a more flexible schedule and the opportunity to work from home.

WORKS CITED

Kreitner, Robert and Kinicki, Angelo. Organizational Behavior, ninth edition. 2010 McGraw-Hill.