Power 9

In the last byte, we looked at the intergroup sources of power. In today's byte, we look at concept of Power in a slightly different context.

Amitai Etzoni looked at power from a sociological orientation and developed a theory of power analysis - that identifies three types of organizational power and three types of organizational involvement; which lead to either congruent or incongruent power uses.
The three types of organizational power are:

• Coercive Power - influencing members by forcing them to do something under threat or punishment
• Utilitarian Power - influencing members by providing them with rewards and benefits
• Normative Power - influencing members by using the knowledge that they want to belong to the organization and by letting them know that they are expected to do the right thing.

The three types of membership are:

• Alienative Membership - the members posses hostile, negative feelings towards the organization. They do not want to be there. Ex: Prisons
• Calculative Membership - the members weigh the benefits and limitations of belonging to the organization Ex: business
• Moral Membership - the members have positive feeling about the organizational membership and could also deny their own needs. Ex: an NGO working for better health etc.