ABSTRACT
Power and political behavior pervade organizational life, affecting everyone, not only senior executives. Of these two constructs, political behavior has the more divisive intellectual history. Some researchers describe political behavior as an important way to understand and explain much of the behavior that occurs in organizations. This chapter focuses on the development and use of power in organizations and the role political behavior plays in building and using that power. Some managers have only the organizational bases of power to influence people. Other managers have both organizational and personal bases. These people are in the enviable position of having many bases of power at their disposal. The organizational bases of power are legitimate power, reward power, coercive power, and information power. Legitimate power derives from the manager’s position. The personal bases of power flow from the manager’s qualities or attributes. Those bases also depend on how subordinates attribute those qualities to the manager.
