ASSESSING POWER AMONG DISPUTANTS:Conflict and Power, Kinds of power in the Relationship Domain

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Conflict Management HRM624

Lesson 24

ASSESSING POWER AMONG DISPUTANTS

Quotation

Wounds inflicted by the sword heal more easily than those inflicted by the tongue.

Cardinal Richelieu (1585 - 1642) French churchman and statesman.

In this lecture we will study

That power is not merely about the ability to use physical force but works to understand human

relations.

That power exists in the personal, environmental, and relationship domains.

The coercive, reward, normative, referent, and expert power are different types of relationship power.

Referent and expert power will be discussed in detail in the next lecture.

Power

Power may be defined as a deliberate or purposive influence. It is a kind of force to modify the behavior of

people, change the environment, or change physical or social conditions. In short, having a force to change

any thing can be defined as power.

Understanding power is essential to the study of interpersonal conflict, However, like interpersonal conflict

itself, our ideas about power have been distorted and made unduly narrow by the invisible veil.

Peacekeeping and feminist theorists coined the term equal power relationship to describe a situation in

which neither partner had a clear power over the other. Peacemaking is a form of conflict resolution which

focuses on establishing equal power that will be robust enough to forestall future conflict, and establishing

some means of agreeing on ethical decisions within a community that has previously had conflict. When

applied in criminal justice matters it is usually called transformative justice.

Power may be divided into two types such as

1. Formal Power

2. Informal Power

According to Peir & Meli (2003) Formal power in organisations is associated with hierarchy. Hierarchy is a

social shared structure, which implies that, in some depend areas, the spread of decision of a level is

explicitly restricted in favor of a higher level. Thus, the distribution of Formal power in a hierarchy is graded

and unequal. Formal power relationships between people of different levels are intrinsically asymmetrical

(not reciprocal).

Informal power is based on personal resources whose distribution is not necessarily related to the

hierarchical structure of the organization. It requires that the target accepts the influence of the agent and

allows the target to develop a feeling of control and empowerment (Goldberg & Campbell, 1997).

Formal power is exercised in a top-down manner. The superiors exert formal power on

Their subordinates while the opposite is not the case. Therefore, it can be expected that a power agent

holding a higher hierarchical position than that of the target will hold more formal power over the target

than peers or subordinates.

Conflict and Power

Power and conflict has complex relationships. Analyzing the differences between

Formal and Informal power can help to unravel some of these complexities.

For most people, the concepts of conflict and power are interconnected. The idea of conflict makes you see

two conflictive parties, each seeking to use powerful means to gain an advantage over the other.

Understanding power is necessary to diagnose interpersonal conflict. However, our understanding of power

is distorted and is taken as `narrow' due to the invisible veil or complexity of human systems.

Conflict Management HRM624

Uses of Power

We can easily understand the uses of power through these simple everyday life examples

· A mother soothes her young infant with a gentle, enfolding embrace.

· The members of a family whose home and town has been destroyed by an earthquake in Azad

Kashmir; rebuild their lives elsewhere.

· A superstar athlete endorses a sports drink in a TV commercial.

· A good teacher explains a difficult concept to a group of students.

· A man finally is able to quit smoking for good.

· A political party publishes its political manifesto on a web site or in newspapers.

· A lawyer, who has been negotiating fruitlessly with opposing counsel to settle a dispute, Later he

files a suit for Rs5 million; a week later, opposing counsel calls with an offer to settle the dispute.

Domains of Power

When we talk about power, we may ask over what domain this deliberate or purposive influence is

exercised. There are three major domains:

1. Environmental domain a person's surroundings

2. Relationship domain a person's relationship to another person

3. Personal domain a person's own interests

Personal and environmental power becomes more important when a disputant considers his or her

alternatives to a negotiated agreement.

Kinds of power in the Relationship Domain

Many types of relationship power are available to disputants and their teams. An effective conflict

diagnostician must think "outside the box" when it comes to considering the impact of power in a conflict.

1. Coercive Power

2. Reward/Exchange Power

3. Referrent Power

4. Normative Power

5. Expert Power

6. Ecological Power

1. Coercive Power

Coercive power is the type of power we are all mostly familiar with: the power to impose negative,

damaging, or unpleasant consequences on someone else. Coercive power includes the power to kill or injure

someone, to damage someone's property, to irritate someone, to create expensive outcomes, and so forth.

Coercive power often carries the greatest potential for immediate influence, particularly when the threat of

harm is severe. However, coercive power also damages the ability of the disputant wielding the power to use

other, more positive sources of influence later.

Hence, an over-reliance on coercive power actually disempowers the user, by denying him/her the ability to

exercise any other types of power. Such a phenomenon has occurred in the Middle East. The process of

engineering a lasting peace between the Israel and the Palestinian people has been seriously compromised

by the use of coercive power by both sides, with the Israeli government relying on institutional military and

police power and selected Palestinian groups using terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.

2. Reward / Exchange Power

Reward/exchange power is the flip side of coercive power. Reward/exchange power is the ability to

influence people by offering them something they value. Thus, a father offering his daughter money or a

special treat in exchange for a good grade is exercising reward/exchange power. So, disputant who offers to

dismiss a law suit in exchange for a favorable settlement.

Conflict Management HRM624

Coercive a reward/exchange power go hand in hand. Often, disputants in a conflict engineer situations that

carry the threat of coercion, only to offer to withdraw the threat as a reward for a favorable outcome (as

with the disputant who offers to dismiss his or her lawsuit).

When reward/exchange power is wielded as threat withdrawal, it often creates the same problems that

coercive power does. Offering a child a bribe for cleaning room, for example, tends to work a few times,

but typically more and more money has to be offered to produce the same behavior.

Reward/exchange power is very effective when there is a rational basis for concluding that the amount and

type of reward is a just and fair exchange for items given up by the person being rewarded.

3. Referent Power

Referent power is the power, held by attractive, charismatic people, to persuade and influence others. It is

the power that drives the giant industry of celebrity product endorsement. For example, the hundreds of

millions of dollars paid to sports stars such as Tiger Woods, and rock stars such as Briteny spears to appear

with products as diverse as soft drinks, mutual funds are a testament to the immense power of personal

attraction.

Of course, not everyone possesses referent power, and, of those who do, their appeal is not to every

audience. Thus, referent power must be used with some judiciousness. Also, referent power used in an

illegitimate manner not only fails to persuade but also can undermine the power of the referent.

4. Normative Power

Normative power is the power of moral rectitude. Being on the "right" side of a moral issue gives the user

the ability to convince others to serve the norm.

For example, if I am your supervisor and you come to me, arguing that an employee of the opposite gender,

of equal qualification and performance, is getting paid more than you, my commitment to gender equity is

likely to convince me to increase your salary.

Normatively powerful people tend to acquire a certain degree of referent power by virtue of their noble or

heroic positions with individuals or communities.

There are two sources of normative power, individual and group norms. If you try to convince someone to

comply with your wishes based on that person's individual moral stance on an issue, you are using an

individual-norm source of normative power.

But, to wield normative power it is not essential that the other disputant share the norm you are depending

on, only that a large and influential group of people do so.

Limits of Normative Power

There are two important limitations on the use of normative power.

First, an appeal to prevailing norms taken to an individual disputant who does not hold to them will fail if

the other disputant can rationalize that the norm is inapplicable. The Affirmative Action can be an example.

Second, obviously, the use of normative power will not be effective against an individual who holds to a

contrary norm, if he or she has a significant support group. Indeed, in such circumstances, the use of

normative power will only consolidate and harden the contrary group.

Summary

Power is a force to bring or induce change in anything. It is generally considered negative and in damaging

terms. But it has several positive dimensions. Power to influence others is the main domain under which

conflict is usually resolved. In other words, the domain of relationship remains the main interest regarding

conflict resolutions. However, other domains of power can greatly influence the process of conflict

resolution.

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