The Logic Of Organizational Politics:an Analysis Framework Of Political Economics

The difference on the content and focus of an organization theory from that of the other organization theories is decided by how such organization theory understands the relationship in the organization and what kind of concept is constituted according to such understanding. In the development history of organization history, the purports of many concepts related to the organization had been the reflections of such concepts on the power relations within the organization to different extents. Until now, the "organizational politics" research area has preliminarily been formed in the organization theory sector. Generally, primary organization political theories may be divided into4types, namely organizational political view of hard power, organizational political view of soft power, organizational political view of distributive power and organizational political view of counter-power. Being with different understanding on the sources and formation of power relations by respective type of theory, the research results of organizational politics are quite different, there are obvious differences on some important concepts even in similar theories, weighing on some kind of consistent understanding to the emerging and development of the organizational politics.The modern social relations are socialized, which are established on the basis of personal utilitarian choice, with contract being the primary mechanism for connecting the people’s actions. Therefore, only by applying contract relation as the basis for organizational politics, may such discussion be with the nature of associating modern social relations. No special attention seems to be paid on this by the above4types of organizational political theories. During analyzing the enterprise nature, the modern new institutional economics performs in-depth discussion on the contract nature of the enterprise, achieving relatively appropriated conclusions. To apply the enterprise contract theories, especially the non-complete contract theory among which, to the general analysis of organizational politics may inspire the excavation of the internal logic of the emerging and development of organizational politics. This is well the research focus of this thesis.Formation of the organization of micro political system. On the basis of contract exchange of rights, upon the formation of an organization, it functions as a kind of structural strength beyond the participants and becomes a power system with executive control. Some people are trying to establish such system, while the system is with no concern for some others, yet they may also realize their own benefits from the power exchange. Thus the organization of micro political system is formed.However, the power relations of political organizations are not completely dominated by the contract strength. Firstly, as a kind of power system with control setting, the organization may mean that there are natural internal conflicts between the rationality of the organizational contract and personal rational judgment. Secondly, the particularity of the HR property rights within the organization and the limit of organizational control decide the incompleteness of organizational contract, resulting in partly sharing other than complete transferring of the power within the organization, and hence many "political" issues derived from the aforementioned conflicts.The legal power and its process within the organization constitute the organizational standard structure and procedure, meanwhile, the power negative system and its process which is not reflected by the organizational standards within the organization constitute important supplement. Both two powers intend the occupation of the organizational residual. The essence of organizational politics is a political process of the scramble of organizational residual control power and the residual share. As many existing theories focus on the analysis of the official power system political process, this thesis only emphasized on the survey of the political process in the power negative system.The organizational residual can be divided into organizational residual I and organizational residual II. The so-called organizational residual I means the net added value generated by the new combination based on factors; the so-called organizational residual II means the benefits as personal treatment, income, power, policy, information, human relations and psychological satisfaction etc. generated under the organizational relations, it exists in the "public sector" in the organizational relations, required to be found and achieved during the organizational political process. By combining both, organizational residual I and organizational residual II belong to the "lease" effect of the organization. Nonetheless, the former "lease" is the net added value generated by the new combination based on production factors, while the latter is the result of interpersonal new benefit relations formed on the basis of new social relations; the former lease is produced, while the latter is derived automatically by the organizational relations; the former is to be accounted by the organization, while the latter is to be accounted by individual. The official power system of the organization decides the allocation of organizational residual I, the power negative system of the organization decides the share of organizational residual II.This thesis refers the structural status of the organizational power as organizational political shape, and further divides it into the5types as autarchic organizational political shape, despotic organizational political shape, decentralized organizational political shape, participatory organizational political shape and anarchic organizational political shape, according to different organizational power structures, this is the political appearance of the power organization, which is decided by the characteristics of the official power system. Meanwhile, the power negative system in the political organization is with power strength, wide distribution and scattered separation, it accompanies the official power system, constituting the other site for participants benefit realization, and generating huge residual (II) as well, or even controlling the future of the organization. The political appearance of the organization is with relatively distinctive difference, however the power negative system in the organization has no fixed structure, with random, discontinuous operation and similar political strategies of the actors. The non-production nature of organizational residual II means that the rising of transaction cost will harm the organizational efficiency eventually. Meanwhile, the non-display existence of the organizational politics poisons the organizational culture. The two results will eventually cause negative impacts on the social benefits.The key for organizational governance is how to govern the relations of both power systems. The organization itself has a string of "dilemma", always plunging into new non-efficient balance while seeking for the self solution to problems. This calls for the "third party strength", which is the "Leviathan" of the public politics. While participating in the organizational governance, it is necessary for public management to find out the balance point for justice and efficiency, it is not appropriate to promote only the organizational efficiency, or concern for simple justice, the unification of personal development and social efficiency must be realized during the organizational reform. The first aspect for the re-defining of the property rights within the organization by the public authorities is to define such property rights abandoned by the owner in the public sector of the organization. The second aspect is to separate the residual control power of the organizational owners. The third aspect is to ensure the realization compatible incentive plan in the organizational residual share (I). The fourth aspect is to establish a legislative system, supervising and giving instructions on the organization. This is a revolution already commenced in the organizational sector, but it is different with general social revolution, it requires the organizational reform, enabling action ability of each party, realizing some certain kind of social compromise on the basis of improving power structure in the organization, and this new direction is called "organizational democracy" in the21st century.It has outlined the logic context of the production and development of organizational politics, which will provide a relatively complete theoretical framework for the analysis of organizational politics.