Report will focus on analysing the existence of power Essay

IntroductionThis report entrust worry on analysing the existence of forefinger, direct and apology within an makeup with particular university extension toward Australias macroscopicst and about successful telecommunications provider, Telstra (Telstra, 2013). Applying widely recognised theoretical manikins and concepts against these focus beas, a overcritical outline has been conducted and assessed with the findings referenced throughout the report find the positive and negative stupors each ar having on Telstra the establishment and its stakeholders. The ace-third focus beas of indicator, hold back and remain firmance argon major influences within some(prenominal) organisation and critical to its success. Power and control endure be sensed as macrocosm the same within an organisation, however there are key differentiators mingled with the two that is important to identify and under stay. Both precedent and control of an organisation lowlife bring for th motley take aims of influence on its stakeholders depending on a companies geographical or custody size and culture. A level of motive labeled as Domination identifies the way that an organisation can in conclusion shape the preferences, attitudes and even political outlooks of its stakeholders (Sadan, 1997). The area of control stems from the introduction of scientific management introduced by (Taylor, 2007). Taylors methodologies of control are still predominant in galore(postnominal) modern organisations that adopt various agent to maintain a controlled lopplace. Such means can harp of fashion models of surveillance such as email and phone scanning, remote running(a) arrangements and segmentation of skills. Jermier, Knights, & Nord refer to resistance within an organisation as constituting forms of major power thats exercised by subordinates within a workplace. Example forms or display cases of resistance are refusal, vowel system, lean and creation. With an un derstanding of the theoretical frameworks and concepts of these three focus areas, various stakeholders of Telstra have been interviewed to construct a comprehensive analysis on what impact power, control and resilience is having on the organisation and its stakeholders.MethodologyBeing one of the largest make-ups in Australia, power, control, and resistance is spread throughout the companies multiple functions and sectors. It is these ingredients that aid in shaping the way Telstra operates.This fact has led to various methods be expenditure to collect and critically canvass information on Telstra regarding these three aspects of organisational behaviour. Both primary and secondary research was conducted for this report. Primary sources include conversations with Telstra stakeholders in conjunction with online secondary research. Stakeholders include employees of Telstra as well as the customers themselves. By learning about their experiences with Telstra a better understand ing of the fundamental law was created as well as how power, control, and resistance are evident in Telstra. The use of primary and secondary research beared for power, control and resistance to be critically analysed in Telstra. A subject of theories were also addressed in the analysis of Telstra. Relevant aspects of power, control, and resistance were explored and applied to Telstra to develop this report. As power, control, and resistance are different elements of organizational behaviour, a range of theories needed to be employ in cabaret to properly analyse Telstra. This also led to the stakeholder interviews being less formal delinquent to questions having to cover such as large industry and often transparent elements of organizational behaviour. To address the issue of power in Telstra, a number of cases were apply to identify the scope of power itself in Telstra and how those in power are at times ab utilize it or using it as a tool for manipulation. In some cases, th e extremities of Telstra are clearly shown. Alongside this evidence and research, the theoretical framework of the quadrupletsome faces of power derived from Lukes (1986) and Foucault (1977) was used for analysis of the company. As Telstra is a very large company, get control systems and management of control is essential throughout all the functions of the business. To analyse how control plays a critical role in Telstra, different functions of the organization and their appropriate control mechanism were explored. This was through with(p) through researching into grammatical cases and cases of how Telstra has managed its control systems. Similarly to the use of the four faces of power, resistance was also analysed using a comparable framework. The framework used was the four faces of resistance. This framework helped to highlight areas where employees show resistance and how far they can take it. investigate and cases gathered coupled together with the four faces of resistan ce aided in presenting and analysing the various issues of resistance and how it exists in Telstra.Organisational PowerPower is derived from owning and controlling the means of production and how this power is rein laboured by organisational structures and rules of governance (Weber and Marx, 1948) Telstra as an organization consists of management hierarchy comprising of numerous Directors and Executives that hold responsibility for the direction and humanity image of Telstra. These positions at times are extremely demanding as their universal decisions can, and will have an effect on the business profits and customer satisfaction levels. Power is crucial amongst these ranks as it is required to make needed miscellaneas and improvements to policy and procedure in the highly competitive industry of telecommunications. ultimately the responsibility of the performance of Telstra resides with the CEO (David Thodey) and the supporting Directors (executive and non-executive). As the Top-level coach, David Thodey makes decisions modify the entire company. He does non direct the day-to-day activities of the company instead he molds goals for the organization and directs the company to chance on them. An example is the announcement of a strategy of market differentiation and a renewed focus on customer service and satisfaction (Telstra Website, 2009). Top managers are ultimately responsible for the performance of the organization (Simmering, 2007). Following the top-level management group is the middle-level managers, who set goals for their departments and other business units. Middle managers are charged with motivating and assisting first-line managers to achieve the companys objectives. They also play an important role by communicating and offering suggestions to the top managers, as they are more knobbed in the day-to-day workings of the company. The next level of management is the first-level. This level is responsible for the daily management of th e employees who actually produce the product or offer the service. Although first-level managers typically do not set goals for the organization, they have a very strong influence on the company, as they are the managers that most employees interact with on a daily basis. Telstras use of compulsion internally has become evident in various situations. By assessing the four faces of power we can see how intimidation towards workers has resulted in a number of general outbursts. An un respectable and undisclosed strategy was introduced by Telstra during 2008whereby 15,000 employees were targeted to sign up to Australian Workforce Agreements (AWA) before the ban on agreements was to be enforce by the Government (Eastley, 2008). A confidential Telstra inventory showed that managers were given 29 pages of tips on how to best convince workers to sign language up to AWAs (Hawley, 2008). The document urged managers to use psychological profiling of employees when considering who to target and were rewarded with bonuses once successfully signing workers up to workplace agreements. This method of power is an example of coercion. Telstra has clearly done something unethically in this situation. The companys actions have demonstrated a coercive environment that maximises pressure through psychological manipulation.Domination is a level of power that identifies the way in which an organisation can ultimately shape the preferences, attitudes and even political outlooks of its stakeholders Lukes (1986). Telstras domination of most communications markets and its ability to leverage market power across markets is a minute of its structure. The result is the failure of competition affecting all consumer groups. The ideal outcome is a form of structural separation of Telstra. This objective can be achieved through the creation of a regulatory package that delivers as much(prenominal) of the benefit as possible that would be derived from structural separation, while acknowle dging the limitations of accepted separation to address the core incentives of Telstra to favour itself (Competitive Carriers Coalition Inc, 2005). Workplace ballyrag is a widespread issue that can only be settle through an implementation strategy targeting all employees. Employers need to be held accountable and have a strategy in place to protect the employees from this offence. alas this is not always the case, in some instances the employer is the one orchestrating the bullying. A juvenile case in which the Administrative Appeals Tribunal overruled Telstras decision not to profit compensation to an ex-employee for melodic line and psychological injury shows that it is possible to resist intimidation (Sdrinis, 2012). Mr Sami was successful in wining his compensation claim against Telstra for work-related psychological injuries and in particular in relation to bullying and harassment by his manager over a period of time. This case underlines that managements often-used tac tic of subtle bulling andharassment to push people out the door has a human cost which the law is prepared to recognise. inwardly most major companies, including Telstra, workers have to live with the threat of losing their jobs and this case should encourage workers to stand up to workplace harassment and, if victimized, seek legal advice and compensation.Organisational ControlIn order to regulate and manage organisational activities and resources, so that accomplishing goals and objectives are possible, organisations need control. It is a pregnant part of running any business so that a targeted element of performance remains up to organisational standard. There is a considerable numerate of responsibility that goes into managing control, as there are many different levels and areas in which organisations define control. Information Resources is an area of control in which include sales forecasting, environmental analysis and production scheduling. In a recent article, Telstra has inform a 12.9 per cent profit in net profit, reaching $3.9 one million million million, and an growing in revenue up two per cent to $26 jillion (Bartholomeusz, Technology Spectator, 2013). Telstra chief executive officer David Thodey said it was the third succeeding(prenominal) year of significant customer growth for Telstra mobile, driven by $1.2 gazillion of investment in the network during the year. As profit results slightly bettered expectations, this can only top a positive impact on employees, shareholders and the organisation itself. For instance, as a result of meeting organisational goals and objectives, employees get to slide by their job, and keep the shareholders content. In any organisation, operations control is needed to control the processes used to transform resources into products and services. As Telstra is constantly aspiring to grow as a company and are faced with new business opportunities, changes in operating(a) processes takes place as a resul t, workers find themselves jobless. The terminal decline of Telstras once-dominant telephone business and the rise of new business opportunities have forced the telco giant into a major operational restructure that will affect half the companys 30,000 strong domestic workforce (Bingemann, 2013). (Telstra Chief Operations officer Brendon Riley, is likely to see hundreds of jobs cut from the telco as it transitions its operations and IT divisions from infrastructure-basedbusinesses to more of a software and services proximo (Bingemann, 2013). Although this may mean good news for Telstra advancing as an organisation, this change in operations control is affecting the lives of 30,000 loyal employers and their families. Telstras financial control plan has an upside and a downside. Like most organisations, a budget control provides a way of measuring performance across different aspects within the company. Also control the financial resources as they feed into, are held by, and flow ou t of the organisation. Telstra while having generated some $2 billion in savings has punished workers by cutting 1,000 net local anesthetic jobs over the past two and a half years (Bartholomeusz, phone line Spectator, 2013). Although the savings are benefiting Telstras fast-growing mobile business, the price to pay is substantial for those 1,000 workers who need to make ends meet. Telstra has insisted that it can simultaneously cut cost while improving customer service by reducing errors, queries and complaints that allow it to, for instance, reduce call centre staff (Bartholomeusz, Business Spectator, 2013). As applied science advances, so does the way people do things. With the new possibilities of using apps and online resources to want questions, queries and form complaints, the need for call centre workers reduces sizeableOrganisational ResistanceWithin the multinational telecommunication company Telstra, numerous accounts of resistance both internally and externally have ri sen from management decisions by the companys head. Several incidents have occurred in which the public and workers have raised their join in resistance against some of the giants actions. By assessing the four faces of resistance, we can see typical and expected responses from the public and workers. One incident occurred earlier this year in February. Telstra slashed over 700 jobs from their Sensis network, which resulted in messiness rallies and protests by union leaders and workers alike (Conifer, 2013). This method of resistance is an example of voice. By publicly displaying and enforcing their dissatisfaction against the loss of their jobs, the union workers are resisting Telstras actions. The tease apart and protests have been constructed to highlight the unsatisfactory methods of Telstra. As Telstra grows as a company, many Australian jobs are being sent offshore, particularly to Asiannations. The rapid growth of the company forces management and corporate heads to expa nd the company to increase revenue and profits, at the expense of Australian jobs. In July of this year, over clxx jobs were sent offshore to India, which lead to widespread union outrage (Bingemann, www.theaustralian.com.au/business, 2013). The Communication, electric and Plumbing union, as well as the Community and Public orbit unions protested and demanded negotiations in regards to job losses. The fact that unions stood up and resisted to sacrifice their jobs highlights an internal voice of the company. This resistance from the unions demonstrates a type of power that workers have within their job, to stand up against unsatisfactory managerial decisions. (Bingemann, www.theaustralian.com.au/business, 2013) The third face of resistance represents the escape side of work. This face is made up of three tools cynicism, scepticism and dis-identification. Dis-identification refers to the disjunction from ones identity and the work environment. In an incident that occurred in April of 2007, a unseasoned girl committed suicide after been given un hard-nosed work goals and hassled by management staff of Telstra to return to work during her stress leave (Masanauskas, 2007). This amount of pressure lead to her suicide, and the change from her once vibrant genius was trans create into a nervous wreck (Masanauskas, 2007). The young womens parents expound the Telstra staff to be treating their daughter like a machine. From this tragedy, the union demanded realistic work goals and targets. The dis-identification from human to machine within the workplace highlights the third face of resistance, to escape work. However, this escape was much more serious and punishing, for it was not skilful a mental escape from work, but a suicide.Conclusion passim this report it is made evident that the three focal behavioral characteristics of organisations can have a major impact on its stakeholders. Although these impacts can be both positive and negative it is clear from the e xamples provided that a balance between whats positive to both an organisation and its stakeholders remains a bulky challenge to maintain. Telstra has been used as a case organisation due to its operational size and market reach throughout the country and bedspread to different cultures internationally. Various methods were used to gather and analyse information particular proposition to the affects of power, control and resistance from both internal and external stakeholders of the company which formed the basis of or report. Power of an organisation over its stakeholders is seen almost always as a negative characteristic but is critical to an organisations success. It was ready that power in Telstra is delegated down through a hierarchal management structure to manage staff and performance. This lead onto analysing which control methods are being used within Telstra such as performance goals and project deadlines, which have been founded to be a major cause of many bully and st ress related complaints. Due to the mismanagement of power and control various cases of industrial action and even suicide has been reported as a form of resistance from stakeholders. This resistance has a negative impact on the public image of the organisation and can potentially affect its market value. It is critical for organisations to achieve a balance between economic growth and ethical practices. Until this happens cases such of those highlighted in the report will continue causing restriction and harm to both the organisation and its stakeholders.