Who Gets Power And How They Hold On To It
Morgan Neal
Summary
The article “Who Get’s Power” made points I never thought, about what power is and how
it is obtained. Power as defined in the article is simply the ability to get things done the
way one wants them to be done. Power is used by subunits to control scarce, critical
resources, and to establish organizational problems. Power can come from anyone who has
the ability to impact needed change or acquire monies within the firm. In the beginning I
simply thought the highest in the company such as management held all the power. The
scenario with the cigarette companies the power came from maintenance engineers who
were able to play a strategic role in coping with the machine breakdowns proved me
wrong. Powers requires resources to be scarce and critical. One of my favorite points from
the article is “power is limited by the need for one’s capacities in a social system”. Just
because one can drive a race car doesn’t created a need for their ability in everyday
society. The article also talks about how framework of power changes. This is important
because the abilities that were once vital to the firm can change and make other abilities
more critical. Another key point in the article was institutionalized power. This is power of