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Expertise as a Source of Power

There are a number of ways to establish bases of organizational power, but one of the most effective of these is through the personal characteristic known as ôexpertiseö (Conrad & Poole, 258). Expertise is special knowledge or skill that not everyone has, making the person who possesses it an ôexpert.ö In terms of gaining power in an organization, expertise is beneficial because it is inherently exclusionaryùthat is, only the expert has this knowledge known as expertise. As Conrad and Poole point out, employees who feel that their job may be threatened can in a sense manufacture expertise by setting up filing systems or modifying equipment in such a way that no one but them would understand how to use them (258). This is not expertise in the sense of having learned more than anyone else about a process or machine, or having gained a higher level of understanding of its workings; it is expertise in the sense of having modified it so that no one else knows the secret of making it work. This is ôcheating,ö if you willùa blatant attempt to gain job security by structuring the job so that it becomes proprietary to the individual.

Expertise is only as powerful as the perceptions of others about it. If an employee engaged in such behavior but did not tell anyone about it, no one would know that he held the only keys to making the computer work properly or that he knew the only way to find a file in the filing system. Therefore, the effectiveness of this tactic is dependent on communication (Conrad & Poole, 259).

The strengths of manufactured expertise for the individual are that he can create a position of strength where none exists, and that this strength can protect his job or garner him a promotion. The weaknesses of this tactic are that if anyone deduces that he has gained this expertise by deliberately making the system impossible for others to use, he could be discredited, or even fired.

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Expertise as a Source of Power. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 08:39, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1712556.html