The literature on strategy formation in the human
services sector is relatively unexplored when examined
against the backdrop of research on power from the
industrial sector. The present research examines power
strategy formation of employees in a mental health
organization that went through a long separation from a
psychiatric hospital. The central questions addressed
were: What kinds of strategies emerge when there is
turbulent organizational change? How do the employees
deal with the turbulent events in terms of power
strategies? How are their power strategies similar or
different? What relational power pat-terns emerge around
the power strategies?
To understand power strategy formation, a perspective
using an interdisciplinary power games and relations
perspective is advocated. Power strategy formation takes
place at the surface level of organizations, where
actors manipulate power sources to confront others in
order to gain their compliance, to avoid resistance, and
to prevent the emergence of controversial issues that
become dilemmas for them. Strategy formation also occurs
on a deeper level, where actions of personnel are coded
with cultural values, beliefs, and practices that often
are an unperceived part of organizational functioning.
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