Upward Power

Examples of Upward Power in the following topics:

• Power

  • Legitimate power, power given to individuals willingly by others, is called "authority;" illegitimate power, power taken by force or the threat of force, is called "coercion. " In the corporate environment, power is often expressed as upward or downward.
  • When a company exerts upward power, it is the subordinates who influence the decisions of the leader.
  • Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to humans as social beings.
  • All parties to all relationships have some power.
  • Compare the positives and negatives associated with the use of power and how power operates in society

• Sources of Power

  • Power is the ability to get things done.
  • Although people sometimes regard power as evil or corrupt, power is a fact of organizational life and in itself is neither good nor bad.
  • On the other hand, subordinates can also exercise upward power by trying to influence the decisions of their leader.
  • Power comes from several sources, each of which has different effects on the targets of that power.
  • Also called "positional power," this is the power individuals have from their role and status within an organization.

• Capitalism, class, privilege, and oppression

  • These inequalities result from a class system based on increasing gaps in income, wealth, and power between the few people on top and the masses of people at the bottom.
  • Despite the myth that hard work leads to getting ahead and making it, for the most part people have little power to improve their class position.
  • Research shows people are as likely to move downward as they are upward in the class system.
  • Currently, corporate downsizing, the loss of industrial jobs going overseas, the expansion of low-paying service occupations, and the Great Recession beginning in 2007, have combined to result in many people struggling to keep the jobs that they have, rather than being able to move upward.

• Types of Social Mobility

  • Barack Obama's ascent from being the child of a middle-class interracial couple to being the president of the United States is an example of upward mobility.
  • Bernie Madoff's fall from being a rich and powerful Wall Street executive to a prison inmate is an example of downward mobility.
  • The British middle class thus experienced absolute upward mobility.
  • Once the British middle class experienced absolute upward mobility, an individual child became expected to achieve greater status than their parents, even though this was not true in every individual case.
  • A distinction can be drawn between absolute social mobility, which refers to the total observed movement of people between classes, and relative social mobility, which is an estimate of the chance of upward or downward movement of a member of one social class in comparison with a member from another class.

• Architecture under Constantine

  • Constantine seized sole power over Rome, establishing authority and stability.
  • Not only did Diocletian abdicate power, but so did his first co-emperor, Maximian.
  • Power eventually passed down to Maximian's son, Maxentius and Constantine, the son of a third co-emperor, Constantius.
  • It shows a portrait of an individual with clearly defined features: a hooked nose, prominent jaw, and large eyes that look upwards.
  • He also held an orb and, possibly, a scepter, and one hand points upwards towards the heavens.

• Upward Communication

  • Upward communication moves from lower to higher levels within an organization.
  • In this way, upward communication indicates the effectiveness of a company's downward communication.
  • The communication channel, or mode of sharing information, strongly influences the upward communication process.
  • The availability of communication channels affects employees' overall satisfaction with upward communication.
  • This is likely to make employees feel satisfied with their level of access to channels of upward communication and less apprehensive about communicating upward.

• The people at the bottom of the pyramid

  • Consider then, that the world's largest consumer markets upwards of two-thirds of humanity – are comprised of poor people that are either ignored or forgotten by most businesses because of tradition, ignorance, or prejudice.
  • ‘Inclusive business' is the term used to describe efforts that include ‘bottom-of-the-pyramid' (BoP) customers in a company's business model – and the key to tapping into this powerful economic base is ‘local partner selection'.

• Market Supply

  • As a result, the supply curve is upward sloping .
  • " If a firm has market power, its decision of how much output to provide to the market influences the market price, then the firm is not "faced with" any price, and the question is meaningless.
  • The market supply curve is an upward sloping curve depicting the positive relationship between price and quantity supplied.

• The Conflict Perspective: Class Conflict and Scarce Resources

  • Nannies, who are employed as informal, unregulated labor, are an example of lower class employees with little chance of upward mobility and few protections against exploitation.
  • According to conflict theory, social stratification benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor.
  • Functionalists also argue that conflict theorists underestimate people's ability to move upward in society.
  • Nannies, who are often minority women, are one example of lower class workers with little chance for upward mobility.

• Changes in Demand and Supply and Impacts on Equilibrium

  • As would be assumed, an increase in demand will shift price upwards and volume to the right, increasing the overall value of both metrics relative to the prior equilibrium point .
  • Demand shifts can therefore often be affected by economic factors such as average spending power per person in a given economy or overall average income.
  • Supply shifts are defined by more or less of a particular product/service being available to fulfill a given demand, affecting the equilibrium point by shifting the supply curve upwards or downwards.
  • Due to the demand curve sloping downward and the supply curve sloping upwards, they inadvertently will cross at some given point on any supply/demand chart.