Coalitions

Conceptual Overview

The concept of coalition refers to the important phenomenon of organizational politics. Organizational politics is a familiar aspect of organizational life, often associated with struggles of interest, influence processes “behind the scene,” and the use of power to solve conflicts of interest. Organizational researchers have not yet agreed on a common understanding of organizational politics or coalitions.

The work of Cyert and March in 1963 marked the beginning of the study of coalitions as an organizational topic. They assume that there is conflict within organizations over purposes and goals. Therefore, individuals or groups of shareholders, managers and employees, and so forth, band together and form coalitions to influence goals and related decisionmaking processes. The most powerful alignment of those actors in organizations will become the dominant coalition. Coalitions are power tools, and their members may be both internal and external actors who have an interest in organizational activities, as Henry Mintzberg noted in 1983.

Taking the perspective on organizational politics developed by Bacharach and Lawler in their 1998 work, organizations are generally regarded as “arenas” in which single actors or groups of actors—coalitions—are interdependent, strive for realization of their interests, and have to take into account the interests of others inside (and outside) the organization. Coalition formation in organizations thus is an effort of individuals or groups to mobilize support for, or opposition to, organizational strategies, policies, or practices in which they have an interest.

Taken together, coalitions in organizations have some basic characteristics, as noted by Pearce, Stevenson, and Porter in 1986 and Bacharach and Lawler in 1998:

In short, individuals willing to form a coalition are basically confronted with three major problems or decisions: whether to act alone or with others, how to mobilize others and their resources to support an emerging coalition, and how to coordinate group actions with actions of other groups and coalitions in organizations.

First, the decision to act alone or in cooperation mainly depends on the actor's expectations of probable gains or benefits of coalition action, compared to individual action. For example, actors may compare their individual power to protect themselves from an expected job loss with the power of a coalition, including colleagues and union members, to do so.

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