Looking at this interaction in terms of ‘influencing attempts’, who is the agent and who is the target? Are these influencing attempts successful or unsuccessful?
sociology
Description
General Requirement
Listen carefully to this recording of an interaction between a Conductor and a Controller working
for CN Rail and then analyse this interaction using concepts taken from the course text.
You may need to listen more than once and take notes. Read the background information given
below to help make sense of this interaction.
Specific Questions That You Must Answer
1. Looking at this interaction in terms of ‘influencing attempts’, who is the agent and who is the target? Are these influencing attempts successful or unsuccessful?
2. Using Yukl’s framework, what influencing tactics are used? How effective are they?
3. Using the Psychological Bases of Power framework, what beliefs do the targets appear to have. What indirect evidence do we have about this, if any? What effect do these beliefs appear to have in shaping behaviour?
4. Just listening to this recording it is not clear whether either the conductor or the controller is actually breaking organizational rules and what rules, if any, they are breaking. What is your best guess about this and about their motives? What additional information would we need to clarify these questions?
5. Overall, why do you think that this interaction took the form and had the outcome that it
did?
