Compliance and Identification

QUESTION 1:

Identify and describe the three influences of Compliance, Identification and Internalization in your own words with examples.

a) Compliance

Compliance is defined by Handy (1993: 143) as the state whereby the recipient agrees to the initiator of influence due to force, rules and procedures that he must abide with. This refers to people who do things accordingly to what they are told. These people go along with their boss either out of fear or because of some rewards offered by the boss (also known as reward power) for them to comply. Checking whether the compliant worker does what he is supposed to do remains with the initiator of influence. In Compliance, if you are the person with the power source, your attempt is ensured to be accepted. However, as mentioned by Handy the act of acceptance is a denial of choice as it is done grudgingly only because the recipient acknowledges your power. Although Compliance may occur in various aspects of real life, one of them may be the tendency to wear uniform in certain places. For instance, during high school every student was emphasized to abide with the school regulation of wearing full school uniforms. A majority of the school including myself grudgingly followed the rules only because we had to in order to avoid punishment. The school prefects and staff made sure that everyone inside school grounds were wearing full school uniforms by having morning inspections. Compliant students reluctantly obey rules when observed and enforced. This result in low commitment and less school pride in students.

b) Identification

In the case of Identification, Handy (ibid) explains that the recipient identifies with the initiator of influence because he admires him hence adopting his idea of proposal. It becomes favorable to the initiator as it is common to feel pleasured in being identified with. Normally workers identify with a charismatic boss and are magnetized and motivated to be like him. Handy (1993: 144) continues to explain that this results on the dependent of the recipient on the source of magnetism which makes it indispensable and reduces flexibility. To illustrate, Identification may occur in ones government. For instance, in Tonga after every four years the people must choose members to enter the parliament as their representatives. These people are the ones that they admire and would like to identify with due to what they propose to do for the country. Over many years now the people have chosen Samiuela ‘Akilisi Pohiva repeatedly as the first representative for people. This shows a majority of the people admires his work and chooses to identify with him. They are magnetized and motivated by him that they become dependent on him for the changes made for the government. This is a very effective form of commitment. However, as Handy (ibid) stated,

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