PROJ6006: Acorn Industries - Project Team Success and Power Dynamics

This assignment analyzes the application of power in project management within the context of Acorn Industries, a company undergoing significant changes and transitioning into government contracts. The discussion explores the importance of various power types, including legitimate, reward, and expert power, as outlined by Shenoy, and their impact on project team success. The student discusses how project managers can use these powers to motivate team members, manage budgets, encourage technical development, and drive marketing efforts. It highlights the differences between manipulation and influence, emphasizing the importance of using power to benefit the organization and achieve its goals. The assignment draws on case study information about Acorn Industries and its project management approach, referencing various academic sources to support the arguments.

Running head: EXERCISING THE POWER TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS FOR THE PROJECT TEAM
Exercising the power to achieve success for the project team
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

EXERCISING THE POWER TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS FOR THE PROJECT TEAM
Discussion 1:
Acorn Industries was basically a small size Midwestern Corporation that used to deal with
lines of single products in the market (Acorn-ind.co.uk, 2019). The Company was run under
decentralized managerial philosophies, and in the year 1993, it decided to undertake strong
programs on acquisition of market therefore leaders started thinking of certain changes they
could have brought in the organization environment (Rasool et al., 2015). If legitimate
powers are utilized by the leaders that would render power to them to address the team
members to perform certain actions and this would usually do not take into account decision
of individual members. Thus this would help the Company to diversify their products in the
economic market.
The project managers can adopt reward power as described by Shenoy to appreciate and
motivate the team members for working hard in order to achieve their goals (Krickovic,
2015). These project managers actually keep a record over budgets that are associated with
those project activities therefore through providing rewards and benefits they would try to
satisfy the employees, encourage technical development in project activities undertaken by
Acorn Industries (Kerzner, 2017). Thus try to achieve strong efforts associated with
marketing opportunities, this would increase intensive competition of the Industry within
marketplace.
On utilizing more than one source while leading a team, a team leader can exercise legitimate
power as described by Shenoy under the organization can make the team members undertake
more research on the interests as well as demands of customers towards products as well as
services and this would help the product line to achieve high competition and thereby acquire
large part of market share within the economy. As it has been discussed in the Case Study
Chris Bank usually looks forward towards abiding by the philosophies of a program manager

EXERCISING THE POWER TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS FOR THE PROJECT TEAM
who usually take care that the Company is able to deliver minimum performance as required
by several contract agreements. Since Acorn started becoming involved with large number of
contracts at government standards therefore it always try to maintain a firm position with its
choice over low cost advanced technologies with high reliability (Acorn-ind.co.uk, 2019).
There exist a clear difference between manipulation as well as influence of power since
manipulation refers to exercising certain rights of power that can be termed as authority to get
the task done by group of members. However influence of power is usually referred to the
certain measures that are undertaken by organization members so that they can have positive
effect mostly on the organization. Manipulation might have negative impact whereas
influencing a person is usually directed towards organization benefits.

EXERCISING THE POWER TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS FOR THE PROJECT TEAM
Reference List
Rasool, H. F., Arfeen, I. U., Mothi, W., & Aslam, U. (2015). Leadership styles and its impact
on employee's performance in health sector of Pakistan. City University Research
Journal, 5(1), 97-109.
Krickovic, A. (2015). All politics is regional: Emerging powers and the regionalization of
global governance. Global Governance, 21, 557.
Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Acorn-ind.co.uk (2019). About us - Acorn Industrial Services ltd. [online] Acorn-ind.co.uk.
Available at: https://www.acorn-ind.co.uk/about-us/ [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].