Evolution of Management from Historical to Contemporary Thought

Applications
Sense making in the workplace understanding why things happen the way they do increasing the chances of predicting what might happen in the future Guiding your thinking about alternative courses of action Conceptualizing and carrying out formal inquiry -- such as a research

Historical Milestones & Conceptual Background

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Organization studies can be divided into three broad categories

Orthodox Organizational Thought or Organizational Classicism Neo-Orthodox Organizational Thought or Neo-Classicism Non Orthodox Thought

Consider the management skills required

The Great Pyramid 75,600 sq.ft. at its base, 480 ft. high, two million blocks of stone, each 2.5 tons, the base of the structure off by only 7 inches to be a perfect square.

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Sri Lankan Hydraulic Civilization

knowledge of mathematics and hydraulic principles; the valve tower for regulating the escape of water is believed to have been invented in Anuradhapura in the 4th century B.C. This hydraulic engineering and the subsequent irrigation allowed the concentration of large numbers of people in the area and the creation of a large citystate.
Historical Developments of Work Organization

Newtonian Mechanics 1642-1727

Established that nature is governed by laws, that there is order to the universe and all natural phenomenon (in the physical world) conform to those laws. Natural motion is conceived in the image of a rational machine. Science becomes identified with such concepts as linear causality, determinism, reductionism, and rationality

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Militarism & Mechanization Frederick the Great 1740-1786

Frederick the Great (an early efficiency expert) redirected the structures and processes of waging war and created the elements of the machine organization as applied to the military establishment Elements included: Establishment of authority by a systematic hierarchy of ranks; identity by uniforms; standardization of regulations; task specialization; command language to reduce miscommunication and specialized training
Historical Developments of Work Organization

Frederick revolutionized warfare and was successful because

Troops feared authority, not the enemy Commanders had local autonomy of decision making under decentralized control Parts (people) are interchangeable, easily replaced
Travis Perera

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Aug. 07, 2007

Emergence of the Scientific Method Circa 1700

Science requests nature to manifest itself in terms of predictable forces; it sets up experiments for the sole purpose of asking whether and how nature follows the scheme (theory) conceived by science A priori propositions are tested and the answers recorded precisely, but the relevance of those answers is assessed in terms of the idealizations that guided the experiment in the first place The harmony of the world is mathematical and numbers are the key to understanding reality
Historical Developments of Work Organization

Modern Social Science...

Is dominated by the rational, linear-causal, logicalsequential approach to research evolving over time from the Newtonian model of discovering causality: This we call Logical Positivism Identify a problem to study Conceptualize it in terms of hypotheses that, if verified, might alleviate the problem Design an experiment Objectively collect objective data Analyze data Interpret the results objectively, of course
Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Scientific Management A.K.A., Taylorism

Frederick Winslow Taylor (19101915) posited that greater industrial profitability results from increased productivity and simultaneous reduction of unit cost

Principles of Scientific Management

Eliminate the guesswork of rule-of-thumb management of job procedures; use scientific measurement to break down the job into sequential component job tasks Use scientific methods for selecting and training workers for specific jobs Establish a clear division of responsibility between management and workers. Management does the goal setting and supervising; workers execute the tasks Establish discipline to achieve worker cooperation
Historical Developments of Work Organization

Productivity is increased and unit cost reduced by increasing worker task efficiency worker efficiency improves with the dispensation
of rewards for volume and punishment for low productivity Taylor was an engineer and self-styled consultant
Travis Perera
Aug. 07, 2007 Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Formal Bureaucracy Max Weber, 1910-1920

Organizations in Webers world were dominated by the whims of authoritarian industrialists and an entrenched political system in a post-feudal caste system controlled by landed gentry

Elements of Bureaucracy
1. Hierarchical organizational structures systematically orders communication and authority among established positions; this is the scalar principle 2. Division of labor based on functional specializations built into the worker 3. A system of procedures, rules and regulations covering rights and duties in the workplace 4. Impersonality of interpersonal relations 5. Promotion & selection for technical expertise 6. Rational, systematic goal-oriented organizational processes
Historical Developments of Work Organization

The relationship between management and

workers was based on tradition and class privilege Bureaucracy as a model of organization offered a way to make organizations more fair, impartial and predictable (i.e., rational)
Travis Perera
Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Look Familiar?
Any Organization Type name here Type title here

The Human Relations Movement (19351950)

The Hawthorne studies at Western Electric in Chicago examined the effects of human factors on productivity (1927-1932) Quite by accident, the researchers discovered two surprising but fundamental principles that added a new dimension to the theory of management and organization

Type name here Type title here

Type name here Type title here

Type name here Type title here

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

The Hawthorne Studies set out to answer six questions

Do employees actually get tired? Are pauses for rest desirable? Is a shorter working day desirable? What is the attitude of employees toward work? What effects are there from changing equipment? Why does production fall off in the afternoon?
Historical Developments of Work Organization

Two of the major findings...

We tend to get what we evaluate, which is to say that people who know they are the subjects of study tend to behave according to what they believe the researchers want to see. This is the Hawthorne Effect Formal bureaucracy notwithstanding, an informal organization is at work controlling work flow and productivity

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Chester Barnard
Chief executive for Bell of New Jersey (1938). Forerunner to some social systems theorists (1950-1975) in that he attended to both the organizational and human dimensions of the system. According to Barnard, we have organization when people can communicate with one another and are willing to contribute (work) to accomplish a common purpose (i.e., the organizations goals)
Historical Developments of Work Organization

A key to Barnards management thinking is the idea of mutual effort and cooperation with voluntary compliance in spite of the fact that Taylors notion of reward and punishment are still available to managers.

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Herbert Simon (1945,47)

Simon insisted on administration becoming a science based on the approach emerging at the time in behaviorism (Skinner & Watson)

Simon relied on recent psychological and

sociological currents to observe that there are limits in the ability of organizational members to make fully rational decisions (data based) and it therefore becomes necessary to establish the value conditions and structures for decision making
Historical Developments of Work Organization

Value conditions and structure to Simon meant rules and standardization Decision makers do not select the best choice options because of intellectual limitations on processing all available alternatives. Decision making amounts to satisficing administration is (or can be) a science based on the scientific method it is objective and value free rationality is defined as goal oriented means
Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Douglas McGreggor, 1960s

What is it that causes an individual to join an organization, stay in it, and work toward its goals?

Theory X rests on four assumptions

1. The average person inherently dislikes work and will avoid it when possible 2. Since people dislike work, they must be closely supervised, directed, coerced or threatened with punishment 3. The average worker will shirk responsibility and seek formal direction from superiors 4. Most workers value job security above other factors and have little ambition
Historical Developments of Work Organization

McGreggor believed the answer was to be found in

discovering the assumptions about people carried around in the heads of administrators who make decisions that affect people McGreggors Theory X, Theory Y is a framework of assumptions about people
Travis Perera
Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Theory Y Assumptions
1.

A Sampler of Alternative Perspectives on Organization and Leadership

One of the major paradoxes facing modern managers is that they need to combine a high tolerance for ambiguity and openness to competing views with the need to create a closure that allows them to go forward in a positive way. While the professional postmodernist can relish the relativism of competing perspectives the manager has to go one step further and act in all this uncertainty. -- Morgan, 1997
Historical Developments of Work Organization

2.

3.

4.

Work is satisfying to employees; they view work as natural and as acceptable as play People at work will exercise initiative, self direction, self control if they are committed to the goals of the organization The average person learns not only to accept responsibility but to seek it the average employee values creativity and seeks opportunities to be creative at work
Travis Perera
Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Marxian Perspective

Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems

-- Organizational functions often assumed to be sequential and responsive (e.g.., goal setting and goal responsive activities) may, in fact, be neither sequential nor responsive. Activities may precede goals and activities may have nothing to do with the goals to which they were assumed to be related.

Organizations, organizational forms, and the structures employed to study them are creatures of the historical processes that gave rise to then in the first place: Many of the structural contradictions in organizations are overlook because they support pervasive social values. We try to achieve [reform] with methods springing from the very same belief system we intend to reform (Block, 1993, p. 200).

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007

Organizations as Clans
The clan concept may best explain the maverick entrepreneurial organization or the elite groups. The process of socialization is the source of order and control

Historical Developments of Work Organization

Travis Perera

Aug. 07, 2007