historical management

7/29/2019 Historical Management

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Travis Perera Aug. 07, 2007

Evolution of Management fromHistorical to Contemporary

Thought

Historical Milestones

&

Conceptual Background


Applications

z Sense making in the workplace

– understanding why things happen the

way they do

– increasing the chances of predictingwhat might happen in the future

z Guiding your thinking about alternativecourses of action

z Conceptualizing and carrying out formalinquiry -- such as a research


Organization studies can be dividedinto three broad categories

z Orthodox Organizational Thought orOrganizational Classicism

z Neo-Orthodox Organizational Thought orNeo-Classicism

z Non Orthodox Thought


Consider the management skills required…

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


Sri Lankan Hydraulic Civilization

z knowledge of mathematics andhydraulic principles; the valvetower for regulating the escapeof water is believed to havebeen invented in Anuradhapurain the 4th century B.C. Thishydraulic engineering and thesubsequent irrigation allowedthe concentration of largenumbers of people in the areaand the creation of a large city-

state. Travis Perera Aug. 07, 2007

Newtonian Mechanics 1642-1727z Established that nature is

governed by laws, that there isorder to the universe and allnatural phenomenon (in thephysical world) conform tothose laws. Natural motion isconceived in the image of arational machine.

z Science becomes identified with such concepts aslinear causality, determinism, reductionism, andrationality




Militarism & MechanizationFrederick the Great 1740-1786

z Frederick the Great (an earlyefficiency expert) redirected the

structures and processes ofwaging war and created theelements of the machineorganization as applied to themilitary establishment

z Elements included: Establishment of authority bya systematic hierarchy of ranks; identity byuniforms; standardization of regulations; taskspecialization; command language to reducemiscommunication and specialized training


z Frederick revolutionized warfare

and was successful because – Troops feared authority, not the

enemy

– Commanders had local autonomyof decision making underdecentralized control

– Parts (people) are interchangeable,easily replaced


Emergence of the Scientific MethodCirca 1700

z Science requests nature to manifest itself in termsof predictable forces; it sets up experiments forthe sole purpose of asking whether and hownature follows the scheme (theory) conceived byscience

z A priori propositions are tested and the answersrecorded precisely, but the relevance of thoseanswers is assessed in terms of the idealizationsthat guided the experiment in the first place

z The harmony of the world is mathematical andnumbers are the key to understanding reality


Modern Social Science...

z Is dominated by the rational, linear-causal, logical-sequential approach to research evolving overtime from the Newtonian model of discoveringcausality: This we call Logical Positivism

z Identify a problem to study

z Conceptualize it in terms of hypotheses that, if

verified, might alleviate the problemz Design an experiment

z Objectively collect objective data

z Analyze data

z Interpret the results objectively, of course


Scientific Management

A.K.A., Taylorismz Frederick Winslow Taylor (1910-

1915) posited that greaterindustrial profitability results fromincreased productivity andsimultaneous reduction of unitcost

•Productivity is increased and unit cost reduced byincreasing worker task efficiency

•worker efficiency improves with the dispensationof rewards for volume and punishment for lowproductivity

•Taylor was an engineer and self-styled consultant


Principles of

Scientific Management

z Eliminate the guesswork of rule-of-thumbmanagement of job procedures; use scientificmeasurement to break down the job intosequential component job tasks

z Use scientific methods for selecting and trainingworkers for specific jobs

z Establish a clear division of responsibilitybetween management and workers. Managementdoes the goal setting and supervising; workersexecute the tasks

z Establish discipline to achieve worker cooperation




Formal BureaucracyMax Weber, 1910-1920

z Organizations in Weber’s worldwere dominated by the whims ofauthoritarian industrialists and anentrenched political system in apost-feudal caste systemcontrolled by landed gentry

• The relationship between management andworkers was based on tradition and classprivilege

• Bureaucracy as a model of organization offered away to make organizations more fair, impartial andpredictable (i.e., rational)


Elements of Bureaucracy1.Hierarchical organizational structures

systematically orders communication andauthority 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 regulationscovering rights and duties in the workplace

4.Impersonality of interpersonal relations

5.Promotion & selection for technical expertise

6.Rational, systematic goal-oriented organizationalprocesses


Look Familiar?

Any Organization

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The Human Relations Movement (1935-1950)

z The Hawthorne studies at Western Electricin Chicago examined the effects of humanfactors on productivity (1927-1932)

z Quite by accident, the researchersdiscovered two surprising but

fundamental principles that added a newdimension to the theory of managementand organization


The Hawthorne Studies set out to

answer six questions

z Do employees actually get tired?

z Are pauses for rest desirable?

z Is a shorter working day desirable?

z What is the attitude of employees towardwork?

z What effects are there from changingequipment?

z Why does production fall off in theafternoon?


Two of the major findings...

z We tend to get what we evaluate, which isto say that people who know they are thesubjects of study tend to behaveaccording to what they believe theresearchers want to see. This is theHawthorne Effect

z Formal bureaucracy notwithstanding, aninformal organization is at workcontrolling work flow and productivity




Chester Barnard

z Chief executive for Bell of NewJersey (1938). Forerunner to

some social systems theorists(1950-1975) in that he attended toboth the organizational andhuman dimensions of the system.

z According to Barnard, we have organization whenpeople can communicate with one another and arewilling to contribute (work) to accomplish acommon purpose (i.e., the organization’s goals)


z A key to Barnard’s management thinkingis the idea of mutual effort and

cooperation with voluntary compliancez in spite of the fact that Taylor’s

notion of reward and punishment arestill available to managers.


Herbert Simon(1945,47)

z Simon insisted on administrationbecoming a science based on theapproach emerging at the time inbehaviorism (Skinner & Watson)

• Simon relied on recent psychological andsociological currents to observe that there arelimits in the ability of organizational members tomake fully rational decisions (data based) and ittherefore becomes necessary to establish thevalue conditions and structures for decisionmaking


z Value conditions and structure to Simonmeant rules and standardization

z Decision makers do not select the bestchoice options because of intellectuallimitations on processing all availablealternatives. Decision making amounts to“satisficing ”

z administration is (or can be) a science

– based on the scientific method

– it is objective and value free

– rationality is defined as goal orientedmeans


Douglas McGreggor, 1960’s

z “What is it that causes anindividual to join an organization,stay in it, and work toward itsgoals?”

• McGreggor believed the answer was to be found indiscovering the assumptions about people carriedaround in the heads of administrators who makedecisions that affect people

• McGreggor’s Theory X, Theory Y is a framework ofassumptions about people


Theory X rests on four assumptions

1. The average person inherently dislikeswork and will avoid it when possible

2. Since people dislike work, they must beclosely supervised, directed, coerced orthreatened with punishment

3. The average worker will shirkresponsibility and seek formal directionfrom superiors

4. Most workers value job security aboveother factors and have little ambition




Theory Y Assumptions

1. Work is satisfying to employees; they view

work as natural and as acceptable as play2. People at work will exercise initiative, self

direction, self control if they are committedto the goals of the organization

3. The average person learns not only to acceptresponsibility but to seek it

4. the average employee values creativity andseeks opportunities to be creative at work


A Sampler of Alternative Perspectives onOrganization and Leadership

z “One of the major paradoxes facing

modern managers is that they need tocombine a high tolerance for ambiguityand openness to competing views with theneed to create a ‘closure’ that allows themto go forward in a positive way. While theprofessional postmodernist can relish therelativism of competing perspectives themanager has to go one step further andact in all this uncertainty.” -- Morgan, 1997


Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems -- Organizational functions often assumed to be

sequential and responsive (e.g.., goal setting andgoal responsive activities) may, in fact, be neithersequential nor responsive. Activities may precedegoals and activities may have nothing to do with

the goals to which they were assumed to berelated.


Marxian Perspective

z Organizations, organizationalforms, and the structures employedto study them are creatures of thehistorical processes that gave riseto then in the first place: Many ofthe structural contradictions inorganizations are overlook because

they support pervasive socialvalues.

z “We try to achieve [reform] with methodsspringing from the very same belief system weintend to reform” (Block, 1993, p. 200).


Organizations as Clans

z The clan concept may best explain themaverick entrepreneurial organization orthe elite groups. The process ofsocialization is the source of order andcontrol

historical management

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