Organisation Theory an historic expos

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Organisation Theoryan historic exposé

• Lecture
• Frida Wikstrand
• 2003-10-29

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Bureaucracy (Weber 1864-1920)The ideal type

• Formalized division in work with well defined
  areas of responsibility
• A well clarified hierarchy
• All issues follows certain well defined rules and
  instructions
• Everything must be documented in writing whish is
  kept in archives
• Employment in a bureaucracy demands a certain
  training
• A bureaucracy does not take notice of a clients
  persons, status or other issues when coming to
  decision
• The bureaucrat has no private right to the
  organisations resources.
• The administrator can not be replaced.
• Promotion in a bureaucracy is based on age and
  time in the organisation

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Basic conditions for bureaucracy

• Stable conditions
• The tasks in the organisation must be divided
• The tasks in the organisation must be known to
  everybody
• The administrator must be able to choose and give
  priority to tempo instead of problem solving

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Administrative Management (Fayol 1841-1925)

• 14 principles of good practise (presenting a
  handful)
• The Superior should have only 6-8 employees to
  control
• The employee should have only one superior
• The organisation must have as few levels as
  possible between the top and the bottom
• Responsibility and recourses must be accompanied
• Responsibility must be clarified
• Centralisation of decisions regarding work
  standards practices organisation
• Division of work
• Decentralisation and delegation of decision (in
  special cases)
• Specialisation in the organisation after
  function object/product geographic area

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Fayols organisation scheme
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Scientific Management(Frederick W Taylor
1858-1917)

• Management as a science
• Man is a machine
• To Taylor human behaviour were something that you
  could control in the same way that you control a
  machine
• The aim were efficiency in the organisation and
  to increase productivity
• Idea is that there is one right way to perform a
  task and it takes a certain time
• A rational organisation had maximal division of
  labour and specialisation
• Specialisation in management were managers had
  special functions such as employee
  administration, salary, maintenance etc.
• Decision making has to take one rational form
  it is a rational process of choice

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SM and knowledge

• The workers should not work in groups since that
  made discussions and arguments possible. All
  communication and information sharing should go
  through managers.
• The workers handcraft knowledge should be
  replaced by scientific knowledge
• Knowledge should be organised, brought together,
  written down and systemized
• The managers role were to in a systemized way
  gather the knowledge of the workers

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SM today?

• You can find thoughts of a best way of doing
  things in quality assuring systems
• Control in details
• The division between worker and manager is well
  routed in most organisations
• Many factories has gone from teamwork to
  individual work on the line

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Human Relations(1920 1940)

• Roethlisberg and Dickson found that work
  performance increased not only when lighting in
  the factory were improved but also when it got
  worse and the workers could hardly see.
• Hawthorne Studies (Mayo 1927)
• Brought in psychologists in the organisations
• Aim to see how different production factors
  influenced work performance
• Lighting
• Timing and length of brakes
• Bonus schemes and group bonus schemes

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Findings from Hawthorne studies

• First study
• Production increased as expected. To control the
  findings Mayo also controlled the production of
  the group when back in their ordinary work
  environment and found that the performance
  continued to increase.
• Second study
• Realised that there were a lot of conflicts
  between different levels in the organisations.
  Mayo suggested that they had to develop an
  increased understanding within the organisation
  for workers and managers different conditions and
  expectations.

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Findings from Hawthorne studies

• Third study
• Mayo found that the work was controlled and
  limited by the workgroup itself. The group had
  norms and values about how much to produce and
  how fast the work should be done. The informal
  workgroup was lifted up as an important issue in
  the organisation.

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Input to Human Relations

• The performance in the organisation can not be
  deduced to physical work environment but to
  social aspects of the work group
• The worker does not function as an individual but
  as a group member
• Effect on production were especially significant
  when the situation was characterized by
  participation and communication
• New view on motivation to work compared to SM.
  The social rewards such as commendations, self
  awareness, safe environment etc
• HR see the informal social organisational
  structure as more important than the formal.

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Development after HR

• Organisational psychology
• Human needs affect the organisation (Argyris
  1971)
• Physiological needs (food, clothes, home)
• Need of safety (material and physical)
• Social needs (friendship, contact, group)
• Need of status and prestige (need to feel that
  you are somebody)
• Need of self-fulfilment
• When one need on one level is fulfilled you move
  up to the next step (Origin Maslow) Argyris argue
  that it is a human need to fulfil oneself.

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Continued

• To live up to these individual needs the
  organisation must be structured in a new way
• Responsibility must be delegated
• Work must be expanded and include different kind
  of tasks
• Management must be aware of human needs
• Edgar Schein (1968) talks about people as being
  complex. He argues that there is not one right
  way to manage employees. The manager must accept
  different kind of personalities and adapt
  different kind of management to meet the needs in
  the organisation

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Different ways of organising work today

• Project work / projects
• Matrix organisation
• Network organisations
• Spaghetti organisations
• etc