CLASSICAL THEORIES AND MODELS OF ORGANISATIONS

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CLASSICAL THEORIES AND MODELS OF ORGANISATIONS

• Theories and Conceptual Frameworks are important
  in understanding Organisations as well as
  discerning how in turn they shape Organisations
• Organisational Theories are seen as a necessity
  and a sign of societal progress
• Organisational Theories have a mixed parentage
• They are used as an explanatory tool and as means
  of controlling workers

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BACKGROUND

• Three phases of Industrialisation
• Phase I Increase in use of simple machines to
  increase productivity, range of products
• Creation of Factory System
• Greater control of the worker and the processes
  of work
• Formalisation of gendered division of labor

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BACKGROUND CONT.

• Phase II Expansion of Factory System
• Increasing complexity of tasks requires better
  educated male work-force introduction of mass
  education
• Increased need for bureaucracy, i.e. Control,
  routine, specialisation
• Growth in numbers of administrators and managers

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BACKGROUND CONT.

• Improvements in Transport and Communication
• Notion of Free Trade developed further
• Greater variety of consumer goods
• Growth of governmental control
• Creation of new and larger middle class of
  managers, clerical workers, professionals

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BACKGROUND CONT.

• Phase III Development of techniques to increase
  consumption
• Advertising, Market Research, etc
• Search for new markets and sources of raw
  materials
• Shift from industrialism to post-industrialism
• Management led to significant changes in division
  of labour and work processes rather than
  technology

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SELECTION OF CLASSICAL THEORIES

• Adam Smith
• Development of theory of the efficiency of the
  division of labour
• Breakdown of work process, minute specialisation
  and de-skilling of workers
• Introduction of mass production and managerial
  control

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CLASSICAL THEORIES CONT.

• Karl Marx
• Collective work is the foundation of humanity and
  a good society
• Antagonism between Labour and Capital
• Alienation of worker from the product, the work
  process, fellow workers and species being

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CLASSICAL THEORIES CONT.

• Emile Durkheim
• Focus on macro level and societal value consensus
• Social division of labour necessary and
  beneficial because it leads to interdependence of
  parts of the social system
• Advocates the use of the scientific method in
  the study of organisations

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CLASSICAL THEORIES CONT.

• Frederick Taylor
• Invents the notion of Scientific Management,
  focus on rationality
• Piece-rate pay, increased efficiency, greater
  control by management of all aspects of work
• Legitimises the role of managers as control agents

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CLASSICAL THEORIES CONT.

• Henri Fayol
• Issues of span of control, exceptions,
  departmentation, unity of command,
• Responsibilities of managers planning,
  organising, command, coordination, control

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CLASSICAL THEORIES CONT.

• Max Weber
• Focus on rational virtues of bureaucracy such as
  formal authority based on precise, generalised
  rules and procedures legal-rational authority
• Bureaucracy seen as necessary in complex
  societies but are also becoming iron cage which
  imprisons humanity and reduces people to cogs in
  an ever-moving machine

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CLASSICAL THEORIES CONT.

• Elton Mayo
• Australian Social Scientist who taught at the
  Harvard Business School
• Major figure in the Hawthorne Studies known as
  the Human Relations Approach
• Focus on social influences on workers and on
  productivity
• Aim of the study to increase productivity and
  decrease costs

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MODELS AND METAPHORS

• Machine Metaphor
• Organisations machines designed to operate
  efficiently and effectively
• Managers organisational engineers
• Machine like behaviour routine, predictable
  and reliable
• Metaphor of the computerupdated machine metaphor

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MODELS AND METAPHORS CONT.

• Organic Metaphor
• Biological living organisms depend on environment
  for resources to support existence
• Requires adaptation and organisational processes
  for survival
• Focus on environmental dependence, technological
  transformation and structural adaptation

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MODELS AND METAPHORS CONT.

• Cultural Metaphor
• A new source of organisational understanding
• Focus on customs, traditions, stories and myths,
  artifacts and symbols of organisations
• Manager is the symbol of the organisation, a
  storyteller and bearer of tradition