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Gareth Morgan
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What was discovered in the HawthorneStudies of the 1920s and
1930s?
A new theory of organization built on the idea thatindividuals
and groups, like biological organisms,operate most effectively only
when their needs aresatisfied.
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1. Physiological Salaries and wages
2. Safety
Pension and health care plans; job tenure
3. Love/Belonging
Office and factory parties; a work environment thatpromotes
interaction with colleagues
4. Esteem
Creating jobs with scope for achievement, autonomy,
responsibility; feedback on a job well done.5.
Self-Actualization
Encouragement for employee commitment; job a majorexpressive
dimension of employees life.
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What is the concept of the open system?
Continuous cycle of input, internal transformation,output, and
feedback.
Emphasizes importance of relationships betweenthe environment
and the internal functioning of the
system.
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Can you explain each of the following?
Homeostasis
Entropy/negative entropy
Structure, function, differentiation, and integration
Requisite variety
Equifinality
System Evolution
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Organizations are open systems that needcareful management to
satisfy and balanceinternal needs and adapt to
environmentalcircumstances.
There is no best way of organizing.
Different approaches to management maybe necessary to perform
different tasks
within the same
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Sometimes described as project organizations,
adapt the functional-bureaucratic form to meet thedemands of
special situations through the
establishment of subunits or teams with membershipdrawn from
different functional areas ordepartments.
See diagram in text.
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How does this view relate to Darwins theoryof evolution?
Organizations, like organisms in nature, dependfor survival on
their ability to acquire an adequatesupply of the resources
necessary to sustainexistence...The environment is thus a critical
factorin determining which organizations succeed and
which fail, selecting the most robust competitorsthrough
elimination of the weaker ones.
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What does Kenneth Boulding mean when he
states that evolution involves survival of thefitting and not
just survival of the fittest?
How can this be seen in organizations today?
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What are the strengths and weaknesses of the
organismic metaphor?
