Outline

• Prescriptive/universalist approaches:

Bureaucracy and Scientific management

Human Relations

Organisations as MachinesOrganisations as Machines

Organisation as Machine

Bureaucracy As Machine

“The fully developed bureaucratic mechanism compares with other organisations exactly does the machine with the non-mechanical modes of production.”

Weber’s Ideal-Typical Bureaucracy

J ob specialisation (DoL)

Work is divided so that authority and responsibility are clearly defined

Authority hierarchy Offices or position are organised in a clear chain-of-command hierarchy

Formal rules and regulations

To guide the actions of employees, managers must issue formal rules and regulations

Impersonality Rules and controls are applied uniformly, avoiding involvement of personalities (not on whom you know basis)

Formal selection All members are selected on the basis of technical qualifications demonstrated by training, education or formal examination

Career orientation Managers are professional officers (not owners), work for fixed salaries and pursue their careers within the organisation

Red-Tape =? Bureaucracy

Scientific Management (=Taylorism)

• A systematic method of determining the best way to do a job and specifying the skills needed to perform it

• Taylor’s objective was to achieve:• Efficiency: by eliminating waste, increasing the output per

worker and reducing underworking (or soldiering) by employees

• Standardisation: of jobs, by dividing tasks into small specified subtasks

• Discipline: by establishing hierarchical authority and introducing a system whereby management decisions are implemented or enforced

Principles of Scientific Management

• Define a clear division of tasks and responsibilities between management and workers (a la Weber)

• Use scientific methods to determine the most efficient way of doing work with rules and principles, replacing rule-of-thumb

• Select the best person to perform the job designed• Train the worker to do the work efficiently• Monitor worker performance to ensure that the work is

performed with the principles of scientific management and secure this with the use of economic incentives

Training by Rules and Regulations

Taylor’s One Best Way (1911, p.15)

• ‘The workmen in all our trades have been taught the details of their work by observation of those immediately around them, there are many ways in common use for doing the same thing... Now, among the various methods and implements used in each element of trade there is always one method and one implement which is quicker and better than any of the rest. And this one best method and best implement can only be discovered or developed through a scientific study and analysis of all the methods and implements in use, together with accurate, minute, motion and time study. This involves the gradual substitution of science for rule-of-thumb throughout the mechanic arts’

Taylorism at Work at Bettlehem Steel

3rd Year Achievements Old Plan New Plan

labourers 500 140

tons pw/pd (avg.) 16 59

earnings per w. (avg.) $1.15 $1.88

cost of handling a ton $0.072 $0.033

net savings in labour cost 4 cents

total savings per year $75000-80000

Taylor’s View of Workers

• To Taylor, the worker was an ‘economic animal’ who responded directly to financial incentives

• He regarded the worker as a machine fuelled only by money.– ‘Now one of the very first requirements for a man who

is fit to handle pig iron as a regular occupation is that he shall be so stupid and phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental makeup the ox than any other type. The man who is mentally alert and intelligent is entirely unsuited to what would be the grinding monotony of work of this character’.

Taylorism as Control of Labour

• Workers should be controlled not only by the giving of orders and maintenance of discipline, but also by removing from them any decisions about the manner in which their work was to be carried out.

• By division of labour, by isolating the individual worker, and by dictating precise stages and methods for work, management could gain control of the actual production process.

• And the use of economic incentives could turn workers into ‘cogs in a machine’.

• The jobs were simplified so that workers would be cheap, easy to train, easy to supervise, and easy to replace -- think of robots replacing human labour!!.

• All of these enhances the meaning of work imposed through the clock-time...

Management

Checklist in

A Fast-Food

Restaurant

Greeting the Customer Yes No

1. There is a smile

2. There is eye contact

Taking the Order

1.The counter person is familiar with menu

2-The customer has to give the order only once

3-There is suggestive selling

Assembling the Order

1-Assembled in proper order

2-Proper amount of ice in drinks

3-Drinks are filled to the proper level

Presenting the Order

1- It is properly packaged

2-Plastic trays are used if eating inside

Asking for and Receiving Payment

1-The amount of the order is stated clearly

2- The change is counted out loud and efficiently

Thanking the Customer

1-The thank-you is sincere

Criticisms of Taylorism

• Neglected the importance of other rewards from work (achievement, job satisfaction and recognition)

• Ignored the psychological needs and capabilities of workers

• Removed ‘the social’ from human beings: subject to the alienation, de-skilling and rationalisation criticisms

• This ‘asocial’ (or individualistic) perspective on organisation not only undermined the human potential but also ignored the ability of workers to create their own forms of resistance and, hence, solidarity

Organisation as Machine

• Mechanistic organisation works well under conditions where machines work well:

– when there is a straightforward task to perform– when the environment is stable enough to ensure that

the products produced will be appropriate (scale economies)

– when one wishes to produce exactly the same product over and over again

– when precision in doing one task is at a premium– when the human machine parts are compliant and

behave as they have been designed to do

NO COMMENTTaylor: ‘...scientific management [is] applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest acts to the work of

our great corporations’

Human Relations and Hawthorne Experiments

• The objective was to investigate the impact of physical working conditions on workers’ productivity.

• To advertise for the use of light bulbs in factories, the management wanted to show the relationship between lighting and productivity. For there was competition between gas and electric lighting producers for industrial use.

• There were 4 stages in the experiments:• illumination experiments• relay assembly tests• interviewing programme• the bank wiring observation room

Relay Assembly Test Room Experiments

90

95

100

105

110

115

120

125

130

% o

f standard

outp

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standard

work cn

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work cn

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two 1

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Rests

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Rests

15 m

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rests lu

nch

15 m

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rests lu

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same+Sat

AM

Off

same+Sat

AM

Off

standard

standard

15 m

in

rests+

lunch

In General, productivity increased with each change in work conditions

The Hawthorne Effect: A Turning Point

• Two Hawthorne effects are distinguished today:• The real change was the segregation of a small

group that behaved and performed differently because they were being observed by the research team – research intervention was an independent variable itself in its effect on human behaviour

• The observer in the experiment had become a trusted friend of the women, allowing an informal group to develop, which gave their life a new meaning

Conclusions from Hawthorne Studies

Social context shapes the perceptions and motives; thus individuals who may possess highly productive assets can, in the ‘wrong’ social environment, be unproductive and unmotivated

People at work are motivated by more than pay and conditions alone: (Barnard: ‘the human factor cannot be simply slotted into task assignments and motivated by external material reward’)

Work is a group activity, and individuals should be seen as group members not in isolation (Mayo: Desire for human association is a fundamental human impulse)

The need for recognition, security and sense of belonging is more important in determining workers’ morale and productivity (than pay and work conditions)

Through their unofficial norms, informal groups exercise strong controls over the work habits and attitudes of individuals

Supervisors need to be aware of both individuals’ social needs and the power of the informal group in order to align these to achieve the formal (organisational) objectives

What Did this Mean?

• Human relations theorists suggest that the role of management is to provide organisational environments in which employers can fulfil the social needs of their employees and encourage the workers’ desire for co-operative activity

• Thus, as long as management knows how to control these social factors, they will be able to use their employees’ social needs to achieve managerial ends

• ‘Winning the hearts & minds of workers’

Continuing the Taylorist Tradition:Human Relations as Control of Labour

• The technical features of Taylorism did not contradict Human Relations: – Taylor’s workers required only money; Mayo’s workers required group

membership. – It is the case that mechanical methods of management control is still in

place...

• So, Human Relations continued where Taylorism left it: extended the division of labour and compensated for lack of motivation with social stimulation

• Therefore, it may really represent simply another strategy of organisational control. For it has provided a new tool for managers by creating and sustaining consent

Conclusions:From Taylor’s Economic Animal to Mayo’s Social Man

• In response to ‘the economic animal’ of Taylor, Mayo stressed the importance of ‘the social man’

• The universal assumption here is that the major human need is for social solidarity which can be satisfied through group association

• Naturally this undermines the role of economic incentives• In other words, participants act according to sentiments

and emotions...This, though, emphasises the essentially co-operative or consent-based nature of the business organisation

• According to both approaches, one could prescribe the rules of organisation, which would be universally applicable