THE THEORY OF ORGANIZATION



THE THEORY OF ORGANIZATION

A team of research anthropologists once decribed a large, complex business composed of twenty-four divisions evenly distributed through the united states and linked together by a nine-member central governing body. Each of the twenty – four divisions has a hicrarchical structure of positions and role that regulates the power in the total business. As evidence of the importance of this business to the united states economy, its annual profit approach $15 bilion, and its liasion network extend into labor unions, state and federal legislatures and judiciary, and several large corporations. The research team described this business as a “formal organization” a social unit deliberately designed and constructed to achieve specific goals.

Without the reference to crime, corruption, and other illicit goals and methods, the description could very easily apply to a national woman’s club, an international social fraternity, a large clothing manufacturer, a political party, or any other complex organization with a specific purpose, large profits and national communication network.

Overview and definition

When the view an organization as a network of interdependent relationships. We can focus on the underlying structure that generates and guides the relationships. These three ways of examining organizational relationships represent the essences of the three major school of organizational thought and theory.

1. the classical theory of organizationa

2. the human relations school

3. the third school of thought is concerned with social system and emphasizes the relationship of the parts to the whole organization.

Questions of motivations, status, role, morale, and attitude underlic the human relations view of organizations. The senate used the human relations approach in its examination of the social and psychological needs of the persons concerned.

The classical school

The classical theory of organization is concerned almost entirely with the design and structureof organizations, not with people. Classical theory evolved from the scientific management movement in which man was described as a rational, economic being who can best be motivated to work by such carrot and-stick techniques as piecework system systems, bonus systems, time-and-motion studies, and cost figuring systems.

The other example of scientific management in practice concerns the manager of an agency who requires all employees to time their interviews with clients, record the number of minutes involved in clerical work, and calculate the average length of an interview and the time involved in written work.

Two foremost scholars of the classical school were Henri Fayol and Max Weber. Others were James Mooney and Aian Relley, Luther Gulick, and Lyndall Urwick, and Chester Barnard.

Among the recommended principles of management, fayol included the following:

1. Division of work (specialization).

2. Authority and responbility (power)

3. Discipline (obedience)

4. unity of command (one boss)

5. unity of direction (one plan)

6. Subordination of individual interest to general interest (concern far the organization first).

7. remuneration of personal (fair pay)

8. centralization (consolidation).

9. scalar chain (chain of command)

10. order (everyone has a unique position)

11. equity (firm but fair)

12. stability of tenure of personnel (low turnover)

13. initiative (thinking out a plan)

14. Esprit de corps (high morale)

Max Weber look issue with fayol’s view of classical organization theory, distinguishing between inherent authority (traditional power,which may have been illegitimate) and legitimate authority (earned, respect, established by norms, rational and legal). Legistimate authority provided the foundation for what Weber called “bureaucrary”. According to him. A bureaycrary is an organization having the following characteristics:

1. continuity dependent upon adherence to rules

2. areas of competence in which workers share the work and work toward specific goals under predetermined leaders.

3. scalar (hierarchical) principals

4. rules that are either norms or technical principles

5. separation of administrative staff and awnership of producyion devices

6. separation of private belongings and the organizations equipment

7. resources free from outside control

8. structure in which no administrator can monopolize personnel positions

9. all administrative acts, rules, policies, etc.

scott identifies four key components of classical organization theory :

1. Division of labor refers to how to given amount of work is divided among the available human resources.

2. scalar and functional processes express, respectively, the vertical and the horizontal growth and structure of the organization. Scalar refers to the levels of the hierarchy (the chain of command) in the organization.

3. structure refers to the network of relationship and roles throughout the organization. Structure enables the organization to meet its objevtives effectively and in an orderly manner. Classical theory usually distinguishes two kinds of structure : line and staff. Line organization includes the chain of command and the primary functions of the formal organization.

In his review of the literature on formal organization structure. Jablin (1987) describes four key structure dimensions that predominate in most theoretical analysis :

1. configuration

2. complexity

3. formalization

4. centralization

5. span of control refers to the number of employees a manager can effectively supervise.

The human relations school

Approximility ten years after the the scientific managers began to publish their recommendations for organizing workers, a group of researchers from the national academy of sciences began to study the relationship between production and lighting intensity at western electric company.

These study marked the beginning of the human relations movement in industry. For the first time, evidence on such variable as worker attitude, morale, informal work groups.

The basic logic of the human relations approach was to increase concern for workers, by allowing them to participate in decision making, by being more friendly, and by calling them by their first names, which improved worker satisfaction and morale. The net outcome would be lower resistance to and improved compliance with management’s authority.

A contemporary example of the human relations approach to organizing people is the management of a major league baseball team. Another example of the strict human relations approach to management is offered by the manager in a small organization who practiced the following behaviors. We make an important distinction between human relations (which concern only people-oriented variable) and human resources (which concern both production and human variables). One very important outgrowth of the human relations movement was the identification of the informal organization not show on management charts. Davis described an informal organization as based on people and their relationships rather than on positions and their functions.

The social systems school

A student may fail a test and by that failure lower the curve for the rest of the students. Which may help raise the grade of a lucky friend.

Longenecker has supported this point of view :

The systems concept is useful because of its strong emphasis upon these interrelationships. These interrelationships are stressed as being of primary importance. The role of management is seen as the management of interrelationships. This emphasis avoids some of the ‘components mentality in which departements work out their own relationships in a haphazard manner.

Because of the importance of interrelationships, some organizations employ the “fast-track” system for determining immediately the likely success of new execuives. New employees are asked to produce within one month a list of the major job objectives they consider to be included in their responsibilities. Next, they must identify who in the organization (people, department, units) both influences and are influenced by these objectives. Finally, they must list the resources and information they will need from these other people and units and what the others people and units will need from them.

Scott likened organization theory to general system theory because both study the following factors:

1. parts (individuals) in aggregates and movement of individuals into and out of thesystem.

2. interaction of individuals with the environment of the system.

Interactions among individuals in the system.

3. general growth and stability problems of system.

Huse and Bowditch summarized the main characteristics that define an organization as a system :

1. composed of a number of subsystems, all of which are interdependent and interrelated.

2. open and dynamic, having inputs, output, operations, feedback and boundaries.

3. striving for balance through both positive and negative feedback.

4. with a multiplicity of purpose, functions, and objectives, some of which are in conflict, which the administrator strives to balance.

Some of the key concepts necessary to the understanding of an organizations an open social system are feedback, balance, input, transformation, output, and interdependence.

The organization as an open system

An organization is an open system because of its constant interaction with its environment. Organization receive inputs from their environment (workers, raw materials, information) and sent output into their environment (product, services, pollution, information). Few organization can survive if they are not cognirant of their potential markets, suppliers, users, publics, and government regulations.

Key concepts of the organization as an open system

Feedback.

The cyclic nature of system is reflected in feedback. In other words. Some of the system’s outputs are sent back into the system as new inputs.

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