THE THEORY OF ORGANIZATION

A team of research anthropologists once described 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. Members of this business are drawn primarily from one ethnic group. Each of the twenty-four divisions has a hierarchical  structure of positions and roles that regulates the power in the total business.

            The research team described this business as a “formal organization.” a social unit deliberately designed and constructed to achieve specific goals. They were not describing General Motors, the Roman Catholic Church, the U.S. Army, or the Teamsters Union.

            Perhaps it will be easier to guess the particular business lanni was discussing with another quotation from her book :

·        Their officials paints a compelling portrait of a carefully organized and powerful nation wide consideration of Italian American which they claim, is also a portrait of organized crime. They picture a secret organization of ruthless and violent men bound by common interest in illicit gain. Ordered by a rigid code  of rules, rights, and obligations , and maintained by the constant threat of death to informers or defectors. They describe an intricate national and even international network ruled by a council of overlords which maintains exacting discipline. Members of this vast criminal of politicians at it levels. With the money gained from illicit enterprises the syndicate members are now reputedly moving into and corrupting legitimates business.

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.

 

 

We defined an organization as a network of interdependent relationships. We present an overview of three schools of thought on the term organization. Our specific objectives are these :

1.      To define and illustrate the term organization

2.      To describe, illustrate and list the key concepts of following school of thought on business organization.

a.       Classical school

b.      Human relation school

c.       Social system school

3.      To list key questions that each three schools ask about organization

4.      To discuss the important theorists and their contribution to each school of thought

5.      To examine the communication implications in the three school of thought

Overview and definition

            There are three underlying structure that generates and guide the relationship :

·         The classical theory of organization

·        The Human relation school of thought

·        The third school of thought is concerned with social  systems and emphasizes the relationship of the parts to he whole organization.

Question of motivation, status, role, morale and attitude underline the human relation view of organization. The senate used the human relation approach in its examination of the social and psychological needs of the persons concerned.

The remainder of this chapter describes in detail each of three school of organization theory. The important theorist and their contributions to each school are discussed the concepts of each theory are examined.

The Classical School

Robert Townsend’s advice about organization charts in Up the Organization demonstrates the existence of the classical school :

Don’t print and circulate organization charts. They mislead you and everybody else into wasting time coming one another. Anyway, you probably spend a major fraction of your time dealing directly with people who aren’t really above or below you on the chart. Don’t let yourself beside but below you on the chart, you may be tempted to ignore them. Summon them to your office or at least assume they’ll do whatever you want. In your own self – interest, to avoid their attack or to enlist their required support in advance, you should go to them at their convenience to explain and persuade.

The classical theory of organization is concerned almost entirely with the structure of the formal organization. The classical theory of organization is concerned almost entirely with the design and structure of organization, not with people. Around World War I, 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 systems, bonus systems, time – motion studies, and cost figuring systems. Scientific managers believed that workers will produce at peak efficiency if they are motivated sufficiently by money.

Here are two examples that illustrate key principles of scientific management and the fact many managers still practice the techniques. Needless to say, this organization also has a piece work bonus system.

The other example of scientific management in practice  concern 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 average time involved in written work. Norms are calculated for all employees and regularly reported at weekly meetings. Employees deviating downward from the norms are constantly reminded of the relationship between time and money. Continued deviation downward is rewarded by eventual termination.

The foremost scholars of the classical school were Henri Fayol, and Max Weber. Others were James Mooney and Alan Reiley, Luther Gulick, and Lyndall Urwick, and Chester Barnard.

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

·         division of work ( specialization )

·         Authority and responsibility (power)

·         discipline (obedience)

·         unity of command (one boss)

·         unity of direction (one plan)

·         subordination of individual interest to general interest (concern for the organization first)

·         remuneration of personnel (fair pay)

·         centralization (consolidation)

·         scalar chain (chain of command)

·         order ( everyone has a unique position )

·         equity ( firm but fair )

·         stability of tenure of personnel ( low turnover)

·         initiative (thinking out a plan)

·         esprit de corps ( high morale)

Max Weber took issue with Fayol’s view of classical organization theory , distinguishing between inherent authority (traditional power, which may have been illegitimate) and legitimate authority (earned, respected, establish by norms, rational and legal). According to him, a bureaucracy is an organization having the following characteristic:

·        continuity dependent upon adherence to rules

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

·        scalar (hierarchical) principals

·        rules that are either norms or technical principals

·        separation of administrative staff and ownership of production devices

·        separation of private belongings and the organization’s equipment

·        resources free from outside control

·        structure in which no administrator can monopolize personnel positions

·        all administrative acts, rules, polities, etc., stated in writing

Keith Davis has advised that members of a bureaucracy will probably maintain job security as long as they follow rules and do not rock the boat.

            Some of the problems associated with the federal bureaucracy were publicized recently by a presidential commission. Veteran bureaucrats are skilled at evading issues, shifting responsibility, and diverting work to someone else. Proliferation of committees and subcommittees ensure that people share both the burden of decision making and the blame for bad decisions.

            The best bureaucrats are those who can move problems through channels without making decision of their own. One senior official advises newcomers “ look important, act busy, call conference, lots of them. But don’t make any decisions. If you are forced to do so, make sure they are made in someone else’s name. “

            Former president Ronald Reagan pledged to eliminated the bureaucratic deadwood, but without a clear performance standard to apply, it was not easy to achieve. The standard of competence of private businesses furnished inexorably by the profit factor. There is no sure way to determine either excessive cost or concrete achievement in the federal bureaucracy.

            Much of the management literature is summarized in schott’s definition of a formal organization : “ a system of coordinated activities of a group of people working cooperatively toward a common goal under authority and leadership.” Scott identifies four keys components of classical organization theory division of labor, scalar and functional process, structure. And span of control.

            Division of labor refers to how a given mount of work is divided among the available human resources. The division can be according to the nature of the various jobs or according to the amount of responsibility and authority each person assumes. The first is a functional division of labor, the second is scalar.

            Scalar and functional processes express, respectively, the vertical and horizontal growth and structure of the organization. Scalar refers to the levels of the hierarchy ( chain of command ) in the organization. Functional refers to the specific job duties of each employee in the organization. The scalar process at university refers to how authority is allocated among the board of regents, the university president, the vice presidents, the deans, the department chairmen, and the students.

            The functional process at a university refers to how job responsibilities are assigned to the faculty, clerical, maintenance, and administrative personnel.

            Structure refers to the network of relationships and roles throughout the organization structure enables the organization to meet its objectives effectively and in and orderly manner. Classical theory usually distinguishes two kinds of structures line and staff. Line organization includes the chain of command and the primary functions of the formal organization. A university’s primary functions are to unscale students. Line organization is devolved to these ends. The line function of a clothing manufacturer are to produce and distribute clothes. A supermarket’s line functions are to buy and sell food.

Staff organization supplements line organization. The staff people advise and serve the line people. Staff people may be general or special. A general staff member is usually identified by the title “assistant to” and serves one member of the organization. Special staff people serve large segments of an organization.

Span of control refers to the number of employees a manager can effectively supervise.  As the number supervised employees’ increases, the number of possible relationships increases geometrically. According to graicunas’s formula,  a manager with four subordinates had forty-four possible interrelationships.

Span of control influences the shape of an organization. If most managers throughout the organization have a small span, the overall shape of the organization will then be tall. If the typical span is great, than the overall shape of the organization will be flat.

Multiple level s of a tall organization increase the number of channels of communication and the possibility for distortion. Flat organization have fewer levels through which messages travel, but, the number face-to-face contacts is reduced, and a communication overload may be created at the manager’s office.

Sometimes it may not be possible to control the growth of the span of control. Parkinson’s law predicts that the number of people in an organization will increase at an annual rate regardless of the work to be done.

Another implication of span of control relates to hoe centralized or decentralized an organization is. In centralized organizations, power and decision points are few. In decentralized organizations, authority and decision making are spread throughout the organization, and authority is generally delegated to the smallest practicable units. Centralization is more likely in a tall structure and decentralization in a flat structure. Centralization of authority can usually expedite decision making since fewer people are involved. Decentralization involves more people and takes more time but may improve o0rganisational morale by giving more employees the opportunity to be involved in decision making.  

The Human Relations School

Ten years after the scientific managers began to publisher their recommendations for organizing workers, a group of researches from the National Academy of Sciences began to study the relationship between production and lighting intensity at Western Electric Company. their study not find a relationship.

Afterward another group of researches from the Harvard Business School, under the leadership of Elton Mayo.

During their study of lighting intensity they noticed that, even when the lights were practically turned off, worker production increased. These studies marked the beginning of the human relations movement in industry. for the first time, evidence on such variables as worker attitude, moral, informal work groups and social relations was collected. No longer was it satisfactory to claim that production is totally a function of the structure and design of formal organizations.

Representative of this research were the studies by Fleishman. The basic logic of the human relations approach was to increase concern for workers by allowing them to participation decisions making  by being more friendly and by calling them by their first names, which improved workers satisfaction and morale.

The net outcome would be lower resistance  and improved compliance with management’s authority. in some circles human relations has been described as : “warm  feeling" training and consists primarily of company picaies. Getting the wives together and company sponsored athletics.

Rush summarized much of thinking and criticism of the human relations approach as follows : The emphasizes was on creating a work force with high morale. it represented an attempt to break down formal or arbitrary boundaries that are part of the public of stratified and bureaucratic organizational structure. managers trained in human relations learned to be "friendly" toward their subordinates. The human relations movement has been criticized widely as manipulative, insincere, and most importantly. As ignoring the reality of economic variables. it is accused of equating high morale with high productivity to some organization theorists, this represents a naive and simplistic view of the nature.

Herzberg spoofed the entire human relations movement in his classic article in the Harvard Business review : Over thirty years of teaching and in many instances of practicing psychological approaches to handling people have resulted in costly human relations programs.

A contemporary example of the human relations approach to organizing people is the management of a major league baseball team. The owner of this team paid his players higher salaries than any other team in baseball.

Another example of the strict human relations approach to management is offered by the manager in a small organization who practiced the following behaviors. Before you condemn the entire human relations movement as 2 disastrous, insincere, and manipulative approach to management, remember that this approach became the foundation for successful present-day management theories. One very important outgrowth of the human relations movement was the identification of the informal organization not shown on management charts.

POWER in informal organization is earned or given permissively by group members, rather than delegated: therefore, it does not follow the official chain of command. It is more likely to come from peers than from superiors in the formal hierarchy, and it may cut across organization lines into other department.

For Davis, the main criteria of an informal leader are age, seniority, technical competence, work location, freedom to move around the work area, and a responsive personality. ne communication-related phenomenon that arises from the informal organization is the grapevine and the spread of rumors.

When the organization is viewed as a social system, questions of structural and human variables assume new importance. No longer can the job function of a machine riveter be divorced from the successful functioning of the entire organization; nor can the morale of one employee be a minor point of concern.     

The system 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 pitfalls of a “components mentality in which departments work out their own relationships in a haphazard manner.

Because of the importance of interrelationships, some organizations employ the “fastrack” system for determining immediately the likely success of new executives. New employees are asked to produce within one month a list of the major job objectives they consider to be included in their responsibilities.

Among researchers who have made the major contributions to the development of both general systems theory and the use of systems theory in organizations are Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Kenneth Boulding, James March and Herbert Simon, Daniel Katz and Rebert Kahn, and Paul Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch.

Scoot likened organization theory to general systems theory because both study the following factors :

1. Pans (individuals) in aggregates and movement of individuals into and out of the systems.
2. Interaction of individuals with the environment of the system interactions among individuals in the system.
3. General growth and stability problems of systems

 

Huse and Bowdich summarized the main characteristics that define an organizations as a system :

1. Composed of a number of subsystems, all of which are interdependent and interrelated.
2. Open and dynamic, having inputs, outputs, operations, feedback, and boundaries.
3. Striving for balance through both positive and negative feedback.
4. With a multiplicity of purposes, 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 and organization as an open social system are feedback balance, input, transformation, output, and interdependence. We agree with Karz and Kahn's (1966) theorical model for the understanding of an organization

… (it is) an energic input – output systems in which the energetic return from the output reactivates the system. Social organizations are flagrantly open systems in that the input of energies and the conversion of output into further energic input consist of transactions between the organization and its environment.

The Organization as an Open System

A closed system has fixed boundaries which permit to interaction with the environment. The result is that the structure, function, and behavior of the system are relatively stable and predictable if the initial arrangement of components is known. An open system, on the other hand has permeable boundaries which allow for environment-system interaction. The result is that the structure, function, and behavior of the open system is changing perpetually.