ORGANIZATIONAL THEORIES, SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT & MARXIST ORGANIZATION ANALYSIS

PRESENTED BY: ALLAND D. AGALOOS

Organization
From Greek word Organon: meaning a tool or instrument.

So, organizations are tools or instruments to meet goals, objectives, to carry out tasks.

What is Organization?
An organization is a pursues collective goals, which controls its own performance, and which has a boundary separating it from its environment. In sociology "organization" is understood as planned, coordinated and purposeful action of human beings to construct or compile a common tangible or intangible product.

Organizational structures
The study of organizations includes a focus on optimizing organizational structure. According to management science, most human organizations fall roughly into four types: Pyramids or hierarchies Committees or juries Matrix organizations Ecologies

Pyramids or hierarchies
A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads leaders. This arrangement is often associated with bureaucracy. in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".

Committees or juries
These consist of a group of peers who decide as a group, perhaps by voting. The difference between a jury and a committee is that the members of the committee are usually assigned to perform or lead further actions after the group comes to a decision, whereas members of a jury come to a decision. In common law countries legal juries render decisions of guilt, liability and quantify damages.

Staff organization or crossfunctional team

A staff helps an expert get all his work done. To this end, a "chief of staff" decides whether an assignment is routine or not. If it's routine, he assigns it to a staff member, who is a sort of junior expert. The chief of staff schedules the routine problems, and checks that they are completed. If a problem is not routine, the chief of staff notices. He passes it to the expert, who solves the problem, and educates the staff converting the problem into a routine problem. In a "cross functional team", like an executive committee, the boss has to be a non-expert, because so many kinds of expertise are required.

Matrix organization
This organizational type assigns each worker two bosses in two different hierarchies. One hierarchy is "functional" and assures that each type of expert in the organization is well-trained, and measured by a boss who is super-expert in the same field. The other direction is "executive" and tries to get projects completed using the experts. Projects might be organized by regions, customer types, or some other schemes. matrix management

Ecologies
This organization has intense competition. Bad parts of the organization starve. Good ones get more work. Everybody is paid for what they actually do, and runs a tiny business that has to show a profit, or they are fired. Companies who utilize this organization type reflect a rather one-sided view of what goes on in ecology. It is also the case that a natural ecosystem has a natural border - ecoregions do not in general compete with one another in any way, but are very autonomous.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
BY FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Management
is the process of allocating an organization's inputs, including human and economic resources, by planning, organizing, directing, and controlling for the purpose of producing goods or services desired by customers so that organizational objectives are accomplished.

Scientific Management Theory

Evolution of Modern Management
Began in the industrial revolution in the late 19th century as:
Managers of organizations began seeking ways to better satisfy customer needs. Large-scale mechanized manufacturing began to supplanting small-scale craft production in the ways in which goods were produced. Social problems developed in the large groups of workers employed under the factory system. Managers began to focus on increasing the efficiency of the worker-task mix.

Job Specialization & the Division of Labor

Adam Smith (18th century economist) Observed that firms manufactured pins in one of two different ways:
Craft-styleeach worker did all steps. Productioneach worker specialized in one step.

Realized that job specialization resulted in much higher efficiency and productivity
Breaking down the total job allowed for the division of labor in which workers became very skilled at their specific tasks.

F.W. Taylor and Scientific Management

Scientific Management The systematic study of the relationships between people and tasks for the purpose of redesigning the work process for higher efficiency. Defined by Frederick Taylor in the late 1800s to replace informal rule of thumb knowledge. Taylor sought to reduce the time a worker spent on each task by optimizing the way the task was done.

Four Principles of Scientific Management

Principles to increase efficiency:
1. Study the ways jobs are performed now and determine new ways to do them.
Gather detailed time and motion information. Try different methods to see which is best.

2. Codify the new methods into rules.

Teach to all workers the new method.

3. Select workers whose skills match the rules. 4. Establish fair levels of performance and pay a premium for higher performance.
Workers should benefit from higher output

Problems with Scientific Management

Managers frequently implemented only the increased output side of Taylors plan.
Workers did not share in the increased output.

Specialized jobs became very boring, dull.

Workers ended up distrusting the Scientific Management method.

Workers could purposely under-perform.

Management responded with increased use of machines and conveyors belts.

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

Refined Taylors work and made many improvements to the methodologies of time and motion studies.
Time and motion studies
Breaking up each job action into its components. Finding better ways to perform the action. Reorganizing each job action to be more efficient.

Also studied worker-related fatigue problems caused by lighting, heating, and the design of tools and machines.

Marxist Organization Analysis

Marxist Theory from Adam Smith

1. Social relationships are generated by exchange 2. A person can produce more than he requires for his own subsistence

3. The power conferred by the ownership of money is the power to buy other peoples labor
4. While supply and demand may cause the value of a good to fluctuate, its true or natural value is determined by the cost of the labor required to make it.

Marxism
Communism is a political philosophy which argues that men should have equal rights to wealth.

Marxism is a way of understanding and analysing the organisation and structure of society. It is also a way of understanding how societies develop and change.

Marxist Critics
Believe that society is based on a dialectic (or conflict) between employers (capital) and employees (labor). The ruling class and workers struggle for economic power. Believe that the values of capitalism, such as the primacy of profit and consumerism, infuse all aspects of our society. See the individual as a product of societys value system (The individual is constructed by class and society.)

Conflict theory
All societies are divided into two groups
Owners Workers

Our society is capitalist.

Owners are bourgeoisie Workers are proletarians

Owners and workers

Owners exploit workers and live off the money which the workers earn Workers put up with this inequality because: They are oppressed wage slaves and cannot fight the system They are indoctrinated by ideology and religion into believing what they are told by the powerful.

Capitalism
Capitalism is the ideological base of the United States and much of Western culture. Discussion: What are the values and beliefs of capitalism?

Exploitation
One tenet of capitalism is exploitation. Discussion: How might employers exploit their employees?

Exploitation
Employees/owners make money (or profit) by paying employee/workers less than the value of their production.

Exploitation continued . . .
Profit: driving force of capitalism; private investment and control of profit; money left over after fixed costs and labor costs; many make product (and earn wage); only one makes profit (net proceeds) Profit loss: Market saturation, lower demand for product, raise in fixed costs, raise in labor costs, a change in supply and demand can all eat into the profit.

To further increase profits

Employers exploit their employees by Speeding up work Lowering wages Creating dangerous working conditions Not allowing labor a voice (unions) Laying off/downsizing workforce Providing shorter breaks Driving workers with hard labor

To further increase profits

Exploitation leads to Alienation

Alienation: a withdrawing or separation of a person or a person's affections from an object or position of former attachment (Merriam-Webster Online) Discussion: From whom or what might workers feel alienated from?

Employees feel alienated . . .

From product: soul not in it; not sure what product is; no sense of ownership or pride in work From self: drug addiction; insanity; lower self-esteem; loss of identity; just a number From others: other employees; employers; family From time: 9-5; watch the clock; no rest or relax; clock in and out

Marx and The Revolution

Marx predicted that wealth would belong to fewer and fewer people. The workers would eventually realise their position and overthrow the bourgeoisie There would be an armed revolution which would begin in Britain. It would happen in the very near future.

What happened?
The biggest problem with Marxism is that the predicted revolution never occurred in the form he said it would. People are not poorer. Wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a few rich people. Britain hasnt had a Communist revolution yet and is not likely to in the near future.

Conclusion
Marxism is a political philosophy your views are your own and not required in sociology. Marxism is an understanding of the nature of social relationships which you are expected to evaluate. Recognize that it has strengths and weakness as a tool of understanding of our culture.

Thank you for Listening and have a pleasant Evening!