Outline

• Prescriptive/universalist approaches:

Bureaucracy and Scientific management

Human Relations

 Organisations 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

Job specialisat
(DoL)
Authority hiera
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...
 Greeting the Customer Yes No
1. There is a smile
Management 2. There is eye contact
Checklist in Taking the Order
A Fast-Food 1.The counter person is familiar with menu
2-The customer has to give the order only once
Restaurant
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 COMMENT
Taylor: ‘...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

15 min
In General, productivity increased with each change in work
Experiments

rests+lunch
standard
standard
same+Sat
AM Off
same+Sat
AM Off
15 min
rests lunch
conditions

15 min
rests lunch
two 10 min.
Rests
two 10 min.
Rests
standard
work cnd
standard
work cnd
standard
work cnd

130
125
120
115
110
105
100
95
90
% of standard output
 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
➀ 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
➀ 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’)
➁ 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)
➂ The need for recognition, security and sense of belonging is more important
in determining workers’ morale and productivity (than pay and work
conditions)
➃ Through their unofficial norms, informal groups exercise strong controls over
the work habits and attitudes of individuals
➄ 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