GEDRAG IN ORGANISATIES – SAMENVATTING
CHAPTER 1 – FOUNDATIONS OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR AND RESEARCH
Organisational behaviour issues are becoming more challenging as the activities of organisations become
increasingly global in reach, because of outsourcing and specialisation or because organisations seek to pursue
opportunities wherever they may arise.
Jeffrey Pfeffer and colleagues – Stanford University
People-centred practices in succesful companies (installed in a co-ordinated and systematic manner, not in
pieces):
Job security (to eliminate fear of losing a job)
Careful hiring (emphasising a good fit with the company culture)
Power to the people (via decentralisation and self-managed teams)
Generous pay for performance
Lots of training
Less emphasis on status (to build a ‘we’ feeling)
Trust-building (through the sharing of critical information)
In the 19th century sociologists studied the implications of a shift from feudalism to capitalism and from an
agriculture-based society to an industrial one. Karl Marx studied the development of the working class, while
Emile Durkheim studied the loss of solidarity in the new kind of society. Max Weber was the first to study the
working of organisations and the behaviour of people within organisations.
Organisation studies developed as a separate field with the birth of ‘scientific management’. It offered a
rational and efficient way to streamline production. The recommendations to companies were based on exact
scientific studies of individual situations inspired by the advances in natural sciences. (2nd phase of
industrialism)
From the late 1930s the human factor started receiving more attention. In the beginning of the 20th century
Taylor, Fayol and Barnard developed their theories.
Frederick Taylor
Founding father of scientific management: a scientific approach to management in which all tasks in
organisations are analysed, routinised, divided and standardised in depth, instead of using rules of thumb. Each
task was divided into as many subtasks as possible. The unnecessary subtasks were eliminated and the fastest
performance of each task was timed. Each task had to be performed in ‘one best way’. Taylor accused workers
of deliberately working at a slower pace: soldiering. It was partly due to the fact that there was no
management to control the workforce. He neglected the importance of job satisfaction, non-financial work
incentives and the positive role of groups and teams. Consequences for the factory owners and workers:
Higher output
Standardisation
Control and predictability
The routine of the tasks allowed the replacement of skilled workers by non-skilled workers
Thinking is for the managers, workers only work
Optimisation of the tools for each worker (size and weight of the tools)
Ford Motor Company
Lower costs could only be reached by highly efficient production based on standardised and interchangeable
parts (all pieces of the cars are the same for all cars), continuous flow (making use of an assembly line), division
of labour (specialised tasks) and elimination of unnecessary efforts (by applying motion studies). Combination
of specialisation by dividing tasks and the use of new machinery (Fordism) deskilling.
CHAPTER 1 – FOUNDATIONS OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR AND RESEARCH
Organisational behaviour issues are becoming more challenging as the activities of organisations become
increasingly global in reach, because of outsourcing and specialisation or because organisations seek to pursue
opportunities wherever they may arise.
Jeffrey Pfeffer and colleagues – Stanford University
People-centred practices in succesful companies (installed in a co-ordinated and systematic manner, not in
pieces):
Job security (to eliminate fear of losing a job)
Careful hiring (emphasising a good fit with the company culture)
Power to the people (via decentralisation and self-managed teams)
Generous pay for performance
Lots of training
Less emphasis on status (to build a ‘we’ feeling)
Trust-building (through the sharing of critical information)
In the 19th century sociologists studied the implications of a shift from feudalism to capitalism and from an
agriculture-based society to an industrial one. Karl Marx studied the development of the working class, while
Emile Durkheim studied the loss of solidarity in the new kind of society. Max Weber was the first to study the
working of organisations and the behaviour of people within organisations.
Organisation studies developed as a separate field with the birth of ‘scientific management’. It offered a
rational and efficient way to streamline production. The recommendations to companies were based on exact
scientific studies of individual situations inspired by the advances in natural sciences. (2nd phase of
industrialism)
From the late 1930s the human factor started receiving more attention. In the beginning of the 20th century
Taylor, Fayol and Barnard developed their theories.
Frederick Taylor
Founding father of scientific management: a scientific approach to management in which all tasks in
organisations are analysed, routinised, divided and standardised in depth, instead of using rules of thumb. Each
task was divided into as many subtasks as possible. The unnecessary subtasks were eliminated and the fastest
performance of each task was timed. Each task had to be performed in ‘one best way’. Taylor accused workers
of deliberately working at a slower pace: soldiering. It was partly due to the fact that there was no
management to control the workforce. He neglected the importance of job satisfaction, non-financial work
incentives and the positive role of groups and teams. Consequences for the factory owners and workers:
Higher output
Standardisation
Control and predictability
The routine of the tasks allowed the replacement of skilled workers by non-skilled workers
Thinking is for the managers, workers only work
Optimisation of the tools for each worker (size and weight of the tools)
Ford Motor Company
Lower costs could only be reached by highly efficient production based on standardised and interchangeable
parts (all pieces of the cars are the same for all cars), continuous flow (making use of an assembly line), division
of labour (specialised tasks) and elimination of unnecessary efforts (by applying motion studies). Combination
of specialisation by dividing tasks and the use of new machinery (Fordism) deskilling.
