Lecture 1
An organisation is a collection of people who work together and coordinate their actions in order to
achieve individual and organisational goals
Components of organisations (Mintzberg)
- Strategic apex: The management
- Middle line: Middle management
- Operating core: People on the work floor
- Technostructure: Assists the core to do their jobs
- Support staff: Assist the company (receptionist, cleaners etc.)
- Ideology: Everything around this
Levels of analysis:
- Individual level
- Group level
- Organisational level
All these groups have influence on each other
Organisational theory:
1. Classical: Bureaucracy, Scientific management, Fordism.
Objective: to improve the organisational structure in order to increase efficiency
Normative: How it should be done.
Mooney & Reiley:
Principle of coordination act together, exercising authority, need for
discipline
Scalar principle Vertical division, hierarchy.
Functional principle Horizontal division
The difference between line (core business) and staff (supportive)
Taylor:
Responsibility for the organisation of work from the employee to the
manager
Use of scientific methods in order to determine the most efficient way of
working
Scientific selection, training and development of employees
Monitoring job performance
Employees as machines, division of labour
Idea: people are motivated by financial gain
, Ford:
Inspired by Taylor
Mass production
Standardised products
Low costs
Strong division of labour
Standard salary
Paternalistic (education, homes, healthcare
Weber (Bureaucracy):
Specialisation of the function, not the employee (efficiency through
specialization)
Division of labour
Hierarchy (Clear chain of command)
Formal selection (employees will be hired based on merit and expertise)
Career orientation (focus is on your work, nothing else)
System of rules and regulations (efficiency will increase due to formal rules)
Impersonality (Personal preferences will be avoided
Disadvantages of weber:
- Rules and other controls may be become ends rather than means
- Lack of appreciation or concern for changed conditions in the environment
- Delegation of authority to lower levels may encourage emphasis on subunit rather than
overall rules subunit conflict and decreased effectiveness
- Working to the rules
Disadvantages of the classical approach are:
- Ignores the psychological and social processes of employees
- Inflexibility
Classical approach conclusion:
Assumptions:
- Work is inherently distasteful to most people (lazy)
- What they do is less important that what the earn it for (homo economicus)
- Few want or can handle work which requires creativity, self-direction or self-control
Management:
- Close supervision and control of behaviour (no trust)
- Breaking tasks down into simple, repetitive, easily learned operations
- Establishing detailed work routines and procedures, and enforce firmly but fairly
2. Human relations
, - Humanising the work organization: focus on employee as an individual. Analysing what
motivated employees
- The hawthoenre experiments
- Attentions to: The informal structure, leadership, motivation, communication, needs of
employees, groups within the organisation
- Employees aren’t just motivated by money
Conclusion of human relations approach:
Assumptions:
- People want to feel useful and important
- People desire to belong and to be recognized as individuals
- These needs are more important than money in motivating people
Management:
- Make each worker feel useful and important
- Keeping workers informed and listen to their objections to management plans
- Allow workers to exercise self-direction and self-control on routine matters
Disadvantages of Human relation approach:
- Scientific quality: The methodological value of the Hawthorne studies
- Satisfied employee: Productive employee?
- Ignores the organisation and the context of the organisation
- People without organisations
3. System approach:
- Organisations can be seen as open systems.
- It has influence on its environment, and vice versa
- It has 3 stages:
1. Input stage: Raw materials, money and capital, humans resources
2. Conversion stage: Machinery, computers, human skills
3. Output stage: Goods, services
Sales of outputs allow organisations to obtain new supplies of inputs
- Changing social and cultural environment
- Changing global environment
- Developments in information technology
- Shifting working relationships
- Trist:
Synchronisation between structure, technology and the human side of organisation
Joint optimism
Self-managing/responsible groups, autonomy
Whole tasks
The meaningfulness of tasks
An organisation is a collection of people who work together and coordinate their actions in order to
achieve individual and organisational goals
Components of organisations (Mintzberg)
- Strategic apex: The management
- Middle line: Middle management
- Operating core: People on the work floor
- Technostructure: Assists the core to do their jobs
- Support staff: Assist the company (receptionist, cleaners etc.)
- Ideology: Everything around this
Levels of analysis:
- Individual level
- Group level
- Organisational level
All these groups have influence on each other
Organisational theory:
1. Classical: Bureaucracy, Scientific management, Fordism.
Objective: to improve the organisational structure in order to increase efficiency
Normative: How it should be done.
Mooney & Reiley:
Principle of coordination act together, exercising authority, need for
discipline
Scalar principle Vertical division, hierarchy.
Functional principle Horizontal division
The difference between line (core business) and staff (supportive)
Taylor:
Responsibility for the organisation of work from the employee to the
manager
Use of scientific methods in order to determine the most efficient way of
working
Scientific selection, training and development of employees
Monitoring job performance
Employees as machines, division of labour
Idea: people are motivated by financial gain
, Ford:
Inspired by Taylor
Mass production
Standardised products
Low costs
Strong division of labour
Standard salary
Paternalistic (education, homes, healthcare
Weber (Bureaucracy):
Specialisation of the function, not the employee (efficiency through
specialization)
Division of labour
Hierarchy (Clear chain of command)
Formal selection (employees will be hired based on merit and expertise)
Career orientation (focus is on your work, nothing else)
System of rules and regulations (efficiency will increase due to formal rules)
Impersonality (Personal preferences will be avoided
Disadvantages of weber:
- Rules and other controls may be become ends rather than means
- Lack of appreciation or concern for changed conditions in the environment
- Delegation of authority to lower levels may encourage emphasis on subunit rather than
overall rules subunit conflict and decreased effectiveness
- Working to the rules
Disadvantages of the classical approach are:
- Ignores the psychological and social processes of employees
- Inflexibility
Classical approach conclusion:
Assumptions:
- Work is inherently distasteful to most people (lazy)
- What they do is less important that what the earn it for (homo economicus)
- Few want or can handle work which requires creativity, self-direction or self-control
Management:
- Close supervision and control of behaviour (no trust)
- Breaking tasks down into simple, repetitive, easily learned operations
- Establishing detailed work routines and procedures, and enforce firmly but fairly
2. Human relations
, - Humanising the work organization: focus on employee as an individual. Analysing what
motivated employees
- The hawthoenre experiments
- Attentions to: The informal structure, leadership, motivation, communication, needs of
employees, groups within the organisation
- Employees aren’t just motivated by money
Conclusion of human relations approach:
Assumptions:
- People want to feel useful and important
- People desire to belong and to be recognized as individuals
- These needs are more important than money in motivating people
Management:
- Make each worker feel useful and important
- Keeping workers informed and listen to their objections to management plans
- Allow workers to exercise self-direction and self-control on routine matters
Disadvantages of Human relation approach:
- Scientific quality: The methodological value of the Hawthorne studies
- Satisfied employee: Productive employee?
- Ignores the organisation and the context of the organisation
- People without organisations
3. System approach:
- Organisations can be seen as open systems.
- It has influence on its environment, and vice versa
- It has 3 stages:
1. Input stage: Raw materials, money and capital, humans resources
2. Conversion stage: Machinery, computers, human skills
3. Output stage: Goods, services
Sales of outputs allow organisations to obtain new supplies of inputs
- Changing social and cultural environment
- Changing global environment
- Developments in information technology
- Shifting working relationships
- Trist:
Synchronisation between structure, technology and the human side of organisation
Joint optimism
Self-managing/responsible groups, autonomy
Whole tasks
The meaningfulness of tasks
