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Scientific Management: Frederick Taylor
A paradigm shift is made from work being done by artisans and crafts people to what is known as the "division of labor" wherein there is a managerial staff who develop efficient processes specific to the task at hand so tat workers may most effectively complete their work. This was Taylor's attempted path at finding the "best way method". Taylor was criticized for failing to see people and workers as humans rather than parts in a machine. -
Hawthorne Studies: Roethlisberger and Dickson: Western Electric Plant Illinois
This moves away from the old way of identifying workers as pieces of a machine and interprets them as human beings with psychological and social needs. The Hawthorne studies found that by improving working hours and treatment of employees, better outputs were produced. This is important because it illuminates the differences between people and machines. Machines need to be greased to generate output. Humans need to be understood and well cared for to produce greater output. -
Principles of Administration-Separating Work and the Coordination of Work: Luther Gulick & James Mooney
This moves away from having workers who perform a myraid of tasks and instead has them specializing in specific tasks, grouped together with employees of similar task nature, under a specialized supervisor. This study is important because it created a means of organizational behavior in which people of different types of positions and power can be held accountable for their actions. This delineated structure of power allows for planning and coordination of specified labor. -
Inducements-Contributions Equilibrium: Chester Barnard
This shift in thought builds off Hawthorne seeing workers as humans with social needs. Humans are additionally motivated by power, prestige, fulfillment, and participation in effective or useful organizations. The saliency of work being performed must be made important to the worker. -
Max Weber: Bureaucracy as an Ideal Construct
Moving away from the previous school of thought, whcih sought to assign work based on an authoritative figure with bestowed power over others, Weber introduces a system wherein a set of established rules, hierarchy of authorities, administrative positions based on expertise, and a managerial figure would dictate the work to be done and how it would be completed. This was important because it freed workers of any personal bias from higher ups and allowed them to focus on constructive outputs. -
Inducements-Contributions Equilibrium: Herbert Simon
Simon builds off of Bernard's findings and asserts that workers while unable to always make the most rational choice when faced with a decision making crisis, will attempt to make the beset possible decision within the constraints imposed by the available time, resources, and cognitive capacity, when the worker feels a sense of value and meaning in his or her work. This is important because employees who feel a sense of ownership and pride in their work will produce the greatest outputs. -
Group Dynamics and Human Realtionships: Kurt Lewin
Lewin moves away from simply talking about the individual to studyign how people changed when introduced into a group setting. Group pressures will influence each person's behavior in a particiular way. In order to impose change of a group mangers must go through the process of unfreezing old policy, implementing change, and then refreezing new policy. This study is important because organization leaders must have an understanding of how groups interact differently than individuals. -
Theory of Human Needs (Hierarchy of Needs) Abraham Maslow
Snowballing off of Simon and Barnard's idea that humans require a bank of needs, Maslow assert that individuals have a hierarchy of needs. People must satisfy certain needs before attempting to satisfy a subsequent set of needs. The hierarchy is in the order of physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and finally self-actualization. It is important because in organizations, leaders must know that certain need vacancies must be solved by order of importance. -
Theory X Theory Y: Douglass McGregor
McGregor uses Maslow's needs to come up with the theory that all managers either subscribe to Theory X or Theory Y. Theory X managers micromanage and have little to no faith the capability of workers. Theory Y managers believe in the compitency of their workers, while understanding they all have needs (Maslow). McGregor concludes that Theory Y workers will yield greater results becuase they have self direction, whereas Theory X workers only have motivation of harsh authority. -
Open-Systems Approaches and Contingency Theory: Tavistock Institute Great Britain
Researchers of contingency approach introduce the fact that environmental factors will effect one's organization. These environmental factors will be beyond the control of management in the organization, but will regardless have to deal with the reprecussions. Because of this organizations must have a contingency program established so that they will be more maleable to change and therefor adapt without significant loss. -
Controversy over Distinctiveness of Public Organizations and Management Theory; Blau
Researchers of this theory find that organizations react differently to environmental and interorganizational change due to the "distinctiveness" of the group. Public organizations and private organizations of different sizes will be dealt with in different manners when instituting or reacting to some sort of change.
