Management and Organisations

Lecture Overview

• This lecture will discuss management and organisations, learning organisations, classical and humanistic perspectives, and recent historical trends.

Management and Organisation

• Social forces are cultural aspects that guide relationships through shared values, needs, and behaviours.
• Political forces include the influence of political and legal institutions on people and organizations.
• Economic forces refer to those that impact the availability, production, and distribution of a society's resources.

Importance of Historical Perspectives

• Historical perspectives help managers think strategically by identifying patterns and understanding trends to see the big picture.
• They improve conceptual skills and help understand the social, political, and economic influences on organizations.

Learning Organisation (LEETOPS)

• Leadership in a learning organization involves creating a shared vision.
• Team-based structures use self-directed teams.
• Employee empowerment provides the power, freedom, knowledge, and skills/training needed for each individual to succeed.
• Open information involves transparency and a flood of readily available information.
• A participative strategy incorporates both bottom-up and top-down approaches.
• A strong adaptive culture emphasises equality, risk-taking, change, and continuous improvement,.

Classical Perspective

• The classical perspective emphasises a rational, scientific approach to study management and make organizations efficient.
• Scientific management focuses on improving labour productivity through scientific changes in management practices.
• Develop a standard method for performing each job.
• Bureaucratic organizations focus on impersonal and rational management through formal record keeping and clear authority.
• Administrative principles concentrate on the total organization rather than individual workers, delineating management functions.

Classical Perspective: Scientific Management

• Taylor improved labour productivity through scientific changes and developed standard methods for each job.
• Selected workers based on abilities and trained/supported them by planning work so they could eliminate interruptions.
• Provided wage incentives to workers for increased output.
• Gilbreths focused on time and motion studies, from bricklaying to surgery.

Classical Perspective: Bureaucratic Organizations

• Weber proposed rational authority based on structure and positions, not personal, familial, or religious factors.
• Rational authority relies on rules and written records for continuity.
• Authority and responsibility should have clear definitions and be legitimised as official duties.
• Positions are organised hierarchically
• Personnel are selected/promoted based on technical qualifications and experience.
• Administrative and managerial actions, processes and decisions are to be recorded
• Management should be separate from ownership.
• Rules and procedures are uniformly applied to all employees.

Classical Perspective: Administrative Principles

• Fayol focused on unity of command and direction, division of work, and scalar chains.
• Follett promoted superordinate goals, people-focused leadership, and empowerment.
• Barnard focused on informal organization’s acceptance theory of authority.

Humanistic Perspective

• The humanistic perspective emphasised understanding behaviour, needs, and attitudes in the workplace.
• It includes the human relations movement, the human resources perspective, the behavioural sciences approach, and the management science perspective.

Humanistic Perspective: Human Relations Movement

• Effective control comes from within the individual in enlighten treatment of employees
• Illumination impacted productivity in Hawthorne studies.
• The Relay Assembly Test Room showed that productivity increased with positive employee relations and treatment

Humanistic Perspective: Human Resources Perspective

• Jobs should be designed to meet higher-level needs from Maslow's hierarchy of needs: physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization.
• McGregor’s Theory X workers dislike work, must be controlled/coerced, and prefer to be directed with little ambition.
• McGregor’s Theory Y workers see work as natural, use self-direction/control when committed, seek responsibility, and utilise intellectual potential.

Humanistic Perspective: Behavioural Sciences Approach

• Social science is applied in an organisational context.
• Principles of sociology and economics influence strategy and structure.
• Psychology impacts motivation, leadership, communication, and human resource management.
• Organisations have used selections for motivation.

Humanistic Perspective: Management Science Perspective

• Mathematics, statistics, and other quantitative techniques are applied to managerial problems.
• Operations research applies mathematical model building.
• Operations provide management solutions to manufacturing problems like scheduling.
• Management information systems provide information to managers for logistics.
• Queuing theory aims to minimise customer waiting times.

Recent Historical Trends

• These trends are extensions of the humanistic perspective, including systems theory, the contingency view, and total quality management.

Recent Historical Trends: Systems Theory

• A system is a set of interrelated parts that function together for a common purpose.
• Systems theory describes organisations as open systems with entropy, synergy, and subsystem interdependence.
• The five components of a system: inputs, transformation, outputs, feedback, and environment.
• A closed system does not interact with the external environment.
• An open system interacts with the external environment.
• Entropy occurs when organizations die without fresh inputs.
• Synergy occurs when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
• Subsystems are parts that depend on one another.

Recent Historical Trends: Contingency View

• The successful resolution of organisational problems depends on identifying key variables in the situation.
• Classical perspective = universalist.
• The contingency view states that each situation is unique, e.g., industry and technology.

Recent Historical Trends: Total Quality Management

• The concept focuses on managing the total organisation to deliver quality to customers.
• Four significant elements: employee involvement, focus on the customer, benchmarking, and continuous improvement.

Recent Historical Trends: Technology and Sustainability

• Managing the technology-driven workplace incorporates e-business for electronic linkage of stakeholders.
• E-commerce is related to the exchange of electronic business or carrying out transactions. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) also comes into effect.
• Sustainable development involves that satisfies a wide variety of stakeholders

Essay Questions

• Compare the school of thought associated with the writings of Taylor, Weber, and Fayol and compare the focus that each takes in relation to the organisation.