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Summary of 39 pages for the course Sociology of organisations at UU (Literature Summary)
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1Watson Chapter 2 – Analysing work and organisation: scientific management, human
relations and negotiated orders
Managerial-psychologistic strand
Psychologism= a tendency to explain social behaviour solely in terms of the psychological
characteristics of individuals
Scientific management
Scientific analysis by management of all the tasks to make it as efficient as possible
Design of jobs my management to achieve maximum technical division of labour
Separation of planning and execution
Minimum skill requirements and job-learning time
Separation from preparatory tasks and direct ones
Incentive pay systems
Minimum interaction between worker and employer
Taylorism:
Worker is an economical animal
Self-seeking hired hand
Managers do the thinking part of the job
Monetary rewards tied to the level of output that was achieved
Soldiering = the natural instinct and tendency of men to take it easy when this is
combined with peoples economical interests, failure of managers on scientific basis it leads
employees to get together and hold production down
If the management relate directly to individuals self-interests, they will get full co-
operation
Industrial conflicts are a mechanical problem; they keep politics and contest out of work
relationships
Based on a theory of human nature
Psychological humanism (McGregor)
Believes in encouraging participation of workers, with…
Setting their own objectives
Less supervision
More open and authentic colleague relationships
Theory X (scientific management)
Human beings naturally dislike work and avoid it if they can
People avoid responsibility and like to be given direction
Humans have limited ambitions and see security as a priority
The manager therefore controls and coerces the employees to organizational
objectives
Effect: encourages the kind of behaviour that managers wish to avoid
Theory Y (psychological humanist)
, 2
People want to exercise self-control and self-discipline at work
Employees need to contribute creatively to organizational problems – in a way that
enables them to meet their need for self-actualization
Hierarchy of needs model: suggests that there are 5 sets of instinctive needs which people
possess, as one satisfies most of the needs at one level, one moves up to the next level
1. Physiological needs
2. Safety needs
3. Love needs
4. Self-esteem
5. Self-actualization
Self-actualization = to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is
capable of becoming
2 factor theory of work motivation – Herzberg
1. Hygiene factors: salary, status, security
Lead to dissatisfaction if wrong, but don’t lead to satisfaction if right
2. Motivation factors: achievement, growth, recognition, responsibility
Has to be present, as an addition to hygiene factors, before satisfaction can occur
Workers themselves would set targets, plan work, choose strategies etc., this represents a
complete reversal of the job design principles advocated by scientific management
Discussion
Circumstances = the structural and cultural factors that are central concerns of a sociological
approach to analysis – they are mostly concentrated at the organizational level, but also
apply at the societal level
Cash-reward-orientated
Self-actualizing
(YOUTUBE) Fredrick Taylor
Scientific management theory
Taylorism
Motivated by pay
Science could increase efficiency
Workers are given 1 task to master
1 best way of doing things
Scientific management
A. Standardized approach to optimizing work for a more efficient workforce
B. Time & motion study analysing tasks & finding the quickest way of completing tasks
C. Workers do not have to be skilled, just highly productive at 1 job
D. After findings the 1 best way, employees have to be motivated to work in that way
E. This could be done by increased pay for productive workers & firing of ineffective
workers
, 3
The Durkheim-human-relations strand
Emphasis on the social system of which humans are a part
Society as a whole
The work organisation
Sub-unit of the organisation
Key concept: concentrating on the patterns of relationships which exist between people
rather than on the people as such
Durkheim
Social currents/facts= things that exist externally to individuals and exert constraint over
them: values, norms, customs, obligations
Purpose of society: to maintain stability and cohesion through successful regulation and
integration of the pre-social self into the prevailing norms and values of a society
Anomie = a form of social breakdown in which the norms which would otherwise prevail in a
given situation cease to operate
The organic integration of society would be threatened by unrestricted individual
aspirations and hence a lack of any kind of social discipline, principle or guiding norms
Emphasis on the societal level (macro)
Social integration through moral communities based on occupations
Human relations and the Hawthorne studies
Managerial skills and good communication are key
Hawthorne effect = observation bias
Hawthorne effect = the close interest showed by the investigators, the effective pattern of
communication, which developed high social cohesion within the group brought together
the needs of the group with the output needs of the management
The effects of Pareto
1. The suggestion that workers’ behaviour can be attributed to their sentiments rather
than to their reason
2. Emphasis on the notion of system
Discussion
The key weakness is thinking as a tendency to over-emphasize integration and consensus,
both within societies and work organisations, at the expense of attention to underlying
conflicts and fundamental differences of interest
They tend to pay insufficient attention to the degree of interplay which goes on between
individual initiatives and social constraint in human societies
The interactionist-negotiated-order strand
, 4
Focus on the individual, small group and meanings – polar opposite of Durkheim, but
important continuities
Chicago school and symbolic interactionism
Approach: the individual and society are inseparable units: their relationship is mutually
interdependent – humans construct their realities in a process of interactions with other
human beings
Micro level
Symbolic interactionism = focuses on how people develop their concept of self through
processes of communication in which symbols such as words, gestures and dress allow
people to understand the expectations of others
The infant acquires a sense of self, an identity, through the socialization or social learning
process involves the internalization of symbols
To orient us as we make our way through life, we look to a variety of reference groups, and as
we move through a series of situations which bestow identity on us, we are said to follow a
subjective career
Subjective career = the way an individual makes sense of the way they have moved through
various social positions in the course of their life
Organisations as negotiated orders
Negotiated order = the pattern of activities which emerges over time as an outcome of the
interplay of the various interests, understandings, reactions and initiatives of the individuals
and groups involved in an organization
Ethnomethodology
Ethnomethodology = the study of how ordinary members of society in their everyday lives
make the world meaningful by achieving a sense of taken-for-grantedness
There are no such things as societies, social structures or organisations – there are
conceptions of them within the heads of members of ordinary societies
Rules are seen as resources that people draw upon to legitimize their actions and further
whatever project they are pursuing in the work context
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