Summary Introduction to Business Administration
Lecture 2 (07-09-2021)
Chapter 1
Globalization: “the gradual connection between societies.” “Global circulation of
goods, services, and capital; ideas and people.”
Positive sides:
- Access to larger markets
- Upscaling of organisations
- Access to capital flows, technology, human capital, cheaper imports, and
larger export markets.
Negative sides:
- Powershift to international corporations
- Same-ness of production
- Loss of cultural heritage, traditional professions and of traditional ways of
working
- Pollution
- Urbanisation
Supply chain: “The network of all the individuals, organizations, resources, activities
and technology involved in the creation and sale of a product, from the delivery of
source materials from the supplier to the manufacturer, through to its eventual
delivery to the end user (consumer).”
Social mobility: “the relative changes of people from different social backgrounds
moving into a given social class”. One main reason for a lack of social mobility is the
expenses of higher education.
Behaviour in organisations is dependent on:
- The worker (age, class, status, power, gender, race, religion, ethnicity,
employability, disability)
- The conditions (job type, contract type, parttime, homeworking)
- The context (unemployment, aging, social mobility industry, culture,
profession, law)
Chapter 4 Wilson
‘Rationality’ = behaviour that is intentional (specific aim), rational (reason or logic),
fitting for the particular aim (functional).
The management rationale:
1. Managers who hire the best employees
2. Deploy these employees in the way they can deliver the best performance
3. In order to fulfil the aims of the organisation
organisation as a machine
Assumption: workers cannot be trusted, control human resources
,Functionalism: The worker is selected, educated, and developed in order to fulfil aims
of the organisation
Scientific management: management as a true science: ‘clearly defined laws, rules
and principles’
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 – 1915)
Assumptions of Taylor
- Workers have a reason to keep production low: a fear to become
superfluous/unnecessary, no reason to become more productive
- Managers have little knowledge on how production can be minimalized
Result: research (objective/rational) is needed about how can be executed as fast
and efficient as possible
The principle of the ‘division of labour’
- Large processes should be divided into the smallest possible part (maximum
decomposition)
- Efficiency by changing the process into short repetitive tasks
- Division between direct versus indirect work, mental versus manual
- Minimalization of skills and knowledge necessary
Three Tayloristic principles:
1. Work becomes separated from the skills of workers
2. Thinking about work becomes separated from executing the work
3. The management is the only one who have knowledge about work, this
knowledge increases power that is used in control over execution of work
Taylor’s worldview: order & control
A suitable worker is someone who does not understand work without the orders from
management (dependant). Selection of the most productive employee. Not
intelligence, trustworthy, loyal.
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
Applies the principles of Taylor to the management of his car factory
- Every process is divided into its smallest part possible
- Strict control and supervision by management
- Phase of work is dictated by the machine
- Fast repetition and continuous work
- Authoritarian management
Result: work becomes monotonous (alienating)
Assumption Ford: If someone does not like a job in my factory, they have a choice to
leave. Workers did not protest because the Ford factory was a ‘mini society’, there
were not many alternative jobs, workers also develop less skills and knowledge. Start
1920s, Ford 2/3 of the market.
The heritage of Fordism nowadays: division of labour
Lecture 3 (13-09-2021)
Chapter 4
,The heritage of Taylorism nowadays
- To hire an educated worker for a complex task is expensive and high risk,
investment and knowledge is controlled by one person
- From organizational position it is attractive for managers to divide into smaller
tasks and hire an employee who is easier to replace
Result:
- Reduce costs
- Increase profit (output is more efficient)
- Uniform products (stable in quality)
- Management can determine how much, how long and for how much pay
- More control and power with the management
- No collaboration between employees necessary
- Workers are more easily replaced
Labour Capital
Worker manager/management
Seeks fulfilment of seeks maximization
Human needs of profit
There is an inherent conflict of interest between “labour” and “capital”. Managers are
aware of this conflict of interest and seek to control workers (power)
Routinization = making work a routine, repetition, automation, work without thinking
often automated/ machine-like work, assembly line
Result routinization deskilling: reducing the required level of skills required to carry
out a job. Resulting in less job satisfaction, absenteeism, intention to leave the job.
Human relations movement
Emile Durkheim (1859-1917) same time as (1856-1915) Ford implements Taylorism
around 1920
Western electric company (Hawthorne factory in Chicago 1924)
Experiments: with how low light, temperature, humidity affect workers productivity
Experimental group vs. control group. Productivity always increased with the
experimental groups when employees get attention of researchers/managers
Attention for health, strengthening of the group cohesion result in a higher
productivity as a group. Importance of social cohesion is trust and loyalty
Manager needs to develop social skills, and take care of the social needs of the
workers
Human relations movement was an important counter point in the history of
management:
- Workers have social needs
- Working in groups is important/positive
- Recognizing the ‘informal organization’, friendship, groups, interaction,
emotional and sentimental aspects of work, trust, loyalty (contrasting the
rational organisation
Job redesign: theoretical framework and stream of research resulting from the human
relations movement. Literature asks how to make jobs more meaningful and
challenging. Central issue: recognition that managers make choices about how jobs
are arranged, and which technology is used. Current issue: Automation of jobs.
, Basic assumptions: the role of background and classes influencing management
theories
- Taylor there is an innate difference between the ‘thinkers’ (managers) versus
‘do-ers’ (workers)
Eugenics: the ‘science’ regarding race, assuming all individual differences are innate
(genetically). Eugenics to ‘optimize’ society design society in such way that the
race with the highest chances to be successful should be facilitated in its
development. Eugenics Record Office: start of 20 th century (USA) no interracial
marriages allowed/recognized. Hitler creation of the Ubermensch, sterilization.
Elements of eugenics are still believed
- Hiring based on ‘last name’/good family background
Chapter 2 Wilson
Weber (1864-1920) Sociology & politics
Organisations should be organise based on the principles of bureaucracy
- Ratio/rationality power vs personal
- Logics, rational calculationpreference, network, politics
Administrative system based on efficiency, centralisation of power uniform, hierarchy,
objectivity. Aim; functional, objective. Side effect; impersonal/alienation
Bureaucracy into the degeneration of bureaucracy.
Red tape:
- Overly complicated processes
- Too much paperwork
- Slow processes
- Overly formal prosses
Taylor vs Weber
Scientific management bureaucracy
Management as true science ratio/rationality, logics, rational
calculation
‘Clearly defined laws, rules and principles’ efficiency
Time and Motion studies societal: in all organisations
centralisation of power
Division of labour uniformity, hierarchy
Repeating movements quickly functionality, objectively
Routinization Alienation Impersonal Alienation
Theorist – practitioner Sociology & politics
Alienation:
“A state or a feeling in which the job is external to the individual’
- If you cannot control your work processes
- If you cannot make decisions about your work (low autonomy)
- Aimless work
Dimensions of alienation:
- Powerlessness, centralisation of decision making
- Meaninglessness, experience of work to be separated from the aim of the
organisation. Little contribution to the bigger aim
