A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying
organizations - Summary
1. Bureaucracy and Scientific Management
Max Weber (1864-1920) was a German sociologist. He saw that what might hold a society
together was some sense of authority. People submit to the will of others because they
believed those other had the right to give the orders.
According to Weber, the traditional form of authority backed up with force and violence is
supplanted by rational-legal authority; Bureaucracy. Obedience was secured through a kind of
process; formal, logical and reasoned. This authority takes the form of rules, procedures and
duties. It is not the person itself anymore but the role of the person/ the job where we obey for,
moreover there are series of hierarchical relationships. Appointment to a job and promotion
were based strictly on experience and qualifications
Weber was no partisan of bureaucracy. Het was afraid for the iron cage of rationalization. The
bureaucracy became dominant because it was the most technically efficient and rational form
of organization.
According to Weber, the complete harmony of individual actions untainted by discretion could
routinely outperform any other kind of organization.
Bureaucracy sets up a dichotomy of systematic and individual rationality and formal and
instrumental rationality. But it does not set up a dichotomy with formally and substantively
rationality. It is not substantively rationality, they don't care about ethic, they are just about
getting the job done as quickly as possible. This doesn't mean that they could not be ethical
right.
Formally rationality is series of actions organized in such a way that it leads tot a previously
defined goal, every element in this series of actions receiving a functional position and role.
Substantive rationality (value rationality) is series of action in which norms and values play a
main role, for example religion, tradition, ideology and creativity (what differs per culture).
Paul du Gay's (book 'In Praise of bureaucracy, 2000) argues that bureaucracy is about fairness.
The service you receive as a client or customer is not conditioned by the mood or prejudices of
the person giving the service, or any other value judgements. It is concerned not with values
but with facts, it is neutral.
Bureaucratic dysfunctionalists suggest that bureaucracy in practice have not just the problem
of a deficit of substantive rationality but, even, a deficit of formal rationality. Procedures and
practices are not the same thing. There is a gap between the rules and what people actually do
that contributes to efficiency.
Bureaucracy has the tendency to degenerate into a situation where the means become and
end itself. People forget the end and only work according to the rule. The formal organization of
rules, procedures, what is 'meant' to happen, is not the same as the organization itself
(informal organization). We have to consider highly personal prejudices, motivations and
actions. The formal and informal organization are interdependent and mutually constitutive,
one could not exist without the other, and the precise nature in any particular case of one will
influence the other.
Another implication is whenever people act towards some purpose, the outcomes will be a
mixture of what was hope for by the action and what was unforeseen and possibly undesired =
unintended and intended consequences.
Structure-agency dualism = if social structure or the individual his/herself determined what
happens.
In an organization, what people do is certainly conditioned by the rules, procedures and norms
prevailing, but these only continue to exist and develop because of actions, choices and
behaviours of individuals.
People will behave differently precisely because of the predictions which are made about them.
Predictions about the future change the product and therefore affect just what happens in the
future.
, A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying
organizations - Summary
There is no point at which a supposedly optimum system of organization can be reached and
this means that solutions to problem at any one time form the basis of new problems in the
future.
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1917) was an engineer working in an iron/steelmaking factory
during the industrialization of the US. Taylor identified a problem based on his early experience
as a machine operator. Workers were naturally lazy and would work as little as they could.
Every on part of the factory used their own tools and knew more than their supervisors did
about their part.
The solution of Taylor was scientific management with four principles (which we still use
nowadays):
1. A science of each element of work
2. Scientific selection and training of workers
3. Division of labour between workers and managers.
4. Co-operation between managers en workers.
Time and motion was used to measure the time taken for each component of a job to find out
the optimum time for the operation with no wastage. No longer was it possible for workers to
give unrealistic estimates of the time needed to perform task.
The impact/intention of Taylorism was to evacuate all discretion from work processes so that
the organization would become akin to machines and workers akin to machine parts. It was
important that workers were regarded no more than components in the organizational
machine. Taylor believed that his system embodied an impersonal fairness; the fairness of 'a
fair day's wage for a fair day's work. Workers would no longer be dependent upon the
patronage of a work gang leader, but would be paid and worked according to a fixed system.
Harry Braverman (1974) remarked on the Taylorism system that it is to capitalist profit-seeking
and not of any kind of fairness. A fair day's work means the maximum amount of work which
produces an output of equivalent value to what the worker is paid, but this would not yield a
profit.
Weber regarded the work of Taylor as emblematic of the advance of rationalized organization
together with the thesis of Protestantism with its values of thrift, hard work and individualism.
Workers resisted the Taylorism. Previously they hired and trained workers by themselves, that
changed into the scientific selection and training of workers. Moreover, workers had to
undertake to do the work in the shortest time as possible in return for wage; there was no real
co-operation between worker and manager.
However, he inspirited a group followers who propagated and developed his ideas into the
twentieth century. The unintended consequence was sabotage, absenteeism and high turnover.
Taylorism motivated the workers in a very simple way with bonuses. They were treated as
money-motivated robots.
The result was an intensification of Taylorism, called as the Fordism. The Fordism created the
moving assembly line. A huge number of those bodily movements of the Taylor approach were
now mechanized. Workers were parts within the organizational machine. Manager gained more
power, however workers as well. Workers could easily stop the production by stopping with
working on one place. Next to this sabotage, the high level of absenteeism and turnover were
again a problem.
The management principles of Taylor and Ford embody the formal rationality/bureaucracy and
continue to do fine with the management to the present day.
Rationeel = berustend op wetenschappelijke gronden of feiten; in overeenstemming met
redelijkheid
