Theories of organizational behaviour

THEORIES OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

PRESENTED BYSIMRAN KAUR

CLASSICAL ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY• Developed in first half of 20th century• It represents the merger of scientific

management, bureaucratic theory and administrative theory

• It is rigid and mechanistic• Its major deficiency was that it attempted

to explain peoples’ motivation to work strictly as a function of economic reward

CLASSICAL ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY• Rational approach based on1. Transparency2. Adjustability3. Need for possibility of replacing parts of

the organization and avoid key staff4. Need to reduce infighting5. Top down management and control6. Professional and rational behaviour

without disruptive emotional relationships

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT • It was originated in beginning of 20th century by

Fredrick W. Taylor• It focused on getting the best people and

equipment, and scrutinizing each production task

• It is based on an idea of systemization where attempts were made to enhance the efficiency of procedures to best effect via scientific analyses and experiments

• It is quickly adopted by large mass-producing industrial companies

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT• The approach to increased productivity is

through mutual trust between management and workers

• 4 principles of Scientific Management 1. science, not rule of thumb 2. scientific selection of workers 3. management and labour cooperation rather than conflict 4. scientific training of workers

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT• The philosophy of “production first, people

second” has left a legacy of declining production and quality, dissatisfaction with work, loss of pride in workmanship, and a near complete loss of organizational pride

ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY• It was developed by Henry Fayol• Top down approach• Coordination (Hierarchial pyramid) 1. All employee are accountable to one superior only 2. A superior can only have the number of subordinates which he/she can manage 3. Routine work must be performed by subordinates

so that superior can attend to special tasks• Specialization (Distribution of activities in working

groups)

ADMINISTRATIVE THEORYFayol’s principles of management1. Division of work2. Authority and responsibility3. Discipline4. Unity of command5. Unity of direction6. Subordination of individual interest7. Remuneration of personnel8. Centralization

ADMINISTRATIVE THEORYFayol’s principles of management9. Scalar chain10. Order11. Equity12. Stability of tenure of personnel13. Initiative14. Esprit de corpe

BUREAUCRACY MODEL• It was developed by Max Weber, who is also

known as Father of Sociology• It includes social and historical perspective• According to Weber, the public employee

must act as if the superior’s interests were his own and thus stay in his bureaucratically assigned role

• According to Weber, bureaucracy is “a specific administrative structure, which is based on a legal and rule-oriented authority”

BUREAUCRACY MODEL• Bureaucracy has the following characteristics: 1. Established distribution of work between the members of the organization 2. An administrative hierarchy 3. A rule-oriented system, which describes the performance of the work 4. Separation of personnel possessions and rights for the office 5. Selection of staff according to technical qualifications 6. Employment involves a career

BUREAUCRACY MODEL• Weber’s bureaucratic approach 1. Structure 2. Specialization 3. Predictability and stability 4. Rationality 5. Democracy• The fascination with goal-rational action is

expressed in Weber’s different perceptions of authority (Traditional authority; Legal, rule-oriented authority; Charismatic authority)

NEOCLASSICAL ORGANIZATION THEORY

• Improvements in organization theory led to consideration of work environment

• Organizations can succeed with a cohesive environment where subordinates are accepting of managerial authority

• The key to this theory is maintaining equilibrium

• Merger of belief of Mayo, Roethlisberger, Bernard and Shaw

HAWTHORNE EXPERIMENTS• It challenged classical view• It was conducted by Mayo and Roethlisberger in

late 1920’s at Western Electric plant in Hawthorne, Illionis

• While manipulating conditions in the work environment (eg, intensity of lightning), they found that any change had a positive impact on productivity

• The act of paying attention to employees in a friendly and non-threatening way was sufficient by itself to increase output

BARNARD’S THEORY• It defined organization as a system of

consciously coordinated activities• It stressed role of executive in creating an

atmosphere where is coherence of values and purposes

• It proposed that a manager’s authority is derived from subordinates’ acceptance, instead of hierarchial power structure of the organization

SIMON’S THEORY• Simon’s theory proposed a model of

“limited rationality” to explain Hawthorne experiments

• It stated that workers could respond unpredictability to managerial attention

CONTINGENCY THEORY• It deals primarily with conflict• Conflict is unavoidable but manageable • Organizations evolve to meet their own

strategic needs in rational, sequential and linear ways

• Adapting to changes in environment is important to managerial and organizational success

CHANDLER THEORY• Chandler studied 4 large US corporations• He proposed that an organization would

naturally evolve to meet needs of its strategy

• Organizations would act in a rational, sequential and linear manner

• Effectiveness was a function of management’s ability to adapt to environmental changes

LAWRENCE AND LORSCH THEORY

• Lawrence and Lorsch studied how organizations adjusted to fit their environment

• In highly volatile industries, they noted the importance of giving managers at all levels the authority to make decisions over their domain

• Managers would be free to make decisions contingent on the current situation

SYSTEMS THEORY• It was originally proposed by Hungarian

biologist, Ludung von Bertalanffy, in 1928• All the components of the organization are

interrelated and that changing one variable might impact many others

• Organizations are viewed as open systems, continually interacting with their environment

• Non-linear relationships might exist between variables

SYSTEMS THEORY• One of the most salient argument against

Systems Theory is that complexity introduced by nonlinearity make it difficult or impossible to fully understand the relationships between variables

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