Overview

1
Overview

• Bureaucracy
• Theory X / Theory Y
• Open systems theory
• Sociotechnical systems theory
• Comparing Movements

2
Organizational Theory

• Describe structure and functioning of
  organizations
• distinguishing characteristics
• structure
• interrelationships among people in organizations
• interactions among people and technology
• Theories can be descriptive or prescriptive

3
Bureaucracy

• Concerned mainly with structure of organization
• Distinguished by four characteristics
• division of labor
• delegation of authority
• span of control
• line vs. staff

4
Bureaucracy cont.

• Strengths
• Very well defined functions and structures
• Weaknesses
• Designs organizations without regard to people
• Closed-loop system doesnt take the environment
  into account

5
Theory X/Y

• Douglas MacGregor, 1960
• Interaction between supervisors and subordinates
• Organizations management approach is determined
  by supervisors attitudes and belifes about
  subordinates
• Beginning of human relations movement

6
Theory X

• Role of Management
• Management responsible for organizing elements of
  productive enterprise
• People need to be controlled and directed
• People would be passive otherwise

• Human Nature
• man works as little as possible
• lacks ambition, dislikes responsibility, prefers
  to be led
• inherently self-centered
• naturally resistant to change
• gullible, not very bright

7
Theory Y

• Role of Management
• Management responsible for organizing elements of
  productive enterprise
• Task of management is to arrange organizational
  conditions so that people can achieve their own
  goals best by directing their own efforts toward
  organizational objectives

• Human Nature
• People are not naturally passive, they have
  become so as a result of experience in
  organizations
• Motivation and capacity for assuming
  responsibility is inherent in people

8
Open Systems Theory

• Assumptions
• organizations are influenced by the environment
• that organization interacts with environment
• organizations can be described as having three
  levels of systems
• organization-level system
• group-level system
• individual/job level system

9
Open Systems Theory, cont.

• Properties of systems
• inputs, operations, and outputs
• Negative Entropy
• Homeostasis
• Equifinality
• Permeable Boundaries
• Feedback

10
Sociotechnical Systems Theory

• Three components in an organizational system
• people
• technology
• environment
• Both the technical and the social systems deal
  with the inputs interactively to produce the
  desired output -- joint optimization
• When problems arise, the person who encountered
  them should handle them -- unit control of
  variance

11
OT Movements Compared
12
Summary

• Bureaucracy
• Theory X / Theory Y
• Open systems theory
• Sociotechnical systems theory
• Comparing Movements

13
Organizational Development

• family of techniques designed to help
  organizations improve
• change agent acts as a guide and trainer for
  the OD process

14
Management by Objectives

• Based on goal-setting
• Five steps
• top officials set goals for entire organization
• managers are trained to set goals
• supervisors hold goal-setting meetings with
  subordinates
• All employees work to achieve their goals
• Goal attainment is evaluated

15
Survey feedback

• Two major stages
• administer questionnaire (asked about job
  attitudes, job satisfaction, perceptions of job
  conditions)
• interpret questionnaire and provide feedback
  based on results
• Team Building -- see Ch. 12

16
T-Group

• Designed to enhance individual communication
• Exercises guided by a trainer or facilitator
• Trainer provides nonjudgmental feedback
• Once popular but not anymore. Reasons
• Transfer of training Individuals can be
  positively affected, but there may be no effect
  or negative effects in the workplace, e.g., job
  satisfaction.
• The T-group experience is powerful can be much
  like group psychotherapy. Some think it
  unethical for an organization to require T-group
  attendance.

17
Effectiveness of OD

• Hard to evaluate because
• Difficult to define what a legitimate OD program
  is
• Research on an entire organization difficult to
  conduct
• The short answer OD programs can be effective,
  if properly conducted and supported by top
  management.