Title: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ORGANIZATION THEORY
1A BRIEF HISTORY OF ORGANIZATION THEORY
Mary Jo Hatch with Ann L. Cunliffe
2Why A History of OT?
- Because it provides a basis for
- Understanding the current field
- Understanding how and why the three perspectives
emerged - Understanding the relationship between theory and
practice - Avoiding reinventing the theoretical wheel
3Organization Theory At Its Inception
- Organization theory emerged as a recognizable
field of study in the 1960s. - Two major sources of thought that formed the
prehistory of organizational theory were
Sociological and Managerial.
4Modes of Reasoning
- Inductive developing theory from practice.
- (interpretive epistemology)
- Deductive testing theory against practice.
- (positivist epistemology)
5Adam Smith, Political-Economist (1723-1790,
Scottish)
- Looked at techniques of pin manufacturing to
illustrate how - the division of labor can produce economic
efficiency.
Image from "The Warren J. Samuels Portrait
Collection at Duke University
6Karl Marx, Philosopher-Economist and
Revolutionary (1818-1883)
- Regarded as one of the founders of sociology.
- Theory of Capital
- Managerial Control
- Exploitation
- Alienation
Image from "The Warren J. Samuels Portrait
Collection at Duke University
7MARXS THEORY OF CAPITAL (1867)
- Humans interact with the physical environment
-
- Physical needs emerge
Power relations -
(capitalists/labor) - Labor need for collective work
- Emergence of society culture
8Emile Durkheim, Sociologist (1858-1917)
- - Informal (social needs) and Formal
organization. - - Development of objectivist research methods
objective measurement, statistical description
and analysis.
9Max Weber, Sociologist (1864-1920)
- Types of Authority
- Traditional inherited
- Charismatic attraction
- Rational-Legal technical abilities
10Max Webers Theory of Bureaucracy
- Bureaucracy can rationalize social order
- Formal Rationality - calculative
techniques - Substantive Rationality - desired ends
11Frederick Winslow Taylor, Engineer (1856-1915)
- Founder of Scientific Management - applying
scientific methods to work to maximize the
benefits to employees, employers, and society. - Developed work standards, uniform work methods,
order-of-work sequences, methods of placing
workers, methods of supervision, and incentive
schemes.
12Mary Parker Follett, Scholar, Social Reformer,
Consultant (1868-1933)
- Promoted employee involvement and democratic
forms of organization. - Developed the principle of self-government of
groups.
13Henri Fayol, Engineer, CEO, Administrative
Theorist (1841-1925)
- Developed administrative principles including
- Span-of-control number of subordinates
supervised by a manager. - Departmentation grouping similar activities.
- Unity-of-command one person - one boss.
- Scalar principle linking organizational members
in a hierarchy.
14Luther H. Gulick, Administrative Theorist
(1892-1992)
- Developed a science of administration
- - Organizational efficiency through the
division of work - into small, specialized segments clear
task definition, - instruction etc.
- Defined the work of the chief executive through
POSDCoRB.
15POSDCoRB
- Planning
- Organizing
- Staffing
- Directing
- Coordinating
- Reporting
- Budgeting
16Chester Barnard, Executive and Management
Theorist (1886-1961)
- Organizations as cooperative social systems
- - the communication of goals
- - worker motivation
17Modernism - Enlightenment (Kant, Descartes,
Locke)
- Replace superstition with reason
- Control the environment through scientific
knowledge - Human progress through scientific knowledge
- The modern organization
18General Systems Theory (von Bertalanffy, 1968)
- General Systems Theorists focus on the law-like
regularities underlying and uniting all phenomena
across the various branches of science. - Hierarchy of Subsystems
- Interdependence
- Holistic view
19Table 2.1 Bouldings Hierarchy of Systems
- Level 1 Framework
- Level 2 Clock work
- Level 3 Control
- Level 4 Open (living)
- Level 5 Genetic
- Level 6 Animal
- Level 7 Human
- Level 8 Social organization
- Level 9 Transcendental
20A System
- Environment
- System
- (input transformation
output) -
- Subsystem Subsystem
Subsystem - Subsystem Subsystem
feedback
feedback
21Socio-Technical Systems Theory
- Human behavior and technology are
interrelated, therefore any changes in technology
will affect social relationships, attitudes, and
feelings about work. Both need to be balanced. - Autonomous work groups
- Psychological needs of individuals
22Contingency Theory (1960s)
- Contingency theorists believe that the most
appropriate way of designing and managing an
organization depends upon the characteristics of
the situation in which the organization finds
itself.
23Contingency Theory
- Identify contingent factors.
- Determine the best fit.
- If . then
Goals
Technology
People
Environment
24Symbolic Interpretive Influences
- The crisis of representation questions our
relationship with our social world and the ways
in which we account for our experience. - Social constructionism we construct our social
world and our knowledge of that world in our
everyday interactions.
25Symbolic-Interpretivism
- Challenges objective science and modernism.
- Applies ethnographic and interpretive approaches
to organizations. - Uncovers multiple interpretations of
organizational members. - Emphasizes the role of context in shaping and
interpreting meaning.
26Symbolic-Interpretivists Explore
- How people create meanings in organizations
through their interpretation of utterances,
stories, rituals, actions, and so on. - How individuals and groups create multiple
meanings and interpret them from their own
cultural contexts. - How multiple interpretations of individuals and
subcultures blend to socially construct
organizational reality.
27Social Constructionism
- Social reality is both objective and subjective
-- an ongoing - interaction of people and their social world.
- The process of social construction involves
- Intersubjectivity created between us
via shared - history and experience.
- Objectified reality seemingly objective and
stable - but continually reconstructed in
- actions.
28Symbolic-Interpretive Theories Include
- Social Construction Theory (Berger Luckmann,
1966) - Sensemaking Theory Enactment (Weick, 1979,
1995) - Institutionalization (Selznick, 1949)
- Reflexivity (Clifford Marcus, 1986)
29Berger Luckmanns Social Construction of
Reality (1966)
- Externalization
- (creating personal shared
social meanings, - routines etc
intersubjectively) -
- Socialization
- Objectification
- (stable interactions, meanings etc
- make the world seem real to us)
- Internalization
- (taking on social eanings,
- roles actions)
30Sensemaking Theory (Weick, 1995)
- Organizations exist in the minds of
organizational members in the form of cognitive
maps, or images - of experience.
- We make them real in our actions (reification).
- We talk and act organizations into existence
(enactment).
31Institutionalization
- Organizations compete and adapt to the demands
and values of their environment, society, and of
internal groups. - Institutionalization occurs as actions are
repeated.
32Reflexivity - Constructionist Approaches
- Every view is a situated one - based on our
interpretive community. - We need to accept that we not only construct our
realities, but also our knowledge of those
realities. - We should therefore explore how we construct
social and organizational realities, and the
influence our assumptions and practices have on
the research process and on knowledge (critical
self-reflexivity).
33Some Postmodern Influences
- Critical Theory and the critique of
- - the Enlightenment Project (rational,
universal knowledge) - - the Progress Myth (progress through
science). - Poststructuralism and the critique of language as
accurately representing reality and the idea that
words have fixed meaning.
34A Few Postmodern Ideas
- Language Games
- Grand Narratives
- Discursive Practices
- Deconstruction
- Simulacra
35Language and Meaning (Saussure, 1959)
- Signifier
- Bird
- Fugl
- Oiseau .
- The bird is swimming on the water.
Signified
36Language - A Postmodern View
- Modernism assumes words (signs) are a neutral
medium for representing external objective
reality - Postmodernism takes a non-representational view
language constitutes reality - Saussure the meaning of words does not reside in
what is signified words take their meaning from
other words - Thus, depending on which other words we use,
different meanings will occur - Therefore, meaning is undecidable and unstable
and language constitutes a world in flux.
37Language Games (Wittgenstein , 1953, 1980)
- The meaning of a word depends upon how it is
used. - Language use is influenced by rules - how words
and responses are connected. - Language and rules have stability but also change
in practice. - Meanings and rules are socially situated and vary
across communities, i.e. language games.
38Grand Narratives
- Postmodernists criticize Grand Narratives
(progress myth, universal Truth, wealth creation)
because they legitimize ways of thinking and
acting that promote - what is True
- what is good knowledge
- self-interest
- . and silence and marginalize others.
-
We need to give voice to silence.
39Discourse and Discursive Practices
- Foucault argued that power/knowledge are entwined
and influence / are influenced by discursive
practices. - Discursive practices are systems of rules that
determine the rationality and legitimacy of
particular forms of knowledge. These rules are
powerful because they create and regulate - - social institutions (the university,
hospital) - - good knowledge
- - who we are (expert or not)
- - what we say (discourse)
- - how we act.
40Power/Knowledge
- Knowledge is produced and maintained through
historical, - cultural, and discursive codes and
practices. - Certain people or groups define what is normal
and not - normal by codifying knowledge.
- These groups use this knowledge to define and
regulate - who and what is normal.
- Thus power is exercised through knowledge as
- individuals are disciplined and
controlled based on - these definitions and codes.
41Power/Knowledge
- In every society the production of discourse is
at once controlled, selected, organized and
redistributed according to a number of procedures
whose role is to avert its powers and its
dangers, to cope with chance events, to evade its
ponderous, awesome materiality - (Foucault, 1972
216)
42Différance
- Derrida suggested that meaning is subject to the
play of différance, because meaning - Defers is postponed because we explain words by
using yet more words, and so move further away
from - the original.
- Differs words derive meaning from the interplay
with their opposite, e.g., good/bad,
organization/ - disorganization
43Meaning Defers.
- ECONOMY thrifty management
- Powerful in action growing vigorously
-
- potent cogent as reasons etc
44- Deconstruction exposes the many ways in which
texts can be interpreted the silences, absences,
and gaps. It exposes the instability of meaning
makes visible the other and is suspicious of
dichotomies.
45Reflexivity - Deconstructionist Approaches
- Open up meaning and the relationship between
author, text, subjects and reader to reflexive
scrutiny. - Question the assumptions underlying management
ideologies, power relations, management theory,
organizational practices, and surface their
impact on social experience.
46Simulacra
Copies of copies of which there are no
originals..
47Hyperreality
- The collapse of reality into images. The
production of simulations or fantasies of worlds
that do not exist.