Handbook of Organizations (RLE: Organizations)

James March, James G. March

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415820394
• eBook ISBN: 9781135965495
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book charts the state of organizational research and theory during the 1960s. A compendium of results, references, concepts ideas and theories, this Handbook will be of interest to both academics in organizational theory and managers facing operating problems of organizations.

CHAPTER 9	Management Theory
	JOSEPH L. MASSIE

Management thought, as an identifiable and separate field of study, is relatively immature. Although individual ideas of management and administration date back for more than two thousand years, organized management thought is a product of the last half-century. Until recently, most literature on the subject developed from reflections of practitioners in business and academicians specializing in education for business and public administration. With a few exceptions, the classical writings have not been based on formal empirical research but on judgment supported by personal experience and thoughts of the writers.

This chapter will concentrate on that body of thought currendy referred to in business schools as principles of management. March and Simon (1958) have labeled this thought “administrative management theory.” Others have called it the classical or traditional theory of organization and management. The subject generally has included the formal structure of organization and the process of general management. Until recently, its scope has been fairly well defined, and, in spite of varied attacks from scholars in other disciplines, it has remained important to a large group in business and public administration. Although it adopted some ideas from other disciplines, its conceptual framework remained essentially unchanged until after World War II. During the last decade, the scope of the body of thought has increased and greater diversity in views has developed.

This chapter presents (a) the conceptual frameworks of the early developers of the classical theory; (b) the most useful of its principles of management; (c) the current status of the body of thought; and (d) a discussion of several approaches to the study of management used by different authorities who have contributed to developments in the thought. The writer has assumed the role of a reporter describing the essentials of the classical theory; nevertheless, the reader should recognize that interpretations and evaluations inevitably appear and should refer to the basic references for more complete expositions.

EARLY CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

Although management emerged around 1900 as a separate discipline with the work of Frederick W. Taylor and the scientific management movement, the basic attempts to develop a top management view of administration were not made until later. Taylor did emphasize that scientific management was a philosophy and an attitude, but his specific examples and techniques related primarily to lower levels of management. Taylor provided many of the individual ideas for the conceptual framework later adopted by administrative management theory, such as the separation of planning from execution, functional organization, the use of standards in control, monetary incentives for employees, and the exception principle; yet an explicit and broad framework did not appear until Henri Fayol promulgated his five elements of administration and his 14 principles of administration. The strengths and weaknesses of current classical management theory date back to Fayol's early work, printed originally in 1916 in French but not widely read in the United States until several decades later. Fayol has been looked upon as a pioneer in administrative theory by most writers in the classical literature; therefore, a summary of his framework can serve as the initial step for understanding classical management theory.

Elements of Administration

Fayol's five elements of administration were: (a) planning (prevoyance), (b) organization, (c) command, (d) coordination, and (e) control. These elements generally referred to what later were called duties or functions of management. Other writers have added to the number of functions and renamed the third and fourth; however, current classical theory still universally recognizes planning, organization, and control as useful classifications for studying management. In fact, planning theory, organization theory, and control theory have developed into large subtopics of management thought.

To Fayol, planning involved both the forecasting of the future and the preparation to meet it. Plans were viewed as postulated on objectives that set the direction in which the management was headed. Looking back on Fayol's discussion of planning, today's reader might consider it to be self-evident or common sense. At the time the statements were made, however, planning generally was not distinguished from performance. Fayol discussed the planning function in some detail and agreed with F. W. Taylor that it was an important element in the improvement of management.

Fayol stated his second element: “To organize is to define and set up the general structure of the enterprise with reference to its objective, its means of operation and its future course as determined by planning; … It is to give form to the whole and to every detail its place; it is to make the frame and to fill it with its destined contents” (Gulick & Urwick, 1937, p. 103). The emphasis on structure in this definition became a major characteristic of all classical management theory. Fayol and later classical writers minimized the effects of the human factor in organization. The ideas of informal organization and organizational behavior of human beings were defined out of the problem of organizing. James D. Mooney, although apparently not acquainted with Fayol's earlier work, later reinforced the trend toward the narrow definition of organizing in his emphasis on structural principles:

In every organization there is a collective job to be done, consisting always of the sum of many individual jobs, and the task of administration, operating through management, is the coordination of all the human effort necessary to this end. Such coordination, however, always presupposes the jobs to be coordinated. The job as such is therefore antecedent to the man on the job, and the sound coordination of these jobs, considered simply as jobs, must be the first and necessary condition in the effective coordination of the human factor (Gulick & Urwick, 1937, p. 92).

Organizing in this theory involved the dividing of jobs and the grouping of positions in a hierarchy; it preceded any phase of management involving human interrelationships. Later, Henry S. Dennison's contribution to the theory was called Organization Engineering (1931), a title which directed attention to the mechanical viewpoint. The subject of organizing thus was restricted to the relationship of positions, not people; organizing was considered to be similar to designing a machine, and human characteristics were taken as constants.

Fayol viewed planning and organizing as preparation for operations. The functions of command and coordination were to carry out the operations. Command involved the execution of plans, and coordination meant uniting and correlating all activities. Control involved the checking of actual performance with the rules which had been laid down and the instructions which had been given.

Using a similar conceptual framework, Luther Gulick in 1937 codified the work of the executive under the acronym POSDCORB, which identified the seven elements of planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting. In this framework, the meanings of planning, organizing, and coordinating were not greatly different from those used by Fayol. Directing replaced Fayol's command but explicitly included the making of decisions and stating them as orders. Staffing was added to include the personnel function of recruitment and training of the staff and the maintenance of favorable conditions of work; it remained separate from organization. Gulick added reporting as a management function and led the way to the emphasis on information and communication; however, his term referred only to the transmission of information through authority channels. Budgeting was substituted for Fayol's control but was narrowly defined as “fiscal planning, accounting, and control” (Gulick & Urwick, 1937, p. 13).

Although some classical writers have differed somewhat in the number and definitions of the elements of management, they all have discussed management in a functional framework. All view organizing as uniquely the job of the manager, and most study the function of organizing as distinctly different from the function of placement of human beings in the structure. Urwick, in his synthesis of classical contributions, made the distinction between organizing and staffing definite:

… in good engineering practice design must come first. Similarly, in good social practice design should come first. Logically it is inconceivable that any individual should be appointed to a position carrying a large salary, without a clear idea of the part which that position is meant to play in the general social pattern of which it is a component, the responsibilities and relationships attached to it and the standard of performance which is expected in return for the expenditure (1943, p. 38).

Current proponents of classical management theory typically omit coordinating as a basic function; they look upon it as a result of the proper performance of other functions rather than as a separate one. Some view motivating as a basic function especially as a result of those developments outside classical thought which have shown the importance of social and psychological factors. All give the control function increasing attention as they discover new control techniques to help the manager. The meaning of control has become more explicit as a process that measures current performance and guides it toward some predetermined goal. Essentials of any system of control generally are (a) a predetermined goal, (b) a means of measuring current activity, (c) a means of comparing current activity with a criterion, and (d) a means of correcting the current activity so as to achieve the desired results.

The identification of the essential functions of management directed thoughts of classical theorists into a common pattern. This pattern provided a simple, analytical, and straightforward approach for helping practitioners to understand the management process. It became generally accepted as “the” approach for explaining the job of management.

Early Statements of Principles of Management

Classical theorists tend to state concise and simple principles as guides for a manager in the execution of his functions. The literature is full of different attempts to list these essential foundations of management. After a number of authorities had independently arrived at their own opinions regarding these foundations, and after it became evident that these opinions were essentially in agreement, the tendency was to consider the statements as more than mere hypotheses and to refer to them increasingly as universals valid in all managerial situations.

Among the earliest comprehensive attempts to state principles of management were those of Fayol. Fayol chose the term “principles” for his 14 statements, although he did not view them to be unchangeable laws or universals. He preceded his contribution by the following qualification:

For preference I shall adopt the term principles whilst dissociating it from any suggestion of rigidity, for there is nothing rigid or absolute in management affairs; it is all a question of proportion. Seldom do we have to apply the same principle twice in identical conditions; allowance must be made for different changing circumstances, for men just as different and changing, and for many other variable elements. Therefore principles are flexible and capable of adaptation to every need; it is a matter of knowing how to make use of them, which is a difficult art requiring intelligence, experience, decision and proportion (Fayol, 1949, p. 19).

The 14 principles proposed by Fayol became authoritative, with many writers basing their own statements on at least a portion of Fayol's list. ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Foundations
• Methodologies
• Theoretical-Substantive Areas
• Applications
• Author Index
• Subject Index