Taylor, F. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management. New York.
Thesis: Frederick W. Taylor initiated the movement of scientific management with his associates. He was the first person to learn the process of work scientifically. He learned how work was executed and analyzed how it affects the worker efficiency. The philosophy of Taylor is aimed at the principle that forcing people do their work as hard as they could was not as proficient as enhancing the way work was done. According to Taylor, the productivity would be increased if the jobs are being enhanced and simplified.
Four principles of scientific management
Taylor proposed four principles in the study about scientific management:
- Replace the work by rule of thumb and exercise scientific methods to learn the work and to execute explicit tasks establish in the most efficient way.
- Assign workers based on their potential and motivation and guide them to work at the highest efficiency.
- Examine the performance of a worker and give guidance and control to make sure they are exercising the most effective ways of working.
- Distribute the work among workers and managers in order to make managers spend their time in preparation and training and workers execute their responsibilities proficiently.
“In the earlier period the man has been first; but the system would be first in future”
“The standard objective of management should be to protect the highest prosperity for the manager, coupled with the highest prosperity for every worker”
The article has generally become in practice today and cooperation among workers and managers has increased into a team work which organizations enjoy today. The article provides procedures of training and methods of studying workplace efficiency.
Willoughby, W. F. (1918). The movement for budgetary reform in the states (No. 4). D. Appleton and Company.
Thesis: The article contains the content of budget laws which are being taken up by numerous states. The author believed that budgets are the most powerful tool of public administration. The author devoted a comparative study in his article and some criticisms of the key features of budgetary laws of the states. The author emphasized that an executive budget could not be expected to work successfully until the state government is so restructured that various associations and managerial services are grouped into departments based on their characters.
“Budget is the decisive accountability instrument”
“Unless the public knows about how the governmental affairs are being conducted in the past, it is not necessary to point out that the admired will cannot be wisely created nor expressed”
The article outlines the origin and extends of the movement for state budgetary reform briefly. The article is aimed mainly at the actions and budget laws being adopted by every state which is valuable from the perspective of students, public officials and for those who are directly linked with the law and management of budget laws.
Follett, M. P. (1926). The giving of order. Scientific foundations of business administration.
Thesis: The author addresses the authority concerns in business management, especially how influence could be gained on familiar groups by the managers which are formed naturally in the workplace. The author identified that people react less to top-down orders and more to situations. Managers must not just give orders, but they need to give people the motivation and means to react to certain situations.
“My explanation is to depersonalize the giving instructions, to connect all concerned in learning of the situation, to realize the rule of the condition, and follow that”
“The long-distance order should be substituted by face-to-face suggestion”
The article is valuable for both managers and employees which emphasizes on motivation, giving employees the authority and willingness. The article provides the importance of unity in a workplace. The article opposes the giving orders strategy by managers because it could harm the work environment. Employees could feel offensive in giving them orders, they respond more to situations where they are being motivated.
Gulick, L. (1937). „Notes on The Theory of Organisation: With Special Reference to Government in the United States‟. Papers on the Science of Administration, New York: Institute of Public Administration, Columbia University.
Thesis: The author emphasis on the advantages and limits of distribution of work. The author believes that division of work is the organization’s base and the reason of building it. Other irresistible reasons of work division are human nature, time and space. The author discusses the significance of unity of command and argues that there should be a mixture of top-down and bottom approaches. The author also emphasizes on POSDCORB (planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting).
“The need of subdivisions relies totally upon the volume and density of the enterprise”
“When numerous men are functioning jointly the finest outcomes are secured when there is a work division among these men”
The article explains about the importance of division of work and how it could be efficiently managed. In the explanation, the author presented POSDCORB as the subdivisions for executives. By adopting these subdivisions efficiency of workers, productivity of labour could be enhanced. The author explained the limitations of these subdivisions with giving examples of real life.
Barnard, C. I. (1938). Informal organizations and their relation to formal organizations. Classics of Public Administration, 95-99.
Thesis: According to Chester Bernard every manager should remember the human element of work. He argued that workers are not meant to be machines, and relationships of workers form formal companies. These formal companies provide structure to large informal organizations. The author argued that workers gain happiness by informal organizations. The author believed that the element of human and interaction among workers should not be forgotten because it is not always about efficiency. He also believed that informal organizations provide stability to the power of formal organizations.
“Informal organization is quite clearly a situation which essentially leads formal organization”
“The relation of a man to a huge association, or to his country, or to his church, is essentially through individuals with whom he is in direct contact”
The article of Bernard is quite difficult to read, but in today’s world where there is a concept of mergers acquisitions, corporate rightsizing and fast increasing technologies, the standards and values promoted by Bernard seem outdated and even old-fashioned. But still these standards and values are found extremely useful and echo in the heart of several people.
Simon, H. A. (1946). The proverbs of administration. Public Administration Review, 6(1), 53-67.
Thesis: Herbert initiated the study by defining the accepted administrative principles. He believed that these principles assert the administrative effectiveness is enhanced by task specialization, union of command, restricting the span of control and grouping of workers. He conveyed enclosed rationality; face value division and assumed that proverbs of administration should be testable. The article conveys that administrative assumption is based on proverbs that are antagonistic and cannot be tested.
“The efficiency of administration is supposed to increase if there is an increase in specialization”
“Administrative effectiveness is believed to increase by reducing the number of assistants who informs directly to any one administrator or to a small figure”
The article highlights the four principles through which administrative efficiency could be enhanced. These four principles had criticism also, but one needs to examine these four principles properly. This article is necessary to learn how to increase the administrative efficiency, what the criterion are and how it could be implemented.
Selznick, P. (1949). The cooptative mechanism. Classics of Pubic Administration, 171-8.
Thesis: According to Philip Selznick, Organization cooptation is necessary to eradicate competition and ensure stability. The author argues about the process of cooptation. Philip conveys that cooptation is a method of captivating new components into the management. It is also a policy which establishes the structure of organization as a way of preventing threats regarding its survival or stability.
“The cooptative structure of systems of voluntary organizations accomplishes significant administrative requirements”
“Cooptation notifies us something regarding the method through which institutional surroundings imposes itself upon an association and effects transformation in its management, constitution or policy”
The principles of Selznick about the cooptation theory is an essential forerunner to the afterward developments of organizational ecosystem and contingency assumption.
Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1966). Organizations and the system concept. The social psychology of organizations, 1, 14-29.
Thesis: The authors conveyed in this article about the open systems theory, the output and input system. The main argument of the authors is that not only the structure, responsibilities and goals are vital, but the external environment and adjusting to feedback are necessary as well.
“Open systems bring in some type of power from the external environment”
“The approach of open system initiates by recognizing and plotting the frequent input cycles, transformation, production and transformed input which negotiates the pattern of organization”
This article is important because it tends to view the human organization as an open system unlike other theories or articles which emphasize on the closed systems. It emphasizes on the over attention on the standards of internal functioning of institutes, with subsequent failure to establish and understand the method of feedback which are critical to survival.
Ott, S. (1989). Understanding Organizational Culture.
Thesis: Steven argues on the theories regarding the organizational cultures. The article consists the argument on the establishment of organizational theory. The article defines the theory of organization and uses that definition for explaining and predicting the organization behavior. The author argues that the organizational culture could not be captured by quantitative research.
“An organizational culture is formed by many aspects, containing the societal culture, technologies, competition and market and the founder’s personality”.
“The viewpoint of organizational culture is essential to practicing managers as well as learners of organizations, for it offers a new approach for seeing, thinking, evaluating, acknowledging, explaining and forecasting organizational behavior”
The article contains the importance of understanding the culture of organizations. The article is crucial to understand because organizational cultures are and will forever remain as component of organizational realities.
References
Barnard, C. I. (1938). Informal organizations and their relation to formal organizations. Classics of Public Administration, 95-99.
Follett, M. P. (1926). The giving of order. Scientific foundations of business administration.
Gulick, L. (1937). Notes on The Theory of Organisation: With Special Reference to Government in the United States‟. Papers on the Science of Administration, New York: Institute of Public Administration, Columbia University.
Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1966). Organizations and the system concept. The social psychology of organizations, 1, 14-29.
Ott, S. (1989). Understanding Organizational Culture.
Selznick, P. (1949). The cooptative mechanism. Classics of Pubic Administration, 171-8.
Simon, H. A. (1946). The proverbs of administration. Public Administration Review, 6(1), 53-67.
Taylor, F. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management. New York.
Willoughby, W. F. (1918). The movement for budgetary reform in the states (No. 4). D. Appleton and Company.
