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Organisation and Behaviour Management Theory
| Management theory can be
traced back hundreds of years, however it only started to surface systematically at the start of the nineteenth century along side the emergence of large industrial movement and the allied problems with management and structure of larger industrial companies. There are four main frames in which management theories are fixed around. These are Classic, Human Relations, System and Contingency. Classic theory sees the organisation as a formal structure and places emphasis on planning of work, technical requirements of the organisation, the principals of management and rational and logical behaviour. A clear perceptive of the purpose of the organisation is seen to be an essential in order to understand how the methods of working the organisation use and thus how to improve them. The classical writers Mooney and Reiley set out a number of principals that are common to all types of organisation. These are: * The principle of co-ordination – the unity of people to work together, the exercise of authority and the need to keep a tight control over employees. * The Scalar principle – the hierarchy of organisation and the process of delegation * The functional principle – specialisation and the distinction of different kinds of duties. The classical writers have been criticised for being too rigid and not taking into account the different personalities of organisations. Classical writers are also regarded as an out-of-date approach, however it does highlight important factors such as the technical and structural factors of the business. There are two main components of classical theory. These are scientific management and bureaucracy. Scientific writers/theorists concentrate mainly on improving management in order to improve productivity. F W Taylor is seen to be the ‘guru’ of the scientific management theorists. Tailors view was the way to improve productivity was to work out the one best method to do the job in hand. Taylor devised away in which he could breakdown the job into different parts. These parts are then timed and rearranged in order to create the most efficient way in which the job can be done. Taylor set out guidelines for managers to follow and are summarised in the following points * The development of a true science for each person’s work; * The scientific selection, training and development of the workers * Co-operation of the workers to ensure work is carried out in a prescribed way; * The division of work and responsibility between management and the workers. Taylor’s most famous study is with a company called Bethlehem Steel Cooperation where they employed men to load 12 ½ tones of pig iron each, a day. After Taylor was appointed management consultant, productivity for each person went up 380% to 47 ½ tons each per day. The other half of classical theory is bureaucracy and is mainly found in large organisation. The importance of bureaucracy means that it is often studied separately from classical management, which the ideas are taken from practical experience. However bureaucracy takes a more theoretical view. Whilst studying the power and authority of organisations, a German sociologist, Webber came across, something that he called ‘ Bureaucratic Structures’. Weber stated that bureaucratic organisations have always been in purely technological superior over other forms of organisations. Weber did not define bureaucracy but however did attempt to identify the main characteristics, which were later summarised by Stuart as Specialisation, Hierarchy of Authority, Systems of Rules and Impersonality. · Specialisation – Applies more to the job than the worker, this being because a worker may leave however the job will remain · Hierarchy of Authority – Distinctive difference between the management and the workers, also between different levels of management. There are clearly seen in such organisations as the police. · Systems of rules – this creates an efficient and impersonal organisation. The rules are relatively stable but however can change. These rules need to be known by the employees in order for them to hold a job in bureaucracy. · Impersonality – privileges allocated and the use of authority should consider with the system of rules already in place. Prior to the 1920’s the main emphasis in business was on the structure. However as the depression moved forward the emphasis changed and turned its attention on behavioural and social side of business. A turning point came in ‘Hawthorne experiment’ this experiment took place in Western Electric between the years of 1924 to 1932. The Hawthorne Experience was under taken by a team of researchers among which was Elton Mayo who was the main person behind the experiments. The Hawthorne Experiments consisted of four phases. These phases were Illumination Experiment, The Relay Experiment, The Interview Program and Bank Wiring. Illumination Experiment measured the affect on light intensity has on productivity. The workers were split into to two groups, a control group were the light remained constant and experimental group were the lighting was changed. The experiment was found inconclusive. This was due to the unapparent relationship between the lighting and productivity in the experimental group. However productivity did increase in the control group, which was strange as none of the working conditions changed. With these two anomalies, it was obvious that there was more than one contributing factors to increasing productivity. The illumination experiment, lead to further experiment being carried out. The relay experiment took place in a factory an involved the assembly of telephone relays. There were six women chosen for the experiment, two of which were friends and the others chose at random. The experiment was split up into thirteen sectors of which the working conditions were changed, such as hours of work, refreshment provisions, etc. the observers of the experiment adopted a friendly manner to the subjects. They kept them up to date with the experiment, but more importantly they listened to their complaints, which in turn lead to an ongoing increasing level of productivity. The interview programme was an experiment of simply listening to the workforce. In order to gain the information of the workforce the experiment interviewed 20000 employees. The interviewers questions were originally set, however the employees felt some of these questions to be unrelated and that they didn’t just want to talk about there working conditions or supervision. These to factors and the limited information gathered by the set questions lead to a more open end of interviewing technique were the employees talked about a variety of things such as home life. Unfortunately the interviews had to be stopped due to depression. The final experiment took place in bank wiring room. The experiment looked at 14 men and the subgroup that had a risen from these men. The group was formed with natural leaders rising. The group also managed to make there own norms and behaviour. Although these men were given financial incentive if they increased the expected workload they refused and settled for a target well below there capability. This showing that group pressure was stronger than the financial incentives that the company had to offer. These experiments noted that the workforce go to work in order to satisfy a variety of needs and not just monetary needs. Human relations approach looks at the people rather than the organisation and recognises the work organisation as a social organisation and the importance of the group. Contingency theory reverts back to the structure of the business rather like the classical approach. It states that the structure has significant influence on the organisational performance. The contingency approach also highlights that different structures suit different companies. The success and the structure of the business is set upon the nature of the task. The best structure and system of management is then based upon the contingencies of that situation of each individual organisation. The company that I have looked at is Tesco. Tesco has a human relations approach to business. The management is rather informal and the company knows the importance of keeping their workforce happy. Tesco achieves this by giving worker benefits such as: * 10% discount off all items in store. * Discounted staff meals. * Free Tea and Coffee. Tesco also understand the need to listen to there staff. They have staff reviews after one month of a new employee starting and then every six months thereafter. In the reviews the section manager of the employee review the work of the employee and asks about the employee needs and if they have any problems. However this does not mean that an employee has to wait for six months before bring up any problems. The managers are easy to talk to and keep the staff motivated. Tesco has a flat hierarchical structure containing five levels from store manager to General assistant (see appendix A). Only having five levels means that the section managers have large spans of control with each having between 15 and 30 employees in there control. Tesco has also adopted the use of functional grouping into there structure. This allows the different sections of Tesco to specialise in there tasks. E.g Produce – specialising in fresh fruit and vegetables. Functional grouping creates a cohesive work group; this means that there is a strong sense of a team with in the different sectors. However this is also a draw back, having a strong team through individual departments creates hostility between the departments such as ‘It’s not my job to do that’. Tesco organisation culture is that of a role culture, this is the type of culture where businesses have strict hierarchy and set roles within the organisation that employees are expected to follow. Individualism is discouraged which means staff have to work in teams helping each other. The use of role culture in Tesco is based upon the fact that power authority and respect is obtained through the position of each individual within the company’s hierarchy. In order to improve Tesco the problem of the individual section teams need to be addressed. The improvement of this may come from the structure of the organisation. However the structure of the organisation is extremely hard to change. I think that Tesco should be able to correct this problem by making people aware of it. They should encourage people to help on other departments with in store. However they have started this by creating ‘relief checkout personnel’ I feel this could extend to other parts of the organisation. This will also make Tesco staff multifunctional. APPENDIX A [IMAGE] Section managers General Assistant [IMAGE] Team Leaders [IMAGE] Bibliography www.swin.edu.au/lib/infogate/management.htm Mullins, L.J, Management and organisational behaviour, 5th Edition, 1999, FT Pitman Publishing, London. | |
| Category: Management | Added by: Antonio (15.06.2009) | |
| Views: 98 | Rating: 0.0/0 | |
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