This document discusses two schools of management thought: classical and human relations. It describes Henri Fayol's classical view which focused on managerial functions like planning and organizing. It also describes Henry Mintzberg's view which was based on observing actual managers and categorizing their diverse activities. The document then discusses scientific management pioneered by Frederick Taylor and bureaucratic control described by Max Weber. It concludes by summarizing the Hawthorne experiments which highlighted the importance of human factors like motivation and teams in management.

1. Two Schools of Management Thought:
Classical, and Human Relations
Frederick Guy
Management Studies
Department of Management
Birkbeck, University of London
2004-2005
Lecture 3

2. A definition of management
„ From Naylor, Chapter 1
„ Management is the process of achieving
organizational objectives, within a changing
environment, by balancing efficiency,
effectiveness and equity, obtaining the most
from limited resources, and working with and
through other people.

3. Analysis and critique (1):
„ Achieving organizational objectives
„ Difficult to define objectives
„ Different people, different objectives
„ Do you always have clear objectives?
„ Muddling through (Charles Lindblom)
„ Still,
„ Concept of objectives needed for concept of organization
„ Objectives important for organizing and motivating
„ So, stick with this idea, but note N’s comments on
reification (treating an abstract category as real)

4. Analysis and critique (2):
„ Within a changing environment
„ OK
„ Balancing efficiency, effectiveness and
equity
„ Efficiency: for a given set of inputs (hours of
labour, quantities of materials, amount of
capital) and your chosen output (product or
service), are you getting the greatest output
possible?

5. Analysis and critique (3):
„ Balancing efficiency, effectiveness and
equity
„ Effectiveness: how well do you accomplish
your objectives?
„ Equity
„ Fairness to the different people involved (owners,
employees, clients/customers, suppliers…)
„ A definition of management, or Naylor’s values?

6. Analysis and critique (4):
„ Obtaining the most from limited resources
„ OK, but isn’t it the same as efficiency?
„ With and through other people
„ Fair enough.

7. Functions of management
„ Naylor, p. 5: planning, organising,
implementing, and controlling
„ H. Fayol (Naylor, p. 25): to plan, organise,
command, co-ordinate, and control.
„ Implement = command and co-ordinate?
„ Note: ‘with and through other people’

8. What do managers do?
„ Two views
„ Henri Fayol (1916)
„ an industrialist, who developed a theory of
managerial functions
„ classical management theory
„ Henry Mintzberg (1975)
„ an academic, who observed managers at work

9. Fayol’s principles
„ Division of labour
„ Authority and
responsibility
„ Discipline
„ Unity of command
„ Scalar chain
„ Unity of direction
„ Subordination of
individual interest to the
general interest
„ Centralisation
„ Order
„ Equity
„ Remuneration of
personnel
„ Stability of tenure of
personnel
„ Initiative
„ Esprit de corps

10. Mintzberg on a manager’s work:
three kinds of role
„ Decisional
„ Entrepreneur
„ Disturbance handler
„ Resource allocator
„ Negotiator
„ Interpersonal
„ Figurehead
„ Leader
„ Liaison
„ Informational
„ Monitor
„ Disseminator
„ Spokesperson

11. So what’s the difference?
„ Fayol
„ describes functions that need to be filled
„ managerial work sounds formal & rational
„ Mintzberg
„ describes activities of some actual managers
„ classifies the activities; some similar to Fayol’s
functions, others not
„ managerial work sounds improvised
„ A contradiction, or an emphasis on different
aspects of the phenomenon?

12. Organisation as machine?
„ Plan, organise, command, coordinate and
control.
„ Consider, in light of
„ Types of control
„ Two other figures in classical management:
Taylor, and Weber

13. Four types of control
1. personal
„ the owner of the shop
„ ‘foreman’s empire’
2. mechanical
„ assembly line
3. bureaucratic
„ written rules, well-defined authority & responsibility
4. objectives, assessment
„ management by objectives (MBO)
„ multi-divisional companies; management by numbers

14. Scientific management
„ Frederick Winslow Taylor (US, 1856 – 1915)
„ experts (managers, engineers) study worker’s
tasks
„ time and motion studies
„ detailed task descriptions
„ ‘the one best way’
„ separation of conception (managers,
engineers) and execution (workers)
„ de-skilling (see Harry Braverman, Labor and
Monopoly Capital)
„ may be part of either mechanical or
bureaucratic control

15. Bureaucratic control
„ Max Weber (Germany, 1864-1920)
„ 3 kinds of authority
„ traditional
„ charismatic
„ rational
„ bureaucracy as manifestation of rational
authority

16. Bureaucratic control
„ Four principles of bureaucracy
(Weber)
„ written rules & procedures specifying
how employees should behave
„ clearly specified system of task & role
relationships
„ clearly specified hierarchy of authority
„ selection & evaluation system that
rewards employees fairly & equitably

17. Mass production:
from mechanical to bureaucratic control
„ Ford pioneered mechanical control
„ moving assembly line
„ other special-purpose machines which
paced the worker
„ Made extensive use of unskilled
labour
„ compare with pin factory described by
Smith

18. Mass production:
from mechanical to bureaucratic control
„ At General Motors, Sloan extended
systems of bureaucratic control, and
also introduced a system of objectives
and assesment
„ management by numbers
„ profit & loss, sales, market share, inventories
„ investment funds allocated to divisions based
on expected return on investment (R.O.I.)

19. Control, motivation, and knowledge
„ Think of any of any control systems as
giving a set of instructions to each
employee
„ Are the instructions the right ones?
„ Each employee has knowledge which
could be used to improve on the
instructions
„ What motivates employees
„ to greater effort, and
„ to learning / sharing knowledge that could
improve product or process?

20. Hawthorne experiments
„ a Western Electric factory, late 1920s
„ experiment to find optimal level of lighting
„ work groups of 6, in separate rooms
„ experimental group & control group
„ no change in lighting for control group
„ findings:
„ increasing brightness raises productivity
„ reducing brightness raises productivity
„ members of the control group also increased
productivity

21. Hawthorne experiments
„ outcome of first experiments: puzzled
engineers
„ next round of studies: try to understand
what’s going on in these groups
„ change work schedules: length & timing of
breaks
„ production kept going up, even when back to
the original (no rest break) schedule

22. Hawthorne experiments
„ further investigation showed that
„ work teams regulated the pace of work of
their members
„ the foremen (not in the room most of the
time) had no idea of the extent of this self-
regulation
„ the group raised its productivity
„ because it felt involved in the project, and listened
to
„ because the experimental conditions presented it
with a challenge

23. Hawthorne experiments
„ lessons
„ for managers, the importance of
„ teams, not just individuals
„ workers aren’t machines, they make choices, and their
choices are affected by how others treat them
„ expert-specified tasks still have a lot of room for
improvement (slack), and workers often know where
that slack is
„ these findings contributed to the development of the
human relations approach to management
„ for researchers
„ people participating in an experiment are likely to
behave differently than they do at other times
(Hawthorne effects)