Jonathan R. Tompkins - Organization Theory and Public Management (2004)

Organization Theory
and Public Management
JONATHA N R . TOMPKIN S
University of Montana
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PREFAC E X II I
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1 AN INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATION THEORY 1
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III
I CONTEN CONTEN
Differences in Employee Characteristics 21

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT THEORY :
Differences in Outputs and Outcomes 22
FREDERICK W. TAYLOR 67
Summary 23
Industry and Management in 1878 68
Scientific Management as a Social Philosophy 70
3 MANAGEMENT PRACTICE AND ORGANIZATIONAL
Th e Taylor System 71
PERFORMANCE 26
Systematization of the Production Process 12
Four Models of Organizational Effectiveness 27
Systematization of Tools 72
Six Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work Activities 31
Standardization of Work 73
Four Strategies for Motivating Employees 35
Wage Incentive Systems 74
Summary 39
Functional Foremanship 75
Taylor's Implicit Theory of Organizational Effectiveness 77
4 MAX WEBER' S THEOR Y OF BUREAUCRAC Y 41
Task Specialization 77
Weber's T he ory of Social Change 42
Work Standardization 78
Political Authority and Administration 43
Economic Rewards 78
Three Types of Legitimate Authority 43
Performance Measurement 79
Three Corresponding Types of Administration 44
Centralized Planning and Control 79
Th e Administrator's Rol e in Gover nmen t 46
Overview of Scientific Management Theory 80
Weber's Ideal-Type Bureaucracy 47
Criticisms of Scientific Management Theory 81
Fixed Official Duties 49
Workers as Cogs in the Industrial Machine 81
Hierarchy of Authority 50
Organized Labor's Counterattack 81
Systems of Rules 50
Scientific Management as Pseudoscience 82
Technical Expertise 52
Taylor's Obsession with Control 84
Career Service 52
Scientific Management in the Public Sector 85
Written Documentation 52
Scientific Management Theory in Perspective 86
Was Weber Wron g About Bureaucracy's Technical Superiority? 53
Relevance for Public Management 87
Limitations on the Usefulness ofWeber's Model 53
Models of Organizational Effectiveness 87
Limitations of a Structural Model 54
Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work Activities
Limitations of Defining Bureaucracy as a Fixed Set of Attributes 54
Motivational Strategies 90
Limitations of a Time-Bound Conception of Bureaucracy 56
Summary 92
Weber's T he ory of Bureaucracy in Perspective 57
Relevance for Public Ma na ge ment 58
ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT THEORY:
FAYOL , MOONEY, AND GULIC K 96
Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work Activities 60
Henri Fayol's Theory of General Management 97
Organizational Activities 98
Summary 64
Managerial Functions 98
V CONTEN CONTEN V
Administrative Principles 99
Administrative Methods 101
An Overview of Fayol's Theory of Management 101
James D. Mooney' s T heor y of Organization 102
The Coordinative Principle 104
The Scalar Principle 104
The Functional Principle 105
Luther Gulick's Administrative Manageme nt T he ory 106
Applying Administrative Principles to Government 108
Coordinating Through Organizational Structure 109
POSDCORB: Core Management Functions 111
Putting Theory into Practice 112
Th e Research Bureaus' Canons of Integration 112
Two Critiques of Administrative Ma na ge ment T heory 115
Herbert Simon's Critique: Principles as Proverbs 115
Dwight Waldo's Critique: Principles as Prescriptions 116
Administrative Ma na ge ment T he ory in Perspective 117
Summary 122
PRE-HUMAN RELATIONS THEORY:

MARY PARKER FOLLETT 126
Scientific Management's Treatment of the Hu m a n Factor 127
Mary Parker Follett's Contributions to Organization Theory 129
Follett's Theory of Democracy 130
Resolving Conflict Through Integration 132
Follett's Theory of Power and Authority 135
Obeying the Law of the Situation 138
Follett's Theory of Leadership 139
Follett's Four Principles of Organization 140
Follett's Enduring Contributions 141
Relevance for Public Manageme nt 144
V CONTEN CONTEN V

Summary 149
HUMAN RELATIONS TH EORY:

ELTON MAYO AND FRITZ ROETHLISBERGER 152
Mayo's T heor y of Social Disorganization and H um a n
Irrationality 153
Th e Haw t hor n e Studies, 1927-1932 156
The Illumination Experiments 156
The Relay Assembly Test Room Experiments 157
The Interviewing Program 160
The Bank Wiring Observation Room Study 162
Hum a n Relations as a Field of Study 165
Subject Matter and Research Methods 165
Organizations as Social Systems 165
Formal and Informal Organization 166
H um a n Relations in Practice 167
Human Relations Training 167
Employee Counseling Programs 168
Criticisms of H um a n Relations T he or y 170
Neglect of Structural Change 170
A Strategy of Manipulation 172
H um a n Relations Theor y in Perspective 173
Summary 179
THE NATURAL SYSTEM S PERSPECTIVE :

CHESTER I. BARNARD 183
Systems Theor y as a Mod e of Analysis 184
Th e Concept of System Equilibrium 186
V CONTEN CONTEN I
Origins of the Natural Systems Perspective 188

Relevance for Public Ma na g e me nt 231
Barnard's Natural Systems View of Organizations 190 Models of Organizational Effectiveness 231
Organizations as Cooperative Systems 191 Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work Activities 232
The Concept of Formal Organization 192 Motivational Strategies 233
Barnard's Inducements-Contributions Theory 192 Summary 236
The Altering of Motives 194
Limits on the Exercise of Formal Authority 195 11 THE OPEN SYSTEM S PERSPECTIVE : SOCIOTECHNICA L
The Process of Decision 196 AND STRUCTURA L CONTINGENC Y THEOR Y 239
The Functions of the Executive 196 The Influence of General Systems Th e or y 240
The Moral Aspect 197 Th e Influence of Cybernetics 241
Barnard's Contribu tions to Organization T he o r y 198 Two Path-Breaking Studies 244
Criticisms of Barnard's Th e or y 199 Sociotechnical Th e o r y 246
Contributions of Natural Systems T he o ry 202 An Assessment of Sociotechnical Th e o ry 250
Relevance for Public Ma n ag e me n t 203 Structural Conti ngen cy Th e or y 251
Models of Organizational Effectiveness 203 Tom Burns: Mechanistic and Organic Management Systems 252
Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work Activities 205 Joan Woodward technology's Influence on Structure 254
Motivational Strategies 206 An Ove rv ie w of Structural Co nt ing ency Factors 257
Summary 208 Environmental Uncertainty 257
Technology 258
10 STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONA L THEORY :
Size 259
ROBERT MERTON 211
Strategy 260
Merton' s Approach to the Study of Sociology 212
Resource Dependence 261
Manifest and Latent Functions 214
Public Accountability 261
The Structural Sources of Bureaucratic Dysfunctions 215
An Assessment of Structural C o n ti ng e nc y Th e o ry 262
Th e Institutional Case Studies of Merton' s Students 217
Relevance for Public Ma na g e me n t 263
Philip Selznick: Co-Optation and Its Consequences 217
Alvin W. Gouldner: Authoritarian Management
and Its Consequences 220
Peter M. Blau: Quantitative Performance Records and
Summary 267
Their Consequences 222
An Implicit T h e o ry of Organizational Change 224 12 PARTICIPATIVE MANAGEMENT THEORY :
Threats to Organizational Functioning 224 KURT LEWIN AN D RENSIS LIKERT 270
Dysfunctional Consequences and Institutional Strains 226 Kurt Lewin's Studies in Group Dynamics 273
A Continuing Cycle of Adaptive Responses 227 Studies in Autocratic and Democratic leadership 274
Weber's Th e or y Modified 230 Action Research in Industry 277
X CONTEN CONTEN X
Lewin's Contributions to Organization T he ory 281 Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work Activities 320
Rensis Likert's T he ory of Participative Manageme nt 281 Motivational Strategies 322
The Principle of Supportive Relationships 284 Summary 324
Group Decision Making 284
High Performance Goals 287 14 QUALITY MANAGEMENT THEORY:
Likert's Contributions to Organization T he ory 287 W. EDWARDS DEMING AND JOSEP H JURA N 327
Relevance for Public Ma na ge ment 289 Th e Origins and Evolution of Quality Man agement Th eo r y 328
Models of Organizational Effectiveness 289 Stage 1: Development of Statistical Process Control (SPC) 328
Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work Activities 290 Stage 2:Total Quality Control (TQC) as a Management Function 33
Motivational Strategies 192 Stage 3: Adoption of SPC by the Japanese 321
Summary 293 Stage 4: Emergence of a Uniquely Japanese Form of TQC 334
Stage 5 :The "Discovery" of Quality in the United States 338
HUMAN RESOURCES THEORY : Two Key Leaders in the Quality Management Movement 339
DOUGLA S MCGREGOR AND CHRIS ARGYRI S 296 Deming's Fourteen Points 339
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs 297 Juran's Structural Approach to Quality Management 344
Th e Hu m a n Side of Enterprise 299 Quality Management and Organization Theory 346
Theory X 300 Quality Management in the Public Sector 347
Theory Y 302 Relevance 347
Full Development and Use of Human Resources 303 Obstacles 349
Decentralization and Delegation 304 Prospects for Success 350
Relinquishing Control 304 Relevance for Public Management 351
Using Intrinsic Rewards to Motivate 306 Models of Organizational Effectiveness 351
Management by Objectives and Self-Control 307 Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work Activities 353
Job Enrichment 308 Motivational Strategies 355
Self-Managing Work Teams 308 Summary 356
McGregor's Contributions to Organization Theor y 309
Integrating Individual and Organizational Needs 310 15 THE ORGANIZATIONA L CULTURE PERSPECTIVE
The Growth Needs 311 AND SYMBOLI C MANAGEMENT THEOR Y 360
The Effects of Formal Structure on the Individual 313 Th e Organizational Culture Perspective 361
The Effects of Directive Leadership and Management Controls 315 A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Organizational
Authentic Relationships 315 Culture 362
Argyris' Contributions to Organization T he ory 316 Three levels of Organizational Culture 362
Hum a n Resources Theor y in Perspective 317 The Concept of Cultural Strength 365
Relevance for Public Ma na ge ment 320 Mechanisms for Embedding Cultural Values and Assumptions 366
X CONTEN
Difficulties Inherent in C onduc t i ng Cultural Research 367

Th e Practitioner-Oriented Literature 365
William Ouchi's T he ory Z 369
Pascal and Athos' Th e Art of Japanese M anageme nt 3 73
Assessing the Practitioner-Oriented Literature 376
Visionary Leadership 379
Preface
Transformational Leadership 380
The Learning Organization 382
Summary 387
16 EXCELLENC E IN GOVERNMENT 392
INDEX 402
T
he literature relating to complex organizations is so rich and diverse that
determining how to present the material is a challenge in itself. This
book divides the literature into major schools of thought and examines
each in turn. It takes a historical approach in which each school is examined
in the chronological order in which it emerged and gained prominence. This
is not to suggest, however, that organization theory has evolved over time in a
linear fashion. Far from it. Some schools of thought have built on earlier ones,
some have rejected earlier theories and offered alternative paradigms, and still
others have struck off in entirely new directions. Despite these twists and
turns, the chronological approach has several advantages. It enables the reader
to place each school in a specific historical context, trace the development of
core organization and management concepts over time, and gain a compre•
hensive understanding of organization theory as a whole.
This book is written with present and future public managers in mind.
Knowledge of organization theory can be an enormous asset to managers at
all levels as they struggle to define program objectives, overcome constraints,
and accomplish their mandated purposes. Armed with theoretical and concep•
tual knowledge, they can better identify the factors that affect organizational
performance, determine how these factors interrelate, and decide how best to
resolve problems and attain goals. Knowledge of organization theory can also
create new ways of viewing organizational challenges and open up new av•
enues for pursuing change. In short, organization theory, supported by intu•
ition and common sense, can be a powerful guide to action. For this reason the
XII I
X PREFA PREFA X
chapters that follow do more than examine particular schools of thought. They By blaming the nation's social and economic ills on "bad management,"
also explore the implications of each school for management practice and or• managerialism diverts attention away from other determinants of gov•
ganizational performance. ernment performance, including flawed policies, inadequate budgets,
Beneath the current dissatisfaction with government performance lies par• and demoralized staffs. However, if effective management is not a suffi•
tially conflicting expectations and values. Taxpayers expect elected officials to cient condition of superior government performance, it is nevertheless
hold the fine on agency budgets (economy) and they expect public managers a necessary one. Because government agencies perform functions that
to get the biggest bang for the buck (efficiency). Consumers of government affect the quality of life of every member of society, how well they are
services expect their needs to be satisfied (program effectiveness) and other managed is critically important.
stakeholders expect their interests to be taken into account when policies are
3. Economy and efficiency are not the sole criteria by which government
made and implemented (responsiveness). Elected officials, and the public at
performance should be judged.
large, expect public servants to carry out their duties in a legal, ethical, and re•
sponsible manner (accountability). Everyone who comes in contact with gov• Government in a democratic state is the means by which the polity
ernment expects to be treated fairly (equity and due process). And government achieves its collective purposes. For this reason its performance must be
employees expect to be sufficiently empowered that their actions can make a judged by criteria other than economy and efficiency alone, including
meaningful difference in the quality of peoples' lives (public service). These the value, quality, and effectiveness of its products and services, the legal
partially conflicting values provide important clues about how to define supe• and ethical responsibility of its actions, the fair and equitable treatment
rior government performance. A high-performing agency is one that achieves of those with who m it comes in contact, and its responsiveness to the
its mission and carries out its mandates efficiently, effectively, and responsibly, needs and interests of relevant stakeholders, including the public ser•
and with due regard for responsiveness, equity, economy, and the ethic of pub• vants who work within them.
lic service. Reformers on the left and right may argue about the relative prior• 4. The exercise of managerial power is not the sole province of managers.
ity of these values and how they are best realized, but they tend to agree that The management profession was founded on the premise that effi•
how well government performs is a matter of vital concern to all of us. ciency requires the separation of thinking from doing and that man•
A basic premise of this book is that organization theory has much to say agers alone are uniquely qualified to make key decisions. In reality,
to public managers about how to strengthen government performance. This agency staff members are capable of considerable individual and group self-
does not mean, however, that the book is grounded in managerialism—an ide• management, that is, the exercise of responsible decision-making power
ology that holds managers to be uniquely qualified by the nature of their within the scope of their knowledge and expertise.
training to make fundamental decisions for their organizations and for society
as a whole. No r does it advocate a particular reform ideology, such as the These caveats are set forth for a reason. It is important to avoid preconceived
Ne w Public Management creed that holds that techniques commonly used biases so that we can approach each school of thought on its own terms and
in the private sector—including specification of clear objectives, performance draw out its implications for public management as objectively as possible.To
measurement, rewards contingent upon performance, and greater use of mar• assist us in this task, Chapter 1 introduces organization theory as a field of study,
ket mechanisms—are the key to improved government performance. In draw• Chapter 2 establishes the unique context of public management, and Chapter 3
ing out the implications of theory for practice, this book relies instead on the presents three analytical frameworks for assessing the theories of organization
following assumptions: reviewed in the chapters that follow.
1. There is no generic model of management that applies equally well to Special thanks are due to those who assisted me in writing this book. Fore•
public and private sector organizations. most among them are my wife Debra, who helped me improve the readability
All complex organizations face similar problems relating to planning, of the final manuscript, and Judy Johnstone, for her very careful editing. I also
organizing, budgeting and staffing, but decisions about which manage• wish to thank those who reviewed the manuscript and provided me with invalu•
ment tools or practices to use and how to use them depend upon the able suggestions. Among them are Juanita Firestone, Department of Sociology,
unique purposes and contexts that distinguish the public from the University ofTexas at San Antonio; CarolWaters, Department of Social Sciences,
private sector. Texas A&M International University; Martha Dede, Graduate Center for Public
2. "Good management," while important, does not guarantee superior gov• Policy and Administration, California State University, Long Beach; Bradley
ernment performance; nor is it a panacea for the nation's economic and Wright, Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Char•
social ills. lotte; Alan Eisner, Department of Management, Lubin School of Business, Pace
University; and John Harris, Department of Business Administration, University
ofWisconsin—Green Bay.
An Introduction to
Organization Theory
A c o m p l e x or gani zatio n is an organization so large and structurally

differentiated that it cannot be managed effectively by a single individ•
ual. Corporations, government agencies, hospitals, nonprofits, and most
voluntary associations fall into this category. The importance of complex orga•
nizations to society cannot be overstated. They are the primary instruments
through which modern societies achieve their social, political, and economic
objectives. Business enterprises, for example, provide consumer goods and ser•
vices that contribute in important ways to the material well-being of society.
Similarly, government agencies provide public services and collective goods
that shape the overall quality of life. All of this is possible because complex or•
ganizations can bring together and coordinate the human, financial, and physi•
cal resources needed to achieve the monumental tasks demanded of them.
Without complex organizations modern societies could not explore outer
space, undertake large-scale construction projects, research and develop labor-
saving technologies, hold their enemies at bay, or ameliorate the effects of
poverty and disease. The needs of modern societies and the problems they face
require the type of large-scale efforts that only government agencies and other
complex organizations can provide.
Organization theory is the study of how and why complex organiza•
tions behave as they do. Specifically, it is the study of formal structures, internal
processes, external constraints, and the ways organizations affect and are af•
fected by their members. Understanding today's complex organizations is es•
sential to the practicing manager because knowledge is the key to effective
2 CHAPTER AN INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATION 3
action. Theoretical knowledge places managers in a better position to under•

of hierarchy, lines of authority, and degrees of departmentalization) and how
stand how organizational realities both facilitate and constrain their efforts. It
they are affected by goals, strategies, size, technologies, and environmental con•
also helps them understand the complex interrelationships among organiza•
straints. They often examine the effects of structural arrangements on organi•
tional variables.This in turn helps managers to diagnose problems and decide
zational participants as well. Foremost among those embracing a macro
upon appropriate courses of action. In short, there is much to be gained from
perspective are sociologists. It was Robert Merton and his students at Colum•
the study of organization theory.
bia University in the late 1940s, for example, who first outlined the bound•
This book takes a performance-oriented approach to the study of organi• aries of a field of study dealing with organizations. This macro perspective
2
zation theory. Its primary aim is to assist in making useful connections among will be evident in Weber's theory of bureaucracy (Chapter 4), administrative
organization theory, management practice, and organizational performance. management theory (Chapter 6), structural-functional theory (Chapter 10),
Achieving this goal is constrained by the fact that the field of organization and open systems theory (Chapter 11).
theory is broad in scope and without clear boundaries. It comprises a seem• A second subfield, generally called organizational behavior, takes a mi•
ingly endless body of scholarly works from a diverse range of academic disci• cro perspective—focusing on individuals and groups as the basic units of
plines.The focus of any particular theorist may range from the lone individual analysis and seeking to understand their behaviors and interrelationships.
performing a narrowly denned task to the organization as a whole seeking to Works in this subfield typically investigate the attitudes, motivations, and per•
survive in a hostile environment. As a result, mastering organization theory formance levels of organizational members. A primary purpose of research in
can be a daunting, even overwhelming, objective for students of manage• this subfield is to help managers understand how to align individual and orga•
ment. The challenge for this book is to introduce organization theory in a nizational interests so that everyone is served by the attainment of organiza•
way that is easily digestible and ultimately useful to current and future tional objectives. Foremost among those contributing to research in this
managers. It begins and ends with a deceptively simple question: Ho w can subfield are social psychologists and management specialists.This micro per•
organization theory enhance managerial effectiveness and organizational per• spective is reflected in human relations theory (Chapter 8), natural systems
formance? As will soon become apparent, the question is more easily asked theory (Chapter 9), and human resources theory (Chapters 12 and 13).
than answered.
Finally, it is possible to identify a third subfield that cuts across the preced•
ing two. The term m a n a g e m e n t theory refers to those works in the larger
field of organizational analysis that focus specifically on management
processes and practices. Such works are often prescriptive in tone and applied
ORGANIZATIO N THEOR Y
in nature, analyzing organizations in terms of ways to improve management
A S A FIEL D O F STUD Y practice and organizational performance. Examples include Frederick Taylor's
Principles of Scientific Management and Douglas McGregor's The Human Side of
Organization theory is neither a single theory nor a unified body of knowl• Enterprise.
edge. Rather, it is a diverse, multidisciplinary field of study. Scholars from many Although some scholars prefer to think of organization theory, organiza•
disciplines have contributed to the field, examining organizations from various tional behavior, and management theory as separate fields of study, as a matter
perspectives, focusing their analysis at different levels, and seeking answers to of convention the term organization theory is widely used to refer col•
different questions. Although this field has a wealth of useful information to lectively to all three sets of literatures. Given the purpose of this book—
offer, its breadth and diversity prevent it from being readily digested and mas• to explore the linkages between management practice and organizational
tered. Confronted with literally thousands of works, students of management performance—it is important for analysis to focus on all three dimensions of
may well experience a moment of panic as they contemplate how to master organizational life: structure, behavior, and practice.
organization theory and the lessons it has to offer. For effective learning to oc• Because these subfields are themselves rather broad and therefore difficult
cur, the diversity and complexity of the field must somehow be reduced to to master, another strategy is to divide the field of organization theory into dis•
readily digestible portions. This is typically accomplished by grouping works tinct schools of thought, regardless of the subfield to which they relate, and to
with similar theoretical assumptions or research objectives and studying each study them more or less in the order of their historical emergence.This chrono•
body of literature in turn. logical approach has several advantages. First, it allows us to anchor our under•
On e such strategy entails dividing the field of organization theory into standing of each school of thought by placing it within a specific context. For
three broad subfields.The first, also called organiz ation theory, embraces a example, Frederick Taylor's advocacy of close supervision is more understand•
macro perspective—focusing on the organization itself as the basic unit of able in the context of the early twentieth-century factory system than it would
analysis and seeking to explain how and why organizations behave as they do. 1
be in the context of the government agency of today. Second, the chronologi•
Works in this subfield typically investigate structural arrangements (e.g., levels cal approach allows us to see the evolutionary character of organization theory
4 CHAPTER AN INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATION
E xhi bi t 1.1 Major S ch oo l s of T h o u g h t

Ex hi bi t 1.1 c on ti nu e d
School of Representative
thought Central focus Historical era theorists School of Representative
thought Central focus Historical era theorists
The theory of Identifying the structural 1890s--1910s Max Weber Open Keeping the organizational 1950s-1970s Katz and Kahn
bureaucracy characteristics that systems system viable through internal James D. Thompson
(Chapter 4) facilitate administrative theory maintenance and external Joan Woodward
efficiency. (Chapter 11) adjustment. Emery and Trist
Scientific Burns and Stalker
Using scientific study 1890s--1920s Frederick Taylor
management Lawrence and
and rational planning Frank Gilbreth
theory Lorsch
to enable fast and Henry Gantt
(Chapter 5) efficient task performance. Human Enhancing motivation and 1940s-1960s Kurt Lewin
resources productivity by satisfying Rensis Likert
Administrative Identifying the 1910s--1930s Henri Fayol
theory the full range of human needs. Abraham Maslow
management administrative principles James Mooney
(Chapters 12, 13) Chris Argyris
theory that allow organizations to Luther Gulick Douglas McGregor
(Chapter 6) accomplish complex tasks. Frederick Herzberg
Pre-human Enhancing morale and 1920s Mary Parker Quality Institutionalizing a cultural 1950s-1980s Armand
relations securing cooperation by Follett management commitment to continuous Feigenbaum
theory depersonalizing the
theory improvement and customer W. Edwards
(Chapter 7) authority relationship.
(Chapter 14) satisfaction. Deming
Human Joseph Juran
Adjusting workers to 1930s-•1940s Elton Mayo
relations Kaoru Ishikawa
the workplace and securing Fritz
theory their cooperation using various Roethlisberger Organizational Creating a culture committed 1980s-1990s Edgar Schein
(Chapter 8) behavioral methods.
culture and to high performance through William Ouichi
Natural Maintaining cooperative leadership visionary leadership and Pascale and Athos
1930s- 1940s Chester Barnard
systems systems by offering theory symbolic management. Tom Peters
theory inducements and exercising (Chapter 15)
(Chapter 9) moral leadership.
Structural- Identifying the functional 1940s- 1950s Robert Merton

functional and dysfunctional Philip Selznick
theory consequences of bureaucracy. Alvin Gouldner
(Chapter 10) Peter Blau Exploring these schools of thought is important to practicing managers be•
cause each offers an explicit or implicit theory of organizational effectiveness.
continued More specifically, each provides a unique lens through which to view and un•
derstand organizational dynamics, a distinct set of concepts and methods for
as it has developed over time, albeit in a nonlinear fashion. Ideas found to be in• improving performance, and a specific set of values for linking organizational
adequate or incomplete often give rise to new ideas about how to organize and means to organizational ends. A few representative examples serve to under•
manage. Finally, examining one school of thought at a time allows us to tackle score the relevance of these schools of thought to what public managers do:
the field of organization theory in more readily digestible packages.
• Scientific management theory emerged in the early 1900s as industrial
engineers such as Frederick Taylor sought to put every aspect of task perfor•
mance and industrial production on a rational and efficient basis. It holds
MAJO R S C H O O L S O F THOUGH T that organizational performance is enhanced by systematizing work opera•
tions, standardizing tasks, and providing economic incentives to induce su•
Beginning with Chapter 4, each chapter will introduce a specific school of perior performance. Efficiency and productivity are the primary values.
thought and assess its significance for management practice. These schools, • Administrative m an ag em en t theory grew out of the efforts of theo•
identified in Exhibit 1.1, are simply constructs that help us assimilate the rists in the United States and abroad in the 1920s and 1930s to identify
wealth of knowledge about organizations. Although the labels assigned to fundamental, perhaps even universal, principles for structuring and manag•
them are somewhat arbitrary, they are among the labels used most often to de• ing complex organizations. It holds that organizational performance is en•
fine the boundaries of this broad and diverse field of study.
4 CHAPTER AN INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATION
hanced by establishing an administrative structure characterized by clear

AN INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATION 7
6 CHAPTER
lines of authority from top to bottom, a distinct division of labor among aging members to adopt these values and vision as their own, and creating
departments, and delegation of power and authority to administrators a strong organizational culture in which shared values and vision tie mem•
commensurate with their responsibilities. Structural and administrative ra• bers together in common cause. Intrinsic satisfaction, social cohesion, and
tionality are the primary values. commitment to organizational purposes are the primary values.
H u m a n relations theory emerged in the late 1920s as Harvard psychol•
It should be apparent from the above examples that organization theory
ogists sought to interpret the results of experiments conducted at a West•
provides answers to the kinds of questions public managers face daily, includ•
ern Electric plant in terms of human feelings and perceptions. It holds
ing how to coordinate and control work activities, how to motivate employees
that organizational performance is enhanced by treating workers with re•
to work toward organizational objectives, and how to define and improve or•
spect, replacing close supervision with a more relaxed and sympathetic
ganizational effectiveness. But it should be equally clear that these answers,
form of supervision, encouraging workers to vent their feelings, and de•
taken together, do not comprise a single, comprehensive, agreed-upon theory
veloping cohesive work teams. Personal adjustment, cooperative behavior,
of organizational behavior or performance. As noted earlier, diverse and diver•
and social cohesion are the primary values.
gent schools of thought have emerged over time precisely because the field of
Hu ma n resources theory evolved out of human relations theory as be• organization theory is multidisciplinary. Theorists have asked different ques•
havioral scientists in the 1950s and 1960s began to delve more deeply into tions for different reasons and focused their analysis on different variables and
the relationship between satisfying human needs and attaining organiza• levels. Some have set out to explain or describe how things work based on
tional objectives. It holds that organizational performance is enhanced by systematic research, while others have been content to prescribe how things
developing each worker's unique talents, creating and sustaining an envi• should work based on secondary data and their personal ideologies. In addition,
ronment of openness and trust, removing constraints on personal auton• some theorists have built upon or reacted to previous schools of thought,
omy and individual discretion, enriching work, and providing while others have launched out in entirely new directions.
opportunities for everyone to participate in decision making. Human de• All of this helps explain why it is unrealistic to expect there to be a single,
velopment and intrinsic satisfaction are the primary values. comprehensive theory of organization. And yet it is a comprehensive under•
Systems theory arose in several disciplines in the early 1900s as scientists standing of organizational structure and behavior that we hope to achieve. Al•
came to realize that the many variables relating to a particular phenomenon though no single school enables us to comprehend all aspects of organizational
must be understood holistically—that is, as a system rather than as a set of life, each provides a unique perspective and supplies an important piece of the
simple cause-and-effect relationships. From the perspective of systems the• puzzle. Each helps us understand or explain certain aspects of organizational
ory, the successful organization is one that achieves both internal integration structure and behavior so that we can begin to put together our own theory
and external adaptation; it is one that maintains an optimal fit between its of organizations and how best to manage them.
mission and strategies, its internal systems and structures, and the forces in its Developing our own theory is important because theory has the power to
external environment that create both opportunities and threats. inform practice. As Kurt Lewin once said, "There is nothing so practical as a
good theory." If it is true that management decisions are driven either
3
Quality manage me nt theory took root in Japan in the second half of

explic• itly or implicitly by an underlying theory of management, then it is
the twentieth century as American management consultants urged the
critically important for each manager's personal theory to be a good one, one that
Japanese to compete on the basis of product quality and customer satisfac•
is broadly informed by theoretical and conceptual knowledge as well as experi•
tion. It holds that organizational performance is enhanced by designing
ence. The manager who operates on the basis of only one or two theoretical
products and services to meet or exceed customer expectations and by em•
perspectives necessarily limits his or her effectiveness as a manager. By study•
powering workers to find and ekminate all factors that undermine product
ing organization theory, present and future public managers can learn to com•
or service quality. Primary values include product or service quality, contin•
prehend the flux of organizational life in a more holistic fashion and assess
ual improvement, collective problem solving, and customer satisfaction.
organizational problems from multiple perspectives. An important part of this
Organizational culture and leadership theory. This body of theory, learning process is putting together a "conceptual tool kit" comprising theo•
at least as it relates to management, developed in the 1980s and 1990s as ries and concepts borrowed from each school of thought. This tool kit can
scholars searched for an explanation for the growing success of Japanese then be drawn upon as needed to explain various facets of organizational life
business firms. It holds that organizational performance is enhanced by ar• and to determine how best to resolve problems and attain goals.
ticulating a clear vision of success and the values that underlie that vision, Although managers and their staffs cannot control every aspect of organi•
symbolizing values and vision in every action management takes, encour- zational life, they can learn how to adjust key variables, or adjust to them, in
8 CHAPTER
ways that improve agency functioning. The chapters that follow are designed 2
to tease out the implications of organization theory for management prac•
tice so that present and future managers can perform their assigned roles
more effectively.
NOTE S The Distinctive Context

1. . L. L. C u m m i n g s , "Toward 3. Alfred J. Marrow , The Practical Theorist:
O rganiza• tional Behavior," Academy of
Management Review 3 (January 1978), 91 .
The Life and Work of Kurt LeuHn (Ne w
York: Teachers Col lege Press, C o l u m b i a of Public Management
University, 1977), 128 .
2. W. Ri c h a r d Scott, Organizations:
Rational, Natural, and Open Systems
(E nglew ood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1992), 9.
C
hapter 1 argued that the study of organization theory can help us under•
stand organizational dynamics, learn to diagnose and resolve problems,
and provide effective leadership in pursuit of organizational objectives.
But there is a difficulty. Insights derived from organization theory are not
equally applicable to all organizations or to all situations. Indeed, because most
of the theoretical literature was written with private businesses in mind, it is
possible to argue that organization theory holds litde or no relevance for pub•
lic agencies at all. In truth organization theory does hold a great deal of rele•
vance for public agencies, but it is not to be found in a generic one-size-fits-all
package. The relevance of theory must be teased out for each agency individu•
ally. The task of the present chapter is to isolate the distinctive features of the
context in which public management takes place, as well as the distinctive dif•
ferences among public agencies, so that the relevance of theory for individual
agencies can be determined.
CONTEXTUA L CHARACTERISTIC S
OF PUBLI C MANAGEMEN T
The belief that government agencies can and should be run like a business is
deeply ingrained in our political culture. As early as 1868 a resolution adopted
by the National Manufacturers'Association stated that it was "indispensable
8 CHAPTER
a
1 CHAPTER THE DISTINCTIVE CONTEXT OF PUBLIC 1
that public affairs be conducted on business principles." Ninetee n years

1
activities, motivate employees, and set goals and plan for their attainment. If
later a young professor of history and political economy named Woodrow Wilson these ideas are to serve as guides to management practice they must be rele•
called for a "practical science of administration" dedicated to making the busi• vant for and adapted to the distinctive political, legal, and institutional context
ness of government "less unbusinesslike." In 1926 Leonard D.White , author
2
in which public management takes place. The sections that follow identify spe•
of the first textbook in this new field of study, defined public administration as cific contextual characteristics that must be taken into account when applying
"the business side of government." And somewhat more recently J. Peter
3
theory to practice.
Grace, chairman of President Reagan's Private Sector Survey on Cost Con •
trol, claimed that the government could save tens of billions of dollars by
adopting the "commonsense business management practices that every com• Fragmented Authority
pany must use, from the corner drug store on up to General Motors, if it is to
To protect citizens from an overbearing government James Madison designed
succeed." Its popularity notwithstanding, the belief that government can and
4
a constitutional system that dispersed power and fragmented authority.The de•

should be run like a business rests on the questionable assumption that public
signers of state constitutions followed Madison's lead. At both levels power is
and private management are fundamentally alike and that management tech•
dispersed among three branches of government, each possessing its own scope
niques used in the private sector are readily transferrable to the public sector.
of authority and yet subject to extensive checks on its powers. Whereas most
Fortunately, we need not enter into the debate over whether public and
business firms are self-contained, autonomous organizations, public agencies
private organizations are fundamentally alike or different. As Hal Rainey has
are not. Most are units within the executive branch which is, in turn, just one
written, this debate has tended to oversimplify both similarities and differ•
part of the larger authority system that we call government. As such they are
ences. Instead, we must explore the unique features of the context in
5
subject to the control of the chief executive and the checks that the legislative
which public management takes place so that we can better assess the applicability of
and judicial branches of government can lawfully impose. Far from being self-
theoretical concepts to government agencies and the difficulties that may be
contained and autonomous, they are charged with achieving purposes set by
encountered in attempting to transfer "business techniques" from the private
others, with the resources provided by others, and in accordance with proce•
to the public sector.
dures imposed by others. In short, they are enmeshed in a governing system
The central question with which this book is concerned is how to enhance that is not intended to operate in a quick and efficient manner. Indeed, a sys•
government performance. This question places the spotlight squarely on those tem in which authority is fragmented and inefficiency is expected makes little
aspects of public management that are unique and those features of the organi• sense outside of the context of democratic governance.
zational context that uniquely constrain public managers in carrying out their
The primary consequence of fragmented authority for agency manage•
mandated purposes. Although management may entail the same basic functions
ment is readily apparent: Public managers do not have the same freedom as
in public and private organizations, ho w these functions are carried out can
their private sector counterparts to set goals, alter their missions, or adjust their
vary gready between the two sectors. Similarly, techniques of business manage•
methods. For example, although public agencies can engage in strategic man•
ment may be transferred to the public sector but ho w they are implemented
agement, generally they cannot do so with the same degree of freedom en•
and used, as well as the probabilities of their success in enhancing agency per•
joyed by private firms. The portability of strategic management from the
formance, can also vary a great deal. Thus, although public and private hospitals
private to the public sector is limited by the fact that an agency's mission—the
or public and private utilities may perform the same functions and face similar
business that it engages in, its fundamental purposes, and the basic goals it ex•
problems, most public agencies are distinctly different from private businesses
ists to achieve—is determined externally by the legislature. Although consid•
7
because they exist to execute the law. By virtue of their special trust, public
erable discretion is exercised in interpreting the agency's mandates, all such
managers are responsible for promoting values that go beyond efficiency, econ•
deliberations must take place within parameters set by law. Agencies are not
omy, and effectiveness, including responsiveness, equity, and public service. Be•
completely free, for example, to define their own missions, choose their own
cause of their unique normative environment, public managers must operate
structures, designate their own favorite "customers," create their own rules, or
through actions which are "as fair as possible, and as uniform as possible, and
define their own standards of success. Public agencies can and do engage
8
which can be taken publicly and publicly explained." And because of the
6
suc• cessfully in strategic management, but they do so in a context in which

cen• tral importance of accountability in a democratic state, public managers are
basic goals have already been fixed and in which choices about how to carry
sub• ject to constraints not experienced by their private sector counterparts.Their
out their missions are constrained by law.
decisions must be made within the limits of delegated authority, internal regu•
Fragmented authority also means that public managers must often consult
lations, and the provisions of constitutional and statutory law.
broadly with officials outside of their agencies before taking action, and they
The schools of thought examined in the chapters that follow offer ideas
must be prepared for the possibility that their actions or intended actions may
about how to structure organizations, design work processes, coordinate work be overruled or preempted at any time by the decisions of legislative, judicial,
or executive officials pursuing their own political agendas and protecting their ment in which important decisions are made slowly, with many starts and
own institutional prerogatives. Although the constitutional separation of pow• stops, tends to foster frustrations, sap energies, and rob officials of a sense of
ers helps limit the abuse and misuse of power, it also contributes to a process
sustained forward momentum.
of managerial decision making that is difficult, complex, and time consuming.
Third, close scrutiny by the media, interest groups, and elected officials
tends to make public managers more cautious and less willing to take risks.
An Open, Accessible, and Responsive Decision Process Knowing that decisions will be second-guessed, rules challenged, and new ini•
If public agencies are not self-contained, autonomous entities, neither are pub- tiatives viewed with suspicion, public managers try to anticipate how others
he managers free to deliberate among themselves behind closed doors and an• will react to proposed changes and avoid taking actions that may provoke in•
nounce their decisions when they are through. Whereas business firms can tense criticism. Such calculations can lead them to adopt rule changes or plans
establish goals and make policies in a relatively closed fashion, public agencies that they believe are politically acceptable but which they would not other•
do so through a process that is remarkably open to public scrutiny, accessible wise have made if the choice had been theirs alone. Similarly, the strong em•
to interested parties, and responsive to the needs and concerns of specific indi• phasis on accountability and the attendant fear of being called on the carpet
viduals and groups. Openness, accessibility, and responsiveness are integral parts by an oversight body may cause them to avoid doing anything new or innova•
of what makes a democratic regime democratic. Everyone reserves the right to tive. Donald Warwick found this to be the case in the U.S. State Department:
watch, participate, and exert influence, and agency officials are expected to lis• "If fear is not the dominant motivational appeal, it usually lurks in the back•
ten and respond in appropriate ways. Many of these rights and expectations are ground. The bureaucrat quickly learns that he may be subject to attack from
codified in law. Open meetings laws, for example, require agency deliberations many fronts: head-hunting columnists, headline-hunting congressmen, irate
to be open and accessible to the public. Freedom of information laws require constituency groups, opportunistic White House assistants, rivals in other
agencies, a fickle agency director, or consumers' groups." Working in an
1 0
agency actions and records to be open to public scrutiny. Administrative pro•
cedure acts require public notice of proposed changes in administrative rules, en • vironment where rewards for risk-taking are few and the hazards many
comment periods, and public hearings before new rules can be put in force. "cre• ates a strong pull toward the tried and true." Although the State
And citizen advisory boards are often established by law and attached to agen• Department may represent an extreme case, the level of public scrutiny and oversight
cies to ensure that input is received and accountability maintained. expe• rienced by public managers no doubt injects an element of caution into
Having to make decisions in an open, accessible, and responsive manner man• agerial decision making and raises the risks involved in undertaking efforts to
holds important implications for agency management. First, it means that improve agency performance.
agency executives have less freedom to determine the outcomes of decision As the foregoing analysis indicates, public agencies cannot be run in the
processes than their private sector counterparts.The final mission statement, same way as a business because decision making must be open, accessible, and
management plan, policy objective, or administrative regulation is rarely de• responsive. This requirement of democratic governance adds to the length and
cided upon by agency executives acting alone and in accordance with their complexity of agency decision making, reduces the ability of public managers
experience, expertise, and personal preferences. Instead it is typically a product to determine the outcomes of their decision processes, and tends to make
of the many compromises needed to find an acceptable middle ground among them more cautious and risk-averse, thereby undermining their ability or will•
various competing values and interests. Due to the influence exerted by exter• ingness to pursue innovations aimed at improving agency performance.
nal parties, executives often perform less as decision makers and more as nego•
tiators and facilitators, agreeing to things they might not otherwise agree to in Ambiguous, Intangible, and Partly Unattainable Goals
order to secure a workable compromise. In addition, the need to be responsive
The mandated goals of public agencies are frequently ambiguous in meaning
to external authorities reduces their control over agency performance. A study
and intangible in nature. In some instances goal ambiguity is due to the diffi•
of state agencies in Ohio, for example, found that efforts to build agency ca•
culty inherent in defining legislative intent concretely and precisely, either be•
pacity and improve performance often came to naught because of pressures cause legislators lack the necessary expertise or because they cannot reach an
brought to bear by their political overseers. 9
acceptable agreement. When Congress passed The Civil Rights Act of 1964, for
Second, the many procedural requirements by which openness, accessibil• example, it prohibited discrimination without even attempting to define it; sup•
ity, and responsiveness are guaranteed add to the length and complexity of the porters understood that no legislation would be forthcoming if it had to await
decision-making process. Because of the time it takes to complete impact stud• agreement on the meaning of the term. In other instances goal ambiguity is due
ies, schedule comment periods, hold hearings, carry on negotiations, and com• to the abstract, intangible nature of what agencies are asked to accomplish.
plete rewrites, it is not unusual for the approval of a new regulation or Whereas the goals of business firms can be defined in relatively concrete terms,
management plan to take several months, if not years. Working in an environ- such as growth, sales, and profits, agencies are charged with accomplishing much
1 CHAPTER THE DISTINCTIVE CONTEXT OF PUBLIC I
by circumscribing the behavior of agency officials with rules and procedures

Ambiguous, Intangible, and Often Conflicting Goals and refusing to delegate discretionary authority downwards. Compliance with
rules and procedures then substitutes for attainment of results as an indicator of
" . . . national forests are estab• tions remain: Which of these multiple accountable behavior and successful performance. As Donald Warwick noted in
lished and shall be administered uses has highest priority? Wha t should his study of the U.S. State Department, "Goal ambiguity and the absence of
for outdoor recreation, range, tim• forest managers do when timber har•
ber, watershed, and wildlife and
firm performance criteria favor the development of rules and fixed operating
vesting degrades watersheds and
fish purposes." blue-ribbon fishing streams? Wha t procedures. Rules and standards have the advantage of being means-oriented, if
The Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act of should forest managers do when a tree- not ends-oriented, guides to success. The official may not be sure of what he
1960
thinning project promises to im• prove the has produced or how well he has produced it, but he can be sure that he did it
At first glance the mandated purposes habitat for elk while de• grading it for in the right way." This helps explain why public agencies often seem more
12
of the U.S. Forest Service seem per• lynx? Is managing the national forests as
process-oriented than goal-oriented. It has much to do with the ambiguous,
fectly clear. The law identifies six complex ecosys• tems even possible?
As these trou• bling questions suggest, intangible, and partly unattainable nature of their goals, goals that are typically
"multiple uses" and instructs the For•
est Service to utilize the resources of goals and mandates that seem so clear very different in kind than those of their private sector counterparts.
the forests "in that combination that on paper become something else
entirely when it comes to implementing
will best meet the needs of the Ameri•
them.
Procedural Constraints
can people." But many difficult ques•
Private managers are free to advance the interests of their firms as they see fit,
as long as their actions are not specifically prohibited by law. Public managers,
by contrast, are free to act only within the scope of their lawfully delegated au•
more nebulous goals, such as reducing poverty, rehabilitating criminal offend• thority and in accordance with externally imposed systems of rules and proce•
ers, and protecting air and water quality. Poverty, crime, and pollution are in• dures. Consequently, public managers encounter many more constraints and
tractable problems whose causes are not always known or, if known, largely enjoy much less freedom of choice than their private sector counterparts.This
outside of the agency's control. Ho w to go about attaining these goals, and limits their ability to pursue organizational objectives in a purposeful and de•
whether they can be attained at all, remain open questions. liberate fashion. Having identified appropriate courses of action, public man•
That agencies often face ambiguous and intangible goals holds important agers find it much more difficult to put their decisions into effect.
management implications. First, it places agency executives in the middle of The use of rules and procedures to constrain managerial discretion reflects
contesting parties seeking to define what the goals and tasks of the agency are the emphasis placed on accountability in a democratic state. Because public of•
or should be. Because reasonable people can disagree on such matters, public ficials exercise the coercive powers of the state and spend tax dollars, demo•
managers often experience intense pressure from external and internal stake• cratic norms require that they be held accountable for their actions. As noted
holders and political overseers seeking to influence how the agency's core task earlier, where accountability cannot be achieved by setting clear goals and mon•
is defined and carried out. This adds greatly to the complexities and uncertain• itoring results, the apparent alternative is to replace managerial discretion with
ties executives experience as they work to attain mission-related objectives. rules. Historically, legislative bodies have relied upon centralized control systems
Second, where goals are ambiguous and intangible in nature it is especially to prevent fraud, waste, and misuse of authority, and to ensure fairness in hiring
difficult for managers to establish performance standards and measure results. In employees, distributing benefits, and awarding contracts. Merit-based personnel
many instances agency outputs are unobservable and unmeasurable.This limits systems were instituted to safeguard the merit principle against the intrusions of
the applicability of such management tools as strategic planning, management by patronage and to protect employees from arbitrary, capricious, or discrimina•
objectives, and performance measurement. These tools assume that goals are rela• tory treatment; line-item budgets and standardized accounting procedures to
tively clear, concrete, and attainable, that success in attaining them can be mea• ensure that funds are expended for their authorized purposes and in a fiscally
sured and, consequendy, that agencies and their staffs can be held accountable for responsible manner; and purchasing and bidding systems to ensure that supplies
producing the desired results. But where goals are vague and abstract it is very dif• and equipment are obtained at the best available price and that contracts are
ficult to observe work performance, measure outputs, and set appropriate perfor• awarded in a fair and unbiased manner. Not only do these systems specify the
mance standards. For example, classroom learning is not readily observable or rules and procedures that managers must follow but they are also enforced by
measurable. Standardized test scores can demonstrate that learning has occurred central personnel, budget, and purchasing offices that demand strict compliance.
but cannot reveal how much of the increase is due to the efforts of the Procedural rules and reporting requirements tend to reduce the timeliness
teacher. 11
of hiring decisions, discourage supervisors from taking justified disciplinary

Where clear goals cannot be specified, firm performance standards cannot actions, limit their ability to reward their best workers, prohibit them from
be set, and outputs cannot be readily observed or measured, there is a strong moving funds from one budget category to another in response to changing
tendency for political overseers and agency managers to exercise accountability
needs, create lengthy delays in obtaining required supplies and equipment

fort on their boundary-spanning responsibilities.These responsibilities include
and, in general, deny managers the flexibility they need to advance the objec•
identifying stakeholder concerns, responding to critics, mediating between
tives of their agencies. As these examples suggest, the problem with central•
contending interests, negotiating agreements, and building political coalitions
ized control systems is that "constraining people from doing anything wrong
to support their management plans and policy objectives. Carrying out the
often simultaneously constrains them from doing anything right." This was
1 3
mission of an agency in an intensely political environment is not easy. The mis•

a major theme in Vice President Gore's 1993 National Performance Review,
sion of the U.S. Forest Service, for example, is to maximize stewardship of the
which described "structures of overcontrol and micromanagement" in the
nation's natural resources by sustaining healthy and productive ecosystems. Al•
federal govern men t that leave " go o d people trapped in bad systems." Al• 14
though this may seem straightforward enough, in practice it is accomplished

though much red tape can be eliminated, operating in a democratic system of
only by balancing the contending views and interests of loggers, miners, hik•
governance means that public managers are and will continue to be subject
ers, horseback riders, skiers, and users of motorized vehicles. In the course of
to a degree of accountability that is far more detailed and pervasive than that
developing management plans and agency regulations much of the manager's
in the private sector. In many cases the public manager longs to say "Yes,
time is spent in soliciting comments, holding hearings, working out compro•
let's do it!" but the rules and procedures say "No , not so fast." In a work
mises, and negotiating agreements. In addition, managers must often build
environment such as this it is easy to become constraint-oriented rather than
coalitions of supporters to help them obtain the budgetary resources, political
outcome-oriented.
clout, and operating autonomy needed to achieve their policy objectives. All
of this not only makes the decision-making process highly complex and time
Political Constraints consuming but it also requires managers to possess strong negotiating, conflict
resolution, and coalition-building skills.
Perhaps the most fundamental difference between private and public manage•
Because they are obliged to respond to a wide range of external demands,
ment is that the latter takes place in a highly politicized environment in which
public managers find it particularly difficult to manage their time and focus on
agency decisions are shaped to a substantial degree by external pressures and
goal attainment. A study by Porter and Van Maanen found, for example, that
political considerations.There are three reasons for this. First, the distributive,
middle managers in government were much more likely than middle man•
redistributive, and regulatory policies of government affect the well-being of
agers in industry to cite the needs and demands of those outside of their orga•
every member of society. Because agency decisions produce benefits for some
nizations as an important variable affecting how they spent their time. The
1 5
and impose costs on others, affected individuals and groups will seek to influ•
government managers reported spending more time interacting with people,
ence the exercise of administrative discretion. Second, the norms of democra•
either on the phone or in face-to-face meetings, and less time on operational
tic governance dictate that all affected parties must have opportunities to
planning and task accomplishment. They also reported feeling "rushed," with
influence agency decisions either directly or through their elected representa•
"not enough time to get things done you want to do." On e consequence of
tives.This means that those outside the boundaries of the agency cannot be ig•
working under the crush of communications from external parties and feeling
nored or shut out of the administrative process. Finally, the constitutional
obligated to respond to their needs and demands is that it distracts managers
separation of powers obliges public managers to serve two external masters,
from their internal responsibilities, including defining the agency's core task,
the chief executive and the legislature, each claiming to represent the will of
communicating a clear sense of purpose, and sustaining staff morale and for•
the people and each seeking to establish political control over agency deci•
ward momentum.
sions. Elected executives work through their appointees to make sure that
A second way that politics influences public management is by injecting po•
agency decisions are consistent with their political agendas, individual legisla•
litical criteria into the choice-making process.The generic management model,
tors pressure agency officials to respond to the needs of their constituents, ap•
with its emphasis on long-term planning, cost-benefit analysis, and rationalis•
propriations committees attach provisions to budget bills detailing how funds
tic criteria such as efficiency and cost-effectiveness, has limited applicability
are to be spent, and legislatures amend the law to prevent, or at least constrain,
in a highly politicized environment. For example, decisions by agencies to close
the agency from doing what the legislators dislike. As a result, agency goals are
veterans' hospitals, military bases, or rural post offices are often reversed due
set and implemented in the context of cross-cutting political pressures. Deci•
to intense public outcry despite having been made on the basis of their cost-
sion making is slower and more disjointed than in the private sector, bearing
effectiveness and only after careful study of the available alternatives. It is not
few of the characteristics of rational planning and policy making described in
unusual for citizens to demand the services that veterans' hospitals, military bases,
the generic management literature.
and rural post offices provide even if they must be provided at a loss.
Politics affects public management in specific ways. First, it causes middle-
In short, public management is as much about fashioning compromises
and upper-level managers to be externally directed, focusing their time and ef-
among competing political interests as it is about the rational attainment of
organizational objectives. Because they operate in a highly political environ• Exh ib it 2.1 Limits on th e Use of Ge n e ri c M a n a g e m e n t Mo d e ls in G o v e r n m e n t
ment, public managers cannot make decisions based solely on analysis of costs
and benefits, rational means-ends calculations, or efficiency and effectiveness Elements of a generic model Limits on their applicability in public agencies
criteria. No r are they free to interpret the agency's mission, set priorities, for• Establish clear goals and Basic goals are externally determined by the legislature.
mulate objectives, and plan for their attainment solely on the basis of their clear sense of mission. Legislative bodies rarely define goals in clear
professional training and expertise. Rational intentions and mission-oriented and concrete terms.
plans often play only a limited role in determining agency actions and policy An open and accessible decision process allows external
parties to influence how goals will be defined and
outcomes because of the large number of parties that want to be involved and
achieved.
the amount of political influence they can bring to bear.
Agencies are often assigned multiple, conflicting goals,
making it difficult to establish a shared sense of mission.
Delegate authority and Legislative bodies are reluctant to grant full autonomy
responsibility for achieving because it reduces their ability to hold agencies
TH E L I M I T S O F G E N E R I C goals. responsive to their wishes.
MANAGEMEN T MODEL S Elected executives are reluctant to grant full autonomy

for the same reason.
Top managers are reluctant to delegate authority and
Many of those who argue that government agencies can and should be run in responsibility downward because they know they will
a more "businesslike" fashion also believe in the possibility of developing a be held accountable for the "mistakes" of their
generic model of management, one that specifies practices and techniques that subordinates.
are applicable in all organizational settings. One such model underlies the re• The vague and abstract nature of goals encourages
external overseers and agency managers to rely on
cent managing-for-results reform movement, including the efforts of the Na• procedural rules to ensure accountability, further
tional Performance Review (NPR) team in 1993 to "reinvent" the federal reducing possibilities for empowerment.
government. At the kick-off meeting with Vice President Gore the NP R staff Where goals are ambiguous and intangible, and where
Identify desired outputs
received wallet-sized laminated cards asserting that excellence is achieved by and outcomes and measure outputs and outcomes are unobservable, it is extremely
creating a clear sense of mission, delegating authority and responsibility, replac• results. difficult to identify appropriate performance indicators
and measure results.
ing regulations with incentives, developing budget-based outcomes, and mea•
suring success by customer satisfaction. This set of generic prescriptions Linking rewards to performance is impossible where
1 6
Hold employees accountable
for results by linking rewards appropriate performance indicators cannot be
begs a critical question: Do department heads, agency directors, and bureau identified.
to performance.
chiefs have the same freedom of movement, scope of authority, and probabilities for Linking rewards to performance is inappropriate where
success as their private sector counterparts in setting goals, monitoring perfor• failure to produce desired results is due to inadequate
mance, and achieving results? If the analysis presented earlier in this chapter is resources or factors beyond the agency's control.
correct, they do not. Public managers often lack the authority and resources
needed to reward superior performance.
Asking government agencies to operate in a more "businesslike" fashion is
Agencies are responsible for secondary goals, including
perfectly appropriate, as long as it is clearly understood that general manage• fairness, openness, and responsiveness, which constrain
ment principles and practices might need to be modified to fit the unique the attainment of mission-related objectives.
context of public management and that the probabilities for their success in
enhancing organizational performance may not be as high as in the private
sector because there are values at stake other than effective attainment of mis•
sion-related goals. These conclusions are central to the purposes of this book.
They emphasize that the principles and practices associated with each school DIFFERENCE S BETWEE N
of organization theory must be assessed in terms of their relevance to public
AN D A M O N G PUBLI C A G E N C I E S
organizations in general and to each agency in particular.
Exhibit 2.1 summarizes why it is difficult to apply generic management Not only do public and private organizations differ, but public organizations
models in governmental settings. Elements typically found in generic models differ among themselves. Government bureaucracy is not a single, monolithic
are identified on the left and some of the limits on their applicability to public entity that can be described in terms of a single, fixed set of characteristics. In•
agencies are summarized on the right. dividual agencies can and do vary greatly in terms of the environments they
face, the technologies they rely upon, the kinds of workers they employ, and the tern of tools and techniques used by an organization to carry out its tasks. In
nature of their outputs and outcomes. These variations hold important implica• 1967 sociologist James D.Thompson created a scheme for classifying organiza•
tions for ways in which individual agencies are organized and managed. Conse• tions according to their core technology. A l on g - li nk ed t ec h n ol o g y in•
1 8
quently, the differences between and among agencies must also be considered volves relatively routine tasks performed in succession. The mass-production
when assessing the relevance of organization theory for public agencies. The assembly line provides an example. As each worker completes a distinct task,
sections that follow highlight a few of the most important sources of variation. the assembly line passes the product to the next worker. With this type of tech•
nology it is relatively easy to select tools, construct appropriate work-flow
Differences in Political Environments arrangements, plan for the completion of work objectives, and direct the ac•
tions of workers through the use of standardized operating procedures. This
As noted earlier, public managers often have limited effective control over the
type of technology is found in the public sector where paperwork must be
decisions they make in the course of strategic planning, goal setting, and rule
processed or routine matters investigated, such as handling applications for per•
making. How much effective control they possess tends to vary with the politi•
mits or licenses, auditing tax forms, or collecting evidence at a crime scene.
cal environments they face. Regulatory agencies, for example, typically i m•
17
A mediating te ch no lo gy links people together in order to satisfy their

pose costs on particular industries and therefore experience a high degree of
respective needs. A state employment security office provides an example. It
conflict. They are deeply dependent on the regulated industry for information
creates a link between those seeking jobs and those seeking to fill jobs. This
and on powerful support groups to help them carry out their missions. Effec•
type of work technology is less routine because it brings multiple clients to•
tive control over key agency decisions is often low in such situations, especially
gether who are widely distributed in time and space. Consequently, it requires
where the coalition of supporters traditionally favoring regulation has weak•
standardized methods that go beyond simple operating procedures.
ened. Other agencies, such as the U.S. Social Security Administration, distribute
Finally, an intensive technology involves altering a product or person in a
benefits to influential client groups with program costs widely dispersed. An
way that cannot be standardized because the workers' actions must be based on
agency of this kind tends to experience higher effective control because a dom•
constant evaluation and feedback. A public hospital provides an example of this
inant interest favors its goals and no organized group opposes it, although even
type of technology. Different medical treatments and diagnostic devices are used
here the client group may try to influence how the agency carries out its task.
depending on the symptoms presented and ^ arious adjustments are made de•
Still other agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service, must contend with several
pending on how the patient responds to treatment. Determining which tools
rival interests seeking to influence the agency's goals and plans. Although this
to use and how to use them cannot be fully standardized because each case is
reduces autonomy and the timeliness of decisions, public managers may still en•
unique and considerable judgment is required. In addition, coordination of
joy a considerable degree of effective control if the rival interests are equally
work must be achieved more by personal agreements backed up by professional
balanced in terms of power and influence. In such instances interest group pres•
standards than by centralized control and the exercise of formal authority.
sures often set the outer boundaries of decision making while leaving managers
Although Thompson's classification scheme goes only a small way toward
relatively free to define the agency's mission and determine the best way to
differentiating among public organizations, it does help establish how technol•
carry it out in accordance with legislative intent and professional norms.
ogy influences the setting of objectives, the management of people, and the
An intensely political and hostile environment imposes limits on what pub•
structure of work. It helps to explain why some agencies perform in a regular
lic managers can do and what results they can hope to achieve. With their
and predictable manner and others do not. As with political environments, the
choices constrained by powerful stakeholders they are not as free as managers
relevance of a particular school of thought for a specific agency may depend
facing more placid environments to define their task, create a shared sense of
on that agency's core technology.
mission, and pursue strategic objectives in a direct and efficient manner. Conse•
quently, some of the schools of thought examined in the chapters that follow
Differences in Employee Characteristics
(scientific management and administrative management theory, for example)
may have limited relevance for managers facing environments of this kind. Employee characteristics may also affect the relevance of particular schools of
thought. The efficacy of alternative theories about directing, supervising, and
Differences in Technology motivating employees may depend, for example, on what the workers value,
the amount of training and education they have received, and the amount of
The relevance of a particular school of thought may also depend on the core intellectual capital their jobs require. Well-educated employees tend to place a
technology used. The ways agencies are organized and managed, and whether higher value on individual autonomy and personal growth than do less well-
they perform in regular and predictable ways, depend in part on their techni• educated employees.
1 9
Consequently, those schools of organization theory
cal means of production. Technology in this instance refers broadly to the sys- that emphasize narrow division of labor, routinization of work, and economic
incentives are likely to have limited relevance for agencies with highly edu•
or political overseers that the rules were followed faithfully. Consequently, this
cated workforces.
type of agency tends to be means- rather than results-oriented. Ho w the job is
Similarly, a high proportion of government employees hold knowledge-in•
performed is more important than whether the desired outcomes are
tensive jobs. These jobs involve the creation of knowledge or the creation of
2 0
achieved. Where outcomes are unobservable it is very difficult for agency man•
"smart products" through the application of "trained intelligence." Employees
agers to adopt the managing-for-results prescriptions found in the generic
holding these jobs are not interchangeable labor commodities whose job per•
management literature.
formance depends on their manual dexterity or accumulated experience.
A craft agency is one in which outcomes but not outputs can be observed.
Rather, the quality of their work depends on their intellectual capacity and the
Managers may not know what a fire fighter or a criminal investigator is doing
human capital they invest in their work. Special efforts are required to attract,
in the field, but they can determine the results as measured by fires extin•
develop, and retain workers of this kind. In addition, many of these workers are
guished and criminal cases closed. Such agencies can be more goal-oriented
professionally trained. Because they believe their behavior is governed by ex•
than procedural agencies. Because they can evaluate outcomes there is less
ternally defined codes of conduct, professionally trained employees are less in•
need to micro-manage workers by constraining their decisions with endless
clined to abide by the preferences of managers or respond to traditional
rules. Consequently, craft agencies tend to be more decentralized than proce•
organizational incentives. Creating a shared sense of mission is especially diffi•
dural agencies.
cult in agencies employing different types of professionals, each trying to de•
A coping agency is one in which neither outputs nor outcomes are read•
fine the task of the agency in terms of their own external reference points.
ily observable. Although school administrators can observe a schoolteacher
Once again, those schools of organization theory that emphasize the routiniza-
giving lessons, in practice they rarely do so. As a result, neither the outputs
tion of work, the exercise of formal authority, and the use of economic incen•
(lessons) nor the outcomes (learning) are easily observed. Under these circum•
tives are likely to have limited relevance for agencies that rely extensively on
stances managers may have no clear idea about how to improve agency per•
professionally trained workers and knowledge-intensive jobs.
formance and may become very complaint-oriented as a result. Unable to
verify the facts of the situation, the manager may choose to side with a com•
Differences in Outputs and Outcomes plaining client over a dedicated staff member, appeasing the client at the ex•
The relevance of a particular school of thought may also depend on whether pense of internal morale. Managers of thes; agencies must cope with a difficult
the agency's outputs (immediate work products) and outcomes (ultimate re• situation. In keeping with the public school example, they must try to hire the
sults) are concrete and observable.James Q.Wilson has developed a four-fold best applicant without knowing what the best applicant looks like and they
classification scheme to capture these differences. In a production agency the must develop, evaluate, and retain good teachers without valid measures for
goals are clear and the outputs and outcomes readily observable. Consequently, distinguishing good teachers from bad. Procedures are typically put in place to
it is relatively easy to design a compliance system that achieves desired results control workers and the most observable activities are measured, but without
in a predictable manner. Much as suggested in the generic management litera• much hope that they will guarantee high performance.
ture, clear objectives and work standards are set, outputs and outcomes are Managers are often said to be responsible for establishing clear goals and
measured, and workers are held accountable for results. In these respects pro• performance standards, measuring outputs and outcomes, and holding em•
duction agencies can be "run like a business," although they still must contend ployees accountable for results.Wilson's analysis suggests that their ability to do
with the many procedural and political constraints that characterize the public so depends on whether agency outputs and outcomes are readily observable.
sector. Examples include the U.S. Postal Service with respect to delivering the Consequently, those schools of organization theory that assume a high degree
mail and the U.S. Social Security Administration with respect to generating so• of formal rationality in connecting means and ends are likely to have less rele•
cial security checks. vance where this criterion cannot be satisfied.
A procedural agency is one in which the outputs or work activities are
observable but the outcomes are not. For example, the staff of a mental hospi•
tal can be observed providing various forms of treatment but the results in
SUMMAR Y
terms of restored mental health are not immediately apparent. Similarly, health
and safety inspectors can be observed enforcing rules relating to use of haz•
Many of the contextual elements described in this chapter are clearly con•
ardous chemicals, but whether enforcement actually protects the health of
straints. Constraints, as defined by James D.Thompson, are structural and pro•
workers cannot be determined with confidence. In the absence of observable
cedural conditions to which an organization and its management must adapt. 2
outcomes agency managers tend to rely on procedural rules to limit discretion 1

The constraints faced by public managers—limited authority, ambiguous goals,
and reduce "mistakes."When controversy erupts, managers can assure clients externally imposed rules, inadequate resources, and political demands—cause
2
2 CHAPTER THE DISTINCTIVE CONTEXT OF PUBLIC
many managers to adopt a psychology of failure. As Steven Cohen has ob• Costs Less ( Ne w York: Ti me s B o o k s / Turned Upside Down (Ne w York: R a n d o m
served, these managers "lower their expectations, abandon any sense of vision, R a n d o m Ho u se , 1993), 2 . House, 1981).
and ridicule those w h o retain ambitious goals." Having deliberately chosen
22
15. . Lyman W. Porte r and Joh n Van Maa 20. . E u g e n e B. M cG r e g o r , Strategic
to be caretakers rather than leaders, these managers focus on avoiding contro• - nen, "Task A cc o m p l i sh m e n t and M a n a g e Man• agement of Human Knowledge, Skills,
versy and doing only what is necessary to keep their agencies functioning. Al• • men t of Ti me, " in James L. Perry and and Abilities (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
K e n n e t h L. K ra e m e r (eds.), Public Manage• 1991), 33 .
though this might seem like a rational response to a difficult situation, the tasks ment: Public and Private Perspectives (Palo 21 . T h o m p s o n , Organizations in Action.
public agencies perform are too essential to the well-being of society to allow Alto: Mayfield Pub lishing, 1983): 2 1 2 - 2 4 .
a psychology of failure to persist. Public agencies can be managed effectively, as 22. . Steven C o h e n , The Effective
16. Ro n a l d C . M oe , " T h e 'R e i n v e n t i n g Public Manager:Achieving Success in
the many awards given for excellence in government clearly demonstrate. 2 3
G o v e rn m e n t ' Exercise: M is i n te rp ret i n g the Government (San Francisco:Jossey-Bass,

The key to effective management, according to Cohen, "is an active and ag• Problem, Misjudg ing the C onsequences, " 1988), 5.
gressive effort to overcome constraints and obstacles." Effective managers are Public Administration Review 54 ( M a r c h / A p r i
24
23. . Agency awards are given by Th e

those who can maneuver skillfully among the many political demands and ad• l 1994), 111 .
C ou nc i l for Ex cel lence in G o v e r n m en t
ministrative constraints to create an environment in which they can achieve 17. See James Q . Wi ls on , Bureaucracy, es• and Harvard University' s J oh n F. K e n n e d y
pecially chapter 5 . School of G o v e r n m e n t , and by the Int er•
desired results.
18. James D . T h o m p s o n , Organizations in national Per sonnel M a n a g e m e n t Associa•
Although active and sustained leadership is important to effective manage•
Action ( N e w Y o r k : M c G r a w - H i l l , 1967), 1 5 - tion; awards to outstanding practitioners
ment, so too is conceptual and theoretical knowledge. Having established the are given by Th e A me ri c a n Society for
18 .
distinctive context in which public management takes place, we are now able Public Admin ist rat ion and Th e N at io na l
19. Daniel Yankelovich, New Rules: Academy of Public Administration.
to assess what organization theory can teach us about overcoming constraints
Searching for Self-Fulfillment in a World
and organizing and managing effectively. 24. Co h e n , The Effective Public Manager, 13.
NOTE S
1. William E. Nelson, The Roots of Ameri•

8. . R o n a l d C. Mo e and R o b e r t S.
can Bureaucracy, 1830-1900 (C ambridge:
Gilmour, " R ediscovering Principles of
Harvard University Press, 1982), 120.
Public Admini st rati on: Th e Ne gl ec t e d
2 . W o o d r o w Wilson, "T h e St udy o f Ad • Foundation of Public Law," Public Adminis•
ministration," Political Science Quarterly 2 tration Review 55 (March/A pr il 1995), 138.
(June 1887), 20 1 .
9. . Ba rt o n Wechsler and R o b e r t W
3. Leonard D . W h i t e , Introduction to the Back • off, " T h e D yn am i c s of Strategy in
Study of Public Administration (Ne w York: Public Organizations, " foumal of the
Macmillan, 1939), preface to first edition. American Planning Association 53 (Winter
4. J. Peter Grace, Burning Money:The Waste 1987):
of Your Tax Dollars ( Ne w York: M a cm il l a n 3 4 -4 3 .
Publishing, 1984), 5 . 10. D o n al d P.Warwick, A Theory of Public
5. Ha l G. Rai ney, Understanding and Man• Bureaucracy (Ca mb ri dg e: Harvard U n i v e r •
aging Public Organizations (San Francisco: sity Press, 1975), 102.
Jossey-Bass, 1991), 21 . 11 . James Q. Wi l s on , Bureaucracy: What
6. Paul H . Ap pl eb y, Big Democracy (Ne w Governments Do and Why They Do It ( Ne w
York: Knopf, 1945), 6. York: Basic Books , 1989), 168 .
7. . Arie Halachmi, "Strategic 12. Wa rw ic k , A Theory of Public Bureauc•
Pla n n in g and M a n a g e m e n t ? No t racy 85 .
Necessarily" i n J . Steven Ott , Albert C. 13. . R o b e r t D . B e h n , " T h e Big
H y d e , and Jay Q ue st io ns of Public M a n a g e m e n t , " Public
M. Shafritz (eds.) Public Management: The
Administra• tion Review 55 (July/August,
Essential Readings (Chicago: N e l s o n - H a l l
1995), 321 .
Publishers, 1991): 2 4 1 -5 4 .
14. Al Gore, From Red Tape to Results: Cre•
ating a Government that Works Better and
MANA GE ME NT PRACTICE AND ORGANIZATIONAL
Many factors constrain the performance of agencies other than poor

3
management.These include ill-conceived public policies, inadequate resources,
and social and economic conditions over which agencies have little control.
3€ Although better management offers no panacea for overcoming these
constraints, it can make a positive difference. Generally speaking, the more
effective managers are in performing their tasks the more successful agencies
Management Practice are in achieving their objectives. Charged with making authoritative deci•
1
sions about agency objectives and the allocation of resources, managers are the
ones primarily responsible for ensuring that plans are well-made, human tal•
and Organizational ents fully developed and utilized, and mandated results achieved.
A key aim of this book is to explore what organization theory can tell us
about managing public organizations more effectively. This chapter introduces
Performance three conceptual frameworks that are used in the chapters that follow to assess
the contributions of each major school of thought. Together they provide sta•
ble points of reference for comparing the contributions of one school to an•
other. Attention is focused on these frameworks because they correspond to
three foundational questions facing public managers committed to exercising
leadership in pursuit of organizational excellence:
1. What defines an effective organization and what values and methods will
bring it into being?
2. How can the organization's many work activities be coordinated and con•
B
trolled so that organizational objectives are in fact accomplished?
ecause government agencies exist to serve the public interest, it is essen•
tial that they perform in a superior manner. It is not good enough for 3. What can managers do, if anything, to encourage high levels of motivation
firefighters to arrive at a fire in twenty minutes if they are fully capable and performance on the part of employees?
of arriving in twelve. Lives and property hang in the balance. Similarly, it is not To assist us in answering these foundational questions, the first conceptual
good enough for public hospitals to reduce postsurgery infection rates from framework identifies four models of organizational effectiveness, the second
25 to 15 percent. Too many patients will continue to die. And it is not suffi• presents six mechanisms for coordinating and controlling work activities, and
cient for drivers' license bureaus to process renewals efficiently.They should the third outlines four strategies for motivating employees.
also be conveniently located, offer comfortable waiting rooms, and treat cus•
tomers with civility and respect.
As taxpayers, citizens have a right to expect "the biggest bang for the
buck," but beyond considerations of cost-effectiveness lie other important FOU R M O D E L S O F O R G A N I Z A T I O N A L
concerns, such as responsiveness, fairness, and quality of service. The interests
of all citizens are served when government agencies use resources prudently, EFFECTIVENES S
operate efficiently, and address society's problems effectively. In the current en•
vironment of declining confidence in public institutions, it is especially impor• Although organizational effectiveness is a central theme in the field of organi•
tant for agencies to perform well. As governments lose their credibility with zation theory, there is no agreement about what it means. The only point of
the public, they lose their ability to attract and retain the best available talents. agreement is that it does not refer to a single attribute of organizations or a
specific criterion for assessing performance. Effectiveness means something
2
Ultimately, they lose their capacity to govern. These considerations—the im•

portant role governments play in shaping the quality of life, the serious and different depending on who is doing the judging, the level of analysis, and
complex problems facing society, and the perception (right or wrong) that whether the focus is inputs, outputs, or processes. Consequently, effectiveness
governments at all levels are not doing enough to address these problems—un• has little meaning outside of the specific criteria used to assess it. To address
derscore the importance of doing everything possible to enhance the perfor• this problem Robert E. Quinn and John Rohrbaugh developed a conceptual
mance of government agencies. scheme that identifies and groups the criteria analysts most often have in mind
2 CHAPTER MAN AGEMEN T PRACTICE AND ORGANIZATIONAL 2
E x h i b i t 3.1 Th e C o m p e t i n g V alu e s F r a m e w o r k :
whereas those to the right of center reflect an external concern for the well-being
Four Model s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E f fe ct i v en e s s
and development of the organization itself (e.g., growth). The second dimension,
Flexibility structure, is represented by the vertical line in Exhibit 3.1.Those values above
11 the center point reflect a concern for flexibility and change, whereas those below
the center point reflect a concern for stability and control. The last dimension,
Pattern maintenance/Tension Adaptive function: the need time horizons, distinguishes between an emphasis on means (e.g., planning and
management function: the need to to acquire resources and adapt goal setting) and on final outcomes (e.g., productivity).
maintain a competent, integrated,
to an uncertain environment When these three dimensions are juxtaposed as shown in Exhibit 3.1 they
and dedicated workforce
reveal four competing models of organizational effectiveness. The human re•
Means-oriented values: lations mo de l focuses internally on the people who comprise the organiza•
Means-oriented values:
HUMAN cohesion, flexibility, OPEN tion, emphasizes the need for structural flexibility, and stresses social cohesion,
RELATIONS morale readiness SYSTEMS morale, and training as means for achieving a competent and integrated work•
MODEL MODEL
force. This model offers a theory of organizational effectiveness that we will
Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values:
human resource growth, find reflected in human relations theory (Chapter 9) and human resources the•
development resource acquisition ory (Chapters 12 and 13).The open systems mode l emphasizes the external
needs of the organization and stresses structural flexibility and readiness as a
Internal External
Output Quality means for adapting to an uncertain environment and securing the resources
focus focus
necessary for survival. This model's theory of organizational effectiveness is re•
flected in structural functional theory (Chapter 10) and open systems theory
Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values: (Chapter 11).The rational goal mo de l emphasizes planning and goal setting
INTERNAL info, management, planning, RATIONAL to achieve organizational goals in an efficient and productive manner. Its the•
PROCESS communication goal setting GOAL ory of organizational effectiveness may be seen in scientific management the•
MODEL MODEL
Ends-oriented values:
ory (Chapter 5) and administrative management theory (Chapter 6). Finally,
stability, productivity,
the internal process mo de l stresses information management and commu•
control efficiency nications as means for coordinating and controlling work activities so that tasks
Integrative function: the need to
are carried out in a disciplined and predictable manner. Its theory of organiza•
Goal attainment function: the need
coordinate and control work tional effectiveness is apparent in both scientific management theory (Chapter
to focus efforts on goal attainment
activities 5) and Weber's theory of bureaucracy (Chapter 4). As will be seen in later
chapters, each school of thought tends to embrace one or two of these models
of effectiveness, whereas none embraces all of them.
for the well-being, development, and efficiency of employees (e.g., morale),
SO URC E: Adapt ed with permission from Figures 3 and 4, Robert O. Quinn and John Rohrbaugh, "A Spatial Model
of Effectiveness Criteria: Towards a Competing Values Approach to Organizational Analysis," Management Science
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The Institute of Mana ge me nt Sciences, now the Institute for Operations
Research and the Manag em en t Sciences (INFORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090-
2909 USA.
w h e n assessing organizational effectiveness. Q u i n n and R o hr ba ug h labeled

3
their conceptual scheme the competing values framework.

Quinn and Rohrbaugh asked a panel of individuals with research inter•
ests in the area of organizational analysis to produce a list of discrete, organization-
level criteria relating to effectiveness and then to assess the degree of conceptual
similarity between every possible pairing of these criteria. Multidimensional
scaling techniques were used to identify the basic dimensions defining how ana•
lysts conceive of organizational effectiveness. Three such dimensions emerged
from their analysis. The first dimension, focus, is indicated by the horizontal line
in Exhibit 3.1.The value criteria to the left of center reflect an internal concern
Quinn and Rohrba ugh also noted a basic similarity between these four
models and the institutional prerequisites of any system of action.
4
According to sociologist Talcott Parsons, organizations are subject to "functional

impera• tives" that must be satisfied if they are to achieve their goals and maintain
themselves as viable social systems. To satisfy these imperatives all
5
organiza• tions must acquire resources and adjust to forces in their external
environ• ments (adaptive function), develop plans for attaining goals and direct
their members in accomplishing them (goal attainment function), integrate
and coordinate the work activities of individuals and organizational units in
ways that are mutually supportive (integrative function), ensure the continued
commitment of members to the organization and its goals (pattern mainte•
nance function), and iron out the tensions that inevitably arise as organiza•
tions fail to satisfy all of their members' needs (tension m a n a g e m e n t
function). As indicated in Exhibit 3.1, each model of organizational effective•
ness contributes to the satisfaction of one or two of these functional impera•
tives, but none contributes to the satisfaction of all five. The clear implication
is that no social system seeking to remain viable can rely on a single model of dresses stability and change, flexibility and control, and individual and organi•
organizational effectiveness. These models must be pursued in combination, zational needs. Exhibit 3.1 is used in the chapters that follow to assist with this
and in an integrated, holistic manner, as circumstances warrant. analysis. Ho w to interpret and apply this framework may not yet be entirely
The competing values framework provides a highly useful way of thinking clear, but it will become so as the remaining chapters unfold.
about organizational effectiveness and management's role in facilitating it. First,
it emphasizes that organizational effectiveness is multidimensional in nature. It
can be assessed in terms of any of several distinct criteria. Whether an organiza•
tion is judged effective depends on who is doing the judging and which crite• SI X M E C H A N I S M S FO R C O O R D I N A T I N G
ria are used. Second, it integrates key effectiveness criteria into a single AN D C O N T R O L L I N G W O R K A C T I V I T I E S
conceptual scheme, one which indicates the relevance of each to organizational
success. Finally, it emphasizes that these effectiveness criteria represent sets of A second fundamental question confronting public managers is how to coor•
partially competing values.The sets that are diagonal from each other in Ex• dinate and control work activities so that agency goals are in fact accom•
hibit 3.1 tend to be polar opposites. Flexibility, for example, is difficult to plished. Complex organizations can accomplish tasks that one or a few
achieve except at the expense of control, and productivity is difficult to achieve individuals acting alone cannot. They do so by dividing the work that needs to
except at the expense of cohesiveness. Every manager, according to Quinn, be accomplished into discrete tasks, each of which contributes in its unique
confronts a basic paradox: "We want our organizations to be adaptable and flex• way to the attainment of organizational goals. This is called task specializa•
ible, but we also want them to be stable and controlled. We want growth, re• tion. They also do so by grouping related activities together and assigning
source acquisition, and external support, but we also want tight information each group to an appropriate office or department within the larger organiza•
management and formal communication. We want an emphasis on the value of tional structure. This is called departmentalization. Unfortunately, although
human resources, but we also want an emphasis on planning and goal task specialization and departmentalization allow complex organizations to ac•
setting." Although the tensions between these values are an inherent part of
6
complish great things, they also increase problems of coordination and control.
institu• tional life, Quinn emphasizes that the values themselves are not mutually The more work activities are divided and d ;partmentalized the more likely it
ex• clusive. Organizations can be simultaneously cohesive and productive, becomes that organizational members will work at cross purposes, fail to ac•
stable and flexible. And managers can learn to pursue contradictory values, Quinn complish their assigned tasks as instructed, make decisions that are inconsistent
suggests, by developing the capacity to use different frames of reference as cir• with organizational goals, or exercise administrative discretion in ways that are
cumstances change: politically embarrassing to those higher in the chain of command. Conse•
quently, all organizations find it necessary to coordinate and control the dis•
The people who come to be masters of management do not see their
parate work activities created through the division of labor.
work environment only in structured, analytic ways. Instead, they also have
the capacity to see it as a complex, dynamic system that is constantly Coordination means that activities, both within and across departments,
evolving. In order to interact effectively with it, they employ a variety of work in harmony with one another to promote organizational objectives. Co •
different perspectives or frames. As one set of conditions arises, they focus ordination tends to break down in practice for a variety of reasons. Individuals
on certain cues that lead them to apply a very analytic and structured ap• may work at cross purposes because they have received contradictory instruc•
proach. As these cues fade, they focus on new cues of emerging impor• tions or are unaware that plans, policies, or circumstances have changed. Simi•
tance and apply another frame, perhaps this time an intuitive and flexible larly, their efforts may fail to mesh with the efforts of other organizational
one. At another time they may emphasize the overall task, and at still an• members because they don't truly understand "the big picture" of how every•
other they may focus on the welfare of a single individual. one's tasks are interrelated and interdependent. Or, workers may come to iden•
Because of these shifts, masters of management may appear to act in tify with the values and interests of their respective departments so strongly
paradoxical ways.They engage the contradictions of organization life by that they act to advance those values and interests at the expense of those of
other departments or the organization as a whole. Ensuring that these kinds of
using paradoxical frames.
7
breakdowns do not occur is one of management's primary responsibilities.

Each of the major schools of thought in the field of organization theory Control, by contrast, means ensuring that assigned tasks are performed,
offers a distinct frame of reference. To ensure internal consistency, each tends policies followed, and objectives achieved as intended. Although the term has
to ignore certain effectiveness criteria and the value contradictions they repre• negative connotations, control need not entail a complete loss of individual
sent. Each tends to embrace a particular model of effectiveness, thereby
8
freedom. In its institutional meaning it refers to a variety of tools for monitor•

offer• ing only a partial view of how effectiveness is achieved. Only by isolating ing performance, collecting information, and taking corrective action to close
each school's contribution to our understanding of organizational effectiveness the gap between actual and desired levels of performance. Whe n the perfor•
can i . v . . . : . ,.;,.„ t-n am^rcre- a n p r s n e c t i v e that simultaneously ad-
mance of individuals and work units match expectations, then work activities
3 CHAPTER MA NA GE ME NT PRACTICE AND ORGANIZATIONAL 3
E x h ib i t 3.2 Si x M e c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d C o n t r o l l i n g Wo r k
Ac tiv it ie s tions where members working side by side can readily discuss matters infor•
mally and work out ways to integrate their actions and accommodate their
Mutual adjustment Workers consult with each other informally about what respective needs. It is also utilized by self-directed work teams within large
needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor•
dination and control rests with those who do the work.
organizations, although in this instance other mechanisms are required to co•
Direct supervision A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of ordinate the efforts of teams operating in different units and at different levels
workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte• of the organization.
grate the efforts of all work groups. The supervisor issues
A second mechanism, generally adopted when informal consultation is no
personal instructions and monitors individual performance.
Work is programmed in advance of its execution by longer feasible, is direct supervision. Coordination is achieved by assigning a
Standardization of
work processes
developing rules and standard operating procedures speci• supervisor to take responsibility for a group of workers and establishing a man•
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina• agerial hierarchy to integrate the efforts of all work groups within the organi•
tion is built into the work process itself and control is
achieved by strictly limiting each worker's discretion.
zation. Supervisors issue formal rules and personal instructions to group
Work outputs are programmed in advance by providing members in a manner they believe will produce the desired results. Conflicts
Standardization of each work group with product specifications or perfor• between units are referred upward to the supervisor, who is responsible for all
work outputs mance goals and allowing members considerable latitude in
of the parties to the dispute. Under direct supervision, responsibility for con•
determining how to achieve them. Control is exercised by
collecting output data, requiring corrective action when trol as well as coordination passes from the members of the work group to the
needed, and rewarding and sanctioning workers based on supervisor. Control is exercised by requiring workers to obtain approval before
results achieved. taking certain kinds of actions, enforcing workplace rules, monitoring individ•
Standardization of Workers are employed who possess the knowledge and ual performance, and issuing instructions for corrective action.
worker skills skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in• Although widely used, direct supervision has clear limits as a mechanism
stitutions and professional associations are relied upon to
provide standardized training. Professionally trained work• of coordination and control. First, its success is highly dependent on the ability
ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling. of supervisors to determine which rules and instructions will produce coordi•
Standardization
Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear nated action and desired results. Second, where change is rapid, uncertainty
vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should
of values high, and information limited, systems based on personal supervision quickly
be headed, and what values should guide it. Coordination
and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational become overloaded as supervisors turn to higher authorities for assistance with
members to shared, internalized values and ideals. nonroutine situations. Lastly, interpersonal conflicts often break out as supervi•
sors seek to assert and maintain their authority over members of the work
S OU R C E: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993), pp. 3-7.
group. For these reasons most organizations find that they cannot rely on di•
rect supervision alone and supplement it with some form of standardization,
are said to be "under control." Of course, it is possible for there to be too much that is, standardization of work processes, outputs, skills, or values.
control. Detailed rules and regulations, stifling red tape, and complex reporting A third mechanism is standardization of work processes. Here work is
requirements can easily inhibit creativity, discourage risk taking, kill motiva• programmed in advance of its execution by developing rules and standard op•
tion, and reduce work efficiency. Different work situations call for different erating procedures specifying how everyone involved in a work process is to
kinds and degrees of control. It is part of management's task to find that kind perform tasks. Coordination is built into the work process itself and control is
and degree of control that is best suited to each work situation. achieved by strictly limiting each worker's discretion so that mistakes are kept
According to management scholar Henry Mintzberg, complex organiza• to a minimum and workers do not flounder about trying to determine how
tions generally rely on one or more of the mechanisms of coordination and best to perform their assigned tasks. Work standardization is a more impersonal
control shown in Exhibit 3.2. Although these mechanisms represent mechanism of coordination and control than direct supervision. Because
9
concep• tually distinct categories, in practice they are typically used in overlapping workers are directed by standardized rules and procedures, there is generally
combinations. The first of these mechanisms is mutual adjustment. Coor• less interpersonal conflict between workers and supervisors. However, work
dination is achieved by workers consulting with each other informally about standardization tends to be effective only where conditions are stable and the
what needs to be accomplished and how it will be done. Control rests with work is simple, routine, and predictable. This is because uncertainty and com•
those who do the work. It takes the form of self-direction and self-manage• plexity greatly undermine management's ability to prescribe in advance the
ment, with members of the work group reaching agreement about per• best way to perform a task in all or most situations. In addition, work standard•
formance goals and how to close the gap between actual and desired ization is not well-suited to highly complex tasks where creativity and judg•
performance levels. Mutual adjustment tends to work well for small organiza- ment are essential to task accomplishment.
3 CHAPTER MA NAGEMEN T PRACTICE AND ORGANIZATIONAL 3
A fourth mechanism is standardization of work outputs. Here the de• because values, or shared meanings, provide common reference points that al•
sired results, rather than the work itself, is programmed in advance. Each work low staff members to align their activities with one another in pursuit of a
group is provided with product specifications or performance goals and its common purpose. Control is also facilitated. The great advantage of shared val•
members are then given considerable latitude in determining how to achieve ues is that it provides agency heads with a measure of confidence that staff
them. Outside the realm of manufacturing, where product specifications are set members will act in specific situations as they would want them to act.
by engineers, coordination is achieved through a process of planning and goal It bears repeating that organizations rely on different mixes of these six
setting. Performance goals are established for each unit by management and mechanisms depending on the nature of their work tasks, the skill levels of
when they are achieved in combination with the goals of all other units they their workers, the situations they face, and the predispositions of their leaders.
result in the coordinated attainment of organizational objectives. Because goal As Mintzberg put it,
setting helps coordinate interdependent tasks while allowing individual workers
a high degree of discretion, it is well suited to complex, nonroutine work that At the very least, a certain amount of direct supervision and mutual ad•
requires considerable judgment. Supervisors exercise control by requiring that justment is always required, no matter what the rehance on standardiza•
output data are collected and reported, by rewarding those who meet their tion. Contemporary organizations simply cannot exist without leadership
goals, and by pressing those who do not to make necessary adjustments. In to• and informal communication, even if only to override the rigidities of
day's vernacular this mechanism is referred to as managing for results. standardization. In the most automated (that is, fully standardized) factory,
A fifth mechanism is standardization of worker skills. Whe n neither machines break down, employees fail to show up for work, schedules must
the work nor its outputs can be standardized, as is often the case in public be changed at the last minute. Supervisors must intervene, and workers
must be free to deal with unexpected problems. 10
agencies, organizations can at least make sure that those who must exercise dis•
cretion in performing their tasks possess the knowledge and skills needed to No t all organization theorists have appreciated this point. The schools of
make appropriate decisions. This mechanism achieves indirectly what the oth• thought reviewed in later chapters tend to emphasize one or more of the six
ers seek to achieve directly. It relies on educational institutions and professional mechanisms of coordination and control while ignoring others. For this rea•
associations to provide workers with a standardized body of knowledge and son Exhibit 3.2 provides a valuable conceptual tool for determining the par•
skills. Professionally trained workers are largely self-controlling and self-coor• ticular focus of each school of thought and ascertaining the relevance of
dinating. They work together in coordinated fashion because they know what particular methods of coordination and control for specific agencies.
needs to be done, how to do it, and what role each member of the work group
must play in accomplishing it. Control is largely internal. Professionally trained
workers fulfill their duties in a responsible manner because they have internal•
ized the standards of their profession. From management's perspective, how• FOU R S T R A T E G I E S FO R
ever, this mechanism is less than ideal. Professionally trained workers are
MOTIVATIN G EMPLOYEE S
typically less responsive to internal authorities than to external standards.They
tend to believe in the importance of their work and their duty to their clients, Employee motivation is another key factor affecting how well organizations
beliefs which sometimes cause them to resist organizational directives. perform. Motivation is an internal force that leads employees to comply with
The final mechanism of coordination and control is standardization of organizational directives and carry out their responsibilities in an acceptable if
values. Although the five structural mechanisms described above are proven not superior manner. It also leads some employees to demonstrate special qual•
means of achieving coordination and control, a shared sense of mission and the ities such as enthusiasm, creativity, and a high regard for excellence. Motivation
values for accomplishing it are also powerful unifying forces. Shared sense of mis• begins with each individual's needs and desires and the relative importance at•
sion refers to a common understanding of what an organization exists to do, tached to them. According to most contemporary theories of motivation, the
where it should be headed, and what values should guide it. All organizations wish to satisfy deeply felt needs and desires creates a tension within people,
are governed by shared cultural norms, but in some organizations leaders ac• driving them to find ways to satisfy the needs and desires so that the tension
tively seek to shape them. This is accomplished by communicating and acting might be reduced. For example, employees who strongly value the respect of
upon a clear vision of organizational success and the values that they believe colleagues may be motivated to perform all duties conscientiously and to assist
contribute to success, values such as collegiality egalitarianism, or quality ser• others in performing their work assignments. If colleagues respond with ap•
vice. Leaders hope that their vision and values will be internalized by the preciation and respect, these employees are likely to continue the behaviors.
organization's members, causing them to work together to achieve their com• Conversely, if the need for respect is not satisfied, the employees may engage
mon ideals without the need for direct supervision. Coordination is facilitated in other, less constructive behaviors.
Personal motives include the need to belong to something larger than the E xh ibi t 3.3 Fou r M oti vat io nal Strategie s
self, contribute to activities that are consistent with one's values, be recognized
by others who are held in respect, avoid pain or punishment, experience per• Legal Compliance
sonal growth, and obtain more pay so that material needs and desires can be Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior.
satisfied. No two individuals have the same motives because motives arise out Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require•
ments, either because they accept the legitimacy of organizational authority or fear
of each person's cumulative life experiences and the values derived from them.
being sanctioned.
For this reason managers wishing to intervene constructively in the motiva•
Instrumental Rewards
tional process must find ways to hnk the behaviors required by the organiza•
Using rewards to induce desired behaviors.
tion with the motives commonly held by employees. According to social
psychologists Daniel Katz and R obert L. Kahn, organizations require three Rewards for Performance
kinds of behaviors from individuals to ensure effective organizational function• Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance.
ing. First, organizations require people to join and remain with the organiza•
1 1 Employees may meet or exceed role expectations because they value the material
and psychological satisfactions that money, advancement, and recognition can
tion. A long-term commitment from employees not only contributes to provide.
organizational functioning but also helps reduce costs associated with absen•
Considerate Leadership
teeism and turnover. Second, organizations need employees to perform their
Adopting a leadership style based on being attentive to employees and consider•
work roles dependably and to meet or exceed established performance stan• ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those
dards. Finally, organizations require behaviors that go well beyond dependable who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or
role performance. These behaviors include dedication, cooperation, creativity, exceed their role requirements.
innovation, and a demonstrated willingness to do the little things that con• Group Acceptance
tribute so much to protecting and promoting organizational interests. Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group
A variety of motivational strategies is required to elicit these behaviors. For bonds, and enjoy the approval of their peers. This strategy may induce those who
value affiliation and peer approval to meet or exceed role requirements, assum•
example, strategies that are successful in encouraging employees to join and ing that group norms are consistent with organizational objectives.
remain with the organization may do little to encourage dependable role per•
Job Identification
formance. Similarly, strategies that are successful in encouraging dependable
Offering work that is interesting, challenging, and responsible. Employees may come
role performance may do little to ehcit creativity, innovation, or a commitment to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and
to excellence. Exhibit 3.3 summarizes four motivational strategies identified innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their
by Katz and Kahn. Each relies on different methods of motivation and each
1 2
work intrinsically rewarding.
elicits different kinds of behaviors. Although the theories discussed in later Goal Congruence
chapters tend to advocate one or two of these strategies, in practice different Hiring employees whose goals and values are congruent with the organization's
combinations of these strategies are required at different times and with differ• and/or socializing employees so that they internalize organizational goals and values.
Employees may come to work, remain with the organization, meet or exceed role re•
ent groups of employees. Decisions regarding which strategies to use and when quirements, and exhibit greater creativity, innovativeness, and institutional loyalty.
to use them vary according to the agency's strategic objectives, the nature of They may do so because they identify with the organization's mission and values and
the jobs in question, the employee needs and expectations, and the availability because contributing to them reinforces their own self concept.
of various kinds of rewards. SOUR CE: Based in large part on Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations (New York:
The legal c o m p l i a n c e strategy involves securing obedience and reli• Wi ley , 1966), pp. 336-68.
able behavior from employees through the exercise of formal authority. Obe •
dience and reliability are achieved by issuing formal directives and workplace
with supervisors and coworkers, and do not perform work tasks dependably.
rules and enforcing them through the use of sanctions. Employees are moti•
Katz and Kahn are quick to point out, however, that although this strategy
vated to comply with rules and directives either because they accept their
encourages routine compliance with role requirements it is unlikely to ener•
legitimacy or because they wish to avoid the sanctions that managers can
gize employees to perform above standard or exhibit innovation, creativity, or
legally impose. As a motivational strategy, legal compliance relies heavily on
loyalty. Indeed, if used alone, this strategy will only ensure that workers do the
directing and controlling human behavior. It recognizes that all organizations bare minimum required to avoid sanctions.
must secure at least some minimum level of reliability from employees in the
The instrumental rewards strategy relies upon tangible and intangible
performance of their work roles. After all, organizational effectiveness is
rewards to induce employees to meet or exceed established performance stan•
threatened when employees do not come to work on time, do not cooperate
dards. This strategy assumes that employees who perform in a superior manner
3 CHAPTER MA NAGEME NT PRACTICE AND ORGANIZATIONAL 3
do so because the rewards are instrumental in realizing personal objectives or agencies engaged in environmental protection. Congruence may also result
fulfilling personal needs. In addition to the system rewards that all employees from efforts by the employer to socialize employees in organizational goals and
receive, Katz and Kahn identify three other kinds of instrumental rewards. values.The underlying purpose is to foster an emotional attachment to the or•
Performanc e rewards include pay increases, promotions, and recognition. ganization so that employees revel in its accomplishments and suffer with its
The manager's task is to ensure that appropriate rewards are available, are failures. According to Katz and Kahn, this strategy may motivate employees to
within the reach of hard-working employees, and are distributed on the basis come to work, remain with the organization, exceed role requirements, and
of demonstrated results. According to Katz and Kahn, performance rewards can exhibit special qualities such as innovation, creativity, and a willingness to pro•
improve the quantity and quality of work performance but are unlikely to tect organizational interests.
spark innovation, creativity, loyalty, or commitment. The rewards associated Because needs and expectations vary greatly among individuals, and be •
with considerate leadership come in the form of respect, support, and ap• cause jobs and the availability of rewards often vary greatly within an organi•
proval from persons in authority. Employees who value these rewards may en• zation, managers cannot afford to rely on any one motivational strategy. It
joy higher levels of job satisfaction, according to Katz and Kahn, but not should also be kept in mind that the strategies identified above refer to general
necessarily higher levels of productivity. Finally, the rewards associated with patterns rather than detailed and exclusive prescriptions for motivating em•
group acceptance include the satisfaction derived from affiliating with other ployees. In practice, managers must employ them in ways and combinations
employees in formal and informal work groups, including a sense of belong• tailored to the specific circumstances they face. As Katz and Kahn note, an or•
ing and the approval of peers. Psychologists have identified the need to affiliate ganization is not like a single individual. Hence there is no single problem of
with other people as one of the most basic of human needs. It includes the motivation for the entire organization and no single answer regarding how
need to develop friendships, give and receive affection, and belong to some• best to motivate employees. T h e strategies identified in Exhibit 3.3 simply
13
thing larger than the self. Katz and Kahn suggest that employees whose affilia• provide a point of departure for comparing the theories of organization ex•
tion needs are satisfied through group membership may come to work and plored in the chapters that follow and for isolating the motivational strategy
perform their roles dependably, but only if the norms of the group support or• that each tends to emphasize.
ganizational objectives. Whether they will demonstrate superior performance,
or creative and innovative behaviors, is much less certain.
The jo b identification strategy focuses on the intrinsic rewards received
by those who delight in their work. It entails designing jobs so that they are
SUMMAR Y
interesting, challenging, and responsible. By expressing their skills and abilities
in accomplishing challenging tasks, employees derive the intrinsic rewards of self- Because government agencies are the primary vehicles by which the public in•
respect and pride of accomplishment. Employees also satisfy their basic need to terest is realized, it is essential that they perform in a superior manner. Al•
feel competent and self-determining in relation to their environment. The though many factors affect organizational performance, the quality of
manager's task is to design jobs with enough variety, complexity, and au• tonomy management is among the most important. Generally speaking, the more ef•
that they are intrinsically rewarding to those who perform them. Ac• cording to fective managers are in carrying out their responsibilities the more successful
Katz and Kahn, although employees may be motivated in this way to perform agencies are in achieving their goals and objectives. The chapters that follow
their jobs in a superior manner, and may also demonstrate creativ• ity and explore the linkages between organization theory, management practice, and
innovation, they won't necessarily be motivated to remain with the or• ganization or organizational performance.
to protect and promote its interests.
The conceptual frameworks introduced in this chapter will assist us in this
The goal c o n g r u e n c e strategy seeks congruence between the values exploration. Together they will help us determine what each school of thought
and goals of employees and those of the organization. Whe n values and goals has to say about three key aspects of management: the partly conflicting roles
are congruent, employees derive intrinsic satisfaction from knowing that they managers must play if they are to help their organizations attain their goals and
are engaged in work that is personally meaningful. Working to fulfill cherished maintain themselves as viable social systems, the means by which to coordinate
beliefs also reinforces employees' self-concepts by confirming that they are the and control work activities, and the strategies by which to encourage employee
kind of person they wish to be. The internalization of organizational values can motivation. In addition, these analytical frameworks provide conceptual cate•
result from either a natural matching process or deliberate socialization by the gories that may be used by practicing managers to apply their knowledge of
employer. In the first instance congruence occurs when an individual self-se• organization theory to concrete situations. In practice these conceptual cate•
lects an organization because of an anticipated identity of values. Persons com• gories can help managers assess the problems they encounter and how to re•
mitted to preserving the environment, for example, may gravitate toward spond to them.
4 CHAPTER
NOTE S
3€
1. R esearch supports this generalization. 5. Cottrell, Jr. (eds.), Sociology Today: Prob•
See, for exampl e, Jeff Gill and Ke n n e t h J. lems and Prospects ( Ne w York: Basic Boo ks,
Meier, "Ral ph' s P r e t t y - G o o d G r oc e ry ver• 1959), 3-3 8; Ta l co t t Parsons and Nei l J .
sus Ralph' s Super Market: Separating Ex • Smelser, Economy and Society:A Study in the
Max Weber's
cellent Agencies from the G oo d Ones ," Integration of Economic and Social Theory
Public Administration Review 61 (Glencoe, I L:T h e Free Press, 1956),
( Jan u a ry / Feb rua ry 2001), 9- 1 7 . 16-20 .
Theory of
2. . Jo h n P. C am pb el l, "O n the Nat u r e 6. R o b e r t E. Q u i n n , Beyond Rational
of O rganizational Effectiveness," in Paul Management: Mastering the Paradoxes and
S. G o o d m a n and Jo ha nn es M . Pennings Competing Demands of High Peformance
(eds.), New Perspectives on Organizational (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988), 49 .
Effectiveness (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
1977), 1 3 -5 7 ; R i c h a r d M . St e e r s , "P r o b -
lems in the M e a s u r e m e n t of O rg a n i z a •
7. Q u i n n , Beyond
3-4 .
Rational Management,
Bureaucracy
tional Effectiveness" Administrative Science 8. . A n d r e w H.Van deVen , boo k review
Quarterly 20 ( Dec e mb e r 1975), 5 4 6 - 5 8 . of In Search of Excellence: Lessons from
3 . R o b e r t E . Q u i n n and Joh n America's Best-Run Companies, Administrative
R o h r b a u g h , " A C o m p e t i n g Values Ap • Science Quarterly 28 (D e c e m b e r 1983), 6 2 1 -2 4
proach to Organizational Effectiveness, .
Public Productivity Review 5 (June 1981):
9. Th e first five m et ho d s are identified by
122-40 .
H e n r y M i n t z b er g , Structure in Fives: De•
4 . R o b e r t E . Q u i n n and Joh n signing Effective Organizations (E nglewood
R o h r b a u g h , " A Spatial M o d e l of Effec• Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- H all, 1983).
tiveness Criteria: Toward a C o m p e t i n g Val•
ues A pproach to Organizational Analysis," 10. Mintzberg, Structure in Fives, 7—8.
Management Science 29 (March 1983),
T
11 . Daniel Katz and R o b e r t L. Kah n, The
363-77 .
Social Psychology of Organizations ( Ne w he first systematic study of modern bureaucracy was undertaken by the
5 . C ha nd l e r Morse, "T h e Function al Im • York: Jo h n Wi le y & Sons, 1966), 3 3 7 -3 8 . German sociologist Max Weber in the early 1900s. Although reference is
peratives," in Ma x Black (ed.), The Social
12. Th e descri ption of these strategies is often made to his "theory of bureaucracy,"Weber didn't actually propose
Theories ofTalcott Parsons: A Critical Exami•
nation (E nglew ood Cliffs, NJ: P rentice-
drawn primarily from Daniel Katz and a theory of organization as such. His analysis was primarily descriptive and its
R o b e r t L. Kah n , The Social Psychology of
Hall, 1961), 100- 152;T alcott Parsons, purpose was limited to defining the essential characteristics of the modern bu•
Organizations, 336—68.
" G e n e r a l T h e o r y i n Sociology," i n R o b e r t reaucratic form of administration. Nonetheless, it is possible to derive an im•
K. M e r t o n , Leonard Bro w n , and Leonard 13. Katz and Kahn, The Social Psychology plicit theory of organizational effectiveness from his work. This implicit theory
of Organizations, 336 . holds that administrative rationality is achieved by dividing work into special•
ized administrative functions, assigning each function to a specific office, plac•
ing clear limits on each office's scope of authority, arranging all offices in a
hierarchy of authority, organizing officials on a career basis, and requiring them
to carry out directives with strict discipHne and in accordance with clearly de•
lineated rules.
This chapter examines the characteristics ofWeber's ideal-type model of
bureaucracy and assesses the usefulness of this model for understanding and
managing today's complex organizations. It closes with a discussion of the rel•
evance ofWeber's analysis for public management and government perfor•
mance. In reading this chapter it is important to keep in mind that Weber
studied bureaucracy from a broadly historical and comparative perspective. His
work has much to say about bureaucracy as an administrative form but very
little to say about how actual bureaucracies differ or the conditions under
which some perform better than others.
4 CHAPTER
41
4 CHAPTER MA X W E B E R ' S THEOR Y O F
grace. Their protestant beliefs gave meaning to their economic behaviors and
Ma x Weber 1864-1920 accelerated the development of capitalism.
Analysis of the rationalization process inevitably led Weber to the study of
Max Weber was born in Erfurt, Ger• published his most famous and contro• bureaucracy. He believed that, just as capitalism represents the highest stage of
many in 1864. He studied law, econom• versial work, a series of essays entitled
rational development in economic systems, bureaucracy represents the highest
ics, and philosophy at the University of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Heidelberg and later at the University Capitalism. In these essays he argued
stage of rational development in administrative systems. In the political realm,
of Berlin. After completing require• that capitalism resulted not only from for example, the advent of bureaucracy reflected a growing cultural commit•
ments for a doctoral degree, Weber a material desire for wealth but also ment to replacing personal, arbitrary, and amateurish forms of government ad•
accepted a position as professor of eco• from religious beliefs that encouraged ministration with impersonal, systematic, and professionalized forms. Weber
nomics at the University of Freiberg in individuals to save and reinvest their viewed bureaucracy as being more rational than the administrative forms that
1894 and a similar position at the Uni• earnings. In defending his thesis,
versity of Heidelberg in 1896. His ca• Weber turned to the comparative
preceded it because it exercised control on the basis of technical expertise and
reer as a university professor lasted study of religious, political, and eco• in accordance with carefully defined rules.
only five years. A self-driven, hard• nomic institutions. The major part of
working person, Weber experienced a his sociological work, which dealt with
debilitating mental breakdown in 1898 the rationalization of economic and
and remained a semi-invalid for the political life, was never completed. In
POLITICA L AUTHORIT Y
next four years. In 1903 he began writ• 1919 he accepted a teaching position
ing and researching again and a pri• at the University of Munich where he AN D A D M I N I S T R A T I O N
vate inheritance soon gave him the died a few months later of pneumonia
financial independence he needed to at the age of 56. His Theory of Social
work as a private scholar for the rest of
Weber's approach to sociology is apparent in his analysis of political authority.
and Economic Organization, Part I of
his life. It was in the months immedi• which was translated into English in Unlike other scholars of his time, Weber did not hesitate to acknowledge that
ately following his illness that Weber 1947, was published after his death. power underlies most social relationships. Political rulers, for example, exercise
power to assure their continued dominance over the ruled. Coercion is often
used to guarantee compliance. Similarly, administrators exercise power over
their subordinates to assure the latter's compliance with organizational direc•
tives. But although rulers and administrators can govern through the use of
WEBER' S THEOR Y O F SOCIA L CHANG E force, the exercise of power is most effective when the authority of those exer•
cising power is regarded as legitimate by the people who are expected to obey.
Weber sought to understand the social, political, and economic institutions of As Weber saw it, governments represent "moral orders"—sets of authoritative
the present by contrasting them with the institutions of the past. In doing so rules and institutional arrangements—that impose certain obligations on their
he identified a trend, particularly evident in Western societies, which he re• members, including the obligation to obey. The appearance of a civil servant at
ferred to as the process of rationalization. Where once people relied on the office at a fixed time each day, Weber argued, cannot be explained by habit or
spiritual authorities, such as the priestesses at Delphi, to reveal truth and offer self-interest alone. This routine social act results in part from a belief in the legiti•
guidance, increasingly people came to rely on systems of law, the results of sci• macy of the prevailing moral order and the duty to obey those in authority. The
entific experimentation, and their own powers of reason as guides. Institutions
civil servant is careful to fulfill official obligations not only because disobedience
became increasingly rational in the sense that they were deliberately and sys•
carries adverse consequences but also because failure to do so is "abhorrent to the
tematically structured to achieve specific purposes. Relationships between
sense of duty, which, to a greater or lesser extent, is an absolute value to
ends and means became a matter of careful calculation.
him." Understanding this, rulers and administrators take deliberate steps to
2
In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, for example, Weber de• encourage
scribes how the business corporation, the commodity and stock exchange, the acceptance of their right to command, thereby reinforcing the duty to obey.
system of public credit based on government subsidies, and the factory system
for the production of goods were deliberately developed to facilitate the at•
tainment of monetary profit. Unlike Karl Marx, w h o believed such develop•
1 Three Types of Legitimate Authority
ments are determined primarily by the economic interests of a particular social Where their authority is accepted as legitimate, rulers and administrators need
class, Weber believed that they are shaped by the distinct ideas and beliefs, as not rely as heavily on coercion, either in relation to the citizenry or the mem•
well as the material interests, of various status groups in society. The rise of bers of administrative offices. But what is the basis of this perceived legitimacy?
capitalism, for example, was driven in part by the willingness of Protestants to Weber identified three conceptually pure types of authority: charismatic, tradi•
work hard and reinvest their earnings as a way of demonstrating their state of tional, and legal-rational. All rulers, according to Weber, base their claims of le•
gitimacy on one or more of these pure types.
4 CHAPTER MA X W E B E R ' S THEORY OF 4
Charismatic authority is based on the extraordinary personal qualities Type of governing authority Type of administrative system
and deeds of the leader. Followers accept the legitimacy of the leader's author•
a. charismatic a. charismatic
ity because of acts of heroism, extraordinary religious sanctity, exemplary char•
acter, supernatural powers, or demagogic appeals. Acceptance is often reinforced b. traditional b. patrichal, patrimonial, or feudal
by the followers' devotion to the cause or mission that the leader espouses. His• c. legal-rational c. bureaucratic
torical examples might include Jesus of Nazareth, Martin Luther King, and
Mahatma Ghandi. Because respect is accorded to a particular person rather than Administration involves the exercise of power by an administrative staff
to the person's office, charismatic authority tends to survive only as long as the over rank-and-file employees or organizational members. It is through this staff
people maintain their faith in the leader's magical powers, spirituality, or hero• that "the execution of the supreme authority's general policy and specific
commands " is achieved. As with the exercise of political power over the
3
ism. It thus provides a relatively unstable basis on which to govern unless it is

combined with other types of authority. citi• zenry, the successful exercise of administrative power also depends on
Traditional authority is based on longstanding traditions that define percep• tions of legitimacy. For example, if charisma is the basis of governing
who has the right to govern. This right is usually based on the principle of authority, it is likely to be the basis of administrative authority as well. In short,
hereditary succession. Followers accept the legitimacy of the leader's authority Weber not only identified three pure types of legitimate authority but also three cor•
because they believe in the sanctity of doing things the way they have always responding pure types of administration.
been done. The ruler is obeyed because members of his or her family or class Charismatic administrations tend to be loosely organized and unstable.
have always been followed. Obedience is owed to the individual who occupies "Disciples" are chosen by the leader based on their own charisma and personal
the traditionally sanctioned position of authority as a matter of personal loy• devotion. They do not comprise a true administrative organization because
alty. Although power is often exercised in a highly personal and arbitrary man• they do not have fixed duties to perform in accordance with specific rules or
ner, traditional regimes tend to persist as long as the rulers continue to respect customs. Rather, disciples assist the charismatic leader in accomplishing his or
prevailing norms and customs. Examples of traditional rulers might include her mission in whatever ways seem appropriate. Their ability to command
Egyptian pharaohs, Arabian patriarchs, African chieftains, and Asian and Euro• obedience from others depends in large part on their own charismatic quali•
pean feudal lords. ties and the degree of regard or favor extended to them by the leader.
Legal-rational authority is based on a system of laws or rules and the According to Weber, traditional administrative systems may be patriarchal,
right of those elevated to authority under those rules to exercise power. The le• patrimonial, or feudal in nature. Patriarchal administration represents the
gitimacy of this type of authority rests on a belief in reason as a means of order• pure type of traditional authority. It exists where the head of a household, a
ing social relationships. The prevailing legal order is legitimate to the extent that patriarch, rules over an extended family and its servants. Administrators are
its members accept it as a reasonable system of governance. In contrast to family members, servants, slaves, or personal favorites who are charged with
charismatic and traditional authority, legal-rational authority is much more im• satisfying the household's food, clothing, and protection needs. Because the
personal. Obedience is owed primarily to the impersonal system of governance ruler's authority does not extend beyond the household, there is no adminis•
itself. Specific individuals are owed obedience only when acting within the trative staff other than the household staff.
scope of their delegated authority and when carrying out their legally defined Patrimonial administration is a form of patriarchal administration that
duties. Examples of legal-rational rulers include presidents, prime ministers, arises when the patriarch attempts to govern subjects outside of his extended
constitutional monarchs, and administrators who have been delegated authority family. As the size of the kingdom increases, the patriarch establishes a more
to perform specific duties. Legal-rational authority is the basis of governance in decentralized administrative system to meet the needs of the royal household,
most modern religious and economic institutions as well. collect taxes, and ensure the continued obedience of his subjects. Under pat-
rimonialism there is no consistent division of labor among officials. The pa•
Three Corresponding Types of Administration triarch views political administration as his personal affair and delegates
authority to administrative officials as needed to accomplish specific tasks. As
Weber concluded that the particular type of administrative system adopted by personal retainers, each official's privileges may be granted and withdrawn at
rulers to ensure that their policies and commands are carried out is deter• any time according to the whims of the ruler. The latter may treat officials ar•
mined largely by the basis on which their authority rests. As illustrated in the
bitrarily, and officials in turn may treat subjects arbitrarily, unless prevailing
following, rulers relying on tradition to legitimate their governing authority
customs dictate otherwise. No formal body of rules exists to protect either
generally adopt patriarchal, patrimonial, or feudal forms of administration. By
administrators or subjects from arbitrary and capricious treatment.The clear•
contrast, rulers relying on legal-rational authority generally adopt the bureau•
est examples of patrimonial administrative systems existed in ancient Egypt
cratic form.
under the pharaohs.
MA X W E B E R ' S THEORY OF 4
4 CHAPTER
Feudal administration also arises where a patriarch seeks to govern sub• according to Weber, the respective duties of politicians and administrators are
jects outside of his extended family. The primary difference is that administra• quite distinct. The proper role of politicians, in Weber's view, is to define and
tive officials are geographically dispersed political allies rather than personal pursue specific policy goals. Assuming that they wish to exercise true leader•
retainers tied to the royal household. The purely personal relationship between ship on the public's behalf, Weber believed they must pursue their political
ruler and administrator is replaced by a contractual relationship in which a causes with passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion. By
5
knight or baron promises loyalty to the feudal lord or king in exchange for a contrast, Weber believed that the proper role of career administrators is to im•
grant of property. In much of Europe, for example, feudal lords were allowed plement the policies of elected officials dutifully, without passion, and without
to derive private income from their landed estates and maintain political juris• regard to political considerations:
diction over them as long as they provided military assistance to the monarch
when it was required. The body of feudal lords did not comprise a hierarchy According to his proper vocation, the genuine official .. . will not engage
of officials with clearly defined administrative duties. They served more to en• in politics. Rather, he should engage in impartial "administration." .. .The
sure the ruler's continued political control over a particular territory. In prac• honor of the civil servant is vested in his ability to execute conscientiously
tice, this decentralized, contract-based system of administration usually existed the order of the superior authorities, exacdy as if the order agreed with his
alongside the patrimonial administration of the royal household. The modern own conviction. This holds even if the order appears wrong to him and if,
nation-state in the West evolved out of this combination of patrimonialism and despite the civil servant's remonstrances, the authority insists on the order.
feudalism. Without this moral discipline and self-denial, in the highest sense the
The type of administrative apparatus corresponding with legal-rational au• whole apparatus would fall to pieces. 6
thority Weber labeled bureaucratic. It is best understood in contrast to the

earlier administrative forms. The position of the administrator, as well as his or Weber's distinction between politics and administration is similar to the
her relations with the ruler, the ruled, and other officials, are strictly defined by one Woodrow Wilson made in 1887 except that Wilson was more optimistic
impersonal rules. These rules delineate in a rational way the hierarchy of au• than Weber about the willingness of bureaucrats to serve as guardians of the
public interest. Weber described the power of the fully developed
7
thority, the rights and duties of every official, the methods of recruitment and
promotion, and the means by which administrative duties are carried out. The bureaucracy as "overtowering." He viewed bureaucrats as a distinct status group
bureaucrat is neither a personal retainer nor a political ally but a technically and warned that they will use their expertise and access to privileged information
trained career administrator who enjoys considerable job security. to maxi• mize their autonomy, thereby increasing their ability to resist the will of
Although bureaucratic forms of administration have existed in the past, it their political superiors. In his view the fundamental problem for politicians, and ul•
is only with the modern state that bureaucracy has reached its most fully de• timately for democracy, is how to exercise enough political control over civil
veloped form. Unlike traditional forms of administration, which were orga• servants to ensure that they remain disciplined, obedient, and impartial in car•
nized somewhat haphazardly to ensure the ruler's continued domination, the rying out their administrative duties.
bureaucratic form is systematically organized to achieve specific purposes such These two themes—the proper role of administrators in a democratic so•
as justice, economic prosperity, or social well-being. The bureaucratic form ciety and the importance of keeping their power in check—are explored ex•
thus represents the culmination of the process of rationalization. Over time it tensively in the public administration literature. The scope of this chapter is
has gradually penetrated all social institutions. Armies, churches, and universi• limited to the implications ofWeber's analysis for management practice and
ties have lost many of their traditional aspects and are now administered largely organizational performance. The central concern is not the political control
by impersonal rules. exercised by politicians over bureaucrats as much as the administrative control
exercised by senior administrators over their staffs.
TH E A D M I N I S T R A T O R ' S
WEBER' S IDEAL-TYP E BUREAUCRAC Y
ROL E I N G O V E R N M E N T
In the course of his sociological studies Weber constructed a series of
Weber believed that every state is originally founded on force. Rulers
4
"ideal types" to capture the essential, defining characteristics of social phe•

subse• quently establish administrative agencies to ensure the state's continued nomena. Examples include the three types of legitimate authority and the
exis• tence and the successful implementation of their policies. Once the corresponding types of administration identified earlier. Weber purposefully
administrative apparatus is in place, the authority of rulers over the ruled be• constructed these conceptually pure ideal types as methodological tools.
comes a matter of "organized domination." In the modern democratic state, He believed existing phenomena can be understood best by analyzing the
4 CHAPTER
extent to which they conform or fail to conform to the characteristics of Exhib i t 4.1 Weber ' s Ideal -Type B ur ea u cr a c y
each pure type. Gove rnme nt in sixteenth-century England, for example,
might be understood as reflecting various elements of the patrimonial, feu• Fixed official duties The work of bureaus is systematically divided so that
officials have clearly defined duties and are delegated
dal, and legal-rational types of authority. Th e usefulness of this conceptual authority to make decisions within their own sphere of
scheme, Weber acknowledged, "can only be judged by its results in promot• competence.
ing systematic analysis." 8
Hierarchy of authority Positions are arranged hierarchically according to their
level of authority; each lower office is under the control
Weber concluded from his comparative analysis that the bureaucratic form
and supervision of a higher one; subordinates are
of administration is the most rational—that is, the one most deliberately con• accountable to their superiors through a clear chain of
structed based on ends-means calculations. He theorized that bureaucracy's su• command.
periority is a product of specific structural characteristics. These characteristics, Systems of rules Behavioral rules limit the scope of authority and
constrain the official's personal conduct; technical rules
derived from his analysis of modern institutions, comprise his ideal-type bu•
define how work is to be performed and decisions
reaucracy. Before introducing Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy, it is important to made.
note that the term can be misleading. It has led some scholars to conclude that Technical expertise Officials are selected and promoted based on their
Weber found bureaucracy to be ideal in the sense of perfect. This is far from competence to perform specific, specialized duties.
the case. In developing his ideal-type model Weber sought to capture the idea Career service Bureaucracies comprise officials who have chosen
of bureaucracy without implying that it represented a perfected form of public service as a career, who receive a salary for their
services, and whose offices are not their personal
administration. property.
Nowhere in Weber's work do we find a clear statement of the elements Officials maintain written records of all rules, decisions,
Written documentation
comprising his ideal-type bureaucracy. However, a general discussion of them and administrative actions.
is found in two places: Parts 1 and 3 of his master work, Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft. Exhibit 4.1 identifies the key structural elements of bureaucracy
9
as abstracted from these two sections. Before assessing the implications ofWeber's theory for public management
As Exhibit 4.1 suggests, Weber's ideal-type model defines bureaucracy as a it is necessary to consider how each of bureaucracy's structural elements con•
set of structural elements for controlling and coordinating work activities so tributes to the attainment of organizational goals. This is the functional side of
that administrative duties are performed in a reasonable and calculated man• bureaucracy. Generally speaking, each of these elements are functional to the
ner. In addition to these structural elements the day-to-day process of admin• extent that they help the organization achieve one or more of the four func•
istration is also infused with a spirit of formal impersonality that ensures tional imperatives identified in Chapter 3. The following analysis examines
predictable results and fair and impartial treatment of clients. Weber did not each structural element in turn.
mean, as some have suggested, that bureaucracy requires civil servants to be
cold and distant in their relations with clients or each other. He only meant
that bureaucracy requires them to perform their duties in a manner free of Fixed Official Duties
personal favoritism or bias.
Unde r charismatic and traditional forms of administration, tasks were as•
Weber believed that the "fully developed bureaucracy" is the most techni•
signed to disciples or personal retainers on an ad hoc basis. Administrators
cally efficient of the many historical forms of administration. Indeed, he
performed different tasks at different times according to the particular needs
viewed it as "completely indispensable" for meeting the needs of modern soci•
or whims of the ruler. Their titles and responsibilities changed frequently
ety. In his words,
and the scope of their authority was seldom clearly defined. From Weber's
Experience tends universally to show that the purely bureaucratic type of perspective this represented a highly irrational way of conducting official
administrative organization—that is, the monocratic form of bureau• cracy business. Under the bureaucratic form, by contrast, the overall administra•
—is, from a purely technical point of view, capable of attaining the highest tive task is systematically divided into fixed, largely permanent areas of offi•
degree of efficiency and is in this sense formally the most rational known cial jurisdiction. This promotes administrative rationality in several ways.
means of carrying out imperative control over human beings. It is superior to First, operational continuity results because all necessary functions are con•
any other form in precision, in stability in the stringency of its discipline, and tinuously performed by permanent offices. As individuals at the highest lev•
in its rehability It thus makes possible a particularly high degree of els of authority come and go, a corps of well-trained career officials remains
calculabihty of results for the heads of the organization and for those to carry out the work of government. Second, the resulting specialization
acting in relation to it. 10
of function encourages individual competence. Officials become very good
5 CHAPTER MA X WE B E R' S THEOR Y O F 5
at their work as they train for and develop expertise in specific areas of ad•
in an ethical and responsible manner. Examples include financial accounting
ministration. Third, the bureaucratic form increases accountability. Officials
rules and rules governing conflicts of interest.
are less likely to abuse their authority or shirk their duties whe n their re•
Technical rules, by contrast, prescribe how officials are to perform their re•
sponsibilities are fixed and clearly spelled out. Finally, this form enhances
quired tasks. They may take the form of administrative rules derived from statute
predictability. Th e division of labor is planned so that each official con•
law or internal operating procedures as typically found in policies-and-proce-
tributes in a unique way to accomplishing the organization's overall task.
dures manuals. Their essential purpose is to specify how officials are to respond
Because each official has prescribed functions to perform in prescribed
in various situations and under various conditions. They thus function as instru•
ways, those in authority can issue directives with the full expectation that
ments of control by greatly narrowing each official's range of discretion. By
they will be carried out as intended.
communicating in considerable detail what is to be done and how, they leave
very litde room for decisions that higher authorities might deem unwarranted.
Hierarchy of Authority Rules also increase predictability by ensuring that every task is performed in a
Each office in the bureaucratic organization is arranged hierarchically ac• uniform manner, regardless of the number of persons engaged in it.
cording to its assigned level of authority. The result is a firmly ordered sys• Similarly, technical rules provide a second means of coordination. Each
tem of superior and subordinate relationships in which each lower office is person's work can be coordinated with the work of others, not only through
supervised by a higher one and decisions made at higher levels are passed direct supervision and informal consultation but also through standardized
downward for lower officials to implement. Although status differences also procedures that build disciplined performance into the work process itself.
exist in charismatic and traditional administrations, what makes bureaucracy Firefighters, for example, cannot afford to stop each time they arrive at a fire
unique is the clearly delineated chain of command that allows those at the to figure out who will attach the hose to the hydrant and who will go up the
top systematically to coordinate and control the activities of those working ladder. No r can they afford to wait for a supervisor to make a determination.
below them. These matters must be coordinated in advance through the use of technical
rules.12
Coordination refers to the organization's ability to integrate the efforts of

all of its members so that its overall task is accomplished. According to Weber, Technical rules also promote operational efficiency by reducing decision
bureaucracy's hierarchically ordered chain of command provides a highly ra• situations to a matter of identifying and applying the appropriate rule. Over
tional means of achieving coordinated effort. Each official takes responsibility time agencies develop standard operating procedures so that similar cases can
for subordinates, issuing instructions to them and monitoring their actions. be handled in a similar fashion. This allows officials to turn their attention to
Similarly, every official is accountable to a higher official for his or her own ac• handling nonroutine cases. According to Weber, even where an official's work
tions. Coordinated effort is also facilitated by the flow of communications up is highly complex, legal and professional standards exist to guide them in han•
and down the chain of command. Control refers to the ability of those in dling specific cases.
higher positions to ensure that the work of subordinates is accomplished in Finally, the application of abstract rules to particular cases promotes impar•
prescribed ways. Control, like coordination, is achieved through a chain of su• tiality toward employees and clients. According to Weber, the technical superior•
perior-subordinate relationships in which superiors have a right to issue direc• ity of bureaucracy is due in no small measure to the manner in which individuals
tives and subordinates have a duty to obey. are treated. Under patrimonial and feudal systems, decisions involving clients or
other officials were personal in character. Each situation was handled as a unique
Systems of Rules case and decisions were made on the basis of personal considerations. A new of•
ficial might be appointed on the basis of nepotism, a subordinate might be pro•
Bureaucracy according to Weber, is characterized by systems of rules which are moted or disciplined because of a supervisor's personal biases, or a client might
"mor e or less stable" and " mor e or less exhaustive." These rules are of two
11
receive special treatment by evoking an official's pity or sympathy. Weber under•

kinds: behavioral and technical. Behavioral rules are found in a bureau's poli• stood that officials who develop strong feelings about particular subordinates or
cies and workplace conduct codes. They function as instruments of control by clients are likely to let those feelings influence their official decisions, often with•
prohibiting behaviors defined by rule makers as contrary to organizational out their being aware of it. The great virtue of bureaucracy, according to Weber,
norms or to a well-ordered and disciplined workplace. Examples include rules is that decisions are made in a detached, impersonal manner in accordance with pre-
prohibiting tardiness, theft, and acts of insubordination. According to Weber,
established rules. In Weber's words, bureaucracy "develops the more perfecdy the
officials comply with behavioral rules both because they accept their legiti•
more the bureaucracy is 'dehumanized,' the more completely it succeeds in eliminating
macy and because they fear the sanctions attached to their use. Other behav•
from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and
ioral rules promote accountability by requiring officials to perform their duties
emotional elements which escape calculation." 13
5 CHAPTER MA X WE B E R' S THEOR Y O F
Technical Expertise WA S W E B E R W R O N G A B O U T
According to Weber, "Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally the
BUREAUCRACY' S TECHNICA L
exercise of control on the basis of knowledge. This is the feature of it which
makes it specifically rational." Whereas patrimonial and feudal officials were
14
SUPERIORITY ?
amateurs in administrative matters, modern bureaucrats are selected and pro•
moted based on their technical expertise. This increases the competence of the Today we tend to think of bureaucracies as slow, inefficient, and uncaring,
administrative staff and improves their work efficiency. It also means that ad• bogged down by too many layers of authority, too many rules, and too
ministrative tasks are performed with greater impartiality. In Weber's words, much red tape. This contemporary understanding is difficult to reconcile
"The more complicated and specialized modern culture becomes, the more its with Weber's description of bureaucracy as the embodiment of rationality.
external supporting apparatus demands the personally detached and strictly Consequently, it is tempting to conclude that Weber was simply wrong
'objective' expert, in lieu of the master of older social structures, who was about bureaucracy's technical superiority. Such a conclusion is unwar•
moved by personal sympathy and favor, by grace and gratitude."
15
ranted, however, because Weber's analysis is broadly historical and compara•
tive in scope. He did not suggest, for example, that each and every
Career Service bureaucratic organization will perform at an optimal level. He asserted only
that bureaucracy is superior "to any other form in precision, in stability, in the
Feudal lords, priests, and personal retainers performed their official duties as stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability [emphasis add ed]."
1
Weber
6
secondary occupations, received rents or fees from their offices, and remained intended his ideal-type bureaucracy to be understood as a conceptually
at least partly dependent on their superiors for their livelihoods. Modern bu• pure form of administration, which, from a historical and comparative per•
reaucrats, by contrast, are career professionals who receive salaries for their spective, is relatively efficient and effective in carrying out commands and
work and enjoy considerable job security. A career civil service contributes to implementing policies. If bureaucracy as a system is relatively precise, stable,
the technical superiority of bureaucracy in three ways. First, a fixed salary and disciplined, and reliable, the same is not necessarily true for every organiza•
a relatively high degree of job security encourages organizational commit• tion within it. A given organization may possess many of the defining struc•
ment. Not dependent on their superiors for their livelihoods, bureaucrats can tural features of bureaucracy and yet be highly inefficient and unreliable in
devote themselves to their professional obligations.Their loyalty is to the civil practice.
service as a whole rather than the person highest in authority. Weber understood that outside the conceptual realm complex organiza•
Second, officials who prepare for professional careers can perform their du• tions are subject to many imperfections. Some of these imperfections arise
ties with greater competence than the officials in patrimonial and feudal sys• from the "irrational" element—emotions, personalities, individual needs, and
tems who performed their duties as secondary occupations. Modern officials politics—that he deliberately excluded from his ideal-type model for method•
choose government service as a vocation, train for it, and are appointed based ological reasons. Others arise from the bureaucratic structure itself (see Chap•
on their training. Finally, separating the office from the officeholder increases ter 10). In either case, these imperfections do not undermine Weber's basic
the bureaucrat's impartiality. According to Weber, this separation reinforces the conclusion that the structural characteristics of bureaucracy reflect a higher de•
idea that civil servants are temporary custodians of the public trust who carry gree of rationality and allow for a higher degree of technical efficiency than
out official duties during working hours and who are not to exploit the office earlier administrative forms.
for personal gain. It also reinforces the idea that civil servants are not to
demonstrate personal or political favoritism toward anyone.
L I M I T A T I O N S O N TH E U S E F U L N E S
Written Documentation
S O F W E B E R ' S MODE L
Recording administrative decisions in writing helps ensure operational conti•
nuity. As elected officials and administrators come and go, new decisions con• Weber's contribution to organization theory is unquestionably brilliant. His ideal-
tinue to be guided by decisions made in the past. Written documentation also type bureaucracy has provided the point of departure for countless em• pirical
facilitates accountability. Higher authorities can use these records to evaluate studies. Even today the structural dimensions Weber identified—task specialization,
agency performance and hold subordinates accountable for their actions. Con• centralization, and formalization—remain the principal dimen• sions along
versely, bureaucrats charged with improprieties can use them to show that they which we think about and study organizational design. Nonethe• less, there are
followed the rules and carried out their duties responsibly. Written documen• clear limitations on the usefulness ofWeber's model for improving or sustaining
tation thus provides protection for subordinates as well as supervisors. organizational performance.
5 MAX WEBER' S I H t O K Y U h
The model's usefulness is limited for three reasons: it fails to provide a

be administratively rational. Weber's analysis comes very close to stating a "one
holistic or comprehensive theory of organization; it views organizational per•
best way" theory of organizational effectiveness. Nothing in Weber's analysis
formance as the product of a fixed set of structural attributes; and it is time-
acknowledges that the optimal degree of centralization, specialization, or for•
bound, capturing the process of rationalization as reflected in the institutions
malization is necessarily contingent upon such factors as environmental un•
of the early 1900s but failing to imagine its continuing evolution.
certainty, task complexity, or employee characteristics.
Although equating higher levels of centralization, specialization, and for•
Limitations of a Structural Model malization with administrative rationality may make sense from a broadly
comparative and historical perspective, it makes much less sense from a con•
Weber's purpose was to isolate the structural elements explaining the technical
crete managerial perspective.The research findings reported in Chapter 10, for
superiority of the modern, bureaucratic form of administration. As noted ear•
example, indicate that organizational performance is often undermined when
lier, he deliberately left out of consideration the "irrational" elements affecting
bureaucracy's structural attributes are taken to an extreme. In practice, perfor•
the performance of bureaucratic institutions, including politics, personalities,
mance is often undermined by authority structures that are too highly central•
and human emotions. Consequently, Weber's model emphasizes the structural
ized (procedural delays, red tape, institutional rigidity), official duties that are
variables required to understand and explain organizational dynamics while ig•
too narrowly defined (inter-unit conflict, line-staff conflict, bureaucratic run-
noring other important variables relating to human behavior, technology, and
around), work processes that are too highly regimented and depersonalized (sti•
process. Although Weber's model served his purposes well, those who are
fled initiative, goal displacement), discretionary authority that is too greatly
charged with improving or sustaining organizational performance require a
limited (overconformity institutional rigidity), and systems of rules that are too
more comprehensive theory of organization, one that encompasses not only
exhaustive and all-encompassing (goal displacement, institutional rigidity, sub-
more variables but also the interrelationships among them.
optimal role performance). In short, not only does Weber's ideal-type fail to
Few theorists have attempted to develop a comprehensive theory of orga•
provide useful guidance regarding the degree of bureaucratization that is opti•
nization. Thus, to note that Weber was not fully comprehensive is not to criti•
mal for a specific organization but it can also mislead us by implying that more
cize his work or discount the importance of his contributions to organization
specialization, centralization, and formalization is better than less.
theory. It is simply to acknowledge the limited usefulness of his model for per•
By extension, Weber's analysis implies that any deviation from the ideal type
sons seeking more than a structural understanding of complex organizations.
inevitably reduces administrative rationality. Taken too literally, this assumption
can lead managers into the trap of Weberian orthodoxy. This is the doctri•
Limitations of Defining Bureaucracy naire belief that the administratively efficient organization must be highly cen•
as a Fixed Set of Attributes tralized, reflect a clear chain of command from top to bottom, place a heavy
emphasis on accountability and control, and achieve a high degree of work rou-
Weber's ideal type captures the essence of the bureaucratic form of administra• tinization.The danger inherent in this belief is that it can discourage managers
tion in terms of a fixed set of attributes (e.g., narrow division of labor, offices from even considering administrative reforms not sanctioned by Weber's model.
arranged in a hierarchy of authority, systems of rules). The "fully developed bu• For many managers, the orthodox model is the only operating model to which
reaucracy" is described by Weber as being highly specialized, centralized, and
they have been exposed. Confronted with the need to restructure their agen•
formalized. This suggests that organizations are either bureaucratic or they are
cies they automatically turn to the orthodox model for guidance. Because re•
not, depending on whether they possess these fixed attributes. In practice,
forms that depart from this model are not considered worthy of discussion,
however, we know that bureaucratic organizations vary greatly. Some, for ex•
Weberian orthodoxy acts as a brake on innovation and change.
ample, are highly specialized but not highly routinized; others are highly cen•
Donald Warwick provides a telling example in his study of the U.S. State
tralized but not highly formalized. Thus it is difficult to determine whether an
Department. Whe n Deputy Under Secretary William Crockett attempted to
organization belongs to the class of bureaucratic institutions as defined by
Weber. Researchers have gotten around this problem by simply recasting create a flatter, more decentralized structure by ekminating three levels of mid•
Weber's fixed attributes as empirical dimensions and proceeding to measure dle management, he was met with considerable resistance. The prevailing
the extent to which selected organizations are, for example, specialized, cen• belief was that such reforms simply would not work because they were
tralized, and formalized.
17 inconsistent with orthodox managerial principles, principles heavily influ•
enced by Weber's description of bureaucracy. Warwick concludes that social
The situation is different, however, when Weber's model is used as a guide
scientists have, on the whole, "treated Weber's conceptualization of bureaucracy
to practice. Because Weber defines the bureaucratic form of administration as
as a sacred legacy to be interpreted but never radically changed. As a result, our
being technically superior to all other forms, there is a strong suggestion that if
theoretical understanding of public organizations, and therefore of the full
an organization is not highly centralized, specialized, and formalized it cannot
range of organizations, remains seriously limited."
5 CHAPTER MA X W E B E R ' S THEORY OF 5
To avoid Weberian orthodoxy managers must resist viewing bureaucracy as fine bureaucracy as a failed and obsolete form of administration. Many con•
a single, fixed organizational form. The structural elements in Weber's ideal temporary critics of government, for example, prefer to define bureaucracy in
type are best viewed as variables to be adjusted according to the internal and terms of its dysfunctions. These critics view bureaucracy not as offices arranged
external requirements of each organization. Public agencies need not be tall, in a hierarchy of authority with work processes performed according to fixed
rigid, and tightly disciplined to be effective. The key question confronting rules, but as a form of administration that is slow, inefficient, and incapable of
managers is not whether to adopt a bureaucratic form of administration but innovation. In Reinventing Government, for example, Osborne and Gaebler de•
what degree of bureaucratization is most appropriate for their particular scribe bureaucracy as an obsolete and failed form of administration and call for
agency. the development of an alternative administrative form. 21
Given bureaucracy's continued evolution it is premature to conclude that

Limitations of a Time-Bound bureaucracy is an obsolete and failed administrative form. Elliot Jacques has ar•
Conception of Bureaucracy gued, for example, that the hierarchical kind of organization we call bureau•
cracy is the only form that can enable an organization to employ large
Because Weber wrote from the perspective of his own time and place, he may numbers of people while maintaining unambiguous accountability for the
have been unduly influenced by his admiration for the Prussian military and work they do. The properly structured hierarchy, according to Jacques, "can re•
civil services. Political scientist Dwight Waldo observed, for example, that there lease energy and creativity, rationalize productivity, and actually improve
is a very close resemblance between the characteristics of the Prussian army and morale." In his view the search for an alternative kind of organization is wrong-
2 2
Weber's ideal-typical criteria for the bureaucratic form of organization. Th e

19
headed because hierarchy itself is not to blame for our organizational problems.
problem with this, according to Waldo, is that a model of bureaucracy con• Instead, managers are largely to blame for not employing the princi• ple of
structed with early twentieth-century military and civil bureaucracies in mind hierarchy properly. According to Jacques, "The problem is not to find an alternative
may have very little relevance today. The process of rationalization did not come to a system that once worked well but no longer does; the problem is to
to a halt in the early 1900s, nor did society cease to change. As Waldo put it, the make it work efficiently for the first time in its 3000-year history." 2 3
theorist of democratic organization must credit Weber for a good picture of his Managers, Jacques concludes, must "stop casting about fruitlessly for organiza•
day "but he must refuse to believe this is the prettiest of all pictures; he must not tional Holy Grails and settle down to the hard work of putting our managerial
simply look backward to see what types of societies have been but must look hierarchies in order." 24
forward into a future of new and no w-unkn ow n types of societies."

20
It seems Weber failed to appreciate the extent to which bureaucracy would

continue to evolve as part of the process of rationalization that he described so
well. What seemed highly rational to Weber in the early 1900s, such as strict WEBER' S THEOR Y O F B U R E A U C R A C
obedience to authority and limited discretion, cannot be viewed as the em•
Y I NP E R S P E C T I V E
bodiment of rationality today. Too many circumstances have changed. Gov•
ernment's tasks have become more complex, jobs have become more Organizations may be viewed from multiple perspectives—structural, behav•
knowledge-intensive, workers have become better educated, and the larger ioral, political, and cultural. Each perspective contributes in its own unique
culture has become more egalitarian. Most jobs can no longer be reduced to a way to a holistic, comprehensive understanding of complex organizations.
fixed set of operating procedures, and most employees will not tolerate a Weber's structural perspective has been and continues to be very useful in this
highly authoritarian work environment. Although complex organizations re• respect. It not only helps us understand how structure can be used for purposes
main bureaucratic in character, much as Weber described them, today's public of coordination and control but it also continues to serve as a widely recog•
managers need not rely as much on formal structure to coordinate work activ• nized point of departure for investigating problems of organizational design
ities or on the legal compliance strategy to elicit desired behaviors from em• and behavior.
ployees. Less intrusive methods of control and alternative motivational
It must be remembered that Weber did not set out to develop a compre•
strategies are now available.
hensive theory of organizational effectiveness. If his analysis has little to say
If Weber's model is not entirely relevant for purposes of improving and about how actual bureaucracies differ or the conditions under which some
sustaining the performance of today's organizations, neither is it entirely ir• perform better than others, this does not lessen the importance of his contri•
relevant. To one extent or another complex organizations still rely on butions or the relevance of his ideal-type model. Weber's model continues to
hierarchically arranged offices and systems of rules to coordinate and control have particular relevance for production agencies, those agencies where work
work activities. Nonetheless, it has become fashionable in some circles to de- is routine in nature and outputs are observable and measurable.
5 CHAPTER
R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N E xh ib i t 4. 2 Th e C o m p e t i n g Value s F r a m e w o r k :
T Four Model s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E f f e c ti ve n es s
The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance ofWeber's theory of bu• Flexibility
reaucracy for public management and organizational performance. This explo•
ration is guided by the three conceptual frameworks introduced in Chapter 3.
Pattern maintenance/Tension Adaptive function: the need
Models of Organizational Effectiveness management function: the need to to acquire resources and adapt
maintain a competent, integrated, to an uncertain environment
As indicated in Exhibit 4.2, Weber's analysis of bureaucracy emphasizes the values and dedicated workforce
associated with the internal process model. This model asks managers to serve
Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values:
as monitors and coordinators to ensure that work activities are carried out as in•
HUMAN cohesion, flexibility, OPEN
tended and in a stable and predictable manner. At the heart of Weber's analysis
RELATIONS morale readiness SYSTEMS
lies a concern for the integrative function and the means by which work activities MODEL MODEL
are coordinated and controlled. According to Weber, the structural elements of Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values:
bureaucracy provide the quintessential means by which the integrative function human resource growth,
development resource acquisition
is accomplished. Supervision of one office by another allows work activities to be
monitored and corrected as needed. Written records contribute to both opera• Internal External
tional continuity and accountability Finally, rules and operating procedures help focus focus
ensure that each task is performed in a way that contributes to the organization's
overall objectives. This underscores the relevance ofWeber's theory for manage•
ment practice. Bureaucracy's structural elements provide one set of means by INTERNAL info, management, planning, RATIONAL
which managers can help fulfill the organization's integrative function. PROCESS communication goal setting GOAL
MODEL MODEL
To a lesser extent Weber's analysis focuses on the rational goal m ode l and
the values of efficiency, productivity, and goal attainment. This model asks man• stability, productivity,
agers to serve as directors and producers to ensure that desired results are control efficiency
achieved. Weber's theory identifies structural means for accomplishing the goal
Integrative function: the need to Goal attainment function: the need
attainment function. Fixed official duties, as defined in statute law and reflected coordinate and control work to focus efforts on goal attainment
in formal job descriptions, direct the attention of bureaucrats to their mandated activities
responsibilities. The hierarchically ordered chain of command enables managers
to plan and direct the work of subordinates and encourage them to achieve
high levels of productivity. Finally, systems of rules specify exactly how tasks are
to be performed. According to Weber, it is this routinization of work that ex• SOUR CE: Ad ap ted with permission from Figures 3 and 4, Robert O. Quinn and John Rohrbaugh, "A Spatial Model
plains the high degree of predictability of results associated with bureaucracy. 29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The Institute of Managem en t Sciences, now the Institute for Operations
Generally speaking, all organizations must arrange themselves internally to Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090-
2909 USA.
achieve desired results and they must seek stability to the extent that it is pos•
sible in a turbulent environment. And yet the implications ofWeber's theory
for management practice are troubling in two respects. First, the manager who
focuses on the integrative function may do so at the expense of the adaptive and the associated values of morale and social cohesion. This is entirely possi•
function. Rules and other systems of control inevitably create rigidities that ble where managers rely heavily on their formal authority to ensure disci•
can undermine an organization's ability to adapt successfully to changing cir• plined obedience and where civil servants are allowed to exercise very little
cumstances. Methods designed to make organizations operate like well-oiled discretion. Weber acknowledged that civil servants are likely to feel trapped
machines have limited applicability for agencies that function in turbulent and in the bureaucratic apparatus but he apparently found this to be a necessary
highly politicized environments. In such environments it is very difficult to cost of securing disciplined task performance. Weber's analysis notwithstand•
standardize work and formalize rules and still maintain the capacity to adapt ing, there is more than one way to accomplish the integrative and goal attain•
successfully to changing conditions. ment functions.The suggestion that bureaucracy's structural elements provide
Second, the manager who focuses on the goal attainment function may do an effective means for accomplishing these functions is open to question. Bu•
so at the expense of the pattern maintenance/tension management functions reaucracy provides one means of integrating internal processes and focusing
6 CHAPTER MA X W E B E R ' S THEOR Y O F 6
E xh ib i t 4. 3 Si x M e c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d C o n t r o l l i n g Wo r k
Activ it ie s tion is built into the work process itself and control is exercised by strictly lim•
iting each worker's discretion so that mistakes are kept to a minimum, workers
Mutual adjustment Workers consult with each other informally about what
needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor• do not flounder about trying to determine how best to perform their assigned
dination and control rests with those who do the work. tasks, and each decision is made with complete impartiality.
Direct supervision A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of Direct supervision and standardization of work processes are most applica•
workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte• ble in production agencies. As noted in Chapter 2, production agencies are char•
personal instructions and monitors individual performance. acterized by routine work processes, observable outputs and outcomes, and
Work is programmed in advance of its execution by stable environments. Examples include document-processing agencies, such as
Standardization of
work processes developing rules and standard operating procedures speci• those charged with reviewing tax returns or applications for licenses, permits,
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina• or public assistance. But the use of these structural mechanisms for purposes of
achieved by strictly limiting each worker's discretion. coordination and control poses certain problems for agencies including pro•
Work outputs are programmed in advance by providing
duction agencies. One problem inherent in the use of work standardization is
Standardization of
work outputs each work group with product specifications or perfor• that it imposes rigidities on the organization, which, although it promotes pre•
mance goals and allowing members considerable latitude in dictability of task performance in stable environments, tends to undermine the
collecting output data, requiring corrective action when
organization's ability to adapt successfully to a changing environment. In addi•
needed, and rewarding and sanctioning workers based on tion, where work tasks require considerable independent judgment and discre•
results achieved. tion, as is often the case in public agencies, the manner in which tasks are to
Standardization of Workers are employed who possess the knowledge and be performed cannot be programmed in advance. Work standardization tends
worker skills skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in•
to work well as a mechanism of coordination and control only when the work
provide standardized training. Professionally trained work• is relatively routine and requires little independent judgment.
ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling. Another problem inherent in the use of structural control mechanisms is
Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear
Standardization their cost in human terms. Although Weber viewed direct supervision and
of values standardization of work as defining characteristics of modern administration,
and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational he understood that these mechanisms could prove counterproductive even in
members to shared, internalized values and ideals. agencies where the work is routine and the environment stable. He described
SO UR C E: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993), pp. 3-7. organizations as operating much like a machine, with every part systematically
coordinated and controlled. In his words, "The fully developed bureaucratic
mechanism compares with other organizations exactly as does the machine
with the non-mechanical modes of production." But, although mechanical
2 5
attention on goal attainment, but one which, if relied upon injudiciously, may efficiency may be beneficial from the organization's perspective, Weber ac•
prove highly counterproductive. This concern is discussed more fully in the knowledged that it is achieved partly at the bureaucrat's expense. Subject to
sections that follow. strict discipline and oppressive routines, officials are reduced to cogs in the
larger mechanical apparatus:
Mechanisms for Coordinating
The individual bureaucrat cannot squirm out of the apparatus in which he
and Controlling Work Activities is harnessed. In contrast to the honorific or avocational "notable," the pro•
As shown in Exhibit 4.3, Weber's descriptive analysis focuses attention on di• fessional bureaucrat is chained to his activity by his entire material and
rect supervision, standardization of work processes, and standardization of ideal existence. In the great majority of cases, he is only a single cog in an ever-
worker skills as methods for coordinating and controlling work activities. The moving mechanism which prescribes to him an essentially fixed
arrangement of offices in a hierarchy of authority facilitates direct supervi• route of march. The official is entrusted with specialized tasks and nor•
sion. Each official is expected to comply with the formal directives of the su• mally the mechanism cannot be put into motion or arrested by him, but
only from the very top. 26
perior officer and to carry them out in a highly disciplined manner. Routine
work activities are coordinated and controlled through the standardization Weber's use of the machine metaphor underscores the ideal-type bureau•
of work processes. Rules and procedures for handling routine cases are cracy's obsession with control. Bureaucracy is deliberately designed to elimi•
specified by those at the top of the organizational hierarchy. Workers are ex• nate as much uncertainty as possible and to keep variations in human behavior
pected to follow the mandated rules and procedures to the letter. Coordina- to a minimum. The bureaucratic machine thus tends to treat bureaucrats as
6 CHAPTER MA X W E B E R ' S THEOR Y O F 6
means rather than as ends in themselves, and by restricting each individual's Exhi bi t 4. 4 Fou r Mo ti v at i on al St r a t egi e s
discretion it also tends to rob work of its meaning. As a consequence, motiva•
tion and job satisfaction are undermined and conflict is created between su• Legal Compliance
pervisors and subordinates. Much of management's time must be devoted to Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior.
managing the conflicts created by the bureaucratic structure and ameliorating Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require•
the effects of strict discipline and oppressive routines. being sanctioned.
Weber's analysis also draws attention to standardization of worker skills
as a supplement to direct supervision and work standardization. Weber was
among the first to note the distinction between authority based on an official's
position in the formal hierarchy and authority based on an official's personal Rewards for Performance
expertise. He acknowledged that as government officials are trained for career Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance.
Employees may meet or exceed role expectations because they value the material
service they develop professional norms and skills that enable them to exercise and psychological satisfactions that money, advancement, and recognition can
discretion in goal-oriented ways without as much need for direct supervision provide.
or work standardization. As the nature of government work has become more Considerate Leadership
complex, knowledge-intensive, and nonroutine, and as the environments in
which agencies operate have become more turbulent, the need for govern• ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those
ment officials to exercise discretion and independent judgment has become who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or
exceed their role requirements.
much greater. For such agencies, regardless of how measurable their outputs
and outcomes may be, standardization of skills has become increasingly rele• Group Acceptance
vant as a mechanism for ensuring coordination and control. Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group
bonds, and enjoy the approval of their peers. This strategy may induce those who
This does not mean that hierarchy and rules are no longer important. Or• value affiliation and peer approval to meet or exceed role requirements, assum•
gan and Greene found, for example, that while explicit statements of policies ing that group norms are consistent with organizational objectives.
and procedures increased role conflict among scientists and engineers, they also Job Identification
increased task clarity and identification with the organization. Structural
27
control mechanisms remain an important management tool, but one with clear to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and
limits. Problems tend to arise when organizations insist upon strict hierarchical innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their
controls and extensive routinization. A point is eventually reached beyond
which the gains in administrative efficiency are outweighed by the costs asso• Goal Congruence
ciated with organizational rigidity, reduced motivation, and wasted human po• Hiring employees whose goals and values are congruent with the organization's
and/or socializing employees so that they internalize organizational goals and values.
tential. A highly centralized system characterized by "strict discipline and
oppressive routines" is just one of many possible structural arrangements and quirements, and exhibit greater creativity, innovativeness, and institutional loyalty.
most likely not the optimal arrangement for most public agencies today. They may do so because they identify with the organization's mission and values and
because contributing to them reinforces their own self concept.
SOURCE: Based in large part on Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations (New York:
Motivational Strategies Wiley, 1966), pp. 336-68.
As indicated in Exhibit 4.4, Weber's theory of bureaucracy emphasizes the

legal c om p li a n c e strategy. This strategy involves using formal directives, sion, productivity, and adaptability—will quickly discover its limitations. The
rules, and sanctions to motivate compliance. Weber viewed bureaucracy as a legal compliance strategy may motivate workers to satisfy minimum role re•
system of control, a system that increases "the probability that certain specific quirements but, in the absence of other motivators, it is unlikely to induce
commands (or all commands) from a given source will be obeyed by a given workers to perform in a superior manner or demonstrate innovative or adap•
group of persons." According to Weber, compliance is strongest where it is
2 8
tive behaviors. In fact, if it is not implemented with infinite care, this strategy
reinforced by the belief that the institutional order is legitimate and binding. can undermine trust, generate resentment, and discourage innovative behav•
Where this belief exists, officials understand that they are obeying not only iors. Thus, whereas formal authority is the basis of all legitimate bureaucratic
their superiors but also an impersonal legal order that they view as legitimate. action, its use as a motivational strategy has limitations that Weber may not
Weber's interest in administrative rationality led him to embrace the legal have fully appreciated.
compliance strategy as a means of minimizing variability in human behavior. Because public agencies rely on formal authority to ensure accountability,
However, managers seeking to achieve other values—including internal cohe- the key decision confronting managers is not whether to adopt the legal com-
6 CHAPTER MA X W EB ER ' S THEORY O F 6
pliance strategy but how to implement it effectively in combination with other dictabiHty of results. Managers who attend disproportionately to these
strategies.The difficulty inherent in its use is that it can easily degenerate into values risk sacrificing the values associated with the human relations and
autocracy. Concerned with "losing control," supervisors may adopt a com- open systems models of effectiveness, including social cohesion, morale,
mand-and-control approach in which they issue commands, exercise close su• and organizational adaptability.
pervision, and enforce rules strictly, while offering no other justification than
• Structure as a basis for coordination and control. Weber's ideal-
"I am the boss." Under this approach supervisors insist on obedience not be•
type model reveals how organizational structure can be used to coordinate
cause of their professional expertise or personal qualities but because of the
and control work activities. However, structural controls such as direct su•
position they hold in the formal chain of command. Over time they lose sight
pervision and standardized rules and procedures are not equally suited to
of the fact that there is more than one way to implement the legal compliance
every situation. Used judiciously, they may be appropriate in production
strategy. For example, it can be implemented through impersonal rules that
agencies where work is routine and environments stable but less so in
prescribe how work is to be performed or through general policy statements other kinds of agencies.
that leave considerable discretion to each worker. Similarly, managers can insist
upon blind obedience to rules or they can secure consent by explaining the • Formal authority as a basis for motivating employees. The formal
rationale behind them and allowing broad participation in their development. authority inherent in supervisory positions provides a basis for "moti•
The dysfunctional consequences of taking a rule-driven, punishment-centered vating" employees to comply with organizational rules and directives.
approach to management are examined in Chapter 10. However, several of the schools of thought discussed in later chapters
emphasize the dangers involved in relying too heavily on formal authority
to secure compliance. The latter may be obtained at the expense of up•
ward feedback, positive attitudes, and dedication to the job.
SUMMAR Y
In the final analysis Weber's "theory of bureaucracy" remains descriptive in
Weber's implicit theory of organizational effectiveness focuses primarily on ad• nature. It can help managers think through the relationships between struc•
ministrative rationality. It holds that administrative rationality is achieved by tural variables and organizational performance but it cannot help them deter•
dividing work into specialized administrative functions, assigning each func• mine the degree of bureaucratization mat is optimal for their individual
tion to a specific office, placing clear limits on each office's scope of authority, agencies. Nonetheless, thinking about bureaucracy in terms of structural vari•
arranging all offices in a hierarchy of authority, organizing officials on a career ables encourages managers to look for those points on each of several struc•
basis, and requiring them to carry out directives with strict discipline and in tural dimensions that will allow their agencies to function more efficiently and
accordance with clearly delineated rules. Among the most important implica• effectively. It also reminds them that there is no one set of structural arrange•
tions ofWeber's analysis for public management and organizational perfor• ments for optimizing organizational performance. Their task is to adjust struc•
mance are the following: tural variables continually as internal and external conditions change. In doing
so, they must avoid Weberian orthodoxy, the mistaken belief that organizations
• Organizations as rational instruments. The unfolding process of ra• must be tall, highly centralized, and rule-bound to reap the benefits of in•
tionalization described by Weber suggests that government agencies are creased rationalization. Weberian orthodoxy only serves to constrain efforts to
more than "organized forms of domination." They are also deliberately improve organizational performance by discouraging managers from consider•
designed instruments for achieving important societal purposes. Public ing administrative reforms that are thought to be inconsistent with Weber's ideal-
managers are responsible for adjusting the agency's structure as needed to type bureaucracy.
ensure that it continues to achieve its mandated purposes.
• D e t e r m i n i n g the appropriate degree of bureaucratization. Man•
agers are best served by viewing bureaucracy as a set of structural variables
rather than a fixed set of attributes. Public agencies do not need to be tall, NOTE S
highly centralized, and rule-bound to be effective. Managers are responsi•
1. Ma x Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the H e n d e r s o n and Talcott Parsons (Ne w
ble for determining the degree of bureaucratization that makes most sense
Spirit of Capitalism, translated byT alcott York: Ox f o rd University Press, 1947), 124 .
for their agencies in light of their unique missions, environments, and Parsons (Ne w York: Charles Scribner's
3. Weber, Theory of Social and Economic
circumstances. Sons, 1958).
Organization, 324 .
• A bias toward stability and predictability. As indicated in Exhibit 4.2, 2. Ma x Weber, The Theory of Social and 4. Ma x Web er, "Politics as a Vocation," in
Weber's analysis is biased in favor of organizational stability and pre- Economic Organization, translated by A . M .
H. H. Gert h and C. W. Mills (eds.), From
6 CHAPTER
Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (Ne w York:

M . Bon jean and M ichael D . G r i m e s , "B u •
Oxfo r d Universi ty Press, 1958), 78 . 5
reaucracy and Alienation: A D im en si on al
5. We be r, "Po li ti cs as a v o c a t i o n , " 115 . Approach," Social Forces 48 (March 1970),
6. Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," 95 . 365-73 .
7. . Brian R. Fry and Lloyd G. Ni g ro ,

"M a x Webe r and U S . Public Admini st ra •
18. D o n a l d P.Warwick, A Theory of Public
Bureaucracy: Politics, Personality, and Organi•
zation in the State Department (C ambridge,
Scientific Management
tion: Th e Admini st rat o r as Ne ut r a l Ser•
Theory
MA : Ha rvard Universi ty Press, 1975), 183 .
vant," Journal of Management History 2 (No.
1, 1996), 40 . 19. D w i g h t Waldo, Perspectives on Adminis•
8. Weber, Theory of Social and Economic tration ( Bi rm in gh am , AL: Uni versity of Al •
Organization, 328 . abama Press, 1956), 36 .
9. Part I of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft is

found in Weber, Theory of Social and Eco•
20. . D w i g h t Waldo, " D e v e l o p m e n t of
T h e o r y of D e m o c ra t i c Admi nist ration, "
Frederick W. Taylor
nomic Organization. Th e discussion of bu • American Political Science Review 46 (March
reaucracy in Part III is found in Gert h and 1952), 100 .
Mills, From Max Weber. 21 . Davi d O s b o r n e and Ted Gaebler,
10. Weber, Theory of Social and Economic Reinventing Government: How the Entrepre•
Organization, 337 . neurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector
(R eading, M A: Addison-Wesley, 1992),
11 . Weber, From Max Weber, 198 .
1 1 - 1 6 . See also, R a l p h P. H u m m e l , The
12. . H e n r y M i n t z b er g , Structure in Bureaucratic Experienced Critique of Life
Fives: Designing Effective Organizations in the Modern Organization (Ne w York:
(Engle- w o o d Cliffs, NJ: Prenti ce -Hall , St. Martin' s Press, 1994).
1983), 34 .
22 . Elliott Jacques, "I n Praise of Hi e ra r•
F
13. . Ge rt h and Mills, From Max Weber, chy," Harvard Business Review 68 (January-
216 . February 1990), 127. rederick W. Taylor, a machinist and engineer by training, is widely re•
14. Weber, Theory of Social and Economic garded as the father of scientific management. Possessed of a keen sense of
23 . J a c q u e s , " In Praise of Hi erarchy,"128 .
Organization, 339 . moral purpose and enormous self-discipline, Taylor did more than any
24 . Jacques, "I n Praise of Hi erarchy, "1 33 .
15. . Weber, From Max Weber, 216 . other single individual to systematize industrial production in the early 1900s.
25 . Weber, From Max Weber, 214 . He put all managers on notice, with no particular tact, that it was their duty to
16. Weber, Theory of Social and Economic
Organization, 337 . 26. . Weber, From Max Weber, 228 . standardize every aspect of production, identify and eliminate all sources of
17. . See, as examples, Stanley H. Udy, 27. . Denni s W O rg a n and Charles N. waste, and base all decisions on careful scientific study. During the 1880s and
"Bu r ea uc rac y " and "Ra t i o n a l i t y " i n We • G reene, "Th e Effects of Formalizat ion on 1890s he developed a variety of techniques for increasing production that
ber's "O rganization T he or y : An E mpirical Professional Involvement: A C o m p e n • came to be known as the Taylor system or, alternatively, scientific management.
Study," American Sociological Review 24 satory Process Approach," Administrative
Understood as a theory of organizational effectiveness, scientific m a n a g e •
(D ec e mb e r 1959), 7 9 1 - 9 5 ; R i c h a r d H . Science Quarterly 26 (June 1981): 2 3 7 - 5 2 .
Hall, " T h e C o n c e p t o f Bureaucracy: A n m en t calls for increasing output by systematizing work processes, dividing
28. . Weber, Theory of Social and work into narrowly defined tasks, determining the "one best way" to perform
E mpirical Assessment," American Journal of
Economic Organization, 324 .
Sociology 69 Quly 1963), 3 2 - 4 0 ; Charles each task, training workers in the "one best way," measuring their perfor•
mance, and offering economic incentives for surpassing daily production quo•
tas. As we shall see, this is essentially a prescriptive theory for directing,
motivating, and controlling work performance.
Whereas Weber's analysis focused on the organization's administrative
structure,Taylor's focused primarily on the shop floor. Despite this difference
in focus, certain similarities in their work emerge on closer examination. Tay•
lor embodied the rationalistic spirit that Weber believed was transforming
modern society. Aware of Taylor's experiments across the Atlantic, Weber
viewed the Taylor system as the deliberate application of reason to the analysis
of work and the management of workers. Both Weber and Taylor perceived
6 CHAPTER
67
6 CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC MA NA GEME NT 6
duction called for parallel changes in the structure and practice of management.
Frederick W. Taylor 1856-1915 His ideas for systematizing production and rationalizing management were
shaped by the conditions that then prevailed in American industry.
Taylor was born in Germantown, just Piece-Rate System" in 1895 and one A key characteristic of industry at the time was the absence of middle
outside Philadelphia, in 1856. From
1
entitled "Shop Management" in 1903.
managers and technical support staffs in the production units. Management
his earliest days he had a passion for Between 1898 and 1901 he worked
exclusively for the Bethlehem Steel
was highly decentralized, with the workers and their foremen largely deter•
inventing better ways of doing things.
Instead of becoming a lawyer like his Company, systematizing operations mining what took place in these units. An administrative structure entailing a
father, Taylor chose to become a ma• and introducing his system of piece clear chain of command and an explicit division of responsibilities between
chinist. He began working at Midvale rates. Suddenly dismissed in 1901, Tay• line and staff departments was yet to be developed. Administrative support
Steel Company in 1878 at the age of lor chose to retire from paid employ•
staffs were kept to a bare minimum because they were viewed as "nonproduc•
22. He rose rapidly through the ranks ment at the age of 45.
as lathe operator, gang boss, machine Having made lucrative investments,
tive" workers and an unwarranted drag on profits. As a consequence, no one
shop foreman, and chief engineer Taylor was able to devote the rest of was responsible for systematic planning, productivity measurement, or cost ac•
for the entire steel works. He studied his life to promoting the cause of sci• counting. No one was charged with ensuring that raw materials were on hand
engineering in the evenings and entific management. Taylor helped to fill current orders, that the work was scheduled so that deadlines could be
received a bachelor's degree in me• his longtime associates, Barth, Gantt,
chanical engineering from the Stevens
met, or that unnecessary costs were identified and eliminated.
Cooke, and Hathaway, introduce scien•
Institute of Technology in 1883. It was tific management in several organiza• A second characteristic was the inability of managers to exercise effective
during his twelve years at Midvale tions, and in 1911 he published control over employee productivity. Gang bosses and foremen directed work•
that Taylor developed the core ele• Principles of Scientific Management. ers in what needed to be accomplished but generally did not presume to tell
ments of his system of scientific He also invited individuals from all workers how to accomplish their tasks. This was true particularly for skilled
management. over the world to his home just out•
side Philadelphia and regaled them
workers who had trained for years to learn a particular craft or trade. It was
In 1893 Taylor went into business
with two-hour lectures on the merits widely assumed that these workers, not their supervisors, best understood what
as a "consulting engineer." During the
next several years he refined his man• of scientific management. Returning level of quality and quantity of production was required. The inability to exer•
agement techniques, presenting a from a speaking engagement in Cleve• cise effective supervision was compounded by the fact that managers did not
land in 1915 he caught pneumonia
paper to the American Society of Me• have a clear idea of what defined a fair day's work. Because they did not know
chanical Engineers (ASME) entitled "A and died suddenly at the age of 59.
how long it should take for a worker to complete a task, supervisors could not
rightfully insist upon a particular level of productivity. Their only recourse was
to keep continual pressure on employees in an effort to exact as much work as
possible.
organizations as rational instruments for accomplishing collective goals and
A third characteristic was the rising level of conflict between labor and
both viewed organizational structure as the key to controlling what takes place
management caused by poor working conditions, low pay, and long hours. Fac•
within them. Their writings share an underlying premise that an efficient or•
ing intense competition, employers believed they could not afford to pay more
ganization is one whose parts, both physical and human, are systematically than subsistence wages or invest in better working conditions. As a result, a
controlled so that goods and services are produced with wondrous precision. growing number of workers joined labor unions and strikes became increas•
This chapter describes the core components of the Taylor system and as• ingly common. The violent railroad strike of 1877 was a harbinger of many
sesses Taylor's contributions to organization theory. It closes with an analysis of more to come. Even the most progressive managers found it difficult to succeed
the relevance of scientific management theory for public management and in an environment characterized by open warfare between capital and labor.
government performance.
These three factors—the absence of middle managers and technical staffs
to ensure systematic planning, supervisors who exercised little control over the
quality and quantity of production, and increasing labor unrest—help define
INDUSTR Y AN D MANAGEMEN T I N 187 8 the social and institutional context in which Taylor developed his ideas in the
years after 1878.The problems caused by these factors led many individuals to
When Taylor began working at the Midvale Steel Company in 1878, large-scale think deeply about how to improve administrative structures and work
industrial production was still in its infancy and management often operated in processes. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, Taylor developed a
a state of "near-total confusion." Taylor was one of several far-sighted
2
unique set of management techniques that were given purpose and coherence
individ• uals who recognized that changes in the size and complexity of industrial by his deeply felt social philosophy.
pro-
7 CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC MAN AGEMENT 7
SCIENTIFI C MANAGEMEN T TH E TAYLO R SYSTE M

A S A SOCIA L PHILOSOPH Y
If Taylor was not the first to propose a science of management, he was cer•
tainly the first to introduce the scientific method into management "as a mat•
Like many Americans, Taylor was genuinely troubled by the poverty, class con•
ter of all-around, consistent, every-day cultivation and practice." Ove r
5
flict, and constraints on social mobility associated with advanced industrializa•

a period of several years Taylor developed a set of tools and techniques for im•
tion. Taylor's system of scientific management was partly a product of his search
proving production that he later offered to interested clients as an integrated
for solutions to these problems.The remedy he seized upon was to increase in•
management system. He did not begin with a particular theory of manage•
dustrial wealth through greater technical efficiency and better management. He
ment, nor did he set out to develop one. Rather, his ideas emerged incremen•
believed that increased wealth would translate into higher wages for workers,
tally as he searched for remedies to the problems he faced as a manager and the
higher returns on investment for owners, and lower prices for consumers. Every•
social problems of the day.
one stood to benefit; no one stood to lose. Under scientific management, accord•
On e such problem was "soldiering," the tendency on the part of workers
ing to Taylor, owners and workers would concentrate on increasing the
to work at a slower pace than they were capable of. After being promoted from
economic surplus rather than fighting over its division. Managers and workers
lathe operator to gang boss,Taylor undertook a three-year battle to obtain a
alike would take their instructions from the scientifically determined best way to
fair day's work from his workers. Although he ultimately succeeded through
perform each task and supervisors would no longer need to resort to coercion.
coercion, punitive fines, and higher pay for those who agreed to increase out•
Although capitalists and socialists alike found Taylor's remedy for reconcil•
put, the daily battle nearly destroyed his health. Realizing that there must be a
ing class interests hopelessly naive, Taylor's social philosophy struck a chord
better way to increase individual productivity, Taylor began his search for an•
with the American public. The efforts of Taylor and others who had entered
swers. The problem as he saw it was the absence of performance standards
the field of scientific management came to the attention of the public as the
defining a fair day's work. Management simply did not know how long it
result of the Eastern Rate Case of 1910- 11 . This case involved a set of hear•
should take a worker to complete a particular task. In response Taylor experi•
ings held by the Interstate Commerce Commission to determine whether rail•
mented with using stopwatches to determine how long it should take to com•
roads along the east coast would be allowed to raise their rates. Future
plete a task. He also experimented with various incentive systems for inducing
Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis represented those opposed to the rate
workers to complete the task in the allotted time. The results of these experi•
increases. Brandeis seized upon a unique and ultimately successful strategy for
ments were presented in "A Piece-rate System" at an ASME meeting in 1895.
5
defeating the rate increase. Rather than argue about whether the railroads de•
Taylor also experimented for more than 20 years to determine the proper
served the increase, Brandeis focused the debate on whether they truly needed
feed and speed for operating a lathe, given any possible combination of twelve
the increase. He assembled eleven experts to testify that through the elimina•
variables.These were true scientific experiments.Taylor held all other variables
tion of waste the railroads could easily remain profitable without raising rates.
constant while investigating the effects of one variable on the efficiency with
Before the hearings began Brandeis asked those testifying to reach an agree•
which metals could be cut. As reported in "O n the Art of Cutting Metals" in
ment regarding what their system should be called. Taylor had referred to his
1906, these experiments resulted in the invention of the Barth slide rule that
work at various times as functional management, task management, scientific
allowed lathe operators quickly to determine the correct speed and feed for
time study, and scientific management. Others had referred to it as the Taylor
the particular task at hand. Durin g the course of these experiments Taylor
7
system. Those testifying agreed that scientific management held the broadest ap•
and a metallurgist named Maunsel White also invented high-speed steel. They dis•
peal and Taylorism has been known under that name ever since.
3
covered that by heating the new tungsten-chromium steel to extremely high

The hearings were closely reported in the press and, when Harrington temperatures and then cooling it under a blast of cold air they could produce
Emerson testified that through the elimination of waste the railroads could cutting tools that retained their hardness even when they became red-hot dur•
"save a million dollars a day," scientific management suddenly became a house• ing use. This discovery allowed machines to run at 2 to 4 times their usual
hold word. Hundreds of articles on the subject appeared in the technical and speeds, thereby greatly increasing the nation's industrial production.
popular press in the months following the hearings. As a result, "Taylorism was
As a consultant, Taylor tried to convince his clients to adopt his system as a
transformed overnight from an obscure obsession of certain middle-class engi•
whole. He believed that each and every component was essential to fulfilling
neers to an amazing and highly publicized nostrum for all the ills of
his promise of higher output and lower labor costs. For this reason he asked
society." It had become no less than a social movement. Efficiency societies
4
clients to give him at least 3 years to complete the conversion to scientific

dedicated to the elimination of waste sprang up in dozens of cities. The American
management. In essence, his system involved getting the right tools and mate•
public warmly embraced Taylor's philosophy that eliminating waste is both a
rials to the right place at the right time, providing workers with written in•
moral duty and the key to economic prosperity and social harmony.
structions for each task, specifying the exact time allowed to complete each
7 CHAPTER
SCIENTIFIC MAN AGEMEN T 7
element of work, and providing economic incentives to induce workers to

complete their tasks in the allotted times. In those rare instances where a client Standardization of Work
agreed to adopt the Taylor system as a whole, the individual components of the Work standardization involved determining the best way to perform each task
system were implemented in a carefully prescribed way. These components are and then communicating it to workers through on-the-job training and daily
described in the sections that follow. written instructions. Machinists, for example, were issued instructions regarding
what tasks to perform, what feed and speed to use, and how long it should take to
Systematization of the Production Process complete each task. All work was to be performed as prescribed by management.
Upon signing a contract to implement his system Taylor first undertook to sys• Taylor's intent was to safeguard the quality and quantity of production from pro•
tematize the production line. He performed a detailed analysis of the physical cedural mistakes, failures of memory, and ignorance of how best to perform spe•
layout of the plant and the flow of work through it.Taylor laid out sequentially cific tasks. Scientifically determined work standards provided supervisors a means
the steps in the production process so that the product could be routed from of holding workers accountable for the quality and quantity of their work.
one department to the next as quickly and efficiently as possible. Machines Work standardization was accomplished through task setting and time
performing similar kinds of work were grouped together so that a single fore• study. Task setting, as Taylor and Gantt used the term, is the process of defin•
man could oversee them. The workers were sometimes rearranged as well. In a ball- ing what a worker is expected to do and how long it should take to do it. For
bearing inspection unit, for example, the inspectors were physically sepa• rated example, Taylor "set the task" for pig iron handlers at 47 tons per day, for lathe
from one another so that they could not converse or otherwise disrupt each operators at 10 steel forgings per day, and for sewing machine operators at two
other's concentration. garments per minute. Tim e study refers to the use of the stopwatch to make
Scheduling systems were also introduced to help put production on a more these determinations. The first step is to identify through observation the ele•
systematic basis. Prior to the introduction of scientific management, produc• mentary motions that comprise a job, and the second is to establish the appro•
tion often came to a halt because the storerooms lacked the necessary invento• priate unit times for each element. For example, Taylor identified the elements
and unit times for pig iron handling as follows: 9
ries of raw materials or parts. To address this problem Taylor's associates

developed charts for tracking the progress of products as they moved through Pig Iron Handling
each step in the production process. Whet he r presented on paper or on an
Work elements Unit times >
enormous bulletin board, these charts specified where a product should be at
any given time and how long it should take to complete a particular operation 1. Picking up the pig from time in hundredths of a minute
before moving to the next stage. By consulting these charts supervisors could the ground or pile
easily determine the deadlines they were to meet and the person in charge of 2. Walking with it on a level time per foot walked
the storerooms could easily determine what supplies needed to be delivered to 3. Walking with it up an incline time per foot walked
each work station and when. Records were also kept of all incoming and out•
4. Throwing the pig down time in hundredths of a minute
going stock so that the person in charge of the stores could determine what
additional supplies to purchase. As a result, time was no longer lost as workers 5. Walking back empty time per foot walked
searched for needed materials or waited for them to be purchased. to get another load
The third step in time study is to determine the "standard time" for each
Systematization of Tools element.This is the "quickest time" in which an element can be accomplished
Taylor or one of his associates also systematized the tool room so that every by a "first-class man." Taylor typically selected one or two of the best workers
tool had a stated purpose and was designed and maintained to rigid standards. for the time-study experiments and induced them to participate by offering
Instead, a specialist was put in charge of the tool room to make sure that tools significantly higher rates of pay. They were then instructed to perform work
were properly stored, maintained, and distributed to workers according to their elements while a time-study specialist repeatedly recorded the times for each
assigned tasks. Although his critics believed this introduced too much com• element. The standard time for the task as a whole was determined by taking
plexity, Taylor insisted that "It is far simpler to have all of the tools in a stan• the average time to complete each element, adding the times for all of the ele•
dardized shop ground by one man to a few simple but rigidly maintained ments together, and adding an additional amount of time for rest breaks and
shapes than to have, as is usual in the old style shop, each machinist spend a unavoidable delays. In this way it was determined that by carrying pigs in the
portion of each day at the grindstone, grinding his tools with radically wrong standard time all day long a worker could move 47 tons without experiencing long-
curves and cutting angles, merely because bad shapes are easier to grind than term fatigue. Since pig iron handlers at the Bethlehem Steel Company had
good." 8 previously carried about 12 tons per day on average, this represented nearly a
300 percent increase in productivity.
7 CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC MAN AGEMEN T 7
Taylor believed that tasks should be "set" at the highest possible level with• ers, employers could afford to pay significantly higher wages in return. The lat•
out causing cumulative fatigue in the worker. At Bethlehem Steel, for exam• ter was indispensable, according to Taylor, because "men will not do an extra•
ple, the "tasks were all purposefully made so severe that not more than 1 out ordinary day's wor k for an ordinary day's pay." In Taylor's words, the
14
of 5 laborers (perhaps even a smaller percentage than this) could keep up." In 1 0
differential piecerate system "makes each workman's interests the same as that
practice, productivity increased 350 percent because only the strongest and of his employer, pays a premium for high efficiency, and soon convinces each
quickest workers continued to work as pig handlers.The others quit or were man that it is for his permanent advantage to turn out each day the best qual•
reassigned to other duties. Although Taylor considered this a form of scientific ity and quantity of work." Further, the system promotes "a most friendly
1 5
selection, it was also a form of natural selection. U nd e r the Taylor system,

11
feeling between the men and their employers, and so renders labor unions and
only the strongest, quickest, or most dexterous tended to survive.When Gantt strikes unnecessary."
16
set the task for the ball-bearing inspectors at the Simonds Company, for ex• Despite these claims, Taylor offered employers a rather severe system of re•
ample, many of the most dependable workers were laid off simply because they wards and punishments, a system reflecting his own stringent moral views. He
were not among the most dexterous. 12
believed that requiring the absolute best from workers builds moral character,
whereas allowing them to do less than their best contributes to their moral de•
Wage Incentive Systems cay. He also believed that paying them too much contributes to moral decay.
Many companies had adopted piecework systems in the 1870s to motivate Whereas higher pay is necessary to induce workers "to become and remain am•
bitious and energetic," and causes them "to save money, become more
1 7
employees to be more productive. Taylor concluded that these systems actually

sober, and work more steadily" too much money can have the opposite
1 8
discouraged higher productivity because workers knew that employers tended

to reduce the price per piece over time to keep labor costs low. This was the effect:
primary cause of what Taylor called systematic soldiering. To eliminate sol• It is the writer's j u d g m e n t . . . that for their own good it is as important
diering Taylor developed his differential piecerate system. Believing that both that workmen should not be very much over-paid, as it is that they should
the carrot and the stick were needed to motivate employees, his system not be under-paid. If over-paid, many will work irregularly and then to
promised a high wage when a task was finished in the allotted time and with• become more or less shiftless, extravagant and dissipated. It does not do for
out defects, and a low wage when the task was not finished in the allotted time most men to get rich too fast. 19
or had imperfections. For example,

In practice, the differential rate system was rarely implemented. Employers
Under the differential rate system, if a workman finishes 20 pieces per day, and workers alike viewed it as overly severe because it mandated punitive wage
and all of these pieces are perfect, he receives, say, 15 cents per piece, mak• cuts for any level of production beneath the scientifically determined level. In
ing his pay for the day 15 X 20 = $3. If, however, he works too slowly the example cited above, the worker who produced 19 pieces—significantly
and turns out, say, only 19 pieces, then, instead of receiving 15 cents per more than had been produced in the past—received no economic reward be•
piece he gets only 12 cents per piece, making his pay for the day 12 X 19 cause he had missed the mandated target by one. For this reason Gantt's task
= $2.28, instead of $3 per day. If he succeeds in finishing 20 pieces, some and bonus system was adopted by employers much more often. Under this
of which are imperfect, then he should receive a still lower rate of pay, say plan economic bonuses began at the average worker's level of output and be•
10 cents or 5 cents per piece, according to the circumstances, making his came progressively greater with higher levels of output. It was much less puni•
pay for the day $2, or only $1 , instead of $3.
1 3
tive because workers never received less than the standard daily wage.
Workers who completed their tasks in the allotted times were rewarded
with wages that were 30-100 percent above the prevailing wage, those who Functional Foremanship
produced anything less than the assigned task received less than the prevailing
Once the tools, methods, and processes were standardized and incentive sys•
wage, and those whose work contained defects received a wage below the sub•
tems put in place, the Taylor system charged managers with enforcing the "nat•
sistence level. As intended, the latter either quit or asked for reassignment.
ural laws of production." Taylor believed that this responsibility was so broad
Taylor claimed that his system determined a fair day's work through scien• in scope that no single supervisor could fulfill it. He believed that in practice
tific experimentation rather than guesswork.This, he claimed, is what made his supervisors attended only to those aspects of management that they were most
system unique. Employers no longer had cause to reduce the price per piece comfortable with and neglected the rest. Consistent with the specialization
because they knew through scientific study how long it should take to per• principle, Taylor advocated replacing the military type of organization with its
form a task. By inducing significantly higher levels of productivity from work- single chain of command with a functional type in which workers received
daily orders from eight different bosses. "Functional management," Taylor said,
"consists in so dividing the work of management that each man from the as•
TA YL OR ' S IMPLICI T THEOR Y O F
sistant superintendent down shall have as few functions as possible to perform.
If practicable the work of each man in the management should be confined to ORGANIZATIONA L EFFECTIVENES S
the performance of a single leading function."
20
Under the Taylor system, four line supervisors provided direct and imme• During the last twelve years of his life Taylor's friends pleaded with him to ar•
diate supervision, making sure that plans were quickly and fully executed but ticulate his underlying theory for the benefit of posterity. Trained as an engi•
performing no planning or clerical duties themselves. The gang boss prepared neer, Taylor was not comfortable with theorizing. Nonetheless, he wrote
the work setting by making sure that required materials were available and that Principles of Scientific Management in 1909 with this purpose in mind and pub•
each worker understood how best to perform the assigned task. The speed lished it in 1911. Although it does not present a comprehensive theory of
boss made sure that the proper tools and methods were used so that the task management, it does identify four basic principles:
could be performed in the quickest time possible. The inspector made sure First. The development of a true science. Second. The scientific selection of
that quality standards were met, and the repair boss saw to it that each worker the workman. Third. His scientific education and development. Fourth. In•
kept his machines properly maintained. timate friendly cooperation between the management and the men.
21
The other four foremen were staff supervisors who worked out of the
planning department and communicated with workers primarily through Taylor later described the first principle as "the deliberate gathering to•
written instructions. Under the Taylor system workers and bosses alike had to gether of the great mass of traditional knowledge which, in the past, has been
be taught to provide strict obedience to instructions from the planning staff, in the heads of the workmen, recording it, tabulating it, reducing it in most
something not required of them under the military conception of line-staff re• cases to rules, laws, and in many cases to mathematical formulae, which, with
lationships. The routing clerk instructed workers and supervisors regarding these new laws, are applied to the cooperation of the management to the work
of the workmen." Here he refers to the use of time-and-motion study and
2 2
the exact order in which the work was to be done by each class of machines
and workers so that all production remained on schedule. The instruction other forms of scientific experimentation to establish what he called the natural
card clerk provided daily written instructions to each worker regarding the laws of production. The second and third principles call for selecting workers
details of task performance, including the tools to use, the procedures to fol• based on their ability to perform the assigned "ask and training them in the
low, the quota to be made, and the bonus to be paid. The tim e and cost proper methods. The final principle reflects Taylor's belief that the planning of
clerk provided daily forms to workers on which they recorded how much work must be separated from its execution. Accordingly management must take
they produced and in what length of time. Finally, the shop disciplinarian responsibility for planning the work, including what needs to be done, when,
imposed appropriate sanctions on workers who violated workplace rules. and how, and workers must take responsibility for executing the work as di•
Taylor believed that functional foremanship prevented important elements rected. To Taylor, this was a fair, just, and mutually beneficial division of labor.
of management from falling between the cracks. In practice, however, this sys• Implicit in Taylor's four principles are six concepts that help define his un•
tem never caught on, both because it blurred the boundaries between line and derlying theory of organizational effectiveness. As introduced at the beginning
staff authority and because eight separate supervisors were not truly needed. of the chapter, Taylor's theory holds that effectiveness—defined primarily in
But, although it was never instituted as described in Taylor's essay on shop terms of productivity and total output—is achieved by narrowly dividing work,
management, many employers did establish technical staffs to assist traditional standardizing how each task is performed, training workers in the "one best
supervisors perform the full range of their managerial responsibilities. way," paying them bonuses for surpassing daily production quotas, and institut•
The components of the Taylor system described above represented a basic ing centralized planning. Most of these concepts were not new at the time Tay•
model for implementing scientific management. Taylor understood that his lor wrote. What was new was the particular way that Taylor melded them into a
system must be adapted to the unique conditions and requirements of each unique theory of management colored by his own ideological biases.
company. Rarely, however, did clients commit themselves to the 3 to 5 years
that it took to implement the system and the enormous expenses it required. Task Specialization
More often they allowed some modest efforts at standardization to occur and
Taylor theorized that task efficiency is the primary determinant of industrial
then insisted that a piecerate system be introduced. Under pressure from
output and he took it for granted that narrowly divided work provided the ba•
boards of directors and investors, factory superintendents needed to show re• sis for efficient task performance. In 1776 Adam Smith described how dividing
sults immediately. Because Taylor and his associates resisted introducing ad hoc pinmaking into eighteen narrowly defined operations, and requiring workers
reforms, they unintentionally created enormous business opportunities for to perform one or two of these operations all day long, caused productivity to
other "efficiency engineers" who were willing to do what their clients asked, increase dramatically.
2 3
W h e n Taylor began developing his theory of
whether or not it entailed an integrated system of management. manage • ment a century later he simply took the advantages of task
specialization for
granted. When asked by a special committee of the U.S. House of Representa•

powerful to bring an end to soldiering. Maximum output cannot be achieved,
tives in 1912 whether scientific management advocated fragmenting work into
he argued, simply by exhorting employees to work harder or by instilling
narrowly defined tasks, Taylor responded that it advocated no greater fragmen•
them with fear. Rather, soldiering can be eliminated only by appealing to in•
tation than found in most manufacturing firms at that time. Although critics
dividual self-interest by promising significantly higher wages in exchange for
charged that scientific management destroyed craftsmanship, including the per•
achieving the highest possible level of output. Without the use of individual
sonal pride and quality of work that comes from applying skills, exercising dis•
economic incentives, Taylor argued, workers will collude to restrict produc•
cretion, and producing an entire piece of work, the truth is that the Industrial
tivity and the output of the most slothful will become the standard for the
Revolution had undermined craftsmanship long before Taylor came on the work group as a whole. In Taylor's theory of scientific management, cooper•
scene. Rightly or wrongly, Taylor accepted task specialization as a necessary
2 4
ation was something to be purchased and group solidarity something to be

feature of the industrial age. destroyed.
Although the general concept was taken for granted, Taylor took special
interest in one aspect of task specialization. In 1832 Charles Babbage described
Performance Measurement
how significant savings in labor costs could be achieved by taking all routine
tasks away from skilled craftsmen and reassigning them to unskilled laborers. With production goals set and the methods of task performance systemati•
2
This allowed factories to employ fewer craftsmen and hire cheap, unskilled la• cally prescribed, mechanisms were still needed to ensure that desired results
5
borers in their place. It was this practice that Taylor adopted whenever possi• were being achieved. Part of Taylor's theory included the belief that hard data
ble. He felt justified in doing so not only because it reduced labor costs but should provide the basis for making management decisions. Taylor deserves
also because he believed craft expertise was highly overrated, being based on much of the credit for introducing performance measurement systems into
"the rule of thumb" or pure guesswork rather than science. management, not only to measure individual performance but also the per•
formance of the organization as a whole. He found it deeply troubling that
Work Standardization production managers in the late 1800s relied almost exclusively on instinct,
common sense, and experience. Taylor believed that all management ques•
Viewed from a theoretical perspective, if task specialization created the poten•
tions should be determined on the basis of factual data. So that this might
tial for efficient task performance, work standardization provided the means for
become a matter of routine, Taylor developed several performance measure•
realizing that potential. In his early days at Midvale, Taylor noticed that there
ment systems. Workers were given cards on which to record at the end of the
was no uniformity in the way tasks were performed, even among skilled crafts•
day how much they had produced and in what amount of time. No t only
men. He thus set out to standardize work by determining the most efficient
was this information used to determine each worker's daily wage, it was also
way to perform each task and then reducing it to standard operating procedures
used for productivity measurement and cost accounting. Individual produc•
and performance standards. As an element in Taylor's larger theory governing
tivity data, for example, were recorded on bar charts. By analyzing these
ways to control human effort and maximize industrial productivity, work stan•
charts supervisors could quickly determine when workers were having trou•
dardization promises three constructive results. First, it promotes consistency
ble earning their bonuses and could intervene to identify and redress the
and predictability. Supervisors can expect good work from employees day in
causes.
and day out because the best practices in every line of work have been carefully
For Taylor, performance measurement was more than a management tool.
prescribed for them. Product variability due to inexperience and human error
It was an integral part of his theory of human and institutional control: every•
is kept to a minimum. Second, Taylor's theory depersonalizes the authority rela•
thing must be carefully pre-planned, with performance measurement being
tionship between supervisors and workers. At least in theory, instances of arbi•
the vehicle for determining whether actual results match desired results. If they
trary or autocratic supervision should no longer occur because supervisors as
do not, managers must take steps to close the performance gap. And, because
well as workers take their guidance from the "one best way" Finally, a standard•
somebody must be responsible for performance planning, data collection, and
ized task coupled with a standardized time for completing it provide the foun•
corrective action, Taylor's theory called for centralized planning with its atten•
dation for inducing motivation through the use of economic rewards.
dant separation between planning and doing work.
Economic Rewards
Centralized Planning and Control
A cornerstone of Taylor's theory of management is the use of economic re•
At the heart of scientific management theory lies the idea that operations can
wards to induce higher levels of productivity. Although he recognized that
and should be centrally planned and controlled by experts using scientific
many factors affect motivation, including fair treatment and opportunities for
methods. "The problem which faces modern scientific management,"Taylor
advancement, Taylor believed that only economic incentives are sufficiently
once said, "is the daily control and the direction of what at first appears to be
8 CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC MANA GE ME NT 8
an almost uncontrollable multitude of movements of men, of machines, of

small implements, of materials, and of parts in process."
2 6
He understood CRITICISM S OF
very well that it is one thing to discover the natural laws of production and quite SCIENTIFI C M A N A G E M E N T THEOR Y
another thing to enforce them. The latter requires the exercise of intense con•
trol. Consequently, the Taylor system called for a central planning office com• Scientific management theory has been criticized on both theoretical and
prising planners, efficiency experts, engineers, and clerks dedicated to practical grounds, and by contemporaries of Taylor as well as more recent the•
standardizing and controlling every aspect of production. Taylor intended that orists. The sections that follow discuss four of these criticisms: that it robbed
once these systems were in place control would be exercised as a matter of workers of human dignity by treating them as extensions of the machine, that
routine, largely independent of the managers themselves. it was hostile to the values and goals of organized labor, that it constituted no
At issue was not simply how to control the various aspects of production more than pseudoscience, and that it was overly obsessed with control at the
but who should do the controlling. The Taylor system was explicitly designed expense of human needs.
to take control of production away from the workers. Taylor states in his essay
on shop management that "we propose to take all of the important decisions Workers as Cogs in the Industrial Machine
and planning which vitally affect the output of the shop out of the hands of
Schools of thought are sometimes distinguished by a particular metaphor or
the workmen, and centralize them in a few men, each of who m is especially
image that captures how theorists view organizations. Trained in mechanical
28
trained in the art of making those decisions and seeing that they are carried
engineering, Taylor tended to view organizations as inert, rational machines
out " Although Taylor's critics appreciated the importance of increased ef•
2 7
and workers as cogs in the larger industrial apparatus. His more humanistic
ficiency, many of them objected strongly to the principle that workers should
critics argued that scientific management treated workers and machines in the
be totally excluded from planning and decision making. Taylor insisted, how•
same way, standardizing both and running them as fast as possible. That Taylor
ever, that his control-centered view of the employment relationship was justi•
intended to speed up the pace of work was clear to everyone who read his
fied by the fact that workers possessed neither the knowledge nor the will to
work, despite his frequent denials. At various times Taylor described scientific
discover the natural laws of production.
management as achieving "maximum speeds," "quickest times," and "the maxi•
mum productivity of each machine and ma:i."
Overview of Scientific Management Theory
For humanistic critics both then and now, treating workers as things to be
Taken together, these concepts represent a top-down, control-oriented ap• "engineered" like any other aspect of production dehumanizes and enslaves
proach to management in which workers are told exactly how to do their jobs them by robbing them of autonomy and personal dignity. As will be seen in
by management specialists and are rewarded financially for working as quickly later chapters, many of the organization theorists that came after Taylor em•
and efficiently as possible. According to his contemporary critics, as well as phasized the human and institutional costs arising from a mechanical view of
later generations of organization theorists, it is an approach that encourages a organizations.These concerns notwithstanding, the idea that organizations can
culture of distrust—distrust of the workers' commitment to organizational and should be designed to operate as well-oiled machines is a powerful one,
goals and distrust of their ability to decide for themselves how best to do their one that continues to shape management thinking today.
jobs. Whe n put into practice it redistributes power in the workplace so that
workers have less and managers more. Organized Labor's Counterattack
Although Taylor's critics were quick to point out the human and institu•
Members of organized labor criticized scientific management both because of
tional costs flowing from a top-down, control-oriented approach, scientific
its dehumanizing aspects and because it threatened their immediate interests.
management was undeniably successful in boosting industrial production in
The industrial harmony that Taylor had promised never materialized. Scien•
the early 1900s and was quickly adopted by industrialists in Europe, Japan, and
tific management evoked a counterattack from labor leaders for several rea•
Leninist Russia. Because Taylor's theory possesses a certain internal logic, it
sons. First, it threatened to reduce the scope of collective bargaining. The
continues to influence management thinking today, not just in factories but in
natural laws of production, according to Taylor, were not subject to debate.
office settings. It makes a certain amount of sense, after all, to set goals, system•
With wages, methods, and output determined by the planning room, scientific
atize operations, prescribe ways to perform tasks, set standards, measure perfor•
management left little for workers to bargain over. Second, scientific manage•
mance, and reward effort. An important question addressed in later schools of
ment put people out of work. Taylor was quite explicit about the savings in la•
thought is whether the more valuable methods of scientific management
bor costs that accrue as one worker is induced to accomplish what had
might not be applied to advantage in a less distrustful, less top-down and control-
previously been accomplished by two. Third, scientific management threatened
oriented manner.
to destroy the trade and craft unions. High wages for craftsmen could not be
8 CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC MAN AGE MENT 8
maintained if management succeeded in replacing them with unskilled work• tific management had been introduced. His final report documented the enor•
ers. Fourth, labor leaders believed that by denying workers an opportunity to mous gulf between theory and practice. Hoxie concluded that, although sci•
learn a trade, scientific management condemned them to a monotonous rou• entific management claimed to establish a code of natural laws equally binding
tine and deprived them of initiative and a sense of achievement.
29
upon employers and workers through careful scientific study, it generally failed
These concerns, taken together, caused labor leaders to view scientific to do so in practice.The methods used to select workers, determine the time
management as far more than a technical innovation. To them it represented a to complete tasks, and establish a fair day's wage were not truly scientific in na•
new system of authority and control, one that dehumanized workers, greatly ture. Tainted by value judgments, questionable inferences, and measurement er•
reduced their involvement in management decisions, and threatened to destroy rors, they amounted to little more than pseudoscience.
unions altogether.Thus, when scientific management rose to national promi• For example, Hoxie found the centerpiece of the Taylor system, time study
nence during the Eastern Rate Case of 1911, labor leaders decided they had no and task setting, to be much less scientific than its advocates claimed. Hoxie
choice but to counterattack. They focused their efforts on several government- concluded that "far from being the invariable and purely objective matters that
owned arsenals that were implementing the Taylor system. Labor leaders they are pictured, the methods and results of time study and task setting are, in
feared that if Taylorism was allowed to succeed in government it would practice, the special sport of individual judgment and opinion, subject to all
quickly catch hold in the private sector. Accordingly, they demonized scien• the possibilities of diversity, inaccuracy, and injustice that arise from human ig•
tific management in labor publications and encouraged workers in govern• norance and prejudice."
3 2
First, Hoxie wrote, even if time study can
ment arsenals to resist the introduction of the Taylor system. Late in the accurately measure the time in which a task could be performed, it cannot
summer of 1911 several molders at the Watertown Arsenal outside of Boston determine the time in which a task should be performed. The latter always calls for
went on strike for more than a week as a protest against the introduction of a value judgment. Taylor believed that all workers should meet the standard set by a
time study.
30
"first-class worker," but others believed work standards should be based on an

The molders at Watertown took their case directly to the House of Repre• "average, steady man."Value decisions such as these determined the pace at
sentatives, which immediately appointed a committee of three congressmen to which individuals had to work to earn their bonuses.
investigate the Taylor system. Hearings were held from October 4, 1911 to Hoxie also concluded that time study cannot determine with any degree
February 12, 1912, with Taylor testifying for four days in late January. The of accuracy the time in which a task could in fact be performed. For time
committee's final report identified problems with the use of the stopwatch but study to be truly scientific the investigator's judgment must not affect the re•
concluded that the adoption of any particular management system was an ad• sults.Yet Hoxie identified seventeen variables that may undermine scientific
ministrative decision. There was no reason to recommend corrective legisla• objectivity. On e of these is the investigator's level of knowledge about the
tion. Labor leaders nonetheless maintained pressure on Congress, and in 1915 work under study. Dwight Merrick, the time-study specialist at the Watertown
they succeeded in securing amendments to the Army and Navy appropriations Arsenal, possessed no knowledge of the work performed in the arsenal's
bills that outlawed the use of the stopwatch in government installations. This foundry. In the wake of the Watertown strike he was asked how he had deter•
prohibition continued in effect until 1949. mined that the task under investigation could be performed in 24 minutes
After Taylor's death in 1915 scientific management advocates gradually when it traditionally had taken 53 minutes. His response was that he had sim•
made peace with organized labor. Although Taylor believed that industrial ply guessed at which motions were unnecessary or wasteful: "I was more or
democracy and scientific management were inherently opposed, most of his less at a loss to know what time to set upon the job, but I am very confident
followers did not. In the aftermath of the Watertown strike they applauded the that I didn't get a true observation. .. . I felt that 30 minutes was too long a
government arsenals for allowing collective bargaining over piecerates, setting time for it, and I made a guess at 24 minutes."
33
up labor-management committees, and establishing formal grievance systems. Lastly, Hoxie found that the economic surplus resulting from increased pro•
By the 1920s the Taylor Society had become the foremost advocate of union- duction was not divided between employers and workers on the basis of sci•
management cooperation. 31
ence. Productivity often increased between 200 and 300 percent, whereas wages
were set at between 30 and 100 percent above prevailing market wages. In prac•
Scientific Management as Pseudoscience tice, wage setting seemed to reflect a clear value judgment: Wages should be set
at the lowest level at which full cooperation from workers could be secured. As
Scientific management was also criticized in the early 1900s as being far from noted earlier,Taylor believed high wages only encouraged moral decay.
scientific. In 1914 the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, a study com• Hoxie's characterization of scientific management as pseudoscience was
mission created by Congress, appointed Robert F. Hoxie to investigate the ap• not intended to discredit the theory itself. He personally believed that the de•
parently irreconcilable claims of organized labor and scientific management.
struction of craft unions was inevitable, that scientific management offered a
During the early months of 1915 Hoxie visited thirty-five shops where scien-
relatively progressive approach to management, and that new social-science
techniques would be developed to place management on a more rational ba• not share Taylor's emphasis on control, maximum work pace, and hostility to
sis. To a certain extent Hoxie simply documented the failure of employers to labor unions. No r did they pursue changes in the workplace with an all-or-
implement scientific management in accordance with Taylor's instructions.
nothing attitude; any improvements were cause for rejoicing.
Nonetheless, his findings tended to undermine key aspects of the theory itself.
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth offered the clearest alternative to Taylorism. To
For example, if the best ways to perform work cannot be reduced to scientifi•
the Gilbreths, motion study was superior to time study in both purpose and
cally determined laws without entailing fundamental value judgments, then
principle. Frank Gilbreth succeeded in increasing productivity dramatically in
the justification for refusing to involve workers in policy and operational deci•
his clients' firms simply through the elimination of unnecessary motions. Frank
sions is greatly undermined.
and Lillian believed that workers did not need to be speeded up. Fewer mo •
tions, rather than quicker motions, was the key. Productivity could be increased
Taylor's Obsession with Control significantly, they argued, by selecting good workers, showing them how to
An early biography of Taylor written by Frank Copley paints a vivid picture of perform their tasks efficiently, and turning them loose to use their skills to best
a personality defined by a strong work-centered morality and an obsession advantage. Although their approach also involved systematizing the workplace,
with control. 3 4
Taylor clearly placed a high value on hard work, self- the value toward which their efforts aimed was, first and foremost, efficiency
discipline, and orderliness. Whether gardening, playing golf, or managing a rather than control. In short, Taylorism and scientific management were not
factory,Taylor sought to reduce every aspect of his life to a well-ordered system for altogether synonymous. Many progressive reformers of the early 1900s could
accom• plishing his purposes. He also tended to embrace ideas with the see beyond Taylor's personal obsession with control to those aspects of scien•
fanaticism of an extremist. His obsession with rationality and control no doubt tific management that represented long-overdue and constructive management
influenced his theory of scientific management. It is apparent, for example, in the reforms.
estab• lishment of a planning room to coordinate and control every aspect of pro•
duction, in the use of eight functional foremen to enforce the natural laws of
production, in reliance upon an especially punitive pay-for-performance sys• SCIENTIFI C MANAGEMEN T
tem to induce maximum individual productivity, in an absolute refusal to give
I N TH E P U B L I C S E C T O R
voice to workers except as isolated individuals, and in an insistence that clients
adopt every element of his system.
In the early 1900s progressive reformers seized upon scientific management as
For Taylor, simplifying, standardizing, and systematizing were necessary but a means of reducing graft, corruption, and waste in government. Whe n the re•
not sufficient conditions for maximizing output. In addition, workers had to form mayor of Philadelphia asked Taylor to head the city's public works de•
be made to work at their "quickest speeds." Tasks were to be set at levels at partment in 1911, Taylor recommended Morris L. Cooke for the job. Cooke
which workers had to concentrate hard and continuously on the task at hand. saw this as an opportunity to showcase scientific management and to demon•
Workers were to be prohibited from speaking to each other so as not to inter• strate the relevance of Taylor's four principles to government. But, whereas
3 6
rupt each other's concentration. And, because workers were inclined to restrict the Taylor system of shop management centered on the elimination of soldier•
output and were generally ignorant of how to perform their tasks well, all con• ing, scientific management in the public sector emphasized standardization, fact-
trol had to reside with management. based decision making, and the search for better work methods. At the public
Unfortunately, Taylor's personality and training as an engineer created blind works department, for example, Cooke studied how to pave streets and remove
spots regarding basic human needs. Approaching every problem from a techni• snow more efficiently. He also collected data to show that the utility companies were
cal orientation, he "saw no reason for introducing psychological, humanistic, not satisfying their contractual obligations to the city. Taylor and Cooke viewed
or philosophic factors into a system which he considered as complete and suf• efficiency as an important value, but only as a means to an end. In the factory
ficient." His responses to questions put to hi m by member s of the Special
35
the goal was to increase production. In the public agency, by contrast, the goal
House Committee investigating Taylorism showed little appreciation for the was to improve the agency's responsiveness to public de• mands, including the
potential human costs of dividing work narrowly, increasing the pace of work, demand for a certain level of service delivered in an effi• cient and effective
and refusing to allow employees to participate in decision making. Taylor's work- manner. Being responsive required systematic and scientific study of how to deliver
centered morality and obsession with control were responsible for much of the services better and how to measure agency perfor• mance. In short, Cooke
resistance to scientific management by labor unions and humanists. viewed scientific management as a vehicle for fulfill• ing the promises of
It is important to emphasize, however, that Taylor's personal obsession with democracy.
control was not a defining characteristic of the larger scientific management The impact of scientific management in the public sector may have been
movement. Other advocates, most of who m were also trained as engineers, did much smaller had it not been for the Progressive reform movement and the
SCIENTIFIC MAN AGEMEN T
8 CHAPTER
municipal research bureaus.The first of these bureaus, the Ne w York Bureau of the assumption that everything can and should be managed. The final question
Municipal Research, was established in 1906. Others soon followed in Chicago, for us to consider is whether this top-down, control-oriented theory of man•
Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia. The leaders of these bureaus were agement holds any relevance for public agencies.
strong advocates of scientific management. They worked to systematize and stan•
dardize government operations using scientific methods much as Taylor had
done in manufacturing firms. Their primary aim was to conduct the kind of re•
search, and gather the kind of information, that would improve government effi• R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N
ciency and allow citizens to hold elected officials accountable for government's T
performance. The innovations they helped introduce into government are nu•
merous.They include standardized accounting procedures, standardized job de• The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of scientific management
scriptions and salary structures, individual performance appraisal techniques, theory for public management and agency performance using the three ana•
agency performance standards, standardized statistical reporting of performance lytical frameworks introduced in Chapter 3.
data, centralized purchasing of supplies, comprehensive planning, management
training, survey research, and systematic policy analysis and program evaluation. Models of Organizational Effectiveness
Originally designed "to drive waste out of city government and to make As indicated by the shaded quadrants in Exhibit 5.1, scientific management
graft unprofitable," these innovations soon became standard features of p ub •
37
theory emphasizes the values associated with the rational goal and internal
lic management. The interest in maximizing efficiency spread quickly to the process models, most notably efficiency, productivity, and predictability. Lo•
state and federal levels as well. In 1910 President Taft established the Commis• cated at the bottom of Quinn's framework, these quadrants are clearly biased
sion on Economy and Efficiency to improve the transaction of pubhc business toward control at the expense of flexibility. The rational goal mode l empha•
in all federal departments, and many state and local governments established sizes planning and goal setting as means, and efficiency and productivity as
similar commissions. ends. This model is reflected in Taylor's beliefs that planning and goal setting
must be centralized in the hands of management and that every aspect of work
must be designed to increase output.
SCIENTIFI C MANAGEMEN T THEOR The values associated with the internal process m od e l are also apparent
in Taylor's theory of scientific management. As indicated in Exhibit 5.1, this
Y I N PERSPECTIV E model emphasizes the use of formal communications and information man•
agement systems to ensure that work processes are carried out in a rational and
It became fashionable among scholars in the late 1940s to demean Taylor's predictable manner. This model is reflected in Taylor's efforts to maximize pre•
contribution to organization theory because of his patronizing attitude toward dictability by systematizing internal processes, routinizing work, and monitor•
workers, his rather limited understanding of human psychology, his vehement ing work performance. The development and use of information management
opposition to unions, his obsession with control, and his blindness to the de• systems is one of scientific management's most enduring contributions to
humanizing effects of simplifying and standardizing work. Prior to this time,
3 8
management practice.
scientific management had generally been viewed as a modern approach to
Although efficiency, productivity, and predictability are important values,
management, one which was quite progressive in its concern for doing things
scientific management's emphasis on the goal attainment and integrative
more efficiently, training and developing workers, and replacing autocratic
functions is troubling in two respects. First, managers who focus on integra•
management with the rule of law. The advocates of scientific management
tion and goal attainment may do so at the expense of the adaptive function.
who attended Taylor Society meetings were willing to separate Taylor's core
For example, standard operating procedures defining the one best way often
concepts—standardization of work, performance measurement, pay-for-
create rigidities that undermine the organization's ability to adapt successfully
performance, ekmination of waste, and centralized planning—from his personal
to changing circumstances. Taylor's theory showed little awareness of the en•
and philosophical prejudices. Today there are many who continue to regard
vironment outside of the organization or the importance of individual dis•
these core concepts as important contributors to organizational performance.
cretion in helping organizations adapt to change. A theory that aims to make
Nonetheless, when scientific management is viewed as a set of value-laden man and machine operate like clockwork has limited applicability for public
ideas rather than value-neutral methods, it begins to appear in a much less pro• agencies because they often function in turbulent and politicized environ•
gressive light. Understood as a theory of management, scientific management
ments in which goals, technologies, and situational factors are constantly
calls for centralized planning and control, routinization of work, withholding
changing. In such environments it is very difficult to standardize work and
of discretion and initiative, and reliance on extrinsic motivators. And it rests on
formalize rules and still maintain the capacity to adapt successfully to chang•
SCIENTIFIC MAN AGEMEN T
8 CHAPTER
ing conditions.
8 CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC MANA GE ME NT 8
E x h i b i t 5.1 Th e C o m p e t i n g V alu e s F r a m e w o r k : sions. Scientific management's inattention to the values of openness, trust, and so•
Four M odel s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E ff ec ti ven es s cial cohesion limit its relevance for most organizations, public and private.
Flexibility Mechanisms for Coordinating

and Controlling Work Activities
management function: the need to to acquire resources and adapt As indicated in Exhibit 5.2, scientific management relies on standardization
maintain a competent, integrated, to an uncertain environment of work processes to coordinate and control work activities. Work is pro•
and dedicated workforce grammed in advance of its execution by developing standard operating
Means oriented
:
values: Means-oriented values: procedures specifying how each task is to be performed. Workers are expected
HUMAN to follow the mandated procedures to the letter. Coordination is built into the
cohesion, flexibility, OPEN
RELATIONS
morale readiness SYSTEMS work process itself and control is exercised by strictly kmiting each worker's dis•
MODEL
MODEL cretion, so that mistakes are kept to a minimum and workers do not flounder
about trying to determine how best to perform their assigned tasks. Although
human resource growth,
development resource acquisition the chain of command is very much in evidence, the use of impersonal controls
such as standard operating procedures reduces the need for direct supervision
Internal External and, at least in theory, reduces conflict between supervisors and workers.
Output Quality
focus focus
Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values: E xh ib i t 5.2 Si x M e c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d C o n t r o l l i n g Wo r k A c t iv it i e s

INTERNAL info, management, planning, RATIONAL
PROCESS communication goal setting GOAL Mutual adjustment Workers consult with each other informally about what
MODEL MODEL needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor•
Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values: dination and control rests with those who do the work.
Direct supervision A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of
control efficiency workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte•
Integrative function: the need to Coal attainment function: the need personal instructions and monitors individual performance.
coordinate and control work to focus efforts on goal attainment
activities Standardization of Work is programmed in advance of its execution by
work processes developing rules and standard operating procedures speci•
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina•
Control tion is built into the work process itself and control is
SOUR CE: Adapted with permission from Figures 3 and 4, Robert O. Quinn and John Rohrbaugh, "A Spatial Model
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The Institute of Managem ent Sciences, now the Institute for Operations
Standardization of Work outputs are programmed in advance by providing
Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090- work outputs each work group with product specifications or perfor•
2909 USA. mance goals and allowing members considerable latitude in
needed, and rewarding and sanctioning workers based on
results achieved.
Second, managers who focus on the integration and goal attainment func•
Standardization of Workers are employed who possess the knowledge and
tions may do so at the expense of the pattern maintenance/tension management skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in•
worker skills
functions. More specifically, efficiency and productivity may be achieved at the stitutions and professional associations are relied upon to
expense of openness, trust, and social cohesion. Although Gantt, Cooke, and the provide standardized training. Professionally trained work•
ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling.
Gilbreths recognized the importance of pattern maintenance and tension man•
agement, the same cannot be said for Taylor. Inclined to take a purely technical Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear
view of management, Taylor demonstrated little understanding of human needs of values vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should
or the importance of creating a supportive social environment at work. While he and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational
stressed employee competence, he largely ignored cohesion and commitment. He members to shared, internalized values and ideals.
believed, rather naively, that if he could induce cooperation through economic SO URCE: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7).
rewards, employee relations would be free of conflict and other institutional ten-
9 CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC MAN AGEMENT 9
Standardization of work processes is most relevant to those agencies that Exhi bi t 5.3 Fou r M ot i va tio n al S tr at eg i e s
Wilson calls production agencies. In these agencies conditions are stable and
the work is simple, routine, and predictable. Work includes such things as de• Legal Compliance
termining the eligibility of public assistance applicants, generating Social Se• Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior.
curity checks, processing tax returns, and reviewing applications for licenses Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require•
and permits. The work performed in most public agencies, however, is com• being sanctioned.
plex and nonroutine, and requires considerable independent judgment. It is
not the kind of work that can be preprogrammed and routinized without un•
dermining organizational effectiveness. In addition, much government work is
performed in ambiguous and uncertain environments in which the machine Rewards for Performance
metaphor breaks down completely, further limiting the relevance of this mech• Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance.
anism of coordination and control. and psychological satisfactions that money, advancement, and recognition can
Scientific management also relies on standardization of work outputs provide.
as a mechanism of coordination and control. The efficiency expert not only Considerate Leadership
determines how to perform tasks efficiently but also how long it should take
to produce a certain amount of work output. When this analysis is completed, ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those
workers are given production quotas that they are expected to meet, as well as who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or
performance standards relating to product or service quality. According to the
logic of scientific management, the accomplishment of each individual's per• Group Acceptance
formance standards then contributes in coordinated fashion to the attainment Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group
of the organization's overall objectives. Control is exercised by collecting per•
formance data and mandating corrective action to close any gaps between ac• ing that group norms are consistent with organizational objectives.
tual and desired levels of performance.
Job Identification
Standardization of work outputs is much more relevant for public agencies
than standardization of work processes because it is better suited to complex to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and
tasks requiring high levels of discretion. Often mandated for use in government innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their
today under the banner of managing for results, it involves identifying desired
outputs or outcomes and measuring how well they are attained. Unfortunately, Goal Congruence
it tends to be effective only where the agency's outputs and outcomes are read• Hiring employees whose goals and values are congruent with the organization's
ily observable, a criterion that many agencies cannot satisfy.Thus, although stan•
dardization of work outputs is appropriate for complex tasks requiring high quirements, and exhibit greater creativity, innovativeness, and institutional loyalty.
levels of discretion, it is not equally relevant to all public agencies and may have They may do so because they identify with the organization's mission and values and
because contributing to them reinforces their own self-concept.
the effect of steering behaviors toward those things that are easily measured at
the expense of those that are not (see Chapter 10 for examples). SOURCE: Based in large part on Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations (Wiley,
1966), pp. 336-68.
Motivational Strategies
As indicated in Exhibit 5.3, scientific management relies primarily on the in•
strumental rewards strategy to motivate employees. Pay bonuses are dis•
ambition. He believed it alone could create the essential identity of interest be•
tributed to workers who meet or exceed performance standards. Taylor
tween workers and employers in keeping output as high as possible.
believed pay is important to workers because it is instrumental in helping them
Although pay-for-performance has been adopted by a growing number
achieve their personal goals, goals that lie primarily outside of the workplace.
of public agencies in recent years, there are limits to its use and effectiveness
Management can take advantage of this fact, Taylor believed, by making pay
as a motivational strategy. First, there is the threshold issue of whether an
contingent on performance. Although he recognized that other factors influ•
agency has the authority to offer pay bonuses. As noted in Chapter 2, agen•
ence motivation, he insisted that only monetary incentives have the power to
cies operate within larger authority systems.They can do only what the law
eliminate soldiering. He characterized the pay bonus as "a plum for [workers]
allows them to do and with the resources that are made available to them. Al•
to climb after." For Taylor the plum symbohzed an appeal to self-interest
3 9
though the recent managing-for-results movement has increased the number

and
of pay-for-performance systems in use, most agencies still do not have the

elusion is one of the most enduring contributions of scientific manage•
necessary authority or resources.
ment. In the early 1900s the municipal research bureaus and President
Second, pay-for-performance has its greatest relevance in those agencies
Taft's Commission on Economy and Efficiency demonstrated the value of
where outcomes are readily observable and measurable. These are primarily
ekminating wasted time, effort, and resources in public agencies.
the agencies that James Q.Wilson calls production and craft agencies. In other
agencies it is very difficult to develop fair and accurate performance appraisal • Putting management on a "rational" basis. Reflecting the values of
systems. Morale quickly deteriorates where employees cannot see a clear rela• the rational goal and internal process models of effectiveness, scientific
tionship between what they accomplish and the pay that is distributed as re• management theory emphasizes the importance of planning, goal-setting,
wards for performance. scheduling, systematizing, measuring, and monitoring. These remain stan•
Third, there is some evidence that the use of extrinsic rewards actually di• dard elements in many textbook discussions of "good management" and
verts attention from intrinsic satisfactions. Based on laboratory experiments, thus represent an enduring contribution to both public and private orga•
Edward Deci concluded that the greater the use of extrinsic rewards, the greater nizations. However, several of the schools of thought discussed in later
the decrease in intrinsic motivation. As noted in Chapter 2, most public
4 0 chapters emphasize the problems that arise when rational values are pur•
agen• cies comprise large numbers of well-educated, technical and professional sued at the expense of human values.
employees who often desire growth, autonomy, and the intrinsic rewards that • Standardization of work. Scientific management theory relies heavily
come with task accomplishment. Pay-for-performance may not be the most on standardization of work as a method of control. Although this remains
effective strategy for motivating these employees. an option for public agencies, its usefulness is probably limited to those
Scientific management theory places secondary emphasis on the legal situations where employees are relatively uneducated, work is simple and
compliance strategy. According to Taylor, workers under scientific manage• routine, and the external environment is more or less stable. As we will see
ment are expected to obey orders and instructions promptly. They are ex• in later chapters, some schools of organization theory are vehemently op•
pected to obey, however, not so much because supervisors possess formal posed to the principle of separating planning from doing. In their view,
authority but because the orders and instructions encompass the natural laws work standardization prevents workers from exercising discretion, denies
of production. If everyone takes their guidance from these laws, the legal com• them opportunities to participate in decision making, and thus robs them
pliance strategy need not degenerate into an authoritarian form of manage• of the intrinsic rewards that participation and the exercise of discretion
ment. Supervisors need not insist on obedience simply because they are "the can bring.
boss." And "the whip" need not be required to back up "the plum." Nonethe• • E co n o m i c rewards. Scientific management theory advocates the use of
less, Taylor's reliance on instrumental rewards and legal compliance reflected a economic rewards as a means of inducing maximum individual productivity.
pessimistic view of human nature. He assumed, for example, that most workers Although other schools of thought place greater faith in the use of intrinsic
will not provide a fair day's work unless they are induced to do so. As we shall rewards for purposes of motivation, the use of economic rewards remains a
see in Chapters 12 and 13, human resources theorists would find this assump• viable option for public agencies. Because the logic behind their use is com•
tion particularly troublesome. pelling, many public agencies chose to adopt pay-for-performance systems
in the wake of the recent managing-for-results movement.
Some students of organization theory find it easy to reject, even condemn,

SUMMAR Y scientific management theory. Others admit to a certain ambivalence. Because
scientific management can be understood in more than one way, both kinds of
Understood as a theory of organizational effectiveness, scientific management responses are understandable.Viewed as a general business orientation, sci•
theory asserts that work output and productivity can be increased by system• entific management calls for systematizing operations, ferreting out waste,
atizing work processes, dividing work into narrowly defined tasks, determin• searching for better ways of doing things, and using performance data to keep
ing the "one best way" to perform each task, training workers in the "one best the organization on track. From this perspective scientific management is a
way," setting performance standards, measuring actual performance, and offer• way of doing things that transcends the factory setting in which the Taylor sys•
ing economic incentives for surpassing daily production quotas. Among the tem was born, a way of doing things that has relevance and value for all orga•
most important implications ofTaylor's theory for public management and or• nizations. In the early 1900s, for example, advocates of scientific management
ganizational performance are the following: reduced corruption in government and made agencies more responsive to the
people by introducing standardized classification and pay systems, modern ac•
• Elimination of waste. Productivity can be increased by ferreting out counting and budgeting procedures, and more efficient and less wasteful work
and ekminating waste from all work processes and procedures. This con- operations.
9 CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC MA NAGEMEN T 9
However, scientific management can also be viewed as a prescriptive, value- 21 . Taylor, Principles of Scientific Manage• 32 . Hoxi e , Scientific Management and Labor,
laden theory of ma na ge me nt. Because of ideological biases such as distrust ment, 130, not e 1. 40 .
of human motives and insistence on orderliness and control, this view is much 22 . Frede ri ck W.Taylor, "T h e Principles 33 . Q u o t e d in Ait ken, Taylorism at Water-
more controversial and its relevance and value for public agencies much less of Scientific M a n a g e m e n t , " in Jay M. town Arsenal, 147 .
Shafritz and J. Steven Ott , Classics of Orga•
certain. It calls for narrow division of labor, routinization of work, limited dis• 34. See Copley, Frederick W.Taylor, vol. 1.
nization Theory (Orlando, FL: H ar co ur t,
cretion, and use of extrinsic rewards. In the opinion of many, these structural el• 2001), 65 . 35. . L. P. Afford, Henry Laurence Gantt:
ements tend to discourage initiative, deny workers opportunities for personal Leader in Industry (Ne w York: A me ri c a n
23 . Ad a m Smith, The Wealth of Nations
growth, rob the organization of the full value of its human resources, and un• Society of Mechanical E ngineers, 1934),
( N e w Y o r k : R a n d o m H ou se , 1937), 3 - 1 0 . 130.
dermine the organization's capacity to adapt successfully to change.
24 . Joh n E. Kelly, Scientific Management, Job
As a general business orientation, scientific management is almost synony• 36. . M or ri s L. Co ok e , "Scientific
Redesign and Work Performance (L ondon:
M a n a g e • men t of the Public Sector,"
mous with "good management practice" and consequently has much to offer Ac ad em ic Press, 1982), 1 9-24 .
American Polit• ical Science Review 9 (August
public agencies. But as a prescriptive theory of management, orthodox Tay- 25 . Babbage, Economy of Manufacturers and 1915),
lorism may create the same problems as Weberian orthodoxy. Managers who Machinery. See discussion in Copley, Fred• 48 8-9 5 .
are steeped in the assumptions of scientific management theory may find it erick W.Taylor, vol. 1, 278 .
37. . H e n r y Bruere, "Efficiency in Cit y
difficult to imagine that self-direction and self-management are possible, or 26. . Taylor, quoted in Copley, Frederick G o v e r n m e n t , " Annals of the American Acad•
that employees can be motivated without either pushing from behind or W. Taylor, vol. 1,358 . emy of Political and Social Sciences 41 (May
1912), 15 .
pulling from in front. In the final analysis, scientific management theory en• 27. . Ibid.
courages a top-down, control-oriented approach to management that may 28 . Gareth M o rg a n , Images of Organization 38. . See discussion in H i n d y Lauer
Schachter, Frederick Taylor and the Public
have limited relevance for public agencies because of the political uncertainties (Th ou sa nd Oaks, CA : Sage, 1997).
Administration Community:A Reevaluation
they face, the ambiguity of their goals, the complex nature of their tasks, the 29. . R o b e r t Franklin Hoxie, Scientific (Ne w York: State University of Ne w York
unique characteristics of their workforces, and the difficulties inherent in mea• Man• agement and Labor (Ne w York: D. Press, 1989).
Ap pl et o n and Co mp an y, 1918), 15 .
suring their outputs and outcomes. 39. . Q u o t e d in Copley, Frederick W.Taylor.
30. . H u g h G.J. Aitken, Taylorism at
vol. 1, 3 2 1 - 2 2 .
Water- town Arsenal (C ambridge : Harvard
Un i ve r • sity Press, 1960). 40. . Ed wa r d L. Deci, Intrinsic Motivation
( N e w Y o rk : P l e n u m Press, 1975).
31 . Aitken, Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal,
NOTE S
237 .
1. Frank B. Copley, Frederick W.Taylor: 25 (1904), 4 9 - 6 2 .

Father of Scientific Management (Ne w York:
H a rp e r and Brothers, 1923).
2. Judith A. Merkle, Management and Ideol•
ogy :The Legacy of the International Scientific
Management Movement (Berkeley: Un i v e r •
sity of California Press, 1980), 2 1 - 2 2 .
3. Copley, Frederick W.Taylor, vol. 2, 372 .
4. M erkl e, Management and Ideology, 58 .
5. Copley, Frederick W.Taylor, vol. 1, 222 .
6. . Fred erick W T a y l o r , " A Pi ece-rate
Sys• tem," Transactions of the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers 16 (1895), 8 5 6 -
83 .
7. . Frederick W.Taylor, " O n the Art of
C u t t i n g Metals," Transactions of the Ameri•
can Society of Mechanical Engineers 28
(1906), 3 1 - 3 5 ; Carl G. Bart h, "S li d e Rule s
for the M a ch i n e Sho p as a Part of the Tay•
lor System of M a n a g e m e n t , " Transactions of
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
9 CHAPTER SCIENTIFIC MA NAGEMEN T 9
8. .
. 9. . Frederick W.Taylor, "Sho p M a n a g e •
ment, " Transactions of the American Society of
T Mechanical Engineers 24 (1903), 1358 .
a 10. Taylor, "Sho p Management,"1361-62 .
y 11. . H. L. Gantt, Industrial Leadership (Ne
l w Haven:Yale University Press, 1916), 89 .
o
12. Frederick WT a y l o r , The Principles of
r
Scientific Management (Ne w York: N o r t o n ,
,
1967), 90 .
13. . Tayl or, " A Piece-rate System," 872 .
"
O 14. Taylor, " A Piece-rate System," 873 .
15. . Taylor, " A Piece-rat e System," 856 .
n 16. Taylor, " A Piece-rat e System," 858 .

17. Taylor, "Sh o p M a n a g e m e n t , " 1348 .
t 18. . T aylor," Shop M a n a g e m e n t , " ! 3 4 6 .

h 19. Taylor, "Sho p M a n a g e m e n t , " 1346 .
e
20. . Taylor, "Sho p M a n a g e m e n t , " 1 391 .
A
r
o
f
C
u
t
t
i
n
M
e
t
a
l
s
,
"
5
5
ADMINISTRATIVE MANA GE MENT
9
Henri Fayol 1841-1925
Administrative Henri Fayol was born in France in

1841. After graduating from the
1
Na• tional School of Mines at St.

dustrial Management, a lengthy pa•
per published in French in 1916 but
not widely available in English until
Etienne in 1860, he was hired by the 1949. After retiring in 1918 at the age
Management Theory coal• mining firm of Commentry-

Fourchambault as a mining engineer.
of 77, Fayol founded the Center of
Administrative Studies to spur devel•
He remained with this company opment of an authoritative literature
throughout his career, becoming di• dealing with general management.
Fayol, Mooney, and Gulick

rector of a group of pits in 1872 and Fayol also undertook to apply his prin•
managing director of the entire ciples of administration to the public
company in 1888. Fayol brought the sector. He released the results of his in•
company back from the brink of bank• vestigation of the Department of Posts
ruptcy and oversaw its continued and Telegraphs in 1921 and was en•
growth through the end of the First gaged in a study of the government-
World War. He attributed his success owned tobacco industry at the time
to adherence to a few basic principles of his death in 1925 at the age
which he described in General and In• of 84.
H E NR I F A Y O L ' S T H E O R Y O F G E N E R A L
A
MANAGEMEN T
s Frederick Taylor was developing his system for rationalizing task per•
formance on the shop floor, other theorists were searching for ways to
The growing size and complexity of public and private institutions in the late
rationalize the design and management of the organization as a whole.
1800s and early 1900s created a simultaneous awareness in Europe and the
These theorists constituted a highly diverse group of individuals, including a
United States of the importance of establishing management as a distinct pro•
French coal-mining executive, a vice president at General Motors, and a pro•
fession supported by a body of research-based knowledge. In 1886 Henry
fessor of public administration at Columbia University. The theory of organi•
Towne urged the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to establish a
zational effectiveness implicit in their writings calls for a highly formalized
special section for developing such a body of knowledge. Across the
2
administrative structure characterized by clear lines of authority and responsi•

Atlantic a business executive in the coal-mining industry named Henri Fayol also
bility running from top to bottom, a clear and distinct division of labor among
rec• ognized the importance of developing a body of knowledge to support the
departments, and delegation of power and authority to administrators com•
training of professional managers.
mensurate with their responsibilities.
Fayol was appalled that general managers, typically trained in specialized
This chapter examines three closely related literatures that capture the
fields such as engineering, had to learn for themselves how to manage com•
essence and evolution of administrative management theory. The first centers
plex organizations. No authoritative set of principles or bodies of knowledge
on the search for fundamental principles of management and administrative
existed to guide them. Nor were the educational institutions in France doing
structure. It is represented by Henri Fayol's General and Industrial Management
anything to equip future leaders to carry out their managerial responsibilities.
(1916) and James D. Mooney and Alan C. Reiley's Onward Industry! (1931).
Even in the colleges of civil engineering, syllabi contained no reference to
A second literature applies the principles identified by Fayol and Mooney to
management. Professional training could not begin, Fayol concluded, until a
the organization and management of government's executive branch. It is
widely accepted theory of management was developed:
represented by Luther Gulick's "Notes on the Theory of Organization,"
which was published in 1937. A third literature draws on the efforts of gov• The real reason for the absence of management teaching in our vocational
ernment research bureaus to formulate basic administrative principles for schools is absence of theory; without theory no teaching is possible. No w
public agencies in general. The chapter closes with analysis of the relevance there exists no generally accepted theory of management emanating from
of administrative management theory for public management and organiza• general discussion. There is no shortage of personal theorizing, but failing
tional performance. any accepted theory each one thinks that he has the best methods and
ADMINISTRATIVE MA NA G E ME NT 1
CHAPTER
everywhere there may be observed—in industry, the army, the home,

nizational units, and building a hierarchy of authority in which managers at
the state—the most contradictory practices under the aegis of the same
each level supervise an appropriate number of subordinates, all based on the
principle The situation might be quite otherwise were there an ac•
size and needs of the organization.
cepted theory, that is to say, a collection of principles, rules, methods,
C o m m a n d i n g means keeping the organization moving down the path to•
procedures, tried and checked by general experience. 3
ward the realization of organizational objectives. According to Fayol, this re•

Although a busy executive, Fayol took it upon liirnself to develop such a the• ory— quires communicating goals, motivating employees to perform assigned tasks
a theory specifying sound administrative principles and the methods for putting diligently and enthusiastically, and discharging those found to be incompetent.
them into practice. He published his theory in 1916 under the tide Gen• eral and Coordinating means unifying and harmonizing all activity and effort. This re•
Industrial Management and in 1918 he established the Center of Adminis• trative Studies quires making sure that every worker has an assigned task, every unit has an as•
to encourage ongoing discussion of management issues. Today Fayol is generally signed function, and the efforts of every individual and unit contribute
regarded as one of the great pioneers in the field of manage• ment. Not only did he harmoniously to achieving organizational objectives.The "excellent" organiza•
define management as a function common to all forms of human association, but he tion, Fayol states, is one whose "interrelated parts move in unison toward the
also developed the first general theory of management. As outlined in the following, same end." Finally, controlli ng means seeing to it that everything occurs
5
Fayol's theory is comprised of four components: or• ganizational activities, management in conformity with established rules, directives, plans, and schedules. Managers, ac•
functions, administrative principles, and methods for putting principles into cording to Fayol, must monitor the work of those below them and hold them
operation. accountable without encroaching on their delegated spheres of authority.
Fayol insisted that these functional responsibilities do not belong to a sin•
Organizational Activities gle individual such as the chief executive. Rather, they belong to all persons
serving in a supervisory capacity. The higher the position in the hierarchy of
Governing an organization, Fayol wrote, is not the same as managing it. Gov• authority, the more the supervisor's time is allocated to one or more of these
erning involves six kinds of activities, and manager ial activities comprise
functional responsibilities. According to Fayol, the ability of managers as a
only one of these six. Among industrial concerns, the other five are technical
group to fulfill these responsibilities constitutes the key to organizational suc•
activities (relating to the production of goods and services), commercial ac•
cess. In his words, "The chief features of an efficient administration are almost
tivities (relating to buying and selling), financial activities (relating to rais•
exclusively managerial in character. It is acknowledged, indeed, that whe n
ing and expending capital), security activities (relating to the protection of
foresight, organization, command, coordination, and control are effectively ex•
property and persons), and ac counti ng activities (relating to the tracking of
ercised throughout the concern, all duties will be duly performed and the run•
profit and losses). The nature of these activities, Fayol acknowledged, varies
ning of the concern assured." 6
somewhat according to the type of organization. Most government agencies,

for example, do not manufacture and sell products but they do enter into ex•
change relationships of some kind. Similarly they may not raise capital but they Administrative Principles
do need to secure funding. To initiate the much-needed dialogue about managerial effectiveness, Fayol
Of these six sets of activities, Fayol found managerial activities to be especially identified fourteen principles that had served him well as a chief executive.
important. It is through management that the other sets of activities are harmo• These principles are identified in Exhibit 6.1 along with summary statements
nized, thereby facilitating the accomplishment of organizational objectives. intended to capture Fayol's meaning.
To assess his theory fairly, it is necessary to ask what Fayol meant by the
Managerial Functions term principle. Because the term often refers to a fundamental truth or rule of
correct conduct that allows individuals to make appropriate choices in vari•
In Fayol's words, "to manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, ous situations, some commentators concluded that Fayol intended his four•
to coordinate and to control." This brief statement encapsulates the first m o d •
4
teen principles as universal truths capable of generating solutions to problems

ern statement of management's essential functions. Planning, according to in all organizations and in all situations. It appears, however, that Fayol viewed
Fayol, means forecasting future events or trends that may impact the organiza•
these principles as universal truths only in the sense that they can provide
tion and making provision for them in the organization's plan of action. This guidance to all managers in all organizations. He did not view them as pre•
plan provides for the optimal use of the organization's resources and identifies
scribing universal solutions. For example, he believed that all complex orga•
the methods for achieving organizational objectives. It ensures unity of direc• nizations must divide work if they are to achieve their objectives with any
tion for all organizational members. Organizing means establishing the struc•
degree of efficiency, but he did not claim that the division of work principle
ture of the undertaking, both material and human. Among other things, could prescribe how to divide work or what degree of specialization to adopt.
organizing involves dividing work among members, creating appropriate orga-
He understood that the application of a principle depends upon the situation
ADMINISTRATIVE MA NA G E ME NT 1
CHAPTER
Exhibi t 6.1 Fayol' s Fo ur t een A d m i n i s t r a t i v e Principl es

Administrative Methods
1. Division of work. All complex organizations must assign fixed tasks to its mem•
bers to profit from the advantages of specialization. Having adopted the machine metaphor often found in classical theory, Fayol
2. Authority and responsibility. Authority gives rise to responsibility; good leaders argued that top managers must develop an administrative apparatus for imple•
menting administrative principles on a daily basis. This apparatus comprises
9
must exercise both formal and personal authority and must sanction those who
do not fulfill their assigned responsibilities. methods that keep the organization on track and facilitate administrative im•
3. Discipline. Leaders must maintain discipline if the organization is to function ef• provements. The survey is an investigation that produces a description of the
ficiently and effectively; obedience, loyalty, and dedication must be obtained
from all members in accordance with employer-employee agreements. organization's history, its current resources and needs, and the prevailing social,
4. Unity of command. An employee should receive orders from only one superior, political, and economic circumstances that are likely to affect it in the future.
his or her immediate supervisor; dual command undermines authority, discipline, This last part of the survey requires forecasting future events that are likely to
and order.
affect each component of the organization. Those events can then be provided
5. Unity of direction. There should be one leader and one plan for a group of activ• for in the organization's long-term plan. The action plan establishes the
ities having the same objective.
direction of the organization, its objectives, and the general means by which it
6. Subordination of individual interest to general interest. The interests of any
member or group of members must not be allowed to prevail over the interests
intends to achieve them. Given the difficulty of foreseeing the future, the
of the organization as a whole; ways must be found to reconcile individual and longterm plan must be adjusted annually. Once it is in place the plan builds
general interests. unity of direction, Fayol's fifth principle, by communicating shared objectives
7. Remuneration of personnel. Employees must receive remuneration that is fair and the reasoning behind administrative decisions. It is interesting to note that
and encourages productive work effort.
the survey and the action plan resurfaced in the 1970s as key elements in
8. Centralization. Directives must always come from a central source, but the opti•
mal balance between centralization and decentralization must be determined
strategic planning.
for each organization separately; this is a question of how much discretion to al• Daily, monthly, and yearly statistical reports allow administrators to de•
low members at each level.
termine whether the plan is being carried out and its stated objectives
9. Scalar chain. Complex organizations require a chain of superiors from the high• achieved. These reports are essentially control mechanisms. If the reports reveal
est to lowest levels of authority; communications normally must ascend and de•
scend through each level, although authorized exceptions may be made in the problems, administrators may demand corrective action from those responsi•
interest of speed. ble. Minutes are the records of the weekly meetings of the various department
10. Order. Smooth organizational functioning requires a place for everything and heads through which coordination is achieved. They record discussions of re•
everyone, and everything and everyone in its appointed place. sults obtained and difficulties encountered in each department. Chief execu•
11. Equity. Retaining devoted and loyal employees requires that they be treated tives can refer to these records to obtain insights about what is occurring in
with kindliness and fairness.
the various work units. Finally, the organization chart illustrates the hierar•
12. Stability of tenure of personnel. Smooth organizational functioning is impossible
when personnel, especially management personnel, are constantly coming and
chy of organizational units, establishing the functions performed by each unit
going; steps must be taken to obtain as much stability as possible. and clarifying who reports to whom. These charts, according to Fayol, also
13. Initiative. It is essential to encourage individual initiative because it stimulates provide important clues about structural faults, such as duplication of effort,
motivation; this is achieved by allowing employees freedom to propose and carry overlapping responsibilities, unstaffed functions, and lack of functional unity in
out their own ideas, within the limits of authority and discipline.
the services provided by a particular unit.
14. Esprit de corps. Every effort must be made to establish and maintain cohesion
among personnel; dividing enemy forces is clever, but dividing one's own team is Taken together, these methods represent a systematic approach to manage•
a grave error. ment that was very rare in the early 1900s. Although the benefits of these
methods are now well established, administrators often fail to take full advan•
tage of them even today.
at hand. In his words, "Therefore, principles are flexible and capable of adap•
tation to every need; it is a matter of knowing how to make use of them, An Overview of Fayol's Theory of Management
which is a difficult art requiring intelligence, experience, decision and
proportion." 7
As illustrated in Exhibit 6.2, the four components of Fayol's theory comprise
an integrated whole. The hypothesized means-ends relationships among
Although from today's perspective Fayol's fourteen principles seem to offer
these components may be stated as follows: administrative principles (bot•
a strange mix of concepts for organizing and managing personnel, it must be
remembered that his was a pioneering effort. His goal was simply to "endow tom of Exhibit 6.2) guide functional decisions (center column), and admin•
management theory with a dozen or so well-established principles, on which istrative methods (righthand column) provide the means for carrying them
it is appropriate to concentrate general discussion." 8
out. Th e implicit dependent variable is organizational effectiveness. Fayol
believed that administrators wh o perform the five management functions,
1 CHAPTER ADMINISTRATIVE MA NA GE ME NT 1
E x h ib i t 6.2 A n O v e r v i e w o f Fayol' s T h e o r y o f M a n a g e m e n
t
James D. Mooney 1884-1957
Organizational Managerial Administrative
activities functions methods James D. Mooney was born in Cleve• key member of GM's top manage•
land on February 25, 1884. After com• ment team. While at General Motors,
Technical Planning (examining the future Organizational survey
pleting high school, Mooney studied Mooney completed the requirements
and drawing up the plan of action) mechanical engineering at the Case for his Bachelor of Science degree at
Commercial New York University and then asked
School of Applied Science in Cleve•
land for four years. He then held a se• the Case School to assess the possibil•
Financial Organization (building up the dual Action plan
ries of jobs in mining, publishing, and ity of completing his mechanical engi•
structure: material and human)
Security sales before being hired by Alfred P. neering degree. Case responded that
Sloan at General Motors to turn the degree would be awarded if he
Accounting Command (maintaining required Statistical reports around a failing subsidiary plant in could successfully write and defend a
Anderson, Illinois. He did so well
10
thesis. Case was so pleased with his
activity among personnel)
Managerial </ that he was promoted to general "Principles of Industrial Organiza•
manager of the General Motors Ex• tion" that it awarded him the doctor
Coordination (binding together. Minutes port Company in 1921 and immedi• of engineering degree as well.
unifying and harmonizing all activity) ately set about building assembly Mooney subsequently hired Alan C.
plants and purchasing other automo• Reiley as a research assistant to help
Control (seeing that everything him expand his thesis into a book.
Organization chart bile companies all over the world.
occurs in conformity with established This work, first published as Onward
Known for his energy, negotiating
rules and expressed commands) Industry! in 1931, is now recognized
skills, and ability to inspire loyalty,
as a significant contribution to ad•
Mooney was promoted to vice presi•
ministrative management theory.
dent in 1923 and quickly became a
Administrative Principles: Division of work, authority and responsibility, discipline,
unity of command, unity of direction, subordination of individual interests to the
general interest, remuneration, centralization, scalar chain, order, equity, stability of
tenure of personnel, initiative, esprit de corps human association, and that the orderly correlation of these principles fur•
nishes the key to their more efficient application in all fields of collective hu•
man effort." T h e purpose of their bo ok was to "expose the principles
1 1
follow sound administrative principles in doing so, and use appropriate of organization" by analyzing historical examples, including the Roma n R ep ub •
methods will meet with greater success than those who do not. lic, the Catholic church, and the French and German armies. Frederick Taylor
had shown how to increase production line efficiency, but this alone, accord•
ing to Mooney and Reiley, could not guarantee success. Principles of effi•
ciency must be applied to the structure of the entire organization. Only by
JAME S D . MOONEY' S THEOR Y O F establishing a formal structure based soundly on universal principles can an or•
ganization hope to coordinate its internal activities efficiently and effectively
ORGANIZATIO N
and protect itself from the forces of disintegration.
Fayol's fourteen principles dealt with psychological and behavioral as well as Mooney and Reiley began their analysis by clarifying their definition of
structural issues. Equity and esprit de corps, for example, relate to manage• organization. In popular usage, organization refers to a group of individuals who
ment's responsibility for establishing positive employee relations. By contrast, work together to achieve a common purpose. They noted, however, that a mob
administrative management theory in the United States tended to focus more has a common purpose but no organization. This led them to identify a sec•
narrowly on organizational structure. The most comprehensive presentation of ond meaning of organization, one relating to the degree and kind of order im•
organizational principles is found in James D. Mooney and Alan C. Reiley's posed on group activities. Organization in this sense refers to the specific form
Onward Industry! The Principles of Organization and Their Significance to Modern adopted by an enterprise to attain its purpose. More specifically, it refers to the
Industry, which was published in 1931 . Mooney, a vice president at General formal structure—the sum total of institutionalized relationships, methods, and
Motors, and Reiley, who assisted with much of the historical research, shared procedures—that allows an enterprise to coordinate and control its internal
with other administrative management theorists the belief that organizational activities. Because organizational performance depends upon achieving a good
structure is governed by universal principles. "The entire book," Mooney and fit between form and purpose, structural decisions must be guided by funda•
Reiley wrote, "is based on the thesis that there are fundamental principles of mental organizational principles. While acknowledging that principles cannot
organization, structural in character, which may be identified in every form of solve all organizational problems, Mooney and Reiley nonetheless believed
1 CHAPTER ADMINISTRATIVE MA NA G E ME NT 1
that "it is of decisive advantage to know exactly what the principles are that or she effectively abdicates all responsibility. A second type refuses to delegate
we are striving to apply." Their research led the m to identify three
1 2
any real authority for fear of losing control over task performance. Such indi•
universal principles: coordinative, scalar, and functional.
viduals are finally "crushed and fail under the weight of accumulated duties
that they do not kn ow and cannot learn h ow to delegate." Th e third type,
16
The Coordinative Principle the true leader, understands the necessity of delegating but remains ever con•
Although management is "the vital spark which actuates, directs and controls the scious of the fact that the ultimate responsibility of office cannot be delegated.
plan and procedure of organization," a formal structure consistent with the
1 3
These leaders delegate tasks as soon as the total task begins to exceed their
or• ganization's essential purpose must exist before the vital spark can be applied. own unaided powers and then hold subordinates accountable for the perfor•
This is accomphshed by organizing according to certain principles, the most funda• mance of their delegated responsibilities.
mental of which is the coordinative principle. All complex organizations must co• Mooney and Reiley also identified a specific principle governing the
ordinate the activities of many individuals if they are to attain their objectives. superior-subordinate relationship. Discussed at length by Frederick Taylor, and
According to Mooney and Reiley coordination is the all-inclusive, master princi• called by others the e xc ep ti on principle, it states that subordinates should
ple; all others are the principles through which coordination is achieved. refer only the few unusual and difficult problems to their superiors while han•
Mooney and Reiley define authority as the source of coordinating power. dling all easy and routine problems themselves. However, just as leaders vary in
It resides with chosen leaders who are responsible for issuing rules and proce• their willingness to adhere to the delegation principle, subordinates vary in
dures and directing a truly coordinated effort. Coordination is achieved largely their willingness to adhere to the exception principle.
through the exercise of formal authority up and down the chain of command.
The Functional Principle
The Scalar Principle
Whereas the scalar principle calls for vertical differentiation based on degrees of
All complex organizations must have a means by which the supreme coordi• authority, the functional principle calls for horizontal differentiation based on
nating authority can operate from the top to the bottom of the organizational kinds of duties. To use an analogy suggested by Mooney and Reiley, the differ•
structure. This is the scalar principle, or the principle of hierarchy. As Fayol had ence between generals and colonels is scakr, whereas the difference between
done earlier, Mooney and Reiley refer to the vertical division of labor as a infantry and artillery is functional. In practice the functional principle involves
scalar chain because it comprises a scale of duties graduated according to de• dividing the organization's work into discrete activities according to their func•
grees of authority and corresponding responsibilities. The scalar chain is made tional purposes and assigning those activities to specific organizational units.
up of a series of superior-subordinate relationships arranged vertically through• Mooney and Reiley concluded that functional differentiation is a universal fea•
out the organization and through which communications flow up and down. ture of complex organizations. It is a means of ensuring that the work activities
The scalar chain is created through the process of delegation. This entails of each individual and organizational unit mesh with all other work activities.
conferring a specific grant of authority by a higher official upon a lower official. Functional differentiation clarifies the nature of each person's duties and how
According to Mooney and Reiley, higher officials must delegate authority and those duties contribute to the attainment of organizational goals. Once the
responsibility when their workload becomes too great to handle themselves, but functional framework is established it is the responsibility of those in the scalar
they always remain accountable to their superiors for the actions of their subor• chain to coordinate work activities efficiently. "Reason and evidence," accord•
dinates. In their words, "The subordinate is always responsible to his immediate ing to Mooney and Reiley, "combine to prove that exactitude in functional de•
supervisor for doing the job, the superior remains responsible for getting it done, finition is a necessity in the creation of a true collective harmony." 17
and this same relationship, based on coordinated responsibility, is repeated up to

On e aspect of functional differentiation facilitates both vertical and hori•
the top leader, whose authority makes him responsible for the whole."
14
zontal coordination. Mooney and Reiley refer to this as the staff phase of func-
Delegated authority usually includes the right to command persons at the tionalism or the line and staff principle. It refers to the creation of staff units
next lower level of authority. In such instances an official not only delegates to advise or support line authorities in the performance of their duties. Their
functional responsibilities but also the right of delegation itself.This is what cre• functional roles are to inform fine managers of things they should know before
ates and lengthens the scalar chain. However, within each organizational unit, making their decisions, advise them based on that information, and supervise
and in the organization as a whole, the scalar chain eventually comes to an end. the details of implementation. So as not to violate the unity-of-command prin•
This is the point "where authority ceases to delegate its own authority over ciple, Mooney and Reily insisted that staff units not be delegated command au•
others and simply delegates or assigns specific functions." T h e scalar chain
1 5
thority over fine units. In their words, "The line plans, the fine executes, the fine
ul• timately exists to allow for the coordination of these functional activities. does everything. In the fine alone rests the authority to determine plans, the au•
The test of a true leader, according to Mooney and Reiley, lies in the way thority to execute such plans, and the responsibility for what is done." 1 8
The
authority is delegated. One type of leader delegates authority so easily that he staff units merely function to assist and support the fine in these matters.
1 CHAPTER ADMINISTRAT IVE MAN AGEMEN T 1
Mooney and Reiley were compelled to acknowledge, however, that a com• 1936 their contributions to government reform were so widely recognized
plete separation of line and staff duties exists only in the conceptual realm. In that President Roosevelt appointed a study committee to "suggest a com•
practice it tends to apply only to purely advisory bodies, such as a citizens' advi• prehensive and balanced program for dealing with the overhead organ•
sory board, or to purely support staffs, such as the Army's quartermaster corps. ization and m an a ge men t of the executive b r a n c h . "
2 0
Administrative
Modern staff units are more likely to comprise technical specialists than general management theory takes its name from the official title of this committee,
counselors. Part of their task in highly centralized administrative systems is to the President's Committee on Administrative Management. In its original
help upper-level administrators exercise control over lower-level officials. As meaning, administrative management referred to the role played by overhead
Gulick later noted, overhead staff agencies such as budget, personnel, and pur• staff agencies in assisting the chief executive manage the administrative
chasing offices exercise functional authority over line units and are therefore line agencies of government.
units themselves according to a strict interpretation of the line-staff principle. Th e President's committee, more commonly known as the Brownlow
Onward Industry! offered perhaps the most comprehensive and internally Committee, was comprised of Louis Brownlow, Charles E. Merriam, and
consistent theory of organization yet developed. At a time when management Luther Gulick, three well-known figures in the field of public administra•
was still in the process of being defined as a distinct profession and field of tion. Finding that the existing literature on administrative theory was un •
study, Mooney and Reiley reminded administrators that they were struggling available in Washington, Gulick wrote a briefing paper for the committee
with the same problems of organizational design with which administrators entitled "Notes on the Theory of Organization." He and Lyndall Urwick, a
throughout history have struggled and that management's primary task is to British management consultant, subsequently included this paper in a col•
find the optimal balance between the horizontal division of labor and the ver• lection of articles published under the title Papers on the Science of Administra•
tical division of authority required to maintain coordination. Their work also tion.
21
This collection include d papers by H e n r i Fayol and Mar y
provided researchers and administrators with core concepts for thinking Parker Follett (see Chapter 7), as well as those by Gulick and Urwick. At least one
through problems of organizational design. commentator has cited the work of the President's Committee and the pub•
Mooney and Reiley's work contains the theoretical proposition that orga• lication of the Papers as the zenith of the field of public administration's rep•
nizational effectiveness is highly dependent on the fit between structural utation and influence. Those working in the field were widely consulted
2 2
arrangements and organizational purpose. Rather than claiming that there is by business and government alike for their knowledge of administrative
"one best way" to organize, they insisted that different purposes call for differ• structure and management.
ent structural arrangements.They described, for example, how the ancient Ro •
Gulick's contribution to organization theory is threefold. First, his "Notes
mans developed a vertically and horizontally decentralized administrative
on the Theory of Organization" provided a very readable synthesis of the
system to maintain control over their expanding empire, while the early
ideas of theorists such as Henri Fayol and James Mooney. His purpose in
Catholic church, by contrast, adopted a highly centralized structure so that it
writing was not to articulate his own theory but to bring together and make
could integrate all churches into a single spiritual system.
accessible the ideas of others. Because a synthesis of this kind did not then ex•
Although Mooney and Reiley were not familiar with Fayol and his writ• ist, and because the works of many theorists were unavailable or difficult to
ings, they reached a similar conclusion: coordination, hierarchy, and functional read and comprehend, publication of Gulick's paper was itself a valuable con•
differentiation may be universal principles but their application is not. As tribution. Second, "Notes on the Theory of Organization" applied adminis•
Mooney and Reiley put it, "The discovery and identification of these princi• trative principles specifically to government. Gulick expanded upon the basic
ples will not of course solve all problems of organization. Principles, as such, theoretical framework provided by Fayol and Mooney and Reiley by adding
must be ever present, and are certain to be applied in some fashion, but their his own conceptual distinctions. On e of these, for example, stated that gov•
efficient application is the task of the organizer."
19
ernment agencies can be departmentalized on the basis of purpose, process,

persons, or place. By drawing out the implications of administrative principles
for government's organizational structure, Gulick initiated an important sec•
LUTHE R GULICK' S ADMINISTRATIV E ond phase in the evolution of administrative management theory. Finally,
through his work as director of the Institute of Public Administration (for•
MANAGEMEN T THEOR Y merly the Ne w York Bureau of Municipal Research), as well as his work on
the Brownlow Committee, Gulick was able to demonstrate the applicability
Th e movement in the early 1900s to reform the structure of government of theory to practice. As discussed in the following, many of the recommen•
and introduce business methods into public administration was spearheaded dations contained in the Brownlow Committee' s report and subsequently
by research bureaus such as the Ne w York Bureau of Municipal Research
adopted by the president were derived from or supported by Gulick's analysis
and the Institute for Government Research located in Washington, D.C. By
of administrative principles.
1 CHAPTER ADMINISTRATIVE MA N A GE ME N T 1
A good theory of administration, Gulick believed, must recognize and take

Luther H. Gulick 1892-1993 into account differences of this kind. He understood, however, that such a the•
ory did not yet exist. As he noted in the foreword to Papers on the Science of Ad•
Luther Gulick, often called the dean also began teaching courses at Colum• ministration, theory building was still at an early stage:
of public administration, was born in bia in 1921, was appointed Eaton
Osaka, J a p an , in 1892. The son of
23
Professor of Municipal Science and It is the hope of the editors that the availability of these papers will advance
missionary parents, he spent much of Administration in 1931, and continued the analysis of administration, assist in the development of a standard
his youth in Japan before his family to teach at Columbia until 1942. Over
nomenclature, encourage others to criticize the hypotheses with regard to
returned to the United States in 1904. a long and distinguished career in
Gulick earned an A.B. in political sci• public service Gulick served on numer• administration herein set forth and to advance their own concepts fear•
ence and an M.A. in philosophy from ous government commissions. One of lessly, and to point the way to areas gready in need of exploration. If those
Oberlin College in Ohio before enter• the most important of these was the who are concerned scientifically with the phenomena of getting things
ing Columbia University in 1915 to President's Committee on Administra• done through cooperative endeavor will proceed along these lines, we may
study public law and political science tive Management (1936-37) which
expect in time to construct a valid and accepted theory of
under Charles Beard. As a graduate recommended expanding the White
administration. 25
student he attended courses at the House staff and restructuring the ex•
Training School for Public Service op• ecutive branch. In 1954 Gulick was ap•
erated by the New York Bureau of pointed the first city administrator Coordination Through Organizational Structure
Municipal Research. After a year in of New York City, a post he held for
the army Gulick was appointed direc• three years. He remained actively in• Gulick expanded upon the conceptual framework proposed by Mooney and
tor of the Training School in 1918, volved in public service in later years Reiley by beginning his analysis with a discussion of the division of labor. Co •
completed his Ph.D. requirements at and was appointed chairman emeritus ordination is indeed the essence of organization, he wrote, but it is the division
Columbia in 1920, and became direc• of the Institute of Public Administra•
of labor that necessitates it. To achieve their complex tasks, all but the smallest
tor of the New York Bureau of Munici• tion (formerly the New York Bureau)
and simplest of organizations must divide labor. This not only ensures that one
pal Research in 1921, a position he at the age of 90. Luther Gulick died in
would hold for over 40 years. Gulick 1993 at the age of 100. or more individuals is responsible for a necessary part of the organization's
overall task, but it also allows the organization to benefit from the advantages
of specialization described by Adam Smith. But, once having divided the larger
task among many individuals and work units, coordinating their work be•
comes an institutional imperative. As Gulick put it, "If subdivision of work is
inescapable, coordination becomes mandatory."
26
Applying Administrative Principles to Government

The task of organizational design is made more difficult by the fact that
Gulick recognized that governments face special problems of organizational these two master principles are opposing in nature. As Gulick put it, "the more
design and that these had not been given sufficient consideration by earlier the work is subdivided, the greater is the danger of confusion, and the greater
theorists. Governments are responsible for carrying out many complex tasks, is the need of overall supervision and coordination." 2 7
For Gulick, this
tasks that are highly dissimilar in nature, ranging from national defense to reg• reality defines the essence of organization theory. In his words, "The theory of orga•
ulation of the economy. This led some theorists to suggest a basic similarity be• nization, therefore, has to do with the structure of coordination imposed upon
tween governments and private holding companies. According to this view,
24
the work-division units of an enterprise. Hence it is not possible to determine

the administrative departments of government produce distinct goods or ser• how an activity is to be organized without, at the same time, considering how
vices, much like the divisions of General Motors. For this reason each depart• the work is to be divided. Work division is the foundation of organization; in•
ment could be treated as an independent, largely autonomous unit within the deed, the reason for organization." 2 8
From this perspective,
larger holding company known as government. But the analogy does not stand organizational structure may be understood as the sum total of ways in which
up under closer scrutiny, Gulick argued, because democracy requires chief ex• labor is divided and coordination is achieved among the divided parts.
ecutives to hold departments accountable to the will of the people. Not only
Following Mooney and Reiley's lead, GuUck focused his analysis on the way
is this a fundamentally different matter than holding a division of General Mo •
coordination may be achieved through the joint application of the functional
tors accountable, but in the absence of profits as a measuring stick the chief ex•
and scalar principles. "Organization as a way of coordination," he wrote, "requires
ecutive has no clear way of ensuring accountability other than to rely on
the establishment of a system of authority whereby the central purpose or ob•
systemwide personnel and accounting systems. In short, chief executives must
jective of an enterprise is translated into reality through the combined efforts of
exercise closer supervision over administrative departments than the heads of
many specialists, each working in his own field at a particular time and place." 29
holding companies.There is also a greater need for coordination because there

In the public sector this generally entails four steps: identifying a basic task
is a greater degree of interaction between departments of government than
such as providing pure water, appointing a director to see that the task is car•
between corporate divisions.
ried out, determining the number and nature of specialized work units into
1 CHAPTER ADMINISTRATIVE MA NA GE ME N T 1
which the task will have to be divided, and establishing and perfecting the must apply. If any enterprise has such an array of functions that the first
structure of authority between the director and the ultimate work subdivisions. subdivisions from the top down do not readily meet the first aggregations
The third of these step reflects the functional principle at work and is often re• from the bottom up, then additional divisions and additional aggregates
ferred to by Gulick as part of the process of departmentalization. The final must be introduced, but at each further step there must be a less and less
step reflects the scalar principle at work and is illustrated by an organization rigorous adherence to the two conflicting principles until their juncture is
chart showing the span of control of each manager and indicating who reports effected.
32
to whom in the organizational hierarchy.

Organizational design is clearly important. By definition, good design en• Gulick provided an example drawn from his experience with the Ne w
hances the organization's ability to achieve its goals and bad design reduces its York City Charter Commission of 1934. Because the number of depart•
ability. The difficulty lies in determining how to divide work and how to coor• ments, based on the application of the homogeneity principle, could not be
dinate work activities to best advantage. Like Fayol, Gulick believed organiza• reduced to less than twenty-five, and because the mayor could not possibly
tional design should be guided in part by the span of control principle. supervise twenty-five directors effectively, Gulick reconciled the two princi•
According to this principle, the number of individuals reporting to a superior ples by recommending the creation of three or four assistant mayor positions
should be limited to the number he or she can supervise effectively, given lim• to which supervisory responsibilities could be delegated. Consistent with the
ited time and energy. Gulick noted, however, that there can be no one correct principle that politics should be separated as much as possible from adminis•
span of control for all superior-subordinate relationships. The optimal span tration, Gulick also recommended that the assistant mayors exercise political
necessarily varies with the unique abilities of the superior, the nature of the supervision over department heads but not participate in the administration
work, the size of the organization, and the level of authority. of programs.
Second, Gulick agreed with Fayol that design decisions should be guided by Finally, Gulick believed organizational design should be guided by the line-
the unity of c o m m a n d principle. As defined by Fayol, this principle states that staff principle, although he found the conventional definition of a staff agency
each worker should receive orders from only one superior. Like Fayol, Gulick highly misleading. According to the traditional definition, staff agencies are
criticized Taylor for setting up separate foremen to deal with machinery, materi• created to advise and support line agencies, and are never authorized to is• sue
als, machine speed, and discipline, each with the power of giving orders direcdy commands. Gulick believed that this distinction is useful in relation to planning
to individual workers. Gulick acknowledged that the rigid adherence to the prin• offices because it underscores the importance of "refusing to inject any element
of administrative authority and control into such an agency." Budgeting,
3 3
ciple of unity of command may have its absurdities but he maintained that "these
are, however, unimportant in comparison with the certainty of confusion, ineffi• purchasing, and personnel offices, however, exist for a different purpose, that is, to
ciency and irresponsibility which arise from the violation of the principle." 30
exercise administrative direction and control.Thus, although they may be referred
Third, Gulick believed design decisions should be guided by the h o m o • to as staff agencies, according to a strict interpretation of the line-staff principle,
geneity principle. This principle states that work should be divided so that they are not. As Gulick noted, "W he n administrative responsibility and power are
the work of a single organizational unit is as homogenous in character as pos• added to any staff function, that function thereby becomes immediately and
completely a line function."
34
sible. Gulick believed that an organizational unit that is assigned work that is
nonhomogenous in nature, technology, or purpose "will encounter the danger
of friction and inefficiency." Gulick also noted that the span-of-control and
31
POSDCORB: Core Management Functions
homogeneity principles are somewhat opposed. The first emphasizes limiting Another of Gulick's contributions to administrative management theory was
the number of subunits reporting to each superior, whereas the second tends his reformulation of Fayol's statement of managerial functions.As shown in the
to increase the total number of subunits. The homogeneity principle thus cre• following, Gulick identified seven management functions using the acronym
ates pressures toward a very tall hierarchy and increases demands for coordina• POSDCORB :
tion. A designer who begins by applying the span-of-control principle to the
top of the organization will produce a different set of recommendations from Core Management Functions
one who begins by applying the homogeneity principle at the bottom of the Henri Fayol Luther Gulick
organization. The answer, Gulick suggested, is to plan from the top downward Planning Planning
and from the bottom upward simultaneously and to reconcile the two princi• Organization Organizing
ples at the center of the hierarchy: Staffing
Command Directing
. . . . In planning the first subdivisions under the chief executive, the prin•
Coordination Coordinating
ciple of the limitation of the span of control must apply; in building up
Control Reporting
the first aggregates of specialized functions, the principle of homogeneity
Budgeting
1 CHAPTER ADMINIST RATIVE MAN AGEMENT 1
Gulick argued that if these functions represent core management responsibili•

fluential field of study in the early 1900s. The writers who contributed to this
ties, then it makes sense to create overhead staff agencies to help the chief ex•
literature, including Luther Gulick, worked for or were closely associated with
ecutive carry them out. This argument found a central place in the Brownlow
the research bureaus that sprang up after the Ne w York Bureau of Municipal
Committee report.
Research was founded in 1906. These bureaus, which were supported pri•
3 7
marily by philanthropists, provided research and consulting services to govern•

Putting Theory into Practice
ment clients. Schooled in the principles of scientific management, they initially
President Roosevelt forwarded the Brownlow Committee s report to Congress concentrated on promoting efficiency and economy by introducing "business
on January 12,1937. Although Congress rejected Roosevelt's initial proposals, methods" to government, including the latest budgeting, accounting, purchas•
fearing that they would concentrate too much power in the hands of the pres• ing, and personnel techniques. As noted in Chapter 5, their aim was to elimi•
ident, it did pass the Reorganization Act of 1939, authorizing the president to nate graft, corruption, and the waste associated with inefficient management
appoint up to six administrative assistants and to draw up plans for restructur• practices and procedures.
ing the executive branch. President Roosevelt's Reorganization Plan 1, which Each time a research bureau completed another study new lessons were
went into effect when Congress raised no objection to it, transferred the Bu• learned, thereby adding to an evolving body of knowledge about government's
reau of the Budget and the Natural Resources Planning Board to the Execu• "administrative branch." These were exciting times for researchers in the field
tive Office. The Executive Office of the President (EOP) thus evolved into an of public administration. Understanding the importance of their work, bureau
umbrella organization containing staff agencies charged with helping the pres• directors took it upon themselves to publish their findings so that others might
ident manage the widely dispersed and divergent activities of the executive benefit from them. Often they referred to their findings as "principles."The
bureaucracy. This was no small matter. As Donald Stone has written, "Creation Institute for Government Research in Washington, D.C., for example, pub•
of the EO P and its connotation of the president as chief executive as well as lished the following works soon after its formation in 1916: Lewis Meriam's
head of state is, without doubt, the most significant development in federal ad• Principles Governing the Retirement of Public Employees (1918); A. G.Thomas'
ministration since the founding of the Republic."35
Principles of Government Purchasing (1919); Francis Oakey's Principles of Govern•
The work of the Brownlow Committee demonstrated the power of ideas ment Accounting and Reporting (1921); and Arthur W. Proctor's Principles of Public
and the importance of theory. Each of its recommendations was derived from, Personnel Administration (1921).
or at least supported by, Gulick's analysis of administrative principles. Two rec• The research bureaus soon broadened their scope from introducing busi•
ommendations—to provide the president with staff assistants and to establish ness methods into government to reorganizing the government itself. Their
staff agencies within the Executive Office—were supported by P O S D C O R B aim was to enhance executive leadership and eliminate overlapping responsi•
and Gulick's analysis of the line-staff principle. Similarly, Gulick's analysis of
36
bilities and duplication of effort by creating a single, integrated piece of ad•
the functional principle, specifically the homogeneity principle, supported the ministrative machinery. The theme of integration, which played a prominent
committee's recommendation to assign each of the 100 independent agencies role in the Brownlow Committee Report of 1937, first appeared in the reports
to one of twelve executive departments. Each department, Gulick had said in of President Taft's Commission on Economy and Efficiency in the years be•
his briefing paper, should be organized around a distinct function or task for tween 1910 and 1913. In transmitting one of the commission's reports to Con•
which government is responsible. To do otherwise invites confusion, duplica• gress, PresidentTaft wrote:
tion of effort, and inefficiency, and undermines the ability of congress and the
This vast organization has never been studied in detail as one piece of
president to manage them effectively. This recommendation, too, was backed
administrative mechanism At no time has the attempt been made to
by theory, even though Congress chose not to act on it.
study all of these activities and agencies with a view to the assignment of
each activity to the agency best fitted for its performance, to the avoidance
of duplication of plant and work, to the integration of all administrative
agencies of the government, so far as may be practicable, into a unified orga•
TH E R E S E A R C H B U R E A U S ' nization for the most effective and economical dispatch of public
business.
38
CANON S O F INTEGRATIO N
That the same theme, and sometimes the same language, should characterize
Textbooks usually limit their treatment of administrative management theory government reform efforts for over 30 years is not surprising because most of
to the writings of Fayol, Mooney and Reiley, and Gulick and Urwick. There the key participants were associated with the research bureaus.Taft's Commis•
is, however, another important body of literature pertaining to administrative sion on Economy and Efficiency included, among others, Frederick A. Cleve•
principles, one that helped establish public administration as a dynamic and in- land, codirector of the Ne w York Bureau of Municipal Research, W. F.
Willoughby, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins and future director
of the Institute for Government Research in Washington, D.C., and Frank

6. Chief executives should be responsible for preparing the budget and
Goodnow, a professor of administrative law at Columbia University who had
proposing needed legislation.
authored the groundbreaking Politics and Administration in 1900. Luther Gulick,
who became director of the Ne w York Bureau of Municipal Research in 7. The legislature should limit its administrative involvement to exercising
1918, carried forward the theme of integration in his work on the Brownlow oversight through investigations, reports and audits.
Committee in the 1930s. In the latter instance, however, he chose to support Although these canons were offered as an antidote to the fragmented and
the theme of integration with the universalistic principles identified by Henri disorganized administrative structures then existing at all levels of government,
Fayol and James Mooney. He did so, perhaps, in the belief that this would give they also reflected the Progressive party's desire for strong executive leadership.
the committee's recommendations even greater credibility. They rested on the belief that neither the legislature nor the public can right•
Although the work of the bureau researchers was largely applied and atheo- fully hold a chief executive accountable for administrative actions unless he or
retical, their recommendations regarding government reorganization rested on she is fully responsible for those actions and is given the authority and tools
a particular theory of democracy that they developed during the course of their necessary to oversee and manage executive agencies. Only when executives are
research. According to this theory, the chief executive, as the person primarily given authority commensurate with their responsibilities, bureau researchers ar•
responsible for executing the public will, must direct and control a single, inte• gued, can democracy and efficiency flourish together. Not every one, however,
grated administrative structure. Otherwise, neither the public nor the legislature shared this view of democracy. As discussed in the following, the canons of in•
can know who to hold accountable for administrative actions. This theory tegration rested on a set of values and a model of centralized control that, in the
found formal expression in 1915 when the New York Bureau of Municipal view of many, served more to undermine democracy than to strengthen it.
Research was asked to conduct a study of the government of New York State.
In the early 1900s political authority tended to be highly fragmented by state
constitutions, with governors having little control over the many elected de•
TWO C R I T I Q U E S O F A D M I N I S T R A T I V E
partment heads and independent boards and commissions. Having concluded
that executives must have authority commensurate with their responsibilities, MANAGEMEN T THEOR Y
Charles A. Beard and Frederick A. Cleveland presented a set of recommenda•
tions for constitutional reform in a report entitled The Constitution and the Gov• The administrative management literature largely defined the content and
ernment of the State of New York. Described by one commentator as a "landmark scope of the newly emerging discipline of public administration during the
in the study of public administration," the Bureau's report laid out principles of first half of the twentieth century. In the late 1940s, however, two critiques of
organizational design that antedated the ones identified by Fayol in 1916 and administrative management theory were published that helped steer the disci•
Mooney and Reiley in 1931. These principles, which came to be known as pline in new directions. On e was penned by Herbert Simon, the other by
3 9
the canons of integration, may be summarized as follows: Dwight Waldo.

40
1. The chief executive should be directly elected by and responsible to the Herbert Simon's Critique: Principles as Proverbs
voters or their representatives and should serve as chief administrator as
well as head of state. In 1946 Herbert A. Simon, a political scientist at the Illinois Institute of Tech•
nology, published a now well-known critique of administrative management
2. All administrative agencies should be consolidated into a relatively small theory. Gulick's "Notes on the Theor y of Organization" constituted his pri •
41
number of executive departments and each department should be orga• mary target. The principles identified by Gulick, Simon wrote, are nothing
nized around, and responsible for, one clear and distinct government more than proverbs and, like most proverbs, they occur in mutually contradic•
function. tory pairs.The specialization principle, for example, states that administrative
3. The power to discharge each administrative function should be vested in a efficiency is increased by dividing work among specialized work units, and the
single administrative officer and the fines of responsibility from subordi• span of control principle says efficiency is increased by limiting the number of
nates to superiors should be definitely fixed. people reporting to each supervisor. Yet, as the number of specialized units in•
creases, so too does the span of control of each supervisor. Given this inherent
4. The power of each department head and bureau chief should be com•
contradiction, Simon wrote, it is not clear which principle an administrator
mensurate with his or her responsibilities.
should apply or what trade-offs to accept. In practice, Simon insisted, "Mutu•
5. Chief executives should have at their disposal overhead staff agencies to as• ally incompatible advantages must be balanced against each other, just as an ar•
sist them with planning, budgeting, and staffing, as well as the overall co• chitect weighs the advantages of additional closet space against the advantages
ordination of executive agencies. of a larger living room.
42
1 CHAPTER ADMINISTRATIVE MAN AGEMEN T 1
Whereas Simon's critique was accurate, it was not entirely fair. Most ad• social progress; that policy makers should rely on the expertise of trained profes•
ministrative management theorists recognized the inherent contradictions sionals; that the powers of chief executives should be increased so that they can
among the principles they identified. While they believed organizations are exercise effective leadership; and that centralized staff agencies should be created
characterized by certain universal dynamics, such as vertical and horizontal dif• so that chief executives can hold administrative agencies accountable for results.
ferentiation, they viewed administrative principles, as Simon did, as criteria for In Waldo's view, the democratic philosophy of the Progressive reformers reversed
describing and diagnosing administrative situations.They also understood the the nineteenth-century belief that democracy is achieved by dispersing rather
dilemmas involved in applying them. Gulick, for example, focused a large part than centralizing the powers and functions of government.
of his analysis on the trade-offs between organizing according to purpose, Waldo's critique brought to everyone's attention the values underlying
process, clientele, or place. what had often been presented as objective, scientific principles. Because of
If Fayol, Mooney, and Gulick did not actually suggest that administrative their ideological underpinnings, the canons of integration must be viewed as
principles could provide solutions to administrative problems, what was the prescriptions—prescriptions favoring executive leadership, centralized control,
purpose of Simon's attack? As a behavioral scientist, Simon was put off by the and decision making based on expertise. Whereas bureau researchers had of•
claims of administrative management theorists that they were engaged in de• fered the canons as a general blueprint for constitutional and organizational
veloping a science of administration. The idea that principles of administration reform, Waldo emphasized that they represented a desirable blueprint only for
could be discovered in the same way as laws of science and nature was viewed those who accepted the values that underlie them. Waldo's purpose in writing,
with considerable skepticism by many social scientists. Even if such laws could like Simon's, was not to disparage the study of administration but to place it
be discovered, Simon criticized the bureau researchers for failing to state their on firmer foundations. Waldo concluded that this could be achieved only if re•
principles in terms of causal relationships that could be verified through scien• searchers were willing to state their value assumptions explicitly. Although
tific testing. Administrative theory, he argued, must be based less on
4 3
there are probably no universal principles that are both scientifically and ethi•
personal experience and logical reasoning and more on scientific investigation, cally valid, this does not mean that propositions cannot and should not be sub•
and it must be capable of providing administrators with effective guidance in jected to scientific study. Theory can advance, Waldo concluded, only if we
design• ing and operating their respective organizations. acknowledge and clarify the frame of reference from which it is offered.
In 1937 Gulick wrote of the importance of proceeding with the develop•
ment of a theory of administration of the kind that Simon would later de•
scribe. This suggests that the similarities in their views were much greater
4 4
than their differences. Nonetheless, Simon's critique tended to discredit the ADMINISTRATIV E MANAGEMEN T THEOR Y
contribu• tions of administrative management theorists in the eyes of future
I N PERSPECTIV E
generations of public administration students. According to Thomas Hammond,
Simon's essay "marked the beginning of the end for the study of the 'principles of
Fayol, Mooney, and Gulick brought the same rational approach to the design
administra• tion.' Gulick's essay, and the school of thought it supposedly
of administrative structure that Taylor brought to the shop floor. If their ideas
represented, gradu• ally fell into disrepute, his essay seen as representing an
now seem naive or overly prescriptive, the importance of their contribution to
interesting—though fatally flawed—approach to the study of organization."
45
organization theory has not been lessened by the passage of time. As manage•
ment scholar Harold Koontz once observed, "Those who feel that they gain
Dwight Waldo's Critique: Principles as Prescriptions caste or a clean slate for advancing a particular notion or approach often de•
light in casting away anything which smacks of management principles. Some
Dwight Waldo's critique of administrative management theory is found in T~he have referred to them as platitudes, forgetting that a platitude is still a truism
Administrative State, a revised version of his doctoral dissertation published in and a truth does not become worthless because it becomes familiar." 47
1948. According to Waldo, Gulick's paper on administrative principles, the rec•

4 6
Henri Fayol offered a general theory of management at a time when orga•

ommendations of the Brownlow Committee, and the writings of the various nizations were growing rapidly in size and complexity and old ways of doing
"reformers and reorganizers" were heavily influenced by the social and political
things no longer sufficed. He emphasized the importance of management edu•
values of the Progressive Era. Consequently, their principles represent value- cation at a time when management was not yet conceived as a distinct profes•
based prescriptions rather than value-free scientific findings. Waldo argued that
sion. Finally, Fayol's statement of management functions—planning, organizing,
before a science of administration can be developed researchers must acknowl• commanding, coordinating, and controlling—continues to provide the concep•
edge their value assumptions and treat their prescriptions as testable hypotheses.
tual core around which many management textbooks are organized today.
Among the Progressive Era value assumptions Waldo associated with admin• James D. Mooney and Alan C. Reiley isolated those aspects of organizing
istrative management theory are these: that humans are capable of reshaping so• that are universal in nature. Drawing upon examples from the past, they de•
ciety for the better; that government is the appropriate instrument for achieving scribed how organizers throughout history had divided work horizontally and
1 CHAPTER ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT 1
vertically to accomplish unique purposes under varying conditions. If the three

Exhi bi t 6.3 Th e C o m p e t i n g V al u e s F r a m e w o r k :
universal principles they identified do not provide immediate answers about Fou r M odel s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l Ef fec ti ven ess
how to divide work, delegate responsibilities, and coordinate work activities,
they do provide a valuable framework for thinking about these important Flexibility
questions.
Gulick and others in the research bureau movement brought sorely needed Pattern maintenance/Tension Adaptive function: the need
improvements to administrative structures and methods by applying the canons management function: the need to to acquire resources and adapt
of integration to government. Despite exaggerated claims to scientific objectiv• maintain a competent, integrated, to an uncertain environment
ity and a propensity to refer to the canons as universal truths, their ideas had
positive impacts. If the administrative controls they introduced are now seen as Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values:
imposing excessive constraints on managerial discretion, this does not diminish HUMAN cohesion, flexibility, OPEN
their contribution. It only underscores the fact that the task of organizing is RELATIONS morale readiness SYSTEMS
MODEL MODEL
never completed. Administrators must continually reassess how best to divide Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values:
work and coordinate work activities without stifling discretion and initiative. human resource growth,
Internal External
RELEVANC E FO R PUBLI C MANAGEMEN T focus Output Quality

focus
The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of administrative manage•

ment theory for public management and organizational performance. This ex•
ploration is guided by the three analytical frameworks identified in Chapter 3. PROCESS communication goal setting GOAL
MODEL MODEL
Models of Organizational Effectiveness Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values:
As indicated in Exhibit 6.3, administrative management theory emphasizes the control efficiency
values associated with the internal process model, including information Integrative function: the need to Goal attainment function: the need
management, stability and control. This model asks managers to fulfill the orga• coordinate and control work to focus efforts on goal attainment
nization's integrative function by serving as monitors and coordinators. In ad• activities
ministrative management theory, as in Weber's theory of bureaucracy, the scalar
chain provides the primary means by which the many specialized activities oc• Control
curring within the organization are monitored and coordinated. If a conflict SOU RCE : Adapted with permission from Figures 3 and 4, Robert O. Quinn and Joh n Rohrbaugh, "A Spatial Model
occurs at any level of the hierarchy, it is referred upwards until a manager is of Effectiveness Criteria: Towards a Competing Values Approach to Organizational Analysis," Management Science
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The Institute of Ma nag eme n t Sciences, now the institute for Operations
found with authority over all of the disputing parties. Administrative manage• Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090-
2909 USA.
ment theory is particularly concerned with the ability of top administrators to
manage the organization as a whole. It calls for a single, integrated administra•
tive apparatus, and it emphasizes the use of overhead staff agencies to assist the Although organizations must seek stability to the extent that it is possible in
chief executive in carrying out planning, budgeting, and staffing responsibilities. a turbulent environment, managers who focus heavily on integration may
To a lesser extent, administrative management theory also emphasizes the achieve stability and predictability at the expense of internal flexibility and ex•
values associated with the rational goal model, including planning, goal set• ternal adaptability. Insisting upon strict adherence to the chain of command, for
ting, and administrative efficiency. This model asks managers to help accom• example, may produce red tape and delays that undermine the organization's
plish the organization's goal-attainment function by serving as directors and ability to respond quickly and successfully to changing circumstances. Similarly,
producers. Forecasting and planning, for example, are key elements in Fayol's managers who focus on the integration and goal-attainment functions may do
theory of management. Similarly, administrative management theorists in the so at the expense of the pattern maintenance/tension management functions.
United States advocated strengthened administrative capacity in government Fayol's references to the importance of initiative and esprit de corps notwith•
so that chief executives might formulate and carry out comprehensive plans standing, the values of cohesion and morale, and the effects of structure on hu•
addressing the nation's social and economic problems. man behavior, receive little attention in adrninistrative management theory. Like
1 CHAPTER ADMINISTRATIVE M AN AG EM EN T 1
scientific management theory and Weber's theory of bureaucracy, administrative

bureaucracy. Rather, the importance administrative management theorists at•
management theory tends to view workers impersonally, as role incumbents to
tached to individual initiative, and their preference for leaving administrative
be coordinated and controlled rather than as human beings with needs to be
decisions to technical experts, indicates a willingness to rely on standardization
satisfied.
of worker skills as well as direct supervision for purposes of coordination and
control. Workers who possess the knowledge and skills required to perform
their duties effectively require less formal supervision.
As indicated in Exhibit 6.4, administrative management theory relies upon di•
rect supervision for purposes of coordination and control. Although refer• As indicated in Exhibit 6.5, administrative management theory tends to as•
ences are made to psychic coordination and the power of shared ideas, by far sume the use of the legal compliance strategy. Through the scalar chain, su•
the greatest amount of attention is given to the direct supervision of lower of• periors are delegated formal authority to issue commands and apply sanctions
ficials by higher officials through a highly formalized chain of command. In•
deed, administrative management theorists have often been derided for their
Exhibit 6.5 Four Motivational Strategies
fixations with organization charts and reporting relationships. Nonetheless,
there is not quite the same emphasis on close supervision and standardization Legal Compliance
of work processes that is found in the writings of Frederick Taylor. Nor is there Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior.
quite the same emphasis on strict discipline that is found in Weber's theory of Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require•
being sanctioned.
Exhibit 6.4 Six Mechanisms for Coordinating and Controlling Work Instrumental Rewards
Activities Using rewards to induce desired behaviors.
Rewards for Performance

Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance.
needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor•
Direct supervision A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of and psychological satisfactions that money, advancement, and recognition can
workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte• provide.
Standardization of Work is programmed in advance of its execution by ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those
work processes developing rules and standard operating procedures speci• who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina• exceed their role requirements.
achieved by strictly limiting each worker's discretion. Group Acceptance
Standardization of Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group
work outputs bonds, and enjoy the approval of their peers. This strategy may induce those who
each work group with product specifications or perfor•
mance goals and allowing members considerable latitude in
ing that group norms are consistent with organizational objectives.
collecting output data, requiring corrective action when Job Identification
results achieved.
to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and
Standardization of Workers are employed who possess the knowledge and innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their
worker skills skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in• work intrinsically rewarding.
Goal Congruence
provide standardized training. Professionally trained work•
ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling. Hiring employees whose goals and values are congruent with the organization's
Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear Employees may come to work, remain with the organization, meet or exceed role re•
of values vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should quirements, and exhibit greater creativity, innovativeness, and institutional loyalty.
be headed, and what values should guide it. Coordination They may do so because they identify with the organization's mission and values and
and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational because contributing to them reinforces their own self-concept.
members to shared, internalized values and ideals.
SOURCE : Based in large part on Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations (Wiley,
SOUR CE: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7). 1966), pp. 336-68.
1 CHAPTER ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMEN T 1
and thereby motivate compliance on the part of their subordinates. And yet • r lines of authority. Administrative management theory also re• minds public
Fayol, Mooney, and Gulick were very clear about the limitations of this strat• managers of the advantages of clarifying the scope of each official's authority and
egy. Gulick wrote that, "H uma n beings are compo und ed of cognition and establishing who reports to whom. This aspect of administrative rationality is
emotion and do not function well when treated as though they were merely typically captured in an organization chart. Al• though agencies operating
cogs in motion.Their capacity for great and productive labor, creative cooper• in an environment of rapid change cannot af• ford to maintain rigid role
ative work, and loyal self-sacrifice knows no limits provided the whole man, body- descriptions and chains of command, it is still important to clarify basic
mind-and-spirit, is thrown into the program." Gulick wrote in a simi• lar
48
lines of authority and responsibility.
vein that "the task of the administrator must be accomplished less and less by
The implications of administrative management theory are so general
coercion and discipline and more and more by persuasion." For the most
4 9
in nature that the reader may be forgiven for wondering what guidance this body
part, however, administrative management theory focuses on administrative ra•
of theory can provide to the practicing public manager. Aside from the rare sit•
tionality and has little to say on the subject of employee motivation.
uation where senior administrators are asked to participate in a major restruc•
turing of government, this body of theory provides little day-to-day guidance.
Nonetheless, this literature is rich in conceptual distinctions that can evoke
SUMMAR Y thoughtful analysis of some of the most important questions in public admin•
istration, including how to centralize administrative direction and oversight
Administrative management theory emphasizes the importance of finding a without unduly constraining managerial discretion, how to delegate authority and
good fit between administrative structure and organizational purpose. Under• responsibility to subordinates without losing control over their actions, whether
stood as a theory of organizational effectiveness, it holds that administrative ef• reliance on formal authority provides an adequate basis for engaging and motivating
ficiency is enhanced by clear lines of authority and responsibility running from employees, and to what extent managers should insist upon strict adherence
top to bottom, a clear and distinct division of labor among departments, and to the formal chain of command. If administrative manage• ment theory
delegation to administrators of power and authority commensurate with their does not provide definitive answers to these questions, it does provide much
responsibilities. Fayol, Mooney, and Gulick restricted their analysis to structural food for thought.
variables, knowing that other important variables, such as the "human factor," Administrative management theory also holds relevance for the larger de•
would be left out of consideration. They did so because they believed a well- bates over government reform. Although recent advocates of the entrepreneurial
ordered administrative structure is a prerequisite for the successful attainment management paradigm argue that the canons of integration are obsolete in to• day's
of both individual and organizational objectives. Among the most important turbulent environments, political scientists Ronald Moe and Robert
implications of administrative management theory for public management and Gilmour respond that nothing could be farther from the truth. The purpose of
5 0
organizational performance are the following: organizing executive departments by function, putting a single administrator in
charge of each of them, establishing clear lines of authority running from top to
• Organizing. Administrative management theory reminds public man• bottom, and maintaining central staff agencies is not only to ensure coordination and
agers that organizing is a core management responsibility. This responsibil• control but also political accountability. Because public administration is
ity requires finding a good fit between the organization's formal structure grounded in public law, structural means must be found to hold those responsi•
and its central purpose. Formal structure refers to all institutionalized rela• ble for carrying out the law accountable for their actions. According to Moe and
tionships, methods, and procedures that allow an agency to coordinate and Gilmour, those who champion the entrepreneurial management paradigm, with its
control its internal activities. emphasis on contracting out and creating public-private partnerships, simply do
• Organizing by function. Administrative management theory alerts not understand the threat their paradigm poses for democratic accountability
public managers to the advantages of organizing by function. When agen•
cies and their subunits are organized around a single basic task they can
concentrate attention and resources on what the task demands and avoid
duplication of effort and overlapping responsibilities. And when agencies NOTE S
are assigned to one of a small number of executive departments based on
1. H e n r i Fayol, General and Industrial rep rinted in Jay M. Shafritz and J . Steven
shared functions it is easier for the chief executive to provide oversight
Management (London: P itman & Sons, Ott , Classics of Organization Theory (Or •
and maintain accountability. Of course application of this principle in
1949), vi- x . lando, FL: H arcourt , 2001).
practice calls for considerable judgment. Situations may arise, for example, 3. Fayol, General and Industrial Manage•
2. . H e n r y R . T o w n e , " T h e E n g i n e e r
where duplication of effort and overlapping responsibilities are politically as E conomist, " Transactions of the ment, 14—15.
or administratively advantageous. American Society of Mechanical Engineers
vol. 7,
1 CHAPTER
ADMINISTRATIVE MA NA GE ME N T 1
4. Fayol, General and Industrial Management, 6. 23 . Lyle C. Fitch, "L u t h e r Gulick," Public view 6 (Winter 1946), 5 3 - 6 7 .
24. . See, for example.W. F.Willoughby,
5. Fayol, General and Industrial Manage• Administration Review 50 ( No v e m b e r - 42 . Simon, "T h e Proverbs of Admini st ra•
"Th e Nat i on al G o v e rn m e n t as a H o l d i n g
ment, 57 . D e c e m b e r 1990): 6 0 4 - 6 0 8 . tion," 62 .
C o rp o ra t i o n : Th e Q u e s t i o n of Subsidiary
6. Fayol, General and Industrial Manage• Budgets," Political Science Quarterly 32 (De •
ment, 72 . ce mb e r 1917): 5 0 5 - 5 2 1 .
7. Fayol, General and Industrial Manage• 25. . Gulick and U r w i c k (eds.), Papers
ment, 19 . on the Science of Administration,
Foreword.
8. Fayol, General and Industrial Manage•
ment, 41 . 26. . Luther Gulick, " No t e s o n the
T h e o r y of O rganizat ion," in Guli ck and
9. Fayol, General and Industrial Manage•
U rw i ck , Papers, 6.
ment, x—xii.
27. . Gulick, " N o t e s , " 6 .
10. See Saturday Evening Post 210 (Oct.
3 0 , 1 9 3 7 ) , 22 ; and Fortune 33 (March 28 . Gulick, " N o t e s , " 3 .
1946), 170. 29. . G u l i c k , " N o t e s, " 6-7 .
11. . James D. M o o n e y and Alan C. 30. . G u li ck , " N ot es , " 9 .
Reiley, Onward Industry! The Principles of
31 . G ul ic k, " N o te s, " 10.
Organiza• tion and their Significance to Modern
Industry (Ne w Y o rk : H a rp e r & Brothers, 32. . G u li ck , " N ot es , " 12.
1931), ix. 33. . Gulick, " N o t e s , " 31 .
12. M o o n e y and Reiley, Onward Industry!, 34. Gulick, " N o t e s , " 31 .
xx.
35. . D o n a l d C. Stone,
13. M o o n e y and Reiley, Onward Industry!, "Administrative M a n a g e m e n t :
13. Reflections o n Origins
14. M o o n e y and Reiley, Onward Industry!, and A cc om pl i sh m en t s, " Public Administra•
37 . tion Review 50 (January- F ebruary 1990),
5.
15. . M o o n e y and Reiley, Onward
Industry!, 36. . James. W. Fesler, " Th e B r o w n l o w
44 . C o m m i t t e e Fifty Years Later," Public Ad•
16. M o o n e y and Reiley, Onward Industry!, ministration Review 47 (July-August 1987):
39 . 291-96 .
17. M o o n e y and Reiley, Onward Industry!, 37. . Lu ther H . Gul ick,"Re flecti ons o n
57. Public Administration, Past and Present,"
Public Administration Review 50 ( N o ve mb er -
18. . M o o n e y and Reiley, Onward
Industry!, D e c e m b e r 1990): 5 9 9 - 6 0 3 .
62 . 38. . Message of the President of the United
19. M o o n e y and Reiley, Onward Industry!, States on Economy and Efficiency in the Gov•
xx. ernment Service, January 17, 1912 . 62 d
C o n g . 2 d sess. H o u s e Doc . 458 . Serial No .
20. . President's C o m m i t t e e on
6296 . (Washington, DC : G o v e r n m e n t
Ad m i n i s • trative M a n a g e m e n t , Report
Printing Office, 1912), 4 .
with Special Studies (Washington, D C :
Un i t e d States G o v e r n m e n t Pr in ti n g 39. . Jane S. Dahlberg, The NewYork
Office, 1937), 3 . Bureau of Municipal Research ( N e w Yo rk : Ne
w
21 . Luth er Gulick and L. U r w i c k (eds.),
York Uni versity Press, 1966), 96 .
Papers on the Science of Administration (Ne w
York: Institute of Public Adminis tra tion, 40. . See, for example, Luther Gulick,
Co l u m b i a University, 1937). "Principles of Administration, " National
Municipal Review 14 (July 1925): 4 0 0 - 4 0 3 .
22 . Ni cholas He n ry , Public Administration
and Public Affairs (Uppe r Saddle River, NJ: 41 . H e r b e r t A. Simon, " T h e Proverbs of
Prenti ce Hall, 1999), 2 9 - 3 0 . Administration, " Public Administration Re•
1 CHAPTER
ADMINISTRATIVE MA NA GE ME N T 1
43 . See also E dw i n O. Stene, "A n Ap •

proach to a Science of Administration, " 47. . Harold Koont z, "Th e
American Political Science Review 34 (De • M a n a g e m e n t Th e o r y Jun gle,"
c em be r 1940), 1124 . Academy of Management Journal 4
( D e c e m b e r 1961), 184 .
44 . Lu ther Gulick, "Science,Values and
Public Ad minist ration ," in Gulick and Ur • 48. . Gulick, "N o t e s , " 37 .
wic k (eds.), Papers, 1 9 1 - 9 5 . 49. . Gul ick, " N o t e s , " 3 7 , 3 9 .
45 . T h o m a s H . H a m m o n d , " I n Defense 50. R o n a l d C . Mo e and R o b e r t s .
of Luth e r Gulick's 'Note s on the T h e o r y Gilmour, "Rediscove ri ng Principles of Pub -
of O rganization' , " Public Administration 68 lic Administration: Th e Neglected Founda•
( Su m me r 1990), 144. tion of Public Law," Public Administration
46. . D w i g h t Waldo, The Administrative Review 55 (March-April 1995): 13 5-46 .
State
( Ne w Yo rk : R o n al d Press, 1948).
PRE-H UMAN RELATIONS 1
SCIENTIFI C MA NA GEME NT ' S TREATMEN T

O F TH E HU M A N F A C T O R
Pre-Human
It is often said that Taylorism neglected the human factor in the productivity
equation. Taylor's theory suffered from many deficiencies, but neglect of the
human factor was not one of them. Despite the engineer's fixation with ma•
Relations Theory
chines, tools, operating systems, and task definition, Taylor clearly understood
that output depended upon the well-being and commitment of the workers.
His biography, as well as his own writings, reveal a sincere concern for devel•
oping moral character through hard work, facilitating the worker's fullest po •
Mary Parker Follett tential through careful job placement and training, and raising the economic
status of workers through a fairer distribution of profits.
The issue is not one of neglect but of flawed assumptions. Taylor's under•
standing of human needs and the factors that motivate human behavior was
shallow and unsophisticated. He underestimated, for example, the importance
of the workers' need to affiliate with each other and to seek membership in
informal and formal work groups. His experiences with soldiering and labor
unions caused him to view work groups as impediments to management con•
trol and a chief cause of restricted output. A primary aim of his approach to
scientific management was to destroy group solidarity. He intended that man•
agers relate to workers as isolated individuals—defining individual tasks, select•
T
ing appropriate individuals to perform them, and rewarding them based on
rained almost exclusively in mechanical engineering, the scientific man• their individual contributions. Holding to the "economic man" theory of mo •
agement theorists left behind a rather mechanistic, coldly impersonal tivation that prevailed at the time, Taylor was confident that economic self-
philosophy of management. Those trained in the behavioral sciences, by interest would prevail over any natural tendency toward human affiliation or
contrast, offered a very different organizational perspective and management group solidarity. Commitment, loyalty, and interest in work were things to be
philosophy. They viewed the workplace as a social environment peopled by purchased through fatter paychecks.
warm-blooded human beings, focused their analysis on interpersonal relations Taylor's faith in financial incentives, and his belief in the necessity of de•
and the social and psychological determinants of morale and motivation, and stroying all forms of group solidarity, were not shared by other scientific
used the results of their behavioral research to challenge many of the core as• management theorists. Henry Gantt, Taylor's closest associate, as well as the
sumptions of scientific management. From their work emerged two major Gilbreths, were highly uncomfortable with the coldly rational, patronizing,
schools of organization theory: human relations (Chapter 8) and human re• "slave-driving" aspects of Taylorism. They believed that human beings are
sources (Chapters 12 and 13). not simply an important factor in the productivity equation—they are the
The origins of human relations theory is generally traced to the most important factor. Whereas Taylor sought to adjust human beings to the
Hawthorne studies of the late 1920s. However, the human-centered approach needs of the production process, Gantt and the Gilbreths sought to adjust the
to organizational analysis did not spring forth all at once. Efforts to "human• production process to the needs of human beings. In a passage laden with
ize" scientific management had begun in the earliest days of the movement. significance, Lillian Gilbreth wrote that scientific management "has demon•
This chapter examines the contributions of Mary Parker Follett, an early pio• strated that the emphasis in successful management lies on the man, not on
neer in human relations whose work preceded by several years that of Elton the work; that efficiency is best secured by placing emphasis on the man, and
Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger at the Hawthorne plant. As a theory of organi• modifying the equipment, materials, and methods to make the most of the
man." This, for Taylor, was an unwarranted reversal of priorities. Threatene d
1
zational effectiveness, Follett's theory holds that organizational performance is

enhanced by depersonalizing the authority relationship between supervisor by the implication that human needs must be placed ahead of technical ra•
and subordinate and by engaging in collective problem solving. The chapter tionality, Taylor broke off relations with some of his strongest supporters. The
seeds of human relations theory are thus to be found in the works of Gantt
closes with an analysis of the relevance of this theory for public management
and the Gilbreths.
and organizational performance.
1 CHAPTER P RE-HUMAN RELATIONS 1
The humanizing influence of social science on scientific management was

eral." Althoug h the tone of the book was highly respectful of Taylor,
4
apparent from the beginning. While completing requirements for her doctoral
her analysis emphasized the human side of the productivity equation over the
degree in psychology, Lillian Gilbreth wrote and subsequently published The
technical side, including the foreman's role as a teacher, fair treatment of em•
Psychology of Management. It summarizes the key elements of scientific
ployees, the development of human capacity, recognition of differences in in•
management—understood as a synthesis of Frank Gilbreth's motion study and
dividual personality and fitness, elimination of fatigue, and maintenance of a
Frederick Taylor s time study—and describes the positive effects of scientific
supportive, nondistracting work environment. Human happiness was a con•
management on the human mind. Scientific management, she argued, focuses
stant theme.
the worker's attention, sharpens the senses, strengthens memory, reduces stress,
Unfortunately, Lillian Gilbreth's training in individual psychology diverted
promotes a sense of personal accountability, raises self-confidence, and forms
her attention away from group dynamics and interpersonal relations. Her
positive work habits. "The ultimate result of all this physical improvement,
analysis was limited primarily to the effects of scientific management on the
mental development and moral development," she wrote, "is increased capac•
mind. As did other scientific management theorists, she viewed the workplace
ity, increased capacity not only for work, but for health, and for life in gen-
as a physical setting rather than a social environment. The variables requiring
adjustment were predominantly physical and physiological in nature. If hu •
mans are motivated by a desire to satisfy basic social and psychological needs,
Mary Parker Follett 1868-1933 Lillian Gilbreth's analysis does not reveal what those needs are. No r is there a
clear understanding of the social context of work and how that context affects
Mary Parker Follett, noted social human behavior. In short, despite the important contributions of the Gilbreths
ties after hours. School-based commu•
worker, author, and lecturer, was born
nity centers soon caught on across the to a human-centered view of management, it was left to later theorists to con•
September 3, 1868 in Quincy, Massa•
chusetts. In 1888 she entered wha t
2 nation and Follett was elected vice ceive of the workplace as a social environment and to isolate the social and
president of the National Community psychological factors that shape group as well as individual behavior in the
would later be known as Radcliffe
Center Association. Follett also dedi•
College and spent two years studying
cated her life to scholarship. Her expe•
workplace. Among the first theorists to do so was Mary Parker Follett.
English, political economy, and his•
riences as a social worker led her to
tory. She continued her studies at
publish The New State in 1918 and
Newnham College, Cambridge, Eng•
Creative Experience in 1924. Through
land, for nearly a year before her M AR Y P A R K E R F O L L E T T ' S CONTRIBUTION S
her work on various public boards and
mother's ill health necessitated her re•
commissions, Follett came in contact
turn to the United States. She at•
with many progressive business lead•
T O ORGANIZATIO N THEOR Y
tended Radcliffe College periodically
ers. Impressed with their innovative
while caring for her mother and grad•
uated summa cum laude in 1898.
thinking, Follett became interested in Mary Parker Follett had little or no influence on Elton Mayo and the human
management problems, joined the relations school of thought that emerged soon after her death. Nonetheless, like
While an undergraduate she wrote
Taylor Society, and began a second ca•
and published The Speaker of the the human relations theorists that followed her, Follett played an important role
reer as a lecturer in the field of man•
House of Representatives, which in steering the theory and practice of scientific management in a more human•
agement. Four of her earliest lectures
Theodore Roosevelt described as "in•
were sponsored by the Bureau of Per• istic direction. Her lectures and books have had a lasting impact on organiza•
dispensable to every future student of
congressional government." Sup•
3 sonnel Administration in New York tion theory for three reasons. First, she helped put a human face on scientific
City in 1925. Follett chose to live in management, emphasizing that morale and motivation depend on how well the
ported by an inheritance from her
England during the last five years of
grandfather, Follett dedicated the personal needs of workers are satisfied. Second, she exposed the limitations of
her life and her final lectures were de•
next twenty-five years of her life to the structural, organization-chart view of organizations. Her analysis revealed
livered at the London School of Eco•
social reform programs in the Boston
nomics in early 1933. Later in the year that the principles of administrative management—including formal authority,
area. She founded and managed so•
cial, recreational, and educational
she returned to the United States, delegation, and hierarchically ordered chains of command—tell us next to
where she died of cancer at the age of nothing about how to manage people effectively. Finally, she identified a new
clubs for young boys and vocational
65. Afresh and innovative thinker,
guidance and job placement programs form of human association and anticipated a time when societal institutions
Follett's ideas were far ahead of her
for teenagers. The Roxbury League, would resolve differences by integrating the needs of all parties and encourag•
time. Although her ideas had little im•
which she founded in 1902, was the
mediate impact on management prac• ing the fullest development and use of human capacity. Her ideas continue to
first educational and recreational pro•
gram in the United States to use
tice, her influence on administrative influence organization theory and management practice precisely because they
theory has steadily increased with the were so far ahead of their time. Through her books and lectures, Follett laid
5
school buildings for community activi•

passage of time.
down the philosophical and theoretical groundwork for many management
innovations, including participative management, cross-functional work teams,
interest-based bargaining, and diversity management. The analysis that follows Follett believed that humans have an inherent need to associate with oth•
focuses on core concepts in her writings, including democracy, integration, ers, develop social bonds, and participate in a collective life with all of its obli•
power and authority, and leadership. gations. This is a need for self-expression and for self-realization. These needs
can be satisfied only through group involvement. In Follett's words, "The crav•
Follett's Theory of Democracy ing we have for union is satisfied by group life, groups and groups, groups ever
widening, ever unifying, but always groups." Thus it is the group that
6
Influenced by the German philosopher Georg Hegel, Follett believed that emerges as the basic political unit in Follett's theory of democracy. As a social worker
the factual world is a reflection of the collective minds and purposes of past in Boston, Follett helped organize several neighborhood associations.
and present generations of human beings. As reflections of mind and pur• Members of these associations brought in experts to discuss the pressing issues of the
pose, human institutions are dynamic and self-developing. Despite occasional day, organized social and recreational activities for children and adults, and
setbacks, they are evolving toward higher states of liberty, or true democracy. deliber• ated on how to improve conditions within the community. Having
This evolution is driven by an underlying force that tends to unify all differ• come to view these associations as the nucleus of the Ne w State, Follett proposed
ences, and that force is the creative power of each individual. In The New that people "should organize themselves into neighborhood groups to express their
State, first published in 1918, Follett provided evidence that the effects of this daily life, to bring to the surface the needs, desires and aspirations of that life,
unifying force are beginning to manifest themselves.The Ne w State refers to that these needs should become the substance of politics, and that these neigh•
what the political community will look like when human beings learn how borhood groups should become the recognized political unit." 7
to achieve and sustain True Democracy. It will come into existence when For Follett, the neighborhood association functioned as a vehicle for satis•
individuals learn to participate in community groups at increasingly more fying the wants of the community and a forum for uniting differences.
inclusive levels—neighborhood, city, state, regional and national—to deter• " Neighborhood organization," she wrote, "gives us the best opportunity we
mine the collective will of each group at each level. As these collective wills have yet discovered of finding the unity underneath all our differences, the real
are integrated at successively higher levels, the state comes into being. To bond between them—o f living the consciously creative life." Follett believed
8
Follett, the nei ghborhood associations she helped organize in Boston, and that by participating in group life individuals develop their fullest potentials as
the resulting national movement, indicated that the unification process was human beings and make their sovereign right to self-government manifest.
well under way. Responding to those who believed she was advocating a collectivist doctrine,
Follett found the American conception of representative democracy inher• Follett argued that group life liberates rather than suppresses individuality. Ac•
ently flawed for two reasons. First, it demands passive consent rather than ac• cording to Follett, "We find the true man only through group organization.
tive involvement. Neither the individual nor society is benefited, Follett The potentialities of the individual remain potentialities until they are released
argued, by a process in which lone individuals go to voting booths and turn by group life. Man discovers his true nature, gains his true freedom only
their sovereign right of self-government over to elected officials. True Democ• through the group."
9
racy, as she conceived it, requires the full participation of each and every citi• Follett understood that her vision of True Democracy represented an ideal,
zen so that the collective will might be discovered and so that humanity's but she believed the tendency in nature to unify all differences was transform•
fullest potential might be realized. Follett believed that the potential that lies in ing this ideal into reality. Especially relevant to organization theory was her be•
each individual and in society as a whole can be realized only when all citi• lief that this unifying process calls for an entirely new form of human association,
zens contribute their unique talents, perspectives, and expertise—everything one based on collective deliberation. It is not participation in group life itself
that makes them different from everyone else—to the deliberative process. that is important, Follett emphasized, but the particular way that human be•
Second, representative democracy mobilizes particularistic rather than ings relate to each other in the act of participating. The integration of differ•
community interests. Instead of integrating the interests of everyone, represen• ences requires a commitment to deliberately working out problems together.
tative democracy simply counts votes. In Follett's view, the collective will can• The ideal is reached when people come together not to compare ideas or to
not be determined in this way. The interests of the majority are rarely the vote but to create a common idea through the full involvement of everyone.
interests of the citizenry as a whole. Most often, one set of particularistic inter• All of this entails a process of collective deliberation, one in which group satis•
ests finds majority support and the interests of the rest are simply ignored. Ac• faction is understood to be paramount to individual satisfaction. "We must
cording to Follett's theory of democracy, the collective will can only be learn to think of discussion," she wrote, "not as a struggle but as an experiment
achieved by integrating individual perspectives and interests. With each person in cooperation. We must learn cooperative thinking, intellectual teamwork." 1 0
contributing to the deliberative process, a synthesis of differences is eventually The process of reaching a group decision requires the continuous intermin•
achieved. It is this synthesis, reached through the involvement of everyone, that gling of everyone's ideas until something new is created—the collective will
defines the collective will. or group idea. Each individual then wants what the group wants. Individuals
1 CHAPTER PRE -H UMAN RELATIONS 1
will not always agree with the final decision, but by participating in delibera• The secret to the success of integration is what Follett called interpene-
tions they help produce the best possible decision for the group. According to tration .The ideas and perspectives of each party interpenetrate or intermin•
Follett, they may disagree with, even violate, the group decision but they must gle as concerns are discussed. A change in thinking occurs as all participants
nonetheless demonstrate their loyalty to the group by continuing to partici• come to view each other and the total situation in a new fight. Mutual under•
pate, continuing to work to change that with which they disagree. standing and a sense of interdependence are created, thereby motivating par•
ticipants to search for new ways to integrate their interests. In Follett's words,
Resolving Conflict Through Integration "Through an interpenetrating of understanding, the quality of one's own
thinking is changed; we are sensitized to an appreciation of other values. By
Integration, or the uniting of differences, is the central theme in ail of Fol• not interpenetrating, by simply lining up values and conceding some for the
lett's work. In The New State Follett described how integration allows commu• sake of getting the agreement necessary for action, our thinking stays just
nity groups and government bodies to determine their collective wills. In where it was. In integration all the overtones of value are utilized." 11
Creative Experience Follett extended the concept of integration to all human Because some people found her concept of integration too abstract, Follett
settings by defining it as a means of resolving conflict. Whether manifested in offered several concrete examples in the course of her writing and lecturing.
the home, politics, or workplace, conflict is dealt with in one of three ways: Her simplest illustration involved a personal experience:
domination, compromise, or integration. D o m i n a t i o n entails victory of one
side over the other. It occurs whe n one party to a dispute has the means to . . . . In the Harvard Library one day, in one of the smaller rooms, someone
force its will on the other party. Although domination is often the easiest and wanted the window open, I wanted it shut. We opened the window in the
quickest way to settle disputes, it holds clear disadvantages in the long run. It next room, where no one was sitting. This was not a compromise because
fails to resolve the underlying causes of conflict, requires the winning party to there was no curtailing of desire; we both got what we really wanted. For
expend considerable resources in maintaining its dominance, and legitimizes I did not want a closed room, I simply did not want the north wind to
the right of the other party to dominate in its turn. Although it was the blow directly on me; likewise the other occupant did not want that partic•
ular window open, he merely wanted more air in the room.
1 2
method of choice among heads of state and captains of industry in the 1800s,
Follett believed a growing awareness of its disadvantages was turning attention Follett also cited an example of integration achieved through legislation.
to the virtues of compromise. She did not, however, expect domination to Workmen's Compensation laws integrate the interests of workers and employ•
wither away any time soon. It would continue to flourish as long as the Amer• ers by extending disability benefits to injured employees and shielding em•
ican culture glorified battle and the thrill of conquest. ployers from lawsuits arising from on-the-job accidents. In the language of a
C o m p r o m i s e , by contrast, entails each side giving up some of what it later period, laws of this kind create win-win situations. Follett explained the value-
wants to obtain a temporary peace. Compromise, Follett wrote in 1924, is now adding aspect of integration as follows:
the socially approved way of resolving conflict, especially in the business sec•
tor. In collective bargaining, for example, two countervailing powers, business The illustration just given of the Workmen's Compensation Act shows the
and organized labor, are encouraged to come to the bargaining table to work important thing about integration. The moment you try to integrate loss,
out whatever compromises they can. Because collective bargaining reduces in• you reduce loss; as when you try to integrate gain, you increase gain. This
cidences of labor violence, Follett endorsed it as a temporary expedient while is the whole claim of integration over either domination or compromise,
advocating integration in its place. Compromise, like domination, holds clear the three ways of dealing with conflict. In either of the latter you re•
disadvantages. Each side is required to make sacrifices, individual perspectives arrange existing material, you make quantitative not qualitative adjust•
are not altered, the underlying conflict is not resolved and, as a result, no social ments, you adjust but do not create. In the case of the Workmen's
progress is made. Further, a tendency to think in either-or and us-versus-them Compensation Act, you have done more than distribute loss, you have
terms continues to polarize the two sides. prevented loss.This is creating.You have not balanced or weighed inter•
Integration, which Follett believed is nature's way of unifying differences, ests, those of industry, workers and community. By integrating these in•
terests you get the increment of the unifying. 13
involves arriving at a solution in which the desires of both sides find a place. It
is the most difficult and challenging means of resolving conflict because it re• Follett gave substance to the concept of integration by clarifying how it
quires approaching deliberations with an open mind, engaging in often lengthy fact- might unfold in practice. In most instances integration occurs through confer•
finding exercises, searching for a synthesis, and creating an as-yet unimag- ined ence. She emphasized, however, that not every meeting constitutes a "genuine"
solution. Nonetheless, it is the most constructive of the three means of dealing conference. Whether the context is a board meeting, a legislative committee, or
with conflict, in Follett's view, because it creates something new, some• thing a labor-management committee, "A conference should not merely record ex•
which in satisfying the interests of both parties adds value to society. isting differences of opinion, nor should it be a fight, with the vote registering
the outcome of the struggle, but a sincere attempt to find agreement." Open-
1 4
their attitudes toward each other must change, and training in teamwork must
mindedness is a prerequisite. If participants try to push through some• thing be provided to everyone.
already decided on, "then it is not a genuine conference." In addition, a genuine Follett believed that the acceptance of integration must begin with the ac•
conference calls for a new understanding of what it means to be a representative, ceptance of conflict itself. In her view, conflict is merely the manifestation of
as in the case of a labor-management committee. Because the intermingling of differences and thus an inevitable part of the natural order: "We may wish to
ideas constantly creates a new situation, the representative, ac• cording to Follett, abolish conflict but we cannot get rid of diversity. We must face life as it is and
understand that diversity is its most essential feature." Anticipatin g
1 8
.. . should go back to his constituents not merely to bring information to

them, not only to receive fresh instruction from them, but to take back to the themes of the diversity management literature by over fifty years, Follett ar•
them whatever integrations of ideas and interests have been made in the gued that differences are not something to be suppressed or feared but some•
representative body in order to unite these again with the ideas and wishes thing to be valued. "As long as we think of difference as that which divides us,
of his constituents. For in the representative body his ideas have been en• we shall dislike it; when we think of it as that which unites us, we shall cherish
larged by all he has discovered of the objections to what he has presented it. Instead of shutting out what is different, we should welcome it because it is
to his fellow representatives, with all that he has heard of the possible con• different and through its difference will make a richer content of life.. . Give
sequences of the legislation he is proposing, with all that he has learned of your difference, welcome my difference, unify all differences in the larger whole—
such is the law of growth." 19
the advantages of other plans, etc.Then, turning back to his constituents,

he should unite all his with their developing ideas and wishes, and again The conflicts that arise from diversity, Follett added, provide opportunities
go to meet his confreres in assembly or conference reinforced now by the for constructive social change. Like friction, it can be made to work for us. "It
larger point of view thus gained. Our relation to the people we are repre• is possible," Follett wrote, "to conceive of conflict as not necessarily a wasteful
senting is interweaving at every moment with our relation to the new outbreak of incompatibilities, but a normal process by which socially valuable
group. 15
differences register themselves for the enrichment of all concerned. One of the
greatest values of controversy is its revealing nature. The real issues at stake
Once the conference begins, the first step is to bring all differences into the come into the open and have the possibility of being reconciled. A fresh con•
open so that the parties can ascertain the true nature of the conflict and com• flict between employers and employees is of.en not so much an upsetting of
prehend the entire situation. This stands in sharp contrast to the process of col• equilibrium, really, as an opportunity for stabilizing." 20
lective bargaining in which each side's true interests and most pressing The foregoing review of Follett's theory of integration provides the neces•
demands are kept hidden for fear of losing strategic advantage. In Follett's sary foundation for understanding Follett's views on management, views that
words, "Th e first rule, then, for obtaining integration is to put your cards on
are discussed in the sections that follow. Although Creative Experience received
the table, face the real issue, uncover the conflict, bring the whole thing into
a favorable response from the more progressive members of the business com•
the open." Full disclosure prompts each side to reevaluate demands in light
1 6
munity, there were still many who found the concept of integration hopelessly
of their new understanding of the situation. The second step, according to Fol•
idealistic. They challenged her belief that opposed interests are not necessarily
lett, is to "take the demands of both sides and break them up into their con•
incompatible interests, arguing that interests are often inherently opposed and win-
stituent parts." Having isolated each party's underlying concerns, or all of
17
win situations are extremely rare. Follett responded by saying ". . . I want to
the subproblems relating to the controversy, participants may then engage in
say definitely that I do not think integration is possible in all cases. All
prob• lem solving.
that I say is that if we are alive to its advantages, we could often integrate in•
Follett acknowledged that formidable obstacles stand in the way. Integra• stead of compromising."
2 1
For her, the ideal is possible much more often
tion does not come naturally because it is a new concept to most people and than we think, and the reasons for making the effort are compelling.
all but a few lack the requisite skills. Successful adoption of integration requires
acceptance of the concept of integration itself, the strength to break longstand•
ing habits premised on domination or compromise, and a willingness to de• Follett's Theory of Power and Authority
velop new skills. Because integration entails a new way of relating to each
After publishing Creative Experience in 1924, Follett began addressing her ideas
other, skill development is critical to its success. Participants must learn how to
specifically to questions of business management. Impressed with the innovative
think collectively and how to cooperate as a team. They must learn how to
thinking taking place in management circles, she had already joined the Taylor
synthesize various points of view, how to search for creative solutions, and how
Society when Henry Metcalf, director of the Bureau of Personnel Administra•
to exercise team leadership. In the workplace, for example, much will have to
tion in Ne w York, asked her to speak at a series of conferences for business ex•
change. Workers and managers must find new ways of relating to each other, ecutives and personnel directors. Accepting his invitation, Follett delivered more
than a dozen lectures between 1925 and 1928, with a final lecture presented in
1 CHAPTER PRE-HUMAN RELATIONS
1
1932. In the course of applying her theory of integration to questions of

2 2
derstands that "to demand unquestioning obedience to orders not approved,

management, a fresh and intriguing understanding of organizational life and not perhaps even understood, is bad policy."
2 3
It is bad policy, Follett
management practice emerged. Power and authority in the workplace provided argued, because it is inconsistent with the lessons of psychology. Ordering,
the subjects of her earliest lectures, including "The Giving of Orders," "Business exhorting, or even reasoning with employees, according to Follett, seldom
as an Integrative Unity," and "Power." produces the desired results. By issuing orders, the supervisor emphasizes the
As earlier chapters indicated, those who study organizations from a struc• status inferior• ity of those receiving the orders, robs them of self-respect, and
tural perspective tend to emphasize the use of formal authority to coordinate reduces per• sonal autonomy. In Follett's view, autonomy, or the "wish to govern
and control the multitude of organizational functions created in the wake of one's own life is, of course, one of the most fundamental feelings in every
increased specialization. Coordination and control, according to the classical human be• ing." Most humans do not want to feel subordinate to another. As
24
theorists, is achieved by issuing orders to subordinates through the chain of employ• ees, they want to work with others, not under others. Follett
command. Follett, by contrast, having approached the study of organizations emphasized that "It is often the order that people resent as much as the thing
from a behavioral perspective, concluded that the exercise of formal authority ordered. People do not like to be ordered even to take a holiday."
25
contributes very little to organizational effectiveness. Worse yet, she believed, These realities led Follett to distinguish "power-over" from "power-with."
the emphasis on formal authority in classical theory actually encourages an au• In her words, "whereas power usually means power-over, the power of some
tocratic, domination-based approach to management. Greatly troubled by this person or group over some other person or group, it is possible to develop the
possibility, Follett devoted her earliest lectures to reassessing the prevailing conception of power-with, a jointly developed power, a co-active, not a coer•
view of power and authority. cive power."
2 6
Power-with arises through integration, as workers are encour•
Follett concluded that superior work performance has little to do with the aged to develop and contribute their unique talents in the course of
exercise of formal authority and much to do with functional authority, or au• performing their jobs and resolving differences with others. It encapsulates
thority based on expertise. Each member of the organization, manager and what today is referred to as empowerment.
worker alike, has a distinct function to perform. Each develops specialized ex• Follett's analysis of power and authority established the importance of hu•
pertise in the performance of duties. For this reason, the authority that matters man relationships as an organizational variable. Success, she believed, is tightly
in the workplace is not the formal authority attached to a person's place in the linked to the character of human relation; within the organization. She con•
hierarchy but the authority inherent in the job itself. Functional authority is cluded, for example, that a system of human relations premised on the formal superior-
what allows organizational members to exercise power effectively. In practice, subordinate relationship tends to produce negative "habit-patterns." This was to
Follett observed, managers often respond to the suggestions of subordinates become a central theme in human relations theory: how workers view their jobs,
because they recognize their functional expertise, and subordinates respond to management, and the workplace is colored by the emotions, beliefs, and habits of
the suggestions of managers for the same reason. mind evoked by how they are treated. The manner in which orders are given
Follett also observed that formal authority is rarely exercised in progressive provides a telling example:
organizations. Decisions are made based on the needs of the situation and in
accordance with policies and operating procedures, not in response to formal . . . . Probably more industrial trouble has been caused by the manner in
orders issued by superiors. Further, communications in progressive organiza• which orders are given than in any other way.. .. What happens to a man,
tions are reciprocal, moving in both horizontal and vertical directions, as per• in a man, when an order is given in a disagreeable manner by a foreman,
sons with functional responsibilities pursue their mutual concerns. From head of department, his immediate superior in store, bank or factory? The
Follett's point of view, the suggestion that the exercise of formal authority man addressed feels that his self respect is attacked, that one of his most in•
through the chain of command is a universally sanctioned means of control• ner sanctuaries is invaded. He loses his temper or becomes sullen or is on
ling and coordinating only serves to legitimize a command-and-control ap• the defensive; he begins thinking of his "rights"—a fatal attitude for any of
proach to management. The concept itself tends to encourage managers to us. In the language we have been using, the wrong behavior pattern is
aroused... , 2 7
think of themselves as perched atop existing hierarchies for the sole purpose
of imposing control over all those beneath them. Acceptance of the alternative
As the foregoing passage suggests, the way human relationships are struc•
approach to management— a participative, integration-based approach—be•
tured clearly influences behavior, but not always in positive directions. Follett
comes all the more difficult to achieve where the exercise of formal authority
believed that positive habit patterns will replace negative ones only when man•
is viewed as a universal principle.
agers and employees agree to relate to each other in an entirely new way. Man•
Follett acknowledged that many supervisors still issue orders and expect to agers can take the first step in improving human relations, Follett suggested, by
have them obeyed without question. Nonetheless, the shrewd supervisor un- joining with all other employees in learning to obey the law of the situation.
1 CHAPTER PRE-HU MAN RELATIONS 1
Obeying the Law of the Situation job. Initiative, creative imagination, and executive ability, she emphasized, are
Follett believed all organizations must coordinate and control work activities, not qualities found among managers alone. Her willingness to put trust in
but she parted company with classical theorists regarding how this is best ac• workers, to trust their common sense and capacity for self-development, was a
complished. Follett's unique contribution to organization theory lies in the ap• breath of fresh air at a time when organization theory was imbued with elitist
plication of her theory of integration to the subject of coordination and and paternalistic overtones.
control. The key to the latter, she concluded, entails obeying the law of the situa• If workers and supervisors are capable of integrating their differences by
tion. In every work situation, she explained, there is a problem to be solved or obeying the law of the situation, is the same true for labor and management as
a need to be addressed. Obeying the law of the situation simply means doing a whole? In her lecture "Business as an Integrative Unity" Follett extended the
what needs to be done according to principles or methods discovered through concept of integration from the worker-supervisor relationship to the relation•
joint investigation by those involved, including both workers and supervisors. ship between labor and management in the aggregate.True functional unity, she
In Follett's words, "On e person should not give orders to another person, but argued, cannot be achieved unless management and labor confer joindy over all
both should agree to take their orders from the situation. If orders are simply matters relating to the productive efficiency of the organization. All business
part of the situation, the question of someone giving and someone receiving records should be open to employee scrutiny, the fears and concerns of both
does not come up. Both accept the orders given by the situation... ,"
2 8
In this parties should be discussed openly, and differences should be resolved through
new way of relating, coordination and control are accomplished behaviorally integration rather than compromise or concession. Further, this should apply to
rather than structurally; coordination occurs automatically through cross- both labor-management committees established for purposes of collective bar•
functional consultation and problem solving, and control is achieved by com• gaining and employee-management committees built into the structure of
manding facts rather than people. every organizational unit. The most effective method for unifying a business,
Follett emphasized that integration is not a Utopian concept. Observing that she stated, is to involve workers in departmental decision making. Doing so cre•
officials at the same level of authority relate to each other in this way routinely, ates a crucial identity of interests. In her words, "Wh e n you have made your
Follett asked why the same should not be true for individuals at different levels, employees feel that they are in some sense partners in the business, they do not
such as supervisors and workers. Human relations will improve, Follett believed, improve the quality of their work, save waste in time and material, because of
the Golden Rule, but because their interests are the same as yours."
30
as soon as supervisors learn "to depersonalize the giving of orders, to unite all
concerned in a study of the situation, to discover the law of the situation and Obeying the law of the situation, a concept encompassing a new and dis•
obey that." Personal autonomy and self-respect will be preserved, and the
2 9
tinct way of relating, provided the foundation for the theory of participative
re• sentments that cause negative habit-patterns will be gready reduced. management articulated by Rensis Likert forty years later (Chapter 12). By ap•
According to Follett, depersonalizing authority relationships has the added advantage plying her theories of integration and true democracy to the workplace, Fol•
of encouraging workers to take personal responsibility for their work. Involving lett developed an alternative vision of the way work should be organized and
employees in problem solving, and encouraging them to exercise judgment in managed. In The New State Follett argued that the potential that exists in each
carrying out their duties, causes employees to take greater interest in their human being can be realized only when each contributes his or her unique
work. Conversely, employees who are expected to follow orders passed down talents, perspectives, and expertise to group decisions. Representative democ•
from above have no reason to take personal responsibility. If anything goes racy, resting as it does on passive consent, denies citizens the opportunity to
wrong, they can safely say they had done as they were told. participate and robs society of the value of their contributions. In her business
Most workers, Follett believed, are capable of self-management. Organiza• lectures Follett made it clear that the same is true in the economic realm. Value
tions can take advantage of this by developing the capabilities of their workers is added only through the direct involvement of everyone. Workplace relations
and providing opportunities for them to fully utilize their talents. Follett cred• in Follett's alternative vision are highly participative and egalitarian, demand•
ited scientific management with depersonalizing authority by substituting ing a high degree of employee involvement and cooperation among equals.
standard operating procedures for individual orders but faulted Taylor for in•
sisting upon the strict separation of managing and doing. Workers, Follett ar• Follett's Theory of Leadership
gued, should participate in the development of policies and procedures and
As noted earlier, Follett found the prevailing view of power seriously flawed. In
should have considerable discretion regarding their application. This allows her mind, power is not a fixed commodity possessed by top administrators who
them to develop pride in their work and to gain in self-respect. The organiza• delegate portions of it to their subordinates. It is instead the capacity to produce
tion in turn is able to utilize its human resources much more efficiently. Follett results. As she put it," We can confer authority; but power or capacity, no man can
believed that nearly all employees have some managerial ability, even if only a give or take." Although managers cannot delegate power to subordinates,
3 1
little, and opportunity should be given to them to exercise their ability on the they can and should give subordinates opportunities for developing their own
1 CHAPTER PRE-HUMAN RELATIONS 1
power—that is, the capacity to perform their functions successfully.This is not a Coordination, in Follett's view, is achieved most effectively through the un•
matter of sharing power but of creating and exercising power joindy. folding process of integration. These principles, she told her audience, are al•
Once power is understood in terms of human capacity a new conception
ready "at work in some of our best managed industrial plants." The first
of leadership inevitably emerges. Th e leader is no longer a person who gains
principle emphasizes that integration occurs laterally rather than vertically as
the consent of others through force or persuasion but one who successfully
all persons who exercise responsible authority in the matters concerned meet
builds a team by developing the capacities of its members and securing their
to confer and adjust their differences. Because these matters often spill over
fullest contributions. In Follett's words,
functional boundaries, consultation must involve managers and workers with
. . . . Power is now beginning to be thought of by some as the combined relevant expertise from all affected departments.
capacities of a group. We get power through effective relations. This means The second principle stresses that direct contact must occur at the earli•
that some people are beginning to conceive of the leader, not as the man est stages of the problem solving or policy making process. If a problem
in the group who is able to assert his individual will and get others to fol• arises on the shop floor, for example, supervisors should immediately involve
low him, but as the one who knows how to relate these different wills so their workers in factfinding, investigation, and diagnosis of the problem. An
that they will have a driving force. He must know how to create a group interpenetration of their views must occur from the outset if the law of the
power rather than to express a personal power. He must make the team.
3 2
situation is to be determined. Similarly, if a policy problem arises at the
strategic level of an organization, department heads should be involved in
Follett emphasized that the leader may or may not be the member of the deliberations from the outset. Agreement is difficult to secure where depart•
group with the highest rank.The leader is simply the one who is able and will• ment heads are asked to comment after a policy has already been drafted.
ing to play a facilitative role: "No w that we are recognizing more fully the Policy forming and policy adjusting, Follett believed, must be part of the
value of the individual, now that management is defining more exactly the same process.
function of each, many are coming to regard the leader as the man who can The third principle suggests that the process of mutual adjustment must
energize his group, who knows how to encourage initiative, how to draw from take into account everyone's concerns and the effects the process itself is hav•
all what each has to give." 33
ing on the participants. Peoples' views shift a- they deliberate, creating new sit•
Follett's lectures on leadership anticipated the team-building literature of uations in a continuous fashion. The final decision must reconcile these
the 1980s by over fifty years. Speaking in 1927, she acknowledged that busi- intermingling and interpenetrating views in a way that adds value to the group
nesspeople were only beginning to sort out what this new understanding of and the individuals involved.
team leadership might look like in practice. Teamwork, she concluded, is nei• The final principle emphasizes that coordination is something that is never
ther democratic nor autocratic. It is integrative. It involves bringing together achieved once and for all. Situations constantly change. For this reason coordi•
people performing different functions in an interdependent environment, dis• nation must be viewed as a continual and necessary process of deliberative
cussing each other's needs, and reaching agreement about how to integrate dif• problem solving. Follett suggested establishing permanent mechanisms by
ferences. Order giving is replaced by joint consultation, and control is which problem solving can take place on a continual basis, much like what are
exercised not over workers from above but over situations arising at all levels now called continuous improvement teams. As we shall see in Chapter 14, the
through cross relations between department heads, staff experts, and other in• similarities between Follett's four principles and those espoused by quality
volved employees. The purpose of this participative, integration-based ap• management theorists in the 1980s are striking.
proach, Follett emphasized, is not industrial peace as such but progress toward
mutual goals.
Follett's Enduring Contributions
Follett's Four Principles of Organization Warren Bennis observed in 1995 that "Just about everything written today
about leadership and organizations comes from Mary Parker Follett's writings
To sharpen the contrast between her understanding of coordination and con•
and lectures." Indeed, it is difficult to exaggerate or overstate the value of
35
trol and that of the classical theorists, Follett identified four fundamental prin•
her insights.
ciples of organization:
First, Follett humanized scientific management by steering it in a more
1. Coordination by direct contact of the responsible people concerned. worker-centered direction. In general she believed scientific management was
2. Coordination in the early stages. on the right track. She approved of fact-based decision making, the develop•
ment of standardized operating procedures, and the efimination of waste. How •
3. Coordination as the reciprocal relating of all the factors in a situation.
ever, she rejected Taylor's separation of managing and doing, and she was among
4. Coordination as a continuing process. 34
the first to recognize that rational planning and technical efficiency could not
1 CHAPTER P RE -HUMAN RELATIONS 1
guarantee success. Once all competitors had adopted the latest technological pervisors avoid emphasizing status differences. No r did she suggest that chains
and managerial innovations, the continuing pursuit of competitive advantage of command are unnecessary, only that they should not stand in the way of cross-
would cause them to turn their attention to the one critical variable remaining: functional communication and deliberation. In short, the alternative vi• sion she
their human resources. By adopting a behavioral approach to organizational offered had less to do with formal structure and more to do with the character of
analysis, Follett was able to demonstrate the fundamental importance of human worker-management relations within it. Ultimately, she offered an egalitarian
relations as a subject of study. She believed that most institutional problems are and participative approach to management in place of the pre• vailing
essentially problems of human relations. She also believed that there is sufficient command-and-control approach. Although the issue is not discussed by
commonality in human reactions to similar situations to permit the develop• Follett, adopting a different managerial approach is likely to have structural
ment of administrative principles pertaining to the behavioral dimensions of or• consequences, with hierarchies becoming flatter as formal authority is de-
ganizational life. Accordingly, she called for the scientific study of hu ma n
36
emphasized and teamwork is encouraged.

relations and chided social scientists for failing to go into the factory, store, town That Follett's alternative paradigm captured something fundamental is sug•
meeting, and congress to study people interacting in specific social contexts. 37
gested by the "rediscovery" of her ideas by three subsequent schools of

Second, Follett simultaneously deepened and broadened the prevailing thought: the participative management school of the 1950s and 1960s, the quality-
view of the workplace by characterizing it as a social and psychological setting of-work-life school of the 1970s, and the empowerment and team- building
rather than a purely physical one. She concluded that any attempt to under• school of the 1980s and 1990s. Having never grown obsolete, her ideas serve to
38
stand issues of morale and motivation must begin, not with the lone individ• capture the essence of contemporary thinking remarkably well. Debate continues,
ual, but with the interrelationships among individuals.This in turn led her to however, about the viability of Follett's alternative vision. Some commentators
reject individual psychology's stimulus-response model of human behavior. believe that, however desirable an egalitarian, participa• tive, integration-based
Behavior, she said, is not a response to a single, isolated stimulus but rather a workplace might be, Follett offered a romantic ideal that cannot be achieved—
response to a continually evolving situation. She observed, for example, that a or at least cannot be sustained for long.
boy does not merely respond positively or negatively to school but to his own Nitin Nohria, for example, suggests that Follett's ideal ultimately runs afoul
response to school.The same is true for workers. Above all else, it is percep• of Michel's "iron law of oligarchy," which -rates that all organizations tend to
tions that matter. Because the roles of boss and subordinate are already preg• become divided into a minority of directors and a majority of directed. As 3 9
nant with meaning, managers must consider how workers perceive their long as people seek power, either as a means to an end or as an end in itself, it
respective roles and the treatment they receive. Although Follett did not artic• will be hard to sustain a system based on the concept of power-with. Nohria
ulate a needs-based theory of motivation, she identified certain basic human also notes that many situations are truly zero-sum in nature, making integra•
needs, including the needs for self-respect, self-expression, and personal auton• tive solutions impossible. "A classic case," he wrote, "is downsizing. It is hard to
omy, and established that perceptions regarding the satisfaction of these needs arrive at a decision to lay off 20 percent of a workforce through a participative
greatly affect employee motivation and morale. process." Paul Lawrence has offered a slightly mor e optimistic view. In
4 0 4 1
Third, Follett was among the first to envision an alternative to the bureau• his view we do not yet know whether the iron law of oligarchy is universal and
cratic paradigm implicit in the works of Weber, Taylor, Fayol, and Gulick. As inevitable. Over time we may see a gradual, episodic progress toward the at•
Follett shifted the frame of reference from structure to human relations, the tainment of Follett's ideal.
understanding of organizations changed in fundamental and remarkable ways. Follett's considerable influence on later generations of theorists is now well-
In contrast to classical theorists, Follett stressed task interdependence rather established, but her influence on her contemporaries in the business commu•
than independence, reliance upon personal and functional authority rather nity was slight. Although her ideas were well-received among the more
than formal authority, integration rather than domination, fact control rather progressive members of the business community, they had no discernible im•
than person control, joint consultation rather than unilateral commands, col• pact on management practice. Why her ideas failed to fall on fertile ground un•
lective responsibility rather than individual responsibility, and teamwork rather til much later has been the subject of considerable speculation. Rosabeth Moss
than individual action. Kanter suggests that her ideas were ignored in part because they had been ex•
It is often said that Follett rejected the bureaucratic paradigm, but it is per• pressed by a w om a n. Peter Drucker, by contrast, argues that her ideas were
4 2
haps more accurate to say that she rejected the prevailing view of what should simply too far ahead of their time. Management lacked the language, the
4 3
take place within the bureaucratic shell. For her the key issue was not structural mechanisms, and the mental mindset to put her theory of integration
whether to reject structural principles but how to implement them most ad• into practice. This was a time, after all, when managers were struggling to im•
vantageously. For example, she did not suggest that the use of formal author• plement the structural innovations endorsed by scientific and administrative
ity should be avoided altogether, only that it should be exercised sparingly management theorists, including the departmental form of organization, clear
and carefully, with managers relying primarily on personal and functional au• chains of commands, planning staffs, and standardized operating procedures. It
thority. She did not suggest that hierarchy should be abolished, only that su- was also a time when management and labor alike believed in the inevitability
1 CHAPTER PRE-H UMAN RELATIONS 1
of class warfare and thus viewed the concept of integration as hopelessly naive.
E xh ib i t 7.1 Th e C o m p e t i n g Va lu e s F r a m e w o r k :
They were not yet ready or able to follow through on the implications of a be• Fou r Models o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E ff ec ti ven es s
havioral theory calling for team-based consultation and less rehance on formal
authority. Although the extent to which Follett's ideas can be put into practice
Flexibility
remains to be seen, for many her vision serves as an ideal toward which to
strive. The important thing, Follett said, was to strive for something better. Hu •
man progress depends on it.
management function: the need to to acquire resources and adapt
R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values:

T
The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of Follett's theory of in•
MODEL MODEL
tegration for public management and government performance. This explo• Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values:
ration is guided by the three analytical frameworks identified in Chapter 3. human resource growth,
Models of Organizational Effectiveness Internal External
focus focus
As indicated in Exhibit 7.1, Follett's theory of integration emphasizes the val•
ues associated with the human relations model, including cohesion, morale,
and human resource development. This model focuses on accomplishing the Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values:
organization's pattern maintenance and tension management functions. By INTERNAL info, management, planning, RATIONAL
serving as facilitators and mentors, managers can help maintain cohesive social PROCESS communication goal setting GOAL
MODEL
relations in the workplace and keep to a minimum the tensions and conflicts MODEL
that inevitably arise in organizational settings. Follett's adoption of the human stability, productivity,
relations model may be seen in her concern for depersonalizing the authority control efficiency
relationship, safeguarding individual autonomy and self-respect, and searching
for ways to satisfy the wants of workers and supervisors alike through collec•
tive deliberation and problem solving. Her theory asks managers to exercise activities
personal leadership in developing the unique talents of all workers and meld•
ing them together into a cohesive work team. Control
One of the most interesting aspects of Follett's theory of integration is that SOURC E: Ada pt ed with permission from Figures 3 and 4, Robert O. Quinn and John Rohrbaugh, " A Spatial Model
it goes farther than perhaps any other theory of organization toward achieving of Effectiveness Criteria: Towards a Competing Values Approach to Organizational Analysis," Management Science
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The Institute of M a nag em ent Sciences, now the Institute for Operations
a workable balance among the many effectiveness values cited in Quinn's Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum Maryland 21090-
competing values framework. As indicated in Exhibit 7.1, Follett's theory em• 2909 USA.
braces the rational goal and internal process models as well as the human
relations model. Her theory of integration calls for an entirely different set of
means for directing the attention of workers to what needs to be accomplished
for and then working together to carry out the resulting decision. This allows
(the goal attainment function) and for coordinating and controlling their ef•
goals to be attained and work activities coordinated, all without sacrificing job
forts (the integration function), means that are more compatible with the val•
satisfaction and self-respect in the process.
ues associated with the human relations model than those endorsed by the
classical theorists. Follett's theory of integration asks supervisors at all levels to Follett's approach to management provides a stark contrast to the top-
down, command-and-control approach often reflected in classical theory.
rely upon their formal authority and status in the hierarchy as little as possible,
Rather than formulating orders and directives at the top and passing them
relying instead on the authority inherent in each situation. Stated more con•
down the chain of command for disciplined implementation at the bottom,
cretely, her theory asks managers to invite all persons familiar with or affected
Follett's theory calls for delegating as much decision-making authority as pos•
by a particular organizational problem to deliberate together, drawing upon
sible to those closest to the problem, thereby showing a greater concern for
their collective expertise and knowledge to determine what the situation calls
flexibility and empowerment than predictability and control.
PRE -H UMAN RELATIONS 1
1 CHAPTER
Mechanisms for Coordinating Unde r mutual adjustment, responsibility for coordination and control
and Controlling Work Activities rests with those who do the work. This means that for mutual adjustment to
be effective managers must genuinely believe that workers are capable of self-
As indicated in Exhibit 7.2, Follett's theory of integration relies on mutual
management and self-control and that they don't need to be told what to do
adjustment to coordinate and control work activities. Although she believed
or be threatened with sanctions to ensure compliance. Mutual ad• justment
that all complex organizations must be internally divided and hierarchically
requires a philosophy based on management-by-trust rather than management-
ordered to carry out their mandated responsibilities, she did not believe that
by-fear, and this, Follett acknowledged, is a difficult prerequi• site to satisfy.
orders issued through the chain of command represented the most effective
Whereas direct supervision and work standardization may be appropriate
means of ensuring coordination and control. In her view the resulting costs in
mechanisms of coordination and control in production and procedural agen•
terms of reduced cohesion and morale were too high and entirely unneces•
cies where the work is routine, outputs measurable, and the environment sta•
sary. She believed a much more effective method is to invite workers from all
ble, mutual adjustment may be more appropriate in those agencies that James
organizational units and all hierarchical levels to consult with each other as
Q.Wilson calls craft and coping agencies. In these agencies the work typically
needed to determine the law of the situation. Instead of viewing control as a
requires considerable independent judgment and outputs and outcomes are
static management function, Follett viewed it as a continuous, dynamic process
difficult to measure.Where these conditions prevail, top-down control through
of mutual adjustment. 44
direct supervision and work standardization is unlikely to be effective. Devel•

oping the talents of each worker, expanding the scope of each worker's discre•
tion, and encouraging cross-functional problem solving may prove to be far
E xh ib it 7.2 Si x M e c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d C o n t r o l l i n g Wo r k Activit ies more effective in these agencies if the prerequisite noted above can be satis•
Mutual adjustment fied. As Follett observed, managerial employees consult with each other all the
Workers consult with each other informally about what
needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor• time without any particular concern about their position in the hierarchy. She
saw no reason why the same cannot be true for relations between managerial
Direct supervision
A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of and nonmanagerial personnel.
workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte•
Standardization of Work is programmed in advance of its execution by Motivational Strategies
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina• In contrast to theorists such as Frederick Taylor, Follett did not believe that hu•
tion is built into the work process itself and control is mans respond primarily to economic incentives. In what might be recognized
achieved by strictly limiting each worker's discretion. today as an early statement of a needs-based theory of motivation, Follett
Standardization of Work outputs are programmed in advance by providing wrote at length about the value workers place on personal autonomy and self-
work outputs each work group with product specifications or perfor• respect. Their perceptions of how they are being treated and their feelings of self-
worth influence their degree of job satisfaction and motivation. Although Follett
collecting output data, requiring corrective action when did not endorse any particular motivational strategy, her analysis is con• sistent
needed, and rewarding and sanctioning workers based on with the considerate leadership, group acceptance, and job identifica• tion
results achieved.
strategies.
worker skills
As indicated in Exhibit 7.3, the considerate leadership strategy calls for
skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in•
stitutions and professional associations are relied upon to motivating employees by being supportive, respectful, and attentive to their in•
provide standardized training. Professionally trained work• dividual needs, and by distributing extrinsic rewards in the form of praise and
ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling. approval. Similarly, the group acceptance strategy relies on the extrinsic re•
Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear wards associated with affiliating with others, forming social bonds, and enjoy•
of values vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should ing the approval of one's peers. Follett characterized group involvement as a
and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational fundamental human need.
members to shared, internalized values and ideals. The jo b identification strategy, by contrast, relies on the motivational
power of intrinsic rewards. For example, if jobs are challenging and provide con•
SO UR CE : Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7).
siderable autonomy, job incumbents may be motivated by the intrinsic rewards
1 CHAPTER PRE-HUMAN RELATIONS 1
E xh ibi t 7.3 Four M ot i v ati on al S t r a t e gi e s

SUMMAR Y
Legal Compliance
Lillian Gilbreth and Mary Parker Follett were among the first to explore ques•
Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior.
Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require• tions of organizational design and management from a behavioral perspective.
ments, either because they accept the legitimacy of organizational authority or fear They helped nudge scientific management and administrative management
being sanctioned. theory in a more humanistic direction by challenging classical assumptions
Instrumental Rewards about human motivation and the necessity of coordinating and controlling hu•
Using rewards to induce desired behaviors. man behavior through structural means.Their work provides evidence that the
Rewards for Performance humanizing of scientific and administrative management theory was well un•
Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance. derway when Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger first articulated their the•
Employees may meet or exceed role expectations because they value the material ory of human relations in the late 1920s.
Mary Parker Follett's theory of integration views conflict as a natural part
provide.
of organizational life and suggests that it should be resolved through integra•
Considerate Leadership tion rather than domination or compromise. Understood as a theory of orga•
nizational effectiveness, it holds that organizational performance is enhanced
ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those
who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or by relying on functional and personal authority rather than formal authority
exceed their role requirements. and by engaging all members of the organization in collective problem solv•
Group Acceptance ing. Among the most important implications of her theory for public managers
Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group are the following:
value affiliation and peer approval to meet or exceed role requirements, assum• • Depersonalizing authority. Follett suggests that supervisors and man•
ing that group norms are consistent with organizational objectives. agers should de-emphasize the differences in authority and status be•
Job Identification
tween themselves and their subordinates. As a corollary, they should avoid
Offering work that is interesting, challenging, and responsible. Employees may come issuing orders or commands.The top-down, command-and-control ap•
to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and proach to management violates deeply felt needs for self-respect and
innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their personal autonomy and thus succeeds only in producing "negative habit-
patterns."
Goal Congruence
• Collective problem-solving. Follett also suggests that supervisors and
Hiring employees whose goals and values are congruent with the organization's
managers should engage everyone affected by a problem in searching for
Employees may come to work, remain with the organization, meet or exceed role re• an integrative solution in which the interests of all parties find satisfaction.
quirements, and exhibit greater creativity, innovativeness, and institutional loyalty. This involves investigating the facts of the situation and agreeing to do
They may do so because they identify with the organization's mission and values and
because contributing to them reinforces their own self-concept. what the situation seems to call for. By agreeing to "obey the law of
the situation," participants experience personal autonomy, maintain self-
SOURCE: Based in large part on Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations (Wiley,
1966), pp. 336-68.
respect, and develop "positive habit patterns," including heightened
commitment to the decisions they help to craft. Further, a new, creative
solution is brought into being which "adds value" to both the organiza•
tion and those who work within it.
• Participative management. Rejecting Taylor's separation of planning
associated with higher self-esteem, greater personal growth, and opportunities and doing, Follett suggests that supervisors and managers should be entirely
for self-expression. Although Follett did not address this strategy explicitly, it is open about issues facing the organization and involve everyone in develop•
clearly consistent with her analysis of the satisfactions derived by participants as ing organizational policies and procedures. Anticipating human resources
they engage in collective problem solving. Because public employees are typi• theory by forty years, she suggests that supervisors and managers should
cally well-educated, engaged in technical or professional lines of work, and de• develop and utilize the unique talents of their workers and release the cre•
sirous of personal and professional growth, a motivational strategy based on ative potential locked up in each and every individual through collective
intrinsic rewards may be particularly effective in many public agencies. problem solving and participation in management decision making.
PR E-H UMAN RELATIONS 1
1 CHAPTER
Mary Parker Follett's theory of integration was well ahead of its time. Even ders, and A ut ho ri t y : An Alternative t o Hi •
32 . Fo ll et t, "Le ad e r and Expert ," i n Me t •
today it offers one of the clearest alternatives to the command-and-control ap• calf and U r w i c k (eds.), Dynamic Adminis•
erarchy or a U t o p i a n Ideolo gy?" in Gra •
proach to management and reliance on the scalar chain for purposes of coor• tration, 248 .
ha m (ed.), Mary Parker Follett, 1 5 9 -6 0 .
dination and control. It holds out the possibility that collective self-control is a 33 . Follett, "Leader and Expert, " 247 . 39 . N o h ri a , "M a r y Parker Follett's
viable option for those seeking to improve organizational performance. Al• 34 . Follett, "Individualism in a Planned
View," 1 6 0 - 6 1 .
though her writings were idealistic and prescriptive in tone and generally un• Society," in Metcalf and U r w i c k (eds.), 40. N o h r i a , "M a r y Parker Follett's View,"
supported by available research findings, the basic outline of her theory would Dynamic Administration, 297. 161 .
find support in several of the later schools of thought. The significance of her 35. . Wa r re n Bennis, " T h o u g h t s o n ' T h e 41 . Paul R . Lawrence, "Ep ilogue, " i n Gra •
contributions to organization theory will become more apparent as the chap• Essentials of Leadership, '" in Pauline Gra • ha m (ed.), Mary Parker Follett, 295 .
ters unfold. ha m (ed.), Mary Parker Follett—Prophet of 42 . R o s a b e t h Moss Kanter, "P re face, " in
Management, 178 . G ra h a m (ed.), Mary Parker Follett, x vi -x vi i.
36. . M etcalf and U r w i c k , Dynamic 43 . Pet er F. D ru ck e r, "In t ro du ct io n, " in
Admin• istration, 24 . G rah a m (ed.), Mary Parker Follett, 1-9 .
NOTE S 37. . Follett, Creative Experience, i x- x . 44 . L. D. Parker, "C o n t r o l in O r g a n i z a •
38. . See, N it i n N o h ri a , "M ar y Parker tional Life," Academy of Management Review
Fol• lett's Vie w on Power, the Giving of 9 (O ct o b e r 1984): 7 3 6 - 4 5 .
Or •
1. L. M. Gilbreth, The Psychology of Man• 163 .
agement: The Function of the Mind in Deter•
mining, Teaching and Installing Methods of
Least Waste ( Ne w York: Th e M ac mi ll an
Company, 1919), 3 .
2. E d w a r d T . James (ed.), Notable Ameri-
canWomen 1607—1950 vol. 1 (C a m •
bridge: Ha rva r d Un iv ers i t y Press, 1971),
6 3 9 - 4 1 ; Pauline G ra h a m (ed.,) Mary
Parker Follett—Prophet of Management
(Boston: Ha rv a r d Business Sch oo l Press,
1995), 1 1 - 3 2 .
3 . T h e o d o r e R o o s e v e l t , "Fol lett:
Speaker o f th e H o u s e o f R e p r e s e n t a •
tives," American Historical Review 2 ( O c •
tobe r 1896), 177 .
4. L. Gilbreth, The Psychology of Manage•
ment, 324 .
5. . Elliot M. F o x , "M a r y Parker Follett:
Th e E n d u r i n g Co n t ri b u t i o n , " Public Ad•
ministration Review 28 ( N o v e m b e r / D e •
cembe r 1968), 5 2 0 - 2 8 ; Pauline G rah a m
(ed.), Mary Parker Follett—Prophet of Man•
agement (Boston: Harvard Business School
Press, 1995).
6. M ar y Parker Follett, The New State

(Ne w York: Lo ng m an s, Green, 1920), 6 .
7. Follett, The New State, 96 .
8. Follett, The New State, 2 01 .
9. Follett, The New State, 6.
10. Follett, The New State, 97.
11 . M ar y Parker Follett, Creative Experi•
ence (N e w Yo rk : Lo ng ma ns, Green, 1924),
PR E-H UMAN RELATIONS 1
1 CHAPTER
12. n r y C. Metcalf and L. Ur - wick

M (eds.), DynamicAdministration:The
a Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett (Ne w
r York: H a rp e r & Brother s, 1941), 32 .
13. Follett, Creative Experience, 45—46.
y 14. Follett, Creative Experience, 200 .
15. . Follett, Creative Experience, 2 4 1 -4 2 .
P 16. Follett, "C onstructiv e Conflict," 38 .
a
r 17. Follett, " C onstructive Conflict," 40 .
k 18. Follett, Creative Experience, 301 .
e 19. Follett, The New State, 39-40 .
r
20. . Follett, Creative Experience, 301 .
21 . Follett, "C onstructiv e Conflict," 36 .
F
o 22 . These lectures are found in Metcal f
l and U r wi c k (eds.), Dynamic Administration.
l 23 . Follett, "T h e Givi ng of Orde rs, " in
e M etcalf and U r w i c k (eds.), Dynamic Ad•
t ministration, 51 .
t
24. . Follett, " T h e Giv ing of O rder s," 61 .
,
25. . Fo l l e t t , "Th e Giving of Orde rs, " 61 .
26. . Follett, "Power," in Metcalf and
"
U r w i c k (eds.), Dynamic Administration,
C
101 .
o
n 27. . Follett, " T h e Giving of O rder s, " 57 .
s 28. . Follett, " T h e Giv ing of Orde rs, " 59 .
t
29. . Follett, "Th e Giv ing of O rd e r s, " 58 .
r
u 30. . Follett, "Business as an
c Integrative Unity," in Metcalf and
t U r w i c k (eds.), Dynamic Administration,
i 82 .
v 31 . Fo l l et t , "Po we r , " l 12 .
e
C
o
n
f
l
i
c
t
,
"
i
n
H
e
H UMA N RELATIONS 1
8 Elton Mayo 1880-1949
Human Relations George Elton Mayo, widely recognized

as the father of human relations the•
ory, was born in Adelaide, Australia, on
work caught the attention of the dean
of Harvard's Graduate School of Busi•
ness Administration, who invited him
Theory December 26,1880. He studied medi• to join the faculty in 1926 as associate
1
cine in Australia, Scotland, and Eng• professor and director of the newly
land before deciding that the routine created Department of Industrial Re•
aspects of medicine were not to his lik• search.
ing. In 1905 he returned to Australia, Soon after Mayo joined the Har•
Elton Mayo and entered the University of Adelaide in
1907, and received his A.B. degree in
vard faculty, a business executive with
the Western Electric Company asked
philosophy and psychology in 1911. He him to assist with a study of working
Fritz Roethlisberger also began graduate studies at this
time but did not receive his M.A. de•
conditions at the Hawthorne plant on
the outskirts of Chicago. Although
gree until he completed a thesis in the research was already underway,
1926. As a professor of philosophy at Mayo's interpretation of the data led
the University of Queensland, Mayo company researchers to conduct addi•
began working with soldiers who had tional studies centering on employee
returned from World Wa r I suffering attitudes and group behavior. The
from mental disorders known as shell first extensive report of the now-
shock. He found the task of treating famous Hawthorne studies is found
patients and reporting his observations in Mayo's The Human Problems of an
an exciting one and subsequently ap• Industrial Society published in 1933.
plied the clinical approach to his work The findings of the Hawthorne studies
in industrial relations. In 1922 he left received worldwide attention and the
Australia for England by way of the ideas and methods that Mayo brought
W
United States but was unable to con• to industrial research spurred the de•
hereas scientific ma na ge ment theorists approached the study of tinue to England due to lack of funds. velopment of a new field of study
Aided by a grant from the Laura Spel-
organizations from a structural perspective, human relations theo• known first as human relations and
man Rockefeller Foundation, Mayo later as organizational behavior. The
rists did so primarily from a behavioral perspective. This had the secured a temporary position as a re• clearest statement of his ideas is
effect of shifting the focus of analysis from the technical to the human as• search associate at the Wharton School found in The Social Problems of an In•
pects of production, from economic and physiological determinants of be• of Commerce and Finance at the Uni• dustrial Society, published in 1945.
versity of Pennsylvania. There he wrote
havior to social and psychological determinants, and from individuals Mayo retired from Harvard in 1947
a series of articles on the problems of and died in England two years later
working in isolation to groups of employees working together. Th e result life and work in industrial society. His at the age of 68.
was an approach to management that was much less impersonal and mecha•
nistic than scientific management. But, as we shall see, human relations theo•
rists did not ultimately repudiate scientific management theory. They
contented themselves instead with challenging some of its assumptions and
offering a few useful correctives. Unde rst ood as a theory of organizational
effectiveness, human relations theory calls for maintaining a nurturing work vance of human relations theory for public management and organizational
environment, replacing close supervision with a more relaxed and sympa• performance.
thetic form of supervision, and encouraging the development of cohesive
work groups.
Th e body of theory that came to be known as human relations grew out
of a series of studies conducted at the Hawthorne ^festern Electric plant on
the outskirts of Chicago between 1927 and 1932. This chapter describes
the Ha wt ho rn e studies and the theory of human relations developed by
Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger. It closes with an analysis of the rele•
H UMA N RELATIONS 1
MAYO' S THEOR Y O F SOCIA L

D I S O R G A N I Z A T I O N AN D H UM A
N IRRATIONALIT Y
Whereas Mary Parker Follett derived her ideas about human relations from
Hegelian philosophy and keen personal observation, Elton Mayo derived his
from clinical psychology. To understand Mayo's contribution to organization
theory, it is necessary to begin with his theory of social disorganization, irra•
tionality, and revery.The general outline of his theory was expressed in a series
1 CHAPTER HUMA N RELATIONS 1
of articles published in The Journal of Personnel Research and Harper's Magazine For example, a worker's belief that she is not paid fairly may mask a deeper
soon after his arrival in the United States from Australia in 1922. 2
concern about her family's financial security. The worker's grievance is likely
Mayo believed that modern industrial societies are experiencing the adverse to persist despite a wage increase because the underlying fear has not been ad•
effects of social disorganization. These include international distrust, labor dressed. In short, fears tend to distort a person's understanding of objective re•
unrest, higher rates of suicide, higher numbers of people experiencing mental ality. In Mayo's words, "Reveries born of imperfect adjustment to industrial
breakdowns, and a general sense of discontent. Mayo attributed social disorga• conditions make the individual restless, dissatisfied, unhappy. He may think that
nization to the Industrial Revolution, which destroyed the social ties that once "another ten dollars" would make him happy; and he may be quite wrong." 4
bound together the members of society. Individuals are no longer integrated Because labor complaints of this kind are merely symptoms of underlying
with each other through family and kinship ties, shared norms about how to fears, feelings, and needs, responding to the complaint itself has no long-term
behave, and clearly defined social roles. Children leave home after completing benefit. For this reason Mayo urged industrial researchers to investigate the
high school and move from place to place seeking employment. Some find jobs sources of maladjustment and help individuals come to terms with their un•
in factories but are forced to perform monotonous and boring tasks without conscious fears and unacknowledged feelings.
any sense of how they are contributing to the common interest. Mayo argued Mayo understood that industrial unrest cannot be attributed to human ir•
that although we cannot restore the conditions of earlier, more traditional soci• rationality alone; the factory system itself is largely responsible. From this per•
eties we can and must discover new modes of social collaboration. spective, industrial problems must be viewed as arising from the lack of fit
One sign of social disorganization is industrial unrest. Mayo believed that between each individual's fears and needs and the system's ability to allay
the causes of industrial unrest can be traced to the irrational tendencies of those fears and satisfy those needs. Indeed, Mayo believed that industrial
otherwise normal individuals and their incomplete adjustment to their envi• methods actually exacerbate fears and prevent need satisfaction. He castigated
ronments. As part of the maturation process, all humans strive to develop a researchers and managers alike for failing to comprehend this. Rather than
sense of self, come to terms with their childhood experiences, and adjust adjusting working conditions to the needs of human beings, managers expect
themselves to the physical and social environments of the adult world. But in a workers to adjust to the prevailing system, a system designed according to the
disorganized society, according to Mayo, individual adjustment is much more cold, technical logic of industrial engineers. No one, Mayo wrote, has cared
difficult. Extended kinship groups are rarely available to assist with personal to ask how industrial methods and working conditions can be adjusted to hu•
development, social norms defining appropriate behaviors are much weaker, man needs.
and the pace of technological change is much greater. Consequently, many
Arguing that we can no longer maintain "the vague hope that humanity
people reach adulthood without having come to terms with, for example, a
will somehow adapt itself to any working conditions we see fit to impose,"
childhood preoccupation with death, an abusive or absent parent, or an overly
Mayo insisted "that a careful investigation of the human aspect of industrial or•
strict upbringing. Burdened with unresolved personal fears and feelings of in•
ganization is greatly needed." His own study of employee turnover in a
5
adequacy, some individuals suffer mental breakdowns or are paralyzed by neu•

Philadelphia textile mill provided support for his thesis that the narrow divi•
rotic obsessions. Most, however, are maladjusted in relatively minor ways and
sion of labor creates boredom and monotony, and frustrates the basic human
continue to function reasonably well. They may exhibit eccentricities such as
need to achieve something of importance in collaboration with others. In his
personal rituals and superstitions, or a tendency toward perfectionism or rebel•
view, performing narrowly defined tasks in relative isolation prevents workers
liousness. They may also experience a reduced ability to relate to others in a
from developing their capabilities and leaves them feeling defeated. Mayo in•
healthy fashion due to their irrational beliefs, distorted perceptions, or personal
troduced these themes in a 1924 article entitled "The Great Stupidity":
delusions. According to Mayo, the more preoccupied individuals are with their
unresolved fears and feelings the more strained their relationships become.
The human desire to achieve is essentially social; there is a fundamental
Mayo believed that researchers had missed the significance of this point. urge not merely to stand well with one's fellows but also to collaborate
"What social and industrial research has not sufficiently realized as yet is that with them in a social task. Whe n this initiative is denied and turned aside,
these minor irrationalities of the "average normal" person are cumulative in it only rarely finds another equally satisfactory outlet. More often than not
their effect. They may not cause "breakdown" in the individual but they do it turns upon itself and manifests itself in the form of disintegrating moods
cause " breakdown" in the industry." Mayo believed that labor-
3
of pessimism. There are few machine shops in America or elsewhere

management conflicts are driven more by mistrust and misperception arising from which do not run a noisy accompaniment to a rising tide of human de•
uncon• scious fears than by objective facts or conditions. In short, Mayo's training feat. This is not necessary; some enlightened employers have demonstrated
in clinical psychology led him to view strikes and workplace disputes as that it can be avoided. But widely over the industrial field the assertion re•
products of individual maladjustment. mains true. The machine shop is a potent agency of repression or perver•
Workplace disputes occur, according to Mayo, because neither the corn- sion of human energy; that civilization disregards this fact is the great stu•
plainer nor the person receiving the complaint is aware of what lies behind it. pidity of our time.
6
1 CHAPTER H UMA N RELATIONS 1
Mayo's theory of social disorganization does not offer a complete and con•
ducted using only artificial light. This time, however, the intensity of lighting
vincing explanation of industrial unrest. The latter cannot be reduced so easily
was decreased rather than increased. Again, productivity actually increased in
to a macro-level explanation (social disorganization), an intermediate-level ex•
both groups until the lighting had been reduced to 3 foot-candles, at which
planation (industrial methods), and a micro-level explanation (individual irra•
point the workers could no longer see to work.
tionality). Even if the hypothesized relationships among these variables could
The puzzling results caused the researchers to question their own assump•
be confirmed, many other causes of industrial unrest are excluded from the
tions. They had assumed a simple cause-and-effect relationship between a
analysis. Mayo's theory is nonetheless important because it influenced the di•
change and the workers' response to that change. What they discovered was
rection the Hawthorne studies would take and the interpretation of the results.
that the meaning attached to a change is more important in determining the
workers' response than the change itself. Th e illumination experiments re•
vealed what came to be known as the H a w t h o rn e Effect: when people
TH E H A W T H O R N E S T U D I E S , 1927-193 2 know they are part of an experiment, the meaning they attach to being a par•
ticipant affects the results. As Roethlisberger put it, "If one experiments on a
In 1927 the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company employed stone, the stone does not know it is being experimented upon—all of which
some 29,000 workers who manufactured the telephones, telephone lines, and makes it simple for people experimenting with stones. But if a human being is
central office equipment used by the companies of the Bell System. In the best being experimented upon, he is likely to know it. Therefore, his attitudes to•
tradition of scientific management, the research staff at the Hawthorne plant ward the experiment and toward the experimenters become very important
sought to isolate the conditions that minimized fatigue and maximized out• factors in determining his responses to the situation." Th e conclusion that
9
put. In November 1924 the research staffjoined forces with the National Re • be • havior is shaped by the meaning workers attach to their total situation was
search Council of the National Academy of Sciences to study the effects of soon reinforced by the results of the relay assembly room experiments.
illumination on industrial productivity. This marked the beginning of a series
of studies, each designed to address questions raised by the previous one.
The Relay Assembly Test Room Experiments
A report of the Hawthorne studies was published in 1939 by Fritz Roeth•
lisberger, a colleague of Mayo's at Harvard, and William J. Dickson, Chief of the At the close of the illumination tests in April 1927, the research team initiated
Employee Relations Research Department at the Hawthorne plant. Because another set of experiments designed to study the effects of fatigue on individ•
Mayo and his colleagues did not become involved until after the illumination ual productivity. This time the researchers decided to study only five workers
experiments had ended, the account of the studies reported in Roethlisberger so they could eliminate the effects of factors such as the amount of work ahead
and Dickson's Management and the Worker covers only the five-year period be• of the operators, changes in type of work, and the introduction of inexperi•
enced operators. T h e chief architect of the relay assembly test room experi •
10
tween 1927 and 1932. Nonetheless, because the results of the illumination
7
ex• periments are a key part of the story, our discussion begins with them. ments was George A. Pennock, Superintendent of Hawthorne's Inspection
Branch. The origins of human relations theory may be traced to a chance
meeting between Pennock and Elton Mayo. In the spring of 1927 Pennock
1 1
The Illumination Experiments

attended a meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board at which
In the first illumination experiment the intensity of the lighting was increased Mayo gave a talk. Afterwards, Pennock told Mayo of the puzzling results of the
at specified intervals in three manufacturing departments and changes in out• illumination experiments and implored him to visit Chicago to take a look at
put were recorded. In one department output bobbed up and down. In the the relay assembly experiments that were then underway. Mayo took him up
8
other two departments output increased but not in direct proportion to the on his offer the following year. Although Mayo did not initiate or direct the
increases in lighting. Although other determinants of productivity seemed to Hawthorne studies that followed, his informal advice and counsel did influ•
be at work, the researchers had no idea what they were. In the second illumi• ence their design and the subsequent interpretation of the results.
nation experiment workers in one department were assigned to either a test
To conduct these experiments, a small separate room was constructed in
group or a control group. The test group worked under three intensities of
one corner of the large room where the relay assemblers worked. The assem•
lighting, while the control group worked under constant lighting. The two
bly of telephone relays "consisted of putting together approximately thirty-five
groups were similar in all respects except for the variable of lighting, thus al•
small parts in an "assembly fixture" and securing them by four machine
lowing for a test of its effect on output.To the astonishment of the researchers,
screws." Each relay took about 1 minute to assemble.The completed
1 2
however, production increased in both groups and at almost the same magni•
assem• bly was dropped into a chute beneath the workbench and was
tude. Because the researchers suspected that the increase in daylight during the
automatically tallied by means of a hole punched into a continuously moving paper
spring season may have contaminated the results, a third experiment was con-
tape. Six women with long experience as relay assemblers were selected to
participate
1 CHAPTER HUMA N RELATIONS
1
in the experiment, five to assemble the relays and a sixth to supply the neces•
Fatigue The researchers ultimately rejected the hypothesis that the increases
sary parts. On e of the researchers performed the role of test room observer.
in output were due to relief from fatigue caused by the introduction of rest
His task was to record output, keep a log of everything that happened or was breaks and shorter hours. In fact, they found no evidence of cumulative fatigue
said in the test room that might affect output, and maintain friendly relations at all. Productivity did not decline during the week as would be expected if
with the workers.The latter was deemed necessary so that hostility or resent• cumulative fatigue were present. Further, medical exams found no evidence of
ment on the part of the workers would not adversely affect the experiment. adverse affects on the workers' health. It seemed clear that the introduction of
For this reason, two workers were replaced after a few months because their rest breaks had had a positive effect on productivity but, in the absence of evi•
negative attitudes were adversely affecting the group's output. dence of fatigue, the researchers could not explain why. Scientific management
Because the researchers had learned from the illumination experiments assumptions had initially led them to view the worker "as essentially a physio•
that very little could be gleaned from studying a single variable, the relay as• logical machine hindered and limited by his organic make-up and his physical
sembly experiments were designed to introduce a variety of changes in work• surroundings." This assumption no longer seemed warran ted.Th e relay as•
13
ing conditions, including rest breaks and shorter work hours. The intent was sembly experiments caused them to conclude that, except where heavy mus•
to find the intersecting point at which fatigue was lowest and output highest. cular work is involved, fatigue is not a major problem in industrial
Although the experiments continued for five years, it was the results of the first organizations.
thirteen periods, covering two years, that were most widely reported.
In Period 1 output was measured while the workers were still in the main E c o n o m i c Incentives The researchers concluded that the initial spurt in
relay assembly department. This was done to obtain baseline data. In Period 2 productivity in Period 3 was due to the improved linkage between effort and
the workers were moved to the test room, but no changes in working condi• reward. They also suspected that the reward system motivated workers to in•
tions were introduced. In Period 3 the system of financial incentives under crease output as the hours of work decreased, so that their take-home pay did
which they worked was modified slightly. A piecerate was calculated for each not suffer. But although the system of economic incentives could explain why
completed relay so that they would take home the same amount of pay they productivity did not decline with each reduction in work hours, it could not
had taken home previously for the same level of output. As before, individual explain why productivity continued to increase, nor why it reached the levels
pay was determined by the output of the entire group, but now the group was it did.
five workers rather than one hundred. This created a tighter link between in•
dividual effort and reward, thereby increasing the incentive to complete more
Employee Morale The researchers ultimately concluded that positive atti•
relays. Period 4 marked the initiation of changes in working conditions.The
tudes engendered by the group's social environment were the primary cause
assemblers received two 5-minute breaks in Period 4, two 10-minute breaks in
of increased productivity. In designing the experiment, they had sought to
Period 5, six 5-minute breaks in period 6, and a 15-minute break with food
hold attitudes constant by maintaining friendly relations, but in doing so they
provided in the morning and a 10-minute rest break in the afternoon in Pe•
had fundamentally altered the social environment. Not only had the six
riod 7.The number of hours worked was reduced during periods 8, 9, and 11.
women become important players in an important experiment, but the tradi•
The results through Period 11 were consistent with expectations. Each tional employee-supervisor relationship had been altered as well. Where previ•
positive change in working conditions brought increases in average hourly ously they had been subject to close supervision and lived in fear of being
output, although total productivity declined during periods 9 and 11 because berated for failing to achieve their daily production target, now they rarely saw
the group was working 15 percent and 13 percent fewer hours.The initial re• their supervisor and the production target had been eliminated. As Mayo
sults tended to confirm the hypothesis that rest breaks and shorter hours re• noted, the observer "took a personal interest in each girl and her achievement;
duced fatigue, thereby increasing productivity. Expectations were confounded he showed pride in the record of the group. He helped the group to feel that
in Period 12, however, when the original conditions in Period 3 were restored its duty was to set its own conditions of work, he helped the workers to find
(a 48-hour work week and no rest breaks). Hourly productivity declined the "freedom" of which they so frequently speak."
14
slightly for 4 of 5 workers but everyone's output remained well above levels in The Hawthorne researchers concluded that improved morale in the test
Period 3 when conditions were presumably identical. And, because the work• room was the single most important factor governing employee productivity,
ers were once again working full days without rests, total weekly output but they could only guess at the specific determinants of morale. Several possi•
reached the highest level yet recorded.The workers made it clear, however, that bilities were raised. First, the relay assemblers may have responded favorably to
they valued the rest breaks and, when they were restored in Period 13, all five relaxed supervision and the resulting freedom from fear and anxiety. Ac•
workers achieved still higher levels of output. The unexpected continual up • cording to Roethlisberger and Dickson, the researchers received the clear im•
ward trend in productivity demanded an explanation. To the researchers, the pression "that freedom from rigid and excessive supervision was an important
primary candidates were reduced fatigue, greater economic incentive, and im• factor in determining the girls' attitude toward their work in the experimental
proved morale. room." 15
CHAPTER H UMA N RELATIONS 1
1
A second possibility is that the observed increases in output resulted from

in relation to working conditions and supervision." W it h such a picture
18
increased social cohesion or solidarity as the workers coalesced into a well-

in hand the researchers hoped to enhance morale by correcting identified prob•
integrated work group. This explanation was supported by an increased amount
lems. Sixteen hundred employees in the Inspection Branch were interviewed
of social activity among the test room operators outside of working hours, an
between September 1928 and February 1929. The program was subsequently
increased amount of social conversation during the day, and a willingness to
expanded and by 1930 over 21,000 employees had been interviewed. Workers
help one another for the common good of the group. It was also supported
1 6
were initially asked a set of structured questions during a brief interview ses•
by Mayo's theory of social disorganization. Believing that people have a basic
sion. The results, however, were unsatisfactory. The workers seemed to want to
human need to collaborate in pursuit of collective goals, he predicted that
talk about what they, rather than the interviewers, thought was important. At
teamwork would result in higher job satisfaction and often higher productivity.
Mayo's suggestion, the interviewers adopted a nondirective approach similar to
A third possibility is that the workers responded favorably to personal at•
the kind used by clinical psychologists. Workers were encouraged to discuss
tention and sympathetic treatment. According to the researchers, the relay
any matters of concern to them for as long as 90 minutes. To encourage work•
assemblers seemed to respond positively when the observer showed a personal
ers to share their feelings, the interviewers were trained to listen attentively and
interest in them, listened to their personal concerns, responded sympathetically
to say as little as possible.They were not to argue, give advice, offer moral judg•
to their needs, and praised them for their achievements. This, too, was sup•
ments, or give any appearance of holding formal authority.
ported by Mayo's theory of social disorganization. He predicted that job satis•
The interviewing program failed to achieve its goals because the researchers
faction would improve as workers became better adjusted to their work
once again assumed a simple cause-and-effect relationship between the work•
environments and experienced a greater sense of personal security, although it
ers' feelings and objective conditions in the workplace. A few problems relating
was less certain that their productivity would increase as well.
to physical working conditions, safety, and health were referred to the appropri•
A fourth possibility is that they responded favorably to participative de •
ate authorities for corrective action, and some complaints became topics of dis•
cision making, that is, the opportunity to participate in making decisions re•
cussion in the supervisory training sessions. For the most part, however,
lating to their work and working conditions. Again, this possibility is consistent
problems could not be isolated and corrected as the researchers had hoped be•
with Mayo's belief that all people have a basic need for group involvement and
cause no clear patterns of satisfaction or dissatisfaction emerged. As Roethlis•
collaborative effort.
berger and Dickson put it, "People working in similar surroundings did not
Which of these possibilities is most likely? All of them may have played a react in the same way to those surroundings. Some expressed satisfaction, some
role. In words reminiscent of Mary Parker Follett, the Hawthorne researchers dissatisfaction with similar plant conditions, wages, and working conditions."
1
concluded that workers respond to their total situation.The work breaks, for 9
Because there was no consensus among the workers about the objects of com•
example, may have symbolized an interest on the part of management in the plaint, the researchers had to abandon their hope of obtaining a full and accu•
health and well-being of its workers. They may have meant an opportunity to rate picture of industrial conditions from employee comments.
get together and socialize, as well as a time for relaxation and relief from ten•
If the interviewing program failed to achieve its goals, it nonetheless pro•
sion. All of these meanings may have been present simultaneously as part of the
duced important findings. In the course of the interviews the researchers dis•
total situation to which the workers responded.
covered a world inhabited by sentiments rather than facts. They found that
Mayo never developed an explicit theory of employee morale and produc•
workers perceive the same reality differently because their perceptions are fil•
tivity. He believed that much more research was needed before such a theory
tered by their feelings and emotions.The latter in turn are shaped by differ•
could be formulated. His working hypothesis was "that the locus of industrial
ences in personality, unresolved childhood experiences, problems at home, and
maladjustment is somewhere in the relation between person-work-company
work-related interests that vary with age, marital status, and seniority. Conse•
policy rather than in any individual or individuals." If no definitive theory
17
quently, to improve morale supervisors must look beyond the subjectively de•
emerged from the relay assembly room experiments, they nonetheless placed a
fined complaints to the sentiments that lie beneath them. They must
spotlight on certain key variables, including supervisory style, social cohesion,
distinguish the manifest content of the complaint from its underlying meaning
and employee participation. These variables became the subject of extensive
for the worker.
research by future students of human relations.
Another important finding was that the interviewing program improved
morale whether or not complaints were addressed. Workers seemed to ap•
20
The Interviewing Program preciate being recognized as individuals who had valuable comments to make.
They also expressed appreciation for being allowed "to participate jointly with
Having concluded that the meanings workers attach to factors in their envi• the company in its endeavor to improve working conditions and supervi•
ronment affect their morale, the Hawthorne investigators turned their atten• sion."
2 1
For many, the interview also seemed to have a therapeutic or
tion to studying the workers themselves. The purpose of the interviewing cathartic effect. These workers welcomed the opportunity to get grievances "off
program was "to secure a picture of their problems, worries, likes and dislikes, their chest" and reported feeling better after having done so. On e worker even
1 CHAPTER HUMA N RELATIONS 1
thanked an interviewer for improving the quality of food in the cafeteria when
ual psyche. Nor were attitudes toward work determined primarily by problems
she had in fact done no such thing. at home. More often, complaints seemed to be grounded in social relations at
In another instance a worker insisted that his supervisor was a bully, and yet work. The emerging hypothesis was that complaints reflect a mismatch be •
no other member of the unit expressed the same complaint. The interview re• tween the needs and desires of individual workers and the ability of the work•
vealed that the worker had recently lost a daughter to meningitis and his wife place to satisfy them. Most of these needs and desires seemed to be social in
had to be hospitalized for a mental breakdown. He was highly anxious because nature, involving each worker's relationships with colleagues and supervisors.
he lacked the money to send her to a sanitarium, and he was resentful that his This new sociological point of view guided the final stage of the Hawthorne
supervisor made him work at night whe n his wife needed him at home. The studies.
worker eventually laid out his complaints to the boss and the latter seemed The bank wiring study was designed to learn more about social relations
nicer to him thereafter. The researchers concluded that the supervisor had not at work. Fourteen workers from the Bank Wiring Department were placed in
actually been mean or hostile to the worker, but that the latter, because of the a separate room and studied while they performed their usual task of assem•
stress he was experiencing, perceived him to be. According to Roethlisberger bling switches for central office telephone systems. Each "bank" had either 100
and Dickson, such cases involved "distorted thinking" in which there is "a ten• or 200 terminals. On e worker threaded wires to the terminals, one soldered
dency on the part of the complainant to project all of his troubles on one ob• the wires to the terminals, and one inspected the completed work. In contrast
ject and in such terms to overthink his situation."
22
to the relay assembly test room, the observer was instructed to give no special
According to Mayo and his colleagues, understanding a worker's total sit• attention or recognition to the workers. No r were any experimental changes
uation requires knowledge of the worker's personal history, social situation at introduced. The goal was simply to identify formal and informal patterns in
work, and the sentiments that shape responses to workplace conditions. But is social relationships through careful observation. The study lasted from Novem•
it realistic to expect supervisors to acquire knowledge of each worker's total ber 1931 until May 1932.
situation? Although many found this an unrealistic expectation, Mayo and his The test room observer quickly discovered that the piecework system, in
colleagues believed that the interview technique provided the necessary which each person's pay was determined by the department's weekly output,
means. W he ther conducted by a professional counselor as part of an ongoing did not work as intended. Soldiering, as described by Frederick Taylor forty
program or by well-trained supervisors on a daily basis, Mayo and his col• years earlier, still flourished in the Bank Wiring Department. Because the
leagues believed that the interview process enables workers to achieve a workers feared the piece rate would be cut if they worked at full capacity, they
higher level of self-awareness and, consequently, a greater degree of adjust• set their own productivity target and paced themselves accordingly. A key find•
ment to their work environment. It also enables supervisors to understand the ing of the study was that output is sometimes determined more by group
emotional significance of particular events and objects to workers and to re• norms than individual effort and skill. In the bank wiring room, the majority
spond with sympathetic understanding rather than unilateral commands and pressured the fastest and slowest members to stay within the group's output
sanctions. norms. Those who refused to do so were socially ostracized. This finding was
In many cases all that is required is what Roethlisberger and Dickson significant. It meant that the prescriptions of scientific management—rigorous
called active listening. Referring to two specific cases, they concluded, "Had selection, training, and incentive pay systems—do not always produce the de•
either supervisor listened sympathetically and attentively to his subordinate, he sired results.
might have found out what the trouble was. Instead, the supervisors delivered The test room observer also discovered two social cliques, one at the front
futile ultimatums, which had little result other than to make any kind of effec• of the room and one at the back. Workers at the front tended to have more
tive workin g together impossible." As discussed later, this " ne w met ho d
2 3
years of experience. Within each clique, wiremen held more status than sol-
of human control" constituted a central but highly controversial element of hu• d er me n. T he inspectors enjoyed the highest status but they did not call the
man relations theory. shots because as employees of the Inspection Branch they were viewed as
outsiders. In short, the test room was stratified by occupation and experience.
The Bank Wiring Observation Room Study Th e observer also discovered that not every worker belonged to a clique.
Only those willing to abide by group norms were accorded membership sta•
Sociological explanations of behavior began to replace psychological ones as tus. Group norms included the following: don' t be a rate-buster (doing too
the Hawthorne studies proceeded. Mayo's training in clinical psychology had much); don't be a chiseler (doing too little); don't squeal to supervisors about
led him to overemphasize human irrationality. During the course of investi• things that will hurt individual or group interests; and don't try to maintain
gating employee complaints it became increasingly apparent that very few too much social distance (being too aloof). In the observer's view, the men
cases involved distorted thinking or neurotic obsessions rooted in the individ- had developed "spontaneously and quite unconsciously, an intricate social
organization around their collective beliefs and sentiments." This social or•
24
HU MA N R E L A T I O N S A S A F I E L D O F S T U D
ganization performed a twofold function. It protected the group from inter•
Y
nal indiscretions, such as working too hard or too fast, and it protected the
group from outside interference by dealing with problems internally. Th e Essentially a social philosopher at heart, Mayo left the task of establishing hu•
same mechanisms—sarcasm, ridicule, and social ostracism—often served to man relations as a field of study to his Harvard colleague, Fritz Roethlisberger.
fulfill both functions. Roethlisberger understood that, for human relations to be viewed as some•
The researchers did not believe that the prevailing theory of class warfare thing other than a subfield of industrial psychology or a paltry effort to hu •
could explain the group's restricted output. The workers showed no hostility manize scientific management, it must have a clear subject matter, appropriate
toward management, nor could their behavior be defined as rebellious.They research methods, and a conceptual framework to guide the organization and
simply behaved differently than those who designed the piecerate system ex• interpretation of data.
pected them to behave. These observations led the researchers to conclude that
the workers were simply being self-protective. Group solidarity had produced Subject Matter and Research Methods
positive results in the relay assembly test room because the worker's fears and
anxieties had been allayed. In the bank wiring test room, by contrast, fears and Roethlisberger believed the new discipline should focus on human interac•
tions and investigate the following kinds of problems: "(1) general problems of
anxieties (however unfounded) had not been allayed. Restricted output was
communication and understanding between individuals, between individuals
the result.
and groups, and between groups under different conditions and varying rela•
These findings challenged two fundamental assumptions of scientific
tionships, (2) general problems of securing action and cooperation under dif•
management. First, they challenged the assumption that economic incentives
ferent conditions and in varying formal organizations, and (3) general
are sufficient motivators. The bank wiring study indicated that group norms
problems of maintaining individual and organizational equilibrium through
and personal loyalties also affect individual motivation. Second, they chal•
change." He also believed interviewing and observational techniques pro•
2 6
lenged the assumption that workers can be adjusted to the needs of industrial
vided the most appropriate methods for conducting research in these areas.
production in the same way that machines and work processes can be ad•
justed. The bank wiring study indicated the importance of mutual adjust•
ment. If it is necessary for humans to adjust to workplace methods and Organizations as Social Systems
conditions, the latter must also be adjusted to the social and psychological Acting on a suggestion from one of his colleagues, Lawrence J. Henderson,
needs of the workers. Mayo and his colleagues concluded that management Roethlisberger chose the concept of a social system as the basis for organizing and
innovations, such as work simplification and wage incentive schemes, often interpreting data. A system is an entity that must be studied and comprehended as
fail to work as intended because they "have consequences other than their a whole because each of its parts is interdependent with every other part. A
logical ones, and these unforeseen consequences tend to defeat the logical change in one part necessarily produces change elsewhere in the system. A social
purposes of the plan as conceived." 25
system is that type of system containing human as well as physical components.

These unforeseen consequences include altered interpersonal relationships, Organizations clearly fall into this category. As the Hawthorne researchers discov•
reduced opportunities to develop and demonstrate craftsmanship, decreased au• ered, the human and physical components of the plant were highly interdepen•
tonomy, and reduced social status. From the workers' sentiment-based,"nonlog- dent. Changes in working conditions and management methods, for example,
ical" perspective, industrial engineers are a source of interference and constraint. produced changes in social relationships, personal satisfactions and, ultimately, in•
Workers have every reason to fear the consequences of their actions and to re• dividual and group behaviors. Because organizations are made up of human com•
sort to self-protective behaviors. For Mayo and his colleagues the lesson for ponents, those who manage them cannot afford to think and act in terms of
management was clear. Technical innovations should not be introduced until logical relationships alone. The Hawthorne researchers learned that sentiments,
their potential human consequences have been studied fully. feelings, beliefs, and perceptions must be taken into account.
The bank wiring study confirmed what Frederick Taylor had already dis• Work groups may also be viewed as social systems. Workers in the bank
covered: that productivity levels are sometimes determined more by group wiring observation room, for example, perceived the incentive pay system as a
norms than individual skills. Taylor's solution was to break up group solidarity threat to their financial and job security. They coped with the resulting ten•
by relying upon individual rewards and sanctions. Mayo and his colleagues sions by organizing and engaging in self-protective behaviors. The systems
proposed a different solution: nurture constructive human relations by address• concept helps explain why such behaviors occur. Good intentions notwith•
ing the causes of self-protective behaviors and by integrating individual and standing, changes introduced by management often alter the distribution of fi•
organizational needs. nancial, status, and social rewards, thereby provoking resistance among those
adversely affected.
1 CHAPTER HU MA N RELATIONS 1
Roethlisberger's conceptual framework held clear implications for man• not only express more adequately their own values and significances but also is
agement practice. It suggested that managers should listen to, and become bet• more likely to be in harmony with the aims of management."
27
ter acquainted with, the sentiments of their employees. They should learn to The findings of the Hawthorne studies and Roethlisberger's early efforts
view complaints as the "creakings and groanings" of their own social struc• to define human relations as a field of study encouraged many other scholars
tures. Finally, they should continually assist in adjusting the organization's hu• to gravitate toward the study of human relations in the 1930s and 1940s; chief
man and technical components. All of this is required because, as Elton Mayo among them were W. Lloyd Warner, Burleigh Gardner, and William Foote
often said, collaboration is not something than can be left to chance. No r can Whyte. But, despite the value of Roethlisberger's conceptual framework for
it be secured through logical contrivances such as collective bargaining. Ac• human relations research, the integrity of human relations as a field of study
cording to Roethlisberger, only by exercising skill in human relations, only by was greatly undermined by the way organizations chose to incorporate the
attending to sentiments arising from social relations at work, can collaboration findings of the Hawthorne studies into management practice.
be achieved and maintained.
Formal and Informal Organization

H UM A N R E L A T I O N S I N P R A C T I C E
The discovery that behavior in the bank wiring observation room was socially
organized led Roethlisberger and Dickson to develop a conceptual distinction The Hawthorne studies not only established a new field of study, they also
between formal and informal organization. Formal organization refers to spawned a new management movement. The human relations movement that
all the factors that are deliberately designed to shape social relationships at swept through industry in the 1940s and 1950s called for the adoption of two
work. It includes the systems, policies, rules, and regulations that prescribe closely related innovations: human relations training for supervisors and coun•
what the relations of one person to another are supposed to be in order to seling programs for employees. Unlike scientific management theorists, human
achieve organizational tasks. It also refers to the patterns of interaction that re• relations theorists did not believe cooperation can be secured through authori•
sult from these formal mechanisms of control. Informal organization refers tative commands, programmed work, and economic incentives alone. A "new
to the personal relationships and patterns of interaction that develop among method of human control" was needed. Mayo and Roethlisberger referred to it
individuals at work that are not the intended products of the formal organiza• as active listening, or the interview method, and suggested that it should form
tion. The social cliques or groups that sometimes come into being to satisfy the the basis of both human relations training and employee counseling programs.
social needs and sentiments of workers are components of the informal orga• The aim of this method is to help workers achieve a state of personal equi•
nization. These groups sometimes work in tandem with the prescriptions of librium with their work environments. Mayo and Roethlisberger believed that
the formal organization, as in the relay assembly test room, and sometimes they complaints, resistance, and other forms of uncooperative behavior are caused
develop in opposition to the prescriptions of the formal organization, as in the by a mismatch between what workers demand of their jobs (e.g., a certain level
bank wiring observation room. of pay, opportunities for advancement, fair treatment, and social recognition)
and what their jobs actually offer th em. Active listening provides the means
2 8
Frederick Taylor viewed informal groups as pathological and sought to

break them up by controlling workers with individual carrots and sticks. for addressing this mismatch. Through active listening managers can identify
Roethlisberger, by contrast, argued that informal groups are natural phenom• the needs and expectations of workers and adjust workplace conditions to bet•
ena that can serve the needs of workers and managers alike. They provide ter satisfy those needs and expectations. Similarly, through active listening su•
members with a sense of security, belonging, and affiliation (being part of pervisors or counselors can help workers view themselves and their work
something important), and the more satisfactions of this kind workers obtain, situations more objectively, thereby causing them to adjust their own demands.
the more likely they are to cooperate with management in working to achieve In short, active listening can be used to adjust formal structure to satisfy the
organizational goals. Consequently, a better method of securing cooperation needs of human beings and to adjust human beings to satisfy the needs of the
than the one proposed by Taylor is to remove the sources of employee resis• formal structure.
tance and facilitate the simultaneous satisfaction of individual and organiza•
tional needs. From this perspective, group cohesion is something to be Human Relations Training
encouraged. As Roethlisberger and Dickson put it, "What the Relay Assembly
The conclusion that supervisors were failing to take human sentiments into
Test R o o m experiment showed was that when innovations are introduced account led to the widespread adoption of training programs for supervisory
carefully and with regard to the actual sentiments of the workers, the workers personnel. The purpose of these programs was to teach supervisors how to ob•
are likely to develop a spontaneous type of informal organization which will tain cooperation and understanding from workers in face-to-face situations.
The underlying assumption was that the exercise of human relations skills
adopted in 1936. Personnel counselors were assigned fulltime to specific units to
would produce greater harmony in the workplace. The typical training pro•
observe workplace behaviors and counsel employees as needed. Each counselor
gram encouraged supervisors to think of workers as human beings rather than
was responsible for approximately three hundred workers.
labor commodities, to be more sympathetic toward their personal situations, to
Interviews were conducted on a strictly confidential basis. To maintain
seek to understand complaints from the worker's point of view, and to adopt a
trust with the workers, counselors were prohibited from reporting to manage•
counseling-centered approach to supervision. In Mayo's words, cooperation in
ment what they learned during their interviews. Their role was limited to en•
the workplace requires "the introduction of a new method of supervision—a
couraging workers to talk about what was bothering them, helping them to
method which does away with personal criticism and the giving of orders, and
clarify their feelings, and assisting them to achieve the level of self-awareness
substitutes for these a sympathetic and careful technique of listening." 29
needed to make their own decisions about their immediate problems. In car•
In practice, supervisory training programs rarely followed the approach ad•
rying out this role, counselors were expected to abide by the rules developed
vocated by Mayo and Roethlisberger. Supervisors were urged to treat their
in the earlier interviewing program. They were not to argue, give advice, offer
workers more sympathetically and with greater sensitivity, but emphasis was
judgments, or give any appearance of holding formal authority.
placed on defusing emotions rather than making structural adjustments to bet•
Other companies adopted employee counseling programs but, as in the
ter accommodate human needs.Training seldom involved more than provid•
case of supervisory training programs, enthusiasm soon waned. After the West•
ing supervisors with platitudes about how better to relate to workers. In
ern Electric Company ceased operating its counseling program in 1956,
addition, it quickly became apparent that human relations skill is highly com•
Roethlisberger and Dickson were asked to conduct an evaluation of the pro•
plex, not easily communicated or learned, and not readily transferable to the
gram. Th e results of their study were published in 1966 in a report entitled
work unit. Human relations training programs became very popular in indus•
Counseling in an Organization:A Sequel to the Hawthorne Researches. This report
try in the 1940s and 1950s, but enthusiasm soon waned when the expected
highlighted three inherent problems with the counseling program. First, the
benefits failed to materialize.
program was expensive. At its peak the program employed fifty-five counselors
Although some of the blame must be attributed to the poor quality of the
at considerable expense. Second, relatively few workers benefited from the
training programs, Roethlisberger also concluded that the counseling-centered
program. A study conducted between 1948 and J 95 1 found that only 36 per•
method of supervision was too idealistic. Because supervisors are human be•
cent of employees expressed serious concerns about work or their personal sit•
ings, they cannot be expected to approach every dispute objectively, without
uations, and only 10 percent of all employees were helped in resolving their
anger or resentment, and without falling back on their formal authority. No r
concerns.Third, the program injected an additional player into the work unit
is it realistic to expect them to be comfortable discussing feelings with work•
who lacked the authority to resolve problems and was prohibited from com•
ers or sharing their own feelings openly. Most people, according to Roethlis•
municating useful employee feedback to unit supervisors. Since the counselor
berger, are inclined to rationalize their feelings and disguise them as logic. He
had no authority to adjust workplace conditions, the program seemed to re•
also observed that skill in interpersonal relations tends to be personal and in•
quire the workers to do all of the adjusting. What was missing, Roethlisberger
tuitive; if you don't come by it naturally, it is difficult to develop on the job.
and Dickson concluded, was an integrated attack by all managerial and staff
Roethlisberger concluded, reluctantly, that it may be easier for administrators
personnel on the causes of employee dissatisfaction. Because of these inherent
to change working conditions and other structural aspects of the work envi•
difficulties, employee counseling programs came to be viewed as unjustified
ronment than to change supervisory and managerial behavior.
expenses and soon fell out of favor, although vestiges of them still exist in em•
ployee assistance programs.
Employee Counseling Programs Human relations training and employee counseling programs represented
two lines of attack on problems of industrial relations suggested by the
From the outset, the Hawthorne researchers entertained doubts about the ability
Hawthorne studies. Neither Mayo nor Roethlisberger viewed them as
of supervisors to adopt a counselor-centered approach. Supervisors at the panaceas or comprehensive solutions.They understood that they did not ad•
Hawthorne plant had many other duties to perform besides investigating each dress all of the factors contributing to job dissatisfaction and industrial unrest.
worker's personal situation and sentiments, they were not sufficiently trained to For this reason they were not particularly troubled by their disappointing re•
act as counselors, and their role as authority figures caused them to be viewed by sults. Nonetheless, critics were quick to point out an apparent contradiction in
workers with suspicion and distrust. The alternative to relying on supervisors was Mayo's prescriptions. Given Mayo's intense concern about the harmful effects
to create a new category of personnel specialist trained to interview employees of industrial methods on human beings, something he referred to as the Great
and help them achieve better self-awareness and personal adjustment. The final Stupidity, why didn't the innovations most closely associated with human rela•
chapter of Roethlisberger and Dickson's report on the Hawthorne studies de• tions theory focus on changing those methods? This criticism and others are
scribes the personnel counseling program that the Western Electric Company discussed in the following section.
CHAPTER
1 H UMA N RELATIONS
1
CRITICISM S O F
operating, with cooperation defined as the efficient and compliant pursuit of
H UM A N R E L A T I O N S T H E O R Y "managerially approved ends." As did Taylor, Mayo entrusted the pursuit of
3 2
social harmony to a managerial elite whose prerogatives remain unchallenged.

Th e human relations school of thought associated with Elton Mayo and his Mayo also injected values into the study of human relations, according to
Harvard colleagues stirred up considerable controversy among members of the his critics, by assuming an identity of interests between managers and workers.
academic community. Two bodies of criticism are reviewed in the following Mayo believed that both are benefited by the collaborative pursuit of organi•
sections.The first finds human relations theory tainted by a conservative ideol• zational objectives.There is no need to accommodate diverse and divergent
ogy, and the second asserts that the aim of practicing human relations skills is interests because the latter do not exist. There is no need for labor unions for
to manipulate workers into being content with their subordinate status.
30
the same reason. Mayo's critics, by contrast, maintained that the interests of
workers and managers are inherently opposed, that management is driven by
Neglect of Structural Change cost and profit imperatives that limit their ability to satisfy human needs, and
that labor unions have an important and necessary role to play in industrial re•
According to the first body of criticism, members of the Mayo group failed lations. As Daniel Bell put it, "The question of how to distribute increased in•
properly to analyze the structural causes of industrial unrest, especially the ex• come resulting from higher productivity, for example, cannot be flim-flammed
ternal causes embedded in industrial society. The Hawthorne researchers ana• away as a problem of verbal misinterpretation." 33
lyzed complaints and disputes in terms of unresolved fears, personal For these critics, a conservative bias was apparent in the remedies spawned
preoccupations, problems at home, and frustrated expectations at work. In do • by the Hawthorne studies. Human relations training and employee counsel•
ing so they generally ignored the underlying structural causes of unrest, in• ing programs were designed to achieve better personal adjustment. They en•
cluding economic struggles over the distribution of profits, social struggles tailed no structural changes in authority relations or the design of work.
between classes, and power struggles between managers and workers. Accord• Individuals working under a human relations regime remained in the same
ing to this second line of criticism, the quest to understand concrete social in• powerless, subordinate position performing the same unsatisfying tasks.
teractions led human relations theorists to study the most superficial, least Mayo's critics wondered why more attention wasn't given to the concept of self-
important causes of conflict, including interpersonal misunderstandings, poor directed, socially cohesive work teams, since this is what seemed to have produced
communications, and perceived threats to social status and security. It also such positive results in the relay assembly room. According to his critics, the team
caused them to highlight behavioral rather than structural remedies. For ex• concept received little attention because it required structural reforms, including a
ample, there is much discussion in the human relations literature about how to fundamental redistribution of power and authority, and the conservative
foster better communications and how to resolve interpersonal conflicts but orientation of Mayo and his colleagues precluded them from moving in this
very little discussion about how to estabhsh self-managed work teams. direction.
In fairness, a field of study committed to studying human behavior cannot It is true that Mayo's social theory led him to dismiss political and eco•
be expected to give equal attention to all of the structural and contextual nomic struggles as phenomena that would disappear when spontaneous coop•
forces that influence behavior. Most researchers, by necessity, take some vari• eration was restored. And yet the changes in industrial methods that Mayo
ables as givens while concentrating analysis on another set of variables. Roeth • favored were not entirely conservative. His conclusion in a later study of the
lisberger and Dickson, for example, referred occasionally to the impacts of the aircraft industry was that the solution to high levels of absenteeism and
Great Depression on human behavior, but the central focus of their research turnover, as well as poor morale, was the deliberate creation of integrated, co•
was a set of variables that had been previously neglected: the sentiments of hesive, and partly self-directing work teams. Supervisors, he argued, must be•
3 4
workers, including their hopes and fears and sense of fair play. It was appropri• come facilitators and team builders. They must establish and maintain trust
ate for them to choose the variables they wished to study. with members of the work group, carefully integrate new members, encour•
This line of criticism, however, went much deeper than the neglect of age workers to socialize and establish social bonds, consult them about
structural forces. It held that human relations theory is tainted by a conserva• changes, and act on their advice. It is likely that Mayo did not push this rem•
tive ideology that serves the interests of the managerial class at the expense of edy more vehemently because he knew that, with prosperity returning and la•
workers. According to Koivisto, Mayo injected values into a purportedly ob• bor tensions easing, few business organizations were interested in making the
jective field of study by suggesting that cooperation and harmony are good, required changes. Mayo retired in 1947, and Rothlisberger, although he did
and conflict and disharmony are bad.
3 1
Mayo's rhetoric implies that "good" so• not retire until 1967, was much more interested in interpersonal communica•
cial relations are those relations that contribute to the efficient, frictionless tions than structural reforms. Consequently, it was left to the human resources
functioning of the organization. This is the same value espoused by scientific theorists (see Chapters 12 and 13) to follow up on the structural implications
management. As C.Wright Mills put it, it is the workers who must do the co- of the Hawthorne studies.
A Strategy of Manipulation personal responsibility and organizational performance. In short, McNair be•
lieved that the ability to look at problems from multiple human perspectives is
Another group of critics was troubled by the implications of practicing human very much needed, but packaging it as a set of manipulative techniques is ex•
relations, a term which seemed to imply doing something to others. Malcolm tremely dangerous. As he put it, "Let's treat people like people, but let's not
McNair, for example, insisted that the term human relations skill has "a cold• make a big production of it."
39
blooded connotation of proficiency, technical expertness, calculated effect."

35
This body of criticism, as well as the way human relations was being prac•
These critics feared that employers were adopting training and counseling pro• ticed, inevitably tarnished Mayo's and Roethlisberger's contributions to orga•
grams to manipulate workers into being complaisant, comphant, and generally nizational analysis. Many came to view human relations as a manipulative
contented with their subordinate position in the organization. According to approach to managing workers even though Mayo and his colleagues intended
this line of criticism, supervisors were being trained to co-opt workers by pre• no such thing and had no control over how employers chose to interpret and
tending they were sympathetic and caring, and counselors were being hired to use their findings. Certainly Mayo and Roethlisberger opened the door to this
defuse hostilities by allowing workers opportunities to vent. Supervisors were view of human relations by referring repeatedly to the interviewing technique
also being taught, according to these critics, to obtain feedback from workers used by supervisors and counselors as a new method of human control. Al•
before introducing pohcy or technological changes but not to give their com• though they conceived of control as an objective management function and
ments much weight. The purpose of doing so was to secure the workers' ac• viewed the counseling method as a humanistic alternative to current practice,
ceptance of change without a true integration of their needs. their choice of words often made them sound as authoritarian, coercive, and
Whereas Roethlisberger's conceptual framework called for mutual adjust• patronizing as their predecessors in the scientific management movement.
ment, human relations in practice seemed to require adjustment only on the Consequently, Roethlisberger dropped the term human relations in the early
part of the workers. As Koivisto put it, "Research in human relations in indus• 1950s in favor of the less value-laden term organizational behavior.
try seems not to take the individual as given but rather attempts to alter his
psychological state to fit the work situation, which, instead, is taken as
given." For Daniel Bell, human relations in practice is nothing but a "feel
3 6
good" strat• egy designed to produce contented cows. As he put it, "The gravest HUMA N R E L A T I O N S TH E O R
charge that can be leveled against these researchers is that they uncritically adopt
Y I NP E R S P E C T I V E
industry's own conception of workers as means to be manipulated or adjusted to
imper• sonal ends. The belief in man as an end in himself has been ground
Although they raise legitimate concerns, these criticisms do not diminish
under by the machine, and the social science of the factory researchers is not a
Mayo and Roethlisberger's contributions to organization theory. First, they pi•
science of man, but a cow-sociology." 37
oneered in the application of social-science methods to the study of concrete

Yet another attack on human relations came from Malcom McNair, one organizations, and in doing so they initiated a new, multidisciplinary field of
of Roethlisberger's colleagues at the Harvard Business School. He objected ve• study. The Hawthorne studies are still widely regarded as the most extensive,
hemently to the idea that human relations skill was something to be taught
systematic, and exhaustive study of employees in an industrial setting ever con•
and practiced. Although he believed awareness of human relations was an es•
ducted. The studies introduced many important variables that remain the
4 0
sential aspect of a manager's job, he saw awareness of human relations and the
subject of organizational research today, including employee morale, job satis•
conscious effort to practice human relations on other people as two very dif•
faction, social cohesion, informal group behavior, interpersonal communica•
ferent things.The latter, he believed, amounts to manipulating people for one's
tion, supervisory style, and employee participation.
own ends. As he put it, "Consciously trying to practice human relations is like
Second, Mayo and his colleagues administered an important corrective to
consciously trying to be a gentlemen. If you have to think about it, insincerity
scientific management theory without rejecting it altogether. By highlighting
creeps in and personal integrity moves out." According to McNair, integrity
3 8
the flawed assumptions and limited perspectives of scientific management they

is lost as students are taught, in effect, to practice amateur psychiatry, invade
were able to develop a more complete and balanced understanding of organi•
the privacy of workers, and develop a love for managing other peoples' lives.
zations. For example, they challenged the assumption that there is "one best"
Integrity is also lost as students are taught conversational strategies, such as
set of working conditions, discoverable through scientific study, for maximiz•
"This is what I think I hear you saying." McNair found such strategies highly
ing productivity.The Hawthorne studies indicated that workers perceive and
patronizing and demeaning. Finally, McNair argued that teaching human rela•
respond to working conditions differently because their perceptions are col•
tions skill encouraged "sloppy sentimentalism." It encouraged workers and
ored by their unique life experiences and personal desires. They also chal•
managers alike to look for personal factors to excuse poor work performance.
lenged the assumption that people are driven primarily by rational self-interest
By emphasizing the need to investigate the human sentiments behind each
and that workers respond best to economic incentives.The Hawthorne studies
complaint or dispute, workers are allowed to save face but at the expense of
indicated that workers are just as likely to be motivated by human sentiments
1 CHAPTER
H UMA N RELATIONS THEORY
175
and the underlying desire to satisfy their social and psychological needs. Finally,
E x h i b i t 8 1 Th e C o m p e t i n g Va lu es F r a m e w o r k :
Mayo and his colleagues challenged the assumption that human behavior can be
Four Mo dels o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E f fe c t iv e n e s s
rationally ordered or programmed by introducing technological improvements,
standardizing work, and systematizing work operations.The Hawthorne studies Flexibility
indicated that workers will resist the best-laid plans of managers and their tech•
nical specialists if those plans fail to take human sentiments into account.
Third, Mayo and Roethlisberger developed a conceptual scheme that is Pattern maintenance/Tension
Adaptive function: the need
management function: the need to
still a valuable guide for researchers engaged in organizational analysis and for to acquire resources and adapt
administrators seeking to comprehend the interpersonal and group dynamics and dedicated workforce
to an uncertain environment
they experience on a daily basis.Viewing organizations as social systems, for
example, focuses attention on social relations and the interrelated and inter• HUMAN Means-oriented values:
cohesion,
dependent nature of those relations. It emphasizes that workers are social crea• RELATIONS morale
flexibility, OPEN
tures rather than isolated individuals and that they respond to informal group MODEL readiness SYSTEMS
norms as well as formal incentives. It tells the researcher that organizational Ends-oriented values: MODEL
behavior can be comprehended only in terms of the total situation of human, human resource growth,
development
technical, and structural factors, and it reminds administrators that their re• resource acquisition
sponses to specific problems must be contingent upon all of the facts contained Internal
focus External
in the situation. focus
Finally, Mayo and his colleagues helped humanize management by defin•
ing workers as human beings rather than costs of production and by raising Means-oriented values:
awareness of human relations in general. Although they sometimes left the im• INTERNAL info, management,
planning, RATIONAL
pression that practicing human relations is more important than organizing, PROCESS communication
MODEL goal setting GOAL
planning, and directing, they nonetheless established the importance of em• MODEL
ployee morale to organizational performance. They acknowledged that better stability, Ends-oriented values:
morale may not boost productivity directly, but it can reduce the frustrations control productivity,
that undermine motivation and contribute to absenteeism and turnover. efficiency
Integrative function: the need to
coordinate and control work
activities to focus efforts on goal attainment
R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N
T
Control
The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of human relations the•
ory for public management and government performance. This exploration is
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983 The It te ZZ 9 ' ' ° ™ l Analysis," Management Science
0 r a n z a t
W tHe nStitUte for

guided by the three analytical frameworks identified in Chapter 3. Research and the M an agement S c e c e s f N F O R M 9 E
21090-2909 USA.
kriLTT ^T' "°
UNI-URMS), 901 Elkndge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland
Models of Organizational Effectiveness

As indicated in Exhibit 8.1, human relations theory emphasizes the values asso•
ciated with the huma n relations model, including social cohesion, morale, ing legitimate requests for assistance, showing respect and being sympathetic to
and development of human resources. By serving as mentors and facilitators, them as human beings, and recognizing their accomplishments.
managers can help fulfill the organization's pattern maintenance and tension Although the human relations model and its associated values receives the
management functions—that is, the means by which organizations ensure em• greatest attention in human relations theory, the importance of two other
ployee commitment and address the interpersonal tensions that inevitably arise. quadrants is recognized as well. These are the rational goal and internal process
From the human relations perspective, being a facilitator entails fostering team• models. Mayo and Roethlisberger were among the first to emphasize that or•
work, mediating interpersonal disputes, and establishing the workplace condi• ganizational performance cannot be enhanced by focusing narrowly on the ef•
tions that allow workers to satisfy their individual needs by contributing to fectiveness criteria of any one model. Focusing on social cohesion and
organizational goals. Similarly, being a mentor involves listening attentively commitment alone, for example, may undermine management's ability to
w h e n emolovees voice concerns, helping them develop their abilities, support- achieve desired results; it may produce contented but not necessarily produc•
1 CHAPTER
tive workers. Conversely, they criticized scientific management th^î^c
CHAPTER
1 H UMA N RELATIONS 1
failing to see how a narrow emphasis on goal attainment pursued solely from a E xh ib it 8.2 Si x M e c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d C o n tr o l li n g Wo r k A c ti v i t ie s
rational, logical perspective undermines satisfaction of the organization's pat•
tern maintenance/tension management function. They maintained that orga• Mutual adjustment Workers consult with each other informally about what
nizations have both an economic function and an employee relations function needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor•
and that organizational success depends on achieving them in an interrelated Direct supervision A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of
and interdependent fashion. This means that goal-setting and directing (goal workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte•
attainment function), and coordinating and controlling (integrative function), grate the efforts of all work groups. The supervisor issues
must be carried out in a way that satisfies individual needs and thereby in•
creases cohesion and commitment (pattern maintenance/tension management Standardization of Work is programmed in advance of its execution by
function). This concept of integrating individual and organizational needs and fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina•
balancing several effectiveness-related values simultaneously represents an im• tion is built into the work process itself and control is
portant contribution to organizational theory. The only organizational func• achieved by strictly limiting each worker's discretion.
tion that does not receive attention is the adaptive function. Human relations Standardization of Work outputs are programmed in advance by providing
theory remains internally focused, concerned more with stabilizing social and work outputs each work group with product specifications or perfor•
productive relations than adapting to forces in the external environment. determining how to achieve them. Control is exercised by
Mechanisms for Coordinating needed, and rewarding and sanctioning workers based on
results achieved.
worker skills skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in•
As shown in Exhibit 8.2, human relations theory, like scientific management and
Weber's theory of bureaucracy, relies on direct supervision as a mechanism of provide standardized training. Professionally trained work•
coordination and control. The hierarchical structure of authority is taken for ers are largely self-coordinaiing and self-controlling.
granted. In this respect, human relations theory differs from classical theory only Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear
in terms of how supervision is exercised. It is to be exercised in a more relaxed of values vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should
and sympathetic manner, taking into account the social and psychological needs be headed, and what values should guide it. Coordination
and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational
of workers and the unique personal problems with which they are struggling. members to shared, internalized values and ideals.
Mayo and Roethlisberger understood that organizations have purposes,
SO U R CE: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7).
and to secure those purposes structural controls are required. Certain work ac•
tivities have to be performed, certain roles have to be assigned and prescribed,
and certain standards of performance have to be set. They also understood,
however, that structural controls can easily upset the equilibrium of the orga•
nization as a social system and make matters worse rather than better. They be• Motivational Strategies
lieved that conflict often arises whe n individuals are forced to adjust to the As indicated in Exhibit 8.3, human relations theory relies primarily on the in•
needs of the organization. For this reason, control and coordination must be strumental rewards strategy to motivate employees, with special emphasis
achieved through more integrative methods, including relaxed supervision, on considerate leadership and group acceptance. The results of the relay
sympathetic treatment, employee counseling, and perhaps even a measure, assembly room test seemed to underscore the importance of these strategies.
however small, of employee participation in decision making. The assemblers appeared to respond positively both to the attention, praise,
The concept of integrating individual and organizational needs has rele• and approval given by the assembly room observer and to the extrinsic rewards
vance for all complex organizations, including public agencies. But, as later they received from forming social bonds and enjoying the approval of their
schools of organizational theory would point out, relaxed supervision and peers.
sympathetic treatment are not sufficient by themselves to create and sustain a high- The considerate leadership strategy entails adopting a leadership style
performing organization. Whereas positive human relations may increase morale and based on being attentive to employees and their needs. It holds that workers
job satisfaction, it cannot guarantee high levels of competence or individual will increase their level of performance in order to obtain the respect, sup•
productivity. Depending on the nature of their work and their ex• ternal port, and approval of persons in authority. Mayo and Roethlisberger believed
environments, public agencies must rely on mechanisms of coordination and that workers value social recognition and appreciation of their work efforts,
control other than direct supervision. prefer to be praised rather than blamed, desire to be independent rather than
1 CHAPTER
HUMA N RELATIONS 1
E xhi bi t 8.3 Fou r Mo ti v at i on al St r a t egi e s peers and experience the rewards of group accomplishment. Mayo and Roe th•
lisberger believed that morale, cooperation—and often, productivity—can be
Legal Compliance enhanced by satisfying each worker's inherent need for affiliation or belong-
Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior. ingness.As Mayo put it, "Man's desire to be continuously associated in work
Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require• with his fellows is a strong, if not the strongest, human characteristic. Any dis•
regard for it by management or any ill-advised attempt to defeat this human
being sanctioned.
impulse leads instantly to some form of defeat for management itself." Muc h
41
Instrumental Rewards of Mayo's later work emphasized the importance of encouraging social cohe•
Using rewards to induce desired behaviors. sion through teamwork. Both Mayo and Roethlisberger believed that supervi•
Rewards for Performance sors who seek to satisfy their workers' social needs obtain better results than
those wh o supervise exclusively in terms of their productivity. 42
Whereas human relations theory emphasizes the benefits of practicing a
provide. more relaxed and sympathetic style of supervision, it stops short of advocating
a fundamental redistribution of power and authority. Similarly, although Mayo
identified boring and monotonous work as the single greatest cause of em•
ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those ployee discontent, human relations theory stops short of advocating the job
who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or identification strategy that calls for designing jobs so that they are intrinsically
exceed their role requirements. rewarding. The possibilities for redistributing power and authority and using
Group Acceptance intrinsic rewards for purposes of motivation were left for the human resources
Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group theorists to explore.
Job Identification SUMMAR Y

Elton Mayo and his colleagues identified human behavior and interpersonal
innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their
work intrinsically rewarding. relations as important subjects for organizational analysis, pioneered in the
use of social science methods for purposes of organizational research, and
Goal Congruence
spurred the development of a new field of study that is now known as orga•
and/or socializing employees so that they internalize organizational goals and values. nizational behavior. By issuing stern warnings about the dangers inherent in
Employees may come to work, remain with the organization, meet or exceed role re• designing organizational systems according to the cold, impersonal logic of
quirements, and exhibit greater creativity, innovativeness, and institutional loyalty.
industrial engineering, they also helped steer management theory and prac•
because contributing to them reinforces their own self-concept. tice in a more humanistic, employee-centered direction. As a theory of orga•
nizational effectiveness, human relations theory calls for maintaining a
1966), pp. 336-68. nurturing work environment, replacing close supervision with a more sym•
pathetic and relaxed form of supervision, and developing cohesive work
groups. As such, it has general applicability to all public agencies. Among its
most important implications for public management and organizational per•
subordinate, and like to be consulted about and participate in making deci• formance are the following:
sions that affect them personally. Th e findings of the relay assembly room
study tended to confirm Follett's belief that close supervision, the issuing of • Maintaining a positive work environment. According to human rela•
orders, and the threat of sanctions creates a level of fear and tension that is ul• tions theory, public managers should seek to remove the sources of em•
timately counterproductive. These findings led Mayo and Roethlisberger to ployee dissatisfaction by adjusting policies, technologies, work processes,
conclude that the considerate leadership strategy is a better choice for pur• and methods of supervision to satisfy human as well as organizational
poses of motivating employees than the legal compliance strategy. needs. Doing so may not always increase productivity but it should improve
The group acceptance strategy calls for encouraging the development of organizational functioning by enhancing morale, increasing cooperation
social bonds among employees so that they may enjoy the approval of their between workers and supervisors, and reducing absenteeism and turnover.
1 CHAPTER HU MA N RELATIONS 1
• Personal attention and sympathetic treatment. Human relations

NOTE S
theory holds that workplace frictions can be decreased if supervisors are
willing to get to know each worker personally, including his or her 1. See G eo rg e F. F. Lo mb ar d, "G e o rg e El • 16. Roethli sberger and D ickson, Manage•
needs, wants, idiosyncrasies, and preoccupations, and treat each with sym• to n Mayo," in Dictionary of American Biog• ment and the Worker, 154.
raphy, S u p p l e m en t 4 , 1 9 4 6 -5 0 ( Ne w Y o r k :
pathy and respect. When complaints or personal problems arise, supervi• 17. Mayo, The Human Problems of an In•
Scribner's, 1974), 5 6 4 - 6 6 ; R i c h a r d T r a -
sors should listen attentively, seek to understand the complaints or dustrial Civilization, 116 .
hair, The Humanist Temper:The Life and
problems from the worker's perspective, and respond based on an assess• Work of Elton Mayo (N e w Br un s wi ck , NJ: 18. P ennock , "Industrial R esearch at
ment of the total situation. Sympathetic treatment may not always moti• Transaction Books, 1984); and J . H. H a w t h o r n e , " 297 .
Smith, " T h e E n d u r i n g Legacy o f Elto n
vate workers to higher levels of productivity and effort but it can, 19. . R oethlisberg er and D ickson,
Mayo," Human Relations 51 (March Manage• ment and the Worker, 373 .
according to human relations theory, enhance collegiality, cooperation, 19 98 ): 22 1- 49 .
and organizational commitment. 20. . M. L. Pu t n a m , "I m p r o v i n g
2. . Elton Mayo, " T h e Irrational Factor Emp lo ye e Relati ons: A Plan W h i c h Uses
• Relaxed supervision. Human relations theory holds that higher produc• in Society" Journal of Personnel Research 1 Data O b • tained from Employees,"
tivity is possible if close supervision is replaced with a more relaxed form (no. 10 , 1 923 ) , 4 1 9 - 2 6 ; " I r r a t i o n a l i t y and Personnel Journal 8 (no. 5 ,1 93 0) , 3 1 4 -2 5 .
of supervision. Whereas special attention and sympathetic treatment are Revery," Journal of Personnel Research 1 (no.
21 . Ro et hl i sbe rg er and Di ck so n, Manage•
1 1, 19 2 3) , 4 7 7 -8 3 ; "C i v i l i z ed U n re a so n , "
important to morale, Mayo and Roethlisberger concluded that it was pri• Harper's Magazine 148 (March 1924), 5 2 7 -
ment and the Worker, 194.
marily the relaxed supervision in the relay assembly room that caused the 3 5 ; "C i v i l i z a t i o n — T h e Perilous Ad • 22 . Ro et hl i sbe rg er and Di ck so n, Manage•
continuing rise in output. The total situation was altered as general super• venture," Harper's Magazine 149 (O ctober ment and the Worker, 313 .
vision replaced close supervision, personal authority replaced formal au• 1924), 5 9 0 - 9 7 ; " T h e Great Stupidity,"
23 . Ro et hl i sb erg er and Di ck so n, Manage•
Harper's Magazine 151 (July 1925),
thority, consultation and face-to-face suggestions replaced commands, ment and the Worker, 3 2 2 - 2 3 .
2 2 5 - 3 3 ;"Si n wi th a Capital S," Harper's
and praise replaced sanctions. Consequendy, the workers experienced a Magazine 154 (April 1927), 5 3 7 - 4 5 . 24 . Ro et hl is be rg er and Di ck so n, Manage•
sense of relief from the anxieties and fears associated with the traditional ment and the Worker, 524 .
3. . Mayo, "Irrationality and Revery,"
command-and-control approach to supervision. Although critics dismissed 25 . R oe th li sb erg e r and Di c ks on , Manage•
the concept of relaxed supervision as benevolent paternalism, it is possible 482 . 4 . M ayo, "Irrationality and R e v e r y " ment and the Worker, 546 .
for it to be practiced in a genuinely caring manner. 482 . 5 . Mayo, "Th e Great Stupidity," 233 26. . FJ. Roethlisberger, Man-in-
. Organization: Essays of F.J. Roethlisberger
• Cohesive work groups. Human relations theory suggests that supervi• (C ambridge: Harvard University Press,
sors should encourage the development of cohesive work groups when• 6. . M ayo, " T h e Great Stupidity," 2 3 0 - 3 1 . 1968), 82 .
ever possible. Mayo viewed workers as social creatures who wish to 7. See F.J. Roethlisberger and William J.
27. . Roethli sberger and D ickson,
collaborate and enjoy the security, comradery, and heightened sense of self- Dickson, Management and the Worker (Cam •
Manage• ment and the Worker, 5 6 1 -6 2 .
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1939).
worth that teamwork has to offer. In his study of the aircraft industry Mayo 28. . Roethli sberger, Management
tells of supervisors who were particularly adept at taking total strangers and 8. R oethlisberg er and D ickson, Manage• and Morale, 1 2 0 - 2 1 .
ment and the Worker, 1 4 - 1 7 .
integrating them into the work team by orienting them to their jobs, 29. . Elto n Mayo, " Ch a n g i n g M e t h o d s
9. F.J. Roethlisberger, Management and
showing them how their work contributed to the war effort, counseling them in Industry," Personnel Journal 8
Morale (Camb ridg e, MA : Harvard Un iv er •
about their personal problems, and soliciting their feed• back and acting on (February, 1930), 327 .
sity Press, 1941), 14.
their advice. He argued that if "nonlogical factors" are present, such as a sense of 30. . Landsberger identifies four
10. G. A. Pennock, "Industrial R esearch at
belongingness and recognition of effort, then spontaneous cooperation will general areas of criticism. See H e n r y A.
H a w t h o r n e , " Personnel Journal 8 (no. 5,
Lands• berger, Hawthorne Revisited
occur. 1930), 2 9 6 - 3 1 3 .
(Ithaca, NY : C orne l l University, 1958).
11 . " Th e Fruitful Errors of Elton Mayo,"
Human relations theory's primary deficiency as a theory of organizational 31 . W. A. Koivisto, "Value, Th eo ry , and
Fortune 34 (N ov em be r 1946), 1 81 .
effectiveness is that it focuses too narrowly on reducing interpersonal frictions Fact in Industrial Sociology," American
12. Roethli sberger and D ickson, Manage• Journal of Sociology 58 (May 1953), 5 6 4 -7 2 .
and securing greater workplace cooperation. Although Mayo and Roethis-
ment and the Worker, 20 .
berger made significant contributions to organization theory by emphasizing 32 . C . W r i g h t M i l l s , " Th e C o n t r i b u t i o n
13. . R oethlisberg er and D ickson, of Sociology to Studies of Industrial R e l a •
the importance of human relations, it must be acknowledged that constructive
Manage• ment and the Worker, 571 . tions," in Industrial R elations R esearch
interpersonal relations is only one of many determinants of organizational per•
14. E lton Mayo, The Human Problems of an Association, Proceedings of the First Annual
formance. As we shall see, later schools of thought would take the most useful Meeting 1 (1948), 210 .
Industrial Civilization ( Ne w Yo rk : M a c m i l -
elements of human relations theory and integrate them into more comprehen• lan, 1933), 71 . 33 . Daniel Bell, "Adjusting M e n t o Ma •
sive and sophisticated theories of organizational effectiveness. 15. . Roethli sberger and D ickson, chines," Commentary 3 (January 1947), 88 .
Manage• ment and the Worker, 67 .
CHAPTER
1
34 . Mayo, The Social Problems of an Indus•

38. . Mc Na i r , " T h i n k i n g Ahead, " 28 .
trial Society (Andover, MA : Andov er Press,
39. . M c N a i r , " T h i n k i n g A h e a d , " 39 .
1945), Chapte r 5 .
3€
40. . " H a w t h o r n e R e v i s i t e d : T h e
35 . M a l c o m P. M c N a i r , " T h i n k i n g
Legacy and the Legend," Organizational
Ahead," Harvard Business Review 35
Dynamics 3 (Wint er 1975), 6 6 -8 0 .
(March- April 1957), 20 .
41 . Mayo, The Social Problems of an Indus•
36. . Koivisto, "V alue,Theory, and Fact
in Industrial Sociology," 571 .
37. . Bell,"Adjusting Me n t o
trial Society, 111 .
42 . R oe th l i sb erge r , Man-in-Organization, The Natural
123 .
Machines, " 88 .
Systems
Perspective
Chester I. Barnard
S ystems theory is not a distinct school of thought. It refers instead to a di•

verse range of studies often having little in common beyond a shared
commitment to a particular mode of analysis—systems analysis. As noted
in Chapter 8, a system is anything whose components are so interrelated and
interdependent that a change in one produces simultaneous changes in other
components, thereby altering the thing as a whole. The aim of systems analysis
is to understand the subject under study holistically, that is, as something more
than the sum of its parts. Researchers have applied systems analysis to the study
of such diverse subjects as tissue cells, living organisms, self-regulating ma•
chines, human societies, entire galaxies and, of course, complex organizations.
According to its advocates, systems analysis possesses greater diagnostic and ex•
planatory power than other modes of analysis. It can aid researchers and prac•
titioners alike in comprehending the reasons organizations behave as they do,
the complexities of organizational life, and the difficulties inherent in sustain•
ing high levels of organizational performance.
Alvin Gouldner observed in the late 1950s that organizations have been stud•
ied from two different perspectives. The rational perspective views
1
organiza• tions as deliberately conceived and planned instruments for achieving

collective goals. Emphasis is placed on the formal structures established to ensure
that goals are achieved efficiendy and it is taken for granted that organizations are
subject to planned control. The primary metaphor is that of a well-oiled machine
CHAPTER
1
whose parts can be designed and manipulated so that each contributes to the efficient
attainment of organizational objectives. This perspective is reflected in the ap•
proach to organizational analysis taken by Weber, Taylor, Fayol, and Gulick.
THE NATURAL SYSTEMS 1
1 CHAPTER
The natural systems perspective, by contrast, relies explicitly on systems age them to study specific parts of the whole in isolation, they also encouraged
analysis. It views organizations as living organisms seeking to survive in uncertain them to view observed behaviors as products of linear cause-and-effect rela•
and often hostile environments.Their internal components are seen pardy as prod• tionships. In the field of psychology, for example, the stimulus-response model
ucts of rational planning and pardy as spontaneous, adaptive responses to threats to of human behavior required researchers to trace specific behaviors to specific
the system's equilibrium. From this perspective the organization is not simply a stimuli. This ignored the fact that humans do not experience reality as a series
means to an end but also an end in itself. It abandons old goals and adopts new of stimulus-response relationships; they experience reality as a complex web of
ones as needed to ensure its continued survival. This perspective stresses the inter• factors interacting simultaneously, and they respond to it accordingly. This con•
dependence of the system's components.Where interdependence is high, efforts to clusion led to the development of Gestalt psychology, which relies on systems
achieve planned change produce unanticipated consequences, thereby creating analysis to comprehend human behavior holistically.
new problems for those seeking to control organizational activities in a deliberate Organization theorists reached a similar conclusion at about the same time.
fashion. This perspective is reflected in the approach to organizational analysis Following the dictates of the scientific method, the Hawthorne researchers de•
taken by Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger (Chapter 8), Robert Merton signed experiments to isolate the effects of one variable on another, such as the
(Chapter 10), and Chester Barnard, whose work is discussed in this chapter. effects of lighting on productivity. It soon became apparent, however, that
At the time Gouldner offered this distinction other theorists were already workplace variables are so interrelated and interdependent that outcomes can•
engaged in defining a third approach to organizational analysis. Like the natural not be understood in terms of linear cause-and-effect relationships. Where
systems perspective, the open systems perspective views organizations as liv• complex social and psychological phenomena are at issue, rarely does a change
ing creatures seeking to survive in an uncertain and often hostile environment. in one thing cause a direct change in another unmediated by other factors.
The key difference is that the natural systems perspective focuses on the organi• Consequently, many organization theorists turned to systems analysis as a way
zation's internal stresses and strains and its adaptive responses to them, whereas of understanding human behavior and organizational dynamics in a more ac•
the open systems perspective focuses on the external environment and the ex• curate and holistic fashion.
changes between it and the organization. The latter perspective assumes that or• In systems analysis each researcher is responsible for identifying the bound•
ganizations must respond appropriately to external opportunities and threats, aries of the system under study, including the level of analysis and the system's
including changes in mandates, markets, and technologies, if they are to maintain primary components. This is because systems do not have a concrete existence.
a steady state.The open systems perspective also emphasizes the dynamic and ag• They are simply conceptual frameworks created by researchers to aid in under•
gressive nature of organizations. Whereas the natural systems perspective charac• standing the phenomena they are studying. A researcher may decide, for exam•
terizes organizations as rather defensive or reactive in their adaptive responses, ple, to study a particular subsystem of society (e.g., public organizations) rather
the open systems perspective views them as ready to transform themselves com• than society as a whole. Regardless of the level of analysis chosen, social systems
pletely if necessary and to alter environmental conditions whenever possible. are typically defined as comprising people whose actions are shaped by struc•
From this perspective management's primary task is not simply to regulate inter• tural, technical, and social forces. Emphasis is placed on understanding the com•
nal activities but also to manage the environment so that the organization as a plex interrelationships among these forces. Once developed, the conceptual
whole can maintain a steady state of functioning. The open systems perspective, framework serves as a guide in designing research and interpreting results.
which is examined in Chapter 11, is reflected in the approach taken by such the• As a mode of analysis systems theory holds certain advantages. It provides a
orists as Joan Woodward, Emery andTrist, and Lawrence and Lorsch. means of understanding organizations as more than the sum of their parts, and
This chapter describes the evolution of the systems concept and reviews it encourages us to think in terms of simultaneous interactions rather than lin•
the work of Chester I. Barnard, a corporate executive and theorist who ana• ear cause-and-effect relationships. But despite these advantages, systems theory
lyzed organizations from the natural systems perspective. The chapter closes raises some troubling questions about the ability of social science to generate
with an analysis of the relevance of natural systems theory for public manage• meaningful conclusions regarding "the simultaneous variations of mutually de•
ment and government performance. pendent variables." T h e number of variables may be too great and the
2
nature of their interactions too complex to be reduced to useful generalizations,

let alone mathematical equations.This means that managers may have to rely on
intuition as much as science when responding to concrete problems. It is un•
S Y S TE M S THEOR Y A S
likely, for example, that science can predict all of the effects of a managerial in•
A MO D E OF A N A L Y S I S tervention on other system variables. Especially where system variables are
tightly interdependent, the number of unanticipated consequences of an oth•
Scholars working in a variety of disciplines in the early 1900s reached a similar erwise well-reasoned decision is likely to be enormous, creating new problems
conclusion. Their methods of analysis precluded them from understanding to be dealt with in turn. Such troubling implications are addressed more fully
complex phenomena as unified wholes. Not only did their methods encour- later in this and the following two chapters.
1 CHAPTER THE NATURAL SYSTEMS 1
TH E C O N C E P T O F S Y S T E M E Q U I L I B R I U lem they encountered was that living and nonliving systems are fundamen•
M tally different. This led to the realization that system equilibrium cannot be
defined as a state of rest for purposes of biological analysis. Unlike physical
and chemical systems, biological systems constantly import energy in order
A basic premise of systems theory is that the relationships among system vari• to survive. Given these fundamental differences, biologists redefined the con•
ables are not random but patterned. The elements of the system act and inter• cept of system equilibrium as a state of "dynamic equilibrium" in which the
act with each other in a structured way. It is this quality of "systematic living organism seeks a "steady state" of continued functioning. This dynamic
coherence" that gives each system its distinctive identity. Systems theory
3
equilibrium is not achieved by happenstance but by natural forces at work in

raises the possibility that these patterns can be discovered through research and re• all living things. As early as 1865 the French physiologist Claude Barnard de•
duced to mathematical equations defining how a change in one variable af• scribed the systems of the human body in terms of an internal mechanism
fects all of the others. Structured patterns exist, according to systems theory, that works to maintain the organism in a state of health. In 1932 Walter B.
because system variables tend toward a state of balance or equilibrium. Cannon coined the term h om eo st as is to refer to the self-regulating prop•
Whereas a system is a conceptual framework bearing only an approximate re• erties of living organisms that Barnard had described. Homeostasis refers to
lationship to the subject under study, most systems theorists view equilibrium the dynamic equilibrium achieved when the organism is able to regulate or
as a natural phe nom e non. Unfortunately, there is little agreement about the adjust its internal environment sufficiently well to be able to adjust as a
definition or nature of this phe nome non. The following discussion demon• whole to its external environment. If blood is lost through a wound, for ex•
strates how system equilibrium has come to mean something quite different, ample, the blood begins to clot and the blood vessels begin to constrict as
depending on whether the subject under study is a planetary system, chemical forms of self-regulating adaptation. More generally, any conscious or uncon•
mixture, biological organism, complex organization, or human society. scious need signals a temporary failure of adjustment and stirs the organism
During the course of the nineteenth century, the use of systems analysis or one of its subsystems to restore equilibrium. In short, equilibrium in the
gradually extended from the physical sciences to the biological sciences and fi• field of biology came to mean a state of internal stability rather than a state
nally to the social sciences. In the field of physics the concept of system equi• of rest.
librium conveys a mechanical image of physical forces at work. According to Wishing to bring greater theoretical rigor to their work, social scientists
Newton's principles of thermodynamics, there is a constant amount of energy began applying the concept of system equilibrium to the study of society, in•
in the world in the form of heat and mechanical energy. Energy is dissipated cluding complex organizations, in the early 1900s. At first it seemed perfectly
continuously until a given physical or mechanical system reaches a state of appropriate to apply the organic model of biology to social systems because
equilibrium at which no further work can be done. This continuous dissipa• they, like biological systems, seek to adapt to their environments to ensure their
tion of energy is called entropy. The solar system, for example, will eventually continued functioning. But on closer examination social scientists found
come to rest whe n all energy is consumed. Similarly, a kicked football will themselves confronting two troubling questions. First, does equilibrium refer
come to rest when the energy conveyed by the foot is used up and a machine to a specific, definable state or condition such that we can say when it has been
will come to rest when its fuel is spent. In short, in the field of physics, equi• achieved? Second, are organizations and societies driven by an inexorable nat•
librium is defined as a state of rest where no further action can occur. ural force to achieve that state of equilibrium?
The field of physical chemistry also adopted a mechanical understanding Many natural systems theorists, past and present, have answered these ques•
of system equilibrium. An American physicist, Josiah Willard Gibbs, worked tions in the affirmative. Society and its subsystems function as organic wholes
out equations in the 1870s defining the thermal and mechanical properties of whose separate parts mesh together to maintain a steady state. Any threat or
chemical systems at rest. He described how chemicals dissolved in water at a disturbance, such as a revolution in the case of society or a budget cut in the
given temperature and placed in a stoppered bottle comprise a physical- case of an organization, creates pressures to restore a state of equilibrium. The
chemical system. The system's properties include temperature, pressure, and the latter is typically defined as a state in which conflicts and strains among its
concentration of the chemicals involved. Because they exist in a state of mu • component parts are reduced to a minimum. Many, but not all, natural systems
tual interdependence, a change in one element produces a direct change in the theorists also hold that societies and organizations are driven by homeostatic
others. For example, if the stopper is pushed further into the bottle, pressure forces to achieve and maintain dynamic equilibrium.
increases, causing gas to change to liquid and the temperature to decrease. As Other social scientists have been less willing to answer these troubling
in the field of thermodynamics, equilibrium is defined as a state of rest, and the questions in the affirmative. Critics doubt that terms such as healthy functioning
interrelationships among elements, because they are few in number and follow or steady state can be defined objectively in terms of a specific set of conditions.
physical laws, can be reduced to mathematical equations. Second, whereas the striving of biological organisms to return to a state of
As biologists began using systems analysis they found they had to replace healthy functioning reflects an inherent tendency built into their genetic
the mechanical view of system equilibrium with an organic one. The prob-
1 CHAPTER THE NATURAL SYSTEMS
1
codes, many social scientists question whether there is any such force at work Despite the apparent difficulties, Pareto set out to develop a conceptual
in social systems. The successful adjustment of organizations to their external scheme for studying society as a social system. He understood that this
environments, for example, may be a matter of good fortune or wise manager• scheme would not allow social scientists to predict behavior with precision
ial decisions rather than the workings of some inexorable force. Third, some but he believed it could bring greater clarity to the forces at work in society.
critics are troubled by the normative implications, reflected particularly in the Pareto published his systems model of society in Treatise on General Sociology
natural systems perspective, that stability is good and conflict bad. Conse• in 1916. The components of his model were economic interests, residues,
quently, many social scientists now view equilibrium not as an objective, de• and derivations. He defined residues as the expressions of human sentiments
finable state to which organizations are driven but as a useful concept for and derivations as the laws and customs that rationalize sentiments. Pareto's
thinking about and studying social phenomena. The concept of equilibrium model also introduced the idea of circulating elites. Members of society, ac•
can be used, for example, to think through how organizations and the individ• cording to Pareto, regularly overthrow the ruling elites in order to restore an
uals within them satisfy needs and respond to strains. Although this means giv• equilibrium that better serves the interests of society as a whole. Whe n one
ing up the hope that relationships among system variables can be reduced to set of ruling elites inevitably betrays its trust, it is replaced by a new set and
mathematical equations, there is still every reason to believe that through the the cycle continues.
use of systems analysis researchers can discern basic patterns of organizational Pareto's conceptual model provided a point of departure for a group of so•
behavior and that better understanding of these patterns can lead to enhanced cial scientists who were then turning their attention to the study of complex
organizational performance. organizations.That Elton Mayo, Fritz Roethlisberger, Robert Merton (Chap•
ter 10), and Chester Barnard all applied systems analysis to the study of orga•
nizations was no accident. It was a direct consequence of their affiliation with
O R I G I N S O F TH E Lawrence J. Henderson, the Harvard biochemist who transferred from Har•
vard's chemistry department to the business school in 1927 to operate the Fa•
NATURA L SYSTEM S PERSPECTIV E tigue Laboratory in collaboration with Elton Mayo.
4
Henderson was
intimately familiar with the systems concept as it applied to biological systems
The natural systems perspective emerged in thel930 s and held sway among and had relied upon it extensively in his own studies of the body's circulatory
systems theorists until it was eclipsed by the open systems perspective in the system. His work at the Fatigue Laboratory awakened him to the psychologi•
1960s. This section reviews the origins of the natural systems perspective as it cal as well as physiological factors governing human behavior. In 1928 a friend
developed in the United States. A subsequent section examines the work of convinced him to read Pareto's treatise, and he immediately recognized its im•
Chester I. Barnard, a corporate executive whose highly influential theory of portance. Henderson became so enthralled with the potential contributions of
organization relied heavily upon the natural systems perspective. systems analysis to social science that he organized a course on Pareto's work
Among the first to apply systems analysis to the formal study of society was for colleagues and graduate students in 1932. Roethlisberger attended as an in•
the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. Initially trained as an engineer, Pareto terested colleague and Merton attended as a graduate student in sociology. In
was familiar with the systems concept as it applied to mechanical systems. 1938 Henderson developed a course for undergraduates entitled Sociology 23
Later, as a professor of economics at the University of Lausanne, he extended that focused on systems analysis of concrete social behavior. Mayo, Roethlis•
the systems concept to marketplace relations and succeeded in developing a berger, and Chester Barnard were among those who offered case studies for
mathematical model describing a state of equilibrium among price, supply, and students to analyze.
demand. In doing so, Pareto described a closed system comprising a small Thus, terms such as systems, equilibrium, nonlogical action, and sentiments ap•
number of variables—one which assumed rational, economic decisions by peared in the writings of Mayo, Roethlisberger, Merton, and Barnard from
buyers and sellers. Recognizing that social actions are more often of a nonlog• Pareto by way of Henderson. Many of the next generation of organization
ical sort, Pareto next sought to extend the systems concept to society as a theorists, including George C. Homans and William F.Whyte, were also intro•
whole by developing a model embracing nonlogical as well as logical behav• duced to systems analysis through Henderson. Henderson's impact on organi•
iors. In doing so he immediately confronted the fact that the components of zation theory, although indirect, was substantial. As Cynthia Eagle Russett has
society and the forces that impact them represent dozens of interdependent written, "Henderson may have given greater impetus to the diffusion of equi•
variables that cannot be identified and reduced to a mathematical model in the librium concepts among American social scientists than any other single indi•
same way as the variables in an economic system. He was forced to acknowl• vidual. To a whole generation of Harvard students he passed on his conception
edge that the development of scientific propositions in the social sciences of scientific method, of social science methodology, and specifically of the
would be a formidable task. place of equikbrium analysis in social science." 5
THE NATURAL SYSTEMS 1
1 CHAPTER
results of the Hawthorne studies but it was much less comprehensive in scope.
Chester I. Barnard 1886-1961 Key components of Barnard's conceptual scheme include the definition of or•
ganizations as cooperative systems, his inducements-contributions theory, and
Chester Irving Barnard was born in New Jersey asked Barnard to organize his view of the functions of executives.
Maiden, Massachusetts, on November and direct the New Jersey Emergency
7, 1886. He completed the require•
6
Relief Administration. Barnard later
ments for a major in economics at presented a case study on the "Riot of Organizations as Cooperative Systems
Harvard but left after three years be• the Unemployed" in Henderson's Soci•
cause his preparatory training had ology 23 course at Harvard. Hender• Barnard conceptualized concrete institutions—churches, governments, busi•
not equipped him to pass the re• son was so impressed with a speech nesses, civic associations, and families—as cooperative systems. A coopera•
quired courses in chemistry and delivered by Barnard at Princeton in
1936 that he arranged for him to give
tive system, he wrote, "is a complex of physical, biological, personal, and social
physics. In 1909 Walter Gifford, an ac•
quaintance of Barnard's, offered him a series of eight lectures at Harvard components which are in a specific systematic relationship by reason of the
cooperation of two or more persons for at least one definite end." Barnard's
1 0
a job at American Telephone and sponsored by the Lowell Institute.
Telegraph (AT&T). Barnard's forty- These lectures, delivered during No• definition emphasized that organizations exist to achieve important purposes,
year career with AT&T began in the vember and December of 1937, were
that those purposes can only be achieved through cooperative effort, and that
statistical department, where he de• the basis of Barnard's book, The Func•
veloped considerable expertise in for• tions of the Executive, published in cooperative effort is not effective unless the relationships among the organiza•
eign and domestic phone rates. In 1938. Although it was the only book tion's various components are deliberately structured. Humans enter into co•
1922 Barnard left Boston to become Barnard wrote, its impact on subse• operative arrangements so that they can accomplish together what they cannot
assistant vice president and general quent generations of organizational accomplish alone. In doing so they sacrifice a certain amount of freedom to
manager of the Bell Telephone Com• analysts has been enormous.
7
pany of Pennsylvania. Five years later,

achieve a shared purpose.
Barnard remained actively involved
at the age of 41 , he was named presi• Far from being self-contained and independent, organizations must ob•
in public service, both while serving as
dent of the New Jersey Bell Tele•
president of New Jersey Bell and after tain resources from the outside world and adjust to changes occurring in
phone Company, a position he held their external environments if they are to survi/e. As Barnard put it, external
his retirement. At the age of 65 he be•
until he retired in 1948.
came chair of the National Science forces "both furnish the materials which are used by organizations and limit
Barnard possessed an intellectual Board of the National Science Founda• their action. The survival of an organization depends upon the maintenance
and practical disposition that allowed tion and continued to work with the
board until 1956. Barnard died June 7,
of an equilibrium of complex character in a continuously fluctuating envi•
him to move comfortably among the
worlds of business, public service, and 1961, a few months short of his seventy- ronment of physical, biological, and social materials, elements, and forces,
which calls for readjustment of processes internal to the organization." 1 1
academia. In 1931 the governor of fifth birthday.
Barnard's use of biological terms such as survival and equilibrium is consistent
with the natural systems perspective. From this perspective organizations are
viewed as living organisms seeking to survive in an uncertain and often hos•
tile environment. Barnard referred to organizations as being "alive," much in
B A R N A R D ' S NATURA L S YS T E M S the same sense that h u ma n beings are alive.
1 2
As living things,
organizations must continuously adjust to changes taking place in their
VIE W O F O R G A N I Z A T I O N S
environments that limit effective cooperation.
Barnard found that the existing literature on organizations did not capture the Barnard was among the first to recognize that organizations have m ain •
realities of organizational life in the way he experienced them as a business ex• tenance needs. They must obtain "surplus" resources from their environ•
ecutive. Whereas muc h had been written about organizational structure and
8
ments and use them to induce contributions from their members, minimize
the exercise of formal authority, little attention had been given to the actual internal frictions, and cope with external threats. If resources are not commit•
processes of coordination and decision. Consequently, Barnard set out to de• ted to maintaining themselves as viable organisms, then questions about how
velop a conceptual scheme for understanding organizations that was more be• to achieve stated purposes become moot. Often, Barnard noted, organizations
havioral than legalistic in nature, one that he hoped would prove to be "a useful must commit more energy to maintaining themselves than to achieving goals,
tool " for studying the problems of concrete organizations. The
9
much like an engine whose "losses of energy through internal friction and
resulting scheme was published in The Functions of the Executive in 1938. With the heat transfer are much greater than the energy actually converted to useful
possi• ble exception ofWeber's ideal-type model of bureaucracy, Barnard's conceptual work." Organizations may, for example, create overhead staff agencies and
1 3
scheme represented the first truly comprehensive theory of organization. install new management systems to promote system maintenance, only to
Roethlisberger had developed a similar conceptual scheme for interpreting the have them become sources of friction and inefficiency themselves.
The Concept of Formal Organization uals make to the organization's collective purpose and the satisfactions they re•
Barnard hoped social scientists would use his conceptual scheme to develop ceive in exchange. Much of Barnard's theory of organization relates to the lat•
propositions about how to manage organizations effectively. He understood, ter meaning of equilibrium. It is, as March and Simon have noted, essentially a
however, that useful propositions could not be generated from a systems model theory of motivation. This theory holds that organizational members make
1 6
that attempted to include all of the physical, biological, and social variables en• contributions to the organization in exchange for inducements, and that each
compassed by concrete, natural systems. For this reason he narrowed the scope continues to participate only as long as the inducements received are greater
of his analysis to one major component of cooperative systems, the formal than the contributions he or she is asked to make.
organization. Barnard defined formal organization "as a system of consciously Consistent with the pleasure-pain principle of motivation, Barnard viewed
coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons."
1 4
In Barnard's con• humans as striving to maximize their satisfactions.They cooperate only to sat•
ceptual scheme, the formal organization is a subsystem of the more inclusive isfy their individual motives. From this premise he developed unique defini•
cooperative system; other subsystems include the physical, biological, and psy• tions of efficiency and effectiveness, two conditions that determine whether a
chological subsystems. In leaving the physical, biological, and psychological cooperative system will survive. The cooperative system is efficient if the net
components out of his conceptual model, Barnard did not mean to say that satisfaction of all contributors is higher than the net dissatisfactions. Individuals
these components are unimportant for understanding organizational behavior. who believe they will not experience sufficient satisfaction will withhold their
He simply wished to isolate the consciously coordinated activities or forces as contributions to the system, thereby reducing the efficiency of the system, pos•
the central component under study. sibly to the point where survival is no longer possible:
Although Barnard restricted his analysis primarily to the formal organiza•
tion, he noted that informal organizations inevitably arise within the formal . . . . If the individual finds his motives being satisfied by what he does, he
structure. These he defined as any set of interactions that occur without con• continues his cooperative effort; otherwise he does not. If he does not, this
scious joint purpose but which tend to become organized or systematized subtraction from the cooperative system may be fatal to it. If five men are
nonetheless. Barnard's treatment of informal groups is generally favorable. He required and the fifth man finds no satisfaction in cooperating, his contri•
viewed them as functioning to facilitate communication, maintain cohesiveness, bution would be inefficient. He would withhold or withdraw his services,
and promote feelings of personal integrity and self-respect. Because informal so that the cooperation would be destroyed. If he considers it to be effi•
organizations are distinct from the consciously structured formal organization, cient, it is continued. Thus, the efficiency of a cooperative system is its ca•
with its hierarchy of authority and impersonal objectives, they provide an es• pacity to maintain itself by the individual satisfactions it affords. This may
sential antidote to the tendency of formal organizations to rob participants of be called its capacity of equilibrium, the balancing of burdens by satisfac•
tions which results in continuance.
17
their individuality. Informal groups provide freedom of choice and action,

1 5
and an opportunity for individuals to structure group relations to their own liking.
A system is effective to the degree its purpose is achieved. In Barnard's
A key element in Barnard's conceptual scheme is the premise that formal conceptual scheme, effectiveness depends in large part on the efficiency of the
organizations comprise sets of activities that are consciously structured. They inducements-contributions equilibrium. Only when a critical mass of contrib•
are structured primarily by managers seeking to satisfy the requirements of the utors are receiving net satisfaction and are therefore continuing to contribute
system as a whole. Barnard thus created a conceptual scheme similar to We• can the organization attain its goals. Being efficient in this sense means distrib•
ber's ideal-type. Both schemes direct analysis to the impersonal, instrumental uting just enough inducements to satisfy each individual, assuming that higher
nature of organizations. A key difference, however, is that Barnard used the levels of satisfaction are not available elsewhere. This is a different meaning of
concept of subsystems to emphasize how the formal organization is impacted efficiency than the technical efficiency espoused by Frederick Taylor. Although
by physical, biological, and psychological factors. By including human senti• Barnard believed that an organization must be efficient in the technical sense
ments in his conceptual scheme Barnard was able to explain organizational be• to generate the surplus resources it needs to satisfy human motives, it is human
havior in ways that adherents to the rational perspective could not. satisfaction that ultimately determines effectiveness. By satisfying human mo •
tives the organization is able to compensate each participant for the lost free•
Barnard's Inducements-Contributions Theory doms they experience upon joining the organization. It is the net advantages
they receive that induces them to contribute to the attainment of organiza•
System equilibrium, according to Barnard, refers to two sets of interrelated tional objectives.
processes.The first aims to achieve an equilibrium, or fit, between the organi•
Also in contrast to Taylor, Barnard believed that nonmaterial inducements
zation's internal characteristics and its external environment. The second aims
are more powerful motivators than material ones. Although some organizations
to achieve an equilibrium, or balance, between the contributions that individ-
may succeed in motivating members primarily through material inducements,
Barnard believed that it is "utterly contrary to the nature of man" to be induced

The second method of inducing cooperation, which Bernard labeled the
to contribute by material or monetary considerations alone. True efficiency, he
persuasion method, has three forms.The first is persuasion by coercion. Indi•
argued, is achieved by offering nonmaterial inducements such as recognition,
viduals may be persuaded to comply with directives through the threat of
prestige, personal power, pride of craft, and accomplishment. 18
force, including discharge, ostracism, or the withholding of benefits. The sec•

According to Barnard, organizations can get away with a degree of ineffi•
ond form is persuasion by propaganda. Individuals may be persuaded to con•
ciency or ineffectiveness and still survive for a time, but in the long run both
tribute to organizational success by indoctrinating them in the importance of
efficiency and effectiveness are necessary to system survival. If efficiency is a
organizational mission, service, or product. Here participants are told that the
prerequisite for effectiveness, effectiveness is also a prerequisite for efficiency.
organization exists to achieve an important collective purpose and that they
Ineffectiveness is a matter for concern because those wh o are motivated by
will receive personal satisfaction from contributing to its attainment. The un•
goal attainment are unable to obtain personal satisfaction when goals are not
derlying strategy is to get individuals to identify with the organization's pur•
attained and because an ineffective organization is less able to generate the sur•
pose, so that helping to accomplish it becomes a motive for cooperating.
plus resources needed to induce the cooperation of those who are not moti•
Military, religious, and patriotic organizations, according to Barnard, rely heav•
vated by goal attainment.
ily on this form of persuasion. The third form of persuasion is the inculcation
In practice the desired inducement-contribution equilibrium is achieved
of motives. This involves educating individuals in religious beliefs, patriotic
by simultaneously offering positive inducements, such as wages, and reducing
ideals, or professional values so that they are conditioned to behave in pre•
negative burdens, such as hours of work. Unfortunately, it is impossible to de•
scribed ways. In practice, according to Barnard, organizations use a combina•
termine objectively whether system equilibrium is being maintained. Much
tion of these forms of persuasion, with the mix varying according to their
depends on what members perceive as burdensome and the value they place
natures and circumstances. They generally proceed by trial-and-error to dis•
on available inducements. For this reason managers must remain attentive to
cover the optimal balance between the costs of providing these kinds of in•
signs that the desired equilibrium no longer exists—signs such as increased
ducements and the benefits they receive in terms of heightened contributions.
turnover, reduced productivity, and heightened levels of conflict.
The Altering of Motives Limits on the Exercise of Fo mal Authority

Early in his book Barnard notes that people can be viewed either as subjects to Like the administrative management theorists, Barnard believed that the hier•
be satisfied or objects to be manipulated.The first expands individual choice by archical structure of authority is a universal feature of all complex organiza•
offering inducements from which to choose, whereas the second hmits choice tions. It is the primary vehicle by which purpose is communicated
2 0
by shaping the individual's values, attitudes, or state of mind. Barnard's lengthy throughout the organization and by which coordination is secured. But, if each
discussion of material and nonmaterial incentives seems to suggest that treating executive position carries with it the authority to issue formal directives, this
individuals as subjects to be satisfied is the preferred course of action. But later does not mean that those who receive the directives are powerless. Barnard
in his book Barnard acknowledged that some organizations lack the material viewed compliance with institutional directives as a special form of contribu•
and nonmaterial inducements needed to secure contributions and therefore tion and noted that formal authority is often ineffective in securing it. Like
must seek to shape each individual's state of mind, including what they value, so Follett, Barnard believed authority rests on consent. Formal directives, includ•
that they will desire the inducements the organization has to offer. Individuals, ing orders, rules, and regulations, are not effective unless they are accepted as
as the basic strategic factor in organizations, must be induced to cooperate, but legitimate by those who receive them. Here, too, individuals must be induced
it turns out that there are two ways of doing so: by offering incentives to satisfy to cooperate, that is, induced to accept the legitimacy of institutional direc•
existing motives (the incentive method) or by altering the motives themselves tives. For compliance to occur, four conditions must be satisfied: a person must
(the persuasion method). Barnard makes this distinction as follows: understand the directive, believe that it is consistent with the organization's
purpose, believe that it is compatible with his or her personal interests, and be
Given a man of a certain state of mind, of certain attitudes, or gov• able to comply with it mentally and physically. In practice most organiza•
21
erned by certain motives, he can be induced to contribute to an organiza• tions are able to satisfy these conditions for three reasons. First, most managers
tion by a given combination of these objective incentives, positive or neg• are astute enough to avoid issuing directives that are clearly inconsistent with
ative. It often is the case, however, that the organization is unable to offer organizational purpose and individual self-interest; second, most members do
objective incentives that will serve as an inducement to that state of mind, not wish to disturb the prevailing social equilibrium by challenging authority;
or to those attitudes, or to one governed by those motives.The only alter• and, third, most members have a rather broad "zone of indifference."
native then available is to change the state of mind, or attitudes, or mo •
According to the latter concept, individuals accept most orders without
tives, so that the available objective incentives can become effective. 1
consciously questioning them because whether they comply is a matter of

indifference to them.This, Barnard observed, is something organizations can ma- system as much as it serves to direct it. Barnard develops this point by drawing
nipulate.They can establish broad zones of indifference by ensuring that induce• an analogy with the human body's nervous system: "The functions with which
ments continue to exceed burdens and sacrifices. Otherwise, if the balance
we are concerned are like those of the nervous system, including the brain, in
between inducements and burdens is perceived as negative, members will resign,
relation to the rest of the body. It exists to maintain the bodily system by direct•
malinger, or behave in generally undependable ways. This helps explain why
ing those actions which are necessary more effectively to adjust to the environ•
coercion-based management generally fails. Although individuals may comply in
ment, but it can hardly be said to manage the body, a large part of whose
the short run to avoid sanctions, coercion adversely affects the inducement-
functions are independent of it and upon which it in turn depends." 23
burden equilibrium. "In the last analysis," Barnard wrote, "the authority fails
The general task of maintaining the cooperative system, according to
because the individuals in sufficient numbers regard the burden involved in
Barnard, involves the performance of three interrelated executive functions.
accepting necessary orders as changing the balance of advantage against their in•
The first is developing and maintaining a system of communication. This in•
terest, and they withdraw or withhold the indispensable contributions." 22
volves defining the hierarchy of authority, or structural scheme, through which

communications are to flow. It includes defining executive positions, filling
The Process of Decision them with competent personnel, and inducing their loyalty and interest.The
second executive function is inducing individuals to join the organization and
The Functions of the Executive offered an analysis of the process of decision,
contribute to accomplishing its purposes.This function encompasses the main•
something that earlier works in organization theory had not done. Barnard
tenance of morale, including maintenance of the systems of inducements and
emphasized that the way individuals make decisions is a very different ques•
deterrents, supervision and control, and education and training. Th e third
2 4
tion from how organizations make decisions. In his view it was as important
ex• ecutive function is defining the purposes and objectives of the organization.
to understand the latter as the former.
This includes delegating authority to the units and positions that are to be as•
According to Barnard, decisions are the means by which organizations reg•
signed responsibility for specific aspects of the overall purpose. It also involves
ulate the relations between purpose and environment. Organizations respond
making those decisions that guide the translation of purpose into concrete ac•
to problems thrown up by their internal and external environments by decid•
tions at all levels of the organization. According to Barnard, executives must
ing to change either their environments or their purposes. The decision
"indoctrinate" those working at the lower levels of the organization with gen•
process is thus a process of adaptation. Given a particular set of circumstances,
eral purposes "so that they remain cohesive and able to make the ultimate de•
the first step in the process is to identify the primary strategic factor in the
tailed decisions co her ent... ." But Barnard emphasized that executives must
2 5
internal or external environment that is limiting the organization's ability to

also be attentive to information filtering up from below so that they can adjust
accomplish its purpose, either by its presence or absence. Ho w to cope with
purpose effectively. "Without that up-and-down-the-line coordination of pur•
the identified limitation becomes the next strategic factor for analysis. Relying
poseful decisions," he wrote, "general decisions and general purposes are mere
on experiential, logical, and factual analysis, alternative courses of action are
intellectual processes in an organizational vacuum, insulated from realities by
identified and a decision reached, with purpose serving as the general crite•
layers of misunderstanding." 26
rion for choice. After one strategic factor has been addressed, another takes its
place and is addressed in turn. The process of decision is thus an iterative one Barnard argued that system maintenance requires the ability to sense the
in which broad purposes are achieved through many successive decisions, in• organization as a whole and the total situation relevant to it. This ability relies
volving many different persons, and occurring both simultaneously and se• heavily on intuition and is acquired by "persistent habitual experience." The
quentially. Sometimes, however, strategic factors prove to be insurmountable difficulties inherent in sensing organizations holistically led Barnard to view
and it becomes necessary to change purpose rather than environment. The system maintenance as more an art than a science.
newly agreed upon purpose brings with it a new environment, one defined by
different internal and external factors, and all subsequent decisions must take The Moral Aspect
this new environment into account. Organizations, according to Barnard, are inherently moral in nature because
they exist to accomplish a collective purpose. To induce cooperation they de•
The Functions of the Executive velop their own moral codes. These reflect organizational expectations and
norms of behavior, the most basic of which is the expectation that members
Executives, in Barnard's conceptual scheme, are those responsible for maintain• will place the good of the organization first. A morally responsible person is
ing the cooperative system in a state of internal and external equilibrium. They one who holds to moral obligations in the face of temptations to act in a con•
are responsible for making the decisions that connect means to ends, as well as trary fashion. Because everyone has multiple codes and obligations, organiza•
those that regulate the relations between purpose and environment. In main• tions seek to establish the primacy of the organizational code over other, more
taining the cooperative system, the executive organization does not manage the personal codes.
Executives have their own organizational codes. The moral code of a de• vidual and organizational behavior. He also used the concept of an inducements-
partment head, for example, typically includes obedience to the system of au• contributions equilibrium to shift attention from coercing employees to satisfy•
thority, commitment to advancing the general purpose of the department, ing their needs. Although the process of exchanging inducements for
commitment to advancing the good of the organization as a whole, informal contributions was still one between unequals, and although the final bargain
norms such as acting like a lady or gendeman, and norms associated with a spe• was still struck on management's terms, Barnard nonetheless tempered classical
cific profession. If these should clash with personal religious, political, or famil• theory's emphasis on the exercise of formal authority and top-down control.
ial codes, the organizational code will demand priority. This creates a moral Finally, he was among the first to analyze the way decisions are made within or•
dilemma. In some instances the department head may feel compelled to resign. ganizations and to define the functions of executives in terms of systems main•
The executive is also responsible for creating moral codes for others. As tenance as well as goal attainment. His influence on subsequent generations of
Barnard put it, "This is the process of inculcating points of view, fundamental theorists has been substantial.
attitudes, loyalties, to the organization or cooperative system, and to the system
of objective authority, that will result in subordinating individual interest and
the minor dictates of personal codes to the good of the cooperative whole." 2 7
Morals of this kind are inculcated through education and training or the
CRITICISM S O F B A R N A R D ' S THEOR Y
natural process of socialization by which new members learn the norms and
behavioral expectations that prevail in the workplace. Employees who are ed• Although Barnard's contributions to organization theory are widely acknowl•
ucated or socialized to feel a sense of dedication to their work are more likely edged, his ideas have not escaped criticism. William G. Scott, for example,
than others to abide by the organizational code. Barnard cited an example of a views The Functions of the Executive as an ideological defense of managerialism
switchboard operator who remained at her post as she watched the house and the administrative state. Ma na ge r i al is m is an ideology that justifies
29
where her invalid mother lived burn down. Organizations, he wrote, depend concentrating power in the hands of a managerial elite and establishing an ac•
on this kind of dedication, and it is the responsibility of executives to foster it tivist state that plans for the rational attainment of the public good. It arose in
by altering the motives of organizational members. As he put it, "Executive re• the early 1900s as management was emerging as a distinct profession and as
sponsibility, then, is that capacity of leaders by which, reflecting attitudes, managers were replacing capitalists as the new r u in g class. Among its beliefs
ideals, hopes, derived largely from without themselves, they are compelled to are the following: that managers represent a benign ruling class because they
bind the wills of men to the accomphshment of purposes beyond their imme• are apolitical, morally responsible, and concerned only with promoting effi•
diate ends, beyond their times."
28
ciency; that they are uniquely qualified to hold positions of leadership because
Barnard acknowledged that demanding allegiance to the organization's of their technical expertise and commitment to scientific rationality; that they
moral code is sometimes taken to unwarranted extremes. Employees are some• possess specialized tools for the effective coordination and control of people
times asked to violate professional norms of good practice or to sacrifice their and work activities; and that by pursuing the interests of their organizations
personal integrity for the good of the organization. He believed, however, that they promote the collective interests of society. These beliefs were buttressed
responsible executives will seek to minimize the number of situations where by traditional Progressive values, including efficiency, faith in science, compe•
employees are asked to sacrifice their personal values and sense of integrity to tence, moral integrity, and rational stewardship. In short, managerialism as it
serve the interests of the organization as a whole. developed in the United States promised peace, prosperity, and progress
through the efforts of its new guardian class. Whereas Taylor, Fayol, and Gulick
had articulated the values of scientific rationality and managerial control, and
Mayo and Roethlisberger had introduced the idea of "managing" human sen•
BARNARD' S CONTRIBUTION S
timents using behavioral techniques, the fullest expression of managerial val•
TO ORGANIZATIO N THEOR Y ues, according to Scott, is found in the work of Chester Barnard.
Scott finds Barnard's theory of organization troubling for several reasons.
Drawing upon his experience as a corporate executive, Barnard proceeded log• First, it accepts the legitimacy of the hierarchical structure of authority es•
ically and analytically, one concept at a time, to build a conceptual scheme for poused by classical organization theorists. This means that the power to set
understanding organizational behavior. By doing so he produced the first truly
policies is concentrated at the top of the organization and in the hands of a
comprehensive theory of organization. He conceptualized organizations as so•
small elite group. Those at the top are viewed as qualified to make fundamen•
cial systems and sought to understand them as organic wholes. Like Mayo and
tal policy decisions because of their superior education and expertise, and
Roethlisberger, he used the concepts of formal and informal organization to
those at the bottom are expected to offer their loyalty and obedience. Second,
illustrate how human sentiments as well as rational calculation influence indi-
according to Scott, Barnard's theory espouses an antidemocratic approach to
management. No t only are the governed excluded from participating in set• ther did it absolutely preclude delegation of responsibility and meaningful op•
ting organizational policies but they also have few means by which to check portunities for empowerment.
potential abuses of power. It is also true, as Scott suggests, that Barnard believed organizations require
Third, Barnard's theory of organization offers a thinly disguised justifica• a high degree of obedience and conformity. Cooperative effort, Barnard ar•
tion for the social control of employees. According to Scott, Barnard's theory gued, cannot be effective if members are rowing in different directions or pur•
encourages the use of management techniques derived from the behavioral suing interests that run contrary to those of the organization. Nonetheless,
sciences to secure employee compliance. These include techniques for distrib• Barnard was very concerned that the integrity of the individual not be lost in
uting inducements and manipulating values, such as pay-for-performance and the process. Echoing the views of Mayo and Roethlisberger, Barnard argued
orientation sessions for new employees. Scott finds especially repugnant the that effective cooperation cannot be achieved unless management is willing to
idea that managers should seek to alter human motives by creating moral treat employees as individuals with human needs and emotions. "My own be•
codes and indoctrinating employees in organizational ideals.To him, manage• lief," he wrote, "is strong that the capacity, development, and state of mind of
ment by persuasion is management by deceit and manipulation. It is "the de• employees as individuals must be the focal point of all policy and practice re•
liberate attempt by people with power to alter the perceptions of objective lating to personnel." This commitment to individual development, he added,
32
situations by others without their awareness of alternative interpretations, must be completely genuine, not a matter of tactics or symbols. Further, he
choices, or values." Th e purpose is to expand each person's zone of
3 0
did not find this inconsistent with the executive's use of indoctrination to alter
indiffer• ence by causing them to value what they might not otherwise value. individual motives. He viewed indoctrination not as something hidden and
It is often the case that criticisms of another person's work are overly deceitful but as a process of openly communicating organizational purpose
broad, expressing more about the critic's values than the theorist's intent. In and ideals to employees, thereby inculcating in them a sense of loyalty, dedica•
this instance, Scott's criticisms are fair but only up to a point. It is true, for ex• tion, and responsibility. The survival of any organizational system, he argued,
ample, that Barnard believed that hierarchies of authority are universal features depends on getting people to work together wholeheartedly for common
of complex organizations. He viewed them as the primary structural means by purposes only remotely related to their individual purposes. In his view ac•
which coordination is achieved. It is also true that he believed that organiza• complishing this through persuasion is preferable to accomplishing it through
tions, unlike political systems, cannot be governed in a democratic fashion. In coercion or the issuing of explicit instructions.
his view democracy is a process that allows individuals to express their views,
If Barnard was an articulate spokesman for managerialism as Scott con•
so that general policy directions can be set by the majority of participants. It is
tends, it is important to note that his brand of managerialism was much more
perfectly well suited to the requirements of a political system. But complex or•
progressive and humanistic in character than the neo-Taylorian and market-
ganizations, he insisted, are entirely different entities.Their survival depends on well-
oriented brands that exist today. Althoug h a conservative businessman,
33
informed, detailed decisions made by a small group of executives acting swiftly

Barnard embraced the Progressive values of moral responsibility, human dig•
but deliberately, and requiring the consent of most if not all members. In view
nity, and social progress. He believed that individual freedom and pursuit of
of the needs of complex organizations, the democratic process of de• cision is far
the collective good represent opposing forces, forces that cannot ultimately be
too slow, far too divisive, results in a very abstract understanding of what is to be
reconciled. He viewed social interdependence as a defining characteristic of
done, and rests on the consent of as few as 51 percent of its par• ticipants. Different
modern society. So, too, is the establishment of complex organizations to ac•
kinds of systems, Barnard concluded, have different needs, and "experience
complish shared purposes. As a result, the conflict between individual freedom
shows that a final test of any system of governance is the sur• vival of the
and the collective good in modern society gives rise to inescapable tensions.
organization in whic h it is used."
31
Whe n individuals join organizations they necessarily give up a measure of

Barnard did not believe, however, that managerial power is absolute and freedom and individuality. As members of organizations they are subject to the
without checks. Executives are constrained by the knowledge that their direc• authority of some while exercising control over others; they are at once free
tives are not authoritative unless they are accepted as such by those who re• and unfree, dependent and independent, possessing free will and experiencing
ceive them. They are also constrained by the fact that employees are free to limits on their choices.
leave the organization or otherwise withhold cooperation if they fail to pro•
Barnard noted that the tension between individual freedom and the col•
vide net satisfaction. Moreover, Barnard argued that, whereas fundamental de• lective good had given rise to two extreme faiths, one in individualism and
cisions regarding system maintenance are the responsibility of top the other in statism. He recognized that statism, which is premised on the
management, operational decisions should be pushed downward to the point value of cooperation, is fraught with dangers when taken to an extreme.
where action is required. Those at the top, he believed, cannot hope to exer• Those who take this point of view, Barnard wrote, "are likely to advocate un•
cise complete control over what takes place elsewhere in the organization. In critically a vast regimentation, an endless subordination, a completeness of co•
short, if Barnard's theory did not encourage broad employee involvement, nei- ordination, that in their unrestricted dogmatism would stifle all development
of individuals beyond that found inescapable." In contrast to many wh o

3 4
But the natural systems perspective also has limitations. As Kast and Rosen-
e m • braced managerialist views in the 1930s and 1940s, Barnard warned of the zweig have observed, organizations may be systems but they are not necessar•
dangers of centralized planning and statism. Scott's criticisms notwithstand•
35
ily natural systems. Th e parallels between living organisms and social,

38
ing, Barnard believed his theory of organization steered a middle course be• man-made systems, although intriguing, are in fact quite limited. In contrast to
tween these two extremes. Although cooperation is accomplished on living organisms, man-made systems are deliberately planned and structured.
management's terms, and although members experience the inevitable ten• Kast and Rosenzweig feared that by overemphasizing the parallels we may fail
sions between freedom and unfreedom, organizations are still places where to appreciate the differences between organizations and living things.They also
people exercise choice in pursuit of collective purposes. Believing in the pos• noted that organizations do not merely adapt to their environments; they also
sibilities of a middle course between extreme individualism and statism, take steps to alter them. No r are all internal adaptations responses to external
Barnard concluded his book with these words: forces; many adaptations are responses to internal demands or needs. As will be
seen in Chapter 11, many of these conceptual limitations were subsequently
. . . . I believe in the power of cooperation of men of free will to make
addressed by open systems theory.
men free to cooperate; that only as they choose to work together can they
achieve the fullness of personal development; that only as each accepts a
responsibility for choice can they enter into that communion of men from
which arise the higher purposes of individual and of cooperative behavior
RELEVANC E FO R PUBLI C MANAGEMEN T
alike. I believe that the expansion of cooperation and the development of
the individual are mutually dependent realities, and that a due proportion The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of natural systems theory
or balance between them is a necessary condition of human welfare. Be• for public management and government performance. This exploration is
cause it is subjective with respect both to a society as a whole and to the guided by the three analytical frameworks presented in Chapter 3.
individual, what this proportion is I believe science cannot say. It is a ques•
tion for philosophy and religion. 36

Barnard's natural systems theory emphasized the importance of all four sets of
effectiveness values identified in Quinn's competing values framework, some•
CONTRIBUTION S OF thing that is very rare among theories of organization. The effective organiza•
tion, according to Barnard, is one that succeeds in maintaining a state of
NATURA L SYSTEM S THEOR Y external and internal equilibrium. Maintaining external equilibrium requires
securing the resources the system needs to survive, adapting to external
Natural systems theorists, including Elton Mayo, Chester Barnard, and Robert changes, and keeping the organization focused on its ultimate purpose, all of
Merton (Chapter 10), produced one of the richest literatures in the field of or• which requires careful and deliberate strategic planning. The effectiveness val•
ganization theory. By conceptualizing organizations as social systems, they ues associated with this external focus are encompassed by the open systems
brought human behavior and its social and psychological determinants into the mo de l and the rational goal mo de l . Maintaining internal equilibrium, by
mainstream of organizational analysis. In doing so they exposed the limitations contrast, requires coordinating work activities and balancing individual in•
of the mechanistic view of organizations and they added flesh and blood to the ducements and contributions, all of which requires constructing a formal or•
structural skeleton described by classical management theorists. Second, they ganization that minimizes frictions while facilitating coordination and control.
encouraged researchers to adopt systems analysis and managers to learn to think The effectiveness values associated with this internal focus are encompassed by
holistically. Those who did so were able to avoid the traps caused by linear cause-and- the internal process mode l and the huma n relations m odel .
effect thinking and the tendency to investigate the parts without re• gard to the
Barnard's theory offers an interesting blend of the rational and the natural
whole. Third, they identified maintenance needs that must be met if the system is
systems perspective: Complex organizations are living organisms that engage
to survive and they directed the attention of researchers to discov• ering the
in rational planning and decision making both to survive as institutions and to
mechanisms by which those needs are satisfied. The concept of main• tenance needs
achieve their stated goals. Survival and goal attainment in turn depend on
is useful in explaining, for example, why professional associations offer inexpensive
management's ability to pursue all four sets of effectiveness values in a balanced
insurance policies to their members (to induce new members to join and old
fashion, depending on the unique mix of internal and external forces at work
members to remain), or why the National Foundation for In• fantile Paralysis
in the organization's total situation.
changed its name to the March of Dimes and committed itself to fighting a
The huma n relations m od e l is highlighted in Exhibit 9.1 because it re•
broad range of birth defects when the Salk vaccine essentially eUminated polio in
ceives the greatest attention in Barnard's analysis. Although Barnard viewed
thel950s (it sought to persist as an organization).
37
complex organizations as cooperative systems by definition, he emphasized

2 CHAPTER 2
THE NATURAL SYSTEMS
E x h ib i t 9.1 Th e C o m p e t i n g V alu e s F r a m e w o r k :
Fou r M od el s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E ff ec ti ven es s ment and institutional survival. Although strategic decision making by senior
managers is also a crucial prerequisite, Barnard warned that any action by man•
Flexibility agement that disrupts cooperation destroys the capacity of the organization to
achieve its goals and adapt successfully to its environment. Consequently,
Barnard's natural systems theory, like human relations theory, remained inter•
Pattern maintenance/Tension Adaptive function: the need nally focused on questions of morale, motivation, and social cohesion. As we
to acquire resources and adapt shall see in Chapter 11 , the subject of how organizations adjust or adapt to
to an uncertain environment their external environments was left for the open systems theorists to explore.
Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values: Mechanisms for Coordinating

RELATIONS morale readiness
SYSTEMS
MODEL MODEL
Barnard's natural systems theory retains classical theory's emphasis on direct
human resource growth, supervision as the primary mechanism for coordinating and controlling work
development resource acquisition activities.The formal chain of command in Barnard's conceptual scheme is the
Internal
deliberately constructed means by which purpose is communicated throughout
External
focus the organization, responsibilities are delegated and accountability maintained,
focus
and work activities are coordinated and controlled. Barnard warned, however,
that, although compliance with directives is one of the contributions that su•
Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values: pervisors hope to induce, reliance on formal authority and the threat of sanc•
INTERNAL info, management, planning, RATIONAL tions is rarely the best way to induce it. The wise supervisor works instead to
PROCESS communication goal setting GOAL
establish the legitimacy of directives by emphasizing their connection with or•
MODEL MODEL
Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values: ganizational purpose and individual self-interest. Success in doing so broadens
stability, productivity, each worker's zone of indifference and helps ensure that directives are followed
control efficiency as a matter of course.
Integrative function: the need to Cooperative systems do not, however, rely on direct supervision alone. As
to focus efforts on goal attainment indicated in Exhibit 9.2, Barnard's natural systems theory was among the first
activities
to draw attention to standardization of values as a mechanism of coordina•
tion and control. Barnard noted that many workers, especially those at the
Control
lower levels of the organizational hierarchy, do not identify with organizational
SOUR CE: Ad ap ted with permission from Figures 3 and 4 , Robert 0 . Quinn and Joh n Rohrbaugh, " A Spatial Model
purposes and consequently are not motivated by the intrinsic rewards associ•
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The Institute of Managem ent Sciences, now the Institute for Operations ated with helping the organization achieve its goals. It falls to management,
Research and the Management Sciences (IN FORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090-
2909 USA.
therefore, to alter the motives of these workers through indoctrination and
propaganda so that an identity is created between what the individual and the
organization values. This identity of values is achieved either by socializing
that management must take deliberate steps to secure effective cooperation. members in the importance of the organization's mission, service, or product,
Consequently, much of his analysis relates to fulfilling the organization's pat• or by socializing them in a specific set of values or ideals that conditions them
tern maintenance and tension management functions.This is accomplished by to behave in prescribed ways. In either case, once values are internalized they
ensuring that members receive net satisfactions through the various material establish the boundaries within which work-related decisions are made. Shared
and nonmaterial inducements that the organization has to offer. Whereas the values thus serve to guide and coordinate the efforts of all organizational
rational perspective emphasizes material incentives for purposes of inducing members, and control becomes, in part, a matter of self-control.
cooperative effort, Barnard's natural systems perspective emphasizes the moti•
Despite the manipulative implications of Barnard's theory, standardization
vational power of nonmaterial incentives and the importance of goal attain•
of values holds considerable promise for public agencies as a mechanism of co•
ment itself as a powerful source of motivation. The human relations model
ordination and control. It remains one of the few options for many agencies
takes on special significance in Barnard's theory because maintaining an effi•
because government work tends to require considerable independent judg•
cient internal equilibrium is the crucial prerequisite for effective goal attain-
2 CHAPTER 2
THE NATURAL SYSTEMS
ment. Work of this kind cannot be easily reduced to standardized routines.

E xh ib i t 9.2 Si x M e c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d C o n t r o l l i n g Wo r k
Ex hi bi t 9.3 Four M ot i va ti on al S tr at eg i e s
A c t iv it i e s
Legal Compliance
needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor• Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior.
dination and control rests with those who do the work. Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require•
Direct supervision A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of being sanctioned.
grate the efforts of all work groups. The supervisor issues Instrumental Rewards
personal instructions and monitors individual performance. Using rewards to induce desired behaviors.
Standardization of Work is programmed in advance of its execution by Rewards for Performance

work processes developing rules and standard operating procedures speci• Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance.
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina• Employees may meet or exceed role expectations because they value the material
tion is built into the work process itself and control is and psychological satisfactions that money, advancement, and recognition can
achieved by strictly limiting each worker's discretion. provide.
Standardization of Work outputs are programmed in advance by providing Considerate Leadership

work outputs each work group with product specifications or perfor• Adopting a leadership style based on being attentive to employees and consider•
mance goals and allowing members considerable latitude in ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those
determining how to achieve them. Control is exercised by who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or
collecting output data, requiring corrective action when exceed their role requirements.
results achieved. Group Acceptance
Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group
Standardization of Workers are employed who possess the knowledge and bonds, and enjoy the approval of their peers. This strategy may induce those who
worker skills skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in• value affiliation and peer approval to meet or exceed role requirements, assum•
stitutions and professional associations are relied upon to ing that group norms are consistent with organizational objectives.
ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling. Job Identification
Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and
of values vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their
be headed, and what values should guide it. Coordination work intrinsically rewarding.
members to shared, internalized values and ideals. Goal Congruence
SOURCE: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7).
Standardization of values is also one of the few options for craft and coping because contributing to them reinforces their own self concept.
agencies where outputs are not observable and thus cannot be standardized
SO URCE: Based in large part on Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations (Wiley,
and measured. Where outputs are unobservable, direct supervision also tends 1966), pp. 336-68.
to be ineffective as a control mechanism. Although Barnard emphasized pro•

paganda and indoctrination as means for standardizing values, such overtly ma•
nipulative techniques are not always required to create an identity of values.
Often an identity already exists due to professional training and personal com• pay, promotions, and recognition for demonstrated performance, but tended
mitment to the agency's mission and the ethic of public service. to place greater faith in the nonmaterial incentives associated with the con•
siderate leadership and group acceptance strategies. Although he did not
Motivational Strategies address these strategies explicitly, he did discuss the role of informal organi•
zations in promoting social cohesion, preserving feelings of personal in•
Barnard's inducements-contributions theory emphasizes the importance of
tegrity and self-respect, and protecting individuals from the tendency of the
offering a full range of material and nonmaterial incentives to induce coop•
formal organization to rob participants of their individuality. Satisfying these
erative effort. As indicated in Exhibit 9.3, his i nducements-contributions
needs is part of the system of providing net satisfactions to organizational
theory highlights the importance of the i nstr ume ntal rewards and goal
members.
c o n g r u e n c e strategies. Barnard acknowledged the motivational power of
As discussed in the previous section, the goal congruence strategy is

they have basic maintenance needs, including the need for a continuous
strongly implied in Barnard's discussion of moral leadership and individual supply of financial, material, and human resources, the need for external
persuasion. In Barnard's view, whether an identity of values already exists, or social and political support, the need to coordinate and control work ac•
whether it is created through propaganda and indoctrination, it allows organi• tivities, and the need to maintain morale and social cohesion among their
zational members to receive intrinsic satisfactions from contributing to orga• members. Awareness of such needs provides a powerful antidote for those
nizational ideals and purposes. Consequently, they experience a heightened managers inclined to think in purely rational, instrumental terms. It re•
sense of institutional loyalty and a greater willingness to comply with direc• minds them that they must commit resources to maintaining the coopera•
tives and to work hard on behalf of organizational purposes, sometimes even tive system itself as well as to pursuing organizational objectives. Although
sacrificing their own personal interests in the process.This strategy has special this is true of all public agencies, it is especially true for those agencies that
relevance for public agencies because of the identity of values and goals inher• lack natural political allies to come to their defense when they are threat•
ent in public service. As a conscious management strategy, goal congruence ened by hostile legislatures or powerful interests.
may simply require nurturing and reinforcing an identity of values and goals
that already exists. • Th e I nduc em ents-cont ributi ons equilibrium. Edgar Schein has sug•
gested that the inducements-contributions equilibrium results in an im•
plicit psychological contract between employer and employees. This 39
contract matches what the individual will give with what the organization
SUMMAR Y expects to receive and what the organization will give relative to what the
individual expects to receive. If this psychological contract is broken by
Unlike scientific management and human relations theory, Barnard's natural management, employees may leave the organization or withhold their
systems theory did not encompass a particular theory of management. Nor did contributions.This concept reminds public managers that employees have
it give rise to a particular management movement. Barnard's unique contribu• lives outside of work, that they have personal needs and expectations that
tion to organization theory was the development of a conceptual framework do not always correspond to those of their agencies, and that organiza•
for understanding complex organizations—one which many members of the tional performance may suffer if a constructive psychological contract is
academic community found to be highly useful. But if his work does not speak not established and maintained.
directly to practicing managers, it does offer an implicit theory of organiza•
tional effectiveness. This theory holds that cooperation is the essential prereq• • Moral leadership. Public agencies exist to accomplish important soci•
uisite for both goal attainment and institutional survival, and that cooperation etal purposes and thus are inherently moral institutions. One of the pri•
will not be forthcoming if members are asked to contribute more than they mary functions of management, according to Barnard, is to exercise moral
receive in net satisfactions.This theory holds several important implications for leadership by inculcating basic organizational values and purposes in
public managers, among which are the following: members so that they are willing to put the interests of the organization
ahead of their own when necessary. Although his references to "indoctri•
• The Value of systems thinking. Systems theory encourages public nation" and the "altering of motives" held unfortunate connotations,
managers to think about their world in more dynamic, holistic, and intu• Barnard was quick to emphasize that inviting members to join in pursuit
itive ways. This means thinking in terms of simultaneous interactions and of important organizational purposes need not entail brainwashing, deceit,
complex webs of interdependence rather than linear cause-and-effect re• or manipulation. It can be done in an open and honest manner. The im•
lationships. Systems thinking is not easy. It requires a high tolerance for portance of creating a shared sense of commitment to mission-related val•
ambiguity and a willingness to take action in the face of immense com• ues reemerged as a central theme in organization theory in the 1980s and
plexity. Although it seldom leads directly to solutions to perceived prob• 1990s (See Chapters 14 and 15).
lems, systems thinking can help managers understand why actions have
unanticipated consequences and why their best-laid plans often go astray. Perhaps the greatest deficiency in Barnard's theory is its conservative bias.
Buttressed by experience and intuition, systems thinking can also help It views organizations as cooperative, highly functional entities by definition,
managers gain a better sense of the primary factors at work in a particular and it takes for granted the right of managers to govern over the cooperative
situation, the basic patterns among them, and the probable consequences system. Little is said about the coercive side of organizations, the inevitability
of taking particular courses of action. of conflict between workers and managers, or the merits of allowing greater
employee participation and involvement at all levels of the organization. As
• Maintenance needs. The natural systems perspective views organizations we will see, these are matters about which later theorists would have much
as living organisms seeking to survive in uncertain environments. As such, to say.
2 CHAPTER
NOTE S
1 0
1. . Al vi nW . G ou ld ne r, "O rg a ni za ti on al Journal 15 (De • c em be r 1972): 4 4 7 - 6 5 .

20. . Barnard, The Functions of the
Analysis," in R o b e r t K. M e r t o n , Leonard Executive, 39. . Edgar H. Schein, Career Dynamics: Matching Individual and Organizational Needs (Reading, MA :
B ro o m , and Leonard S. Cott rell (eds.), So• Addison-Wesley, 1978).
160 .
ciology Today: Problems and Prospects (Ne w
21 . Barnard, The Functions of the Executive,
York: Basic Books , 1959), 4 0 0 -2 8 .
165 .
2. Lawr ence J. H e n d e r s o n , Pareto's General
Sociology:A Physiologist's Interpretation
165 .
(N e w Yo rk : Russell and Russell, 1935), 13 .
3. Cynthia Eagle Russett, The Concept of
2 16 - 17 .
Equilibrium in American Social Thought (Ne w
Haven:Yale University Press, 1966), 136. 24. . Barnard, The Functions of the
Executive,
4. . Berna rd Ba rb e r, "L. J. H e n d e r so n :
2 31 .
An Introducti on," in L.J. H e n d e r s o n , On
The Social System: Selected Writings Executive,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
233 .
1970).
5. Russett, The Concept of Equilibrium in Executive,
American Social Thought, 117 . 233 .
6. . This biographical informat ion is 27. . Barnard, The Functions of the
drawn from William G. Scott, Chester I. Executive,
Barnard and the Guardians of the Managerial 279 .
State (Lawrence, KS: University Press of 28 . Barnard, The Functions of the Executive,
Kansas, 1992); and William B.Wolf, The
283 .
Basic Barnard: An Introduction to Chester I.
29. . Scott, Chester I. Barnard and
Barnard and His Theories of Organization and
the Guardians of the Managerial State.
Management (Ithaca: N e w York State
School of Industrial and Labor R elations, 30. . Scott, Chester I. Barnard, 79 .
C orne l l University, 1974). 31 . Barnard, Organization and Manage•
7. . See, for ex am ple, K e n n e t h An d re w s , ment, 27.
" Introduction, " in Chester I. Barnard, The 32 . Barnard, Organization and Manage•
Functions of the Executive (C ambridge, ment, 6.
MA. : Harva rd Uni versity Press, 1968). 33 . See C. Pollitt, Managerialism in the Pub•
8. Chester I. Barnard, The Functions of the lic Services (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993); and
Executive ( Ca m b rid ge , MA : Harvard Un i • Larry D. Terry, "Administrative Leadership,
versity Press, 1938), viii. N e o - M a n a g er i a l i s m , and the Public M a n •
9. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, 7. agement M o v em e n t , " Public Administration
Review 58 ( Ma y/ Ju ne 1998): 194-200 .
10. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, 65 .
11. . Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, 34. . Barnard, The Functions of the
6. Executive,
295 .
35. . See Barnard, Organization and
13. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, 34.
Manage• ment, Chapters 6 and 7.
15. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, 122. Executive,
16. James G. March and H erbert A. Simon, 296 .
Organizations (NewY ork:Wiley, 1958), 84. 37. . David L. Sills, The Volunteers
17. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive, 57. (Glencoe, IL: Th e Free Press, 1957), 2 5 4 -
9 4, 1 44 . 38. . F r e m o n t E. Kast and James E.
19. B arnard, The Functions of the Executive, R o s e n - zweig, "Ge ne ral Systems T h e o ry :
141 . Applica• tions for O rganization and
M a n a g e m e n t , " Academy of Management
2 CHAPTER
t bureaucracy's presumed rationality and the dysfunc• tions apparent in existing

institutions. Their purpose was not to supplant Weber's theory of bureaucracy
o but to build upon and modify it so that a richer and more complete
understanding of complex organizations might be devel• oped. In conducting their
Stru n research they were guided, much like Mayo, Roeth• lisberger, and Barnard, by the
natural systems perspective, but unlike their colleagues in human relations they
relied heavily on structural-functionalism, a
ctur 21 1
al-
Fun
ctio
he translation ofWeber's
writings into English in the 1940s
caused many American scholars to
turn their attention to the study of
complex orga• nizations. The
T
Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons is
nal
widely credited with introducing
American scholars to Weber's work,
but Parsons' depiction of or•
The
ganizations as social systems was
considered by many to be too
general and ab• stract to explain how
ory and why organizations behave as

they do. It was left to Robert
Merton, a sociologist at Columbia
University, to develop a "middle
range theory" of bureaucratic
R behavior, and to his students—Philip
Selznick, AlvinW. Gouldner, and
o Peter M. Blau—to flesh out his theory
b by conducting organizational case

studies. Organization theory as a
e distinct field of sociologi• cal inquiry
may be traced to the work of Merton
r and his students at Colum•
bia in the latel940s and 1950s. 1
t Whereas Weber was content to

examine bureaucratization as a
historical phenomenon, Selznick,
M Gouldner, and Blau chose to study

organizations em• pirically by relying
e on a combination of participant
observation, interviews, and
r documentary evidence. Their work
was spurred in part by the obvious
contradiction between
2 CHAPTER STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL 2
theory that Merton borrowed from anthropology and modified for purposes were the general theorists, such as Talcott Parsons, who sought to develop a
of organizational analysis. general theory capable of explaining social institutions and processes across the
This chapter examines Merton's structural-functional theory, the institu• entire range of human experience with the hope that they might lead to
tional case studies undertaken by his students, and the way their work both testable propositions.Their approach was strong in theory but weak in method.
built upon and modified Weber's theory of bureaucracy. It closes with an Although Merton found Parson's theory useful, he believed sociology was not
analysis of the relevance of Merton's structural-functional theory for public yet at the point where general theories could be formulated. As he put it,
management and organizational performance.
There are some who talk as though they expect, here and now, for•
mulation of the sociological theory adequate to encompass vast ranges of
precisely observed details of social behavior and fruitful enough to direct
M E R T O N ' S A P P R O A C H T O TH E
the attention of thousands of research workers to pertinent problems of
STUD Y O F S O C I O L O G Y empirical research. This I take to be a premature and apocalyptic belief. We
are not ready. The preparatory work has not yet been done.
3
Whe n Merton began writing in the 1930s, American sociology was still in its
infancy and the relationship between theory and research was still being hotly Regarding the relationship between theory and research, Merton staked
debated. On one side were the empiricists who tested hypotheses and gener• out a position halfway between narrow empiricism and general theory. He set
ated data with the hope that they might lead to interesting theoretical insights. for himself the task of developing what he called middle range theories. He de•
Their approach was strong in method but weak in theory. On the other side fined these as "theories intermediate to the minor working hypotheses evolved
in abundance during the day-by-day routines of research, and the all-inclusive
speculations comprising a master conceptual scheme from which it is hoped
to derive a very large number of empirically observed uniformities of social
Robert K Merton 1910-2003 behavior." Developing middle range theories, Merto n believed, involves
4
ex• amining various aspects of social life, looking for common patterns, and
defin•
Robert Merton was born in Philadel• ing basic sociological concepts that might help identify and explain those
began his study of the Tennessee Val•
phia on July 4, 1910. After receiving ley Authority before the war but was commonalities. In his own scholarship, Merton developed middle range theo•
his Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard in unable to complete it until 1947. It
1936, Merton taught at Harvard for a ries relating to such subjects as anomie, deviance, science, and bureaucracy.
was published two years later as TVA
couple of years before accepting a
and the Grass Roots: A Study in the
Like Weber, Merton set out to study social phenomena by examining the
position atTul an e University in 1939. meanings people attach to their actions. But Merton found Weber's historical
2
Sociology of Formal Organizations.

In 1941 he moved to Columbia Uni• and comparative approach unsuited to generating middle range theories. A
Alvin Gouldner's dissertation was re•
versity, where he remained for the
rest of his distinguished career. A pro•
ported in two monographs published methodological approach known as structural-functionalism was in vogue in
in 1954, Patterns of Industrial Bureau• the 1930s, particularly among anthropologists. According to this approach, so•
lific scholar, Merton published several
cracy and Wildcat Strike. Both fo•
books and well over a hundred arti• cial structures can be understood by studying the functions they perform for the
cused on labor relations in a gypsum
cles. The range of his sociological in•
plant in upstate New York. Peter maintenance of the subsystems of which they are a part. Wedding ceremonies,
vestigations was enormous, covering
Blau's The Dynamics of Bureaucracy, for example, can be understood in terms of their role in legitimizing marriage
such diverse subjects as political
bosses, juvenile delinquents, intellec•
which examined interpersonal rela• and establishing the commitment necessary for the success of the family. Al•
tions in a state employment agency though Merton agreed that structural-functionalism held great promise as a
tuals, and babysitters. In 1949 many
and a federal law enforcement
of his earlier articles were reprinted methodological approach, he believed that it rested on three assumptions that
agency, appeared a year later in 1955.
in a book entitled Social Theory and
Each of these studies analyzed what must be modified or abandoned before it could usefully explain social phe•
Social Structure. A new essay entitled nomena. These assumptions are that social systems, like biological organisms,
Merton called the unanticipated con•
"Manifest and Latent Functions," as
sequences of social action. His stu• are self-regulating, always tending toward a state of equilibrium or stability;
well as his well-known article " B u •
dents went on to distinguished that every social practice contributes to the survival of the social system to
reaucratic Structure and Personality,"
academic careers-Selznick at the Uni•
are found in this work. The ideas ex• which it belongs; and that every social practice is therefore indispensable, much
versity of California, Berkeley, Gould-
pressed in these articles led to doc•
ner at Washington University in St. as the heart and brain are indispensable to human beings. Although the anal•
toral dissertations on bureaucracy by ogy between living organisms and social systems may appear reasonable at first
Louis, and Blau at the University of
three of his students. Philip Selznick
Chicago and Columbia University. glance, Merton believed that the relevance of these assumptions to social reali•
ties cannot be supported upon closer examination.
The first of these assumptions Merton labeled the postulate of functional unity— ton, functional analysis is simply "the practice of interpreting data by establish•
the assumption that all parts of a social system work together harmo• niously ing their consequences for larger structures in which they are implicated."
7
without producing persistent conflicts. Borrowed from the biological sciences, this Merton's particular brand of functionalism marked a subtle but important
postulate holds that social systems tend constantly toward a state of stability or shift in emphasis from the consequences of social practices for the survival of a
equilibrium. Merton believed instead that the degree of inte• gration in a social social system to the consequences themselves. To enhance the value of func•
system is an empirical variable, one that can vary greatly from one society or tional analysis as a methodological tool, Merton drew a distinction between
institution to the next, and from one time to another. Similarly, Merton manifest and latent functions. In Merton's words, "manifest functions are those
concluded that social practices are not necessarily func• tional for the entire objective consequences contributing to the adjustment or adaptation of the
social or cultural system. "That all human societies must have some degree of system which are intended and recognized by participants in the system; latent
integration," he wrote, "is a matter of definition-and begs the question. But not functions, correlatively, being those which are neither intended nor recog•
all societies have that high degree of integration in which every culturally nized." Consequences can also be functional or dysfunctional, depending on
8
standardized activity or belief is functional for the soci• ety as a whole and whether they work to the advantage or disadvantage of the system as a whole
uniformly functional for the people living in it." Rather, they may be
5
or certain groups within it.

functional for some individuals and groups and dysfunctional for others in the An example may help clarify these concepts. Suppose management intro•
same society. Religious practices, for example, can have func• tional duces a new pay-for-performance policy to increase productivity. The focus of
consequences for some (such as the ruling elites who value religion's integrating functional analysis is the policy and the practices that follow from it. No w sup•
and stabilizing effects) and dysfunctional consequences for others (such as pose that productivity in the agency subsequently increases.This is consistent
nonbelievers or persons not of the dominant sect who find them• selves with the manifest (intended) function of the policy and the consequences
persecuted by the majority). must be considered at least partially functional for the agency. But suppose
Second, Merton questioned the postulate of universal functionalism. This analysis also reveals that the quantity of work increased at the expense of qual•
is the assumption that every social practice fulfills some vital function in ensur• ity, thereby reducing public satisfaction with the agency's services. This is a la•
ing the system's survival. Merton argued instead that every practice may fulfill tent (unintended) consequence, and one that is probably dysfunctional for
such a function but doubted that it must. He argued that it makes more sense officials and clients as well as for the agency as a whole. According to Merton's
for persisting social practices to have a net balance of functional consequences, functional theory, the policy will remain in place only as long as the net conse•
either for the society as a whole or for powerful subgroups within it. In short, quences are positive for the agency or for a powerful subgroup. To summarize,
social practices have multiple consequences, some functional and some dys• functional analysis seeks to explain social practices by examining their conse•
functional, and they persist only as long as the functional aspects outweigh the quences and determining for whom they are functional or dysfunctional.
dysfunctional aspects.
Third, Merton questioned the postulate of indispensability.This is the as• The Structural Sources of Bureaucratic Dysfunctions
sumption that every social practice is indispensable because it performs a nec•
essary function. Merton suggests that any of several social practices may Although Merton applied functional analysis to a broad range of social phe•
perform a particular function. Religion, for example, may help integrate mem• nomena in pursuit of middle range theories, that portion of his work most
bers of society, but this does not make religion indispensable. Other practices germane to the study of complex organizations is found in his essay "Bureau•
may have integrating consequences as well. In Merton words, "just as the same cratic Structure and Personality." First published in 1940, this essay offers one
item may have multiple functions, so may the same function be diversely ful• of the best-known analyses of bureaucratic dysfunctions. Taking Weber's the•
filled by alternative items."
6
ory of bureaucracy as his point of departure, Merton states that "a formal, ra•
tionally organized social structure involves clearly defined patterns of activity
Manifest and Latent Functions in which, ideally, every series of actions is functionally related to the purposes
of the organization." Me rt o n then proceeds to analyze ho w one of the "pat•
9
The purpose of Merton's critique of structural-functionalism was to rescue terns of activity" identified by Weber—reliance on impersonal systems of rules—
functional analysis from the belief that organizations are truly living organisms produces serious unintended consequences, including goal displace• ment,
and to reshape it in a way that would be useful to the study of social phenom• institutional rigidity, and disgruntled clients.
ena. Complex organizations, for example, may not have inherent purposes,
The ideal-type bureaucracy achieves a high degree of efficiency because
may not be inherently driven toward a state of equilibrium, may not be highly
the application of rules to predetermined categories of cases precludes having
integrated and self-regulating, but their behaviors can be explained nonethe•
to issue specific instructions for each specific case. It also achieves reliability of
less through the careful application of functional analysis. According to Mer-
behavior by demanding a high degree of conformity to its rules. Conformity
is reinforced in two ways. First, the professional training received by civil ser•
rules impartially to everyone. But clients, believing that the peculiarities of
vants instills in them the importance of adhering to professional standards.
their individual cases are of the utmost importance, find the officials to be ar•
They are taught that failure to adhere to the rules may expose them to charges
rogantly indifferent to their needs. Such conflicts do not occur by accident, ac•
of negligence or unprofessional conduct. Second, conformity is reinforced by
cording to Merton. They are structurally induced.
organizational reward systems that reward and punish civil servants according
It is important to note that what is a manifest or a latent function or dys•
to how well they demonstrate devotion to the rules. Officials quickly realize
function is for the researcher to determine based on the available evidence.
that their career aspirations may not be achieved unless they behave in a highly
The researcher must also specify for whom the structural pattern is functional
compliant fashion. In short, Merton describes how bureaucratic structure ex•
or dysfunctional. In Merton's essay on bureaucracy, for example, the manifest
erts continuous pressure on government employees to be, in Weber's words,
functions are defined in terms of management's intent to advance the interests
"methodical, prudent, and disciplined."
of the agency as a whole. The dysfunctions, by contrast, are arguably dysfunc•
There is a distinct danger, however, that these control mechanisms will lead
tional for the agency, for its clients, and for the officials who are allowed to ex•
to overconformity. Civil servants may become overly cautious, adhering
ercise little discretion in applying rules to individual cases. It is also worth
blindly to the rules even when it is clear that an alternative course of action
noting that Merton identified potential rather than inevitable dysfunctions.
might produce a better outcome. Over time, according to Merton, there is a
Other factors may mitigate against their development. Blau found, for exam•
tendency for officials to internalize the rules and enforce them for their own
ple, that officials who enjoyed relatively high job security welcomed innova•
sakes. In such cases, overconformity leads directly to goal displacement, a
tions that promised to improve service delivery and strongly resisted efforts to
situation in which officials transfer their devotion from the aims of the agency
reduce their work to a matter of routine application of rules. In this instance,
to the particular behaviors required by the rules. Rules, originally conceived as
goal displacement and institutional rigidity did not occur.
means to an end, become ends in themselves.The extreme case, according to
Merton, is the bureaucratic virtuoso "who never forgets a single rule binding
his action and hence is unable to assist many of his clients." 10
As an example, Merton related the story of Bernt Balchen, Admiral Byrd's

pilot on the flight over the South Pole. The Bureau of Naturalization denied TH E INSTITUTIONA L CAS E STUDIE S
Balchen's application for citizenship on the grounds that he had failed to sat• O F MERTON' S STUDENT S
isfy the rule that applicants must have five years' continuous residence in the
United States. Although a resident for five years, Balchen had left the country Merton based his analysis of bureaucracy on his accumulated knowledge of
briefly to participate in Byrd's expedition. In ruling that the pilot had techni• bureaucratic behavior rather than on empirical investigation of specific orga•
cally failed to comply with naturalization law, the bureau failed to serve the nizations. His students carried forward the task of applying functional theory
needs of one of its clients. Its overarching purpose, processing the naturaliza• by conducting empirical case studies, relying on such techniques as participant
tion requests of individuals worthy of citizenship, was ignored to the benefit of observation, interviews, and review of internal documents. Their principal
no one. findings are summarized in the following sections.
The emphasis placed on reliable, predictable behavior not only undermines
an agency's ability to fulfill its primary purpose, it also causes institutional Philip Selznick: Co-Optation and Its Consequences
rigidity. This occurs when rules that once produced desired outcomes no
Selznick s study of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) examines the unin•
longer do so because objective conditions have changed. If the new conditions
tended and often dysfunctional consequences that occur when an agency pro•
are not recognized as significantly different, the civil servant is likely to apply
vides services indirectly through local, well-established institutions.
1 1
decision rules inappropriately. Similarly, blind adherence to rules reduces the

Congress created the TVA in 1933 to construct dams in the Tennessee River
likelihood that officials will look for alternative or innovative solutions to the
valley and to produce electricity and fertilizer. A product of the Ne w Deal, the TVA
problems they face. As a result, the organization as a whole loses its ability to
was unique in two respects. First, it was established as a public corporation to per•
adapt successfully to changes taking place in its external environment. Pre•
form functions normally handled by private companies. Congress granted the
dictability may be achieved, but at the expense of the organization's ability to
TVA considerable autonomy from federal controls so that it would have the
adapt to changing circumstances.
same degree of flexibility as private businesses. It was accountable, for ex•
Finally, Merton describes how bureaucracy's emphasis on depersonalized
ample, neither to the Civil Service Commission nor the General Accounting
relationships tends to produce conflict between bureaucrats and the public. Office. Second, the TVA was established as a regional planning agency to
Officials are trained to ignore the peculiarities of individual cases and to apply demonstrate that planning and democracy could coexist. Congress granted it
authority to make decisions relating to flood control, soil erosion, forestry, and tion has a special comm itment. Co-optation proved to be a two-way street.
1 3
agriculture that cut across state and local jurisdictions. Whe n external groups made demands on TVA officials, these officials tended
Although its supporters hoped it would succeed as a model for other public to take their concerns into account in formulating policy. Their field of choice
corporations and regional planning agencies, the odds against theTVA's survival in exercising administrative discretion narrowed as they felt constrained to
were high. Inhabitants of rural valleys in the South tended to view the federal make decisions acceptable to their institutional allies. Having once made insti•
government with suspicion. To make matters worse, theTVA had not been cre• tutional commitments, TVA officials also felt compelled to promote and pro•
ated at the request of local institutions and thus lacked legitimacy in the eyes of tect the interests of their allies. As a result, they were dragged into jurisdictional
local residents. If theTVA was to succeed it would have to adjust itself to its ex• and political disputes that they would rather have avoided and they abandoned
ternal environment.To gain local support, theTVA's leadership developed an many of the TVA's founding ideals to safeguard the status quo. In short, the in•
ideology grounded on the idea of'grassroots democracy." At every opportunity stitutional character of theTVA changed as a result of absorbing local elements
the TVA's board of directors espoused the doctrine that its programs would be into its policy-determining structure.
administered with the democratic participation of those individuals and groups In one example Selznick described how institutional alliances deflected the
affected by its decisions. According to Selznick, this internal policy was deliber• TVA from serving the residents of the valley as a whole. TVA policy stated that
ately adopted in response to theTVA's need to adjust itself to powerful institu• farms chosen to participate in the fertilizer-testing program must be represen•
tions in its area of operation. This policy, and the practices that flowed from it, tative of all farms. In practice the larger farms were greatly over-represented.
produced both functional and dysfunctional consequences. This occurred because the agricultural extension service worked primarily
The influence of the grassroots doctrine was most apparent in theTVA's with the more prosperous farmers, those with the resources to implement new
agricultural programs. Rather than create its own system of field agents to dis• agricultural techniques. Extension agents naturally selected their clients to par•
tribute fertilizer and educate farmers, the TVA's agricultural relations depart• ticipate in the testing program. Similarly, the TVA was deflected from its goal
ment chose to deliver its programs through the federal Agricultural Extension of serving the needs of local residents because the extension service provided
Service administered by local land-grant colleges. The U.S. Department of education rather than economic assistance. Blacks, poor farmers generally, and
Agriculture had provided funds to land-grant colleges to hire extension ser• tenant farmers in particular, received little benefit from the TVA's agricultural
vice agents since 1914. Working out of offices in each county, these agents ed• programs.Those federal agencies providing direct assistance to farmers, such as
ucated farmers about new techniques for improving agricultural production. the Soil Conservation Service and Farm Security Administration, were ex•
In 1935 theTVA negotiated a memorandum of agreement with the Depart• cluded from the Tennessee valley by the terms of the 1935 memorandum of
ment of Agriculture and the land-grant colleges.This agreement committed agreement. In short, the nature of the local institutions through which the
the TVA to providing grants-in-aid to the colleges for hiring additional field TVA channeled its agricultural programs—their educational focus and their
agents to distribute fertilizer to farmers for testing purposes and to educate bias toward the more prosperous farmers—had the effect of deflecting the
them about controlling soil erosion. The Department of Agriculture also TVA from its goal of assisting valley residents as a whole.
agreed that its other agricultural-assistance programs would not operate in the
Functional analysis enabled Selznick to explain organizational dynamics
valley without the TVA's approval. By delivering its agricultural programs
that could not be explained by knowledge of the organization's goals alone. In
through the county extension service, the TVA became an ally of the Ameri•
Selznick's words,
can Farm Bureau Federation, an interest group representing local associations
of farmers. According to Selznick, theTVA's willingness to enter into entan• .. . .The unacknowledged absorption of nucleuses of power into the ad•
gling alliances reflected a structural pattern of informal c o - o p t a t i o n . This ministrative structure of an organization makes possible the elimination or
he defined as "the process of absorbing new elements into the leadership or appeasement of potential sources of opposition. At the same time, as the
policy-determining structure of an organization as a means of averting threats price of accommodation, the organization commits itself to avenues of ac•
to its stability or existence." T h e TVA deliberately pursued a strategy of co -
12
tivity and lines of policy enforced by the character of the co-opted ele•
optation to win consent in a situation where the legitimacy of its authority ments. Moreover, though co-optation may occur with respect to only a
was open to question. fraction of the organization, there will be pressure for the organization as a
The dynamics of co-optation lies at the heart of Selznick's analysis. whole to adapt itself to the needs of the informal relationship. 14
Whereas the decision to co-opt local institutions was functional in defusing

local opposition to theTVA, it proved dysfunctional for TVA's policy goals and For those seeking to understand organizational behavior, Selznick's analy•
institutional character. The co-opted organizations became in effect the TVA's sis suggests that an organization's maintenance needs are often a better point
formal constituency, groups outside the organization to which the organiza- of departure than its stated goals. In the present case theTVA's need to adjust
itself to its environment helps explain why it adopted the grassroots doctrine, From these observations Gouldner identified two fundamental patterns of
why it entered into entangling alliances, and why it ultimately experienced bureaucracy. The punis hment-c entered pattern is characterized by the uni•
dysfunctional consequences.
lateral imposition of rules, insistence upon obedience for its own sake, and
strict punishment for those who violate them. Gouldner found, for example,
Alvin W. Gouldner: that "when a supervisor investigated an absence, he did not do so in order to
Authoritarian Management and Its Consequences determine its causes. Instead he strove to extract obedience to the rule, with•
out concern for the cause of the disobedience, and with the object of allocat•
Gouldner s study of a gypsum plant in upstate Ne w York focused on the con•
ing blame and punishment." Overt conflict resulted. The representative
1 6
sequences of close supervision and strictly enforced rules. The appointment

1 5
pattern, by contrast, is characterized by employee involvement in rule devel•

of a new factory manager provided Gouldner with an opportunity to analyze
opment, an emphasis on the instrumental value of the rules, and the use of ed•
two distinct managerial patterns. The first manager, Old Doug, adopted a per•
ucation rather than punishment when rules are violated. Gouldner concluded
sonal, folksy style of management. He allowed workers considerable autonomy
that this pattern generates tensions but little overt conflict because it is consis•
in performing their duties and ignored rule violations that did not seriously
tent with the norms of a democratic society.
jeopardize safety or production. He also permitted workers to socialize freely
Significantly, Gouldner identified two ideal-typical patterns of bureaucracy,
during slack periods and to take home gypsum board and other materials for
where Weber identified only one. Although the punishment-centered pattern
personal use. Finally, he provided benefits that management was under no
is the one most clearly reflected in Weber's description of bureaucracy, Gould•
obligation to provide, such as light duty assignments for sick or injured em•
ner maintained that both patterns ultimately derive from Weber's distinction
ployees. In short, his approach constituted what Gouldner labeled "an indul-
between authority based on formal position and authority based on expertise.
gency pattern." From the workers' perspective, Old Doug treated employees as
The punishment-centered approach relies on the manager's formal authority
they wished to be treated—as fellow human beings. Production was perhaps
and insists on obedience for its own sake, whereas the representative approach
not as high as it might have been, but the workers trusted management and
relies on the manager's personal knowledge and encourages voluntary compli•
job satisfaction was high.
ance by emphasizing the rule's instrumental value. These two patterns thus
Whe n Old Doug became ill and died, company executives sent a new represent alternative sets of management choices. Choosing the representative
manager to the plant and charged him with increasing productivity. Under approach means, for example, that a degree of democracy is possible within
pressure from headquarters, the new manager, Mr. Peele, adopted an imper• complex organizations, a possibility that Weber tended to reject.
sonal style of management, enforced rules strictly, curtailed socializing, pun• In response to those critical theorists who, relying on Weber's analysis,
ished those who took materials home, and ended the practice of light-duty viewed bureaucracy as an inexorable force destructive of human freedom,
assignments. Gouldner labeled this a "bureaucratic pattern," a pattern consis• Gouldner offered the following rebuttal: "If the world of theory is grey and
tent with Weber's emphasis on formal authority and strict obedience. Status foredoomed, the world of everyday life is green with possibilities which need
distinctions were much more evident under the new manager, and if produc• to be cultivated." But Gouldner cautioned that the representative approach
17
tion increased, it did so at the expense of trust and job satisfaction. does not offer a panacea. It is unlikely to be effective, for example, where
Gouldner also examined the willingness of employees to comply with common ground cannot be found between the values of supervisors and sub•
workplace rules. His analysis was driven in part by his belief that Weber had ordinates. According to Gouldner, voluntary consent "rests on the subordi•
glossed over his own observation that rules can be initiated by imposition or nate's belief that he is being told to do things congruent with his own ends and
by mutual consent. Gouldner found that workers obeyed rules voluntarily values." Situational factors also influence each manager's choice.Th e situa•
18
when they participated in their development, understood and accepted the ra• tion confronting Mr. Peele, for example, suggests that a new manager re•
tionale behind the rules, and believed that compliance served their interests. cruited from outside the organization and facing a succession crisis may feel
They complied with safety rules, for example, because they helped to formu• compelled to rely on formal authority and the legitimating function of rules
late them at safety meetings and because they were the primary beneficiaries to obtain objectives.
of enhanced safety. By contrast, workers generally resisted the no-absenteeism
Gouldner's analysis of the dysfunctional consequences of punishment-
rule because neither the rationale behind it nor their interest in obeying it was
centered bureaucracy is especially relevant to organization theory. Gouldner
clear to them. They believed production was not adversely affected by taking
concluded that Weber, in emphasizing the functional consequences of rules,
an occasional unpaid leave of absence. Mr. Peele took a different view and
ignored the important consequences that flow not from the rules themselves
strictly enforced the no-absenteeism rule. Gouldner concluded that employees
but from the manner in which they are initiated and administered. Driven by
tend to resist workplace rules where there is lack of consensus among man•
its own unique logic, punishment-centered bureaucracy leads to a "vicious
agers and workers regarding the values and interests at stake.
cycle" of dysfunctional consequences. Th e cycle begins whe n workers are
perceived as unmotivated and unwilling to do their jobs well. Supervisors re•

qualified job seeker. However, because the local textile mills also hired workers
spond by demanding strict adherence to the rules and relying upon punitive
off the street, interviewers were under considerable pressure to fill each job va•
measures to secure compliance. This in turn increases employee resentment
cancy with one of their clients before someone else could be hired. Conse•
and resistance to rules. The cycle does not end here. Rules tend to depress
quently, they rarely reviewed the applications on file. Instead, they referred the
performance by specifying the level above which employees can expect to es•
first person they found who possessed the minimum qualifications. Agency
cape punishment. As managers reveal a basic lack of trust, the tendency of
policy notwithstanding, interviewers adapted agency procedures to better
subordinates to do only what the rules require of them increases. And, the
serve the needs of their clients in a period of job scarcity. Unfortunately, this
more workers become aggressive toward their supervisors, and the more apa•
thetic they become about their work, the more managers embrace close su• held dysfunctional consequences for others, particularly for those qualified job
pervision as an adaptive response. Th e cycle then begins anew.
19 seekers who were not in the office at the opportune moment.
Introduction of a new performance measurement system at the state em•
According to Gouldner, rules can reduce tensions by substituting for close
ployment agency enabled Blau to explore how policy changes affect interper•
supervision and direct orders, but they cannot address the underlying causes of
sonal relations and how informal work groups adjust to such changes. The
worker apathy. Gouldner s analysis lends support to Merton's observation that
previous system measured only the number of clients interviewed, a practice
dysfunctions tend to persist as long as their underlying causes are not addressed.
that caused interviewers to be relatively unconcerned about successful place•
ments. The new system provided statistical summaries of each interviewer's
Peter M. Blau: Quantitative Performance Records performance on eight measurable criteria, including number of successful
and Their Consequences placements. Department heads intended only to monitor what was occurring
in each unit, but this did not preclude first-line supervisors from using the re•
The thesis of Blau's study of two government agencies is that bureaucracy sults to evaluate individual performance as well. Knowing that their supervi•
"contains the seeds, not necessarily of its own destruction, but of its own trans• sors would learn how many clients they had placed successfully caused
formation." Rather than exhibiting "Gibralter-like stability," bureaucracies
2 0
interviewers to work harder at placing clients.The new system thus increased

are constantly changing. Weber's methodology, according to Blau, prevented
2 1
administrative control and productivity, enhan;ed adaptability by enabling

him from fully appreciating the dynamic character of bureaucracy: managers to alter performance standards as changing circumstances warranted,
and improved cordiality between supervisors and interviewers by reducing the
In his analysis of bureaucratic structure, Weber focused on official reg• need for close supervision. The new system also performed one latent func•
ulations and requirements and their significance for administrative effi• tion. Black and white clients were treated with equal impartiality as interview•
ciency. Of course, he knew that the behavior of the members of an orga• ers sought to place as many clients as possible.
nization does not precisely correspond to its blueprint. But he was not
But unanticipated, dysfunctional consequences occurred as well. Statistical
concerned with this problem and did not investigate systematically the
reporting caused interviewers to concentrate on those factors most likely to af•
way in which operations actually are carried out. Consequently, his analy•
fect their performance ratings. A form of goal displacement occurred as inter•
sis ignored the fact that, in the course of operations, new elements arise in
viewers forgot about satisfying the needs of clients and focused instead on
the structure that influence subsequent operations.
22
maximizing their scores on key statistical indicators. For example, because plac•
ing clients was what mattered most, interviewers spent less time ensuring that
In practice, managers adjust, redefine, or amplify procedures in response to
clients were referred to jobs for which they were well-suited. In addition, the
internal and external factors that are adversely affecting organizational perfor•
preoccupation with productivity adversely affected interpersonal relations by
mance. Whe n a structural change is introduced, strains or dysfunctional distur•
inducing interviewers to compete with each other in filling the few available
bances are often created for those engaged in the agency's daily operations. In
jobs. Many interviewers routinely monopolized job announcements by secret•
response, organizational members often adopt new behaviors or form new so•
ing them away on their desks so that others would not have access to them.
cial relationships that alter subsequent operations. Change becomes a continu•
ous event as one set of consequences begets another. In Blau's words, "The very Blau discovered to his surprise that these dysfunctions occurred in one
innovation introduced to cope with one disturbance may in due course have work unit and not in another. Whereas one group succumbed to competitive
consequences that create new problems and lead to ne w adjustments."
2 3 pressures, a second group succeeded in mitigating those pressures by insisting
Orga• nizational structure is constantly being redefined and transformed as a result. that members continue to behave in a cooperative fashion and by sanctioning
One of Blau's examples of bureaucratic dynamics is found in his study of a those members who filled job orders without sharing information with their
state employment agency. Whe n a jo b needed to be filled, agency policy re• colleagues.Two situational factors helped in this regard. First, most members of
quired interviewers to screen all active applications to identify the most highly this group had permanent civil-service status, making them less anxious about
their ratings. Second, their supervisor made it clear he did not intend to base
2 CHAPTER STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL
2
their individual ratings on statistical indices alone. Blau also discovered that in• needs are not inherent to organizations in the same way that biological needs
creases in individual productivity did not translate into increases in group pro• are inherent to living organisms. Rather, they are "stable systems of variables"
ductivity. Although the productivity of those who monopolized telephone that affect structure and behavior as organizations delegate tasks, coordinate
orders increased in the competitive group, productivity for the group as a work activities, and respond to forces in their external environments. 2
Al•
4
whole was lower than for the more collegial group. Competition had appar• though Merton and his students did not attempt to define or catalogue these
ently weakened social cohesion, which in turn reduced operating efficiency variables, Selznick tentatively identified five maintenance needs in the course
and ultimately productivity. In the more collegial group, by contrast, produc• of his investigation of the TVA. They include the security of the organization
tivity increased in spite of, rather than because of, the competitive pressures in• as a whole in relation to social forces in its environment; the stability of the
troduced by the new system. Blau concluded that dysfunctional consequences lines of authority and communication; the stability of informal relations
represent disturbances for those who experience them and that new social re• within the organization; the continuity of policy and of the sources of its de•
lationships are often formed in response, resulting in distinctly new organiza• termination; and a homogeneity of outlook with respect to the meaning and
tional structures. role of the organization. 25
The concept of maintenance needs is an important contribution to orga•

nization theory. First, it suggests that organizational charts and goal statements
are not the best points of departure for understanding organizational behavior.
A N IMPLICI T THEOR Y O F In Selznick's words, "All formal organizations are molded by forces tangential
to their rationally ordered structures and stated goals." In adjusting to
2 6
ORGANIZATIONA L CHANG E
these forces they are easily deflected from their goals. This helps to explain why
The case studies of Selznick, Gouldner, and Blau were exploratory. Merton's Weber's theory of bureaucracy fails to describe how bureaucracies behave in
students used functional analysis to derive theoretical propositions that they practice. Weber's ideal-type identifies only those technical prerequisites for in•
hoped would lead eventually to a general theory of organizational behavior. strumental goal attainment, those particular means by which bureaucracies
Although they did not develop such a theory themselves, functional analysis delegate, coordinate, and control. According to Merton and his students, a the•
did lead them to similar conclusions about organizational change. The implicit ory that purports to explain organizational behavior must also take mainte•
theory that emerges from their work is that managers act to defend their orga• nance needs into account. Only then can it be determined why organizations
nizations in the face of internal and external threats and, in doing so, create in• look and behave differently than their formal blueprints and official doctrines
stitutional strains that lead to additional rounds of defensive responses by the indicate they should.
affected parties. The result is a continuous process of structural change inter• Second, the concept of maintenance needs suggests that organizations are
rupted briefly by periods of relative stability. The sections that follow analyze best viewed as adaptive social structures. Although they are indeed rational in•
each of these theoretical components in turn. struments for accomplishing important purposes, each organization neverthe•
less has a life of its own. Its life is defined in large part by the way it responds
Threats to Organizational Functioning to its maintenance needs. Accordingly, "The organization may be significantly
viewed as an adaptive social structure, facing problems which arise simply be•
The process of structural change begins when managers perceive an internal cause it exists as an organization in an institutional environment, independent
or external threat to organizational functioning. External threats confronted of the special (economic, military, political) goals which called it into being."
27
each of the organizations studied by Merton's students.The TVA faced power• Viewing organizations as adaptive social structures allowed Selznick, Gould•
ful institutions in the region whose cooperation could not be taken for ner, and Blau to explain aspects of organizational behavior that seemed incon•
granted. The gypsum plant faced increased economic competition that threat• sistent with stated goals. For example, it enabled Selznick to explain why the
ened its very survival. And the state employment agency experienced a period TVA failed to serve the interests of poor farmers, it enabled Gouldner to ex•
of job scarcity that affected its ability to place clients in a timely manner. These plain why management failed to address employee grievances, and it enabled
organizations experienced internal threats as well. The gypsum company man• Blau to explain why official procedures for filling job openings were routinely
agers, for example, saw the rising power of the union as a threat to the plant's
ignored. In each instance, management attended to the organization's mainte•
operational stability.
nance needs at the expense of its stated goals and objectives. The task of man•
As defined by Merton's students, a threat is any factor, internal or external, agers is clearly a difficult one. They must help their organizations adjust to
that interferes with the satisfaction of an organization's maintenance needs. As internal and external threats in order to maintain the integrity and continuity
noted in Chapter 9, maintenance needs are those basic things that organiza• of the institutional machinery, and they must do so without allowing them to
tions must do to maintain themselves as viable institutions. Maintenance stray too far from their defined missions.
In short, management interventions represent adaptive responses to per• because all subsequent decisions by these officials were constrained by their
ceived threats. It is a basic premise of structural-functional analysis that organi• initial commitments. Finally, unanticipated consequences occur because direct•
zations have basic needs and that structural patterns emerge, intentionally or ing and controlling human behavior cannot be engineered with any degree of
unintentionally, to satisfy those needs. Most of the structural patterns analyzed precision. Humans vary greatly in their individual characteristics, and the work
by Selznick, Gouldner, and Blau were introduced by management. In situations they face are constantly changing. Such observations led Blau to
Selznick's study, for example, co-optation of the land-grant colleges repre• conclude that "no system of rules and supervision can be so finely spun that it
sented an adaptive response to external threats to the TVA's stability and con• anticipates all exigencies that may arise."
28
tinued existence. Similarly, management's decision to adopt a strict Whether or not they are anticipated, the consequences of managerial in•
authoritarian style in Gouldner's study represented an adaptive response to the terventions inevitably affect organizational dynamics in one way or another.
threat posed by increased economic competition. Some structural patterns, From the organization's perspective, consequences are functional when they
however, although adaptive in nature, are not the work of managers. For ex• help it adjust or adapt to internal and external factors that may interfere with
ample, Blau describes structural changes introduced by employees as they proper organizational functioning. By contrast, consequences are dysfunctional
adapted to threats posed by the new performance-measurement system. One when they produce institutional strains that impede the effective attainment of
group of interviewers chose to behave in a highly competitive manner, organizational objectives. In Merton's words, the concept of dysfunction "im•
whereas a second group chose to perform their tasks in a more collegial man• plies the concept of strain, stress, and tension on the structural level."
2 9
ner. As discussed below, adaptive responses by nonmanagerial employees are These stresses and strains are often manifested by increased conflict between
another important component of the theory of organizational change. internal and external groups, between managerial and nonmanagerial personnel,
and among individual employees. When institutional strains are perceived as prob•
Dysfunctional Consequences and Institutional Strains lems, either by management or some other group of organizational members,
The concept of adaptive responses is significant because it suggests that struc• they create strong pressures for change aimed at reducing those strains. Institu•
ture is not simply a product of means-ends calculations regarding the most tional strains tend to persist as long as their underlying causes are not ad•
technically efficient way to achieve organizational goals. Rather, organizational dressed. Sooner or later, according to Merton, dysfunctional consequences that
structure is largely a product of adaptive responses by management to satisfy are not dealt with successfully lead to serious institutional breakdowns.
the organization's maintenance needs. These responses may or may not en• But why do management's adaptive responses so often produce dysfunc•
hance the organization's effectiveness in accomplishing stated goals. Although tional consequences? The most basic reason, which is evident in all three cases
managers intend for their structural adjustments to enhance goal attainment, studies, is that individuals, formal subgroups, informal work groups, and even
their actions sometimes produce dysfunctional consequences that they did not groups outside the organization are possessed of needs distinct from those of
anticipate. For example, when managers at the gypsum plant replaced an in• the organization. Accordingly, they will act to protect their respective needs, will
d i g e n c y pattern with a punishment-centered pattern, employee morale and resist being controlled by others, and will resent being treated merely as means
motivation were adversely affected. Similarly, when managers at the state em• to the organization's ends. Because managers must work with and through di•
ployment agency introduced a new system of performance measurement, verse individuals and groups, they must constandy cope with the recalcitrance
competition among interviewers increased and social cohesion decreased. of the human tools of action. In Selznick's words, "Social action is always medi•
From the perspective of the organization's ability to attain its goals effectively, ated by human structures, which generate new centers of need and power and
interpose themselves betwee n the actor and his goal." It is part of manage•
30
these consequences were dysfunctional. They were also unanticipated.

The case studies of Selznick, Gouldner, and Blau suggest three reasons why ment's task to accommodate the needs of other human actors to the extent that
managers fail to anticipate all of the consequences of their actions. First, it is it is reasonable to do so, but success in this regard is always uncertain.
inherently difficult to predict future events. Focused on their immediate ob•
jectives, and with limited time and information for assessing probable out• A Continuing Cycle of Adaptive Responses
comes, decision makers inevitably fail to perceive many of the consequences
Perfect adjustment to internal and external threats is never achieved, according
of their actions. Second, the commitments officials make have secondary con• to Blau, because "the very practices instituted to enhance adjustment in some
sequences that are extremely difficult to anticipate. For example, when the respects often disturbs it in others." Further structural changes occur as af•
3 1
agriculturalists at the TVA committed themselves to working with and fected parties respond defensively to the strains created by managerial inter•
through the land-grant colleges, they probably could not have anticipated how ventions. A continuing cycle of adaptive responses is thus set in motion. This
their decision would lead to deflection of goals, changes in institutional char• theoretical conclusion is supported by numerous examples in the three case
acter, and conflicts with other agencies.These eventualities occurred in part studies. Beginning with Selznick's study, many local groups, feeling threatened
by the potential for intrusive federal control, initially withheld their support. sponded in a defensive, self-protective fashion by sharing job information with
TVA directors, feeling threatened by the absence of local support, adopted a colleagues less often. Increased competition produced institutional strains by un•
doctrine of grassroots democracy, and the agriculturalists similarly negotiated a dermining collegiality and reducing social cohesion. But, whereas one group
memorandum of agreement with the local land-grant colleges. The American adapted by becoming more competitive, another adapted in a way that allowed
Farm Bureau Federation, feeling threatened by the direct assistance provided organizational adjustment to occur. They refused to give in to fear and insisted
to farmers by other federal programs, insisted that the TVA join with it in upon continued collegiality. As anxiety decreased and productivity increased,
keeping those programs out of the valley. The agriculturalists, also feeling both their needs and the needs of the agency were served. Informal group norms
threatened by direct-assistance programs, insisted that other subunits work had allowed successful adjustment to occur.This suggests that whether a struc•
with and through the land-grant colleges.The overall pattern is clear. Threats tural pattern turns out to be functional or dysfunctional may depend in part on
were perceived, adaptive responses were made, additional strains were created, the informal norms that develop in response to it. Sometimes the cycle of
and pressures for additional changes mounted. The agriculturalists accommo• change ceases temporarily as employees self-adjust or as managers and employ•
dated the agency to the needs and interests of the land-grant colleges and local ees accommodate themselves to each other. Because each adaptive response gen•
farm bureaus, but in doing so created institutional strains by violating the in• erates counter-responses by those affected by it, Blau concluded that "the stable
terests of other subunits and agencies. According to Selznick, it is precisely attainment of organizational objectives depends on perpetual change in the bu•
when organizational members seek to solve problems and adjust strains that reaucratic structure." Th e assumption that bureaucratic structures tend toward
34
they may allow the organization to be deflected from its primary goals. a state of equilibrium simply is not supported by his empirical investigation.
In Gouldner's study of the gypsum plant the focus shifts to the management- Each case study thus revealed a similar dynamic. A dysfunction that inter•
employee relationship. Adoption of a punishment-centered style of management feres with operations is experienced as a disturbance by certain members of
produced institutional strains because of the "status-threatening and deference- the organization, causing a chain reaction of adaptive responses. Managers, for
demanding" manner in which it was implemented. Originally introduced in re• example, perceive a threat to organizational functioning and alter organiza•
sponse to heightened economic competition, the new approach violated tional structure as an adaptive response. Because this in turn threatens the
employee expectations. They expected to be treated respectfully and personably interests of affected parties, institutional strains are created and additional
and to be left alone as long as they were performing their jobs well. The new rounds of adaptive responses are initiated. Some of these are perceived as
pattern of close supervision violated their need for self-respect and personal dysfunctional by managers, who intervene once again, causing the cycle of
autonomy. Motivation declined as workers withdrew psychologically from a de• adaptive responses to continue. Ne w patterns constantly supersede old pat•
grading work situation. Resentment and resistance increased. These dysfunc• terns. The cycle continues until the interests at stake are mutually accommo•
tional consequences triggered additional adaptive responses from management. dated or the underlying causes of dysfunction are addressed. A brief period of
Bureaucratic rules were introduced to mitigate the strains caused by close super•
vision. The cycle of adaptive responses was driven in part by the fact that man•
agement's expectations had been violated as well. Whe n workers voiced their Exhibit 10.1 Merton's Implicit Theory of Organizational Change
grievances, most managers concluded that they were deliberately challenging
their control and undermining their status as managers. Based on his analysis of a Functional consequences
Perceived internal Defensive, adaptive
wildcat strike at the plant, Gouldner identified thirteen factors that seemed to or external threat response by
increase or decrease tensions between employees and managers.
3 2
His to the organization management Dysfunctional consequences
general conclusion was that social relationships tend to be stable when each
person knows the other's expectations, when each considers the other's expectations
le• gitimate, and when each is motivated to conform to them.
Defensive, adaptive
A continuing cycle of adaptive responses was also apparent in Blau's study of
responses by affected
the state employment agency. Management introduced a new performance- individuals and
Institutional strains
measurement system with the hope that it would enhance goal attainment by groups
increasing the number of successful placements. In many ways it proved func•
tional. It "increased productive efficiency, facilitated administrative control,
helped in adapting operations to changing conditions, and improved the rela•
tions between officials and their immediate supervisors." Nonetheless, Mutual
3 3
accommodation;
inter• viewers felt threatened by the possibility that they would be sanctioned if
restored stability
they failed to reach some unspecified level of performance each month, and they re-
23 0 CHAPTER TEN
STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL THEORY 23 1
organizational stability may then result. This implicit theory of organizational

change is shown schematically in Exhibit 10.1. This exploration is guided by the three analytical frameworks presented in
Chapter 3.
WEBER' S THEOR Y MODIFIE D Models of Organizational Effectiveness

All of the quadrants in Exhibit 10.2 are highlighted because Merton and his
The image of bureaucracy that emerges from Weber's writings is that of a vast students recognized all of the functional imperatives reflected in Quinn's com•
mechanical apparatus that relentlessly cranks out goods and services with remark• peting values framework. They were also among the small number of theorists
able predictability and efficiency It is characterized by "Gibralter-like who recognized the competing nature of these effectiveness values. Selznick's
stability." Change seldom occurs. Indeed, officials timidly do what they can to resist study of the TVA, for example, described how values associated with the goal
35
change. Life within the bureaucracy is cold and impersonal. Individual discretion is attainment model were sacrificed in order to achieve values associated with the
se• verely limited and officials find that they cannot "squirm out of the apparatus" to
which they are harnessed. Finally, personalities and behaviors are inexorably
shaped by a bureaucratic structure over which officials have litde control. Exhibit 10.2 The Competing Values Framework:
To comprehend the essence of bureaucracy, Weber deliberately restricted Four Models of Organizational Effectiveness
his analysis to the technical means by which bureaucracy attains its goals. Non -
Flexibility
rational variables, such as emotions, individual needs, and politics, were inten•
tionally left out. What emerges is a detailed picture of the organization's
skeleton but without its flesh and blood. If there is an inherent flaw in Weber's Pattern maintenance/Tension
Adaptive function: the need
theory of bureaucracy it is that the dynamic interaction between an organiza• to acquire resources and adapt
tion's structure and its human inhabitants is largely ignored. and dedicated workforce
to an uncertain environment
Having conducted field research, and having factored nonrational variables
back into the equation, Merton's students offered a very different image of bu• HUMAN
Means-Oriented values:
cohesion,
reaucracy. Bureaucratic behavior is highly dynamic; change is the norm and RELATIONS morale
flexibility, OPEN
stability the exception. Bureaucracy's internal life is much warmer and more MODEL readiness SYSTEMS
MODEL
personal than Weber's description indicates. Officials are much less rigidly con• Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values:
trolled and less passive, and they often resist routinization and agitate for struc• human resource growth,
tural change. In addition, bureaucratic actions are not always related to the
purposes of the organization. Sometimes their aim is to satisfy basic mainte• Internal External
focus Output Quality
nance needs. Finally, there is no single bureaucratic pattern. Whereas reliance focus
on formal authority and strict discipline represents one pattern, reliance on
personal authority and interpersonal relations represents another. Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values:
Merton and his students were intrigued by the obvious contradiction be• INTERNAL
info, management, planning, RATIONAL
tween bureaucracy's presumed rationality and the dysfunctions apparent in ex• PROCESS
communication
MODEL goal setting GOAL
isting institutions. They set for themselves the task of building upon and MODEL
modifying Weber's theory so that a richer and more complete understanding stability, productivity,
of complex organizations might emerge. In this regard they succeeded excep• control efficiency
tionally well. They left for future generations of managers and scholars a much
better understanding of the dynamic interaction between organizational struc• Integrative function: the need to
tures and the individuals who work within them. activities
Control
R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T
o S i ^ } * * > « . O . Quinn and John Ronroaugh, - Spatia, M od e,
The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of Merton's structural-
A
29 (Ma rc h ,983) : 363-373. Co pyrig ht ^8 3 Th e £ ^ T M °W™*>°™>W Analysis ," fManagement aStci
ience
Research and the Management'sciences ( NFORM 90 tEZTT TT' "° "* '"^ °< °^ °-
functional theory for public management and organizational performance. 21090-2909 USA. ™
S )
'
9 0 1 E l k r , d
9
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9 Road. Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland
CHAPTER TEN
23 2
attainment and system survival. Gouldner's case study, for example, focused on
open systems model, including flexibility, resource acquisition, and institutional direct supervision and alternative ways of exercising authority, whereas Blau's
survival. Similarly, Gouldner's study of a gypsum plant described how values study focused on standardization of work output and the use of performance
associated with the human relations model, including social cohesion and in• measurement systems. Instead of advocating or emphasizing a particular mech•
terpersonal trust, were sacrificed in order to achieve values associated with the anism for coordinating and controlling work activities, structural-functional
goal attainment model, including efficiency and productivity. theory simply helps researchers and practitioners comprehend the functional
Although they acknowledged the importance of all four models of effec• purposes of such mechanisms and encourages them to anticipate the dysfunc•
tiveness, like other theorists relying on the natural systems perspective, Merton tional consequences that each type may produce. There is much public man•
and his students focused most of their attention on the human relations model. agers can learn from this literature's analysis of goal displacement, institutional
By studying the functional and dysfunctional effects of structure on human rigidity, co-optation, inter- and intra-agency conflict, and the morale and mo •
behavior, they emphasized the strategic importance of employee relations to tivation problems that follow from authoritarian management.
organizational performance, and the role of trust, commitment, and social co•
hesion in building and maintaining positive employee relations. Motivational Strategies
Mechanisms for Coordinating and Structural-functional theory does not advocate or emphasize a particular mo •
tivational strategy; Merton and his students assumed the use of a full range of
Controlling Work Activities
strategies and limited themselves to investigating the functional and dysfunc•
No mechanism of coordination and control is highlighted in Exhibit 10.3. tional consequences of each. Although Gouldner and Blau paid considerable
This is because Merton's structural-functional theory acknowledges that orga• attention to legal compliance as a motivational strategy, it is not highlighted in
nizations may rely on any combination of these mechanisms to promote goal Exhibit 10.4 because their purpose was not to endorse legal compliance but
to explore its limitations.
Ex hibit 10.3 Si x M e c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d C o n tr o l li n g Wo r k Activities Gouldner's study offers an interesting contrast in the use of motivational
strategies. Below ground in the mines, where danger was ever-present, super•
Mutual adjustment Workers consult with each other informally about what visors quickly learned that miners would rebel at the use of the legal compli•
needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor• ance strategy. Miners routinely failed to show up for work, and yet supervisors
dination and control rests with those who do the work. did not enforce absenteeism rules or impose sanctions.They understood that
workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte• under these conditions the legal compliance strategy, grounded on an expecta•
grate the efforts of all work groups. The supervisor issues tion of unquestioned obedience, would not produce the desired results. The
miners would simply walk off the job. Supervisors quickly learned to employ
Standardization of Work is programmed in advance of its execution by
developing rules and standard operating procedures speci• the group acceptance strategy. The resulting group solidarity and informal
work processes
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina• consultations that characterized work beneath the surface contributed to a rel•
tion is built into the work process itself and control is atively high level of coordination and productivity.
Work outputs are programmed in advance by providing Above ground, by contrast, work was highly routinized and social relation•
Standardization of
work outputs
each work group with product specifications or perfor• ships highly formalized. Supervisors maintained control over workers by rely•
mance goals and allowing members considerable latitude in ing on their formal authority. One particular example illustrates this point. The
collecting output data, requiring corrective action w hen
new plant manager, wishing to run "a tight ship," established a standardized
needed, and rewarding and sanctioning workers based on warning notice that contained the sentence "This will confirm our conversa•
results achieved. tion of today, in which you were informed of the following." This was followed
Standardization of Workers are employed who possess the knowledge and by a checklist of possible offenses. Each supervisor was required to check all
worker skills skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in• infractions, sign the form, and forward it to the plant manager for his signa•
provide standardized training. Professionally trained work• ture. Similarly, the no-absenteeism rule was strictly enforced and unexcused
ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling. absences led to suspensions.
Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear Use of the legal compliance strategy in the manufacturing plant was effec•
of values
tive in securing obedience but not in developing a highly motivated work•
and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational force. As indicated in Exhibit 10.4, the legal compliance strategy generally
members to shared, internalized values and ideals. motivates workers only to satisfy minimum role requirements, including mini•
SO U R C E: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg. Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall. 1993, 3-7).
mu m standards for quantity and quality of performance. On e of the bureau-
23 4 CHAPTER TEN
Exhib i t 10. 4 Four M ot i va tio nal St r a t eg i e s

deliberate, the more the supervisor uses sanctions to ensure strict obedience. As
Legal Compliance
noted earlier, this leads to a vicious cycle in which supervisors become more
Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior. authoritarian and workers become more resentful and rebellious.
Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require• Gouldner concluded that the coercive, punishment-centered form of legal
ments, either because they accept the legitimacy of organizational authority or fear compliance tends to fail for two reasons. First, it violates egalitarian norms that
being sanctioned.
demand that all individuals be treated equally and respectfully. To insist upon
Instrumental Rewards obedience "because I am the boss" leaves workers with the impression that su•
Using rewards to induce desired behaviors. pervisors are deliberately exercising power to emphasize the workers' status in•
Rewards for Performance feriority. Employees may accept the right of supervisors to issue orders and
Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance. impose sanctions, but if they feel consistently ill-treated they are likely to leave
Employees may meet or exceed role expectations because they value the material the organization in disgust. Second, the coercive, punishment-centered form
provide.
of legal compliance tends to fail because it does not address the underlying
problems that cause apathy. Indeed, Gouldner suggests that legal compliance,
to the extent that it uses the punishment function of rules to exact obedience,
should not be viewed as a motivational strategy at ail. It is an approach taken
who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or by managers who have surrendered in the battle to motivate workers.
exceed their role requirements. However, the legal compliance strategy need not be coercive and punish•
Group Acceptance ment-centered in application. Gouldner noticed, for example, that workers
Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group complied with safety rules without complaint or resistance. They did so
bonds, and enjoy the approval of their peers. This strategy may induce those who because they had participated in their adoption and they understood the
rationale behind them. Compliance with safety rules served the interests of
management and labor alike. On closer examination, Gouldner found that
Job Identification
workplace tensions are highest when rules are initiated and administered uni•
laterally, they do not appear to have a legitimate basis, their enforcement vio•
innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their lates values held by workers, managers perceive deviance from rules as willful
work intrinsically rewarding. and deliberate, and enforcement of rules causes one group consistently to lose
status relative to another. Conversely, rules derived from the manager's ex•
3 6
Goal Congruence
Hiring employees whose goals and values are congruent with the organization's pertise and reflecting a legitimate purpose are more likely to secure the work•
and/or socializing employees so that they internalize organizational goals and values. ers' consent and reduce workplace tensions. As noted earlier, Gouldner
believed that Weber failed to recognize the fundamental difference between
They may do so because they identify with the organization's mission and values and authority based on expertise and authority based on formal position. Workers,
because contributing to them reinforces their own self concept. Gouldner suggests, are much more likely to consent to the former.
SOURCE: Based in large part on Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations (Wiley, Like Gouldner, Blau concluded that detailed rules and close supervision
1966), pp. 336-68. generate resentments among employees and that this greatly undermines mo •
tivation, particularly in an egalitarian culture such as that which prevails in the
United States:
cratic dysfunctions identified earlier in this chapter is that rules tend to define
minimum expectations. Workers in the gypsum plant, for example, remained .. . where independence of action and equality of status are highly valued,
relatively apathetic because they knew just how little they could do and still detailed rules and close supervision are resented, and resentful employees
remain secure in their jobs. are poorly motivated to perform their duties faithfully and energetically. A
If the legal compliance strategy is often counterproductive, why does it con• striking contrast exists between the rigorous discipline employees willingly
tinue to be used? Gouldner concluded that supervisors turn to the legal com• impose upon themselves because they realize their work requires strict op•
pliance strategy when they believe workers are willfully failing to perform their erating standards, and their constant annoyance at being hamstrung by
roles dependably and when they have not established personal relationships picayune rules that they experience as arbitrarily imposed upon them.
37
based on trust. A deep distrust of their employees causes them to install new
Both Blau and Gouldner viewed egalitarian treatment as a prerequisite to so•
rules and insist on strict adherence. The more poor performance is perceived as
cial cohesion, commitment, and motivation. Further, both viewed an egalitarian
CHAPTER TEN
236
approach as perfectly compatible with the exercise of bureaucratic authority. This

consequences that may follow from a particular action. To avoid unin•
approach, which Gouldner labels representative bureaucracy, emphasizes personal tended dysfunctions they should carefully assess how an intended action
authority and informal relations and de-emphasizes formal authority and the use may threaten the interests of various internal and external groups. Because
of rules and sanctions. In Gouldner's study the group acceptance strategy, as prac• organizations are complex systems, it is impossible for public managers to
ticed in the mines and by Old Doug above ground, emerged as a clear alterna• comprehend all of the potential interactions among internal and external
tive to legal compliance. In Blau's study of a government agency the goal system variables. Their best-laid plans will often go astray due to ripple ef•
congruence strategy, represented by reliance on shared professional norms, fects that cannot be anticipated. This does not mean, however, that man•
emerged as a clear alternative to legal compliance, reinforcing the suggestion in agers must accept bureaucratic dysfunctions as inescapable features of
earlier chapters that goal congruence is an effective strategy among highly edu• organizational life. Merton emphasized that dysfunctions tend to persist
cated and professionally oriented employees of the kind typically found in the until their underlying causes are addressed. Treating them as inevitable fea•
public sector. It is important to keep in mind, however, that their conclusions, al• tures of organizational life only creates an excuse for abdicating responsi•
though theoretically significant, were derived inductively from their empirical bility for improving organizational performance.
findings. Blau and Gouldner neither began with, nor developed, a distinct the•
ory of motivation. Modifying Weber's depiction of bureaucracy was only one of many contri•
butions Merton and his students made to organization theory. They incorpo•
rated human variables into structural analysis, thereby drawing attention to the
dynamic relationship between formal structure and human behavior. They also
SUMMAR Y replaced the prevailing view of organizations as formal arrangements of con•
sciously coordinated activities with a view of them as adaptive social structures
During the 1940s and early 1950s Merton and his students established the shaped partly by rational design and partly by the spontaneous interactions of
boundaries of organization theory as a field of study and inspired other schol• individuals and gro ups. If they were overly influenced by human relations
3 9
ars to undertake empirical analyses of existing organizations. The result was an theory, as some critics have claimed, they were nonetheless more willing than
immensely valuable set of institutional studies, including David Sills' study of human relations theorists to acknowledge that conflict is inherent in organiza•
the Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and Lipset.Trow, and Coleman's study of tional life and that the use of power to defend individual and group interests
a labor u n io n . From these studies emerged an understanding of organiza• lies just beneath the surface of interpersonal relationships.
3 8 40
tional dynamics that could not have been achieved through experimentation
or secondary research alone. If their work does not provide a theory of orga•
nizational effectiveness, it does show how functional analysis can be used to di•
agnose and assess the kinds of situations facing public managers in daily NOTE S
practice. Among the most important implications of structural-functional the• 1. W. R i c h a r d Scott, Organizations: Ratio• 8. M e r t o n , Social Theory and Social Struc•
ory for public managers are the following: nal, Natural, and Open Systems ( U p p er Sad• ture, 51 .
dle River , NJ: Pr ent ice Hall, 1998), 8-10 .
9. . R o b e r t K. M e r t o n , " Bu reaucr atic
• Adjusting structure in response to changing environmental con •
2. . Ca ro li n e Ho d g e s Persell, "A n Str uc tur e and Personality," Social Forces 18
ditions. The necessity of responding to internal and external threats pre• I n ter • v ie w wit h R o b e r t K. M e r t o n , " (May 1940), 560 .
cludes organizations from being the fixed, deliberately planned, rational Teaching Sociology 11 (July 1984), 3 5 5 - 8 6
10. M e r t o n , "Bur eaucr atic Str u ctur e and
instruments described by Weber. Their structures are more a product of .
Personality," 563 .
cumulative, adaptive responses to perceived threats than of deliberate plan• 3. R o b e r t K. M e r t o n , Social Theory and
11 . Philip Selznick, TVA and the Grass
ning. By implication, it is partly management's responsibility to continu• Social Structure: Toward the Codification of
Roots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal
ally adjust the organization's structure as internal and external conditions Theory and Research ( Glencoe, I L :T h e Free
Organization (Berkeley: Univ er sity of
change so that the agency can adapt successfully and thereby remain vi• Press, 1949), 6.
California Press, 1953).
able. The public manager must facilitate the process of adjustment and 4. Mer ton, Social Theory and Social Structure, 5. 12. Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots, 13 .
adaptation without allowing the agency to stray too far from its estab• 5. M e r t o n , Social Theory and Social Struc• 13. . Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots, 145.
lished mission. ture, 28 .
14. Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots, 217 .
• Anticipating functional and dysfunctional consequences. Before 6. M e r t o n , Social Theory and Social Struc•
15. . Al v i n W . Go ul dn er , Patterns of
ture, 35 .
responding to a perceived threat to organizational functioning, public Indus• trial Bureaucracy ( Glencoe, I L : T h e
managers should seek to anticipate both the functional and dysfunctional 7. M e r t o n , Social Theory and Social Struc• Free Press, 1954).
ture, 47 .
CHAPTER TEN
238
16. . Gouldner, Patterns of Industrial 30. . Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots, 1 1
Bureau• cracy, 220 . 253 .
17. . G ouldner, Patterns of Industrial 31 . Blau, Dynamics of Bureaucracy, 250 .

Bureau• cracy, 29. 32 . A l v i n W . G ou l d ne r, Wildcat Strike
18. . G ouldner, Patterns of Industrial (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1954).
Bureau• cracy, 221 . 33 . Blau, Dynamics of Bureaucracy, 56 .
19. Gouldner, Patterns of Industrial Bureau-
cracy, 1 6 0 -6 1 .
34.
35.
. Blau, Dynamics of Bureaucracy, 250 .
. Gouldner, Patterns of Industrial
The Open
20. . Peter M. Blau, The Dynamics of Bu• Bureau- cracy,\6.
Systems
reaucracy: A Study of Interpersonal Relations 36. . Gouldner, Patterns of Industrial
in Two Government Agencies (Ch icago: U n i •
Bureau• cracy, 218 .
versity of Ch ic ag o Press, 2n d Edit ion,
37. . Peter M. Blau and Marshall W.
1963), 9 .
Perspective
Meyer, Bureaucracy in Modern Society (Ne w
21 . Go u l dn er , Patterns of Industrial Bureau• York: R a n d o m H ou se , 2n d ed., 1971), 58 .
cracy, 16.
38 . Davi d L. Sills, The Volunteers (Glencoe,
22 . Blau, Dynamics of Bureaucracy, 2. IL: Free Press, 1957), and Se ym ou r M art i n
23 . Blau, Dynamics of Bureaucracy, 9. Lipset, M a rt i n A. Trow, and James S. Co l e •
24. . Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots,
252 , f oo tn ot e 9 .
man , Union Democracy (Glencoe, IL: Free
Press, 1956). Sociotechnical and Structural
39. . Nicos P. Mouzelis, Organization
Contingency Theory
252 . and Bureaucracy: An Analysis of Modern
Theories (Chicago :Aldine Publishing
251 . C ompany, 1968), 55-62
27. . Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots, 40. . Michael Crozier, The Bureaucratic
251 . Phe• nomenon (C hicago: University of
28 . Blau, Dynamics of Bureaucracy, 254 . C hi ca g o Press, 1964)
B
29. . M e rt o n , Social Theory and Social
y the 1950s the open systems perspective began to replace the natural sys•
Struc• ture, 53 .
tems perspective as the dominant approach to organizational analysis.
Both of these perspectives view organizations as organic wholes that must
continually import resources from their environments to remain viable and
both acknowledge that environmental forces shape the structure and behavior
of organizational systems. Nonetheless, the two perspectives are distinguished
by some subtle yet important differences. First, natural systems theorists were
more interested in micro-level analysis and therefore more likely to define or•
ganizations as social systems. Mayo and Barnard, for example, focused primarily
on how to maintain internal equilibrium. Open systems theorists, by contrast,
were more likely to focus on exchanges with the environment and how to
maintain external equilibrium. Thus, whereas natural systems theorists de•
scribed organizations as social systems comprising members who are partly in•
tegrated by their common objectives, open systems theorists were more likely
to describe organizations as shifting coalitions of internal and external partici•
pants contending with forces external to the organization.
1
Second, natural systems theorists tended to describe relatively passive ef•

forts by the organization to adapt to environmental forces, whereas open sys•
tem theorists were more likely to describe aggressive efforts to adjust the
environment to the organization's needs. As James D.Thompson observed, or•
ganizations are not simply organisms buffeted about by the forces of uncer•
tainty and struggling to restore organic
equilibrium; they are also rational,
goal-oriented instruments that
actively engage their environments,
doing what
they must to achieve their goals and survive to fight another day. This shift in change on system behavior. Nonetheless, von Bertalanffy's work in the field of
emphasis established a new way of thinking about organizational performance. general systems theory encouraged the cross-fertilization of ideas between dis•
The successful organization is the one that copes best with its environment by
ciplines and established the language used by those who subsequently studied
finding an optimal fit between organizational characteristics, environmental
organizations from the open systems perspective.
forces, and what it seeks to achieve. This point of view emphasizes that change
Von Bertalanffy insisted that organic wholes, including organizations, must
and stability are not dichotomous.To remain viable, organizations must main•
be understood as open systems. Open systems, in contrast to closed systems,
tain stability in the face of change, and change structure and behavior for the
exchange materials, energy, and information with their environments so that
sake of stability.
they can renew themselves and continue to grow. In his words, "The charac•
This chapter begins by explaining the influence of general systems theory
teristic state of the living organism is that of an open system. We call a system
and the field of cybernetics on the development of the open systems perspec•
closed if no materials enter or leave it. It is open if there is inflow and outflow
tive. It then examines two theoretical literatures that adopted the open systems
and therefore change of the componen t materials." O n e of the defining fea•
4
perspective: sociotechnical theory and structural contingency theory. The

tures of open systems is that they are characterized by negative entropy. Un •
chapter closes with an analysis of the relevance of the open systems perspec•
like closed systems, which deteriorate until their components exist in a state of
tive for public management and organizational performance.
maximum disarray called entropy, open systems receive new energies through
the importation of resources and thus continue to function, becoming more
heterogeneous and complex.
TH E I N F L U E N C E O F Open systems, von Bertalanffy observed, are also subject to the principle of
equifinality. Whereas the final state of a closed system is determined by its
GENERA L SYSTEM S THEOR Y initial conditions, an open system can move toward its end state through any
number of paths. Where it ends up is not predetermined by its initial condi•
The application of systems analysis to the study of organizations experienced a tions because new resources are constantly being imported. The principle of
rebirth in the 1950s under the name open systems theory. This rebirth was due equifinality introduces an important theme in organization theory: freedom of
in part to the influence of Ludwig von Bertalanffy's general systems theory. A choice.Two organizations may share the same goals but reach them through
biologist by profession, von Bertalanffy urged the study of living things as or• different means. No t only are outcomes not predetermined, but there is no
ganic wholes in the 1920s, introduced the theory of the organism as an open one best way of achieving success.
system in 1940, and established the field of general systems theory in 1945. 2
The concept of open systems had a profound influence on the field of or•
He defined the latter as an interdisciplinary field of study dedicated to identi• ganizational analysis. General systems theory not only provided the language
fying the "principles which apply to all entities called 'systems' in general, and concepts used by open systems theorists in studying organizations, it also
whatever the nature of their component elements and the relations or forces influenced the direction their research would take and the conclusions they
between them." Referring to it as "the science of wholeness," von
3
would draw.
Bertalanffy asserted that general systems theory would lead eventually to the
unification of all science under one grand conceptual scheme. He viewed general
systems theory not as a specific theory but as an effort to develop a hypothetical-
de• ductive system of principles, that is, principles that can be deduced from
what all open systems have in common. He believed that once these principles were
TH E I N F L U E N C E O F C Y B E R N E T I C
S
identified and understood it would be possible to define the relationships
among system components using mathematical formulas.This in turn would
The field of cybernetics, established by a mathematician named Norbert
allow scientists to predict system behavior under specified conditions.
Wiener in the 1940s, also had a profound influence on open systems theory in
Von Bertalanffy s expectations were never fully realized, for several reasons. its formative years. Cybernetics is the study of self-regulating systems, such
5
First, as noted in Chapter 9, principles such as homeostasis have very different as self-guided missiles or furnace systems regulated by thermostats.These systems
meanings depending on whether the subject under study is a human being, an rely on continuous feedback from their environments so that they can take
organization, or a society. Second, most social systems comprising too many corrective action, thereby maintaining system equilibrium. Cybernetics con•
variables for their interactions to be reduced to mathematical formulas. Finally, ceived of systems in terms of the continuous transformation of inputs into
social systems tend to be loosely coupled, which means that a change in one outputs through processes known as throughputs.
element or subsystem does not necessarily produce corresponding changes in Organization theorists recognized immediately that this applied to orga•
others. This makes it difficult to predict the effects of an internal or external nizations as well as mechanical systems. Organizations take in resources (in•
puts) and transform them into products or services (outputs). Universities, for
2 CHAPTER THE OPE N SYSTEMS 2
example, receive inputs in the form of materials, information, staff, and stu• Boulding published an article entitled "General Systems Theory—The Skele•
dents, utilize various instructional techniques to educate students, and pro• ton of Science" in 1956 that merged Wiener's concept of cybernetics with von
duce outputs in the form of graduates. They also obtain feedback from Bertalanffy's concept of general systems theory. Boulding identified several
6
graduates, parents, and employers about how well they are doing and from the different kinds of systems and arranged them into a hierarchical framework
environment about impending external changes.This feedback becomes an comprising nine levels, each representing an increasingly higher level of com•
input for determining whether corrective action is required to preserve the plexity. This framework placed social organizations at level eight, the next to
character and functioning of the university. In addition, mechanisms are put the highest level in terms of complexity. Boulding emphasized that we have
in place to maintain a steady state, including recruitment programs to ensure very little theoretical or empirical knowledge of systems at this level and, con•
a constant supply of new students, career placement programs to help gradu• sequently, we are a very long way from being able to construct models that
ates find employment, reward systems to ensure that personnel remain moti• might allow us to direct and control complex organizations.
vated and committed, and planning systems for anticipating and responding Despite Boulding's cautionary warning, Stafford Beer took it upon himself
to external threats and opportunities. to explore the implications of cybernetics for management practice. Beer de•
As a result of the influence of cybernetics, many open systems theorists veloped a classification scheme comprising six classes of systems ranging from
came to view organizations as self-regulating systems that monitor their envi• "simple deterministic" to "exceedingly complex probabilistic" systems. He 7
ronments, identify deviations from their goals or desired states, and adjust their placed organizations into the latter category, representing the highest degree of
internal structures, goals, or environments to maintain system equilibrium. Ex• complexity and lowest degree of predictability. The task of cybernetics, he
hibit 11.1 provides an example of an open systems model developed by Don • wrote, is to determine how to exercise control over systems of this kind. The
ald Warwick to guide his study of the U.S. State Department. purpose of management systems, for example, is to exercise control over the
The field of cybernetics rests on certain assumptions that also came to in• transformation process. Control in this instance does not refer to coercive acts
fluence organizational analysis. It assumes, for example, that what takes place designed to control human behavior but to mechanisms designed to ensure that
within complex systems is beyond human comprehension and that their be• performance conforms to established standards. According to Beer, the model
haviors cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. Economist Kenneth that management planners construct to depict the transformation of inputs to
outputs must contain a "black box" at its center because the way inputs are
transformed into outputs is not visible.This was Beers way of saying that we can
Exhibit 11.1 The Organizational Sytem of a Federal
neither identify all system variables nor determine how a change in one vari•
Executive Agency
able will affect all others. Management must experiment with various interven•
Environment Organizational subsystem tions, seek to discern basic patterns, and adjust its model accordingly.
Robert Swinth also pioneered in the application of cybernetics to the de•
Remote Internal environment
sign of management control systems. He characterized the various
8
Proximate Feedback
Power setting Controllers Clientele groups Constituencies Allies Adversaries
Tasks mechanisms by which inputs are converted to goods or services as the
organization's servo-
Operating environment
Complexity Uncertainty Threat Dispersion
mechanism (OSM).This refers to three linked functions: the operations func•
Interdependence
Environment tion, by which raw materials are converted into outputs; the policy function, by
Social Competition,
structure Culture which feedback about how well the process is achieving its goals is translated
conflict
Technology Ecology
- Input Security - Output into specific objectives; and the control function, by which operations are di•
Managerial rected in accordance with these objectives. In Swinth's cybernetics model, de•
orthodoxy
mands are received by the policy center and translated into a set of objectives.
Structures and
The policy center then gives a control center a performance standard to meet.
processes
The control center compares desired performance with actual performance and
Decision making
takes steps to keep operations as near as possible to desired levels. According to
Control
Communication Swinth, it is through the operation of servomechanisms that organizations
Leadership achieve equilibrium or homeostasis. In his view cybernetic models can assist
Motivation managers in making organizations more self-regulating and more predictable in
Change their outcomes. Strategic planning and performance measurement are among
SOURC E: Reprinted by permission of the publisher from A Theory of Public Bureaucracy: Politics, Personality and the methods that may be used for purposes of feedback and self-regulation.
Organization in the State Department by Donald P. Warw ic k, p. 60 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press),
Copyright © 1975 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Those wh o adopted the open systems perspective for purposes of orga•
nizational analysis were rarely concerned with the design of internal

control
CHAPTER THE OPE N SYSTEMS 2
2
systems. The latter were more properly the concern of operations research gle to cope with the uncertainties their environments impose on them. Ac•
and management science. Nonetheless, organization theorists were greatly cording to Thompson, if similar problems result in similar adaptive responses,
influenced by the concepts of feedback and self-regulation and by the as• it should be possible to identify basic patterns of organizational behavior. Or•
sumption that organizational performance cannot be predicted or controlled ganizations in Action offered ninety-three propositions for investigating these
with certainty. basic patterns. In doing so it provided an important point of departure for
researchers seeking to explore the complex interdependencies inherent in
open systems.
At the outset of his study, Thompson waded into the debate over the es•
TW O PATH-BREAKIN G STUDIE S sential nature of organizations. Are they, as the classical theorists imply, ra•
tional, goal-oriented instruments that are deliberately designed to be as
By the close of the 1960s the open systems perspective had become the domi• efficient and predictable as possible, or are they, as some natural systems the•
nant approach to organizational analysis. This was due to the publication of orists implied, living organisms struggling to survive in the face of uncer•
such highly influential works as Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn's The Social tainty and incapable of behaving in planned and predictable ways?
Psychology of Organizations in 1966 and James D.Thompson's Organizations in Concluding that neither model alone provides an adequate understanding of
Action in 1967. Katz and Kahn used the open systems perspective to integrate complex organizations, Thompson proposed a synthesis of the two perspec•
what was then known about human behavior in organizations. Like Barnard,
9
tives: organizations are simultaneously problem-facing and problem-solving

Katz and Kahn focused on internal processes and the importance of morale entities. Although organizations and their environments are indeed interde•
and motivation to system survival. In contrast to Barnard, however, they placed pendent, this does not preclude them from seeking to make rational, goal-
a much greater emphasis on the role played by environmental forces in shap• oriented decisions in the face of uncertainty while simultaneously striving
ing organizational norms, internal structures, and the organization's ability to to maintain themselves as viable systems. This synthesis created a third per•
attract and retain committed employees. spective toward organizational analysis that Thompson referred to generally
Katz and Kahn also distinguished themselves from classical theorists, such as the open systems perspective: "For purposes of this volume, then, we will
as Weber, Taylor, and Gulick, by accusing them of closed-system thinking. Ac• conceive of complex organizations as open systems, hence indeterminate and faced with
cording to Katz and Kahn, classical theorists tended to treat internal processes uncertainty, but at the same time as subject to criteria of rationality and hence needing
as if they were unaffected by changes in the environment and as if they could determinateness and certainty."
11
be made perfectly predictable and controlled. Working from misconceptions of Thompson provided concreteness to his synthesis of rational and natural
this kind, classical theorists encouraged managers to build rigidities into the systems theory by drawing upon Talcott Parson's distinction between three or•
system, thereby undermining the organization's ability to respond quickly and ganizational levels of responsibility and control. Decisions at the technical
successfully to changing external conditions. Katz and Kahn urged theorists level, where the productive work is carried out, are governed by the nature of
and practitioners alike to view organizations as open systems and to investigate the productive task. This level is the most closed off from external influences
the external causes of internal stresses and strains. and a considerable amount of certainty and control is possible. The managerial
James D.Thompson's Organizations in Action also helped establish the dom• level represents an intermediate level at which managers address input and
inance of the open systems perspective in the late 1960s. Noting that even
1 0
output irregularities so that the technical core can operate as efficiently and
the universal aspects of complex organizations, such as horizontal and vertical predictably as possible. Finally, the institutional level is that level where respon•
differentiation, vary from one organization to the next, Thompson developed sibility for the organization as a whole is highest and the possibilities for cer•
a conceptual framework for investigating the conditions that explain system tainty and control are the lowest. At this level executives perform a boundary-
variations. As a sociologist, T hompson was more interested in explaining the spanning role in which they are responsible for obtaining resources, building
behavior of organizations as a whole than the behaviors that occur within or• alliances, and dealing with output disposal problems by adjusting, or adapting to,
ganizations. He described, for example, how organizations as open systems external forces.Thompson emphasized that, whereas it is appro• priate to employ
must engage in exchange relationships with other organizations to obtain closed system thinking at the technical level, it is necessary to employ open system
needed resources or outlets, and how the resulting dependencies cause organi• thinking at higher levels.
zations to develop strategies for managing their dependence, such as exerting The body of research grounded in open systems theory is enormous. Al•
control over other organizations, expanding their boundaries, altering their in• though justice cannot be done to it in the remaining pages of this chapter, the
ternal structures, or redefining their goals. sections that follow examine two of the most influential theories to emerge
Thompson' s primary thesis was that organizations with similar techno • from this approach to organizational analysis: sociotechnical theory and struc•
logical and environmental problems exhibit similar behaviors as they strug- tural contingency theory.
2 CHAPTER THE OPEN SYSTEMS 2
SOCIOTECHNICA L THEOR Y A core concept in sociotechnical theory is joint op ti mi za ti on. This

concept holds that management cannot optimize the performance of the total
Sociotechnical theory developed in the 1950s out of the work of Fred Emery,
system by optimizing technical efficiency, as Taylor seemed to imply. No r can
EricTrist, and their colleagues at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
it optimize the performance of the total system by optimizing social satisfac•
in London. T he Institute's parent, the Tavistock Clinic, was established at the
tions, as Mayo and Barnard seemed to imply. Superior performance—defined
end of the First World War to provide psychiatric services to war veterans. 12
in terms of output, absenteeism, and morale—is achieved only by jointly opti•

During the Second World War many of its staff were recruited by the military
mizing the organization's human systems with the technology used by the or•
to assist with social problems, such as the resettlement of repatriated prisoners
ganization to accomplish its primary purposes.
of war. Their wartime experiences fueled their interest in the social context
Technological changes being introduced in the coal-mining industry in the
of psychological problems and led them to establish the Tavistock Institute in
1950s provided an opportunity to study the relationships between technology
1946. The new institute put together a staff of psychiatrists, social psycholo•
and work organization. For many generations coal had been mined using
1 7
gists, and other social scientists dedicated to studying problems of human re•
the single place system. Miners formed themselves into semi-permanent
lations in society at large by combining professional practice with field
teams of two to six to extract coal using hand or pneumatic picks over two or
research. The staff's commitment to what was called action research was due
three shifts. Each team was awarded a "single place" on the coal face, which was 6-
in part to the influence of Kurt Lewin, the father of group dynamics theory
11 yards wide. Teams were paid based on their output, with a single paycheck di•
(see Chapter 12). Action research required investigators to work with man•
vided equally among team members.The work was not characterized by task
agement and labor in introducing changes into work settings and drawing
specialization. Each member hewed coal off the face, hauled it away in tubs, and
conclusions from the results. In 1948 the Tavistock Institute, in conjunction
put roof supports in place at prescribed intervals. The work process was contin•
with Lewin's students at the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the
uous; the incoming worker picked up where a teammate had left off. In addi•
University of Michigan, began publishing Human Relations, a periodical that
tion, teams rotated to new places every three months so that every team had an
quickly became one of the leading journals in the field of social and organi•
equal chance of working under good and poor geological conditions.
zational behavior.
The work organization associated with single-place mining possessed cer•
In 1949 the recently nationalized coal industry asked the Tavistock Insti•
tain identifiable sociopsychological properties. First, each team was au•
tute to investigate social problems arising from the introduction of new tech•
tonomous and self-regulating. Other teams wonted the face but they did so
nologies in the mines. A series of studies were conducted over a period of
1 3
independently. Supervisors did not interfere in the ways teams conducted

ten years, resulting in twenty-four papers and reports, and culminating with
themselves.Their role was to ensure safe working conditions and supply nec•
the publication of Organizational Choice byTrist and his colleagues in 1963. 1 4
essary materials. Second, each team was highly cohesive because members se•
Along with Rice's parallel study of textile mills in India, the coal-mining
1 5
lected each other and shared the same paycheck. Third, each team member was multi-
studies produced a method for diagnosing and addressing organizational prob•
skilled and self-reliant, performing all of the tasks associated with single- place
lems that came to be known as sociotechnical theory. In a conference paper
mining. Fourth, the stress of working under difficult geological condi• tions was
delivered in 1959, Emery andTrist placed their research findings in the con•
relieved by rotating to new places every three months. Given the technology that
text of open systems theory and urged further study of organizations as "open socio-
then prevailed, the small autonomous work group was well adapted to the
technical systems." Th e latter, they suggested, constituted a new field of
1 6
underground situation. According to Trist and his colleagues, it contained all of the
study focusing on the relations between the technical and human elements involved
elements of a social system required to meet the demands of single-place mining.
in the organization of work activities.
Because they are open systems, mines must adapt to changing environmen•
Sociotechnical theory holds that production systems must be viewed not
tal conditions. The 1950s brought greater mechanization in the form of con•
as technical systems, nor as social systems, but as both at once. According to this
veyor belts that continuously moved the coal out of the mines. With this
view, each production system is defined by the interrelationships between two
change in technology the single-place system of mining was replaced with the
subsystems, the technical or gani zati on, which includes machinery, equip•
conventional longwall system. Large groups of forty to fifty workers were
ment, and specific work processes, and the work organization, which struc•
charged with removing coal from a continuous face 80-100 feet wide. The
tures how workers relate to each other socially and psychologically.The focus
workers were divided into three groups. Each performed a different task on a
of sociotechnical theory is the degree of fit between the work technology and
different shift. On the first shift a pair of "cuttermen" cut into the face to a
the sociopsychological factors built into the work organization. Its general the•
depth of 4-6 feet near the floor and then blasted the face with dynamite so
sis is that high levels of productivity can be obtained from a technological sys•
that the coal collapsed downward. On the second shift a team of "fillers" shov•
tem only if the work organization is designed in a way that provides
eled the coal onto the conveyor belt and put in the required roof supports. On
compatible sociopsychological incentives and satisfactions.
CHAPTER
2
the third shift a team of "pullers" moved the conveyor system forward into the first compared a conventional system to a composite system under similar ge•
place where coal had been removed, and a team of "stonemen" enlarged and ological conditions. In the conventional system, cohesion was found to be high
maintained the tunnel through which the coal was conveyed. within each specialized task team but low for the group as a whole. Each task
The sociopsychological properties of the work organization under the team strove to maximize its economic interests and didn't care how its work
conventional longwall system were distinctly different from those under single- affected the work of those on the other shifts. In the composite system, by
place mining. First, instead of a single work group in which each mem• ber contrast, not only was social cohesion high for the group as a whole but the
performed all required tasks, the longwall system relied upon four separate work pressures of working under stressful conditions were greatly reduced by the
groups, each of which was responsible for a specialized work task: cut• ting, system of task and shift rotation. These sociopsychological differences
filling, pulling, or doing stonework. Second, instead of a continuous process of translated into lower absenteeism rates: 8 percent for the composite group as
removing coal, the longwall system followed a formal cycle in which each compared to 20 percent for the conventional group. Differences in socio•
shift carried out one element of the cutting, removing, and ad• vancing process. psychological factors also translated into a higher cycle completion rate: the
Third, instead of a single team sharing one paycheck equally, the longwall system composite group failed to complete the daily cycle only 5 percent of the time,
issued separate paychecks to each team of cutters, fillers, pullers, and compared to a failure rate of 69 percent for the conventional group. Finally,
stonemen.These differences meant that the team as a whole, with its forty to the composite group was more productive. After adjusting for differences in
fifty members, was characterized by neither cohesion nor interde• pendence. working conditions, the composite group achieved 95 percent of its produc•
When each team of specialists completed its assigned task, it did not begin work on tive potential, compared to 78 percent for the conventional group.
the task assigned to the next shift. There was no incentive to cooperate with other The second study compared two work teams using the composite longwall
task groups because each team was paid only for doing its assigned task. In system, but with one team possessing more of the composite characteristics
addition, the team as a whole was no longer self-regulat• ing. Management than the other. This test was designed to determine whether it was the charac•
attempted to coordinate and control the overall process through various pay teristics of compositeness that explained the superior performance of the com•
incentives, but with little success. Consequently, produc• tivity under the posite system. In this instance the two teams worked adjacent to each other
conventional longwall method never reached its expected po• tential. Trist and his using the same technology and under the same geological conditions.The dif•
colleagues concluded that specialized work roles and segregated task groups did ferences in work organization were twofold. Or e team subdivided itself into
not provide the elements of a social system required to induce workers to two independent groups working on different halves of the long coal face,
cooperate in carrying out the overall task. whereas the other team worked as a single, unified group. Second, the team
When the conventional longwall system failed to achieve expected output that had subdivided itself also did not rotate tasks or workplaces. These two
levels, management altered the work organization, creating what was called the features reduced the sense of overall interdependence and the even distribu•
co m p o s i t e longwall system. This system restored the practice of continu• tion of stressful working conditions.
ous operation used in single-place mining. When task teams on one shift com• Results of the study confirmed the hypothesis that the greater the "com•
pleted their primary task ahead of schedule, they began the task of the next positeness" of a work group, the higher its level of performance. The nature of
shift. Whereas teams working under the conventional system frequently failed the work organization in the more composite group, particularly its rotation
to complete the mandated work cycle in three shifts because of inevitable of tasks, allowed it to adapt more successfully to changing working conditions.
problems and delays, teams under the composite system rarely failed to com• The other group did not adapt as well. When geological conditions worsened,
plete the mandated cycle. Second, many workers developed multiple skills its absenteeism rate increased dramatically. Productivity was slightly higher for
once again so that they could carry out the task of a subsequent shift. Third, the more composite team, but the researchers concluded that the lower sick•
the composite system restored the principle of a single paycheck for the entire ness and absenteeism rates were even more significant. In their words, "The
work group. This provided the necessary incentive for workers on one shift to face group organization which was panel-wide, embodied systematic rotation
begin the work of another shift and otherwise to work in a highly cooperative of the various jobs among team members, and did not tie a man to only one
fashion. Fourth, the composite system restored the principle of self-regulation. job, work group or face, was the more effective in maintaining the smooth
Team members were allowed to determine who would be assigned to specific work flow of the cycle and in coping with increased work stress." 19
tasks and shifts. In short, the composite longwall system, by borrowing ele•
The Tavistock researchers noted that their findings supported von Berta•
ments from the traditional single place system, provided sociopsychological in•
lanffy's principle of equifinality: Given a specific technology, any of several so•
centives and satisfactions that were better adapted to the requirements of
cial systems can produce acceptable results. The three systems used in the coal
longwall mining.
mines utilized three different methods of work organization. Each functioned
To test their preliminary conclusions, Trist and his colleagues conducted
at an adequate level, but the work organization with the highest degree of in•
two comparisons of the conventional and composite longwall systems. T h e
18
terdependence and autonomy proved to be best adapted to the requirements

of longwall mining. Trist and his colleagues advised managers who were intro• enriched work. The first group of theorists, according to Kelly, has made the
ducing technological changes to conduct sociotechnical analyses to determine autonomous work group the focus of sociotechnical theory, whereas the sec•
which form of work organization is best suited to the demands of the new
ond has made job design the central focus.
technology. Their research indicated that human factors must be taken into ac•
Second, Kelly raised the possibility that neither of these interpretations is
count or technological innovations will not pay the expected dividends. In one
correct. In his view the increases in productivity observed in the various so•
instance, pit managers introduced the composite method on another longwall
ciotechnical studies were due to the continuous work effort and the system of
after its initial success, only to encounter numerous problems.They had failed
pay bonuses associated with working in groups.These changes produced higher
to anticipate the effects of using inexperienced workers and denying them the
workloads and a faster pace of work, thereby enhancing efficiency and reducing
opportunity to select their own teammates on cooperation and cohesion. Trist
costs. Kelly concluded that there is little in these studies to suggest that in•
and his colleagues concluded that change is something that must be carefully
creased productivity is a function of individual satisfactions derived either from
managed. Specific steps must be taken, for example, to overcome resistance to
working in groups or from performing meaningful or challenging tasks.
change. These steps, as Kurt Lewin put it, include unfreezing current attitudes,
That the issues raised by Kelly remain unresolved does not reduce the sig•
introducing change, and then reffeezing new attitudes.
nificance of the contributions sociotechnical research has made to organiza•
tion theory. Sociotechnical theory reintroduced technology as an important
variable in the study of organizations, underscored the relevance of sociopsy-
A N ASSESSMEN T O F chological factors to organizational performance, shifted intervention efforts
from treating workers well to redesigning jobs and work processes, stimulated
SOCIOTECHNICA L THEOR Y further study of small-group dynamics, and initiated discussions about organi•
zational development and the management of change. Trist and his colleagues
One of the most valuable contributions of sociotechnical theory to organiza• at the Tavistock Institute improved our understanding of the effects of tech•
tional analysis is its emphasis on the interconnectedness of technical systems nology and work structure on human behavior, something that Elton Mayo
(the subject of scientific management theory) and social systems (the subject emphasized as fundamentally important in his early essays but failed to study
of human relations theory). Relying as it does on the open systems perspec• in his later research. They also moved well beyond human relations theory by
tive, sociotechnical theory emphasizes that organizational effectiveness requires establishing the central importance of technology in converting inputs to out•
an optimal fit between these two important subsystems. puts and mediating between the goals of the organization and the constraints
Sociotechnical theory also brought renewed attention to the principles of imposed upon it by its external environment. Finally, they placed organiza•
work design in general and to the value of autonomous work groups in par• tional analysis in the context of open systems theory. It is not enough, they
ticular. "O f particular interest to the student of social process," Trist wrote, "is concluded, for management to jointly optimize the organization's human and
the ability of quite large primary groups of 40-50 members to act as self-regu• technical systems through the careful design of work processes; management
lating, self-developing social organisms able to maintain themselves in a steady must also do so in a way that positions the organization for continued success
state of high productivity throughout the entire period of their'missions.'"
2 0
in its external environment.

This finding, Trist added, lent support to the human resources theory of Dou •
glas McGregor and Rensis Likert (Chapters 12 and 13), a theory that holds
that performance is highest where self-managing primary work groups are es•
tablished. Converting to self-managed work teams,Trist wrote, "is to replace
job alienation in the worker by task-oriented commitment "
21 STRUCTURA L CONTINGENC Y THEOR Y
The findings of the Tavistock researchers are, however, subject to differing
Once theorists began to view organizations as systems of interdependent vari•
interpretations. John Kelly has written an especially thorough critique. First,
22
ables, they quickly realized that there can be no one best way to structure all
Kelly noted that sociotechnical theorists are not in agreement about the causes
organizations. The situations confronting organizations are simply unique and
of the higher levels of productivity associated with the autonomous work
the interdependent variables affecting organizational performance too numer•
group. Some attribute its superiority to the attributes associated with working ous. This realization caused researchers to undertake the search for the best, or
in interdependent groups. According to this view, by focusing on the whole most appropriate, structure for each individual organization or general type of
task, and by being cross-trained, group members are able to respond effectively organization, given its unique characteristics and circumstances. The underly•
to system variations caused by environmental uncertainty. Members also expe• ing premise of structural contingency theory is that choices about structure are
rience personal satisfactions derived from working together as a group. Other contingent upon identifiable internal and external factors. Its goal is to deter•
sociotechnical theorists, however, attribute its superiority to the design of the mine how to structure an organization, given contingencies such as size, tech•
job itself and the individual satisfactions derived from performing meaningful, nology, strategy for success, and degree of environmental stability. This involves
a search for the optimal fit between the structure of the organization as a
ther end: mechanistic and organic. No firm conformed completely to the
whole, internal and external contingency factors, and the goals of the organi•
characteristics of either of these types, but they tended toward one or the other
zation. Structural contingency theory holds out hope that someday it may be
depending upon whether their environments were relatively stable or con•
possible to prescribe a specific structural form for an organization from orga• nization-
stantly changing. A mechanistic m a n a g em e n t system follows the bureau•
specific knowledge of its contingency factors.
cratic model outlined by Weber. Workers are assigned a narrow, specialized set
Structural contingency theory, which has become nearly synonymous with
of tasks to perform and are expected to await instructions from their superiors
the term modern organization theory, now comprises an enormous body of re•
before taking action on nonroutine matters. Focused on the means of per•
search. Consequently, this chapter can do no more than highlight two of the
forming their programmed tasks, workers in mechanistic systems generally do
most important studies in the development of structural contingency theory.
not identify with the goals or purposes of the organization. Communications
are vertical rather than horizontal, interaction tends to be limited to superior-
Tom Burns: Mechanistic and Organic subordinate dyads, and strict obedience to authority is expected. No one is
Management Systems empowered to act outside the limits of his or her authority. Although such sys•
tems often seem regimented and dehumanized, they hold certain advantages
Tom Burns, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh, studied twenty English
for organizational members. They provide a safe and predictable environment
and Scottish firms during the 1950s, several of them in partnership with G. M.
where members understand the boundaries of each other's task and scope of
Stalker. Most of these were well-established manufacturing firms entering the
authority, as well as how to progress upward in the organization.
field of electronics for the first time. The task before them was to convert the
Burns and Stalker concluded that the mechanistic system is appropriate to
technological discoveries of the war years, such as radar, into entirely new prod•
stable conditions, being both efficient in its use of individual effort and effec•
ucts for which there were as yet no markets or customers.This unique situation
tive in securing desired levels of productivity. It does not work well, however,
provided Burns and Stalker with an opportunity to study what happens to or•
where conditions are constantly changing. Narrow functional tasks cannot be
ganizations when they move from an environment characterized by relative sta•
assigned to individuals to carry out on a routine basis because the nature of
bility to one characterized by constant technological change and uncertainty.
those tasks is constantly being redefined by non routine problems and unfore•
Their findings were published in The Management of Innovation in 1961. 2 3
seen requirements for action. Under conditions of change, an organic ma n •

The dependent variable in Burns and Stalker's study is the organization's
agement system is more appropriate. Workers are given broad, loosely
management system, whereas the independent variable, or contingency factor,
defined roles and are expected to contribute their knowledge and experience
is the degree of stability in the organization's external environment. Most of
to the common task of the organization as a whole. The idea of individual re•
the firms in their study faced unstable environments in which demand for
sponsibility for a limited set of official duties is replaced by the idea of collec•
their products was uncertain and technological improvements in product lines
tive responsibility for all problems. Communications are lateral as well as
were constantly required. In the course of studying how these firms coped
vertical, cross-functional meetings are common, group problem solving is ex•
with change, Burns and Stalker noted that several firms had fundamentally al•
pected, and individuals interact on terms of relative equality. Decisions are
tered their management structures.This led them to formulate the thesis that
made at the point of the problem based on specialized knowledge rather than
organizations must adapt their management systems to satisfy the requirements
at the top of the hierarchy based on formal authority. Commitment to pur•
of their changing environments if they are to remain viable. Classical manage•
pose is valued more highly than loyalty and obedience. Far from being narrow
ment theory notwithstanding, there is no single model of a "good" organiza•
functionaries, mere cogs in the larger machine, workers in an organic system
tion for firms to follow. Commercial success depends in large part, they
are encouraged to view themselves as professionals charged with using their
concluded, on how well the firm's managing director designs or redesigns the
best judgment to advance the interests of the organization. 25
management system consistent with environmental conditions. As they put it,

In short, Burns and Stalker concluded that organic systems are appropriate
"The degree of stability or rate of change calls for different systems by which
where decisions cannot be programmed by those at the top because of the rapid
the activities of the concern are controlled, by which information is conveyed
pace of environmental change. It is a system for handling nonprogrammed deci•
through the organization, and by which decisions and actions are autho•
sion making in which coordination is achieved through shared beliefs and a sense
rized." This introduced a distinctly open systems view of organizational dy•
24
of collective responsibility. Because workers closest to the problem can respond to

namics. Burns and Stalker were among the first to detail the ways firms are
changing conditions quickly and flexibly, the organic system is capable of much
affected by forces in their external environments and to emphasize the manag•
greater adaptation to change than the mechanistic system.
ing director's responsibility for interpreting environmental conditions and
Although it is now fashionable to advocate organic systems as the one best
overseeing organizational adaptation.
way for organizations in these turbulent times, Burns and Stalker emphasized that
In the course of their analysis, Burns and Stalker identified what they be•
organic systems have their share of disadvantages. Lack of clear task assignments
lieved was a continuum of management systems with two "ideal types" at ei-
and responsibilities, for example, often creates anxiety, feelings of insecurity, and
interpersonal tensions. This means that workers must possess a high tolerance for
that some types of organizational structure are better than others and that if
ambiguity- Conversely, despite the negative, authoritarian connotations of being
they compared structural characteristics with levels of commercial perfor•
organized in a bureaucratic fashion, the mechanistic system can produce positive
mance they could isolate the types that are best. With this premise in mind, in•
results. In describing a rayon factory that operated according to the mechanistic
terviewers went into the field and collected data relating to the way each firm
model, Burns and Stalker wrote that "the system, lubricated by a certain pater•
was organized and operated and its degree of commercial success. But analysis
nalism, worked smoothly and economically, and there was no evidence that any
of the data revealed no correlation between organizational structure and per•
individual felt aggrieved or belittled." Burns and Stalker insisted that each
2 6
formance. Successful firms exhibited different organizational forms, including

orga• nization must find a place on the continuum between the two extremes that
the predominantly line organization characterized by a single chain of com•
is most appropriate to its situation:
mand, the functional organization favored by Taylor in which foremen take or•
.. . .We have endeavored to stress the appropriateness of each system to its ders from several functional supervisors, and the compromise line-staff
own specific set of conditions. Equally, we desire to avoid the suggestion organization that provides functional assistance while respecting a single chain
that either system is superior under all circumstances to the other. In par• of command. No one type proved superior. The twenty firms judged to be
ticular, nothing in our experience justifies the assumption that mechanistic above average in success, for example, had little in common.
systems should be superseded by organic in conditions of stability. The be• Rather than give up the search for causal relationships, Woodward analyzed
ginning of administrative wisdom is the awareness that there is no one op• the data again, this time controlling for the type of manufacturing technology
timum type of management system. 27
used. Technology in Woodward's study refers to the techniques used to produce
goods, including tools and machines, and the means by which work processes
As one of the first studies to explore the linkages between a particular con•
are planned and controlled. Woodward's team identified eleven basic types of
tingency factor and organizational structure, Burns and Stalker's research repre•
production systems.To facilitate analysis, these eleven types were combined into
sented an important contribution to organization theory. It inspired other
three major groupings. Unit and small-batch firms manufacture individual
scholars to turn their attention to the study of structural contingencies, helping
or small batches of products according to the specifications set forth in the cus•
to produce what is now a large and valuable body of knowledge. Their work
tomer's order. One firm, for example, manufactured custom-made suits. Large-
also had an unintended influence. By describing how increased employee dis•
batch and mass production firms manufacture large batches of products in
cretion and involvement can lead to increased employee commitment and mo •
response to customer orders or continuously mass-produced items for defined
tivation, their work encouraged some analysts to treat organic management as a
markets. Examples include radios and televisions. Process production firms
general panacea. But if organic management is no panacea, Burns and Stalker's
manufacture products that are measured and sold by weight, capacity, or volume.
analysis nonetheless poses an interesting question for public management. If
Examples include chemicals, petroleum products, and paper products. These
most public agencies lie somewhere in the middle of the stability-instability
three categories represented a scale of technical complexity and systematic con•
continuum, then perhaps they can benefit from greater levels of employee in•
trol of production. Unit and small-batch firms are situated at one end, represent•
volvement, commitment, and flexibility than currently allowed.
ing the lowest level of technical complexity and control, and process firms at the
other end, representing the highest level of technical complexity and control.
Joan Woodward: Technology's Influence on Structure Definite patterns emerged as the structural data were analyzed by type of
technology. First, the number of levels of authority in the management hierar•
In 1953 Joan Woodward, an industrial sociologist at South East Essex College of chy was lowest in unit production and highest in process firms. Second, the
Technology in England, received a four-year grant from the Joint Committee on
chief executive's span of control was narrowest in unit production and broadest
Human Relations in Industry to investigate the social and economic problems
in process firms. Also, the span of control of middle managers was broadest in
arising from the use of new technologies. The research project took the form of
unit production and narrowest in process firms. As a result, unit production
a broad survey of the structural characteristics of one hundred firms in South Es•
firms had short and broadly based pyramids, whereas process firms had tall, nar•
sex. A report of the initial findings, published in 1958, created quite a stir. It indi•
rowly based pyramids.Third, labor costs were highest in unit production and
cated that firms organized according to the principles of classical management
lowest in process production. Fourth, the ratio of managers and supervisors to
theory were not always the most successful and that organizational designers
nonsupervisory personnel was lowest in unit production and highest in process
who followed classical principles often did more harm than good. In 1965
production. Finally, the ratio of clerical and administrative workers to produc•
Woodward published Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice, which presented
tion workers was lowest in unit production and highest in process production.
the findings of the original study along with follow-up studies completed after
On other structural dimensions, firms at either end of the scale were more like
she moved to the Imperial College of Science and Technology in 1958.
28
each other than they were the large-batch and mass production firms in the mid•
As in the Hawthorne studies, the members ofWoodward's research team
dle of the scale. For example, first-line supervisors had narrow spans of control in
designed their study with classical assumptions in mind. It made sense to them
both small-batch and process firms, and broad spans of control in large-batch and
mass production firms. Workers in the small-batch and process firms worked in control of work had to be deliberately structured as in unit production but it
smaller production groups; this allowed for greater informality and generally bet• wasn't possible to coordinate work in a way that simultaneously satisfied hu•
ter industrial relations. In the language of Burns and Stalker, most of the organic man needs. Formal rules and closer supervision were required. In these situa•
management systems were found at the ends of the scale, in small-batch and tions, Woodward concluded, the network of relationships best for production
process firms, whereas most of the mechanistic management systems were found is not necessarily the one that is best for people.
among the large-batch and mass production firms. This indicated to Woodward Woodward's study was important because it, like Burns and Stalker's, rep•
that some aspects of organizational structure are contingent upon technology as resented an early effort to identify a structural contingency factor. Woodward's
well as the rate of change imposed by the environment. was especially important because it was the first large-scale study to demon•
The now well-known conclusion derived from Woodward's study is that strate linkages among technology, organizational structure, and organizational
there is no one best way to organize. Commercial success depends not on any performance using quantitative data. Although her study raised many addi•
one type of organizational structure but on the degree of fit between a firm's or• tional questions about the precise relationship between specific technical and
ganizational structure and technical means of production. Her findings suggested structural variables, her general conclusion that structure is partly contingent
that, if there is no one best organizational structure, there is one that is best suited upon technology has been widely accepted.
to each type of technology. This conclusion was similar to that reached by Trist
and his colleagues, except that Woodward's study went beyond the structure of
the work organization to include the overall administrative structure as well.
After analyzing the data, Woodward concluded that "different technologies AN OVERVIE W O F STRUCTURA L
imposed different kinds of demands on individuals and organizations, and these
demands had to be met through an appropriate structure."
2 9
Th e essential CONTINGENC Y FACTOR S
rela• tionship between technology and organization, she wrote, had escaped classical
theorists.Taylor and Fayol, for example, acknowledged that their principles had to A contingency factor is a variable that specifies what structural arrangements
be adapted to different circumstances but failed to recognize that different orga• are best suited to an organization, given the situation in which it finds itself.
nizational systems may be required when dealing with different technologies. This means that for any level of a contingency factor, high or low, there is a
Woodward found that the more successful firms tended to be those that clustered corresponding level of some structural dimension that is most appropriate. Ex•
around the median for that category on the structural dimensions described. hibit 11.2 presents many of the contingency factors identified by researchers
This did not mean that the principles of classical management theory were during the 1960s and 1970s and some of the aspects of organizational struc•
without value. After all, they tended to hold reasonably well for successful firms in ture that they affect. This is a vast literature and the summary that follows can
the large-batch and mass production category.As Woodward put it,"In all the suc• do no more than indicate the nature of each contingency relationship.
cessful large batch production firms there was not only a clear definition of duties
and responsibilities of the kind already referred to but also an adherence to the Environmental Uncertainty
principles of unity of command; a separation (at least on paper) of advisory from Organizational structure may be contingent upon the degree of stability or
executive responsibilities, and a chief executive who controlled no more than the certainty in an organization's external environment. Burns and Stalker found,
recommended five or six direct subordinates." In short, they were more
3 0
for example, that uncertainty caused by the need to develop new products for
bureau• cratic, mechanistic, and formalized. Significandy these same principles or undefined markets was associated with relatively low levels of standardization,
charac• teristics were associated with failure in the other types of firms. formalization, and role specialization. Similarly, Lawrence and Lorsch found
These findings held important implications for sociotechnical theory. that departments facing the highest levels of uncertainty were lowest in terms
Woodward noted that organizational structure has two functions: to distribute of the number of levels of management, use of formal reward and control sys•
authority and coordinate work, and to create a network of social relationships. tems, formalization, and standardization. These departments also relied
3 1
Her research indicated that the relationship between these two functions varies more on consultation and less on formal hierarchy to resolve conflicts.
with technology. For example, because coordination is achieved through the self-
Donald Warwick found in a study of the U.S. State Department that environ•
regulating technologies in process firms, the way social relations are struc• tured
mental uncertainty resulted in increased hierarchy and rules. Uncertainty
3 2
or cooperation achieved is an independent matter. Where coordination is built

about the significance of events unfolding in foreign countries resulted in a high
into the work process itself organizational designers are free to design a social
vol• ume of messages being sent from field offices to Washington. Top officials both
system to meet human needs. Similarly, Woodward found that although unit
in the field and in Washington insisted upon reviewing incoming messages and
production had to be deliberately structured to facilitate coordination it was
clearing outgoing messages before they were sent. The inevitable communica•
possible to do so in a way that allowed for the satisfaction of human needs. By
tions overload at the top led to additional rules for handling the traffic and addi•
contrast, in the large-batch and mass production firms, coordination and
tional levels of hierarchy to review and clear messages. In this instance, uncertainty
CHAPTER THE OPEN SYSTEMS 2
2
E xh i b i t 11.2 C o n t i n g e n c y Factors an d Structur al D i m e n s i o n s ward's findings, Pugh and his colleagues found that technology has little effect
on the structure of top management, especially among larger organizations.
34
Contingency factors Structural dimensions In one of the few contingency studies dealing exclusively with public or•
ganizations, Blau and Schoenherr found that the structure of divisions within
Environmental uncertainty Management levels state employment security agencies varied according to whether the work was
Span of control essentially clerical or professional in nature. Structure in this instance referred
Centralization to the number of subunits (horizontal differentiation) and the number of lev•
Technology
els of hierarchy (vertical differentiation). Blau and Schoenherr identified four
35
Formalization
basic types of work-structure relationships: a routinized function, where jobs are
Standardization
Size homogenous and simple, tended to have an undifferentiated structure with
Specialization (role and function) comparatively few levels and few sections; a. fragmented function, where there is a
Work design great variety of mostly simple jobs, appeared to give rise to a highly differenti•
Strategy ated structure in terms of both levels of hierarchy and division of labor; a com•
Conflict resolution methods
plex function, where jobs are complex and require a great deal of independent
Reward and control systems judgment, tended to produce a squat pyramid regardless of the division of labor;
Resource dependence Information processing methods and a heterogenous function, characterized by a pronounced division of labor, ap•
Management style peared to promote a tall pyramid. Blau and Schoenherr concluded that "if a
function is simple enough for most of the work to be performed by clerks, the
Public accountability Apex structure (eg, divisionalization)
degree of heterogeneity tends to govern the extent to which the structure be•
comes differentiated into both hierarchical levels and functional sections. But if
the function is complex and the majority of duties require training and skills,
led to greater bureaucratic rigidity rather than less. As discussed below, this may multilevel hierarchies are unlikely to develop, regaj.dless of the degree of special•
be a product of the special emphasis placed on accountability in public agencies. ization among jobs produced by the division of labor."
36
Technology Size
Organizational structure may be contingent upon the organization's core tech• Organizational structure may be contingent upon the size of the organization.
nology. Woodward found that the differences between small-batch, mass pro• Pugh and his colleagues found, for example, that larger organizations tend to
duction, and continuous-process technologies explained differences in such have more task specialization, standardization, and formalization than smaller
factors as management levels, span of control, formalization, and functional spe• organizations (r = 0.69). Where an organization was part of a larger organi•
3 7
cialization. Similarly, Lawrence and Lorsch found that the different technolo• zation, as in the case of government agencies, the size of the parent organiza•
gies utilized in plastics, food processing, and bottle manufacturing explained tion also correlated with concentration of authority (r = 0.39); the larger the
differences in formalization, time orientation, reward and control systems, and parent organization, the greater the concentration of authority at the top of
conflict resolution methods.The conclusion they reached is that some struc• the subunit.
tural characteristics are better suited to a particular technology than others. Similarly, Blau and Schoenherr found in their study of employment secu•
Similarly, in a study of fifty-two public and private organizations, Pugh and rity agencies that the larger the agency the greater the number of local offices,
his associates at the University of Aston in England found modest correlations number of job titles, number of hierarchical levels, number of major divisions
between technology and task specialization, standardization, and formalization under top management, and number of sections per division, and the greater
(r = 0.34), and concentration of authority (r = -0.30). Organizations with the breadth of the manager's span of control. Beyer and Trice attempted
3 3
integrated, automated, and relatively rigid work processes were more likely to replicate Blau and Schoenherr's findings using a heterogenous sample of seventy-
than those with simpler, more flexible technologies to be characterized by spe• one agencies of the federal go vern- ment.
3
Their study revealed weaker
8
cialized work roles and standardized procedures. They were also characterized relationships between size and structural characteristics than Blau and Schoenherr's.
by less concentration of authority at the top of the organization, apparently They attributed this to the fact that the offices in Blau and Schoenherr's study
because routinized work processes pose fewer control problems for top man• shared a relatively routine paper-processing technology, which had the effect of
agement. The eight governmental units in Pugh's study tended to have sim• understating the role of task complexity and overstat• ing the effects of size on
pler, more flexible technologies and, consequently, less standardized work structure. Beyer and Trice concluded that size in• creases the division of labor
routines and more concentration of authority at the top. In contrast to Wood- (number of job titles) and this in turn increases
horizontal and vertical differentiation in agencies with routine work technolo•

career services office to ensure that graduates find jobs, a legislative liaison of•
gies but does not increase horizontal differentiation in agencies relying on
fice to maintain constructive relations with the legislature, and a research of•
more complex work technologies.
fice to communicate with the various granting institutions.
Strategy Public Accountability

Organizational structure may be contingent on the strategy for success chosen Finally, organizational structure may be contingent upon the degree to which
by senior managers. A business historian by the name of Alfred Chandler was senior managers are subject to external control or public scrutiny in the con•
among the first to draw attention to the contingency relationship between duct of their affairs. Pugh and his colleagues found that businesses whose stocks
strategy and structure. Relying upon four case studies in a book published in were traded on the stock exchange were subject to more public scrutiny than
1962, Chandler advanced the thesis that "structure follows strategy." W h e n 39
firms whose stocks were not, but the highest degree of public scrutiny was ex•
the DuPont corporation decided, for example, to pursue a diversification strat• perienced by the eight government organizations in their study. The results re•
egy, it had to shift from a highly centralized administrative structure to a de• vealed a clear relationship between public accountability and concentration of
centralized, division-based structure in order to remain viable. authority (r = 64). The greater the degree of public accountability the greater
Chandler's thesis that structure follows strategy appears to hold for public the likelihood that authority is centralized at the top of the organization. 43
organizations as well. For example, police departments adopting community- Warwick's study of the U.S. State Department also underscored the con•
based policing as a strategy for improving community relations and crime- tingency relationship between external control and structure. Government
fighting capabilities generally have found it necessary to adopt less hierarchical, agencies require the approval of external overseers for operating authority, ap•
m or e decentralized and team-based structures. This suggests that strategy,
40
propriations, and major changes in mission. This affects structure because,

viewed as a contingency factor, mediates among environmental changes, the where political and budgetary support from legislative bodies, the chief execu•
organization's understanding of its mission, and the structure required to tive, and the public is uncertain, agencies are more likely to behave in a con•
achieve it. It also underscores the fact that structural change does not happen servative fashion, adding more clearances, more levels of supervision, and more
automatically in response to environmental change. In practice, many police rules to justify their administrative decisions. As James D. Thompson once
departments discovered that the professional model of policing with its para• noted, bureaucrats are not naturally predisposec to avoid discretion or create
military structure was too entrenched to allow the new strategy to succeed. rules to hide behind. They do so only where political uncertainty and the con•
sequences for error are unusually high.
44
Resource Dependence
Organizational structure may be contingent upon the degree to which an orga•
nization is dependent on other organizations for the financial, material, and hu• A N ASSESSMEN T O F STRUCTURA L
man resources and political support it needs to attain its goals and survive as an
institution. The external actors on which government agencies depend include CONTINGENC Y THEOR Y
funding bodies, suppliers of human and material resources, client and consumer
Structural contingency theory brought an end to the dominance of classical
groups, labor unions, public interest groups, and regulatory and oversight bodies.
management theory and the search for the one best way to structure and man•
Because they are dependent on these external actors, agencies often feel com•
age organizations. Contingency research strongly suggested, for example, that
pelled to alter their policies, structures, and even their goals to satisfy external de•
centralized decision making, standardization, and formalization are not always
mands or to manage their relations with those bodies by forming alliances or
the best structural choices. Some organizations perform effectively when they
partnerships with them or negotiating interagency agreements.
are highly centralized and tightly controlled, whereas others perform effectively
The resource dependency theory of James D.Thompson, and Pfeffer and
4 1
when they are decentralized and loosely controlled. Contingency theory also
Salancik, emphasizes ho w organizations strive to manage their dependence
42
reinforced the view that organizations are both rational, purposeful systems
by adapting their structures to satisfy environmental demands or to establish seeking to achieve established objectives and open systems adapting their goals
better working relations with those they are dependent upon. In the first in• and structures as needed to function effectively in an uncertain environment.
stance they create new programs or adjust administrative rules in response to Although organization theory moved in new directions in the 1970s and 1980s,
external demands and in the second they create new subunits to protect inter• many theorists continue to view structural contingency theory as the central,
nal operations from external uncertainties. A public university, for example, overarching paradigm in organizational analysis.
45
may add a personnel office to handle demands from employee groups and la•
If contingency theory brought an end to the dominance of classical man•
bor unions, a recruitment office to ensure a steady supply of new students, a
agement theory, it also renewed interest in the field of organizational design.
Drawing upon the findings of contingency research, scholars such as Jay Gal- relations among formal structures, managerial styles, core technologies, and
braith and Henry Mintzberg developed structural principles to guide ad•
46 4 7
employee needs and abilities, and externally in relation to the environment.

ministrators in designing effective organizations. The central premise of the Although the importance of all four models is recognized, the open systems
organizational design school is that managers can and should design their or• model is highlighted in Exhibit 11.3 because open systems theory emphasizes
ganizations so as to maintain an appropriate fit between task environment, the relationship between the organization and its external environment, the
strategy, and structure, thereby assuring continued organizational effectiveness. importance of such effectiveness values as adaptability, resource acquisition, and
Critics, including Pfeffer and Salancik, doubt that this level of rationality is external support, and the contributions managers make to organizational suc•
possible. According to their resource dependency theory, actual performance is cess by performing the roles of broker and innovator. These roles are accom•
generally outside of the organization's control. In their view, performance plished by planning strategically and building political alliances to ensure
is largely determined by environmental forces and the demands of external continued support. By performing these boundary spanning roles public man•
actors. Pfeffer and Salancik may have understated management's ability to in• agers can help their agencies continually adapt to their political, social, and eco•
fluence organizational performance, but systems theory nonetheless raises le• nomic environments and obtain the resources they need to attain their
gitimate doubts about management's ability to comprehend organizational objectives and survive as an institution.
dynamics and predict organizational outcomes.The more research has revealed
about the determinants of organizational structure and performance, the more Exhibit 11.3 The Competing Values Framework:
complex these relationships appear to be. Although research has generated use• Four Models of Organizational Effectiveness
ful generalizations about the contingencies affecting organizational structure
and performance, it may never be possible to develop a model containing Flexibility
enough contingencies to serve as a guide to management decision making.
It may be, as Robert Swinth concluded, that organizations are "exceedingly Pattern maintenance/Tension Adaptive function: the need
complex probabilistic systems" that are largely beyond the grasp of human management function: the need to to acquire resources and adapt
comprehension. If this view is correct, managers can only hope to discern ba• and dedicated workforce
sic patterns of organizational behavior by identifying a few basic variables, ma•
nipulating certain ones, and drawing conclusions from the observed results. Means-oriented values: Means-orisnted values:
Nevertheless, the discovery of basic patterns is an important step forward. As HUMAN cohesion, flexibility, OPEN
James D.Thompson has written, to move organizations forward it is not nec• MODEL MODEL
essary to understand the relationships among all variables; it is only necessary Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values:
to tackle the most strategic variables, continually searching to co-align envi• human resource growth,
ronmental conditions and task and technology with organizational structure
and ultimately performance. Internal External
focus Output Quality focus

R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N INTERNAL info, management, planning, RATIONAL
T MODEL MODEL
The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of open systems theory stability, productivity,
for public management and government performance. This exploration is control efficiency
guided by the three analytical frameworks introduced in Chapter 3. Integrative function: the need to Goal attainment function: the need
activities
Because it is grounded in systems theory, the open systems perspective recog• Control
nizes the interconnectedness of all four models of effectiveness in Quinn's com•
peting values framework. From the open systems perspective the effective differently, it is one that succeeds in achieving a "good fit" internally in terms of
organization is one that satisfies all of Parsons' functional imperatives in a bal•
anced fashion, depending on the internal and external forces that it faces. Stated
SOURCE: Ada pt ed with permission from Figures 3 and 4, Robert O. Quinn and John Rohrbaugh, "A Spatial Mode!
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The institute of Ma na gem en t Sciences, now the Institute for Operations
Research and the Managem ent Sciences (INFORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090-
2909 USA.
2 CHAPTER
THE OPE N SYSTEMS 2
Although systems theory acknowledges the importance of all four models of

Exhibit 11.4 Si x M e c h a n is ms fo r C o o rd in a t in g an d Co n tro llin g Wor k Activities
effectiveness, the relative emphasis placed on each model varies somewhat from
one group of theorists to the next.Trained in social psychology, the sociotechnical Mutual adjustment Workers consult with each other informally about what
theorists at the Tavistock Institute emphasized the organization's internal environ• needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor•
ment and the interconnectedness between the human relations model and the goal Direct supervision A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of
attainment model. Structural contingency theorists such as James D.Thompson, by workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte•
contrast, tended to emphasize the open systems model and the ways organizations grate the efforts of all work groups. The supervisor issues
seek both to adjust and adapt to external forces. This theory helps explain why personal instructions and monitors individual performance.
public agencies find it so difficult to operate "like a business." As noted in Chapter developing rules and standard operating procedures speci•
work processes
3, public agencies are subject to significandy greater external pressures from inter• fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina•
est groups, greater public scrutiny, and greater overhead regulation than are private tion is built into the work process itself and control is
businesses. By design, public agencies are not given the kind of autonomy and free•
dom of action that makes unilateral and speedy decision making possible.
work outputs each work group with product specifications or perfor•
Mechanisms for Coordinating collecting output data, requiring corrective action when
and Controlling Work Activities needed, and rewarding and sanctioning workers based on
results achieved.
No particular mechanism for coordinating and controlling work activities is high• Standardization of Workers are employed who possess the knowledge and
lighted in Exhibit 11.4 because systems analysis assumes that all such mechanisms worker skills skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in•
or some combination of them must be employed to achieve an optimal fit among provide standardized training. Professionally trained work•
the organization's subsystems and between the organization and its external envi• ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling.
ronment. One of the major contributions of open systems theory is that it intro• Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear
duces the idea of contingencies. Sociotechnical theory, for example, holds that of values vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should
organizational effectiveness depends on employing those structural mechanisms and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational
that are most appropriate for reconciling the technical requirements of work with members to shared, internalized values and ideals.
the social and psychological needs of those who do the work. Similarly, structural
S OUR C E: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7).
contingency theory holds that organizational effectiveness depends on employing
those structural mechanisms that are most appropriate to a full range of contin•
gencies, including organizational strategy, core technology, environmental stability,
organization size and, in the case of public agencies, the degree of accountability
and oversight imposed by actors in the external environment. Motivational Strategies
The last of these contingency factors, public accountability, may help to ex• No particular motivational strategy is highlighted in Exhibit 11.5 because open
plain the public agency's reputation for being highly centralized. The study by systems theory holds that it is management's task to identify the combination of
Pugh and his colleagues found, for example, that public agencies do not always strategies that is most appropriate to the organization's internal and external re•
rely on work standardization for purposes of coordination and control but they alities. The sociotechnical school's study of coal mining suggested, for example,
do tend to rely on centralized, top-down systems of control to ensure that those that the rewards-for-performance, considerate leadership, group acceptance, and
at the middle and lower levels of the agency are performing their duties in a re• job identification strategies are effective motivational strategies because they sat•
sponsible and accountable manner. This does not mean, however, that all agen• isfy a full range of social, psychological, and material needs, but that the use of
cies are equally centralized.James Q.Wilson notes, for example, that choices these strategies is partly contingent upon the technical requirements of the work
regarding the optimal mix of coordination and control mechanisms are also and the external pressures faced by the organization. Members of the sociotech•
contingent upon the degree to which outputs and outcomes are observable and nical and organization design schools remain divided, however, regarding the rel•
measurable. As discussed in Chapter 2, work standardization and direct supervi• ative effectiveness of these strategies, some emphasizing the importance of social
sion may be appropriate choices in production and procedural agencies but less cohesion and autonomy that teamwork can provide (considerate leadership and
so in craft and coping agencies, although the need for accountability creates group acceptance), and some emphasizing the intrinsic rewards derived from the
pressures toward centralized control in all public agencies. work itself (job identification).
Similarly, structural contingency theory emphasized that choices regarding

which motivational strategies to employ are contingent upon many factors, in• SUMMAR Y
cluding the skills and maturity levels of employees, the supervisory skills of
Since the 1930s the systems concept has provided the theoretical foundations
managers, and the degree of work complexity and professionalism required.
and methodological strategies for a rich and diverse set of studies in the field
Pugh and his colleagues found, for example, that in government agencies char•
of organization theory. For the most part these studies have been descriptive
acterized by professional kinds of jobs the goal congruence strategy tended to
and explanatory in character rather than prescriptive. Taken as a whole, they
be used more often than the legal compliance strategy, although management
provide a more holistic and realistic picture of organizations than the picture
attempted to maintain centralized control to ensure accountability in all of the
provided by earlier studies grounded in the rational perspective. They also un•
agencies under study.
derscore the importance of thinking in terms of seamless webs of interdepen-
dencies rather than linear cause-and-effect relationships.
Although systems research has increased our knowledge of the relation•
E xhi bi t 11.5 Four Moti v ati on al S tr at eg i e s
ships among environment, structure, and performance, it has also increased
Legal Compliance
our appreciation of the difficulties inherent in seeking to understand organiza•
tional dynamics holistically. A general systems model capable of capturing all
Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require• important variables and their interrelationships does not yet exist, and if it
ments, either because they accept the legitimacy of organizational authority or fear were to exist it would have to be enormously complex. The quest to under•
being sanctioned.
stand organizations holistically is a noble one, but in practice it has proven very
Instrumental Rewards difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about integrated wholes. Possessed of
Using rewards to induce desired behaviors. inadequate measurement tools and insufficient knowledge of system variables,
Rewards for Performance many organizational analysts have returned to the study of specific subsystems
about which meaningful conclusions might be drawn. 48

Employees may meet or exceed role expectations because they value the material But if open systems theory has failed thus far to produce a general systems
model capable of predicting and controlling organizational behavior, it nonethe•
provide.
less provides public managers with an implicit theory of organizational effective•
ness. The successful agency is one that finds an "optimal fit" between its
organizational structure, its environment, and what it seeks to achieve. Among the
who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or most important implications of this theory for public managers are the following:
• Contingency thinking. Public managers should think carefully about
Group Acceptance
the contingencies affecting how they organize for success.They should, for
example, think about the nature of their agency's core technology. After
value affiliation and peer approval to meet or exceed role requirements, assum• all, a document processing technology may call for a very different kind of
ing that group norms are consistent with organizational objectives. administrative structure and work organization than does a social service
Job Identification providing technology. Similarly, they should think carefully about their
Offering work that is interesting, challenging, and responsible. Employees may come boundary-spanning responsibilities.The dependency theory outlined by
to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and James D.Thompson and Pfeffer and Salancik has proven especially ger•
mane to public agencies. It reminds public managers of the importance
of building coalitions of political support and successfully managing the
Goal Congruence
many dependencies that are a natural and necessary component of operat•
ing in highly politicized environments.
• Strategic planning. Relatedly, public managers need to learn to think
They may do so because they identify with the organization's mission and values and and plan strategically. Through deliberate and thoughtful strategic plan•
because contributing to them reinforces their own self concept. ning, public managers can engage members of the agency in finding and
SOURCE: Based in large part on Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations (Wiley, sustaining a good fit between its mission and strategies, its internal systems
1966), pp. 336-68. and structures, and the forces in its external environment that create both
opportunities and threats.
33 . D. S. Pugh , D.J. Hi ck so n, C. R. H i n -
NOTE S ings, and C. Turner, "T h e C o n t e x t of Or •
41 . T h o m p s o n , Organizations in Action.
42 . Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald R. Salancik,
ganization Structures," Administrative
16. R e p r i n t e d in F. E. E m e r y and E. L. The External Control of Organizations: A
1. W. R i c h a r d Scott, Organizations: Ra• Science Quarterly 14 (March 1969):
Trist, Toward a Social Ecology (N ew Y o rk : Resource Dependence Perspective (N e w Y o r k :
tional, Natural, and Open Systems ( Up pe r 91-114 .
P l e n u m Publishing, 19 73): 211~23 . Also Ha r pe r & Ro w , 1978).
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998),
repri nted in F. E. E m e r y (ed.), Systems 34 . Davi d J . H i c kso n , D. S. Pugh , and Di • 43 . D .S. Pugh , D.J. H ic ks on , and C. R.
28 . ana C. Pheysey, "O perations T echnology
Thinking: Selected Readings (Middlesex, Hin ings, "A n E mp i ri ca l Ta x o n o m y of
2. L ud wi g vo n Bertalariffy, General System and O rganization Structure: An E mpirical
En gl an d: Pe ng ui n Boo ks , 1969). Structures o f Wo r k O rgani zat ions," Admin•
Theory: Foundations, Development, Applica• Reappraisal," Administrative Science Quar•
istrative Science Quarterly 14 (March 1969):
tions ( N e w Y o rk : Ge o rg e Braziller, 1968). 17. E. L. Trist and K. W B a m f o r t h , "S o m e terly 14 (Sept embe r 1969): 3 7 8 - 9 7 .
119.
Social and Psychological C o ns eq ue nc es of
3. . Lu dw i g vo n Bertalanfiy,"General 35 . Peter M. Blau and Pvichard A.
the Long wall M e t h o d of Coa l -G et t i ng ," 44. . T h o m p s o n , Organizations in Action,
Sys• te m T h e o r y : A Ne w A pp ro ac h t o Schoenherr, The Structure of Organizations
Human Relations 4 (February 1951):3—38. 11 8- 2 0 .
U n i t y o f Science," Human Biology 23 (N e w Yo r k : Basic Books, 1971).
(D ecembe r 1951): 304 . 18. Trist et al., Organizational Choice, 45. . See, for example, Lex D onaldson,
36. . Blau and S choenherr, The Structure
Ch ap te rs 1 2- 14 . American Anti-Management Theories of Orga•
4. . L ud wi g vo n Bertalanffy, "Ge ne r al of Organizations, 273 . nization^ Critique of Paradigm Proliferation
Sys• te m Theory ," 308 . 19. Trist et al., Organizational Choice, 143 .
37. . Pug h et. a l , "Th e C o n t e x t of (C a mb ri dg e: C a m b ri d g e Un iversity Press,
5. . N o r b e r t Wi en er, Cybernetics 20. . Trist et al., Organizational Choice, xiii. O rg an i • zation Structures." 1995).
(Ne w York: Wiley, 1948). 21 . Trist et al., Organizational Choice, 130. 38. . Janice M . Beyer and Ha r ri so n M . 46. . Jay Galbraith, Organizational Design
6. . K e n n e t h E. B ou ld ing , "G en e ra l Sys• 22 . Joh n E. Kelly, " A Reapprai sal of So • Trice, " A R e e x a m i n a t i o n of the Relati ons (Readi ng, MA : Add ison-Wesley, 1977).
tems T h e o r y — T h e Skeleto n of Science," ciotechnical Systems T heory," Human Re• B e t w e e n Size andVarious C o m p o n e n t s of 47. . H e n r y M in t z be rg , Structure in
Management Science 2 (April 1956): lations 31 ( N u m b e r 1 2 , 1 9 7 8 ) : 1 0 6 9 -9 9 . Organizatio nal Complexity," Administrative Fives: Designing Effective Organizations
197-208 . 23 . To m Burns and G. M. Stalker, The Science Quarterly 24 (March 1979): 4 8 - 6 4 . (Engle• woo d Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall,
7. Stafford Beer, Cybernetics and Manage• Management of Innovation (London: Tavis• 39. . Alfred D. Chandler, Strategy and 1983).
ment (Ne w York: Wiley, 1964). t oc k Publi cations, 1961). Struc• ture: Chapters in the History of the 48. . F re m o n t Kast and James E. R o s e n -
24. . Burn s and Stalker, The Management Industrial Enterprise (C ambridge: MI T zweig, "Ge ne ral Systems Th e o ry : Appli ca•
8. R o b e r t Swi nth, Organizational Systems
Press, 1962). tions for O rga ni zat i on and M a n a g e m e n t , "
for Management: Designing, Planning, and Im• of Innovation, 97 .
plementation (C olumbus: Grid, 1974). 40. . Dennis P. R o s e n b a u m (ed.), The Academy of Management Journal 15 (De •
25. . To m Burns, "Preface to the
Chal• lenge of Community Policing: Testing the cembe r 1972), 454 .
9. . Dani el Katz and R o b e r t L. Kahn, Second Edition," in Burns and Stalker,
The Man• agement of Innovation (L ondon: Promises ( Thou sand Oaks, CA : Sage, 1994).
The Social Psychology of Organizations (Ne
w York: Wiley, 1966). Tavistock Publications, 1966), viii.
10. James D . T h o m p s o n , Organizations in 26. . Burns and Stalker, The Management

Action (Ne w York: M c G r a w - H i l l , 1967). of Innovation, 1.
11 . T h o m p s o n , Organizations in Action, 10. 27. . Burns and Stalker, The Management

of Innovation, 125 .
12. Eric Miller, "Editorial: On R e a c h i n g
the Age of Fifty," Human Relations 50 28. . Joan W oo dw ar d , Industrial
(January 1997): 1-9 . Organiza• tion: Theory and Practice
(L ondon: Oxford University Press, 1965).
13. . Eric Trist, "Th e Evol ution of So •
29. . W o o d w ar d , Industrial Organization,
ciotechnical Systems as a Co n c e p t u a l
vi.
Fra me w o r k and as an A ct io n R es ea rch
Prog ram ," in A n d re w H. Van de Ven and 30. . W oo dw ard , Industrial Organization, 71
.
William F.Joyce (eds.), Perspectives on Or•
ganization Design and Behavior ( Ne w Yo r k : 31 . Paul R. Lawr ence and Jay W Lorch,
Wiley, 1981): 1 9 - 7 5 . O rg an iz at i o n and E n v i ro n m en t : M a n a g i n g
Differentiation and Int eg rat ion ( H o m e -
14. E. L.Trist, G. W Hi ggin, H. Mu r ra y, A.
wo od , IL: Irwin, 1969);Jay W. Lorsch and
B. Pollock, Organizational Choice: Capabili•
Stephen A. Allen, Managing Diversity and
ties of Groups at the Coal Face Under Chang•
Interdependence: An Organizational Study of
ing Technologies (L ondon: Tavistock
Multidivisional Firms (C ambridge: Harvard
Publications, 1963).
University, 1973).
15. . A. K. Bi ce , Productivity and Social
32 . D o n al d P.Warwick, A Theory of Public
Or• ganization: The AhmedabadExperiment
(L ondon:Tavistock Publications, 1958).
zation in the State Department (C ambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1975).
PARTICIPATIVE MAN AGEMEN T 2
1 2
calls upon supervisors to satisfy the social and psychological needs of workers
by demonstrating personal concern for their well-being, listening attentively
to their complaints, and taking their feelings into account when instituting
3€ changes. The underlying theory is that facilitating the personal adjustment of
employees to their work environment improves job satisfaction and morale
and reduces resistance to authority, thereby causing productivity to increase.
Participative Emphasis is placed on creating the kind of work environment in which work•
ers feel secure, appreciated, and valued.
By contrast, h um a n resources theory calls upon managers at all levels
Management Theory to facilitate the satisfaction of ego and growth needs by providing opportuni•
ties for workers to develop and use their individual talents to the fullest ex•
tent possible. The underlying theory is that enriching jobs and involving
workers in decision making triggers intrinsic motivation. Workers become
Kurt Lewin and Rensis Likert self-directing and self-controlling, and the full value of human capacity is ob•
tained, thereby enhancing all aspects of organizational performance. Although
a supportive work environment and positive interpersonal relations are
viewed as important, emphasis is placed on the motivational aspects of the
work itself and the benefits that accrue from broad employee involvement in
decision making.
Close scrutiny of these differences reveals the chasm that separates the
two schools of organizational humanism. Human relations theory accepts the
traditional distribution of power and authority within organizations and,
A
t the same time that open systems theorists were focusing attention despite Mayo's early concern for the destructive effects of organizational
on organizational technology, structure, and environment, other the• structure on human behavior, calls for no meaningful structural reforms.
orists were continuing to study individual and group behavior. Managers are encouraged to adjust workers to the structural requirements
These theorists developed a new approach to ma nagement during the of the organization rather than adjusting organizational structure to satisfy
1950s and 1960s that came to be know n as human resources theory. Th e the human needs of their workers. Although there is much of value in hu •
large body of literature they produced is the subject of both this chapter man relations theory, in the end it does little more than put a humanistic face
and the next. on the technical, coldly rational approach to management implicit in scien•
Use of the term human resources theory was first suggested in 1965 by Ray• tific management theory and Weber's theory of bureaucracy. Huma n re•
mond E. Miles, a professor of business administration at the University of sources theory, by contrast, rejects the traditional control-oriented approach
California, Berkeley. Miles believed the ne w theory represented a dramatic
1
to management altogether and advocates a fundamental redistribution
departure from earlier theories of management, including its predecessor, of power and authority between workers and managers. In doing so it pro•
human relations theory. The distinctive character of human resources theory, vides the theoretical foundations for today's extensive literature on employee
according to Miles, is reflected in its core assumptions: that all workers are empowerment.
reservoirs of untapped resources, that they have the capacity to be self- The roots of human resources theory are found in two literatures of the
directing and self-controlling, and that organizational performance is de• 1930s and 1940s: Elton Mayo's human relations theory and Kurt Lewin's
termined by how fully the organization develops and utilizes its human group dynamics theory. With human relations theory already examined in
resources. Chapter 8, this chapter begins with an examination of Lewin's group dynam•
The differences between the two major schools of organizational human• ism— ics theory. It then reviews the theoretical contributions of one of the best
human relations and human resources—are perhaps more striking than their known human resources theorists, Rensis Likert, leaving for Chapter 13 a re•
similarities. Although both schools view the satisfaction of human needs as the view of the works of two other well-known human resources theorists, Dou •
key to organizational success, they differ significantly in terms of what these glas McGregor and Chris Argyris.The chapter closes with an analysis of group
needs are, how managers are to satisfy them, and why doing so is ex• pected to dynamics and participative management theory for public management and
improve organizational performance. H u m a n relations theory organizational performance.
CHAPTER PARTICIPATIVE MAN AGE MENT 2
KurtLewin 1890-1947 KUR T LEWIN' S STUDIE S
Kurt Lewin was born September

I N GROU P D Y N A M I C S
9,1890 in a tiny German village in Lewin established not one but two re•
what is now western Poland. In 1914
2
search institutes in 1945. The first was Fritz Roethlisberger liked to call human resources theory the "1960 version of
Lewin finished the requirements for human relations." However, this tends to overstate the influence of the
4
the Research Center for Group Dy•
his doctoral degree in experimental namics, established at the Massachu• earlier school of organizational humanism on the later school. Although Elton Mayo
psychology, volunteered for the army, setts Institute of Technology (MIT) in
and was wounded and hospitalized
certainly influenced their thinking, human resources theorists were influenced
Boston. The second was the Commis•
just before the end of the First World sion on Community Interrelations much more fundamentally by the ideas and research findings of a German-
bor n experimental psychologist by the name of Kurt Lewin.
5
War. After the war Lewin returned to (CCI), funded by the American Jewish
the University of Berlin, where he Congress and located in New York Understanding the threat Adolph Hitler's rise to power posed for Jews such as
received an appointment as a private City. Its primary purpose was to iden•
himself, Lewin crossed the Atlantic for the United States in 1933, eleven years
lecturer in 1921. His income was tify the causes of social prejudice and
derived solely from student fees. As find ways to eliminate them. His staff after Elton Mayo had crossed the Pacific from Australia. Like Mayo before him,
a Je w he had no chance of becoming members at MIT, most of whom were Lewin ob• tained funding from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Foundation,
a salaried professor, although he former students from Iowa, helped to which al• lowed him to secure a faculty position at the University of Iowa's
was later aw arded the honorary title design and carry out field research Child "Welfare Research Station. The experiments conducted by Lewin and his
of professor in recognition of his and social experiments at both
accomplishments. institutes.
stu• dents during his nine-year tenure at the University of Iowa gave rise to a
new field of study called group dynamics and a new role for social science called
After Hitler's rise to power, Lewin Always enthusiastic about new
and his wife and two children emi• ideas and strongly committed to so•
ac• tion research.
grated to the United States. He spent cial progress, Lewin gave too gener• As a lecturer at the University of Berlin in the 1920s, Lewin took it upon
the first two years at Cornell Uni• ously of his time and energy. Having himself to steer experimental psychology away from the traditional emphasis
versity's School of Home Econom• established two research institutes he on memory and cognition and beyond the Gestaltists' limited focus on per•
ics, conducting research on child de• now found himself commuting con•
velopment, before securing a faculty tinually between Boston and New
ception. Believing psychology should foe as on explaining human motivation
and behavior, Lewin developed what he called field theory. Lewin argued
6
appointment at the University of York City, overseeing dozens of re•

Iowa's Child Welfare Research Station search projects simultaneously. He that the motivated behavior of an individual can be understood in terms of a
in 1935. Lewin remained at Iowa until was also engaged in introducing ac• sociopsychological field, much like an electrical or gravitational field, in
1944. Students came from all over the tion research to Eric Trist and his col•
which various forces, including needs and desires, work to pull the individual
United States to study with him, and leagues at the Tavistock Institute in
although he was officially a professor London. Whe n a friend cautioned in different directions. Motivated behavior is the net outcome of these op •
of child psychology his experiments in• him to slow down, Lewin reminded posing forces, forces arising from both the person and the environment in
volved a wide range of human prob• him that his mother had died in a which the person is embedded. He also developed the concept of tension,
lems and social issues. Nazi concentration camp and that
the internal state created when an individual feels a need or a desire. Tension
there was no possibility of him "tak•
Consumed by the pressing social creates the energy behind mental activity and motivation, and it is not re•
ing it easy ." Exhausted and over•
3
issues of the day, including totali•

worked, Lewin died of a massive leased until the motive is satisfied. An experiment conducted by one of
tarianism and racial and religious in•
tolerance, Lewin conceived of the pos•
heart attack on February 11, 1947 at Lewin's students found that individuals will return to an unfinished task or
the age of 56. The following year his goal at a later time because of the continuing psychic tension associated with
sibility of conducting social-science
students moved the Research Center
research for the practical purpose of having left something undone. Finally, his theory introduced the concept of
for Group Dynamics to the University
improving organizational and commu• valence, which refers to the strength or importance attached to a need or de•
of Michigan, where Lewin's friend
nity health. He called it action re•
search. Convinced that action research
Rensis Likert had just established the sire by a particular individual.
Survey Research Center. The two Lewin and his students at the University of Berlin conducted several ex•
could help solve social problems,
groups were merged to form the In•
Lewin set out to establish a research
stitute for Social Research, and to•
periments during the 1920s designed to establish the relevance and power of
institute dedicated to conducting change-
gether they carried on Lewin's work his theory. Goal theory and expectancy theory had their origins in these ex•
oriented studies. As a conse• quence of his
fundraising efforts.
in group dynamics and organiza• periments as well as the ones he conducted after his arrival at the University
tional leadership. of Iowa in 1935. The sections that follow describe a series of studies by Lewin
and his students at Iowa that was of particular importance to the development
of human resources theory.
Z
2 CHAPTER PARTICIPATIVE MANA GE ME NT
Studies in Autocratic and Democratic Leadership ing by taking their frustrations out on the most powerful member of the
group. Faced with the collective hostility of their peers, the two scapegoats
At Iowa Lewin turned his attention to the conditions necessary to sustain
quit coming to meetings. Members of the democratic group, by contrast, were
democracy. A series of studies dealing with autocratic and democratic leader•
much more likely to remain engaged in work when the leader left the room
ship in small groups began with an experiment conducted in 1937 by Ronald
and worked together in a generally friendly and cooperative manner.
Lippitt under Lewin's supervision. Wishing to isolate the effects of autocratic
7
What explained these differences? Lippitt concluded that students in the au•
and democratic social climates on group behavior, Lippitt divided ten fifth-
tocratic group experienced frustrations arising from two factors: a reduced sense
graders into two groups. He engaged each group in a series of recreational ac•
of power and status caused by being constantly told what to do, and a blockage
tivities, including mask making and soap carving. Each group met for 30
of paths to personal goal attainment caused when the leader ignored their de•
minutes during the lunch hour, twice a week, for eleven sessions. In the group
sires and substituted his goals for theirs.These factors reduced the students' sat•
that met on Mondays and Wednesdays, Lippitt adopted the role of a democra•
isfaction with their otherwise-interesting work activities and increased their
tic leader, encouraging the group to discuss and vote on the projects they
sense of frustration. As they focused on their frustrations, the goal of restoring
wished to undertake. In the group that met on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Lippitt
their lost status became primary and the goal of working together to complete
adopted the role of an autocratic leader, assigning without discussion projects
their projects became secondary. As White and Lippitt later put it, "Basically, it is
selected the day before by the democratic group, and specifying which mem•
a simple matter of the direction of attention. If the attention of group members
bers would undertake each task and how the tasks would be performed. Four
is focused mainly on where they stand as individuals, it cannot be focused
observers unobtrusively recorded all social interactions and a stenographer
mainly on the goals of the group." Attacking each other seemed to be the
8
recorded as much of the students' conversations as possible.

only means of asserting power and enhancing status, and the resulting hostile and
In performing his two roles, Lippitt followed carefully defined models of de• ego-centered behaviors greatly limited the possibilities for group cooperation.
mocratic and autocratic leadership constructed in advance of the experiment. As By contrast, the greater equality of status in the democratic group, and the free•
a democratic leader he explained what kinds of things the group would do in dom extended to students to pursue their own goals, resulted in more coopera•
subsequent meetings, so that students understood their goals and what to expect tive and friendly interpersonal relations. Feeling secure and efficacious, students
next. He also encouraged students to discuss and vote on what projects to under• in the democratic group felt no need to compete for power or status and will•
take, provided various choices when students asked for help, left students free to ingly contributed their individuality to the group effort.
work with whomever they wished, provided fact-based reasons when distribut•
The following semester Ralph White arrived at Iowa on a postdoctoral fel•
ing praise or criticism, and tried to participate as an equal in group activities with•
lowship and, together with Lewin and Lippitt, conducted a more extensive and
out doing too much of the work. This model emphasized low leadership control
rigorous experiment in 1938. Because the differences observed in the first
9
over means and ends and high emphasis on stimulating group decision making.
ex• periment may have been due to differences in the personalities of those who
As an autocratic leader, by contrast, Lippitt made all policy decisions for the participated in the study, the second experiment was designed to control for
group without clarifying purposes or allowing discussion, dictated what was to personality by exposing each group to more than one type of leadership. Four
be done one step at a time and without indicating what to expect next, dic• groups were established and each group was exposed to a different combina•
tated who was to work with who m in completing assigned tasks, distributed tion of leadership patterns during three periods lasting six weeks each. Four
praise and criticism in a personalized manner without indicating what his leaders were used rather than one, with each performing more than one role
judgments were based on, and remained aloof from active group participation. to control for individual personality differences among the leaders.
This model emphasized high leadership control over means and ends and low
The original intent was to alter the order of democratic and autocratic
stimulation of group decision making. Although directive in his approach, Lip•
leadership for each of the groups, but when one of the four leaders failed to
pitt was careful not to be mean or to evoke fear, both because treating students
perform the democratic role as intended, a third type of leadership was de•
in this way would be unethical and because he wanted to hold the degree of
fined. It was labeled laissez-faire or hands-ojf leadership. Following the newly de•
friendliness constant between the two groups.
fined model the laissez-faire leaders left the students completely free to choose
The differences in behavior between the two groups were dramatic. Stu• which projects to work on, how to complete them, and with whom to work.
dents in the autocratic group were passive and leader-dependent in relation to Leaders provided technical assistance when asked for help but did not attempt
their work. They waited for instructions before beginning to work and they to structure activities or participate in carrying them out. Unlike the demo•
ceased working when the leader left the room. Members of the autocratic cratic leader, the laissez-faire leader made no attempt to teach or stimulate
group also exhibited much higher levels of aggressive behavior, including more democratic procedures such as group discussion or voting.
quarreling, more demands for personal attention, and more hostile criticisms In terms of sequencing, the first group was exposed to autocracy, democ•
aimed at other group members. On two occasions they engaged in scapegoat- racy, autocracy; the second to autocracy, laissez-faire, democracy; the third to
2 CHAPTER PARTICIPATIVE MAN AGEMEN T 2
democracy, autocracy, democracy; and the fourth to laissez-faire, autocracy, 1. Autocratic leadership places employees in a dependent relationship,
democracy. The groups, this time comprising only boys, were set up as crime- thereby encouraging passivity and undermining initiative, commitment,
solving clubs, although they engaged in a variety of other activities as well, in• and personal responsibility.
cluding constructing club benches and tables, making masks, painting murals,
2. Autocratic leadership minimizes the power and status of employees,
and carving objects out of soap. They met for an hour after school, once each
thereby encouraging harmful competition and undermining cooperation.
week, for eighteen weeks.
The results of the second experiment were similar to those of the first, 3. All things being equal, democratic leadership can better satisfy basic hu•
with two notable exceptions. First, three of the four groups experiencing au• man needs, thereby fostering job satisfaction and work motivation.
tocracy responded with a high degree of submissiveness to authority and a 4. Leaders can facilitate the satisfaction of human needs by relying on formal
low degree of aggressiveness toward their fellow members. In fact, incidences authority as little as possible, encouraging self-direction and self-control,
of overt aggressiveness, such as rude or hostile comments or insistent demands relating to employees in an egalitarian, nonhierarchical manner, involving
for attention, were actually lower in these groups than in the democratic them as much as practical in decision making, giving them the freedom
groups. Conversely, one of the four groups, like the autocratic group in the they need to develop and utilize their individual talents, and establishing
first experiment, responded with a high degree of aggression. Lewin, Lippitt, appropriate structures and boundaries to guide task accomplishment.
and White concluded that autocracy can result in either submissive or rebel•
lious reactions depending on the unique conditions and personalities in• Although Lewin, Lippitt, and White did not address the subject directly the
volved. The Charlie Chan Club included three members who were unusually findings of these early experiments raised serious questions about the top-
resistant to authority and unconstrained by adult values.This was not the case down, control-oriented form of management that then prevailed in most
in the other groups, where members allowed themselves to be repressed by complex organizations. Their findings seemed to suggest that managers who
their autocratic leaders. Lewin, Lippitt, and White concluded that these stu• emphasize their place in the organizational hierarchy, who insist on all the
dents experienced high levels of frustration arising from their repressed state privileges and prerogatives of power, and who use their formal authority to is•
but chose to limit their reactions to a few hostile comments aimed primarily sue directives without providing explanations and without regard to the needs,
at each other. That there was a great deal of latent discontent just below the goals, and wants of their subordinates, are practicing autocracy and must ac•
surface was indicated by the fact that three boys dropped out of their clubs cept all of the limitations and dysfunctional consequences associated with it.
under submissive autocracy because of their dissatisfaction with the prevailing
social climate.
Another difference between the two studies was that the second provided Action Research in Industry
a great deal of information about the effects of an unstructured work situation
Although his research rarely allowed him to explore issues relating to work,
and laissez-faire leadership on group behavior. The data showed that the stu•
Lewin nonetheless maintained a lifelong interest in what he called jo b satis•
dents' work in the laissez-faire groups was less organized, less efficient, and def• faction. The title of one of his earliest works, an article published in 1920, is
initely less satisfying than under either of the other two leadership patterns. roughly translated as "Humanization of the Taylor System: An Inquiry into the
Frustrations associated with lack of structure, purpose, and accomplishment led Fundamental Psychology of Work and Vocation." In it Lewin faulted Tay•
11
to a loss of interest in their work and a high degree of horseplay and aggres• lorism for failing to appreciate the importance of work to the satisfaction of hu•
siveness toward each other. Given the negative connotations attached to the man needs. 1 2
He argued that work is an important "life value," that the
term autocracy, the researchers were surprised to find that autocratic leadership capacity for work gives meaning and substance to a person's whole existence,
seemed to offer more personal satisfactions than laissez-faire. Among the satis• and that the flaw in Taylorism is that it shows no concern for whether the person
factions that autocratic leadership has to offer are those associated with not per• forming the work obtains any personal satisfaction from doing so. It does
having to think or take on responsibility, identifying with a strong leader, and little good to prescribe how to perform tasks more efficiently, Lewin argued, if the
taking pride in efficient task accomplishment. These results suggested to
1 0
resulting overspecialization and monotony reduces the value of the work to the
Lewin, Lippitt, and White that those who think of laissez-faire leadership as worker. In language foreshadowing the concept of job enrichment, Lewin
simply a permissive form of democratic leadership are mistaken. It is a distinct wrote that work should be worth doing and should develop personal potential,
leadership pattern with a distinct set of disadvantages. not kmit it. Lewin envisioned psychologists and efficiency experts working to•
Although these studies dealt with young students engaged in recreational gether to make work not only more efficient but also richer and more satisfy•
activities rather than adult employees engaged in producing goods and ser• ing for the person performing it. Indeed, Lewin believed that job satisfaction
vices, many of the major themes in human resources theory are reflected in and productivity are intertwined. The worker who obtains internal or intrinsic
these early experiments. Among them are the following: value from the work shows greater interest in and enthusiasm for the work and,
PARTICIPATIVE MA NA GEME NT 2
2 CHAPTER
consequently, performs it at a higher level. As we shall see, the notion of inte• Bavelas was succeeded at the Harwood company by John R. P. French, an•
grating individual and organizational needs through job enrichment would be• other of Lewin s students. Together with Lester Coch, the company's person•
come a major theme in human resources theory. nel manager, French conducted a series of experiments designed to overcome
A fortuitous set of circumstances allowed Lewin to return to the subject of the resistance to change experienced by workers who were asked to switch to
job satisfaction some nineteen years later. An acquaintance and fellow psycholo• different jobs or to perform their current jobs differently. To remain compet•
14
gist, Alfred J. Marrow, happened to be president of the Harwood Manufacturing itive the company frequently had to alter the way tasks were performed. As
Corporation, a company that was having a tough time maintaining production noted earlier, trainees had to work hard to learn their jobs and achieve the
standards at a new pajama factory in Marion,Virginia. After the usual 12 weeks mandated 60 units of production. Once they were successful, they became re•
of training, the workers from this rural and mountainous area were producing sentful at being asked to learn a new job and frustrated in their new efforts to
only about half as muc h as trainees doing similar tasks in northern factories. 1
achieve standard production levels. Their resistance was expressed through

Marrow invited Lewin to the plant in 1939 to investigate the problem. The re•
3
grievances over the new piecerates, high turnover, low efficiency, deliberate re•
sult was a series of experiments spanning eight years. Because they took place in strictions of output, and marked aggression toward supervisors. French and
a factory setting rather than a laboratory, and because they used social-science Coch understood that the problem related to motivation and morale rather
methods to achieve constructive changes in morale and productivity, these ex• than skill. Motivation and morale declined as group members experienced
periments were among the first examples of what Lewin called action research. frustration, loss of hope of ever regaining their former level of productivity,
Why productivity was low and turnover high at the factory was a bit of a and feelings of personal failure and lowered status. For these reasons, workers
mystery. The pay was relatively good, personnel policies progressive, and labor took longer to reach standard in their second job than in their first, and many
relations and working conditions favorable. Consistent with his humanistic gave up and either quit or became chronically substandard performers. What
orientation, Lewin viewed the problem as human rather than technical in na• they lacked was a clear path to success.
ture. He concluded that the workers did not believe that the mandated 60 French and Coch turned to group participation as a means of overcom•
units of production per hour was attainable and thus felt no sense of personal ing resistance. Their experiments were begun in the fall of 1947, a few
failure in not reaching that goal. Lewin suggested hiring experienced workers months after Lewin had died. The research design called for introducing
laid off at a nearby factory to demonstrate that the standard was in fact attain• changes in the jobs in three different ways, each representing a different level
able. The experienced workers soon met the standard and the local trainees, of participation in redesigning the jo b and setting appropriate piecerates.
seeing that it was attainable, gradually began to reach it as well. Lewin next Four groups of employees whose jobs were being changed participated in
suggested that the company begin a program of industrial research and employ the experiment: a control group, a group experiencing partial participation,
Alex Bavelas, one of his students at Iowa, to undertake a series of small-group and two groups experiencing full participation. The eighteen members of
studies relating to the human factors in industrial management. the control group, who were being asked to stack pressed garments in a box
The first of these experiments focused on involving employees in setting rather than on a sheet of cardboard as before, were introduced to their new
their own production goals. In one experiment, Bavelas encouraged a group job in the usual way. A meeting was held, the economic reasons the job had
of high-producing workers to discuss the barriers to increased production, to be changed were provided, the new piecerates were explained, the work•
consider how to overcome these barriers, and set an appropriate production ers were allowed to ask questions, and the meeting was adjourned. By con•
goal. This group ultimately increased production from 75 to 90 units per hour trast, the thirteen members of the partial participation group were given a
and maintained it for 5 months. Lewin concluded that a person's decision to lengthy presentation demonstrating falling prices and the necessity of reduc•
pursue a goal links motivation to action. Simply discussing how to achieve a ing costs by folding pants in addition to folding coats as they had done in the
higher level of performance has little effect. It is the commitment to self and past. The n they were asked to choose representatives to participate in re•
to the work group that leads to greater work effort. designing the job, setting more stringent piecerates, and training their fellow
In another early experiment a small group of workers was allowed to man• members to perform the redesigned job. Finally, two small groups of pajama
age their own hourly and daily work levels through the use of pace cards. They inspectors engaged in full participation. Rather than choosing representa•
could set whatever hourly goals they wished as long as the daily standard they tives, all group members participated in redesigning the job and helping the
set for themselves was reached.This group increased its production from 67 units efficiency expert set new piecerates.The members made suggestions "in such
to 82 units per hour. In this instance, Lewin concluded that the combination of self- quantity that the stenographer had difficulty in recording them."
15
management in setting goals and the use of the pacing cards removed much of The differences in outcomes among the groups were dramatic. Members
the tension associated with close supervision and thus strengthened the field forces of the control group never returned to their former level of 60 units per hour,
favoring higher production relative to those favoring lower production. choosing instead to restrict output to 50 units per hour. They also expressed
2 CHAPTER PARTICIPATIVE MA NA GEME NT 2
considerable hostility toward management and suffered a 17 percent quit rate

LEWIN' S CONTRIBUTION S T O
in the first 40 days. Members of the partial participation group returned to
their former level of efficiency within 14 days with no expression of hostility ORGANIZATIO N THEOR Y
and with no one quitting. Finally, members of the full participation groups re•
turned to their former level of productivity in just a few days and then main• Although Kurt Lewin was not himself an organization theorist, his ideas and re•
tained a productivity rate 14 percent above their former level and without search findings had a profound impact on the newly emerging field of organiza•
suffering any dropouts. As a final check, the control group was broken up and tional behavior. His experiments in group dynamics drew other scholars to the
scattered throughout the plant for nearly 3 months and then brought back to• study of leadership, team building, and interpersonal competence. His commit•
gether to learn a new job under the full participation method. They quickly ment to action research sparked interest in organization development, a field of
learned their new job and achieved a level of productivity much higher than research and practice that encourages social scientists to serve as change agents
their previous level. by diagnosing organizational ills and intervening to restore organizational health.
The results of this experiment indicated that participation produces higher His concept of leadership training, with its emphasis on open communication, self-
morale and motivation and lower turnover and that the rate of learning a new awareness, and active learning, led to the establishment of the National Training
job is directly proportional to the amount of participation. Consistent with Laboratories Institute, which continues to operate today, more than 50 years after it
Lewin's field theory, Coch and French concluded that participation in plan• was founded. Finally, as we shall see, his research findings and hu• manistic ideals
ning the required changes altered the forces tending to push productivity up• greatly influenced a new generation of human resources theo• rists, including
ward and downward. Group participation apparently led the workers to Rensis Likert, Chris Argyris, and Douglas McGregor.
believe that returning to 60 units per hour was possible (a reduction in down•
ward forces experienced previously in the form of hopelessness), and to feel
no need to restrict output or defy management (a reduction in downward
forces experienced previously in the form of resentment over lost power and RENSI S LIKERT' S THEOR Y O F
status). In addition, the opportunity to set their own goals caused them to take
PARTICIPATIV E MANAGEMEN T
personal ownership of the higher aspirations that they had set for themselves
(a new upward force). The importance of engendering feelings of personal
Rensis Likert, a personal friend of Lewin, accepted the challenge of carrying on
ownership would later become a key theme in human resources theory and
Lewin's research in group dynamics. In contrast to the human resources theorists
the larger emphasis on group decision making would come to be known as discussed in the next chapter, Likert took a more deductive approach to theory
participative management. building. Whereas Argyris and McGregor derived many of their ideas by reason•
On e other experiment conducted at Harwood greatly influenced hu• ing inductively from existing theories of personality and human motivation, Lik•
man resources theory. Bavelas had once told Lewin that it would be an easy ert developed his ideas primarily from empirical research. Unconstrained by any
matter to train people to be more democratic. Lewin pressed him to sketch particular theory, Likert drew upon a wide range of ideas to make sense of the
out how he would do so. Later, after French had taken over Bavelas' work results of studies he conducted with his colleagues at the Institute for Social Re •
at Harwood, Lewin discussed with French the idea of setting up a new search. Second, his contributions were narrower in scope than those of either Ar•
program of leadership training in which all levels of supervisors would gyris or McGregor. As a consequence of carrying on Lewin's research in group
participate. Rol e playing, sociodrama, problem solving, exercises in self- dynamics, Likert focused almost exclusively on the study of alternative systems of
examination, and other techniques of active learning were to be used. The leadership. Finally, Likert's conclusions were considerably more prescriptive. He
overall purpose of French's subsequent experiment in leadership training believed that "a new pattern of management" had emerged in recent years and he
"was to equip the supervisors with more effective methods of winning co• strongly endorsed that pattern as the best means of creating and sustaining high-
operation, building trust, improving morale, and handling the disciplinary performance organizations. Argryis and McGregor, by contrast, were much more
problems of their subordinates." T h e success of this experimen t led Lewin reluctant to prescribe any one-best-way of organizing and managing.
16
to help develop a leadership training program at the request of the Con • Likert is best known for identifying four distinct types of management systems.
necticut State Inter-Racial Com mis si on . This program led in turn to the
1 7
He conceived of these systems, which he labeled exploitative authoritative, benev•

creation of the National Training Laboratories (NTL). French employed olent authoritative, consultative, and participative group, as lying at fixed intervals
many of his techniques at the first session of the NT L in Bethel, Maine, in along the autocracy-democracy continuum first identified by Lewin, Lippitt,
1947.These early sessions at Bethel led to the development of sensitivity train• and White. Likert viewed these systems not as conceptual categories but as actual
ing, a type of leadership training adopted by many employers in the 1950s patterns of management defined by seven interrelated variables, including the
and 1960s. motivational forces employed by management, the character of communications,
2 CHAPTER
PARTICIPATIV MANAGEME THEO 2
Rensis Likert 1903-1981 E x h i b i t 12.1 Profile of O r g a n i z a t i o n a l C h a ra c te ris tic s
Organizational variables System 1 System 2 System 3 System 4 Item

Rensis Likert was born on August 5,
no.
1903 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He re• lishing the Research Center for 1 Virtually none Some
Substantial
amount 1 A great
1 l i i i 1 1 1 I 1 f
Group Dynamics at MIT. In 1946 l l l i deal 1 1 1
1 9
How much confidence and trust is shown in subordinates?
,
1 I
ceived his bachelor's degree at the
j Not very free Somewhat free 1 Quite free 1 Very free
University of Michigan in 1926 and his Likert and his colleagues established How free do they feel to talk to superiors about job? 1 1 1 t 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 l l i 1 l i i i
doctoral degree at Columbia Univer• the Survey Research Center at the How often are subordinates' ideas sought and
1 Seldom Sometimes 1 Often IVery frequently
1 1 l l l 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I I I I !
sity in 1932. Likert's particular area of University of Michigan. Whe n Lewin used constructively?
1. 2, 3, 4, . 5, 4, based on
expertise in psychology was the statis• died the following year, Likert 1 occasionally 4 some 3
Is predominant use made of 1 fear, 2 threats, 1 1 1 I I l l l i 4, some 3 and 51
tical measurement of social attitudes. arranged to move the Research Cen• 3 punishment, 4 rewards, 5 involvement?
Top and group
1 Mostly at top middle 1| At all levels
In a monograph published in 1932 he ter for Group Dynamics to Michigan. Where is responsibility felt for achieving 1 1 1 1 1 1 I
FaIirlyI geni
1 1 1 1 1
1 I erial
introduced the five-point Likert scale, The tw o centers w ere merged to organization's goals? 1 l l l
which continues to be widely used in form the Institute for Social Re• 1 Very little
Relatively Moderate
search. Much of the research con•
How much cooperative teamwork exists? 1 1 1 1 I 1
little
1 amount
1 1 1 1
j Great deal
1 l i i i
survey research today. After gradu• 1 1
1 8
Mostly
1 Downward Down and Down, up, and
ating from Columbia University, Likert ducted by the Institute carried on What is the usual direction of information flow? up sideways
downward
taught at New York University for a Lewin's work on leadership, motiva• 1 1 I I I 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 I
1 1 1 1 1
Possibly With a
few years before moving to Washing• tion, and group decision making. How is downward communication accepted?
With suspicion
With caution [receptive mind |
with suspicion 1 l l l 1 111I1
ton, D.C., to work for the federal gov• Studies were conducted by an im• 1 1 l i i 1 1 1 1
8
pressive team of researchers, includ• Usually Often Often

ernment. His government service How accurate is upward communication? 1 inaccurate inaccurate accurate
Almost always
accurate 9
included stints as head of the Depart• ing Dorwin Cartwright, Daniel Katz, 1 1 I I I 1 1 1 I 1 1 1 1 1 1 I I I |
How well do superiors know problems faced by
ment of Agriculture's Division of Pro• Robert Kahn, Stanley Seashore, Alvin subordinates? 1 Not very well Rather well
1 1 1 I
Quite well 1 Very well
10
! 1 1 I 1 1 1 1 I 1
gram Surveys and chief of the morale Zander, and Arnold Tannenbaum. 1 1 l l | |
division of the United States Strategic Likert continued to serve as the insti• Policy at top, Broad policy Throughout
At what level are decisions made? some at top, more but well
Bombing Survey. During the war years tute's director and as professor of 1 Mostly at top delegation
psychology and sociology until his re•
1 1 1 1 I 1 1 1 1
delegation
1 1 1 I
1 integrated 1
I 1 1 1 I I
he served with Kurt Lewin on an advi• Are subordinates involved in decisions related to
Occasionally Generally
sory committee to the Office of Naval tirement from the university in 1971. their work? 1 Almost never i consulted consulted 1 Fully involved j 12
1 1 1 1 1 1 I ' l l 1 l 1 l 1 1 1 1 I 1
Research. In 1944 he arranged a He then established a management What does decision-making process contribute to
Relatively Some Substantial
meeting between Lewin and Douglas consulting firm and continued to motivation? I Not very much I little contribution contribution 1 13
1 1 1 1 1 1 , 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I |
McGregor to discuss plans for estab• work as a researcher and consultant After
Orders, some By group
How are organizational goals established? Orders
until his death on September 3, 1981. issued
'.omments discussion, action (except
14
invited by orders in crisis)
1 1 1 1 l l !
1 1 1 1 1 11I 1 1 I I | |
Some
Strong Moderate Little
How much covert resistance to goals is present? resistance
at times or none .
resistance i resistance
1 1 1 1 1 11 1 1 I 1
j
i 1 1 l l i 1 I 1 I 15
key books, New Patterns of ManagementVery(1961)

highly and The Human
Moderate
Organization
Quite highly delegation to Widely
at top at top lower levels shared i
1 I 1 I 1
and the methods of decision making and supervision. Because each represents 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I
20
1 Sometimes ô - same goals

a distinct pattern, a manager who is autocratic and nonparticipatory in respect to 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Usually
l l l 1 1 1 1 1
as formal 1
1 1 1 1 1
one variable tends to be so in respect to the other variables as well. Policing, Reward and Reward, some Self-
guidance,
Likert and his colleagues used these variables to develop a survey instrument 1 punishment i
self-guidance
1 1
for diagnosing organizational health, one version of which is shown in Exhibit
12.1. In one organization after another they administered the survey to employ•
ees and used the results to determine both the current pattern of management
and the relationship between each unit's management pattern and its level of
productivity. Likert concluded from these studies that the participative group
pattern, or what he called more neutrally System 4, is clearly superior in its abil•
ity to create and sustain high levels of productivity. It is a system that calls on
workers at all levels to participate in setting goals, making decisions, and solving
problems. While acknowledging that participatory methods require emotion•
ally and socially mature personalities, Likert concluded that one of the distinc•
tive advantages of group decision making is that it can, by involving everyone
in decision making, help develop emotionally and socially mature persons ca•
pable of effective interaction, initiative, and leadership.
Likert's research findings and theoretical conclusions are discussed in two
2 CHAPTER
PARTICIPATIV MANAGEME THEO 2
How concentrated are review and control functions?

16
Is there an informal organization resisting the formal

one?
17
What are the cost, productivity, and other control data

used for?
18
SO URC E: Modified from Appendix II in The Human Organization: Its Management and Value by Rensis Likert.
Copyright © 1967 by McGraw-Hill, Inc. Reproduced with permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies.
(1967). In these books, System 4's superiority is attributed to three interrelated

aspects of leadership: establishing supportive relationships, using group methods
of decision making and supervision, and setting high performance goals. Likert
viewed these aspects of leadership as causal variables. They affect important in•
tervening variables, such as morale, loyalty, and cooperativeness, which in turn
affect important outcome variables such as profits, turnover, and service quality.
In taking this view, Likert broke ranks with the human relations theorists. He
argued that it makes no sense to try to influence employee morale, loyalty, or
cooperativeness without first altering the three causal variables that ultimately
determine organizational performance. As he put it, " . . . while employees may
like the place—much as they would like a country club—the conversion of
28 4 CHAPTER TWELVE PARTICIPATIVE MA NAGEME NT THEORY 28 5
favorable attitudes into high productivity depends on how well supervisors, budgets, controlling costs, organizing the work, or discussing any number of
managers, and the line organization perform their leadership tasks."
21
ways to improve organizational performance. Under group-based supervision,

These three elements—supportive relations, group decision making, and high collective self-control reduces the need for hierarchical control and group de•
performance goals—comprise Likert's theory of participative management. It is, cisions generally replace individual directives.
in essence, a theory of organizational effectiveness. As discussed in the sections that This highly participatory approach to management is very different from
follow, it holds that high productivity is achieved when managers succeed in cre• the traditional approach. Among other things, it requires supervisors at all lev•
ating tighdy knit social systems comprising interlocking work groups. els to be highly skilled in group dynamics. They must be able to build trust,
encourage open communications, create a sense of collective responsibility, in•
The Principle of Supportive Relationships tegrate disparate individuals into a cohesive team, and facilitate group decision
making even when the required solutions seem obvious to them. And they
The first element in Likert's theory of participative management is success in es•
must apply these skills while limiting their use of formal authority and de-
tablishing supportive workplace relationships. According to Likert, relationships
emphasizing their hierarchical status.
are supportive "when the individual involved sees the experience (in terms of his
values, goals, expectations, and aspirations) as contributing to or maintaining his Likert acknowledged that situations often arise when there is no time for
sense of personal worth and importance." 2 2
In language reminiscent of Mayo group discussion and consensus building, and in such situations the supervisor
and Roethlisberger's discussion of considerate leadership, Likert argues that managers will have to make decisions unilaterally. Nonetheless, he advocated using the
must get to know their employees as individuals, demonstrate genuine interest in participatory approach whenever possible because he believed research had
their well-being and success as employees, and accord them trust and respect. This demonstrated its clear advantages. Studies undertaken by the Institute for So•
employee-centered approach to supervision stands in contrast to the traditional job- cial Research led him to conclude that "Managers who have a supportive atti•
centered approach that relies on pressure tactics, close supervision, and threat of tude toward their men and endeavor to build them into well-knit groups
punishment. In practice, being supportive means exercising general rather than close obtain appreciably higher productivity than managers who have a threatening
attitude and rely more on man-to-ma n patterns of supervision." 25
supervision, allowing workers to learn from their mistakes without reinforc• ing
their lessons with sanctions, ensuring that they are well-trained, and defend• ing What explains the apparent superiority of group methods? Likert believed
them to higher authorities when they raise legitimate concerns. that teamwork produces a unique synergy that creates enthusiasm for the col•
Likert's conclusion that a supportive, employee-centered style of supervi• lective task and keeps members focused on attaining their shared objectives.
sion is an essential determinant of organizational performance was based largely This occurs because participation taps the full spectrum of economic and
on the findings of studies conducted by the Institute for Social Research. He noneconomic motives. First, group members are motivated by economic re•
wrote in 1958, for example, that research findings "demonstrate that, on the av• wards when pay bonuses are distributed based on the performance of the
erage, pressure-oriented, threatening, punitive management yields lower pro• group as a whole. Likert cited as an example the effectiveness of the revenue
ductivity, higher costs, increased absence, and less employee satisfaction than sharing component of the Scanlon Plan that was widely adopted in the 1960s.
supportive, employee-centered management." As the Hawthorn e researchers
23 Second, members receive external, noneconomic rewards in the form of
discovered, the way reality is perceived by workers is what matters most. Likert social recognition and support from other members of the group. Likert be•
made much of this lesson. The attitudes of workers are likely to be more posi• lieved that "most persons are highly motivated to behave in ways consistent
tive and their level of performance higher, he concluded, if their workplace ex• with the goals and values of their work group in order to obtain recognition,
support, security, and favorable reactions from this group." Consequently, he
26
periences are perceived as ego-building rather than ego-deflating.

24
attached great importance to social needs and the power of groups to satisfy
them. As demonstrated in the relay assembly room test at the Hawthorne
Group Decision Making
plant, teamwork creates social cohesion, comradery, and group loyalty. Once
The second element in Likert's theory of participative management is group- these conditions are created, team members are motivated to do their part in
based supervision and decision making. Managers operating under traditional helping to achieve agreed-upon objectives.This results both from a sense of
management systems, according to Likert, make decisions unilaterally and su• belongingness and a desire not to let the team down. Likert used the term peer-
pervise workers individually through " one -t o- on e " interactions. Under Sys• group loyalty in referring to this source of motivation. In his words, "the greater
tem 4, by contrast, managers involve all members of the work group in making the loyalty of the members of a group toward the group, the greater is the mo •
decisions and exercise supervision over the group as a whole. Whether a group tivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater
comprises the members of a work unit or individuals brought together from is the probability that the group will achieve its goals."
27
various levels and functional areas, its members are invited to participate in Third, members derive intrinsic rewards as they take pride in their accom•
solving work-related problems and making the decisions that affect them as plishments and satisfaction in knowing that they are contributing to the attain•
employees.They may be invited, for example, to participate in setting goals and ment of organizational objectives. Here Likert emphasizes the ego needs as a
28 6 CHAPTER TWELVE PARTICIPATIVE MAN AGEMENT THEORY 28 7
source of motivation. Group decision making enables employees to increase voiced at group meetings, participants are able to develop a more global, less
their sense of self-worth as they develop new abilities, express their unique tal• parochial understanding of key issues and institutional concerns.They are also bet•
ents, and contribute to the success of the group. In addition to providing ego sat• ter positioned to resolve interunit conflicts. For example, if the decisions of two
isfactions, these intrinsic rewards also enhance each member's commitment to groups are conflicting or incompatible, the linking pins can bring these discrepan•
group goals. As Likert put it, "Since the goals of the group are arrived at through cies to the attention of both groups and conflicts can be discussed and resolved.
group decisions, each individual group member tends to have a high level of ego Members of each group can learn how their actions may be adversely affecting the
identification with the goals because of his involvement in the decisions."
2 8
performance of other groups and can take corrective action as needed. In short, a
Ac• cording to Likert, group members experience a sense of ownership in system of interlocking work groups facilitates coordination by breaking down the
decisions they help make and are more willing to make personal sacrifices on behalf insular and bureaucratic character of highly functionalized organizations.
of the group and the organization as a whole. It is interesting to note, however,
that Likert emphasizes the importance of the intrinsic rewards inherent in group de• High Performance Goals
cision making but not those associated with the work itself. In contrast to Ar-
gyris and McGregor, Likert seems to suggest that work need not be interesting Likert did not write at great length about the third element in his theory of par•
and challenging as long as workers are able to take pride in knowing that they ticipative management. He simply noted that high performance goals, like sup-
are making important contributions to organizational objectives. portiveness and group involvement, correlated highly with productivity in
Thus it is the combination of motivational factors inherent in teamwork— studies conducted by the Institute for Social Research. A study of forty sales of•
economic and noneconomic, extrinsic and intrinsic—that explains the power fices by Bowers and Seashore, for example, revealed a statistically significant rela•
of groups as a means of developing and mobilizing human resources. As the tionship between high productivity and high performance goals. But high
principle of supportive relationships is adopted, Likert wrote, "the full power performance goals alone was not the causal factor. Productivity was high only in
from each of the available motives will be added to that from the others to yield those units where managers also established supportive relationships and super•
a maximu m of coordinated, enthusiastic effort." Stated differently, teamwork
29 vised through group methods. Rather than imposing goals and putting unrea•
is a powerful vehicle for mobilizing human potential because it offers an expe• sonable pressure on the sales staff to produce, the most successful managers
rience that is viewed by workers as both supportive and need-fulfilling. communicated their own high aspirations and encouraged staff members to set
There is one more thing that management can do, according to Likert, to high goals for themselves. Although the reasons for the success of this approach
ensure that their organizations gain full benefit from group decision making. It were not entirely clear, Likert speculated that the members of the sales staff,
can adopt the overlapping group for m of organization. This involves cre• rather than resenting being pressured to perform, felt encouraged and supported
ating an interlocking system of work groups in which the "supervisor" of a in determining their own goals and engaged in mutual coaching, training,
work group at one organizational level also participates as a "subordinate" in and encouragement as a result. These findings helped bolster Likert's contention
another group at the next higher level. Likert referred to the individuals who that his theory of participative management, as reflected in System 4, is integra•
hold these overlapping group memberships as "linking pins." Although these tive in nature. All three elements—supportiveness, group involvement, and high
groups are normally permanent line or staff work groups, they can also be ad aspirations—must be present if high performance levels are to be achieved.
hoc committees or cross-functional, problem solving teams comprising mem•
bers from various levels and functional areas.
Likert's concept of multiple, interlocking work groups holds considerable the•
oretical significance because it offers an alternative form of coordination to the LI KERT' S CONTRIBUTION S T O
traditional chain of command. Although the distribution of groups across several
levels of authority still adheres to the scalar principle, communications and hu•
man interactions are no longer tied solely to one-on-one relationships between Likert's theory of participative management represents an interesting and
superiors and subordinates. Because of the interlocking nature of these groups, useful synthesis of human relations and human resources theory. His research
those at lower levels can communicate concerns upward and thus influence the findings support the human relations view that employee-centered super•
decisions of those at higher levels. Citing a study by Pelz, Likert noted that morale vision and group loyalty are important sources of motivation. His findings also
and motivation are highest in units in which managers are perceived as being ef• support the human resources view that participation in group decision making
fective in exerting influence upward to protect and promote the interests of the and high performance goals are important motivators. Although he attached lit•
work unit. Upward communication also allows top managers to obtain the accu• tle importance to the concept of self-actualization or the practice of job enrich•
rate and relevant information they need to make effective decisions. ment (see Chapter 13), he did emphasize the importance of building human
Coordination is also enhanced by involving greater numbers of people in col• capacity, a key theme in human resources theory. He encouraged organizations
lective problem solving. As different concerns and institutional perspectives are to measure intervening variables such as morale, commitment, and peer-group
2 CHAPTER
PARTICIPATIVE MAN AGE MENT Z8»
loyalty because they are important indicators of organizational health and ulti•
mately organizational performance. Whereas Systems 1 and 2 can achieve Models of Organizational Effectiveness
higher levels of productivity than System 4 in the short run, Likert concluded Because it focuses on individual and group behavior, participative management
that they do so by liquidating the organization's human assets, something they theory emphasizes the internally directed models of effectiveness: the internal
cannot afford to do for very long. Although building human assets through Sys• process and h um a n relations m o d e l s . But, because it holds that setting
tem 4 may take several years and require large investments, Likert insisted that it high performance goals is one of the key determinants of organizational suc•
is the only way to achieve positive results over the long term. cess, participative management theory also emphasizes the values associated
Critics were highly uncomfortable with Likert's prescriptive, one-best-way with the rational goal m o d el . As indicated in Exhibit 12.2, participative
approach. Nonetheless, research conducted by Likert and his associates over management theory advocates a supportive, employee-centered leadership
many years and in a wide variety of organizations has demonstrated that positive style that allows for the successful integration of individual and organizational
results are possible where employee-centered supervision and group methods of goals, thereby balancing the effectiveness values associated with three of the
decision making are adopted. This evidence comes from organizations as diverse four models of effectiveness.
as General Motors and the Hawaii State Department of Labor and Industrial
Relations. While acknowledging that System 4 is rarely implemented com•
3 0
pletely, especially on an organizationwide basis, Likert nonetheless viewed it as a Exhibit 12.2 The Competing Values Framework:
realistic goal toward which to aspire. To those critics who dismissed System 4 as Four Models of Organizational Effectiveness
impractical because group decision making takes too much time, Likert re•
sponded that we simply haven't learned to do it skillfully and efficiently. This Flexibility
problem will correct itself, he argued, once every member of the organization
develops and practices team leadership skills. Because he understood that this is a Pattern maintenance/Tension Adaptive function: the need
very real problem, he devoted much of his work to defining the skills required maintain a competent, integrated, to an uncertain environment
for practicing employee-centered leadership and group methods of decision and dedicated workforce
making. Along with Douglas McGregor, he helped establish the theoretical
foundations of today's literature on team building and employee empowerment. Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values:
Likert also responded to those critics who dismissed System 4 as impractical HUMAN cohesion,
flexibility, OPEN
RELATIONS morale
because most managers either lack the personality for employee-centered leader• readiness SYSTEMS
MODEL
ship or cannot overcome their fear of losing control. Likert's work as a researcher MODEL
and a consultant led him to conclude that most managers can make the transition human resource growth,
to System 4 successfully and that their fears about adopting System 4 are generally development resource acquisition
Internal
unwarranted. In an article completed just before his death in 1981 Likert wrote: Output Quality External
focus
focus
Some managers are afraid that if they move toward System 4, their em•
ployees will take advantage of the leeway that System 4 gives them. They Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values:
fear that employees will usurp authority and that the manager will lose INTERNAL info, management, planning, RATIONAL
control. They fear that employees will press for a large share of the gains in PROCESS communication
goal setting GOAL
MODEL
performance brought about by the introduction of System 4. These fears Ends-oriented values:
MODEL
are unwarranted.Virtually without exception, employees respond respon• stability,
productivity,
sibly and with increased cooperation and greater productivity when their control
efficiency
managers move toward System 4.
3 1

activities
R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N
T
o m w r T S ^ « 3 and 4 . Robert O . Quinn and Joh n Rohrbaugh "A Spatial Model
A d a P t h P e r m i S S i o n f r o m F i
The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of participative manage•

T
ment theory for pubhc management and organizational performance. This ex• TOW lnStltUte
Research and the Mana gem ent SclcesONFORM S 90 1 E l2d f T p'T' ° °Perati nS
2
ploration
CHAPTER
is guided by the three analytical frameworks introduced in Chapter 3. 21090-2909 USA. (IN FO RMS), 901
PARTICIPATIVE Elkndge
MAN AGELandmg
MENT Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland
2 CHAPTER PARTICIPATIVE MA NA GE ME NT 2
The highly participatory system of management advocated by Likert alters Exh ib it 12.3 Si x Me c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d Co n tro llin g Wor k Ac tivitie s
the way the goal attainment and integrative functions are traditionally per•
formed. Th e rational goal model, for example, emphasizes goal-setting as a Mutual adjustment Workers consult with each other informally about what
means of enhancing productivity. But, whereas System 1 managers set goals at needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor•
the top and pass them down the chain of command for implementation, Sys• Direct supervision A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of
tem 4 managers set general goals and then delegate the task of setting more workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte•
specific goals to groups at each lower level. These groups make decisions grate the efforts of all work groups. The supervisor issues
through a deliberative process that involves everyone responsible for achieving
the agreed-upon goals. developing rules and standard operating procedures speci•
work processes
The internal process model emphasizes performance measurement and in• fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina•
formation management as means of maintaining coordination and control.
But, whereas Systeml managers collect information centrally and then apply Work outputs are programmed in advance by providing
Standardization of
rewards and sanctions to correct undesired behaviors, System 4 managers dele• work outputs
gate the task of information collection and corrective action to the members mance goals and allowing members considerable latitude in
of each organizational unit, with coordination achieved through the system of collecting output data, requiring corrective action when
overlapping groups. needed, and rewarding and sanctioning workers based on
Thus, if participative management theory does not envision the complete results achieved.
integration of all four models of effectiveness, it does advocate an approach to Standardization of Workers are employed who possess the knowledge and
management that integrates three sets of effectiveness values. In doing so it sets worker skills skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in•
forth the broad outlines of an alternative to classical management theory.
Mechanisms for Coordinating Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear
of values vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should
and Controlling Work Activities be headed, and what values should guide it. Coordination
As indicated in Exhibit 12.3, participative management theory advocates mu • members to shared, internalized values and ideals.
tual adjustment as an alternative to direct supervision. Responsibility is S OUR C E: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7).
given to the members of each organizational unit to set their own individual
and collective goals as long as they are consistent with goals and policies set at
higher levels of the organization. Mutual adjustment occurs as supervisory and
nonsupervisory workers participate in a system of hierarchically arranged
groups with overlapping memberships. According to Likert, a system of this
kind provides opportunities to resolve conflicts, fashion decisions appropriate Although Likert acknowledged that workers are motivated by a broad range
to the group's situation, and exercise collective self-control.The members of of economic and noneconomic motivators, System 4 management relies heav•
the semi-autonomous work groups also experience fewer of the debilitating ily on the considerate leadership and group acceptance strategies. The c on •
tensions associated with what Likert called one-on-one supervision. siderate leadership strategy is reflected in Likert's concept of supportive
Lewin, Lippitt, and White, as well as Likert, acknowledged that participative supervision.The supportive supervisor accords workers trust and respect, helps
management requires greater investments in time and patience than less partici• them develop their capabilities, and allows them considerable autonomy.
patory systems but argued that the payoffs in terms of morale, motivation, and or• Whereas human relations theory viewed considerate leadership as providing
ganizational performance outweigh the costs. This may be especially true in extrinsic rewards in the form of attention and praise from supervisors, partici•
public agencies where employees are well-educated and the work requires con• pative management theory emphasizes the intrinsic rewards that accrue to em•
siderable independent judgment. Highly educated employees are not likely to re• ployees as their ego needs are met through personal growth and a strengthened
spond well to an autocratic management style that robs them of personal dignity sense of self-worth.
and opportunities to demonstrate initiative. And where work is nonroutine, work As shown in Exhibit 12.4, the group acceptance strategy is also re•
standardization and direct supervision are generally ineffective as mechanisms of flected in participative management theory. After investigating why productiv•
coordination and control. Consequendy mutual adjustment through group deci• ity tended to increase under System 4 management, Likert concluded that the
sion making may be well-suited to the needs of many public agencies. key variable was group participation in goal setting and decision making. His
CHAPTER TWELVE PARTICIPATIVE MA NA G E ME NT THEORY 293
292
research suggested that a sense of group loyalty developed among group mem• Likert did not believe that jobs have to be interesting and challenging for
bers that motivated them to work harder and make personal sacrifices on be• workers to be motivated. Nonetheless, the jo b identification strategy is at
half of the group. In Likert's view, heightened motivation occurred for two least implied in participative management theory. According to the theory of
reasons. First, members obtained extrinsic rewards in the form of recognition job enrichment discussed in the next chapter, participation in group decision
from their peers and satisfaction of their social need for comradery. Second, making makes work interesting and challenging, allows workers to express
members took ownership of decisions and goals that they had set for them• themselves through their work, and provides intrinsic rewards in the form of
selves, worked harder not to let the group down, and obtained intrinsic satis• pride of accomplishment and personal growth.
faction from contributing to the success of the group. Although Likert's research supports the view that System 4 leads to higher
levels of productivity over the long term, participative management should
not be viewed as a panacea. We have learned from systems theory, for exam•
Exhi bi t 12. 4 Four M ot i v at i on al S t r a t eg i e s ple, that individual motivation is determined by the unique interrelationships
among individual, job, and situational characteristics. Some individuals in
Legal Compliance some situations may experience the motivational effects of group decision
Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior. making while others may not. In the final analysis, participation may increase
Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require• job satisfaction and organizational commitment but not necessarily individual
effort.
being sanctioned.
Rewards for Performance SUMMAR Y

Employees may meet or exceed role expectations because they value the material Kurt Lewin and Rensis Likert demonstrated the value of applying social sci•
and psychological satisfactions that money, advancement, and recognition can ence methods to the study of complex organizations. In addition to provid•
provide.
ing a fuller understanding of organizational behavior, their pioneering
Considerate Leadership studies gave rise to organizational development, a new field of research and
professional practice dedicated to diagnosing the problems facing organiza•
who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or tions and restoring them to a state of health. Their research also focused at•
exceed their role requirements. tention on leadership style as an important determinant of individual and
Group Acceptance organizational behavior and exposed the autocratic overtones of traditional
Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group management approaches.
bonds, and enjoy the approval of their peers. This strategy may induce those who Understood as a theory of organizational effectiveness, Likert's theory of
participative management is explicitly prescriptive. It holds that high levels of
organizational performance are achieved by establishing and maintaining sup•
Job Identification portive workplace relationships, developing cohesive work groups and en•
couraging collective decision making, and communicating high performance
innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their expectations. Although generally applicable to all complex organizations, this
work intrinsically rewarding. theory may be particularly relevant to public agencies because civil servants
Goal Congruence tend to be highly educated, desirous of personal growth, and committed to
Hiring employees whose goals and values are congruent with the organization's organizational objectives. Among its implications for public managers are the
and/or socializing employees so that they internalize organizational goals and values. following:
quirements, and exhibit greater creativity, innovativeness, and institutional loyalty. • Supportive workplace relationships. Public managers should demon•
because contributing to them reinforces their own self concept.
strate a genuine interest in and concern for staff members and take pains to
ensure that their work experiences are perceived as ego-building and need-
fulfilling. This is accomplished in part by adopting an egalitarian, employee-
1966), pp. 336-68.
centered leadership style that relies on personal rather than formal authority,
2 CHAPTER PARTICIPATIVE MA NA GE ME NT 2
avoids the special privileges and prerogatives of management, and integrates

individual workers into tighdy knit work groups. According to Likert, NOTE S
employee-centered leadership creates the kind of job satisfaction that pro• 1. . R a y m o n d E. Miles, " H u m a n 12. Marrow, The Practical Theorist, 1 4 - 1 7 .
duces not only higher levels of morale and cooperativeness but also higher Rel ations or H u m a n Re so u rce s , " Harvard
13. . M arrow, The Practical Theorist, 141 .
levels of individual and group performance. Business Review 43 (July-August 1 96 5) :1 48 -
63 . 14. Lester C o c h and J oh n R. R French,
• Group decision m akin g and supervision. Public managers should 2. See Alfred J. Marrow, The Practical Theo• Jr., " O v e r c o m i n g Re si st an ce to C h a n g e , "
seek to supervise staff members as a group, welding them into cohesive rist: The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin (Ne w Human Relations 1 (August 1948):
work teams and encouraging them to set their own goals, solve their York: Teachers College Press, Co l u m b i a 512-13 .
own problems, and make their own decisions. Rejecting Taylor's princi• University, 1977). 15. Coc h and F r e n c h , " O v e r c o m i n g
ple that managers should set policies and procedures and workers should 3. . Alfred J. Marrow, "Events Leading to Resistance to Ch an ge ," 5 2 1 -2 2 .
execute them, participative management theory calls for involving the Establishment of the National Training 16. Marro w, The Practical Theorist, 146 .
workers in making the decisions that affect them and their unit's perfor• Laboratories,"JoMmfl/ of Applied Behavioral
17. Marrow, The Practical Theorist, 210 .
Science 3 (April-June 1967): 146.
mance. The workplace experience becomes ego-building and need-
4. F.J. R oethlisberg er, The Elusive Phe• 18. Rensis Likert, " A Te ch ni qu e for the
fulfilling as workers develop mutual respect and take pride in their
nomena (Boston: G raduate School of Busi• M e a s u r e m e n t of Attitudes," Archives of
collective accomplishments.
ness Administration, Harvard University, Psychology 22 (No. 140, June 1932): 1-55.
• Hig h performance expectations. Likert found that performance is 1977), C hapte r 18. 19. Marrow, The Practical Theorist, 164.
highest in those organizational units where managers set high work per• 5. . See, for example, Doug las M cG r e g o r , 20. Rensis Likert, The Human Organization
formance expectations and encourage workers to set high performance "Foreword,"_/owfW of Social Issues 4 (Sum• (New York: M c G r a w -H i l l , 1967), 1 3-26 .
me r 1948): 2- 4 .
goals for themselves as a unit. According to participative management the• 21 . Rensis Likert, New Patterns of Manage•
ory, workers respond positively because they value what the organization 6. Kur t Lewin, Field Theory in Social Sci•
ment ( Ne w Y o rk : M c G ra w - H i l l , 1961), 14.
ence: Selected Theoretical Papers (Westport,
exists to achieve, they take ownership of goals they helped establish, and 22 . Likert, New Patterns of Management, 103.
CT : G re e n w o o d Press, 1951).
they are motivated by both the pursuit of challenging goals and the sense
7. . R o n a l d Lippitt, "A n E x p e r i m e n t a l 23 . Rensis Likert, "M e a s u r i n g O rg a n i z a •
of accomplishment that comes with attaining them.
Study of the Effect of D e m o c ra t i c and tional Performance," Harvard Business Re•
• Building human capacity. The common theme in the three major ele• Authoritarian G rou p A tmospheres," Uni• view 36 (March -Ap ril 1958): 45 .
ments of participative management theory is the importance of building versity of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare 16 24. . Likert, The Human Organization, 47 .
(No. 3 , 1 94 0) : 4 5 - 1 9 5 .
human capacity and realizing its full potential. Whereas autocratic leader• 25. . Likert, New Patterns of Management, 120.
ship undermines morale and motivation and gradually liquidates the orga• 8. . R a l p h K . W h i t e and R o n a l d
26. Likert, New Patterns of Management, 104.
Lippitt, Autocracy and Democracy:An
nization's human assets, participative leadership develops and uses human
Experimental Inquiry ( Ne w Y o r k : H a rp e r & 27. . Likert, The Human Organization, 64 .
resources in ways that benefit both the organization and its members. Par• Brot hers, 1960), 285 .
28. . Likert, New Patterns of Management, 111 .
ticipative management theory thus suggests that public managers do all
9. . Ku r t Lewin, R o n al d Lippitt, and
they can to develop the capacities of staff members and help them realize 29. . Likert, New Patterns of Management, 103 .
R a l p h K . W h i t e , "Patterns of Aggressive
their fullest potentials. Behavior in E xperimentally Created 30. . Wi lli am F. D o wl i n g , "System 4
"Social Cli - mates," Journal of Social Builds Performance and Profits,"
Lewin and Likert carried forth the humanistic tradition in organization Psychology 10 (May 1939): 2 7 1 - 9 9 ; W h i t e Organizational Dynamics 3 (Winter 1975): 2 3 -
theory begun by, among others, Follett, Mayo, and Roethlisberger.They crit• and Lippitt, Autoc• racy and Democracy. 3 8 ; and Rensis Likert, "Syst em 4: A R e s o u r c e
icized Taylor for failing to appreciate the importance of jo b satisfaction to for I mp rov in g Public Administration, " Public
10. W h i t e and Lippitt, Autocracy and
personal well-being and they helped reveal the limitations of human rela• Democracy.
Administration Review 41 (November /
tions theory by suggesting that personal attention and sensitive treatment D e c e m b e r 1981): 6 7 4 - 7 8 .
11 . M i r i a m Lewin Papanek, "Ku r t Lewin
alone are not sufficient. For organizations to be effective they must alter the and His C o n t ri b u t i o n s t o M o d e r n M a n • 31 . Likert, "System 4 : A Re s o u r c e for
basic distribution of power and authority between managers and workers, ag em en t Theory, " A ca de m y of M a n a g e • I m p ro v i ng Public Administ ratio n," 677 .
delegating more responsibility to workers and allowing them to become ment , Proceedings, Th i r t y - T h i r d An nu al
much more self-directing and self-controlling. Ho w to do so will become Meeting.1973,318 .
clearer as we consider the works of Douglas McGregor and Chris Argyris in

Chapter 13.
HUMAN RESOURCES 2
MASLOW' S HIERARCH Y OF NEED S

1 3
Psychologist Abraham Maslow first articulated his theory of human needs in

an article published in 1943. A decade later he expanded upon his theory in
1
a book entided Motivation and Personality. Maslow believed that it is possible

2
to identify basic human needs, that these needs tend to fall into one of five cate•
Human
gories, and that these categories exist in a hierarchical order according to their
level of biological urgency. Whe n several needs compete for attention, the
most biologically urgent takes priority. Once a lower need has been largely sat•
Resources
isfied, the next higher need pops up to take its place as a source of motivation.
An important implication is that "a want that is satisfied is no longer a want.
The organism is dominated and its behavior organized only by unsatisfied
Theory
needs." This helps to explain, for example, why workers may be motivated
3
by different things. Events in a worker's life or factors peculiar to the individual's

personality may cause the worker to function at a lower level of need than
other workers.
At the lowest level of the needs hierarchy are the physiological needs.
Douglas McGregor They include the need for water, food, air, rest, and sleep. Because life itself de•
pends on them, they are attended to first. Other needs are pushed into the
and Chris Argyris background and capacities not required to satisfy them remain unused. All per•
ceptions, Maslow notes, are colored by their absence. A person completely de•
prived of food, for example, tends to define life itself in terms of eating.
At the second level are the safety needs. Whe n the physiological needs
are reasonably satisfied, humans seek to protect themselves from danger, threat,
or deprivation. For most of us in modern society, Maslow notes, our safety
A
needs are expressed in such things as "the common preferences for a job with
s noted in Chapter 12, human resources theory assumes that workers
tenure and protection, the desire for a savings account, and for insurance of
are reservoirs of untapped resources, that they have the capacity to be self-
various kinds (medical, dental, unemployment, disability, old age)." Th e
4
directing and self-controlling, and that organizational success de•

need for safety is also reflected in a person's preference for things that are routine,
pends on how fully their abilities are developed and utilized. As a theory of or•
familiar, and known. Those with strong neurotic tendencies may never feel safe
ganizational effectiveness, it calls upon managers to develop each person's
and secure. They tend to become safety-seeking mechanisms with all of their
unique talents, create and sustain an environment of openness and trust, re•
capacities devoted to this need.
move constraints on personal autonomy and individual discretion, delegate re•
At the third level of the hierarchy are the social needs, or what Maslow
sponsibility downward, and encourage group decision making. The unifying
originally labeled the belongingness and love needs.This category includes the
theme is the idea that, by providing opportunities for employees to derive in•
need to associate with others and be accepted by others, as well as the need to
trinsic satisfactions from their work, managers can facilitate higher levels of in•
give and receive love and affection.The informal work groups often found in in•
dividual and collective performance.
dustry, such as the one at the Hawthorne plant that conspired to keep produc•
Having already examined the contributions of Rensis Likert to this body
tion low, may be viewed as mechanisms for satisfying safety needs, such as the
of theory, we now turn to those of Douglas McGregor and Chris Argyris.
need for protection from the threat of higher production quotas, and for satisfy•
More so than Likert, McGregor and Argyris were guided by explicit theories
ing the workers' social needs for comradery and association. Efforts to break
of human motivation. Because the groundbreaking works they published in
them up only serve to deny workers opportunities to satisfy these basic needs.
the 1950s and 1960s were influenced by psychologist Abraham Maslow, this
Above the social needs are the esteem needs. They are of two kinds: those
chapter begins with a review of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It then examines
that relate to building one's self-esteem, such as autonomy, achievement, and
the contributions of McGregor and Argyris to the field of organization theory
competence, and those that relate to the esteem provided by others, such as
and closes with an analysis of the implications of human resources theory for
recognition, prestige, and respect. The desire to satisfy the esteem needs may
pubhc management and organizational performance.
have a direct bearing on work performance. According to Maslow, "Satisfaction
of the self-esteem need leads to feelings of self-confidence, worth, strength, ca• Despite the plausibility of Maslow's conceptual framework, it is probably
pability, and adequacy, of being useful and necessary in the world. But thwart• best not to view it as offering a complete and valid theory of human motiva•
ing of these needs produces feelings of inferiority, of weakness, and of tion. Wahba and Bridwell examined the research findings relating to Maslow's
helplessness. These feelings in turn give rise to either basic discouragement or theory and found little evidence to support the notion that there are five dis•
else compensating or neurotic trends." This suggests the importance of
5
tinct categories of needs or that these categories are structured in a special hi•
facili• tating the satisfaction of esteem needs at work while eliminating those erarchy. In 1969 psychologist Clayton Alderfer offered a modified version of
10
aspects of organizational life that thwart their satisfaction. In addition, according to Maslow's conceptual model that may explain actual behavior better than
Maslow, these needs, unlike the lower needs, are rarely satisfied. They remain Maslow's. Alderfer collapsed Maslow's five categories of need into three:
1 1
important sources of motivation because workers will seek to satisfy them in• ex• istence, relatedness, and growth needs. He also rejected the idea of a strict hi•
1 2
definitely once they reach this level of the needs hierarchy. erarchical progression because people are likely to regress under certain
At the highest level of the needs hierarchy are what Maslow called the self- circumstances and because people do not always satisfy their lower needs be•
actualization needs. They include the need for continued development and fore attempting to satisfy their higher needs. Alderfer is probably correct in
fu lfi llmen t Maslow suggests that self-actualization is "the desire to become more
concluding that Maslow's concept of hierarchy is overstated. However, Wahba
and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of and Bridwell did find evidence to support the view that people generally at•
becoming." Someone with the ability to be a great athlete, artist, or parent, for
6
tempt to satisfy deficiency needs before turning to their growth needs.

example, will at this level feel the need to do what it takes to realize his or her fullest Whether or not Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides a complete and valid
potential. Maslow expanded upon his definition of self-actualization in an theory of human motivation, it nonetheless influenced the thinking of human
article originally published in 1950. Here he wrote that individuals operating
7
resources theorists in important ways. In particular it provided the basis for

at the first four levels of the hierarchy experience deficiency motivation. They three key conclusions: that management strategies typically do not allow
are driven by a desire to obtain what they have not yet obtained, such as safety, af• workers to satisfy their higher-level needs, that certain flawed assumptions
fection, and self-esteem. They continue to live in a state of tension until each about human nature are the source of management's failure to adopt more ef•
of these deficiencies is overcome. Once their lower needs have been satisfied fective strategies, and that management reforms will not be effective unless and
and they have matured to a point where self-acceptance and self-esteem are until these assumptions are replaced with more appropriate ones.
high, then they experience what he called growth motivation at the fifth
and final level. This, according to Maslow, is a qualitatively different kind of
motivation, one in which individuals experience a natural tendency to pursue
their potentialities without feeling driven to do so. Things are done not to
TH E HU MA N S I D E O F E N T E R P R I S
overcome deficiencies but to pursue growth and development as ends in
E
themselves.The few individuals who reach this level share certain attributes.
These include a sense of relative peace, detachment from the world and its In 1960 Douglas McGregor published The Human Side of Enterprise, a book
cares, and freedom to explore what they are capable of becoming. Maslow be• destined to become one of the most popular management books ever written.
lieved that in these individuals we can glimpse humankind's "higher nature," Having studied management development programs in several large compa•
one that is essentially good and decent. nies in the early 1950s, McGregor wondered why they seemed so ineffectual.
Although psychologists have expressed a great deal of skepticism about His conclusion, as stated in the preface to his book, was that we have learned
Maslow's understanding of self-actualization as a special state of grace, most very little about how to develop and utilize our human talents. Progress is slow,
have found the idea of a hierarchy of needs plausible and useful. There is
8
he continued, because management is constrained by its own basic assump•

gen• eral agreement among psychologists that many people experience a desire for tions about human nature. The thesis explored in his book is that "the theoret•
personal growth and are motivated to realize their potentials once they feel ical assumptions management holds about controlling its human resources
safe and secure. This desire for growth is not something experienced just by determine the whole character of the enterprise." McGregor believed that
13
the few who reach the top of the needs hierarchy. Maslow seemed to acknowl• social science was now at a point where it could help managers achieve their
edge this point. The typical maturing and psychologically healthy adult, he objectives by helping them "discover how to tap the unrealized potential
wrote, works at satisfying several needs at the same time. In his words, "it is as present in their human resources." 14
if the average citizen is satisfied perhaps 85 percent in his physiological needs, McGregor's analysis begins with the premise that management decisions
70 percent in his safety needs, 50 percent in his love needs, 40 percent in his self- are only as good as the assumptions on which they are based. Physicists and
esteem needs, and 10 percent in his self-actualization needs."
9
engineers, he notes, act in accordance with natural laws; they do not try "to
make water flow upstream." Yet when it comes to influencing human behavior,
1. The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it
Douglas Mc Gr eg or 1906-1964
if he can.
2. Because of this human characteristic of dislike of work, most people must
Douglas McGregor was born in De• and 1948 he served as executive direc•
be coerced, controlled, directed, threatened with punishment to get them
troit, Michigan, on September 16, tor of the industrial relations program
to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organizational
1906. His grandfather founded in
15
at MIT. It was during this period that
Detroit the McGregor Institute, a shel• he played an instrumental role in directives.
ter for homeless men, and McGre• bringing Kurt Lewin to MIT and help• 3. The average human being prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid responsi•
gor's father became the Institute's ing him establish the Research Center
bility, has relatively little ambition, wants security above all. 17
director in 1915. Having grown up in for Group Dynamics. In 1948 McGre•

an intensely religious and caring envi• gor left MIT to become president of Theory X assumptions, McGregor suggests, are widely held. They are im•
ronment, McGregor developed a Antioch College in Ohio, a position
strong concern for humanity. He at• plicit in the literature on organizations and in managerial policy and practice.
that put his human relations skills to
tended City College of Detroit for four the test. In 1954 he returned to MIT as And yet, McGregor argues, they are inherently flawed. The behavioral prob•
years in the mid-1920s, worked for professor of industrial management lems managers often attribute to human nature, such as laziness, lack of ambi•
the McGregor Institute in the early where he taught for another ten tion, and unwillingness to accept responsibility, are actually products of their
1930s, and completed requirements years. McGregor was an advocate of own flawed assumptions.Theory X assumptions prevent managers from seeing
for his bachelor's degree at the City action research and served as a consul•
College of Detroit in 1932. He then that the behavioral problems they observe at work are actually symptoms of
tant for several business corporations.
went on to study psychology at Har• In his master work The Human Side of illness arising from the workers' inability to satisfy their higher-level needs:
vard University, earning his master's Enterprise (1960) McGregor chal•
degree in 1933 and his doctoral de• The man whose needs for safety, association, independence, or status are
lenged prevailing management as•
gree in 1935. sumptions and laid the theoretical thwarted is sick, just as surely as is he who has rickets. And his sickness will
After teaching social psychology at foundations for the contemporary lit• have behavioral consequences. We will be mistaken if we attribute his resul•
Harvard for two years, McGregor ac• erature on empowerment. Douglas tant passivity, or his hostility, or his refusal to accept responsibility to his in•
cepted a position as professor of psy• McGregor died suddenly of a heart at• herent "human nature." These forms of behavior are symptoms of illness—
chology at the Massachusetts Institute tack on October 13, 1964, at the age
of deprivation of his social and egoistic needs.
18
of Technology (MIT). Between 1943 of 58.

Managers are often led by their Theory X assumptions to adopt motiva•
tional strategies geared to satisfying physiological and safety needs. Money, va•
managers do try to make water flow upstream. They remain in complete igno• cations, and health insurance benefits are provided on the assumption that
rance of human needs and how these needs affect behavior. They adopt indi• workers value food on the table, a roof over their heads, recreational opportuni•
vidual incentive plans, for example, based on untested assumptions about ties, and security for themselves and their families. McGregor argues that ex•
human motivation. When the incentive plan fails to boost productivity, blame is trinsic rewards of this kind are ineffective for two reasons. First, they cannot
assigned to the workers rather than the incentive plan. It is always "their stupid• increase interest in the work itself because they only provide satisfaction out•
ity, their uncooperativeness, or their laziness which is seized on as the explana• side the workplace. Second, modern industrial societies already provide for the
tion of what happened, not management's failure to select appropriate means physiological and safety needs of most people. Since, according to Maslow, a sat•
for control." A new theory of management is required, McGregor writes, isfied need is no longer a motivator, management only compounds its difficul•
1 6
one premised on the satisfaction of human needs rather than the exercise of formal ties by providing for needs that have already been met and failing to provide
authority. To flesh out such a theory McGregor adopted Maslow's hierarchy of opportunities to satisfy those that have not. According to McGregor, unless
needs as his point of departure. there are opportunities to satisfy the higher-level needs, workers will feel de•
prived and their deprivation will be reflected in their workplace behaviors.
Theory X Theory X assumptions cause managers to cling to a philosophy of direc•
tion and control. This philosophy does not allow for self-direction and self-
Theory X is the label McGregor gives to a set of assumptions about human na•
control, independence and autonomy, or the other conditions necessary for the
ture and the resulting philosophy of management based on directing and con•
satisfaction of higher-level needs. McGregor concludes that exclusive reliance
trolling workers through the exercise of formal authority, the use of carrots and
on authority as the central, indispensable means of control only serves to make
sticks, and the maintenance of management control systems. As noted above,
workers dependent and insecure, thereby inhibiting creativity, initiative, and
McGregor believed that behind every managerial decision are assumptions about
risk taking. Relationships in modern institutions are highly interdependent.
human nature and behavior.The specific assumptions ofTheory X are these:
Individuals depend on those above, below, and at the same level to satisfy their
30 2 CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HUMAN RESOURCES THEORY
303
needs and realize their goals.This fact is pertinent for managers. Because they thought to doing the same for those at the bottom. Genuine commitment to
are dependent on those below them for their commitment and contribution, organizational objectives cannot be created if managers continue to think in
formal authority backed up with the threat of punishment is largely useless
terms of a basic work-for-wages bargain. It can be created only if ways are
as a means of control. It can induce compliance but only minimal levels of
found to integrate the full range of individual and organizational needs.
commitment and contribution. This .is not to suggest that formal authority
Full and complete integration of needs, McGregor hastens to say, is never
shouldn't be exercised. It must be exercised, for example, in the course of mak•
possible. Nonetheless, it does occur naturally and inevitably where workers are
ing policy, budgeting, and personnel decisions. McGregor only suggests that
genuinely committed to organizational objectives. Committed workers obtain
where workers are seeking to satisfy their higher needs formal authority
satisfactions from achieving organizational objectives and thus advance their
shouldn't be used as the primary means of control. Once managers repudiate
interests and the organization's interests simultaneously. Committed workers
their Theory X assumptions, alternative means of control will reveal themselves.
are also capable of self-direction and self-control, which greatly reduces the
need for external, top-down controls.The key question, then, is how to create
Theory Y
the commitment to organizational objectives that the principle of integration
Theory Y is the label McGregor gives to an alternative set of assumptions requires. According to McGregor, the answer lies in altering the way managers
about human nature and behavior and the resulting philosophy of manage• do business. Once having accepted and internalized Theory Y assumptions,
ment based on integration and self-control. The specific assumptions of The• managers will turn their attention to developing human resources, delegating
ory Y are these: responsibilities downward, and shaking off their obsession with control. These
elements ofTheory Y are discussed in the sections that follow.
1. The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play
or rest.
Full Development and Use of Human Resources
2. External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for
bringing about effort toward organizational objectives. [Humans] will ex• A central theme in human resources theory is that the wise organization devel•
ercise self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which ops and utilizes the potential represented by its human resources as fully as possi•
[they are] committed. ble. Because Theory X assumes the necessity of standardizing work, limiting
discretion, and controlling behavior, organizations that operate according to
3. Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with
Theory X cannot take full advantage of the human potential represented by
their achievement.
their workers. The opposite is true, according to McGregor, for organizations
4. The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to ac• that operate according to Theory Y. Managers who truly believe that most work•
cept but to seek responsibility. ers desire opportunities for personal growth, actively seek responsibility, and are
5. The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, capable of ingenuity, creativity, and problem solving, cease viewing workers as la•
and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not nar• bor commodities to be purchased and pressured to perform. Instead, they view
rowly, distributed in the population. them as genuine assets in helping them fulfill their own responsibilities. Implicit
6. Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentiali• in this argument is a distinct theory of organizational performance. McGregor
ties of the average human being are only partially utilized.
19
suggests that it is the opportunity to self-actualize—to develop and express one's
full capabilities through work—that builds commitment to organizational goals,
Whereas Theory X rests on the scalar principle, Theory Y rests on the in• increases job satisfaction, and enhances work performance.
tegration principle. McGregor defined integration as "the creation of con•
But how are human resources best developed? After studying management
ditions such that the members of the organization can achieve their own goals
development programs McGregor concluded that classroom training is not par•
best by directing their efforts toward the success of the enterprise." C o nd i •
20
ticularly effective. He believed human capacity is something that must be

tioned by Theory X assumptions, managers tend to think in terms of a wage
"grown" rather than "manufactured." The individual, McGregor wrote, "will
bargain in which workers agree to accept external direction and control in
grow into what he is capable of becoming, provided we can create the proper
exchange for a certain amount of pay. No thought, McGregor says, is given
conditions for that growth. Such an approach involves less emphasis on manufac•
to the workers' needs or how to integrate them with the needs and objec•
turing techniques and more on controlling the climate and the fertility of the soil,
tives of the organization. A district manager is promoted to vice president
and on methods of cultivation." Fertilizing the soil and cultivating growth
2 1
and transferred to headquarters without asking whether this is consistent with

are achieved by providing workers with as many opportunities as possible to assume
the manager's personal needs and goals. Or, challenging work and growth
responsibility, try out new ideas, and exercise judgment.This in turn requires a de•
opportunities are provided to those at the top of the organization with no
centralized organizational structure and managers who are not afraid to delegate.
3 n«_»ivirtl1 M ; 3 U U K L t i IHtU
3
Decentralization and Delegation controlling workers in the jo b that has to be done. In McGregor's words,
Another central theme in human resources theory is that human talent flour• "Theory X leads naturally to an emphasis on the tactics of control—to proce•
ishes best in decentralized structures.
2 2
A decentralized structure is one in dures and techniques for telling people what to do, for determining whether
they are doing it, and for administering rewards and punishments." These
2 4
which specific responsibilities are delegated to each organizational unit and

those wh o work within them. While it is appropriate for top managers to techniques include top-down directives, standardized operating procedures,
make fundamental decisions regarding mission, strategies, and goals, McGregor performance measurement systems, and pay-for-performance incentives.
believed responsibility for work operations should be pushed downward in the That managers are obsessed with monitoring and controlling everything
organization to the group of core workers closest to the work situation. In his that happens in their units is understandable. Managers are responsible for the
view, decentralization holds distinct advantages for the organization as well as performance of that portion of the organization under their supervision. Be•
the workers. Better decisions tend to result when they are made by those clos• cause they are likely to be called on the carpet by someone higher in the chain
est to the work situation, workers are provided with opportunities to take per• of command if things go wrong, they naturally conclude that they must know
sonal responsibility and develop their capacities, and they are motivated more what is going on in their units at all times, must place strict boundaries on the
effectively Conversely, if upper and middle managers try to make all decisions discretionary authority of each subordinate, and must maintain an environment
where the threat of punishment for mistakes is ever-present. McGregor argues
themselves they will never develop an organization that grows and becomes
that, whereas the logic behind the command-and-control strategy is unassail•
healthy in its own right.
able if one accepts Theory X assumptions, Theory Y allows us to envision alter•
The concept of delegation includes the idea that each work unit should be
native methods of control, methods that promise higher levels of individual
provided with the data it needs to evaluate and correct its own performance.
motivation and organizational performance. In one way or another, these meth•
McGregor believed that the concept of delegation, and the trust on which it
ods entail delegating responsibilities to subordinates and holding them account•
must rest, is violated if unit-level data is provided to higher authorities for pur•
able for results without micro-managing every aspect of their work.
poses of control.This means, for example, that a bureau chief should have avail•
able data about the bureau's overall performance but not about everything that Theory Y holds that human beings will, under appropriate conditions, "ex•
occurs in each of the bureau's sections. The principle of self-control requires ercise seZ/^direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which they
are committed." To establish these conditions, managers must redefine their
2 5
data be provided to members of management so that they can control their

own areas of responsibility but not the details of their subordinate's activities. own roles. They must, according to McGregor, encourage subordinates to
Managing on the basis of overall results involves an element of risk, but unless identify appropriate mission-related objectives and help them achieve those
managers are willing to take these risks there will be no true delegation. 23 objectives by acting "as a teacher, consultant, colleague, and only rarely as au•
thoritative boss." But, McGregor continues, the manager can help them "only
26
The advantages of delegation do not accrue automatically. McGregor em•

if he is prepared to relinquish control in the conventional sense, only if he has enough
phasized that accountability as well as responsibility must be delegated down•
confidence in their willingness and ability to achieve organizational objectives
ward. Because tight control systems negate the positive advantages of
that he can risk some poor judgments and some mistakes as a natural cost of
decentralization, managers must provide individuals and work groups with the
growth." McGregor understood that in hierarchical systems, where fear of
2 7
freedom they need to succeed, while holding them accountable for mutually
being called on the carpet is pervasive, it is very difficult for managers to relin•
agreed-upon results. In addition, the success of decentralization depends, ac•
quish control in the traditional sense.
28
cording to McGregor, on open and honest communications between supervi•

sors and subordinates, and an environment where trust is high, where Despite the natural reluctance to relinquish control, McGregor insists
conformity, fear, and dependence are low, and where experimentation and risk that the command-and-control approach is not an effective means of exer•
taking are prominent. Unfortunately, these conditions are difficult to satisfy in cising control in most organizations. First, because it seeks to motivate
practice because of management's deeply held obsession with control. through fear, it produces outcomes other than those managers truly seek. In
his words, "Surveillance displaces autonomy, mistrust undermines self-regard,
absence of support and help minimizes achievement, likelihood of punish•
Relinquishing Control
ment for noncompliance reduces risk-taking and innovation, rigidity of
Yet another central theme in human resources theory is that the pattern of standards and administrative procedures precludes the individual's use of his
passivity and dependence on superiors cannot be broken as long as managers own know-how. The whole process accentuates passive compliance rather
retain the traditional command-and-control approach to supervision. If they than creative problem-solving." 29
believe, for example, that workers are basically lazy and unwilling to accept re• Second, the command-and-control approach, however effective it may be
sponsibility, they will view their task as one of directing, manipulating, and for clerical and production workers, is ill-suited to the needs of professional
3 CHAPTER HUMAN RESOURCES 3
workers, who now comprise the largest proportion of workers in many busi•
most workers are inherently motivated to satisfy their higher needs. Conse•
nesses and government agencies. It is part of the unique value of professionals
quently, management's task is not to motivate but to facilitate self-motivation
that they are capable of determining the steps necessary to achieve the desired by removing the unnecessary constraints that undermine motivation and pro•
objectives.This kind of intellectual contribution, according to McGregor, can• viding opportunities for members of the organization to obtain intrinsic re•
not be obtained by giving orders and exercising close supervision. For profes• wards fiom their work.
sional workers it can only be obtained by providing challenging work, broad Having suggested that management policies and practices should be re•
grants of autonomy, and opportunities for continual development and growth. aligned with Theory Y assumptions, McGregor felt obligated to describe what
Finally, the command-and-control approach is inherently flawed, according that realignment might look like. This was a difficult task because no organiza•
to McGregor, because the idea that control can be maintained through the use tion had yet adopted Theory Y in a conscious and deliberate way. In The Hu•
of formal authority is illusory. People and events can be influenced but not man Side of Enterprise, and in a manuscript left unfinished at his death,
controlled. In McGregor's words, "The realities of modern organizational life McGregor discussed several promising innovations and explained how they
place the manager at any level of the organization in a position where he can• might be implemented in a Theory Y manner. A few of these innovations are
not control many things which affect the results for which he is responsible." described in the sections that follow.
In practice, managers have little choice but to invest confidence and trust in
their subordinates.
Management by Objectives and Self-Control
Investing confidence and trust does not mean being permissive. McGregor
emphasized that under Theory Y managers must establish clear expectations One way to promote decentralization, self-management, and self-development,
about behavioral norms, organizational goals, and the boundaries of each per• according to McGregor, is to practice what Peter Drucker called m a n a g e •
son's discretionary authority, and they must hold workers to high standards. men t by objectives ( M BO ) . As defined by Drucker, MB O is a management
Theory Y, he wrote, "is not permissive management, or soft or indulgent man• strategy in which a higher authority—rather than issuing directives and exer•
agement. It includes clear demands for high performance, clear limits consis• cising close supervision—asks subordinates to define the way their jobs con•
tently enforced. The latter are, in fact, necessary for the individual's tribute to the organization's mission and to identify specific, mission-related
psychological security, for him to be able to predict what is possible and what objectives. Once their objectives have been approved the subordinates are
3 1
is not. It involves clear, open communications about the pressures and limits al• lowed to exercise self-control in achieving them. Drucker initially referred to
imposed by reality." 3 0
In short, Theor y Y managers continue to be this strategy as management by objectives and self-control.
responsible for exercising formal authority and maintaining firm control but they Although perfectly compatible with Theory Y assumptions, McGregor con•
do so in ways consistent with Theory Y assumptions. cluded that MB O is typically implemented in a Theory X manner. Managers
seeking to act in accordance with Theory Y assumptions, he wrote, must view
Using Intrinsic Rewards to Motivate MB O as "a deliberate attempt to link improvement in managerial competence
with the satisfaction of higher-level ego and self-actualization needs." In his
3 2
A final theme reflected in McGregor's work is the importance of intrinsic re•

view, higher authorities should encourage subordinates to define their jobs in
wards as motivators, especially those rewards inherent in the work itself. These
terms of the organization's mission, encourage them to set objectives that are
rewards take the form of pride, sense of accomplishment, and heightened self
both challenging and realistic, and arrange for a self-appraisal after six months
image, and they are received as ego and growth needs are satisfied. Workers ob•
so that accomplishments can be reviewed, lessons discussed, and new goal-
tain them, for example, as they exercise discretion, solve problems, reach goals,
setting cycles begun.
and develop their personal capacities.
In this type of MB O the higher authority takes on the role of consultant
According to McGregor, Theory X encourages managers to view motiva•
rather than boss and strives to encourage true self-responsibility, independence,
tion in terms of Newton' s laws of thermodynamics. A worker is viewed as a
and growth. The higher authority points out possible problems during discus•
physical object at rest. The manager's task is to set the worker in motion
sions but resists the impulse to tell the subordinate what to do or how to do it.
through the application of external force. This force is typically applied by giv•
According to McGregor, MB O implemented in this way builds commitment
ing and withholding extrinsic rewards or punishments, such as pay increases,
to organizational objectives, develops individual competence, and generates the
praise, promotions, and sanctions. A basic premise of Theory Y is that, although
intrinsic satisfactions that spur motivation and performance. These benefits will
extrinsic rewards can produce motion, they are not particularly effective at
not accrue, however, if MB O is treated as a sterile technique rather than an or•
motivating commitment, loyalty, spontaneity, or creativity. Motivation, as dis•
ganic strategy. In McGregor's words, "'Selling'management a program of tar•
tinct fiom movement, flows from a fire burning inside each worker that is fu•
get setting, and providing standardized forms and procedures, is the surest way
eled by the continual receiving of intrinsic rewards. Theory Y assumes that
to prevent the development of management by integration and self-control."
33
CHAPTER
3 HUMA N RESOURCES 3
Job Enrichment propriateness of their decisions are highly suspect as a result. Second, group de•
Job enrichment is another innovation that McGregor found especially com• cision making provides the soil for "growing" human capabilities. Team mem•
patible with Theory Y assumptions. It is the process of altering or enrich• bers learn to play a variety of leadership roles and develop skills in
ing the content of a job so that the worker can satisfy personal growth needs. 3 4
communications, interpersonal relations, and problem solving. Finally, he hy•
This is done by some combination of the following: giving employees respon• pothesized that teamwork improves the quality of individual performance be•
sibility for completing a natural unit of work rather than a narrowly special• cause of the autonomy and responsibility workers are given and the intrinsic
ized task, removing supervisory controls while holding employees accountability rewards they receive from satisfying their growth needs. As they develop skills
for the quality of their work, and ensuring that the job includes difficult and solve problems effectively, they increase their sense of self-respect, receive
and challenging tasks. These changes in job content are premised on the belief recognition from others, and take pride in their accomplishments, all of which,
that genuine motivation is derived from the intrinsic rewards received as according to McGregor, are intrinsically motivating and build commitment to
workers satisfy their growth needs through their work. These intrinsic rewards organizational objectives.
include the satisfactions associated with being trusted with responsibility, being Although it is not always practical to organize self-managing work teams,
able to achieve important objectives, receiving recognition for achieving those McGregor believed that self-control is generally superior to top-down con•
objectives, and taking pride in the growth of one's expertise and personal trol. In a manuscript left unfinished at his death, McGregor suggested that
competence. teamwork holds far more promise than job enrichment for improving organi•
zational performance. Where jo b enrichment calls for a relatively minor
3 6
In advocating job enrichment, McGregor was quick to point out that it is
not a panacea. Those who do not value personal growth and development, for tac• tical change, self-managing work teams call for a major strategic change in
example, will not necessarily respond to the intrinsic rewards that enriched the way organizations are governed. It calls for turning governance of work opera•
work has to offer. Nonetheless, research shows that those most likely to re• tions over to teams of workers who, as Mary Parker Follett put it, simply fol•
spond positively to intrinsic rewards are professional employees, precisely the low the law of the situation. But, although this innovation may promise to
kind of employees often found in government service. 35
boost performance, it also faces great obstacles. For it to succeed managers
must be willing to empower employees lower in the organization to make key
Self-Managing Work Teams decisions.This is something managers are very reiuctant to do.
Despite the difficulties inherent in adopting Theory Y, McGregor believed
A third innovation that McGregor found to be especially compatible with the
there are no good alternatives if managers are serious about improving organi•
assumptions of Theory Y is the organic, self-managing work team. Examples
zational performance. In his words, "Without this commitment to the devel•
include those described by the sociotechnical theorists in the coal mines of opment of human assets, and without a clear understanding that providing for
England and the textile mills of India, although McGregor believed their value the growth of human resources is a painstaking and difficult task—but ulti•
extended well beyond industrial settings.The key idea is to organize work in a mately worth the effort—management must resort to recipes, fads, and other
manner that allows an interdependent team of workers to be responsible for 'instant cures.'"
37
some primary task. The team is self-managing to the extent that its members
are allowed to set internal work schedules and assignments, establish their own
performance standards and goals, and exercise their own quality controls and
performance evaluations. This innovation calls upon supervisors to perform MCGREGOR' S CONTRIBUTION S
their roles differently. Rather than providing direction, surveillance, and con•
T O ORGANIZATIO N THEOR Y
trol, they provide technical help, support, and instruction to the team.
McGregor believed that self-managing work teams hold enormous poten•
Of Douglas McGregor's many contributions to organization theory, two in
tial for improving organizational performance. First, they can be highly effec•
particular stand out. First, he argued quite convincingly that our assumptions
tive decision-making and problem-solving entities. Their ability to produce
are our worst enemies. He challenged what we thought we knew to be true
effective decisions is based not only on the fact that those closest to the work
and convinced many that organizational performance cannot be improved
situation are making the key decisions but also on the truism that several heads without a fundamental shift in our thinking. While other theorists were debat•
are generally better than one. Under Theory X, key decisions are generally ing the merits of various management styles and structural arrangements, Mc •
made by persons in supervisory or managerial positions. Consequently, the Gregor asserted that they were missing an essential point. Management styles
quality and effectiveness of operational decisions in each work unit are highly and structural arrangements are mere epiphenomena. They do not matter
dependent on the intelligence, skill, and omniscience of one or two individu• nearly as much as the assumptions and values that give them shape, form, and
als. McGregor believed that managers rarely possess these qualities and the ap- meaning. He noted, for example, that a manager could get away with being
3 CHAPTER HUMAN RESOURCES 3
gruff and often autocratic if he or she, deep down, trusted workers, believed in
their capacities, and treated them fairly and with respect. Chri s A r g y r i s 1923 -
Although some critics believed McGregor intended to advance Theory Y as
"the one best way," this was not the case. He understood that different
3 8
Chris Argyris was born in Newark, New relations. Although he did not know
work• ers have different needs and respond to different kinds of incentives. He Jersey, on July 16, 1923. After serving
40
Kurt Lewin well, having met him only
under• stood that managers have different personalities and levels of maturity, and in the army during World Wa r II, Ar• briefly at MIT, he was greatly influ•
gyris earned a bachelor's degree in psy• enced by his ideas. Carrying on
41
that they must find the style of managing that is best suited to them. He viewed
chology from Clark University in 1947, Lewin's tradition of action research,
Theory Y simply as an alternative set of assumptions, supported by recent re• a master's degree in psychology and Argyris has served as a consultant to
search in the behavioral sciences, that holds considerable promise for improving economics from Kansas University in several governments in North America
organizational performance if managers are willing to make the necessary shift 1949, and a doctoral degree in orga• and Europe and as a "researcher-
nizational behavior from Cornell Uni• intervener" in numerous corporations.
in thinking. He did not intend Theory Y to be understood as a single, fixed set
versity in 1951. He taught at Yale The unifying theme in all of his re•
of prescriptions. Because we can all be trapped by our own theories and as• University for twenty years before be• search has been improving organi•
sumptions into making poor decisions, he simply invited us to evaluate and ex• coming the James Bryant Conant Pro• zational performance by making
plore alternative ways of thinking. He understood that the assumptions reflected fessor of Education and Organizational organizations more humane, some•
in Theory Y and the implications drawn from them may require modification Behavior at Harvard University in 1971. thing that is accomplished by integrat•
As a doctoral student, Argyris stud• ing individual and organizational
as research and experience with their application move forward.
ied under William F. Whyte, another needs and developing authentic hu•
Second, McGregor was particularly effective at envisioning what employee man relationships at work.
pioneer in action research and human
empowerment might look like in practice and communicating his vision to
his readers. He spoke directly to managers in their own language and in a clear
and straightforward manner. He could say to managers that their assumptions
The Growth Needs
were their worst enemies and do so in a way that made a great deal of sense.
Although many scholars and practitioners found his humanistic ideals imprac• A shared point of departure for human resources theorists is the premise that
tical in organizational settings, many of them nonetheless viewed Theory Y as human beings have needs they seek to satisfy and that organizations desiring
a way of thinking and managing toward which to aspire. Indeed, it has not to perform well over the long term must facilitate the satisfaction of these
been easy to dismiss Theory Y as overly prescriptive and naively humanistic. needs. In Personality and Organization Argyris restricted his analysis primarily to
Today the same themes found in The Human Side of Enterprise are reflected in the growth needs or, more generally, the need to self-actualize, to become the
the literature on empowerment, team-building, stewardship, and principle- person you are capable of becoming. Drawing upon recently developed per•
centered leadership. sonality theories, Argyris described how the human personality undergoes a
continuous process of development as individuals grow from infancy to adult•
hood. As we mature the personality becomes more complex and differentiated,
recognizing increasingly more and deeper sets of needs. A sense of self is de•
INTEGRATIN G I N D I V I D U A L AN D veloped in interacting with others and individuals behave in ways designed,
ORGANIZATIONA L NEED S consciously or unconsciously, to actualize and protect this sense of self. Human
development is a process of striving to become more competent in relation to
Human resources theory is a product of the larger field of study known as orga• one's environment so that each of us can satisfy needs, develop self-esteem, and
nizational behavior. In Personality and Organization (1957) Chris Argyris argued actualize the self.
that, although research in the behavioral sciences has produced a considerable Argyris characterized this as a striving inherent in all human beings for
body of knowledge about why individuals behave as they do in organizations, personal growth, although individuals can and do vary greatly in terms of how
the field is still in a pre-theoretical state. Personality and Organization was written much growth they seek and ultimately experience. This striving is reflected in
39
to integrate existing knowledge and outline a theory of organizational behavior. the following developmental tendencies:
Such a theory is needed, he argued, so that researchers and administrators can
1. To develop from a state of passivity as infants to a state of increasing activ•
predict the behavioral outcomes of various structural forms and managerial prac•
ity as adults.
tices. Once armed with such a theory, researchers and administrators can develop
the "action skills" they need to diagnose problems, predict the likely outcomes of 2. To develop from a state of dependence upon others as infants to a state of
pursuing a particular course of action, and intervene to improve organizational relative independence as adults.
functioning. A central theme running through all of his work is that knowledge 3. To develop from being capable of behaving only in a few ways as an infant
is of little value if it cannot be put to good use. to being capable of behaving in many different ways as an adult.
3 CHAPTER HUMA N RESOURCES 3
4. To develop from having erratic, casual, shallow, quickly dropped interests

nizational principles identified by Taylor, Fayol, Mooney, and Gulick, denies
as an infant to having deeper interests as an adult and obtaining rewards
rather than satisfies growth needs and discourages rather than encourages ma•
from responding successfully to challenges.
ture adult behavior. In his words, "If the principles of formal organization are
5. To develop from having a short time perspective (i.e., the present largely used as ideally defined, employees will tend to work in an environment where
determines behavior) as an infant to a much longer time perspective as an (1) they are provided minimal control over their workaday world, (2) they are
adult (i.e., where the behavior is more affected by the past and the future). expected to be passive, dependent, and subordinate, (3) they are expected to
6. To develop from being in a subordinate position in the family and society have a short time perspective, (4) they are induced to perfect and value the fre•
as an infant to aspiring to occupy an equal and/or superordinate position quent use of a few skin-surface shallow abilities and, (5) they are expected to
produce under conditions leading to psychological failure." 45
relative to peers.
7. To develop from a lack of awareness of self as an infant to an awareness of These conditions tend to increase, according to Argyris, as management
controls are tightened, as one goes down the chain of command, and as jobs
and control over self as an adult.
42
become more mechanized. All of these conditions are incongruent with the
The individual's basic growth needs are reflected in these tendencies. Ac• ones that psychologically healthy human beings desire. They undermine effec•
cording to Argyris, "Mature individuals, in our culture, tend to need to be rel• tive work performance, according to Argyris, by blocking satisfaction of
atively independent, to be responsible about and involved in their activities, to growth needs and by triggering adaptive behaviors such as soldiering, sabo•
seek challenging creative work, to aspire to higher positions, and to be active tage, and a general indifference to the quality of one's work. Consequently, if
and to utilize many of their abilities." People are predisposed to develop
43
organizations are to be successful, ways must be found to facilitate the simulta•
con• tinuously from the infant end to the adult end of each of these seven dimen• neous satisfaction of individual and organizational needs.
sions, although they may never achieve the full expression of any one of them.
This theory, if valid, holds important implications for how we structure and
manage organizations. It suggests that the success of the organization depends The Effects of Formal Structure on the Individual
on the success of its members; those organizations that are successful in satisfy•
As a partial test of his thesis Argyris examined the formal principles of organi•
ing the growth needs of their members will perform better than those that do
zation in terms of their ability to satisfy growth needs. The first of these prin•
not. This is because energy is released as individuals strive to achieve their
ciples is task specialization. Tasks are narrowly defined and standardized on
goals. It is from human energy that the organization, as well as the individual,
the assumption that concentrating effort on a limited field of endeavor in•
stands to benefit.The key to releasing this energy is to provide opportunities
creases quality and quantity of output. But this principle assumes, according to
for workers to experience "psychological success." Psychological success is ex•
Argyris, that the desire for growth can be choked off and that the desire to be
perienced as the seven growth tendencies are allowed expression. Argyris
engaged in satisfying, meaningful work, and to develop and use a full range of
makes this point as follows:
abilities, can be ignored. By requiring everyone to perform tasks in the same
.. . .To the extent that individuals who are hired to become agents of orga• prescribed manner, task specialization also ignores the fact that individuals are
nizations are predisposed toward maturity, they will want to express needs unique personalities with unique talents. In short, task specialization violates
or predispositions related to the adult end of each specific developmental three of the growth tendencies of the healthy adult personality. It inhibits the
continuum. Theoretically, this means that healthy adults will tend to obtain process of self-actualization by requiring everyone to perform the job in the
optimum personality expression while at work if they are provided with same routine and prescribed manner (tendency 1), precludes the development
jobs which permit them to be more active than passive; more independent and use of complex, psychologically important abilities (tendency 3), and fails
than dependent; to have longer rather than shorter time perspectives; to oc• to provide the "endless challenge" desired by the healthy adult personality
cupy higher position than their peers; to have control over their world; and (tendency 4). Argyris' analysis suggests that specialized tasks, performed in a
to express many of their deeper, more important abilities.
44
standardized manner, do not allow for the expression of growth needs and thus
fail to motivate workers to do their best work.
But, according to Argyris, facilitating "optimum personality expression
A second principle of formal organization is chain of c o m m a n d . Classi•
while at work" is precisely what most organizations are not designed to do. The
cal theorists believed that a formal chain of command was necessary to facili•
core thesis of Personality and Organization is that a basic mismatch or incon•
tate the coordination of the many specialized tasks created pursuant to the first
gruity exists between the requirements of the formal organizational structure
principle. A hierarchy of authority is established so that those at the top can
and the growth needs of the mature adult personality, a fact that explains many
direct and control the efforts of those at the bottom. "The impact of such a
of the dysfunctional behaviors managers are quick to complain about. In Ar•
state of affairs," Argyis writes, "is to make the individuals dependent upon, pas•
gyris' view, the traditional, pyramidal form of organization, built on the orga-
sive toward, and subordinate to the leader. As a result the individuals have little
31 4 CHAPTER THIRTEEN H UMAN RESOURCES THEORY J1 S
control over their work and working environment. Concomitantly, their time The Effects of Directive Leadership
perspective is shortened because they do not control the information necessary
to predict their future." 4 6
In other words, the requirements imposed on and Management Controls
work• ers by this principle violate the second, sixth, seventh, and fifth growth Argyris also describes how the failure of the formal structure to satisfy growth
ten• dencies of the healthy adult personality, respectively. Aware of the dysfunctional needs is reinforced by two other mechanisms: directive leadership and man•
consequences of placing severe limits on the power and authority of those to• agement control systems. Directive leadership is the style of management typi•
ward the bottom of the chain of command, management typically responds in cally found in pyramidal organizations, in which managers use their formal
two ways. It provides monetary rewards to compensate for the dissatisfactions authority to issues directives and maintain close supervision over their subor•
experienced at work and it encourages those at the bottom to compete for dinates. This style of management tends to preclude opportunities for subordi•
higher positions. Argyris notes that these compensatory measures produce nates to experience personal growth and psychological success. Instead, it
their own dysfunctional consequences, including low personal involvement in encourages workers to become passive, dependent, and subordinate, maintain a
work and harmful competition among employees. short time perspective, repress their own needs in favor of the leader's needs,
A third principle of formal organization is unity of direction. This prin• and, consequently, experience psychological failure. Passivity, dependence, sub•
ciple suggests that every unit should have a clear objective or purpose that is ordination, and lack of control are further reinforced by management systems
planned and directed by the unit's leader. Consequently, decision-making re• that control the definition, inspection, and evaluation of work performance.
sponsibility is placed at the top. The leader is responsible for defining goals and These include performance measurement, pay-for-performance, financial con•
the paths toward the goals.This principle, according to Argyris, creates condi• trol, and centralized personnel systems. In Argyris' words, these systems "feed
tions conducive to psychological failure. The seventh growth tendency sug• back upon and give support to directive leadership as both "compound the
gests that workers experience success when it is their own decisions, not the felony" committed by the formal organization every hour of the day and every
decisions of their superiors, that determine the outcomes of their efforts. "Psy• day of the year."48
chological success," Argyris writes, "is achieved when each individual is able to Argyris believed that under conditions of psychological failure workers
define his own goals, in relation to his inner needs and the strength of the barri• tend, as an adaptive response, to suppress their growth needs and deny the psy•
ers to be overcome in order to reach these goals." chological importance of their work. This leads to a state of apathy and indif•
47
A fourth principle of formal organization is span of control. This princi• ference. As workers become more apathetic and unproductive, managers tend
ple states that efficiency is increased by limiting the span of control to no more to blame the workers, unaware that their leadership style and management
than five or six subordinates. Because it takes the need for control for granted, controls are the cause of many of the problems they are experiencing. The so•
this principle, according to Argyris, requires superiors to exercise close super• lution to the problem of worker apathy, they conclude, is to communicate
vision and encourages subordinates to become dependent upon, passive to• clear goals, issue work-related directives, and maintain constant pressure on
ward, and subordinate to the leader. It also limits the time perspective of workers to increase productivity. Consequently, a cycle of behavior is created
subordinates and their control over their work environment. In short, the span- in which management's attitudes toward workers become increasingly more
of-control principle violates the second, sixth, and seventh growth ten• dencies and pessimistic, controls are increasingly tightened, opportunities to satisfy growth
thus fails to take advantage of the energies and resources that the mature adult needs become increasingly fewer, and work performance becomes increasingly
personality has to offer. substandard, causing the cycle to deepen as it repeats itself. Breaking this cycle,
Argyris suggests that, whereas Taylor, Fayol, Mooney, and Gulick are cor• Argyris suggests, requires fundamental changes in formal structure, leadership
rect in saying we need a logically ordered structure, we also need a human- style, and management control systems. The need for such fundamental
centered structure that enables organizations to achieve their goals by changes became a basic premise of human resources theory.
providing for the satisfaction of their members' goals. By providing opportuni•
ties for workers to satisfy their growth needs, organizations can obtain full
value from their human resources and the productive energies they are capable Authentic Relationships
of releasing. In short, organizations can best achieve their objectives by helping Although Personality and Organization (1957) emphasized the need for funda•
their employees realize their "full potentialities." Doing so, however, requires mental changes in the structure of pyramidal organizations, Argyris's own re•
fundamental changes in the distribution of power and authority and in the search focused on interpersonal change, thus linking his work to human
ways jobs are designed. Releasing psychological energy for productive effort, relations as well as human resources theory. His growing interest in interper•
Argyris concludes, just isn't possible where workers are told by someone else sonal relations occurred for a reason. As a consultant he quickly discovered
what to do, how to do it, how much to produce, and whether their tasks were that the effectiveness of management decision making is greatly undermined
performed adequately. by the way executives relate to each other and the basic values that shape their
31 6 CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HUMAN RESOURCES THEORY a it
behaviors. This led him to conclude that basic values and behavior patterns to improve morale and jo b satisfaction, but said little about how to facilitate
must be changed at the highest levels of the organization before attempting personal motivation or commitment. In Personality and Organization (1957)
structural reforms. If structural reforms are attempted prematurely, decisions Chris Argyris did what Elton Mayo had not. He articulated a needs-based the•
are likely to be poor and commitment to implementing them low. ory of motivation and argued that pyramidal organizations are particularly ill-
According to Argyris, effective decision making requires those involved in suited to the task of satisfying basic human needs. The healthy organization, he
the decision to possess all relevant facts about the situation facing the organi• suggested, requires individuals who are competent, committed to organiza•
zation, the needs and objectives of the organization, and the needs and objec• tional objectives, and fully self-responsible—conditions that cannot be met in
tives of each participant. It also requires knowing how each participant most organizations without fundamental changes in formal structure, manage•
perceives the motives and intentions of others in the group so that misunder• ment style, and management control systems.
standings can be addressed and suspicions reduced. Finally, it requires knowing Although Argyris' subsequent research focused on producing valid infor•
what each participant truly thinks of the ideas being put forward so that the mation and choices rather than facilitating self-actualization, the themes that
best possible decision can be made. Satisfying these conditions depends in turn came to be associated with human resources theory are found in all of his pub•
on establishing an environment of trust where participants feel safe to express lished works. Among these themes are the following: that workers have the
their ideas and feelings and are willing to listen to and accommodate the ideas capacity to be self-directing and self-controlling, that organizational success
and feelings of others. Once established at the top, this environment of trust depends on successfully integrating the goal attainment and maintenance
must be replicated throughout the organization to secure the commitment needs of the organization with the growth needs of workers, and that success•
needed to ensure successful implementation of decisions. Because an environ• ful integration requires broad participation in decision making and an envi•
ment of trust is nearly impossible to establish in pyramidal organizations, Ar• ronment of trust. These themes provide the theoretical foundations for a
gyris concluded that interpersonal change must go hand in hand with changes management paradigm based on employee empowerment rather than central•
in structure, management style, and methods of control. ized control.
Maintaining an open and trusting environment, according to Argyris, re•
quires interpersonal competence. Interpersonal c o mp et en ce, in contrast to
technical competence, is reflected in a person's ability to solve interpersonal
problems in a way that they remain solved. It requires high self-esteem
4 9
HUMA N R E S O U R C E S T H E O R
and self-acceptance so that participants are open to new ideas and willing to take
risks, and high acceptance of others so that they are less inclined to judge and Y I NP E R S P E C T I V E
manipulate others. It includes the ability to view interpersonal situations realis•
tically, undistorted by the strongly felt need to protect one's self-esteem. Inter• Human resources theory greatly influenced management practice in the 1960s
personal competence is developed and manifested by engaging in authentic and 1970s. Countless numbers of organizations experimented with job en•
relationships. This refers to a pattern of relating to others in which partici• richment and group decision making, and consultants kept busy training man•
pants openly share their ideas and feelings, encourage experimenting with new agers to be more employee-centered and participative. But the response from
the academic communit y was muc h less enthusiastic. Criticisms of hu ma n
50
ideas and feelings, seek to validate the motives they attribute to others, give
nonjudgmental feedback, and are sensitive to how their own words and actions resources theory included the following:
impact those around them. The relationship between interpersonal competence • It rests on romantic, overly optimistic assumptions about human beings.
and authenticity is reciprocal. As self-esteem and acceptance of others increase, Relatively few workers are achievement-oriented, desire greater responsi•
relations become more authentic, and as participants engage in authentic rela• bility, or value opportunities for personal growth.
tionships, their self-acceptance and awareness of others increase in turn.
• It is normative and overly prescriptive, advocating employee-centered
leadership and participative management as the one-best-way to enhance
organizational performance.
ARG YRI S ' CONTRIBUTION S T O • It fails to offer a comprehensive theory of organization, focusing narrowly
on human behavior and attitudes while ignoring the structural, techno•
logical, and environmental determinants of organizational behavior.
Elton Mayo contributed to organization theory by emphasizing the impor• • It underestimates the power of economic rewards as sources of motivation.
tance of the worker's subjective state of mind. Attitudes, after all, affect behav• • It overstates the possibilities for integrating individual and organizational
ior. He did not, however, develop an explicit theory of motivation. He offered needs and ignores the fact that different organizational units and classes of
insights about how to adjust workers to their work environments, about how employees have their own distinct and conflicting interests.
3 CHAPTER H UMAN RESOURCES 3
• It ignores the fact that many workers have a need for power. They will
to the realm of practice. Arguably, it calls for a level of maturity and an orien•
continue to behave in self-serving, secretive, and aggressive ways.
tation toward achievement and personal growth that too few workers and
• It fails to resolve the issue of whether job content or employee involve• managers possess. Argyris and McGregor believed, for example, that effective
ment is the primary source of intrinsic motivation, and research has failed decision making requires an environment of openness and trust, and that this
to confirm the benefits of either one for organizational performance. in turn requires a high degree of personal self-acceptance and sense of self-
worth among those involved. They also believed that workers will not re•
While these criticisms define the limits of human resources theory as a spond to opportunities to self-actualize unless they have satisfied their lower
management strategy, they do not pose a significant challenge to the validity level needs and are free of anxiety-producing psychological disorders. Finally,
of the theory itself. Several of the criticisms question the theory's emphasis they believed that genuine participation requires managers wh o are secure
but not its substance, some reflect the natural distaste of positivists for norma• enough in their egos to relinquish control in the traditional sense and who
tive theory, and others reflect the mistaken notion that the theory advocates a are sufficiently patient and self-disciplined to practice decision making by
single, employee-centered, participative style of management for all organiza• consensus.
tions under all circumstances. Once it is acknowledged that human resources
All of these assumptions or requirements are difficult to satisfy in practice.
theory does not offer a comprehensive theory of organization, does not offer
As Miles has shown, managers tend to favor participative management for
a panacea for achieving high levels of performance, and is perhaps overly op• themselves but not for others. This is because they feel worthy of the trust
5 1
timistic in its view of people in general, it is still possible to appreciate the of those above them but remain distrustful of those below them. And al•
many valuable contributions it has made to management thinking. These in• though human resources theory was partly grounded in the work of Abraham
clude the importance of treating workers with respect and dignity, the value Maslow, he, too, noted the practical limitations of human resources theory. To•
that accrues to organizations and individuals alike as human potential is de• ward the end of his career he accepted an opportunity to investigate the im•
veloped and unleashed, the gains in social cohesion, employee commitment, plications of his hierarchy of human needs for management theory and
and decision quality that are possible through group decision making, and the practice. Although he agreed that work offers self-fulfillment to many people,
benefits that flow from achieving win-win solutions through collective prob• and that Theory Y provides the best approach for managing an increasingly well-
lem solving. educated and professionally trained work force, he questioned whether many
The human resources perspective has also made important contributions workers or managers possess the level of personal maturity, psychologi• cal
to theory building. In two key respects Argyris, McGregor, and Likert suc• health, and genuine good will required for trust, openness, collaboration, and
ceeded in doing what human relations theorists had not. They developed a collective accomplishment. 52
comprehensive needs-based theory of motivation and they described the ba• It is also true that interest in transferring Theory Y from the realm of the•
sic outline of an alternative to the traditional, bureaucratic paradigm based ory to practice has been dampened by the way actual organizations have at•
on technical rationality, formal authority, and use of the scalar chain for pur• tempted to put it into practice. In many instances it has involved superficial
poses of coordination and control. The human resources or empowerment efforts by training departments to institute sensitivity training or misguided
paradigm challenged traditional management principles and prevailing as• experiments in organizational democracy.
53
sumptions about human nature. What is truly new in this paradigm is its call We are left, then, with a basic paradox: human resources theory offers an
for a genuine transfer of power from management to teams comprising alternative paradigm with great promise but one that faces formidable obsta•
workers, line managers, and staff officers at every level of the organization. cles to its successful implementation. However, if human resources theorists are
Stated differently, it calls for a genuine change in the way organizations are overly optimistic, there is no reason to be overly pessimistic in turn. In indi•
governed. It calls for developing human capacity and releasing human po • vidual work units, if not in organizations as a whole, many have experienced
tential by empowering workers to make the decisions that are relevant to what is possible when a critical mass of reasonably mature and dedicated em•
their respective areas of responsibility and encouraging them to accept re• ployees are empowered to determine for themselves what to do and how best
sponsibility for the overall performance of their units. If no organization has to do it. Of course, many questions remain unanswered. Research has not yet
fully and genuinely empowered workers in this way, human resources theory determined, for example, the conditions under which job enrichment or
nonetheless offers a paradigm for envisioning what is possible when the nec• group participation produces the best results, or whether one approach is su•
essary conditions are present. perior to the other. Likert may be correct, for example, that having interesting
To suggest that human resources theory offers an alternative paradigm is and challenging work is less important than being able to make meaningful
not to suggest that it is easily implemented or that its hypothesized benefits contributions to organizational objectives through teamwork. Whatever its
will necessarily materialize. The greatest limitations of human resources the• shortcomings, human resources theory provides a valuable point of departure
ory lie in the difficulties inherent in transferring it from the realm of theory for investigating questions of this kind.
3 CHAPTER HUM A N RESOURCES
3
R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N E x h i b i t 13.1 Th e C o m p e t i n g Va lu e s F r a m e w o r k :
T Fou r M odel s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E ff ect i v ene ss
The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of human resources the• Flexibility
ory for public management and organizational performance.This exploration
is guided by the three analytical frameworks introduced in Chapter 3.
Models of Organizational Effectiveness maintain a competent, integrated, to an uncertain environment
As noted in the previous chapter, human resources theory emphasizes the in•
ternally directed models of effectiveness, the internal process and human re• Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values:
lations models, as well as the externally directed rational goal model. It HUMAN cohesion, flexibility, OPEN
recognizes the importance of accomplishing the organization's goal attainment, RELATIONS morale readiness SYSTEMS
integrative, and pattern maintenance/tension management functions, and the MODEL MODEL
values associated with these functions, in a truly integrated fashion. The empha• human resource growth,
sis on balancing potentially competing values is a natural consequence of the development resource acquisition
theory's basic premise: organizational performance is enhanced through the si•
Internal External
multaneous satisfaction of human and organizational needs. That human re•
focus focus
sources theory strives to achieve potentially competing values in an integrated
and balanced fashion indicates, perhaps, a growing awareness of the importance
of taking a holistic view of the determinants of organizational performance. Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values:
The competing values framework shown in Exhibit 13.1 identifies impor• INTERNAL info, management, planning, RATIONAL
tant values but does not specify how they are to be achieved. Much of the sig•
MODEL MODEL
nificance of human resources theory lies in what it has to say about how Ends-oriented values: Ends-oiented values:
effectiveness values are best realized in practice. For example, whereas classical stability, productivity, efficiency
management theory emphasizes centralized decision making and control, stan• control
dardized tasks, and extrinsic rewards, human resources theory emphasizes de• Integrative function: the need to to focus efforts on goal attainment
centralized decision making and self-control, enriched tasks, and intrinsic coordinate and control work
rewards. Similarly, human resources theory holds that goal attainment should activities
be pursued not by hunting the discretion of workers through the use of rules,
standard operating procedures, and close supervision but by expanding their
discretion by articulating strategic goals, delegating responsibility for goal at• SOUR CE: Adapted with permission from Figures 3 and 4, Robert O. Quinn and Joh n Rohrbaugh, " A Spatial Model
tainment to lower levels of the organization, practicing management by objec• of Effectiveness Criteria: Towards a Competing Values Approach to Organizational Analysis," Management Science
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The Institute of M anagement Sciences, now the Institute for Operations
tives, and holding workers accountable for bottom-line results. Research and the Management Sciences (INFORM S), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090-
2909 USA.

goals for their work units that are consistent with organizational goals and then
As noted in the previous chapter, human resources theory advocates mutual ad• holding each unit accountable for achieving the agreed-upon results.
justment as an alternative to direct supervision. Mutual adjustment occurs as Mutual adjustment as a mechanism of coordination and control may be es•
members of each work unit meet as a group to set appropriate goals and monitor pecially well-suited to the needs and characteristics of many public agencies.
their own progress. Coordination is achieved by consulting broadly with pertinent Centralized policy making coupled with decentralized administration may be
individuals in other units or at other levels of authority. It is also achieved by estab- appropriate, for example, in geographically dispersed agencies such as the
hshing policies and setting goals that are consistent with the policies and goals set U.S. Forest Service, where decisions in the field cannot be coordinated and
at higher levels of the organization. Similarly, control is exercised not by micro- controlled through pre-established rules set by the central office. Similarly,
managing the behaviors of subordinates but by holding individuals and work units mutual adjustment of the kind envisioned by human resources theory may be
accountable for achieving desired results. McGregor's Theory Y, for example, calls appropriate in craft and coping agencies, where outputs are unmeasurable and
for coordinating and controlling work activities by encouraging workers to set where the effectiveness of direct supervision is greatly reduced as a result.
3 CHAPTER H UMAN RESOURCES 3
E xh ib it 13.2 Si x M e c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d C on tro llin g Wo r k Activities

E xhi bi t 13.3 Four M ot i v at ion al S t r a t e gi e s
Mutual adjustment Workers consult with each other informally about what Legal Compliance
needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor• Using rules, formal directives, and sanctions to direct and control employee behavior.
dination and control rests with those who do the work. Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require•
being sanctioned.
grate the efforts of all work groups. The supervisor issues Instrumental Rewards
developing rules and standard operating procedures speci• Rewards for Performance
work processes
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina• Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance.
tion is built into the work process itself and control is Employees may meet or exceed role expectations because they value the material
achieved by strictly limiting each worker's discretion. and psychological satisfactions that money, advancement, and recognition can
provide.
each work group with product specifications or perfor• Considerate Leadership
work outputs
mance goals and allowing members considerable latitude in Adopting a leadership style based on being attentive to employees and consider•
determining how to achieve them. Control is exercised by ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those
collecting output data, requiring corrective action when who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or
needed, and rewarding and sanctioning workers based on exceed their role requirements.
results achieved.
Group Acceptance
skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in• Creating a work environment that allows employees to socialize, form group
worker skills bonds, and enjoy the approval of their peers. This strategy may induce those who
provide standardized training. Professionally trained work• value affiliation and peer approval to meet or exceed role requirements, assum•
ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling. ing that group norms are consistent with organizational objectives.
Job Identification
Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear
vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should Offering work that is interesting, challenging, and responsible. Employees may come
of values
be headed, and what values should guide it. Coordination to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and
and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational innovativeness. They may do so because they identify with the jobs and find their
members to shared, internalized values and ideals. work intrinsically rewarding.
SOURCE: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7). Goal Congruence
Motivational Strategies They may do so because they identify with the organization's mission and values and
Although human resources theory recognizes the value of instrumental re•
SO URCE: Based in large part on Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations (Wiley,
wards as motivators, especially those associated with considerate leadership and 1966), pp. 336-68.
group acceptance, it places greatest emphasis on the jo b identification strat•

egy and the power of intrinsic rewards. It holds that most adults are motivated
by a desire to satisfy their ego and growth needs and that they receive intrinsic
challenge, as so many public service jobs do. The job identification strategy
satisfactions from doing responsible, interesting, and challenging work. Accord•
may be especially applicable to public agencies because of the large numbers
ing to Katz and Kahn, as workers are provided with opportunities to express
of highly educated technical and professional employees who work in govern•
themselves and their unique talents through their work, they identify with
ment. As noted earlier, these are precisely the kinds of employees that research
their jobs and take pride in their accomplishments. This in turn increases their
tells us tend to respond positively to meaningful and intrinsically satisfying
level of work effort and reduces absenteeism and turnover, thereby allowing
work. As Robert Behn has written,
for the simultaneous satisfaction of the individual's ego and growth needs and
the organization's goal attainment and maintenance needs. People do not enter the field of social service to maximize income;
As a motivational strategy, job identification entails redesigning jobs so that they hope to do meaningful work. If legislators, or political executives, or
they offer greater responsibility and challenge, or removing bureaucratic con• career executives can find some way to exploit that desire to do mean•
straints and supervisory controls from jobs that already offer responsibility and ingful work—to take advantage of the beneficial self-selection that leads
3 CHAPTER HUMA N RESOURCES 3
people to choose public sector jobs—they may gain help not merely in only does this mean empowering them to pursue agreed-upon objectives
carrying out standard operating procedures to achieve goals, and not but also removing the obstacles to successful goal attainment that stand in
merely in figuring out how best to achieve those goals, but also in deter•
their way. The latter may prove to be the public manager's most important
mining what goals are both worth pursuing and pursuable.
54
role because most government jobs are intrinsically rewarding and oppor•
tunities to exercise discretion are widely available. It is often bureaucratic
constraints and limited resources that undermine the morale and motiva•
tion of otherwise empowered public servants.
SUMMAR Y
Although human resources theory provides a useful point of departure for
Argyris and McGregor concluded that pyramidal structures and directive lead• improving organizational performance, it should not be viewed as the final an•
ership are incompatible with basic human needs. Superior-subordinate relation• swer to questions of organizational design and management. Workers enjoy dif•
ships, close supervision, and narrowly defined tasks cause workers to become ferent levels of maturity and possess different levels of need for growth and
passive, dependent, and subordinate, precisely the opposite of what psychologi• achievement. Not every worker will set challenging targets for themselves or be
cally healthy adults require. In their view, organizations must be restructured motivated to reach those that they do set. Similarly, work environments charac•
and human resources managed so as to encourage initiative, independence, per• terized by openness, trust, and relative equality may improve interpersonal rela•
sonal growth and, ultimately, the release of each individual's full potential. tions, increase job satisfaction, and lower absenteeism and turnover rates, but
Understood as a theory of organizational effectiveness, human resources they cannot guarantee greater work effort, higher productivity, or better overall
theory holds that performance is enhanced by developing each person's agency performance. As we have seen in earlier chapters and will see in the
unique talents, creating and sustaining an environment of openness and trust, chapters that follow, many other variables enter into the performance equation.
removing constraints on personal autonomy and individual discretion, delegat•
ing responsibilities downward, and encouraging group decision making—all
so that workers can derive intrinsic satisfactions from their work and so that
their goals and the goals of the organization can be realized simultaneously. NOTE S
Key implications for public managers, in addition to those already identified in 1. . A b r a h a m H. Maslow, " A D y n a m i c 12. Clayton P. Alderfer," An Empirical
T h e o r y of H u m a n Mo tivati on," Psycholog• Test of a N e w T h e o r y of H u m a n N ee ds , "
Chapter 12, include the following:
ical Review 50 (1943): 3 7 0 - 9 6 . Organizational Behavior and Human Perfor•
• R ec og ni z i ng interdependence. The command-and-control approach mance 4 (May 1969): 1 4 2 -7 5 .
2. A b r a h a m H. Maslow, Motivation and
takes advantage of the fact that workers are dependent on the organization Personality (Ne w Y o rk : H a rp e r & Brothers, 13. . M c G r e g o r , The Human Side of
1954). Enter• prise ( N e w Y o r k : M c G r a w - H i l l ,
for their jobs and livelihoods. It also fosters dependence by allowing work•
1960),
ers to do only what supervisors authorize them to do. Human resources 3. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 84 .
vi-vii.
theory holds that this is counterproductive. It suggests that public man• 4. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 87 .
14. M cG r eg or , The Human Side of Enter•
agers should recognize that they are equally dependent on their staff 5. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 91 . prise, 4.
members for the success of the agency and that workers should be given 6. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 92. 15. See Dougl as Mc G re go r , Leadership
the authority and independence of action they need to make wise choices 7. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, and Motivation: Essays of Douglas McGregor
on behalf of the agency. Ch ap te r 12 . ( C a m b r i d g e : T h e M . I . T Press, 1966), fx—
xix; and NewYork Times, O c t o b e r 14, 1964, p.
• Altering basic assumptions. Assumptions matter. No structural or be• 8. . Ri c h a r d Lowery, F o re w o rd to A b ra h a
m 45 .
havioral reforms will produce the desired effects as long as public man• H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being 16. M c G re g o r , The Human Side of Enter•
agers continue to embrace Theory X assumptions. Public managers should (N e w Yo r k : Wiley, 1999), xxviii. prise, 10.
relinquish control in the traditional sense, trust staff members to use their 9. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 17. M c G re g o r , The Human Side of Enter•
delegated authority wisely, understand that mistakes will occur in the 100-101 . prise, 33—34.
course of human growth and development, and appreciate that the costs 10. M a h m o u d Wahba and Lawrence 18. McGregor, The Human Side of Enter•
of these mistakes are outweighed by the benefits accruing from greater Bridwell, " Maslow R econsidered: A R e • prise, 39 .
initiative, creativity, and risk-taking. view of Re sea rc h on the Need s Hi era rchy 19. M c G re g o r , The Human Side of Enter•
T heory," Organizational Behavior and Hu• prise, 4 7 - 4 8 .
• Manager as facilitator. Instead of defining their managerial role in man Performance 15 (April 1976): 224 . 20. M c G re g o r , The Human Side of Enter•
terms of directing and controlling workers, public managers should think 11 . See, for exam ple, David Guest, " M o t i • prise, 49 .
in terms of empowering staff members and facilitating their success. Not vation after Maslow," Personnel Management 21 . M c G r e g o r , The Human Side of Enter•
8 (March 1976): 2 9 - 3 2 . prise, 192 .
CHAPTER
3
22 . M c G r e g o r , The Human Side of Enter•

40. . See "Gol d Meda l Award for Life
prise, 195 . 1 4
A ch ie ve me nt in the Application of Psy•
23 . M c G re go r , The Human Side of Enter- chology," American Psychologist 53 (August
prise,160. 1998), 8 7 7 - 7 8 ; and R o b e r t P u t n u m , " A
24 . M c G re go r , The Human Side of Enter• Biography of Chris Argyris," Journal of Ap•
prise, 133 . plied Behavioral Science 31 (September
1995), 2 5 3 - 5 5 .
Quality
25 . Mc G re go r , The Human Side of Enter•
prise, 152. 41 . Alfred J. M arro w, The Practical Theorist:
26. . M cG r eg or , The Human Side of The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin (Ne w
York: Teachers College Press, C ol um bi a
Management
Enter• prise, 152.
University, 1977), 233 .
27. . M c G re go r , The Human Side of
42. . Argyris, Personality and Organization, 50 .
Enter• prise, 153 .
43. . Chris Argyris, "T h e Organization:
Theory
28 . M cG reg or , The Human Side of Enter•
Wha t Makes It Healthy," Harvard Business
prise, 15 8- 5 9 .
Review
29. . Douglas M c G r eg o r , The Professional
36 (No ve mb e r -De ce m be r , 1958), 111 .
Manager ( N e wYo r k : M c G ra w - H i l l , 1967),
44. Argyris, Personality and Organization, 53 .
12 6- 2 7 .
30. McG regor, The Professional Manager, 78 .
31 . Peter F. D r uc ke r, The Practice of Man•
45. . Argyris, Personality and Organization,
.
67
W. Edwards Denning and
46. . Argyris, Personality and Organization,
agement ( Ne w York: H a r p e r & Brot hers ,
1954), 1 21 - 36 . 6 0 -6 1 .
47. . Agyris, Personality and Organization,
Joseph Juran
32 . M cG reg or , The Human Side of Enter•
prise, 61 . 63-64 .
33 . M cG r eg or , The Human Side of Enter• 48 . Argyris, Personality and Organization,
prise, 75 . 138 .
Q
34 . Frederi ck H e rzb e rg , " O n e Mo r e 49. . Chris Argyris, Interpersonal
T i m e : H o w D o You Mot ivate Em p l o y • Competence and Organizational Effectiveness
uality management theory is known by many names, including total
ees?" Harvard Business Review 46 ( H o m e - wood , IL: Do rsey Press, 1962), 26
quality management (TQM), total quality control (TQC), and contin•
( J a n u a ry -Fe b ru ar y 1968), 5 3 -6 2 . .
uous quality improvement (CQI). Regardless of the name by which it
35. . H . Ro y Kaplan, Cu r t Tausky, 50. . See, for example, the debate
is known, quality management theory holds that performance is enhanced by
and B h o p i n d e r Bo la ri n, "J ob b e t w e e n Chri s Argyris and H e r b e r t Simo
designing products and services to meet or exceed customer expectations and
E n ri c h m e n t , " Personnel Journal 48 n in th e M a y / J u n e and J u l y / A u g u s t 1973
by empowering workers to find and ekminate all factors that undermine prod•
(O ctober 1969), 7 9 1 - 9 8 . issues of Public Administration Review.
uct or service quality.
36. . M cG reg or , The Professional Manager. 51 . R a y m o n d E. Miles, " H u m a n Relations
or H u m a n Resources, " Harvard Business Re• Quality management theory originated with Walter Shewhart's concept of
37. . McG regor, The Professional Manager, 96
. view 43 Quly-August 1965): 1 4 8 -6 3 . statistical process control in the 1920s, evolved into a theory of management
38. . For one such criticism, see Cur t 52 . A b r a h a m Maslow, Eupsychian Manage• in the 1950s, contributed to the success of Japanese firms in the 1960s and
Tausky, Work Organizations: Major Theoreti• ment: A Journal ( H o m e w o o d , IL: Irwin, 1970s, and finally came to the attention of American business executives in the
cal Perspectives (Itasca, IL: Peacock Publish• 1965). early 1980s. In the years that followed, public and private organizations em•
ers, 1978), 61 . 53 . T h o m a s J . Peters and R o b e r t H. braced it with what often seemed like religious zeal. Although it is now widely
39. . Chris Argyris, Personality and Wat e rm an , In Search of Excellence ( Ne w viewed as yet another failed management fad, it nonetheless continues to exert
Organiza- tion.The Conflict Between System and York: W a rn e r Bo ok s , 1982), 9 5 - 9 6 . a strong influence on how many public managers and agency personnel view
the In• dividual ( Ne w Yo r k : H a r p e r & Row , 54 . R o b e r t D . Be hn , " Th e Bi g Qu es ti on s their jobs and conduct their business.
1957). of Public M a n a g e m e n t , " Public Administra• This chapter traces the historical evolution of quality management theory
tion Review 55 Qul y/August 1995), 319 .
and identifies its core concepts as reflected in the writings ofWalter Shewhart,
Armand Feigenbaum, Kaoru Ishikawa,W Edwards Deming, and Joseph Juran.
The chapter closes with an analysis of the relevance of quality management
theory for public management and organizational performance.
CHAPTER
3
32 7
CHAPTER
3
TH E O R I G I N S AN D E V O L U T I O N O Exhib i t 14.1 E x am p l e of a C ont r o l Cha rt : Th e Di am et e r of Ball B ea r i n g s

F
QUALIT Y MANAGEMEN T THEOR Y
0 . 7 5 0 5
0 . 7 5 0 4
Quality management theory evolved over a period of several decades. The fol• 0 . 7 5 0 3
lowing sections highlight five key stages in its historical evolution. 0 . 7 5 0 2
O. 75 01
Stage 1: Development of Statistical 0 . 7 5 0 0

Ban d of
n o r m a l
0 . 7 4 9 9 variation
Process Control (SPC) 0 . 7 4 9 8
0 . 7 4 97
The quality of manufactured goods may be assured in either of two ways. The 0 . 7 4 9 6
first, quality control by inspection, remains the dominant method even today. 0 . 7 4 9 5
Heavily steeped in the scientific management tradition, this method requires en•
6
gineers to set quality specifications for each part, production supervisors to keep Samples
actual quality characteristics within the specified ranges, and inspectors to remove
the nonconforming or defective parts or products as they come off the assembly
line. The latter are then scrapped or reworked before being sold. Customers are Suppose, for example, that the diameter of a ball bearing must be 0.7500
also given warranties in case the product fails after it has been purchased. inches, plus or minus 0.0004. Rather than studying every ball bearing that comes
The second method of quality control, statistical process control, was off the assembly line, SPC involves taking several small samples, calculating the
developed in the 1920s by Walter Shewhart, a statistician at the Bell Telephone mathematical mean for each sample on a particular dimension of quality, and
Laboratories in NewYork. It involves collecting statistical data on variations in plotting the means on a control chart. An example of a control chart is shown in
product quality, using the data to identify the causes of poor product quality, Exhibit 14.1. The horizontal fines at plus and minus 0.0004 inches represent the
and eliminating those causes at each stage of the manufacturing process. tolerance levels set by the product engineers. Data points clustering around the
Whereas the inspection method relies on detecting defects after they have oc• desired diameter of 0.7500 inch represent the expected, normal pattern.Those
curred, SPC relies on preventing them in the first place, making it a much not clustering around the desired diameter, and especially those lying outside of
more logical and cost-effective method of quality control. the set tolerances, indicate that a quality problem exists. Experiments are then
The two main features of SPC are statistical sampling and process control. conducted, varying such things as the materials used, machine speeds, and meth•
Instead of inspecting each and every item, quality control is achieved by sam• ods employed, until these outliers cease to appear. A second type of control chart
pling a small number of finished goods at each stage of production, collecting allows researchers to plot the percent of each sample found to be defective.
statistical data on variations in quality, tracking down the causes of variations that Which type of chart is used depends on whether the quality attribute is measur•
he outside the acceptable range, and improving the production process or mate• able in standard units or must be judged on a defective/not defective basis.
rials used so that those variations no longer occur. Each stage in the production Shewhart understood that it is not economical to track down and eliminate
process is then said to be "under statistical control," a term coined by Shewhart. all sources of variation in product quality. He proposed that tests be conducted
As Shewhart explained in Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product to determine whether the quality standards set by the engineers might be set
(1931), the variations we observe in natural and physical processes typically re• even higher by eUminating additional sources of error. If this cannot be accom•
flect stable patterns. For example, an individual can die at any time from
1 plished economically, then the process should be judged under control. Quality
any one of a thousand chance causes of death, and yet we can predict with relative control by inspection is extraordinarily expensive. At the Hawthorne plant in
certainty the chances of that individual living to the age of 45 , 55, or 65. The the 1920s, for example, fully 13 percent of all workers were engaged in inspec•
same is true in manufacturing. Variations in product quality are caused by dif• tion. SPC, although also costly, promises a sizeable return on investment by
ferences in the quality of materials, the accuracy and rehability of machines, and greatly reducing the number of inspectors and eliminating the sources of de•
the skills and behaviors of workers. If appropriate attention is given to control• fects that make waste and rework necessary in the first place. Nonetheless, only
ling these factors, variations in quality should demonstrate a normal and pre• a handful of manufacturing firms adopted SPC prior to the Second World War.
dictable pattern with actual data points clustering around the desired standards. Quality control by inspection was simply too entrenched and there were too
Conversely, if research reveals that some data points are falling well outside the few trained statisticians available to make SPC a feasible alternative. Although
desired range, then this constitutes evidence that there is a special cause of poor SPC was introduced successfully in the armaments industries during the war, it
quality at work that must be tracked down and eliminated. Statistical analysis was systematically ignored afterwards because American firms did not need to
provides the means for determining when such special causes exist. compete on the basis of qualify in the general absence of foreign competition.
3 CHAPTER QUALITY MA NA G E ME NT 3
Thus, as the first stage in the evolution of quality management theory 3. Product control, or the shop floor control of materials, parts, and batches
came to a close in the late 1940s, the worth of an alternative to quality control from machines, processes, and assembly fines.
by inspection had been established. Attention, however, remained focused on
4. Special process studies, or the conducting of special analyses of factory and
the role of the quality control department in the manufacturing process. There
processing problems.
was, as yet, no general theory of quality management.
The last of these sets of activities is particularly important in the evolution
of quality management theory and practice. It anticipates the use of quality cir•
Stage 2: Total Quality Control (TQC) cles and cross-functional teams created as needed to investigate special quality-
as a Management Function related problems. Each of these investigations focuses on a specific work
process and is directed toward both the ehmination of defects and the contin•
The second stage in the evolution of quality management theory is marked by
ual improvement of the process itself.
the publication of two articles by Armand Feigenbaum, the top quality expert
By adopting the word total, Feigenbaum signaled an important transition
at General Electric, in 1956. These articles broadened discussions of quality
3
from thinking about the responsibilities of the quality control department

assurance from a narrow focus on production to the overall process by which
in isolation to thinking about quality control as a basic management function
products are designed, manufactured, marketed, and serviced. Feigenbaum in•
that must be performed in an integrated fashion and on an organization-wide
sisted that quality cannot be assured solely through the efforts of specialists in
basis.The inspection method allowed senior managers to delegate responsi•
the quality control or inspection department. He identified eight stages in the
bility for product quality to specialists in the quality control department and
production process and described how those involved at each stage contribute
wash their hands of any further involvement. Feigenbaum's concept of TQ C
importantly to the quality of the final product. Quality depends, for example,
made it clear that they could continue doing so only at their own peril. The
on how well members of the marketing staff understand the preferences of
management of quality, he argued, was central to cost containment and orga•
customers. It depends on how well engineers design the product in light of
nizational survival. Although Feigenbaum simply put into words what many
customer preferences and the realities of the production line. It depends on the
other quality experts had already concluded, his articles served to highlight the
quality of the materials secured by the purchasing staff. And it depends on how importance of an integrated management approach to quality assurance and
well the inspectors and testers feed back information about the causes of vari• provided a useful label for what would become known in the 1980s as total
ations in quality to those working at the beginning of the design and produc• quality management.
tion process. Quality cannot be assured by focusing on one or a few of these
stages alone. No r can it be assured by relying on the methods of statistical
process control alone. Quality can be assured only through what Feigenbaum Stage 3: Adoption of SPC by the Japanese
called total quality control. This he defined as a "system for integrating the The third stage in the evolution of quality management theory is marked by
quality-development, quality-maintenance, and quality-improvement efforts of the adoption of statistical process control (SPC) by Japanese firms in the late
the various groups in an organization so as to enable production and service at 1940s and earlyl950s, initially during the American occupation. Recogniz•
the most economical levels which allow for full customer satisfaction." ing the importance of reliable systems of communications to the economic
4
Feigenbaum argued that quality control is a core management function, reconstruction of Japan, General MacArthur put his Civil Communication
much like finance or personnel management. Because "quality is everybody's Section to work rebuilding the radio and telephone industries. In 1949
job," quality control can only be assured through an integrated program over• Hom e r Sarasohn, formerly an electronics expert at Raytheon, and Charles
seen by a central staff organization. In his words, "The quality control job re• Protzman, a seasoned engineer from Western Electric, put together a man•
quires a complete and positive program involving all the elements which agement training seminar for company executives that included a section on
influence product quality. This program starts with the design of the product statistical quality control. Knowledge of SPC did not become widespread in
and ends only when the product has been placed in the hands of a customer Japan, however, until W. Edwards Deming introduced large numbers of
wh o remains satisfied with it." 5
Japanese engineers, plant managers, and company executives to SPC in 1950
This newly recognized management function encompassed four sets of ac• at the request of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE).
tivities which Feigenbaum defined as follows: Although SPC was credited with saving millions of dollars from reduced in•
spection and rework in the defense industries during the war, it was systemati•
1. Ne w design control, or the planning of controls for new or modified
cally ignored by American manufacturers in the postwar period because it was
products prior to the start of production.
viewed as cosdy, time consuming, and unnecessary. With the economies of most
2. Incoming material control, or the control of incoming purchased parts European and Asian countries devastated by the war, American manufacturers
and materials. faced little competition in foreign markets and saw no reason to compete on
E xh ibi t 14.2 Th e P l a n - D o - C h e c k - A c t Cycl e fo r C o n t i n u o u s I m p r o v e m e n t

W . Edward s Demin g 1900-199 3
Study the results. Wha t changes might be

William Edwards Deming was born business as a private statistical consul•
Wha t did we learn? desirable? Wha t data are
October 14, 1900, in Sioux City, Iowa tant. He also began teaching courses Wha t can we predict? available? Are new
and grew up on a forty-acre home• on quality control in the Business
observations needed? If yes,
stead just outside of Powell, School at New York University, which plan a change or test.
W y om i n g. After completing high
7
he continued to do until 1975.
school Deming attended the Univer• In 1947 General MacArthur invited
sity of Wyoming, where he received a Deming to Japan to help the Japanese
bachelor's degree in engineering in prepare for the 1951 census. Having
1921. He went on to earn a master's cultivated friendships with several
degree in mathematics and physics at Japanese statisticians in 1947, Deming
the University of Colorado in 1924 was invited back in 1950 to deliver a
and a Ph.D. in mathematical physics series of seminars on statistical process
from Yale University in 1927. control to managers and technical em• Observe the effects Carry out the change or
ployees of Japan's top industrial firms. of the change or test. test decided upon, preferably
Intrigued by an opportunity to
Thereafter he became a constant visi• on a small scale.
study the effects of nitrogen on crops,
Deming accepted a job with the De• tor to Japan, returning summer after
partment of Agriculture in the fixed- summer to preach the gospel of qual•
nitrogen laboratory in 1927. It was ity management. In appreciation, the
Step 5. Repeat Step 1, with knowledge accumulated.
during this period that he traveled Japanese in 1951 established the
Step 6. Repeat Step 2, and onward.
regularly to New York to learn tech• Deming Award, Japan's highest honor
niques of statistical process control for the business community. SOURCE: Ad ap ted from W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (Cambridge, MA : Massachusetts Insitute of Technol•
ogy, 1986), 88.
from Walter Shewhart. In 1939 Dem• America "discovered" Deming
ing was recruited by the U.S. Census nearly thirty years later, when in 1980
Bureau to develop sampling tech• an NBC documentary attributed much
niques to be used for the first time in of Japan's postwar economic success Whereas his lectures to engineers and plant managers emphasized the principles
the 1940 census. During the Second to his ideas. As he approached his and techniques of SPC, his message to corporate executives emphasized the ben•
World War, Deming worked with eightieth birthday, Deming suddenly
Stanford University to design and de•
efits of producing high quality goods. These benefits are reflected in what he
found his services as a consultant very
liver short courses on Shewhart's much in demand. Believing that he called the chain reaction theory of business success. In essence it states that improv•
methods of statistical process control had a crucially important message to ing quality through SPC reduces costs and improves quality, which provides
to engineers, inspectors, and others deliver and realizing that he had little greater value to customers and increases their loyalty, which fuels growth and in•
engaged in wartime production. The time to get the message out, he be• creases profits over the long term and generates more jobs for society.
8
resulting interest in quality led to the gan delivering four-day seminars on

formation of the American Society for quality management all across the Deming also introduced the Japanese to the P l a n - D o - C h e c k - A c t
Quality Control (ASQC) in February country and continued to do so until (PDCA ) Cycle. As shown in Exhibit 14.2, the PDC A Cycle calls for the
1946. Deming was one of ASQC's char• the final month of his life. Deming continuous application of the scientific method. Whe n speaking to business
ter members. In the same year, Dem• died of cancer on December 20, 1993, leaders, Deming used it to illustrate a process of continuous improvement
ing left the Census Bureau to go into at the age of 93.
in manufacturing in which new products are designed, manufactured, sold, and
then redesigned based on customer feedback in a never-ending cycle. Whe n
speaking to workers and supervisors, Deming used it to explain how to make
the basis of quality. Japanese manufacturers faced a different situation. They continual improvements in their immediate work processes. Because Deming
needed to export finished goods to help restore the Japanese economy but their borrowed the concept from a collection of Shewhart's lectures published in
ability to do so was greatly hampered by the poor quality of their products. 1939, it also came to be know n as the Shewhart or Demin g Cycle.
9
Consequently, when Deming told Japanese business leaders that product quality Today the PDC A Cycle is used as a guide for improving any work process
provides the only sure path to success, he found a receptive audience. or management system, including those outside the realm of product design and
As a consultant, Deming had tried for years to convince his American clients manufacturing.The first step in the cycle is to plan a quality improvement proj•
to compete on the basis of product quality. He had learned from personal expe• ect. A quality improvement team is created to study a process to determine what
rience that efforts by the quality control staff to implement SPC rarely succeed changes may improve it. If necessary, additional data is collected before deciding
without senior management's full understanding and commitment. This is why what changes might be warranted.The second step is to do.This involves intro•
he insisted on meeting with the presidents of Japan's top firms during his visit. ducing a change or conducting a small-scale test to improve the process and
CHAPTER QUALITY MA N A GE ME N T
3 3
ultimately the quality of the product or service. The third step is to check. This Deming's Japanese lectures. In the early 1960s it began publishing a second
involves observing the effects of the change or test to determine whether the journal on quality control aimed at foremen, encouraged the development and
anticipated improvements materialized. In some instances this is accomplished registration of thousands of quality circles in companies throughout Japan, da n
by collecting data and plotting them on charts. In others it may require feedback motivated workers to compete for Best Quality Circle awards.Through these
from customers or clients. The fourth step is to act on the results. This typically means JUSE helped orchestrate a social movement among workers and mid•
involves introducing broader and more permanent changes based on the results dle managers that senior managers could not ignore. In short, the Japanese ap•
of the initial change or test. Because the goal is continual improvement, the cy• proach to total quality control grew out of a combination of company-specific
cle then continues, guided by what has been learned in earlier iterations. By re• initiatives and the nationwide promotional activities of JUSE.
peating the cycle for a particular work process continuously, the process The model of total quality control described by Feigenbaum and imple•
experiences increasingly higher levels of quality improvement and performance. mented at General Electric differed significantly from the model that gradu•
Deming's message to Japanese business leaders was reinforced in 1954 by ally emerged in Japan during the 1950s and 1960s. Whereas the American
another American quality control expert, Joseph M. Juran. At Deming's sugges• model relied upon staff specialists to coordinate quality control activities in the
tion, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers invited Juran to study their best tradition of scientific management, the Japanese model relied upon cross-
approach to quality, provide a critique, and conduct training courses, including trained managers and rank-and-file workers to ensure product quality. It also
special seminars for company executives.The latter seminars were attended by endorsed a management style based on individual respect and employee em•
seventy presidents of Japan's top companies. The message that Deming and
1 0
powerment, a style very similar to what human resources theorists in the

Juran delivered to Japanese executives went well beyond adopting statistical United States were calling Theor y Y. 11
process control and preventing defects.They knew only too well that a product Japan's approach to total quality control is defined by four key features: cross-
could conform to all established specifications and still not provide value to the functional committees at the top of the organization charged with set• ting
customer, or that the manufacturing function might exhibit controlled policy and coordinating all quality-related activities; quality circles at the bottom of
processes when all other functional areas did not. Consequently, Deming and the organization charged with investigating how to improve work processes;
Juran emphasized the importance of adopting quality as a fundamental business extensive training in quality management for every member of the organization;
strategy, designing and manufacturing products in a way that satisfies customer and a cultural commitment to the continuous improvement of processes and
requirements, and developing an integrated, company-wide program for con• systems in all functional areas, not just manufacturing. A qual• ity circle is a
tinually improving all work processes and management systems. small group comprising workers and their foreman that meets regularly to study
In essence Deming and Juran introduced Japanese executives to what and improve work processes in accordance with Shew- hart's PDC A Cycle.
Feigenbaum would soon label total quality control. In doing so they helped shift Descriptions of quality circle activities often sound like scientific management in
discussion from quality control as a narrow, technical staff function to quality action. They eliminate wasted motions, simplify tasks, eliminate unnecessary
management as a discrete and fundamentally important management function. steps, and pursue greater efficiencies wherever possible. But, because these
Unfortunately, total quality control existed only in the conceptual realm in the decisions are made by workers rather than man• agement experts, the quality circle
1950s. Because there were no clear models to follow, it was left to the Japanese more truly represents participative manage• ment in action.
to determine how to put total quality control into practice. Participation in quality circles is voluntary Members identify a specific
quality-related problem, investigate it, and use a variety of statistical and ana•
Stage 4: Emergence of a Uniquely Japanese Form of TQC lytical tools to identify and eliminate the sources of the problem. They then
move on to another problem. Quality circles operate in a relatively open and
The Japanese form of total quality control did not take shape immediately af• egalitarian fashion, with the foreman serving primarily as a facilitator. Mem •
ter the visits by Deming and Juran. No r did it emerge in accordance with a well- bers are given extensive training in quality control principles and basic statisti•
thought-out plan. Change came slowly and when it did it was as much the cal methods. In some instances, control charts are used to track variations in
result of a bottom-up social movement as a top-down management initia• tive. product quality, while in others the group engages in process analysis, exam•
In fact, it is unlikely that quality management would have taken root at all if it ining specific steps in the work process for which they are responsible and ad•
had not been for the educational campaigns launched by the Japanese Union of justing the process as needed to improve product quality. The cause-and-effect
Scientists and Engineers. Beginning in the early 1950s, its quality control research diagram, developed by quality control expert Kaoru Ishikawa, is often used at
group supervised the development and delivery of courses on quality control for the outset to help the group identify and address the true causes of poor qual•
every level of worker, published a journal on quality con• trol, organized ity rather than its symptoms. An example of a cause-and-effect diagram, also
annual conferences, identified November as "quality month," and established the known as the fishbone diagram because of its shape, is shown in Exhibit 14.3.
Deming Prize for quality using royalties from the sale of
QUALITY MA NA G E ME NT 3
CHAPTER
3
cles in each region. Competition for these awards, as well as the conferences
Exhi bi t 14.3 E x a m p l e of a C a u s e - a n d - E f f e c t D i a g r a m .
held in each region, helped create a national network of quality circles.
D el a y s in R e g i s t e r i n g a H o sp ital Patient
Total qualify control in Japan is defined by cultural as well as structural ele•
ments. Emphasis is placed on establishing an organizational culture committed
to continual improvement in work processes rather than bottom-line results
Equipment
alone. The underlying assumption is that if all processes and systems are func•
Personal conversation tioning efficiently, effectively, and in accordance with the organization's super-
Typing skills Printer not working ordinate goals, the desired outcomes—productivity, on-time delivery, growth,
- w i t h patient Computer
down —
and customer satisfaction—will follow more or less automatically. According
Speaks different to Masaaki Imai, estabhshing an improvement-oriented organizational culture
Fatigue Copy machine
language is easier in Japan than in the United States because it is consistent with the cul•
Computer is slow not working
Phone calls turally ingrained concept of Kaizen, which means continuous improvement
in all areas of life. Kaizen is understood as a moral obligation to be better,
13
Delays in
registration or to do things better, than the day before. In the context of the workplace it calls
Photocopying Patient has no
requirements money to pay
upon workers at all levels to do more than simply comply with established
Forgot standards; they are to pursue a gradual and deliberate kind of change aimed at
Emergency raising those standards continually. Working in such a culture, according to
insurance papers
Test accident- circumstances Imai, is motivating because it taps people's inherent desire for personal growth
related Speaks
Hearing or and pride in workmanship. Cultural commitment to continual improvement is
different language
Diagnosis is speech . Patient needs encouraged through the organization's reward systems, training and develop•
not included impairment extra assistance ment programs, competitions for best quality circle awards, and special awards
(wheelchair) for the best suggestions for improvements made by individual employees.
Confused patient
the Quality Control Headquarters established a prize for the top fourteen cir-
Patient
SO URC E: Reprinted with permission of CRC Press from Vincent Omachonu and J oe , Ross, Principles of Tots, Qualify
(Delray Beach, FL: St. Lucie, 1994).
Because each work group is responsible for only a small part of the larger
process by which products are designed and produced, each group must coor•
dinate its efforts with work groups "upstream and downstream." They do so
by communicating to upstream groups the problems they see in the materials
or products received from them and by soliciting feedback from downstream
groups about how well they are satisfying their quality requirements. In the
early 1950s Ishikawa coined the phrase "the next process is our customer," a
phrase which keeps quality circles focused on the quality requirements of their
internal customers as well as the external customers who ultimately purchase
the finished products.
The quality circle movement began in 1962 when JUSE established a jour•
nal called Quality Control for the Foreman. The journal was established to help
educate foremen about how to involve workers in the continuous pursuit of
quality. The editors of the journal encouraged foremen to organize quality cir•
cles and register them with a private organization called Quality Control Head•
quarters, which was established in 1963 to promote quality circles nationwide.
The movement steadily gained steam. Whereas only 3,700 quality circles had
registered by 1965, by 1983 there were 173,953 registered groups. In 1971 1 2
QUALITY MA NA G E ME NT 3
CHAPTER
3
These defining elements—cross-functional management teams, quality cir•

cles, intensive training in quality management, and an improvement-oriented
culture—capture only a part of the Japanese approach to total quality control.
The Japanese philosophy toward people management is also important. Ac•
cording to Ishikawa, respect for humanity is the guiding philosophy of quality
management in Japan. To the extent that this is true, the Japanese approach of•
fers a concrete picture of how humanistic and participatory theories of man•
agement may be put into practice. Ishikawa characterizes Japanese-style quality
management as a system in which all employees participate, from the top
down and from the bottom up. It is "a system of management that lets the un•
limited potential of human beings blossom." 14
It is possible to discern a superficial resemblance between Taylor's scientific

management and Ishikawa's quality management. Both call for scientific study
and fact-based decision making, and both assume that rational solutions to the
problems of organizations and human societies can be found. But this is where
the similarities end. Consistent with Taylor's belief that the planning of work
should be separated from the doing of work, scientific management relies on
management specialists to establish operating procedures to which workers are
expected to conform. Japanese quality management, by contrast, relies on the
workers themselves to define and continually adjust operating procedures,
thereby reintegrating planning and doing. Second, scientific management re•
lies on extrinsic rewards in the form of pay bonuses to motivate workers,
whereas quality management relies on intrinsic rewards in the form of pride
of accomplishment and service to customers. Finally, scientific management
embraces a competitive strategy based on maximizing output, whereas quality
l_HAK l b K QUALITY MA NA G E ME NT 3
management embraces a strategy based on maximizing quality and customer

doing so. Some companies "did little more than adopt the slogans of quality,
satisfaction, sometimes even at the expense of efficiency and economy.
drape the factory walls in banners, and run every employee through a prefab•
The significance of this fourth stage lies in the intertwining of theory and
ricated course on quality improvement." In other instances, quality circles
1 5
practice. As the Japanese searched for ways to put the ideas of Deming and Ju•
were established but supervisors provided little leadership and managers ig•
ran into practice, they contributed importantly to the evolution of the theory
nored their recommendations for improvements, all of which only served to
itself. By the 1980s quality management had come to mean an integrated ap•
further frustrate and disillusion quality-conscious employees.
proach to management centered on the values of quality and customer service,
Such mistakes plagued the implementation of quality management in the
emphasizing training, teamwork, and empowerment, and requiring strong
public sector as well as the private. The relevance of TQ M to public agencies
leadership from senior management. Instead of a narrow technical speciality,
and the obstacles to its successful implementation are discussed later in this
quality management was now seen as a way of doing business, perhaps even a
chapter. Before turning to these matters, however, it is worth taking a closer
way of life, for everyone in the organization.
look at the contributions of W Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran.
Stage 5: The "Discovery" of Quality in the United States

During the 1970s American firms continued to lose market share to the Japa• TW O KE Y L E A D E R S I N TH E Q U A L I T Y
nese in several key industries, including automobiles, consumer electronics, and
machine tools. Many American business leaders began visiting Japan to investi• MANAGEMEN T MOVEMEN T
gate the reasons for Japan's postwar economic success, and it was then that they
first heard of Deming and Juran. Most Americans, however, did not learn of For the most part, Deming and Juran endorsed the same principles of quality
quality management and the contributions of Deming and Juran until June 24, management, including continuous improvement, customer focus, and full
1980 when NB C aired a documentary entitled "If Japan Can . . .Why Can't employee participation. But where Deming preached, exhorted, and rambled
We?" This documentary chronicled Japan's emergence as an economic power from one anecdote to the next to get his philosophy across, Juran explained
and attributed much of Japan's success to Deming's ideas.The final fifteen min• clearly and carefully how to put quality management into practice. Where
utes included an interview with Deming, who described what can be accom• Deming emphasized the importance of humanistic values, Juran emphasized
plished through a total commitment to quality. The next day Deming's the importance of organizational structure. Where Deming believed senior
telephone rang off the hook. Corporations such as Ford and General Motors managers must internalize the philosophy of quality management before turn•
immediately enlisted his help, and his quality management seminars began en• ing to the details of implementation, Juran believed they must have a clear un•
rolling hundreds of participants. Demand for the services of Juran and other derstanding of how to implement quality management and what is to be
quality experts increased dramatically as well. gained by doing so before they can be expected to internalize the philosophy.
Quality management became a national obsession during the 1980s, al• These differences were not merely stylistic or strategic. As discussed below,
though not to the extent seen in Japan. Consultants emphasized its relevance for they also reflected important differences in ideas and values.
service as well as manufacturing industries and marketed it to public and private
organizations alike. Professional associations made it the key theme of their an• Deming's Fourteen Points
nual conferences; Congress established the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Knowing the American penchant for the quick fix, for introducing one man•
Award in 1987 as America's counterpart to the Deming Prize in Japan; and the
agement reform after another without any fundamental theory or strategy for
federal government created the Federal Quality Institute in 1988 as a source of
guidance, Deming refused to talk about tools, techniques, or programs until he
information and training for agencies interested in implementing what the U.S. was convinced that senior management possessed what he called profound
Defense Department had labeled Total Quality Management (TQM). knowledge. His fear that management would treat his ideas as a program or set
Despite the keen interest in quality management, very few organizations of techniques to be implemented rather than a philosophy to be embedded in
implemented T Q M as an integrated management program or succeeded in the organization's culture explains why he shunned all labels, including Total
embedding it in their organizational cultures.The assumptions and methods of Quality Management. It also explains why he organized his seminars and
scientific management, the logic of managing for results, and the American books around Th e Fourt een Points —his personal theory of quality man•
penchant for the quick fix, were perhaps too deeply entrenched. Often TQ M agement. And it explains why he, like Taylor, refused to work with clients un•
was implemented as a stand-alone employee relations program rather than a less they promised to adopt his philosophy in its entirety.
fundamental management strategy. In many instances, employees were ex• Deming wrote Out of the Crisis (1982) at a time when Americans were
horted to adopt quality as their top priority but with no means identified for deeply concerned about foreign competition and escalating trade imbalances.
CHAPTER -r-r
3
In it he argues that the only way out of the economic crisis is to achieve a com• E xh ib i t 14.4 D e m i n g ' s F o u rte e n Points
plete transformation in what he calls the American or "Western style of manage•
ment. This style, according to Deming, is deeply flawed, especially in its pursuit 1. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service. The organiza•
tion must develop a clear sense of purpose and remain focused on it. This sense of
of short-term profits at the expense of long-term improvements. Instead of pay• purpose must relate to the organization's essential contribution to society rather
ing attention to bottom-line results—such as output, sales, profits, market share, than the short-term gains desired by its immediate stakeholders.
and return on investment—management should establish quality goals, improve 2. Adopt the new philosophy. The organization must throw off all vestiges of
work processes, and have faith that the bottom line will take care of itself. In• Western-style management and adopt the new philosophy of continuous im•
provement. This requires a complete transformation of mind and heart.
deed, Deming insisted that Western-style management is the primary cause of
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection. Instead of inspecting bad quality out, or•
the economic crisis. Business leaders, he wrote, continue to blame poor organi• ganizations must build good quality in.
zational performance on "anything but the actual cause, pure and simple bad 4. End the practice of awarding business on price tag alone. The organization must de•
management."
1 6
In Deming's view, Western-style management must be velop a long-term relationship with one or two vendors who will supply exactly what
is needed at a fair price. Purchasing low-cost supplies and equipment through com•
entirely transformed and he offered his Fourteen Points as the basis for doing so. petitive bidding almost always undermines the quality of the final product or service.
Al• though it is difficult to get a clear understanding of them because of his ram• 5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service. Continually
bling, anecdotal writing style, Exhibit 14.4 captures their essential meaning. striving to improve the system, thereby continuously raising quality standards,
makes far greater sense than the more common patterns of putting out fires,
Deming's Fourteen Points are consistent with the Japanese approach to to•
holding workers to minimum work standards, and exhorting everyone to meet
tal quality management. There is, for example, the same emphasis on continu• numerical goals that lie outside their control.
ous improvement, cross-functional cooperation, and constancy of purpose. And 6. Institute training. All employees must receive the training they need to do their
like the Japanese approach described by Ishikawa, Deming's approach is highly jobs well. They also must be trained in the use of statistical tools so that they can
participate in making process improvements.
humanistic. His Fourteen Points call for creating an environment of trust and
7. Institute leadership. Supervisors at all levels must adopt a new role, learning to fa•
mutual respect, driving out all aspects of management by fear, investing heavily cilitate the efforts of others rather than commanding, exhorting, and punishing.
in the organization's human resources, and empowering every member of the Facilitation includes providing the necessary tools and resources, removing all bar•
riers to deriving intrinsic satisfactions from work, and helping keep process im•
organization to help improve work processes. Although other quality experts
provement projects on track.
were also humanistic in their approach, most were not as quick to characterize
8. Drive out fear. Quality will not improve if workers are afraid to ask questions, ad•
American management as management by fear.Juran, for example, maintained mit mistakes, report problems, take risks, or dc anything more than abide by the
that fear is sometimes a legitimate and necessary source of motivation. Because rules and satisfy minimum work expectations, for fear of losing their jobs or op•
portunities for advancement.
Deming's philosophy is controversial in this respect, a closer look at his views
9. Break down barriers between staff areas. Quality is undermined when there is a
on piecework, annual performance reviews, and management by objectives lack of cooperation and consultation among organizational units. The sources of
(MBO) is warranted. this problem, including management by fear and lack of constancy of purpose,
must be found and eliminated.
Piecework, in Deming's view, means paying workers to churn out as much
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce. Slogans such as
as possible without regard for quality. It robs workers of pride of workmanship
"Do things right the first time," and targets such as "Reduce workplace accidents
and has no place in an organization committed to providing superior goods or by 20 percent," are forms of exhortation. They ask workers to do better without
services.The same is true for numerical work standards. For example, an air• providing them with the means. Deming liked to asked how workers can be ex•
pected to do better when they are given defective materials, poor lighting, boor•
line reservation clerk may be told to answer twenty-five calls an hour while ish supervisors, and inadequate training and equipment.
being courteous and not rushing the caller, but if the computer system is down 11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for people in
or unusually slow the clerk cannot possibly satisfy both requirements at once. management. These only serve to produce fear because the ability to achieve quo•
Most likely callers will be rushed, and quality of service sacrificed, all in an ef• tas and goals is usually influenced by factors outside the worker's control. It is far
better to involve everyone in continually improving the system so that both quali•
fort to satisfy an arbitrary work standard. tative and quantitative goals may be met.
The same scenario is repeated when senior managers institute MB O and pay-for- 12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship. People want to take pride in their work. It
performance at the middle-management ranks. These systems hold middle is a primary source of motivation. Yet little pride can be taken where workers are sub•
ject to rules and policies that make no sense, reward systems that are geared to quan•
managers responsible for setting and achieving numerical goals even though they tity rather than quality, and no opportunities to help improve the system.
are subject to economic, technological, and bureaucratic forces that often make 13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement. It is not enough
the attainment of those goals impossible. Deming liked to say that being rewarded to train workers as suggested in Point 6. Because they are valuable resources,
for attaining goals or quotas is much like winning the lot• tery. Sometimes you workers must be retrained as needed and provided opportunities for personal
growth and development.
win, mostly you don't, and the amount of effort you put into it makes little
14. Take action to accomplish the transformation. Management must develop a de•
difference. Deming believed that managers resort to numer• ical goals as a way of tailed action plan for involving everyone in accomplishing the required transfor•
avoiding responsibility for studying and improving work systems. Collecting mation. Appropriate committees must be established, training provided, and
reward systems created.
performance data is perfectly appropriate, Deming was
3 CHAPTER QUALITY MA N A GE ME N T 3
quick to add, as long as it is the performance of the entire work group that is
tracked and both qualitative and quantitative measures are used. Joseph M. Juran 1904-
Deming reserved particular scorn for the kind of annual performance re•
views where workers are ranked relative to each other, some being judged Joseph Moses Juran was born in what Management in 1944. At the end of
above average and some below. Those deemed above average are pressured by is now Romania on December 24, the war he resigned from Western
1904. His father, a shoemaker,
18
their peers to reduce their level of performance to the lowest common de• Electric to become head of New York
moved to the United States in 1909 University's industrial engineering de•
nominator, and those deemed below average remain confused and dejected
and earned enough to send for his partment. He also began working part-
because they can't figure out why they can't measure up. Deming used Shew- wife and children three years later. time as a private management
hart's control chart to illustrate the flaws in this method. Rating systems divide Joseph, who was then seven years old, consultant. Having established his rep•
employees into three groups: a small group who score outside the control lim• quickly learned English and excelled in utation as a management expert with
the classroom. At the age of 15 he en• the publication of Quality Control
its on the negative side, a small group who score outside the control hmits on
tered the University of Minnesota, Handbook in 1951, Juran resigned his
the positive side, and a large group containing most employees who score where he obtained a bachelor's de• position at NYU to pursue full-time
within the control limits. There is no reason, Deming insisted, for ranking gree in electrical engineering in 1924. work as a consultant.
those individuals whose performance is within the acceptable limits. Making He was immediately recruited by the
In 1954 Juran traveled to Japan
such fine distinctions is unfair because it ascribes to the individuals in the Western Electric company and as•
where he delivered two-day seminars
signed to the inspection department
group differences that are often caused by the system in which they work. on quality management to senior and
at the Hawthorne Works outside
middle managers in several Japanese
Ranking people only serves to destroy the morale and well-being of the sys• Chicago. W he n quality control prob•
cities. Juran challenged his audience
tem. Deming believed that everyone within the control limits should receive lems at Hawthorne gave Walter Shew-
to take personal responsibility for
the same pay increase, while those in the small group whose performance hart an opportunity to test his new
managing quality and to pursue orga•
ideas about statistical process control
is unacceptable should receive immediate attention in the form of training, nizational success through incremen•
in 1926, Juran shepherded him
employee assistance, or discipline. tal quality improvements. Juran's
around the plant and helped with consulting business boomed in the
Deming's systems view of work operations holds important implications the investigation. late 1970s as American executives be•
for management theory and practice. Deming asserted that 85 percent of all In 1937 Juran moved his family to gan investigating Japan's "economic
performance problems are caused by the system in which people work. Tradi• New York City, where he had been put miracle." In 1979 he established the
tional management methods appear to be premised on the opposite assump• in charge of the industrial engineer• Juran Institute to develop and market-
ing department at Western Electric's training materials on the principles
tion, that nearly all performance problems are caused by workers, and therefore
corporate headquarters. There he re• and methods of quality management.
the behaviors of workers must be carefully circumscribed and controlled, re• By the 1980s Juran was widely recog•
ceived valuable experience in wage
warded and punished. Mary Walton illustrates this point in the following pas• and salary administration as a mid- nized as one of the nation's premier
sage from The Deming Method at Work: level executive. Whe n the United experts on quality management. He
States entered the war in 1941 Juran received numerous awards for his
Everyone works within a system, governed by conditions over which the took a leave of absence from Western contributions to society, including
individual has no control. A tire builder has to contend with the condition Electric to help the Lend-Lease Admin• the National Medal of Technology
istration cope with the logistical diffi• presented to him by President Bush
of a complex machine and the quality and coordination of sixteen incom•
culties of sending war materials all in 1992 when he was 87. A worka•
ing components, as well as lighting, heat, and other environmental condi• over the world. Despite being a bril• holic his entire life, Juran continued
tions. The speed with which a waitress delivers food depends less on her liant problem solver, Juran concluded to work well into his nineties, pub•
abilities and attentiveness to customers than on the performance of the he was not cut out to be a manager. lishing a collection of essays in 1995
He turned to writing while still work• on the history of quality manage•
kitchen, where cooks command an arsenal of utensils, machines and sup•
ing for the government, publishing ment and beginning work on his
plies and, of course, other workers. A nurse must deal not only with de• autobiography.
Bureaucracy, A Challenge to Better
mands by patients, doctors and administrators, but also with medical sup•
plies and equipment, paperwork systems, and food delivery.
In the American style of management, when something goes wrong
the response is to look around for someone to blame or punish or to
always be above- and below-average performers, he noted, but if you con•
search for something to "fix" rather than to look to the system as a whole
stantly improve the system everyone's performance improves. Deming's analy•
for improvement.
17
sis of the sources of statistical variations in work performance also allowed him
Deming strove to reorient management thinking from controlling the be• to underscore his main point: Quality is management's responsibility because
haviors of employees to improving the systems in which they work. There will only managers have the authority and means to correct the system.
Juran's Structural Approach to Quality Management with clear responsibility for bringing each project to a successful conclusion,
and providing the resources, motivation, and training needed by project teams
Juran spoke to managers in a language they could understand: the language of to diagnose the causes of poor quality, establish a remedy, and take action to
money. Instead of expounding a personal philosophy of quality management, hold the gains. Each project team strives to make what Juran called significant
he emphasized the enormous costs of poor quality and how managers stood breakthroughs in how business is conducted by eliminating the major sources
to save thousands, even millions, of dollars by eliminating them. These costs of defect-related waste, inferior design relative to customer requirements, and
arise from the payroll of the inspection force, the costs of items junked or process-related inefficiencies. Juran noted that whereas quality improvement is
scrapped, the costs of rework, the costs of the customers' returns, and all the the area where the greatest gains to the organization are possible, it is also the
secondary costs from lost customer loyalty. The good news, Juran emphasized, area where management commitment and follow through has been weakest.
is that the costs of poor quality are like "gold in the mine." All an organization Having provided the necessary conceptual foundation, Juran next de•
has to do is remove the sources of poor quality and the gold that is already scribed for managers the structural arrangements by which to institutional•
there can be mined and put to more productive uses. The secret to successful ize an integrated, to p- to -b ot to m program of quality management. Quality
mining is not simply to remove the special causes of variation so that a process planning is the responsibility of the senior management team for the organi•
is returned to a state of statistical control but to continuously improve the zation as a whole and each major unit. This team engages in strategic plan•
process itself so that unprecedented levels of quality are achieved. ning. It identifies external customers, develops business strategy, sets quality
Again choosing to speak in a language understandable to management, Ju• goals and standards, and approves development of new products or services.
ran likened the quality management function to the financial management The actual development of new products or services is turned over to cross-
function. Both call for systematic planning, control, and improvement. Juran functional planning teams composed of representatives of all relevant fine and
marketed this concept as the Juran Trilogy, a registered trademark of the Juran staff units.
Institute. Qua lit y pla nnin g involves developing the products or services
19
A structured system of committees is required in the area of quality im•

that customers need or desire. Activities include determining who the organi• provement in order to carry out unprecedented numbers of improvement proj•
zation's customers are, determining what they require or expect, developing ects at an unprecedented pace.
2 0
The improvement program is overseen by
product or service features that respond to customers' needs, developing quality councils established at each major level of the organization. Their pur•
processes that are able to produce these features, and transferring the resulting pose is to launch, coordinate, and institutionalize annual quality improvements
plans to the operating units. Although this analysis is essential at the organiza• by placing specific projects on an authoritative agenda and scheduling them
tion's strategic apex, quality planning is also important in every unit so that all for solution. Juran emphasized that problems are rarely resolved without an in•
work processes—hiring, purchasing, reporting, approving, producing—are re• stitutionalized structure of this kind. These councils set quality improvement
sponsive to the needs of internal and external customers. Because the causes of policy at each level, establish the process for selecting improvement projects,
poor quality are often upstream, quality planning is typically undertaken by cross- establish the process for selecting team members, provide resources, review
functional teams comprising representatives from all relevant units. team reports, and ensure that proposed solutions are implemented. Quality
The second leg of the Juran Trilogy is quality control. This consists of councils designate the members of each project improvement team after con•
evaluating quality performance, comparing actual performance to established sulting with the departmental managers affected. The members of a project
quality standards or goals, and acting on the differences. It involves keeping a improvement team, typically six to eight individuals, are drawn from the "ail•
planned process in a planned state so that it remains able to meet operating ing" departments, the "suspect" departments believed to be the source of the
goals.This is accomplished either by intervening to restore the status quo by problem, and the "remedial" departments that might be able to assist in resolv•
addressing the causes of variations in quality or by taking steps to prevent dam• ing the problem. The goal is to improve a specific work process so that it satis•
age in the first place. At the operating level it means giving workers the tools fies increasingly higher standards of performance.
they need to be self-controlling. These may include statistical tools such as Where Deming emphasized philosophy, Juran emphasized structure.
control charts, although the need for such tools necessarily varies with the Both understood, however, that neither philosophical understanding nor in•
specific situation and problem at hand. Juran noted that training supervisors stitutionalized structure alone is sufficient. Quality must become everyone's
and workers in the use of statistics is often useful, but in many organizations it top priority and this requires embedding a commitment to quality in every
has led to a tool-oriented approach rather than a problem-solving or results- facet of the organization's culture. As Juran put it, "To institutionalize annual
oriented approach to quality control. quality improvement is a profound change in culture, requiring a corre•
The final leg of the Juran Trilogy is quality i mpr ovement. This involves spondingly profound change in the systems of recognition and rewards." 2 1
raising quality performance to unprecedented levels. It is achieved by identify• Without a fundamental change in culture, longstanding priorities and behav•
ing areas where quality improvements are needed, establishing project teams iors will persist.
QUALIT Y M A N A G E M E N T AN D making system improvements.The second set of commentators expressed con•
ORGANIZATIO N THEOR Y fidence that moral leadership and worker empowerment need not be incom•
patible in practice. The extent to which power can be widely distributed and
The faddish, cult-like enthusiasm for quality management in the late 1980s shared in organizations is a longstanding subject of debate among organization
and early 1990s led many scholars and practitioners to ask where TQ M fits in theorists. It is a question that is yet to be resolved. Writing in 1993, Robert
respect to established theories of organization. Commentators during this pe• Denhardt suggested that the apparent contradiction in quality management
theory matters less today because TQ M has been incorporated into the larger
riod tended to fall into one of two camps. Those in the first camp viewed
body of management theory:
TQ M as scientific management dressed up in humanistic clothing. They saw a
continuing emphasis on rational planning and control through a top-down, some theorists and practitioners argue that TQ M is really "rational
leadership-oriented form of management. For them the references to partici• systems theory dressed in behavioral clothing," that the roots of TQ M are
pation, involvement, and empowerment were simply added to the theory to deeply imbedded in the need for control and that although contemporary
make it more palatable to front-line workers. Many of these commentators expressions o f T Q M use more humanistic language, the manipulative in•
also viewed T Q M as a modern version of Chester Barnard's managerialism. tent is still the same.
Total Quality Management charges organizational leaders with defining the In a certain sense, these criticisms of T Q M don't really matter, for TQ M
moral purposes of the organization (vision and mission) and the moral bases has lost much of its original meaning and is now regarded by many as a
on which the purposes are to be achieved. Nonmanagement personnel are so• somewhat faddish label for good management practice, broadly defined. 25
cialized in these values by those at the top where power continues to be con•
centrated. Th e result is that a community of cooperating managers and
workers is created at the expense of individualism. As Leon Weiseltier put it,
"Drones who can compete with Japan are preferable to drones who cannot
QUALIT Y MANAGEMEN T
compete with Japan; but they are still drones."
22
Those in the second camp viewed TQ M as the natural evolution of "good I N TH E P U B L I C S E C T O R

management" theory, one that integrates certain aspects of scientific manage•
ment theory, human resources theory, systems theory, and the strategic plan• Although developed in the context of manufacturing, both Deming and Juran
ning theory implicit in the work of Chester Barnard.
2 3
From scientific insisted that the principles of quality management apply equally to service and
management theory comes the concepts of rational planning, fact-based de• manufacturing industries and to public and private organizations. Having been
cision making, and performance measurement; from human resources theory trained in statistics, they viewed all organizations as comprising work processes
comes the concepts of trust, involvement, and personal development; from exhibiting more or less stable patterns of variation in performance levels. They
systems theory comes the idea that management is responsible for managing believed that if the levels of variation are managed properly, they can be de•
the organization in a fully integrated manner; and from strategic planning creased and quality raised. From their perspective it mattered little that private
theory comes the concept of visionary leadership and the importance of organizations are market-driven and most public organizations are not. As
keeping everyone focused on the ultimate mission or transcendent purpose Deming put it, "In most governmental services, there is no market to capture.
of the organization. The commentators in this camp generally viewed TQ M In place of capture of the market, a government agency should deliver eco•
as a positive development, a useful synthesis of ideas that promises to create win- nomically the service prescribed by law or regulation. The aim should be dis•
tinction in service."26
win situations by combining system improvements with greater cus• tomer

satisfaction. Having considered its applicability to the public sector, Milakovich Within the public administration community, however, there has always
concluded, for example, that TQ M "offers an opportunity to change the very been considerable skepticism about the universality of management principles
nature of the political game by emphasizing process improve• ments, empowering and the extent to which business methods can or should be transferred to the
public employees, and meeting citizen/customers needs while simultaneously public sector. The sections that follow examine the relevance of TQ M princi•
reducing costs. Everyone wants to see more value for their tax dollars."
24
ples to public sector realities, the obstacles that must be overcome, and the
The first set of commentators highlighted an apparent contradiction in prospects for their successful application in government.
quality management theory, between concentrating greater power in the hands
of senior managers so that they can exercise leadership on behalf of their vi• Relevance
sion of organizational success, and delegating greater power and responsibility Several scholars have commented on the relevance o f T Q M to public agen•
to front-line workers so that they can enjoy the intrinsic rewards derived from cies, among them James Swiss. Swiss concludes that TQ M holds considerable
promise for improving the performance of government agencies, but only if
3 CHAPTER QUALITY M AN AG EM EN T 3
its principles and methods are adapted to the unique purpose and context of
side forces, turnover among senior managers tends to be very high, and there
public administration.
are very few incentives for even long-term managers to initiate and sustain
Swiss identifies four problems associated with implementing TQ M in the new management initiatives such as TQ M . Swiss cites James Q.Wilson's obser•
public sector. First, most public agencies produce services rather than products. vation that "What is surprising is that government executives spend any time
Assurances of universality notwithstanding, measuring service quality is much at all on managing their departments." 31
more difficult than measuring product quality. This is because there are many In most respects Swiss's analysis is fair and accurate. There are very clear
factors that enter into the equation, including such things as access, responsive• obstacles to implementing TQ M successfully in the public sector. However,
ness, creativity, reliability, competence, and courtesy. It is also because appro• his concern that T Q M will undermine results-oriented reform efforts is based
priate measures of these factors are very difficult to identify. Even where largely on a misunderstanding of quality management theory. Deming and Ju•
appropriate measures exist, it is seldom clear how to combine them into an ran offer TQ M as a way to root out the causes of poor performance and bring
overall assessment of service quality that accurately captures the extent of cus• an end to bureaucratic complacency. It is very much results-oriented. Process
tomer satisfaction. Customers typically weigh various aspects of quality differ• improvements can only be defined as improvements if they help realize per•
ently. Swiss offers the following illustration: "If an efficient police officer quickly formance goals. Further, Deming's objection to numerical work standards,
locates stolen cars but seems ill-groomed or curt, many of his or her customers quotas, MBO, and individual ratings does not mean, as Swiss implies, that he
will not be totally satisfied, despite receiving a high quality output." 27
was opposed to measuring outcomes or tracking results. Deming stated re•

The second problem lies in defining the agency's customers and determin• peatedly that quantitative measures of performance are absolutely essential.
ing how to satisfy them. For many public agencies these decisions are mired in He only asked that they be balanced with qualitative measures and that man•
politics. As seen in Chapter 2, public agencies often serve multiple stakeholders agers assess the performance of work units against agreed upon goals rather
with contradictory demands. It is no easy matter to determine how much con• than the performance of individual workers against each other's, especially
sideration to give to each claimant and rarely is any one stakeholder com• where their level of performance is determined largely by the systems within
pletely satisfied. An important distinction must also be made between the which they work.
agency's ultimate customers, the general public, and its immediate clients. Swiss
fears that " T Q M can easily do more harm than good because it can encourage
a focus on the particularistic demands of direct clients rather than the needs of Obstacles
the more important (but often inattentive) customers, the general public." It 28
The principles of quality management may be relevant to public agencies with

is not unusual for the interests of these two groups to be diametrically op•
appropriate modifications, but the obstacles to their successful implementation
posed. The purchaser of services, the general taxpayer, usually wants to keep
are formidable. A few of the most challenging of these obstacles are summa•
agency costs low, whereas the immediate client, the recipient of services, often
rized below:
wants service features that are costly. As Swiss notes, "N o balance between
costs and features is likely to please both groups." • Structural fragmentation. TQ M requires cross-functional cooperation
29
The third problem identified by Swiss is that TQ M focuses on inputs and in resolving performance problems.This prerequisite is difficult to satisfy
processes rather than outputs and results.This, according to Swiss, runs con• in large political jurisdictions where authority is typically fragmented
trary to the rationale of recent government reforms, including program bud• among several agencies and where functional fiefdoms within agencies
geting, MBO , and pay for performance, which seek to shift the attention of jealously work to protect their own power and autonomy.
public managers from bureaucratic processes to strategic goals and measurable • Absence of incentives. T Q M requires strong commitment from top
results. Here Swiss cites Deming's assertion that the current "focus on out• leaders.Yet elected officials and top-ranking administrators are rarely re•
comes" must be "abolished." Swiss fears that TQ M will cause public agencies warded for "good management" and thus have few incentives to initiate
to neglect or even dismantle their results-oriented performance management and support reform efforts. Defeated in his reelection bid, Mayor Sensen-
systems and that a renewed focus on process will only encourage public man• brenner of Madison, Wisconsin stated that he probably got fewer than 25
agers to return to a state of bureaucratic complacency, dutifully adhering to votes for introducing TQ M in city government. 32
minimal legal requirements and doing no more than is needed to avoid public
• High turnover in leadership positions. Senior administrators rarely
attention and political controversy.
hold their positions for extended periods of time. The tenure of federal ad•
The final problem is that TQ M requires "an extremely strong organiza• ministrators, for example, is typically 18 months. This makes it very difficult
tional culture with an almost single-minded commitment to quality." This
30
for the agency to maintain the constancy of purpose required to embed

in turn requires active and continual intervention from senior managers to keep quality management in the organization s culture. Even when administrators
workers committed and focused. Establishing and sustaining strong cultures is implement quality management successfully, their efforts are often undone
very difficult in the public sector because agencies must be open to many out- by their successors.
• Statutory barriers. Process improvements are often constrained by proce• A related issue is whether the prospects for success are greatest when TQ M
dural requirements fixed in law and by legal Jaanits on the agency's authority.
is implemented on a government-wide basis at the direction of top-ranking
• Resistance to redistributing power. The successful implementation officials or when it is left to middle managers and supervisors to implement
of quality management requires delegation and empowerment, but mid• on their own initiative. Total Quality Management advocates generally endorse
dle managers often resist giving up their traditional prerogatives to direct integrated, government-wide programs backed by the full commitment and
and control. authority of senior management. In practice, however, "the more common
• Lack of resources to i mple me nt improvements. Agencies may wish case is for TQ M to sprout out from the top of a single department, division, or
to implement programmatic improvements to better serve their clients but office, rather than from the jurisdiction's top elected or administrative offi•
lack the resources required to do so. As Milakovich has observed, most cial." These initiatives often arise spontaneously from the efforts of quality-
38
public agencies "still lack the capacity to simultaneously increase productiv• conscious and improvement-oriented managers, and sometimes they spread to
ity, reduce costs, and motivate public employees to provide service to cus• other units. Localized initiatives of this kind can often avoid the resistance en•
tomers (taxpayers) in a timely, polite, efficient, and cost-effective manner." 3
countered when TQ M is implemented from the top down through directives
issued from a centralized staff agency. Cohen and Brand are among the few ad•
3
• Multiple, conflicting goals. Many agencies have complex missions and vocates of TQ M who encourage organizational units to implement T Q M on
multiple, often conflicting goals. Program improvements are usually diffi• their own initiative. In their view, "Top management commitment is a luxury.
cult to implement where interest group dominance is high and goal If you have it, fine, but the probability that the top manager of your organiza•
tion will have such a co mmitmen t is low." T h e message they
3 9
agreement is low.
communicate to middle managers and work supervisors is that you "need not wait
• Lack of useful performance measures. Quality-related criteria for as•
for the comprehensive, total commitment of top management as a precondition
sessing organizational performance are very hard to define in many agen•
of getting started. Get started yourself." 40
cies and even harder to measure.

Although the principle of continuous improvement is clearly relevant to
work processes in all agencies, opportunities for improving the bottom line
may be greatest in production agencies where outputs are clear and measur• R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N
able. Such opportunities are also high where work processes are routine and T
involve many sequential steps, such as purchasing, hiring, and application pro•
cessing. But even in these situations, the obstacles cited above represent signifi• The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of quality management
cant barriers to the successful implementation of quality management. theory for public management and organizational performance. This explo•
ration is guided by the three analytical frameworks introduced in Chapter 3.
Prospects for Success
Successful applications o f T Q M in the public sector are well documented in
such works as Cohen and Brand's Total Quality Management in Government, Carr Quality management theory offers a relatively comprehensive theory of orga•
and Littman's Excellence in Government, Milakovich's Improving Service Quality, nizational effectiveness, one that recognizes the importance of balancing all of
and Denhardt's The Pursuit of Significance. Notable examples of successful
34 the values identified in Exhibit 14.5. Output quality, a value that appears at the
i m• plementations include the agency-wide initiative at the U.S. Internal Revenue center of Quinn's Competing Values Framework because it was found to be a
Service and the government-wide initiative in Madison, Wisconsin.
35 central component of most definitions of organizational effectiveness, is the
value associated first and foremost with quality management theory. Indeed, an
Despite the many success stories reported, there is still too little empirical
organization that adopts TQ M is expected to adopt the pursuit of quality as its
data available to allow for an overall assessment of quality management as a
central mission. Doing so, however, requires a careful balancing of all of the
theory of organizational effectiveness. Isolating the effects of quality manage•
other values identified in Exhibit 14.5.
ment programs on the overall performance of an agency is very difficult to do
methodologically. For example, although Mani was able to document large
36 The values associated with the open systems model , including flexibil•
cost savings and improvements in customer satisfaction after the implementa• ity and readiness to adapt to environmental change, are clearly reflected in
tion of TQ M at the IRS, the gross indicators of agency performance did not quality management theory. Because quality is defined by the customers who
show statistically significant improvements. It is likely that available
3 7 receive the product or service, and because their definitions of quality are con•
measure• ment tools are not sophisticated enough to allow for an overall stantly changing, the pursuit of excellence requires continual adjustments in
assessment of the contributions of quality management initiatives. the ways products and services are designed and delivered to ensure that cus•
tomer expectations continue to be met.

yuALii r iviAiNACjtMEN T THEORY 35 3
E x h ib i t 14.5 Th e C o m p e t i n g V alu e s F r a m e w o r k :
Four Mo de l s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l Ef f e ct i v ene ss
Finally, quality management theory acknowledges the importance of the

Flexibility
values associated with the internal process m od el . Exercising control over
all work processes is a fundamental principle ofTQM.This control is achieved,
however, not through formal commands, standard operating procedures, and
management control systems but by delegating decision-making authority to
Pattern maintenance/Tension Adaptive function: the need teams of workers who strive to eliminate the sources of poor quality and make
management function: the need to to acquire resources and adapt process improvements consistent with the organization's vision statement and
maintain a competent, integrated, to an uncertain environment strategic plan.
Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values: Mechanisms for Coordinating

RELATIONS morale readiness SYSTEMS and Controlling Work Activities
MODEL MODEL
Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values: Like human resources theory, quality management theory advocates mutual
human resource growth, adjustment as an alternative to direct supervision. Coordination is achieved as
development resource acquisition the members of interlocking, cross-functional teams meet to discuss and resolve
Internal External problems that cut across departmental or functional lines. Control takes the
focus Output Quality form of self-control. Rather than striving to control individual behavior, quality
focus
management theory calls for bringing each work process "under control" by
empowering workers to identify and eliminate the causes of unwarranted vari•
ations in product or service quality. Standardization of work processes may be
goal setting GOAL
used for purposes of coordination and control where the work is routine and
PROCESS communication
MODEL MODEL repetitive in nature but it is the work team rather than the planning staff that is
Ends-oriented values: Ends-oriented values: charged with continually adjusting work st;mdards and procedures.
stability, productivity, Quality management theory also relies upon standardization of work
control efficiency
outputs for purposes of coordination and control. Under TQ M managers are
Integrative function: the need to Goal attainment function: the need responsible for establishing desired product specifications and performance
coordinate and control work to focus efforts on goal attainment goals and front-line workers are responsible for determining how best to
activities
achieve them. Coordination occurs as each unit meets its quality standards or
achieves its performance goals consistent with management's mission statement
Control emphasis on employee training promotes the value of human resource develop• ment,
and its emphasis on teamwork promotes social cohesion and morale.
SOURC E: Ada pt ed with permission from Figures 3 and 4, Robert O. Quinn and John Rohrbaugh, "A Spatial Model
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The Institute of Management Sciences, now the Institute for Operations
Research and the Managem ent Sciences (INFORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090-
2909 USA.
The values associated with the rational goal model are reflected in quality
management theory's emphasis on rational planning and problem solving. Unlike
scientific management, which endorses a top-down and specialist-oriented sys•
tem of planning and problem solving, TQ M involves workers at all levels in plan•
ning and problem solving, thereby keeping everyone focused on goal attainment
while simultaneously nurturing the values associated with the human relations
model. Attention is focused on goal attainment not by imposing rules and limit•
ing discretion but by estabkshing mission-related goals and encouraging workers
to exercise discretion in pursuit of those goals. In addition, quality management's
and strategic plan. Self-control is exercised as each work team collects output
data and takes corrective action to close any gaps between actual and desired
performance levels. Although this mechanism may have limited applicability in
craft and coping agencies where outputs are not readily observable, staff mem•
bers can nonetheless discuss quality standards and process improvements. School
administrators, for example, may not be able to observe what takes place in the
classroom but they can engage teachers in a consensus-building discussion of
desired learning objectives, standards of student performance, and means of im•
proving the instructional process.
Standardization of work outputs is often supplemented by standardization
of worker skills. Organizations adopting TQ M typically train workers so that
they possess the minimum skills required to participate effectively as members of
continuous-improvement teams. In addition, where work is of a technical or
professional nature, as it often is in the public sector, workers acquire needed
knowledge and skills through pre-employment training. This allows them to be
largely self-coordinating and self-controlling because they do not need to be told
what to do and how to do it. They are able to work together in coordinated
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
QUALITY MANAGEMENT THEORY 355
Exhi bit 14.6 Si x M e cha ni sm s for C o o r d i n ati n g an d Co nt rol l i ng W o r k A cti viti es

stance or to program work activities in advance by specifying standard operating
Mutual adjustment Workers consult with each other informally about what procedures. A formal chain of command must still exist to ensure accountability,
needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor• but quality management theory relies much more heavily on standardization of
dination and control rests with those who do the work. outputs, skills, and values for purposes of coordination and control.
Direct supervision
A supervisor is assigned to take responsibility for a group of
workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte• Motivational Strategies
personal instructions and monitors individual performance. Quality management theory endorses the use of several motivational strategies
Standardization of in combination. The heavily humanistic theory of Deming and Ishikawa ac•
Work is programmed in advance of its execution by
work processes knowledges the importance of considerate leadership. Deming and
developing rules and standard operating procedures speci•
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina• Ishikawa believed that humans have an innate need not only for respect and
dignity but also for opportunities to realize their fullest potentials. For this rea•
Standardization of
son they advocated a leadership style based on trust, mutual respect, employee
work outputs empowerment, and the continual development of the organization's human
mance goals and allowing members considerable latitude in resources. They believed that motivation and morale increases as innate human
determining how to achieve them. Control is exercised by needs are satisfied through this kind of leadership.
The group acceptance strategy is also reflected in quality management
results achieved. theory. The informal work group of human relations theory re-emerges as a
Standardization of formal, problem-solving team under T QM , allowing workers to receive satis•
Workers are employed who possess the knowledge and
worker skills factions in the form of comradery and peer recognition. Deming believed that
skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in•
stitutions and professional associations are relied upon to people have an innate need to be esteemed by others and to enjoy a high level
of self-esteem. In his view, working together as members of problem-solving
teams is motivating because it allows workers to satisfy both their esteem needs
Standardization
Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear
of values and their social need for affiliation and comradery.
be headed, and what values should guide it. Coordination The role of intrinsic rewards in spurring human motivation receives spe•
and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational cial attention in quality management theory. Job enrichment and participative
management, key elements in human resources theory, are simply taken for
S OUR CE: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7).
granted in quality management theory. They are viewed as necessary compo•
nents of the jo b identification strategy, a strategy that calls for providing
challenging work and opportunities to engage in decision making so that
fashion because they already know what needs to be done, how to do it, and workers receive intrinsic rewards in the form of pride of accomplishment and
what role each member of the work group must play in accomplishing it. personal growth. Collaborative problem solving enables workers to fulfill their
To a certain extent quality management also relies on standardization of own needs by helping the organization achieve its needs. According to quality
values for purposes of coordination and control. Organizations adopting the management theory, this causes employees to identify with their jobs and to
principles of quality typically make a conscious effort to socialize workers in strive to perform their duties at increasingly higher levels.
the importance of quality as a strategy for success. Coordination is facilitated Quality management theory also relies on the goal c o n g r u e n c e strat•
because values such as quality provide common reference points that allow staff egy for purposes of motivation. As applied to public agencies, this strategy's
members to align their activities with one another in pursuit of a common pur•
underlying assumption is that workers committed to the ideals of public ser•
pose. Control is also facilitated. The great advantage of shared internalized val•
vice will internalize the organization's commitment to delivering quality prod•
ues is that it provides agency heads with a measure of confidence that staff
ucts or services and will receive intrinsic satisfaction from contributing to
members will act in specific situations as they would want them to act.
organizational success. As a conscious managerial strategy, goal congruence in•
The combined use of these mechanisms of coordination and control is ar• volves socializing workers in the importance of the agency's mission and the
guably well suited to the realities faced by many public agencies. Because most role of quality in realizing it. According to quality management theory, work•
work tasks in the public sector are complex in nature and require creativity and ing in a culture truly committed to serving the public and continally doing
judgment for successful accomplishment, direct supervision and work standard• things better is motivating because it taps people's inherent desire for personal
ization are not effective mechanisms of coordination and control. Managers do growth, pride in accomplishment, and a sense of having contributed to some•
not possess sufficient knowledge either to tell workers what to do in each in-
thing larger and more important than the self. As discussed more fully in the
35 b CHAPTER FOURTEEN QUALITY MA NA G E ME NT THEORY 3 3 /
Exhi bi t 14.7 Fou r M ot i va ti on al St r a te gi e s tions and by empowering workers to find and eliminate all factors that under•
mine product or service quality. Among the most important implications for
Legal Compliance
public managers are the following:
Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require• • Stakeholder satisfaction. A central premise of quality management the•
ory is that quality can only be defined by those who receive the product
being sanctioned.
or service. The same is true for other stakeholders as well. Consequently,
public managers should engage agency staff in identifying the agency's in•
ternal and external stakeholders and determining the criteria by which
Rewards for Performance each judges the agency to be successful. By implication, the effective pub•
Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance. lic agency is one that satisfies the expectations of key stakeholders, as well
as the citizenry at large, in a balanced fashion while staying within the pa•
provide. rameters set by constitutional principles and legal mandates.
Considerate Leadership • Continuous improvement. Another central premise of quality manage•
Adopting a leadership style based on being attentive to employees and consider• ment theory is that quality is a moving target and the search for ways to
ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those improve performance is a never-ending quest. Public managers should en•
who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or
courage staff members continually to question how well they are doing,
draw lessons from their experiences, and use what is learned to raise the
Group Acceptance
bar that defines organizational success. Doing so promises to motivate all
those who desire personal growth, a sense of accomplishment, and oppor•
value affiliation and peer approval to meet or exceed role requirements, assum• tunities to make a meaningful difference. It also shifts the normative focus
ing that group norms are consistent with organizational objectives. of public management from avoiding politically embarrassing mistakes to
Job Identification achieving meaningful results.
Offering work that is interesting, challenging, and responsible. Employees may come • Interdependent work systems. A third central premise of quality man•
to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and agement theory is that, because people work within interdependent sys•
work intrinsically rewarding. tems, quality is determined less by individual behavior than system vari•
ables. Quality is ultimately the responsibility of top managers because they
Goal Congruence
create the systems that largely determine performance outcomes.The
and/or socializing employees so that they internalize organizational goals and values. concept of interdependent work systems serves to redirect management's
Employees may come to work, remain with the organization, meet or exceed role re• efforts from directing and controlling individual behavior to improving
quirements, and exhibit greater creativity, innovativeness, and institutional loyalty. the systems within which individuals work. Emphasis shifts, for example,
because contributing to them reinforces their own self concept. from measuring individual output to measuring the quality of the final
product or service as a whole, and from measuring performance in a top-
1966), pp. 336-68. down fashion to empowering work teams to measure their own perfor•
mance as a group. Rather than looking for workers to blame when things
go wrong, public managers should seek to facilitate ongoing, collective problem-
next chapter, it is a strategy with particular relevance for government agencies solving. The underlying assumption is that there will always be above- and
because of the motivational power of contributing to public service ideals. below-average performers, but if you constantly improve the system everyone's
performance improves.
Quality management theory appears to be particularly well suited to public

SUMMAR Y agencies where workers are well educated and professionally trained, engage in
complex tasks, and are strongly committed to the ideals of public service. How •
Although quality management theory offers an interesting synthesis of earlier ever, many significant obstacles stand in the way of its successful implementa•
theories of management, it also represents a distinct and valuable theory in its tion. These include rapid turnover in senior management ranks, lack of
own right. It holds that organizational effectiveness is achieved by designing incentives for senior managers to attempt its implementation, the difficulties in•
and delivering products and services that meet or exceed customer expecta- herent in establishing a deep cultural commitment to the principles o f T Q M
within an agency, and failure to understand that TQ M is a philosophy—a way 29. . Swiss, "A dapting Total Quality 35. . Bo n n ie G. Mani, "Ol d Wi n e i n Ne w
of conducting business every day—and not just a managerial tool or tech• M an • agement ," 359 . Bottles Tastes Better: A Case Study o f T Q M
nique. Even where these difficulties can be overcome, T Q M tends to have its 30. . Swiss, "A dapting Total Quality Implementation in the IRS," Public Adminis•
greatest impact in the realm of internal procedures and work systems over M a n • agement," 359 . tration Review 55 (March/April 1995),
147-58 ; Joseph Sensenbrenner, "Quality
which the agency has the authority needed to make required changes. Its im• 31 . Swiss, "A da pt in g Total Qu al ity M an •
Come s to City Hall," Harvard Business Re•
pact tends to be much less in the realm of policy making, where powerful ex• agement," 359 .
view 69 (March-April 1991), 6 4 - 7 5 .
ternal stakeholders press their private agendas and the agency lacks the 32. . Q u o t e d in Jon at han Walters, "Th e
36. . Laura A. Wi l s o n and R o b e r t F. Du -
authority or autonomy it needs to make the incremental improvements in pol• Cult ofTotal Quality," Governing (May
rant, "Evaluati ng T Q M : Th e Case for a
icy that it might favor. 1992), 40. T h e o r y Drive n Appro ach, " Public Adminis•
33. . Milakovich, Total Service Quality,160. tration Review 54 (M ar ch /A pr i l 1994),
34. . Steven C o h e n and R o n a l d Brand, 1 3 7 -4 6 .
To• tal Quality Management in Government: 37. . M a n i , " O l d W in e i n N e w Bottles."
NOTE S A Practical Guide for the Real World (San
38. Wal ters,"The Cult ofTotal Quality," 41 .
Fran• cisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993); David K.
Car r 39. . C o h e n and Brand, Quality Manage•
and Ian D. Littman, Excellence in Govern•
ment: Total Quality Management in the 1990s
1. Walter A. Shewhart, Economic Control of 14. Ishikawa, W/iaf Is Total Quality Con• 15. Butman, Jnr<m.' A Lifetime of Influence, 28 . Swiss, "Ad ap t i ng Total Quality M a n •
Quality of Manufactured Product ( Ne w York: trol?, 112 . 170. agement, " 359—60.
D. Van Nostrand, 1931). 16. D e m i n g , Out of the Crisis, ix.
2. Joseph M. Juran, Juran on Leadership for
17. M ar y Walton, Deming Management
Quality:An Executive Handbook (Ne w
at Work (N e w Y o r k : Pu t n a m , 1990), 20.
York: Free Press, 1989), 4.
18. Jo h n Butman,JwraH: A Lifetime of In•
3. . A r m a n d V . Fe i g en ba um ,
fluence (Ne w York: Wiley, 1997), 170 .
"M a n a g e m e n t of the Quali ty C o n t ro l
Function, " Indus• trial Quality Control 12 19. Juran, On Leadership for Quality, 20 .
(May 1956), 20. . Juran, On Leadership for Quality, 43
22 -2 5 ; "To t a l Quali ty C on t rol , " Harvard .
Business Review 34 ( N o v e m b e r - D e c e m b e r 21 . Juran, On Leadership for Quality, 77 .
1956), 9 3 - 1 0 1 .
22 . Leo n Wieseltier, "Total Quality
4. F eigenbaum, "Total Quality Control," 1. Meaning, " New Republic 209 (July 16 and
5. . Fei ge nb au m, " M a n a g e m e n t of 2 6, 1 99 3) , 25 .
the Quality Co nt ro l Functi on," 23 . 23 . St ep hen J . Ha r ri s o n and R o n a l d
6. Feigenbaum, "Total Quality Control," 95 . Stu- pak, "Total quality m a n a g e m e n t : Th e
7 . Joh n A . Byrn e , " R e m e m b e r i n g D e m • orga• nizational equivalent of truth in
ing, Th e God fathe r of Quality," Business public admi nist ration theor y and
Week J a n u a r y 10, 1994), 44 ; Mar y "Walton, practice," Public Administration Quarterly 16
The Deming Management Method. (Winter 1993), 4 1 6 - 2 9 .
8. W. Edwards D e m i n g , Out of the Crisis 24. Michael E. Milakovich, Total Service

(C ambridge : Massachusetts Institute of Quality: Achieving High Performance in the
Technology, 1986), 3 . Public and Private Sectors (Delray Beach,
9. De m i n g , Out of the Crisis, 88 . FL: St. Lucie Press, 1995), 159 .
10. Juran,Jnran on Leadership for Quality, v. 25. . R o b e r t B. De n h a rd t , The Pursuit

of Significance: Strategies for Managerial
11 . Kaor u Ishikawa, What Is Total Quality
Success in Public Organizations (Belmont,
Control? The Japanese Way (E nglewood
CA: Wadsworth, 1993), 104.
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall, 1985).
26. . D em i n g , Out of the Crisis, 6.
12. . Ishikawa, What Is Total Quality
Con• trol?, 2 3 , 1 3 9 . 27. . James E. Swiss, Adapting Total
Quali ty M a n a g e m e n t ( T Q M ) t o
13. . Masaaki Imai, Kaizen.The Key
G o v er n m e n t . Public Administration Review 52
to Japan's Competitive Success
( Ne w Yo rk : R a n d o m Ho u se , 1986). (July/ August 1992), 358 .
(Arlington,VA: Co op er s & Lybrand, 1993); ment in Government, 134.
Milakovich, Total Quality Service; D en ha rd t, 40 . C o h e n and Brand, Quality Manage•
Pursuit of Significance. ment in Government, 135 .
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVE AND SYMBOLIC MANAGEMENT THEORY 361
1 5 TH E O R G A N I Z A T I O N A L
CULTUR E P E R S P E C T I V E
3€ In the late 1970s a small group of scholars met to sharpen the definition of what
they heralded as a unique alternative paradigm for studying and understanding
The Organizational organizations. Although trained in many different fields, including anthropology,
social psychology, linguistics, and phenomenology, these scholars all agreed that
earlier theorists had "failed to grasp the full significance and importance of the
Culture Perspective symbolic side of organizational life." In their view, "Organizations are not
1
sim• ple systems like machines or adaptive organisms; they are human systems mani•
festing complex patterns of cultural activity." Accordingly, these scholars
2
and Symbolic turned their attention to studying organizational symbols, including those
reflected in the language, metaphors, objects, and rituals of organizational life. Their
goal was not to explain but to understand. Instead of studying objective reality,
Management Theory they sought to understand how organizational members interpret or make sense
of the reality around them. And because the study of symbols involves interpreta•
tion rather than measurement, they relied upon qualitative methods such as par•
ticipant observation rather than the quantitative methods of traditional science.
The new perspective that these theorists helped to fashion came to be
known as the symbolic or organizational culture perspective. In their view it offered
O
a new set of lenses for studying and understanding organizations. Although
rganizations, as we have seen, may be viewed as pyramids with cas• they understood it could not account for every aspect of organizational behav•
cading levels of authority, machines with interlocking parts, cooper• ior, they believed that it could illuminate many aspects of behavior neglected
ative social systems, or living organisms struggling to survive in by the earlier, more traditional perspectives.
uncertain environments. From the vantage point of the 1970s it seemed The influence of anthropology on the cultural perspective is readily apparent.
unlikely that any important perspective had been overlooked. Nevertheless, in Organizations are seen as extended families or clans held together by shared val•
1981 two books on Japanese management found their way to the top of The ues and beliefs.These values and beliefs are established over time as organizations
New York Times bestsellers list and introduced large audiences to the latest and struggle with the usual problems of internal integration and external adaptation.
possibly most controversial perspective—the organizational culture perspec• Sometimes they are introduced into the culture by organizational founders or dy•
tive. While these books acknowledged the influence of national culture on namic leaders. At other times they enter the culture unconsciously as members
organizational performance, their true focus was organizational culture— learn how to cope successfully with problems. These shared values and beliefs re•
the culture that is unique to each organization regardless of the national culture late to the way members view themselves as an organization, what they believe is
in which it is embedded. According to the cultural perspective, shared values important, ways they prefer to do things and treat each other, and what they hope
and beliefs provide the glue that binds the organization's members together to accomplish. Over time these values and beliefs become embodied in myths and
in common cause and determines their levels of loyalty, commitment, and rituals that allow the shared culture to be internalized and transmitted from one
performance. generation to the next. Once these values and beliefs are firmly established in the
The importance of viewing organizations from a cultural perspective is the dominant culture, they guide the daily decisions of organizational members and
unifying theme in the broad and diverse body of theory discussed in this chap• provide the glue that holds the organization together. The dominant culture thus
ter. This body of theory encompasses three overlapping literatures: an aca• acts simultaneously as a coordinating device by defining the value premises that
demic literature originating in the late 1970s that defined the organizational guide daily decisions and as a control mechanism by estabhshing the sanctions to
culture perspective; a practitioner-oriented literature originating in the early be imposed if cultural values and norms are violated.
1980s that introduced symbolic management theory; and a new literature on The work of symbolic interactionists such as Erving Goffinan, Peter Berger,
visionary leadership that emerged in the mid-1980s from the convergence of and Thomas Luckmann also influenced the cultural perspective.
3
the earlier two literatures. This chapter examines each of these literatures and Organizations, according to these theorists, are places inhabited by symbols.
closes with an assessment of their implications for public management. Consciously or unconsciously, these symbols are socially constructed by the
members of the
36 0
362 CHAPTER FIFTEEN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVE AND SYMBOLIC MANAGEMENT THEORY 363
organization to cope with uncertainty and establish a sense of order and pur• organically over time, something basic to an organization that provides struc•
pose. Important to understanding why people behave as they do in organiza• tural stability and integrates values and norms into observable patterns, and
tions is not words, actions, or events, but the meanings people attach to them. something arising from the cumulative experience of a group as it struggles
An agency-sponsored softball team, for example, may mean more than an op• to solve the universal problems that all groups tend to face. In short, the cul•
portunity to recreate and have fun. It may also symbolize a shared commitment ture of a group is the "pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group
to breaking down the arbitrary boundaries between work life and personal life. learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integra•
Because it rejects many of the rationalistic assumptions of classical theory, tion, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be
the cultural perspective holds important implications for management practice taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in rela•
as well as the study of organizations. It suggests, for example, that effective tion to those problems." 4
strategic decisions result less from cold logic and careful analysis than from As shown in Exhibit 15.1, Schein conceived of culture as having three in•
shared understandings of what the organization aspires to be or do. Similarly, it terrelated levels. He believed that much of the confusion in the research litera•
assumes that human behavior is influenced less by rules, rational arguments, ture of the early 1980s was due to a failure to differentiate clearly among these
policy statements, and fear of sanctions than by each persons socio-emotional levels. His conceptualization provided researchers with a useful typology for
responses to rituals, ceremonies, stories, and myths. Managers delude them• assigning various aspects of culture to appropriate categories and exploring
selves if they believe that organizations can be designed and operated as well- their interrelationships.
oiled machines or that human behavior can be tightly controlled by close The highest level, and the only visible one, is the artifactual level. Artifacts
supervision and strict adherence to rules. A central premise of the organiza• are the visible manifestations of the culture's underlying values and basic as•
tional culture perspective is that social cohesion, coordinated effort, and superior sumptions. They include such things as the architecture of the organization's
performance are achieved primarily through the shared values and meanings physical environment, the language used, the way meetings are conducted,
that bind people together in comm on cause and engender their loyalty and mission statements and business philosophies, status systems, and the rites, ritu•
commitment. Consequently, managers must appeal to the hearts as well as als, myths, and stories by which cultural values and assumptions are transmitted
minds of workers if they are to generate the kind of enthusiasm for success that and reinforced. Artifacts are easy to observe but difficult to decipher. Some are
goal statements and strategic plans alone cannot provide. purely situational, having no intersubjective meanings at all. Others have
shared meanings but, unless the underlying values and basic assumptions are
known, it is difficult to determine what those meanings are.
Determining the meaning of artifacts is especially difficult because each
A CONCEPTUA L FRAMEWOR K observer tends to project personal feelings and reactions when interpreting
FO R U N D E R S T A N D I N G them. Schein observed, for example, that "when one sees a very informal, loose
organization, one may interpret that as inefficient if one's own background is
ORGANIZATIONA L CULTUR E based on the assumption that informality means playing around and not work•
ing. Alternatively, if one sees a very formal organization, one may interpret that
Despite the growing interest in studying organizational cultures, research was to be a sign of lack of innovative capacity if one's own experience is based on
hampered by an absence of agreed-upon definitions and conceptual frame• the assumption that formality means bureaucracy and formalization." Many
works. Everyone seemed to agree that organizations have cultures but there researchers, Schein adds, make the mistake of drawing conclusions about orga•
was little agreement about what a culture is. In the early 1980s the term was nizational culture from artifacts alone. Whereas a long-time insider may have a
still being used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways.To draw sense of what various artifacts mean, outside researchers must investigate the
valid and useful conclusions about organizational cultures, researchers needed espoused values and basic assumptions existing at lower levels of the culture
a common terminology and a shared understanding of the concept itself. In before they can hope to interpret artifacts correctly.
response to this need, social psychologist Edgar H. Schein developed a con•
Espoused values are the values to which members of an organization
ceptual framework to facilitate the study of organizational culture. This frame•
claim to be committed. They exist at an intermediate and nonvisible level.
work is described in the sections that follow.
Often expressed in statements of strategies, goals, and philosophies, espoused
values guide choices about organizational purposes and the means by which
Three Levels of Organizational Culture to accomplish them. Values generally relate to the way members are to get
After giving the subject a great deal of thought Schein concluded that orga• along and how they are to do their jobs. Th e test of how well they work is
nizational culture is best understood from an anthropological perspective. It is how comfortable and anxiety free members are when they abide by them.
something more than a set of values and norms imposed on the members of Values exist at the conscious level and the beliefs and ethical rules derived
an organization by top managers. It is something that develops and evolves from them function to guide organizational members in their daily decisions.
CHAPTER ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVE AND SYMBOLIC MANAGEMENT THEORY
E xh ibi t 15.1 Level s of

Cul tu re ject to continuing debate, basic assumptions are so taken for granted that they cease
to be questioned and debated. It is precisely because they are taken for granted that
Visible organizational structures they have the ability to create consistency of behavior among group members. Ba•
and processes
Artifacts sic assumptions typically relate to mission and strategy, operational goals, or the
(hard to decipher)
means for achieving goals and measuring success. Examples include the following:
human beings are capable of self-direction and self-control (a Theory Y assump•
tion); an emphasis on quality is the path to success (aTQM assumption); and, it is
Strategies, goals, philosophies
inappropriate to cause colleagues to lose face by criticizing them direcdy (an as•
Espoused
(espoused justifications) sumption implicit in the culture of many Japanese firms). Basic assumptions are
values
difficult to change because the mere suggestion of change has such a destabilizing,
anxiety-producing effect. Consequently, those attempting cultural change must
seek to understand the existing culture first, including its basic assumptions, and
Unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs, then be prepared to deal with the anxiety-producing effects of proposed changes.
Basic underlying perceptions, thoughts, and feelings
assumptions (ultimate source of values and action)
The Concept of Cultural Strength
SOURCE: Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992) 17; Copyright
1992. This material is used by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Schein suggests that the "strength" of a culture is best defined in terms of the
homogeneity and stability of group membership and the length and intensity
of shared experiences. He notes, for example, that organizations with high
6
Consequently, they determine much of the behavior that can be observed at turnover in top positions are unlikely to have strong cultures because consistent
the artifactual level. leadership is a key factor in determining the degree of cultural homogeneity
It is difficult to determine the significance of espoused values, however, be• This is particularly true in public agencies where top leadership roles are held
cause some are congruent with underlying assumptions and some are not. Of• by political appointees who are constandy ccming and going. These adminis•
ten they are merely aspirations regarding how group members would like to trators have little time or interest in shaping strong organizational cultures.
behave or what they would like to accomplish. Sometimes they are rationaliza• Nonetheless, shared experiences in coping with internal and external problems
tions for continuing to do what they are already doing. By contrast, values that may be enough to create a strong culture over time. Donald Warwick's study of
are congruent with underlying assumptions are the organic products of what the U.S. State Department provides a case in point. Despite high turnover
7
the group experiences and learns over time. Group learning, according to among top administrators the State Department developed a cautious, risk-
Schein, begins with someone's conclusions about what ought to be or ought to averse culture because of the many uncertainties in its external environment.
be done in certain situations. If these conclusions help the organization reach Never knowing when they might fail to predict world events accurately, State
satisfactory solutions to its problems then they become shared values and, in Department officials learned to file endless reports, obtain clearances from their
time, shared basic assumptions. In a group's formative years these values are typ• supervisors before taking action, and demand rules to follow so that they had
ically introduced by the founder but as the group develops its own life experi• some measure of protection when catastrophic events did occur.
ences other members participate in adding to or modifying them. Although many theorists assume a linear relationship between cultural
Although Schein is not entirely clear on this point, it seems that values are strength and organizational performance, Schein concluded that "the relation•
of two types: those that have already proven their worth, given rise to basic as• ship is far more complex. The actual content of the culture and the degree to
sumptions, and continue to serve as conscious manifestations of basic assump• which its solutions fit the problems posed by the environment seem like the
tions, and those that have yet to prove their worth and may or may not give critical variables here, not strength. On e can hypothesize that young groups
rise to new assumptions in the future. A researcher cannot rely on what people strive for culture strength as a way of creating an identify for themselves but
say are the values of the culture because they may be of the second kind: those older groups may be more effective with a weak total culture and diverse sub•
that are espoused but out of step with the organization's basic assumptions. To cultures to enable them to be responsive to rapid environmental change." 8
determine which values truly help integrate the group the researcher must in• Th e example of the State Department raises yet another possibility: A strong
vestigate the culture's basic assumptions. cul• ture established in order to reduce the anxiety levels of its members may be
Basic assumptions are the most basic theories-in-use that inform members, relatively unresponsive to efforts by leaders to enhance organizational perfor•
at a largely unconscious level, how to think and feel about things and what actions mance. In this instance cultural strength may not be a virtue, at least from the
to take in various situations. Whereas shared values are largely conscious and sub- perspective of top administrators and the public at large.
3 CHAPTER ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVE AND SYMBOLIC MANAGEMENT THEORY
Mechanisms for Embedding Exhi bi t 15.2 Cultu re -Embeddin g M e c h an i sm s

Cultural Values and Assumptions
Primary embedding Secondary articulation and
Schein argues that managers must embed shared values and assumptions in the
mechanisms reinforcement mechanisms
organization's culture and reinforce them in new and current members if they
are to create and sustain strong cultures. According to Schein, this is accom•
W ha t leaders pay attention to, Organization design and structure
plished by using the embedding and reinforcing mechanisms shown in Exhibit measure, and control on a regular basis Organizational systems and procedures
15.2. Whereas researchers tended to focus their attention on the role of stories, How leaders react to critical incidents
Organizational rites and rituals
myths, rites, and rituals in reinforcing organizational culture, Schein"s concep• and organizational crises
Design of physical space, facades, and
tual scheme suggests that these artifacts represent only two of several mecha• Observed criteria by which leaders buildings
nisms by which leaders can embed and reinforce their values and assumptions. allocate scarce resources
Stories, legends, and myths about people
Once employees are fully acculturated, managers can be reasonably certain Deliberate role modeling, teaching, and events
and coaching
that each will strive to accomplish the organization's goals. As Exhibit 15.2 in• Formal statements of organizational
Observed criteria by which leaders
dicates, managers can facilitate the process of acculturation by recruiting and philosophy, values, and creed
allocate rewards and status
hiring individuals predisposed to share organizational values, socializing new Observed criteria by which leaders
recruits through formal orientation programs as well as their symbolic actions, recruit, select, promote, retire, and
rewarding members who act in accordance with organizational values, and os• ex-communicate organizational members
tracizing or removing those employees who are ill-suited to the dominant cul• Source: Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992), 231; Copyright
1992. This material is used by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
ture or refuse to embrace its values and beliefs.
It is important to note the subtle shift in the organizational culture per•
spective from viewing symbols as things that are spontaneously constructed by example, create a sense of professional identify and a unique esprit de corp.
members to cope with threats and provide a sense of order and purpose to "As a consequence," Kaufman concludes, "officers of the Forest Service
viewing symbols as things that are deliberately constructed by leaders to unite conform to agency decisions not simply because they have to, but because
members in pursuit of organizational objectives. Although either view may be they want to."
11
correct depending on the situation under study, the second view leads directly
to what has come to be known as symbolic m a n a g em e n t theory. The un• 9
derlying premise is that managers can and should use various symbols (e.g., rit•
uals, stories, mission statements) to acculturate workers—that is, to cause them DIFFICULTIE S INHEREN T I N CONDUCTIN G
to form emotional attachments to organizational values so that they develop a CULTURA L RESEARC H
common point of view and make decisions that promote the organization's
objectives in an almost instinctual manner. There are two reasons for wanting to study and decipher an organization's cul•
Because public agencies serve important societal purposes, symbolic ture: to advance our theoretical understanding of organizations through scien•
management may fit well with an agency's need for coordination and con• tific study, and to help leaders manage cultural issues affecting organizational
trol. Herbe rt Kaufman's classic study of the U.S. Forest Service illustrates performance. The first requires that researchers understand the culture; the
1 2
key aspects of this approach. 1 0

The Forest Service has a long tradition of re• second only that practitioners know enough to intervene. The goal of under•
cruiting individuals with a strong work ethic and "love of the woods" and standing culture for purposes of theory building has proven to be especially
who are consequently predisposed to accept the values and demands of the difficult. Whereas artifacts are easily observed, the underlying values and basic
agency. In addition, forest rangers are often recruited from schools of assumptions that allow for their interpretation are not. Traditional research
forestry, where professional values and the conservation ethic are reinforced methods are not well suited to the study of nonvisible phenomena. Even par•
along with the development of technical skills. Onc e admitted to the ser• ticipant observation is of limited value because far too many inferences must
vice, apprenticeships, jo b rotations, and the policy of promoting from be made about what is observed.
within help ensure that rangers are acculturated in the prevailing values, as• Schein argues that a clinical methodology is best if the goal of research is
sumptions, and customary modes of operation of the agency. Finally, spe• scientific understanding. This type of research can be undertaken only when
cific symbols are used to encourage rangers to identify themselves with the well- an organization asks an outside consultant to come in and diagnose the orga•
being of the agency. Their uniforms, badges, and distinctive hats, for nization's culture much as a practicing clinician might do with a patient.
Where a researcher has been invited to help the organization improve itself,
The search for answers led to the publication of four influential books
members are more likely to reveal data about the culture because they have
in 1981 and 1982, all of which identified culture as a key determinant of
something to gain by revealing themselves. In the process of focusing on spe•
organizational performance.The two NewYork Times bestsellers referred to
cific problems of concern to the organization, culturally relevant data may be
earlier were William Ouchi's Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the
unearthed. The researcher in the role of clinician relies upon observation and
Japanese Challenge and Richard T. Pascale and Anthony G.Athos' The Art of
interviews to uncover shared values and basic assumptions. Unfortunately,
13
Japanese Management: Applications for American Executives. They were followed

few organizations have the resources or time to conduct probing clinical
in 1982 by two other books emphasizing the importance of organizational
analyses so that a comprehensive view of the dominant culture and its many
culture, Tom Peters and Ro b er t Waterman's In Search of Excellence: Lessons
subcultures might be obtained.
from America's Best-Run Companies andTerrence Deal and Allan Kennedy's
Thorough clinical analyses may not be necessary, however, if the purpose
Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. These books grew
16
of research is to assist leaders in managing cultural issues. For the latter pur•
out of two overlapping research projects, the first an investigation of Japa•
pose it may be enough for an outside consultant to help internal groups iden•
nese management methods conducted by William Ouchi, a professor of or•
tify their cultural assumptions and how they aid or hinder their efforts.
ganizational behavior at Stanford, and the second an investigation of
Although the organizational culture perspective continued to exert a strong
organizational effectiveness undertaken by the management consulting firm
influence on organization theory well into the 1990s, the research orientation
of McKinsey & Company. Muc h fruitful interaction took place between
of the scholars who initially defined the organizational culture perspective was
project participants. Richard Pascale, for example, collaborated with Ouchi
soon overshadowed by a growing interest in culture as a vehicle for enhancing
on the study of Japanese management at Stanford and later worked with the
managerial control and organizational functioning. Many of them, according
McKinsey group as a consultant. He subsequently joined with Anthony
to Frost and colleagues, were "attracted by the seductive promises of culture as
Athos of Harvard, another McKinsey consultant, to write The Art of Japa•
a key to improved morale, loyalty, harmony, productivity, and—ultimately—
nese Management.
profitability." A study by Barley, Meyer, and Gash confirmed that academic
14
Because these books were written primarily for managers, they contain
papers published after 1982 were more prone than earlier papers to discuss the
many sweeping generalizations and prescriptive conclusions. Nevertheless,
"economic value of manipulating culture" and "rational control and differenti•
they helped introduce a fresh and valuable organizational perspective and, in
ation." In short, even those scholars w h o initially viewed cultures as webs
15
doing so, contributed to a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of

of intersubjective meaning to be understood in their own right came in
how and why organizations behave as they do. To provide a sense of what
addition to view them as forces to be manipulated for enhancing organizational
symbolic management entails, the following analysis focuses on the two man•
perfor• mance. The latter point of view is readily apparent in the practitioner-
agement bestsellers, Ouchi's Theory Z and Pascale and Athos' The Art of Japa•
oriented literature discussed next.
nese Management.
William Ouchi's Theory Z

TH E P R A C T I T I O N E R - O R I E N T E D
Ouchi's comparative analysis of Japanese and American firms led him to con•
LITERATUR E clude that the key differences were not in structure, strategy, or technology but
in the "subtleties" of Japanese management. Like Weber, Ouchi constructed ideal-
As noted in Chapter 14, the strong interest in Japanese management toward type models to capture the essential properties of each type of organization while
the end of the 1970s did not occur by happenstance. Having enjoyed sustained acknowledging that firms conform to these models to varying degrees:
17
economic growth and relatively weak foreign competition for nearly three
Japanese organizations American organizations
decades, American firms found themselves facing stiff global competition, re•
duced market share, and decreasing rates of growth in productivity. Their eco• Lifetime employment Short-term employment
nomic decline could not be attributed to environmental factors alone because Slow evaluation and promotion Rapid evaluation and promotion
Japanese firms were flourishing in the same global environment of oil short• Non-specialized career paths Specialized career paths
ages and increased competition. This realization led many people in manager•
Implicit control mechanisms Explicit control mechanisms
ial and academic circles to question the presumed superiority of American
management. Could it be that there is something distinctive in the Japanese Collective decision making Individual decision making
culture or the techniques of Japanese management that accounted for the eco• Collective responsibility Individual responsibility
nomic success of Japanese firms? Wholistic concern Segmented concern
Ouchi found that, whereas the American culture tends to maintain sharp mitted to coordinated and unselfish cooperation sounds fine but also pro•
boundaries between an individual's work and personal lives, the Japanese cul• duces skepticism about the commitment of others and creates ambiguity
ture does not. Each worker is seen as a whole person, "not a Jekyll-Hyde per• over just how a principle might apply in specific situations. When, on the
sonality, half-machine from nine to five and half-human in the hours other hand, the value of cooperation is expressed through the ritual of
preceding and following." Influenced by the national culture, most large
18
ringi, a collective decision making in which a document passes from man•

Japanese companies show a holistic co n ce r n for workers by hiring them ager to manager for their official seal of approval, then the neophyte expe•
straight out of high school or college, promising their parents they will see to riences the philosophy of cooperation in a very concrete way. Slowly indi•
their physical, intellectual, and moral development, guaranteeing them lifetime vidual preferences give way to collective consensus.
19
employment in exchange for a lifetime of loyalty, promoting them slowly so

that they are carefully mentored and cross-trained, and creating opportunities The Japanese management model paints a picture of what Ouchi calls a
for them to recreate together after work and on weekends. clan organization, an organization in which everyone is part of an extended
Closely related to the concept of holistic concern is the concept of col• family, linked together in intimate and trusting ways through mutual bonds of
lective responsibility. The Japanese culture encourages people to subordi• kinship. The clan functions by socializing members in the norms and values of
nate their individual interests to the well-being and social harmony of the the organization's dominant culture. This facilitates the integration of individ•
larger community. Collective responsibility is encouraged in the workplace by ual and organizational goals, creates a strong sense of community, and moti•
keeping individual job descriptions purposely vague, de-emphasizing titles and vates members to serve the organization. The clan form of organization,
status, developing generalists rather than specialists, expecting the members of according to Ouchi, stands in sharp contrast to the bureaucratic form. By
each work unit to take joint responsibility for its successes and failures, distrib• achieving a high degree of consistency in its internal culture, the clan organi•
uting pay bonuses based on group rather than individual performance, and zation is able to function with fewer hierarchical controls.Whereas the bureau•
sanctioning those who try to stand out at the expense of colleagues. cratic form says to workers "do just what we tell you," the clan form says
Collective responsibility applies to the process of decision making as well. "exercise discretion in accordance with shared values." In short, the clan orga•
Collective decision m ak in g is achieved through the Japanese version of nization offers a relatively high degree of autonomy and freedom, at least
participative management. All members of a department are invited to partici• within the parameters set by its shared values. More fundamentally, according
pate in reaching consensus about what policies or decisions to adopt. Rather to Ouchi, it establishes the close primary i elationships that Elton Mayo insisted
than a cold, analytical process in which a few senior administrators choose are essential to physical, emotional, and mental health.
among the best available alternatives, it is a social process in which everyone Ouchi initially assumed that clan organizations are products of Japan's
who will be affected by the decision is interviewed multiple times and the unique culture and consequently not transferrable to the United States.
proposed change is continually modified until a true consensus is reached. It However, additional research led him to conclude that the Japanese model
is, according to Ouchi, a process that symbolizes collective responsibility and reflects "universally applicable" principles, as evidenced by the fact that clan
produces a high degree of commitment and support for the final decision. organizations have functioned successfully in the United States for decades.
Finally, Japanese firms rely on implicit mechanism s of coordination and Ouchi coined the term Type Z to refer to these companies, companies that
control. These mechanisms are built into each organization's distinctive culture practice elements of the Japanese model in ways adapted to the American
and are reflected in a core set of values and management philosophy. These values culture. Examples cited by Ouchi include IBM, Proctor and Gamble, and
relate to the transcendent social purposes of the organization and the means for Hewlett Packard. Type Z companies offer stable employment in exchange
achieving them. Once these values are firmly internalized, they guide daily deci• for long-term loyalty, demonstrate holistic concern for employees, institu•
sions from top to bottom and help ensure that everyone is making decisions in a tionalize collective responsibility and decision making, and develop their
consistent and coordinated fashion. This concept of coordination and control by own unique business philosophies. Because they possess many of the char•
shared values was to become a central theme in organizational culture theory. acteristics of a clan organization, they are able to reduce hierarchical con•
Japanese employers rely on symbols, rituals and myths to communicate and trols and task specialization at all levels. Ouchi suggests that Type Z
reinforce the organization's underlying values and beliefs. This, according to companies are better suited than other American companies to today's
Ouchi, is much more powerful than relying on rational argument and formal highly interdependent world of business because success depends increas•
authority. It is a way of communicating true commitment to deeply felt values: ingly on cooperation and collective effort. While acknowledging that it is
difficult to adopt the Japanese model in a country that values individualism,
These rituals put flesh on what would otherwise be sparse and abstract specialization, and free entry and exit of personnel, Ouchi insists that orga•
ideas, bringing them to life in a way that has meaning and impact for a nizations can succeed in doing so by engaging in discussions about core
new employee. For example, telhng employees that the company is com- purposes and values, developing business philosophies, and adopting such
CHAPTER ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVE AND SYMBOLIC MANAGEMENT i
3
practices as lifetime employment and collective decision making. Muc h of

Pascale and Athos' The Art of Japanese Management
his book is devoted to how this might be accomplished.
Although Ouchi characterizes Theory Z as a specific approach to manage• In the late 1970s the consulting firm of McKinsey & Company invited
ment adopted by Type Z organizations, he also seems to intend it as a theory of Richard Pascale of Stanford and Anthony Athos of Harvard to help it develop
organizational effectiveness. His general thesis is that organizations that develop a conceptual framework identifying the core determinants of organizational
intimate relationships and a shared sense of purpose by means of value-driven performance. The firm's emphasis on strategy, structure, and systems was
cultures perform better than organizations that do not. One of the most inter• widely viewed as inadequate. It seemed increasingly clear that important de•
esting aspects of Ouchi's work is the suggestion that Theory Z extends and im• terminants of performance were being overlooked. With the assistance of Pas•
proves upon Theory Y. The key themes in human resources theory—an cale and Athos, a McKinsey task force headed by Tom Peters and Jim Bennett
environment of trust, egalitarianism, respect for human dignity, employee in• developed the McKinsey 7-S Framework. This framework conceptualizes or•
volvement, and integration of individual and organizational needs—are all ganizational performance as the product of seven key interdependent variables:
found in Ouchi's description of Japanese management and the clan form of or• strategy, structure, systems, staff, style, skills, and shared values (or superordinate
ganization. The Type Z organization, Ouchi notes, is essentially the humanistic goals).The first three variables are seen as "hard" because they are concrete and
organization advocated by Argyris and McGregor: amenable to rational analysis and systematic planning, whereas the remaining
five, while every bit as important, are seen as "soft" because they are more in•
Argyris challenged managers to integrate individuals into organizations, not tangible and less amenable to rational analysis and systematic planning. The
to create alienating, hostile, and impersonally bureaucratic places of work. In central thesis of The Art ofJapanese Management is that most American execu•
a real sense, the Type Z organization comes close to realizing that idea. It is a tives focus almost exclusively on the "hard" elements of strategy, structure, and
consent culture, a community of equals who cooperate with one another to systems and consequently undermine the effectiveness of their organizations.
reach common goals. Rather than relying exclusively upon hierarchy and To optimize organizational performance managers must pursue the seven S's
monitoring to direct behavior, it relies also upon commitment and trust. in a balanced, integrated fashion, with shared values providing the key to suc•
20
cessful integration.
In an earlier article, Ouc hi suggested that Theory Z extends and im• Both Theory Zand The Art of Japanese Management outline what American
proves upon Theory Y by emphasizing the sociological rather than psycho• executives can learn from the Japanese but they do so in slightly different
logical determinant s of organizational success. Organizational culture,
21
ways. Whereas Theory Z presents an ideal-type model of Japanese manage•

according to Ouchi, is the missing piece of the puzzle. Argyris and McGre• ment as its point of departure and emphasizes techniques such as collective
gor did not fully appreciate the importance of shared values and beliefs in decision making, The Art of Japanese Management takes the 7-S framework as
creating trust and intimacy and providing purpose and direction. Theory Y its point of departure and emphasizes managerial skill in integrating the 7-
encourages managers to establish teamwork and better interpersonal com• S's.Their research led Pascale and Athos to conclude that poor management
munications in a vacuum, without first establishing a value-driven culture skills rather than flawed techniques lie at the heart of the problems con•
where teamwork and better communications are natural byproducts. This fronting American firms. They provided support for their conclusion by con•
approach, according to Ouchi, is unlikely to produce the desired results. trasting the managerial approaches of two very successful executives, one
Theory Z, by contrast, encourages managers to establish an organizational Japanese and one American.
culture—characterized by stable employment, holistic concern, and collec• Konosuke Matsushita, founder of the Matsushita Electric Company, suc•
tive responsibility—as the foundation on which a less hierarchical, more hu• ceeded in establishing one of the largest and most successful firms in the world
manistic organization can develop. by paying careful attention to all seven S's. He developed unique marketing,
Ouchi recognized, however, that the success of Theory Z depends on satis• distribution, pricing, and product development strategies, a decentralized,
fying certain preconditions, such as low employee turnover. He also empha• division-based structure, highly centralized reporting, accounting, and per•
sized that Type Z organizations tend to suffer from certain "potentially sonnel systems, a hands-on yet respectful management style, a staff devel•
disabling weaknesses." For example, because Type Z organizations are so h o
22
opment program based on job rotation and careful mentoring, a management

• mogenous with respect to values and beliefs, they are hostile to deviant views, team with well-developed analytical and people skills, and a core set of
including those that may be important for organizational adaptation and sur• shared values closely tied to the nation's cultural values.
vival. In addition, they tend to discriminate against employees who are cultur• The "spiritual values" he set for his company were national service, fair•
ally dissimilar, such as women and minorities. And because cultures are so ness, harmony and cooperation, struggle for betterment, courtesy and humil•
difficult to change, Type Z organizations are often unable to react quickly ity, adjustment and assimilation, and gratitude. These values gave shape and
2 3
enough to major environmental changes. form to the other six S's. Matsushitas personal management style, for example,
CHAPTER FIFTEEN ORGANIZATIONAL C U L I U K t r t K i r t t . 1 1 V b AND SYMBOLIC M A N A i j b i v i t p j i mtUK Y 3 / 3
374
was guided by them. Although he was demanding and tough-minded, he in• In addition, the American culture is highly optimistic about the ability of
sisted that all disagreements be handled civilly, with respect for personal dig• people to make informed, rational decisions and to assert control over them•
nity, and in a manner that required each participant to search for common selves and others. Harold Geneen s obsession with control is evidenced, for ex•
ground. He also used stories, myths, and other forms of symbolic communica• ample, in his reporting and performance measurement systems, brute
tion to reinforce the organization's shared values.Values were inculcated in em• confrontations, and rigorous cross-checking of all sources of information. By
ployees in a variety of ways, including long apprenticeships, having employees contrast, the Japanese culture encourages executives to be much more accept•
recite company values every morning, and asking them to give ten-minute ing of ambiguity, uncertainty, and human imperfection.
talks to their fellow workers each month on company values and their rela• Pascale and Athos believe that these "cultural blind spots" discourage
tionship to society. Matsushita understood that shared values can "provide a American executives from attending to the "soft" S's. Their preference is for
spiritual fabric of great resilience. They permit a highly complex and decen• the "hard" S's that are more readily changed by fiat. Pascale andAthos are quick
tralized firm to evoke an enormous continuity that sustains it even when more to add, however, that these culturally induced disadvantages can be addressed
operational guidance breaks down." 24 successfully. Like Ouchi, Pascale andAthos emphasize that several of the highest-
Harold Geneen, chief executive officer of International Telephone and performing firms in the United States are already doing an excellent job of
Telegraph (ITT) from 1959 to 1979, provided Pascale andAthos with an in• integrating the seven S's. And, like Ouchi, Pascale andAthos assert that devel•
teresting contrast. Geneen succeeded in welding the ITT empire into a coher• oping a values-driven organizational culture is the key to improving organiza•
ent and efficient corporate machine through the force of his personality and tional performance. Interventions such as reorganizing or team building will
his hard-driving, tough-minded approach to management. Although he estab• not help unless they are part of a comprehensive effort to integrate the other
six S's around an explicit set of shared values.
lished a divisionalized structure and centralized planning and reporting systems
much as Matsushita had, his approach to the other S's was much different. He Finally, like Ouchi, Pascale andAthos do not believe that just any set of
committed the organization to ruthless competition without regard to larger values will do. Their comparative analysis of American and Japanese firms led
social values, insisted that all decisions be based on detailed reports and un• them to conclude that shared values or superordinate goals are most powerful
shakable facts, practiced a driving, domineering style of management, encour• when they relate to higher-order values. The best firms "link their purposes
aged competition among staff members, and deliberately maintained a pressure and ways of realizing them to human values as well as economic measures like
profit and efficiency." Higher-order valves may include the essential p ur•
26
cooker environment for his top executives.

Pascale and Athos concluded that although Geneen achieved a relatively poses of the organization and the contributions it makes to society, an em•
"good fit" among the seven S's, his achievements could have been even higher phasis on developing the human potential of employees, or a commitment to
basic values such as honesty, fairness, and respect for the dignity and worth of
and more enduring if he had paid more attention to the "soft" S's. Unlike Mat•
each individual.
sushita, Geneen failed to focus on the kinds of shared values, both human and
spiritual, that touch people's hearts, genuinely knit them together in common A values-based approach to management is especially effective, according
cause, and call forth their best contributions. Thus IT T under Geneen re• to Pascale and Athos, because today's highly educated workers seek mean•
mained a personality-driven, rather than a values-driven, organization. Pascale ingful lives in addition to pay and career opportunities, something that
and Athos suggest that this is the main reason IT T could not sustain its high is true for public agencies as well as private firms. "Far too many generali•
level of performance after Geneen retired. zations," they argue, "are made about work on the basis of the automobile
It is no accident, according to Pascale andAthos, that a Japanese executive's assembly-line stereotype. For the vast majority, work is a far different and far
approach to management endured after his retirement when an American ex• more fulfilling experience. For people in these new circumstances to be sat•
isfied, it helps enormously if they can see the link between what they do and
ecutive's did not. A central theme in The Art ofJapanese Management is that
a higher purpose. " If superordinate goals are consistently honored, "then
2 7
American executives are "powerfully disadvantaged by our culture."

2 5
employees tend to identify more fully with the company. They see the firm's
T h e American culture encourages managers to view their organization's purposes as
interest and their own as more congruent and tend to invest themselves
narrowly economic. Concerning themselves with the social, psychological, and
more fully in the organization—including looking for ways to improve how
spiritual well-being of their employees is not in their job descriptions. Respon•
they do their j ob . " Higher-order values cause workers to pay attention to
2 8
sibility for such things belongs to the individual. By contrast, the Japanese cul•
the little things that matter most. In addition, they can generate enthusiasm
ture encourages Japanese executives to assume that it is their responsibility to
and commitment in ways that rational planning and analysis cannot. As Pe•
attend to the social, psychological, and spiritual needs of workers. They believe
ters and Waterman put it, "the pursuit of higher purpose is inherently at odds
only when the workers' personal needs are satisfied will they produce outstand•
with 30 quarterly MB O objectives, 25 measures of cost containment, 100
ing work.
J I u
demeaning rules for production-line workers, or an ever-changing, analyti• Similarly, although Peters and Waterman were able to isolate eight attrib•
cally derived strategy that stresses costs this year, innovation next, and heaven utes of excellence from a sample of forty-three financially successful compa•
knows wha t the year after." 29
nies, they could not state which of these attributes, or what combination of
Whether managers can or should define the culture of an organization re• these attributes, if any, explained their success. We still don't know, for exam•
mains a matter of considerable debate. Most advocates of symbolic manage• ple, whether the success of McDonalds is due to its golden arches, core values,
ment do not suggest that managers can or should try to determine every and the legend of Ray Kroc, or to its stringent operating procedures and so•
aspect of culture. They only suggest that managers seek to influence key as• phisticated control systems.
3 2
As one critic put it, both In Search of
pects of culture by identifying and symbolizing core values, clarifying mission, Excellence and Passion for Excellence argue that a strong culture built on shared values
and articulating appropriate strategies for addressing the organization's prob• and patterns of behavior is the source of excellence and yet neither provide any in•
lems of external adaptation and internal integration. In this way they can at dication "that the authors ever systematically examined the extent to which rank-
least hope to nudge their organizations in new and more positive directions. and file members of any of the firms share those values, engage in those behaviors, or
perceive that their supervisors do."
33
A second and closely related criticism is that these theorists offered a

"one best way" formula for success: build a strong value-driven culture and
A S S E S S I N G TH E the resulting increases in commitment, cohesion, and effort will boost per•
PRACTITIONER-ORIENTE D LITERATUR E formance. Allaire and Firsirotu argued, for example, that universal prescrip•
tions of the kind offered by Peters and Waterman are not very helpful
Despite offering a fresh, new perspective on organizational behavior, the because choices about how to improve organizational performance are nec•
practitioner-oriented literature came under immediate attack. Criticisms essarily contingent upon the specific situational factors an organization faces.
tended to fall into one of two categories: those questioning the underlying It is futile, for example, to "exhort the employees of a regulated monopoly
theory of organizational effectiveness and those questioning the implications offering a public service and requiring large capital investments to become
of the theory for management practice. 'close to the customer,' to show a 'bias for action,' to manage with 'simple
First, several critics noted that the practitioner-oriented literature provided form and lean staff,' and to preach 'autonomy and entrepreneurship.'The re•
little hard evidence to support the theory that strong cultures and shared val• quirements for success, imposed by the economics and regulations of these
ues promote organizational success. Although Ouchi reported the findings of a industries, are pushing very hard in another direction, and attempts by man•
study by Ouchi and Johnson, the results were far from conclusive. Ouchi and agement to install a culture that works against these forces will, therefore, be
counterproductive."
34
Johnson surveyed executives and officials in the apparel and electronics indus•
tries and found a strong correlation between companies perceived as having A third criticism is that the practitioner-oriented literature overstates the
Th eo r y Z characteristics and those described as being "best managed."
3 0
degree to which organizational cultures can be shaped or controlled by man•
They also found a strong correlation between the perceived Z-ness of firms agers to advance their objectives. The idea that cultures are integrating and
and their net incomes as a percent of sales. The number of study participants, unifying forces that can be successfully managed assumes the existence of a
however, was relatively small, and their conclusions were based on the per• strong, monolithic, all-encompassing culture, something which may itself be a
ceived reputations of firms rather than firsthand knowledge. myth. In reality, according to Martin and Siehl, organizational cultures "are
In the second part of their study Ouchi and Johnson found that emo • composed of various interlocking, nested, sometimes conflicting subcul•
tures." It is not unusual for these subcultures to be in direct conflict with
3 5
tional well-being and company loyalty were higher in the firm most often
described as Type Z than in the firm most often described as Type A (the managerial objectives. Examples include a subculture that punishes "rate-
more traditional, bureaucratic type). However, this study involved only two busters" or one centered on the practice of medicine that resists all efforts by
firms in one industry and relied upon a relatively small sample of executives administrators to limit professional autonomy.
and their spouses. In addition, because the performance levels of these two Relatedly Martin and Siehl suggest that cultures are not as responsive to
firms were similar, Ouchi and Johnson were unable to show that higher direct managerial attempts at control as many would like to believe: "It may
emotional well-being and company loyalty translated into higher perfor• be that cultures cannot be straightforwardly created or managed by individ•
mance. As Edgar Schein put it, what is missing "is convincing evidence that uals. Instead, cultures may simply exist and managers may capitalize on cul•
those companies which fit the Theory Z model are more effective than com• tural effects they perceive as positive or minimize those perceived as
parable companies which operate more on the T heory A bureaucratic negative. Perhaps the most that can be expected is that a manager can slightly
model." 31
modify the trajectory of a culture, rather than exert major control over the
U K t j A N I Z A I IUPJA L W L i u i \ t r t n j r c \ . l I V C MIMU b Y M B U L I l - 1 V I A I N A U C I V I C I - J I [ncuRT J # 3
direction of its development." Th e argument that organizational cultures the corporate literature stressed the instrumental manipulation of organiza•
3 6
are not easily managed or changed was echoed by J. Steven Ott. Cultures, tional culture because, as Robert Denhardt has written, managing an organi•
Ott wrote, "have deep roots, and they develop over long periods of time zation's culture is more about community building than mind control.
41
through complex individual and group mechanisms. Usually they can be al•
tered only slowly, through painful learning processes that often are resisted
by memb er s." This suggests that managers wh o attempt to act in accor•
3 7
dance with the optimistic theory advanced in the practitioner-oriented lit• VISIONAR Y LEADERSHI P
erature may be severely frustrated in their efforts. As Pollitt put it, this
literature reminds managers "of the symbolic dimension of organizational As noted above, many practitioners and scholars came to view culture as an in•
life, but it may never be able to furnish a practical 'toolkit' for producing strument to be adjusted as needed to enhance organizational performance.
new, 'management-designed' cultures on demand."
38
They understood that it isn't necessary to understand an existing culture fully
A final criticism is that symbolic management represents an elitist, pater• before attempting to shape or alter it. This line of thinking revitalized interest
nalistic, and unethical management ideology premised on manipulating sym• in leadership theory. Instead of referring to a manager's behavioral style as au•
bols and brainwashing workers so that they adopt values and beliefs contrary thoritarian, permissive, or participatory, leadership in the late 1980s came to
to what they might otherwise hold. One of the harshest criticisms of symbolic mean the ability of key individuals to provide the organization and its mem •
management theory was penned by William G. Scott.
3 9
According to Scott, bers with purpose, direction, and inspiration. Theorists began making a clear
Peters and Waterman endorsed the use of applied social-science methods "to distinction between effective management (i.e., being a good planner, analyst,
enter the realm of the employee's subconscious in order to inculcate attitudes, and organizer) and effective leadership (i.e., being successful at guiding an or•
motives, and values that are organizationally favorable." Scott maintained
4 0
ganization from where it is to where it aspires to be).Whereas a manager has a
that this is highly unethical. It entails treating people as means rather than ends in set of operational responsibilities arising from his or her position in the hierar•
themselves. In his view, managers have no business trying to manipulate peo• chy of authority, a leader is one who exercises personal influence over others
ple's beliefs and values, especially when it involves the cynical use of slogans regardless of the position held. And, whereas a manager works dutifully within
and stories that they do not believe in themselves. the existing culture, the leader seeks to create and manage the culture itself.
In general, these criticisms have substantial merit. It is certainly true that Both roles are critically important, according to this newly evolving theory of
the hypothesized linkages between strong cultures and organizational success leadership, and they may even be performed by the same individual, but they
have not been proven and that symbolic management theorists have tended are not one and the same thing.
to be overly optimistic about the ability of managers to shape organizational The idea that senior managers are responsible for exercising moral or purpose-
culture and use it to achieve managerial objectives. On the positive side, how• centered leadership is not a new one. Chester Barnard wrote in 1938 that one
ever, this literature provides a new and useful perspective by which to under• of the core functions of the executive is to define the organization's essential
stand organizational behavior, it offers a theory about organizational purposes so that members will identify with the organization and work to•
performance that may yet be verified and, by introducing such terms as mis• gether to achieve shared objectives. Similarly, Philip Selznick wrote in 1957
sion, vision, values, and passion, it has refocused attention on the importance that the primary task of a leader is to help transform the formal organization
of institutional leadership. into a living institution by defining its mission and embodying its purposes. In
Perhaps the greatest concern is that an otherwise valuable theory may be his words,"Organizations become institutions as they are infused with value, that
perverted in practice through the cynical and insincere efforts of managers is, prized not as tools alone but as sources of direct personal gratification and
seeking to shape the values and beliefs of organizational members. In fair• vehicles of group identity. This infusion produces a distinct identity for the or•
ness, the symbolic management theorists insisted that commitment to values ganization. Where institutionalization is well advanced, distinctive outlooks,
must be sincere and "bone deep," that organizational values should reflect the habits, and other commitments are unified, coloring all aspects of organiza•
higher purposes of the organization as well as basic beliefs about human dig• tional life and lending it a social integration that goes well beyond formal coor•
nity, and that a true, as opposed to an artificially induced, identity should ex• dination and command."
42
ist between individual and organizational values. It is also important to note A central theme in the organizational culture literature is that leadership is
that the values at issue are primarily organization-related values, not private, the pivotal force behind successful organizations.Visionary leadership theory
personal ones, and members normally retain a great deal of choice about holds that those in positions of responsibility must develop a clear vision of or•
whether to accept or reject them. If espoused values truly integrate organi• ganizational success, articulate the values by which success will be achieved,
zational goals with broad societal goals, members are likely to accept them symbolize vision and values in everything they do, and inspire organizational
on their own accord without coercion or brainwashing. It is unfortunate that members to adopt the vision and values as their own. In one version of this
theory, which Schein calls the strong vision model, the leader has a clear vision call for different kinds of leadership. Transactional leadership, for example,
of organizational success and the means for achieving it. This model is re•
4 3
may be perfectly appropriate to the needs of stable and mature organiza•

flected in the transformational leadership theory discussed next. But, in a sec•
tions. But other organizations may be so in need of revitalization that they
ond version of this theory that Schein calls the fuzzy vision model, leaders do
require a leader who will oversee their complete transformation. For such
not have a clear vision themselves and therefore must work closely with the
organizations minor adjustments by transactional leaders intent on exchang•
members of the organization to develop one.
ing rewards for compliance are not sufficient. What is required of the transfor•
mational leader, they wrote, "is an ability to help the organization develop
Transformational Leadership a vision of what it can be, to mobilize the organization to accept and work
toward achieving the new vision, and to institutionalize the changes that
Implicit in symbolic management theory is the idea of strategic alignment.
4 4
must last over time." Tichy and Ulrich cite the efforts of Lee Iacocca,
4 9
The symbolic manager seeks to align the organization with its external envi• then chairman of the Chrysler Corporation, as an example of transformational
ronment by finding the best fit between organizational mission and strategy, leadership and organizational revitalization. By creating a vision of success
internal systems and structures, and environmental conditions. Once appropri• and mobilizing large factions of employees toward enacting that vision,
ate vision and values are defined, the symbolic manager works to embed them Iacocca was able to transform a company from the brink of bankruptcy to
in the organization's culture so that the success-producing alignment is main• profitability.
tained. But if the environment suddenly changes, cultural assumptions lose A subsequent book by Tichy and Devanna contributed greatly to the lit•
their validity and the carefully crafted alignment is often lost. And, because the erature on organizational change. It suggested that the structural, behav•
5 0
newly embedded culture resists change, it becomes a barrier to organizational ioral, and interpersonal changes advocated in the existing literature are
success rather than an instrument for attaining it. This is a different situation insufficient by themselves to produce meaningful organizational change. Be•
than that faced by leaders of a new organization seeking to establish a strong cause culture encompasses a body of shared meanings, and because shared
culture for the first time. It is a situation faced by mature organizations con• meanings influence perceptions and behavior, the shared meanings themselves
fronting crisis or anticipating major changes in their environments.These or• must be assessed and revamped before meaningful organizational change is
ganizations must act quickly to restore or sustain a proper alignment by possible. While acknowledging that changing a culture is not an easy task,
altering the existing culture. In an article published in 1984,Tichy and Ulrich Tichy and Devanna suggest that it can be done in a deliberate fashion follow•
argued that what is needed in such circumstances is not transactional leader• ing a predictable set of steps. The process involves, among other things, scan•
ship but transformational le ad e rs h ip . This is the kind of leadership re•
4 5
ning the internal and external environments for evidence that fundamental
quired when habitual ways of doing things no longer work, or when a change is required, helping organizational members recognize that change is
dramatic change in the environment requires new responses, thus necessitating required, anticipating internal sources of resistance, articulating a vision of
the complete transformation of the organization. future success that will give members a reason for wanting to behave in new
Tichy and Ulrich borrowed the term transformational leadership from po • and different ways, and institutionalizing change by reshaping technical, polit•
litical scientist James MacGregor Burns, wh o had introduced it six years ical, and cultural systems in ways consistent with the vision and the core val•
earlier in his master work on leadership. Burns identified two types of
4 6
ues by which it will be achieved. In describing these steps,Tichy and Devanna

political leadership: transactional and transforming. Whereas transactional emphasize the psychology of change. Managers cannot simply order mem •
leaders achieve their goals by striking bargains with followers, such as an ex• bers to change their values or habitual ways of doing things and expect them
change of jobs for votes, transforming leaders achieve their goals by appeal• to comply. From the perspective of individual psychology, transformational
ing to the higher motives and aspirations of followers. Although their leadership involves helping members understand that the way things used to
motives may be entirely self-interested at first, transforming leaders often be• be has come to an end and giving them a vision of new opportunities to be
come moral agents, despite their initial intentions, as they invite others to excited about.
join them in fighting for a cause that they care deeply about. As Burns put In contrast to much of the literature on organizational culture, transfor•
it, "The result of transforming leadership is a relationship of mutual stimula• mational leadership theory marks a return to a rational, instrumental view of
tion and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert lead• organizations, one that extends hope that organizations can yet be engi•
ers into moral agents." 47
neered to produce desired results. It downplays the idea that culture is

Tichy and Ulrich took the concept of transforming leadership out of the something that develops organically and often unconsciously over time and
realm of politics and applied it to institutional settings. Echoing Fiedler's highlights the idea that culture is a body of shared meanings that can be
contingency theory of leadership, they emphasized that different situations
48
successfully managed. As Tichy and Ulrich put it, "Cultures don' t occur
CHAPTER ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVE AND SYMBOLIC MANAGEMENT THEORY
3
randomly. They occur because leaders spend time on and reward some be • ture that organizational members want to create; and team learning refers to
haviors and practices more than others." In this respect, transformational
5 1
developing skill in group problem solving and learning, including skill in dia•
leadership theory is probably overly optimistic about a leader's ability to loguing, systems thinking, challenging traditional assumptions, and speaking
transform culture. After all, the things being changed are not rationally based openly and honestly about important issues.
belief systems but relatively implicit sets of taken-for-granted values, norms, Senge calls systems thinking the fifth discipline because it is the key to in•
and assumptions. The latter are more emotionally charged and difficult to tegrating the other four. According to Senge, organizations serious about
change than rational beliefs. Nonetheless, this literature provides a useful
52
learning, adapting, and realizing their objectives must pursue mastery of these
exploration of the importance of vision and values to organizational success disciplines in a fully integrated manner. It makes little sense, for example, to
and the difficulties inherent in attempting cultural change. As Charles Joiner empower people in an organization that lacks a shared vision of success and
has suggested, we need not be arrogant about our ability to change an orga• realistic mental models for pursuing desired results. Doing so only increases or•
nization's culture. It may be enough to engage members in discussions of ganizational stress.
how to do things better and planning the means for closing the gap between Senge s unique contribution to organization theory and the subject of or•
where we are today and where we want to be tomorrow. The pursuit of a vi• ganizational change is the special emphasis he places on organizational learn•
sion of a better world is motivational in itself. Such a vision permits employ• ing and environmental adaptation. He reminds us that a state of excellence is
ees "to mesh their own personal goals with those of the organization. It is never achieved once and for all. Just as learning is a life-long process for indi•
this meshing that builds the level of commitment that will eventually release viduals, the organization's pursuit of excellence entails a never-ending quest.
human energies for the accomplishment of the organization's most impor•
tant tasks."53
The Learning Organization R E L E V A N C E FO R P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T

In Organizational Culture and Leadership Edgar Schein posed a seemingly para•
doxical question: Is it possible to create a culture committed to continuous self- The remainder of this chapter explores the relevance of the organizational cul•
diagnosis, learning, and change?
5 4
At first glance this seems impossible. ture perspective and symbolic management theory for public management and
Organizational cultures are widely viewed as conservative, stabilizing forces organizational performance. This exploration is guided by the three analytical
that function to resist rather than facilitate change. And yet, in a widely read frameworks introduced in Chapter 3.
book entitled The Fifth Discipline (1990), Peter Senge argues that a culture
committed to self-diagnosis and institutional learning is precisely what is Models of Organizational Effectiveness
needed in a world characterized by rapid change and deepening complexity. As indicated in Exhibit 15.3, symbolic management theory offers a relatively
The learning organization, according to Senge, is one "where people continu• comprehensive theory of organizational effectiveness, one that integrates the
ally expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and many values reflected in Quinn' s competing values framework. Although
expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set shared values are seen as the key determinant of organizational success, sym•
free, and where people are continually learning how to learn." Such
5 5
bolic management theory emphasizes that shared values have little impact if
organi• zations do not emerge on their own. They are built through a process of they do not serve to integrate all of the other elements in the McKinsey 7-S
col• lective learning overseen by a unique kind of leader. What distinguishes the framework, including strategy, structure, systems, style, staff, and skills. If this
leaders of learning organizations from others, according to Senge, "is the clar• integration can be maintained from one situation to the next, organizations
ity and persuasiveness of their ideas, the depth of their commitment, and their can hope to realize all four functional imperatives at once. Shared values can
openness to continually learning more."
56
provide a sense of purpose and direction (the goal attainment function), a

The learning organization emerges as its members master the five learning means of coordinating and controlling work activities (the integrative func•
disciplines. Systems thinking is the ability to view reality in terms of holis• tion), a basis for enhancing social cohesion, morale, and commitment to or•
tic, structural patterns rather than linear chains of cause and effect; personal ganizational purposes (the pattern maintenance/tension management
mastery is the capacity for developing a personal vision and focusing energies function), and a decision-making process that is alert to changes taking place
on achieving that vision; mental mode ls refers to the ability to identify and, in the organization's external environment (the adaptive function).
if necessary, alter the deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or mental The manner in which symbolic management theory seeks to satisfy func•
pictures that influence how we understand the world and take action in it; tional imperatives is far different from the approach taken by classical theory.
shared vision refers to the capacity to develop and hold a picture of the fu- For example, the spirit of rationalism and the obsession with efficiency reflected
E x h i b i t 15.3 Th e C o m p e t i n g Valu e s F r a m e w o r k :
Exh ib it 15.4 Si x M e c h a n i s m s fo r C o o r d i n a t i n g an d C on tro llin g Wo r k Activ ities
Four Mo de l s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E f f e ct i v ene ss
Flexi bility needs to be accomplished and how. Responsibility for coor•

Pattern maintenance/Tension Adaptive function: the need workers and a managerial hierarchy is established to inte•
rr nf function: the need to to acquire resources and adapt grate the efforts of all work groups. The supervisor issues
maintain a ; integrated, to an uncertain environment personal instructions and monitors individual performance.
ar orce
fying how everyone is to perform assigned tasks. Coordina•
HUMAN cohesion, flexibility, OPEN tion is built into the work process itself and control is
RELATIONS morale readiness SYSTEMS achieved by strictly limiting each worker's discretion.
MODEL MODEL
human resource growth,
work outputs each work group with product specifications or perfor•
determining how to achieve them. Control is exercised by collecting
Internal External output data, requiring corrective action when needed, and rewarding
and sanctioning workers based on results achieved.
focus focus

Means-oriented values: Means-oriented values: worker skills skills needed to make appropriate decisions. Educational in•
INTERNAL info, management, planning, RATIONAL stitutions and professional associations are relied upon to
PROCESS communication goal setting GOAL provide standardized training. Professionally trained work•
MODEL MODEL ers are largely self-coordinating and self-controlling.
Standardization Organizational leaders communicate and act upon a clear
productivity, of values vision of what the organization exists to do, where it should
stability,
control efficiency
Integrative function: the need to Goal attainment functio n: the need and control is facilitated by commitment of organizational
activities SOURCE: Based in large part on Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 3-7).
Control
SOURCE: Adapted with permission from Figures 3 and 4, Robert O. Quinn and Joh n Rohrbaugh, "A Spatial Model
29 (March 1983): 363-373. Copyright 1983, The Institute of M an agement Sciences, now the Institute for Operations best to integrate the seven S's in practice. In the final analysis it offers a plausible
Research and the Manage me nt Sciences (INFORM S), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090-
theory of organizational effectiveness but one that remains largely untested and
2909 USA.
unproven.
in the works of Taylor and Weber receive much less attention. Emotional at•
tachments to shared values and their symbolic representations tend to replace
rational calculation and structural controls as the basis for planning, controlling, and Controlling Work Activities
and coordinating. In addition, leadership is emphasized as a prerequisite for the
As noted above, symbolic management theory substitutes shared values for orga•
theory's successful application, an idea that has special relevance in the public
nizational structure as the primary means of coordinating and controlling work
sector, where agencies are subject to endless constraints and where bureaucratic
activities. Instead of relying upon rules, operating procedures, reporting systems,
inertia quickly becomes a way of life. As Robert Behn has written, "Leadership
and other structural devices, the cultural approach relies on standardization of
from public managers is necessary because without leadership public organiza•
values to guide behavior, motivate performance, and coordinate work activities.
tions will never mobilize themselves to accomplish their mandated purposes, let
Symbolic management theorists maintain that a values-based approach is far
alone figure out how best to do that." 57
more effective than a structural approach for purposes of coordination and con•
The primary limitation of symbolic management theory is that it provides trol. Tichy and Devanna argue, for example that, "N o organization can write a
few clues regarding how to pursue competing values simultaneously or how set of procedures so complete that they specify people's behavior in all situations.
38 6 CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVE AND SYMBOLIC MANAGEMENT THEORY 387
Consequently, organizations are held together in part by normative glue. If we

Ex hi bi t 15.5 Four M oti va ti ona l S tr at eg i e s
consider the excellent organizations discussed by Peters and Waterman, we find
that a common thread is their ability to articulate their values to their employ• Legal Compliance
ees.This helps to inform decisions at all levels of the organization." 58
Standardization of values appears to be especially relevant to loosely cou• Employees may come to work, comply with rules, and satisfy minimum role require•
pled organizations, such as schools, where it is difEcult for managers to observe being sanctioned.
or measure performance directly. If the members of such organizations are fully
acculturated in mission-related values, managers can be reasonably certain that
each employee is striving to accomplish the organization's goals in an effective
manner. But acculturation of this kind requires a high level of communication Rewards for Performance
between the leader and the led. As Karl Weick has written, it requires an admin• Distributing pay, promotions, and recognition based on individual performance.
istrator wh o "articulates a direction with eloquence, persistence, and Employees may meet or exceed role expectations because they value the material
detail." By centralizing the articulation of key values, the administrator can then
5 9
provide.
decen• tralize everything else. Weick suggests that although this is not an easy thing to
accomplish it "can be done by a combination of symbol management, selective
centralization, consistent articulation of a common vision, interpretation of di• ate of their needs. This strategy may improve morale. It might also induce those
verse actions in terms of common themes, and by the provision of a common who value the respect, support, and approval of persons in authority to meet or
language in terms of which people can explain their own actions in a meaning• exceed their role requirements.
ful way and communicate with one another in similar terms." 60

Group Acceptance
Motivational Strategies bonds, and enjoy the approval of their peers. This strategy may induce those who
As indicated in Exhibit 15.5, symbolic management theory relies heavily on
the goal c ongr ue nc e strategy for purposes of motivation. This strategy in• Job Identification
volves hiring employees who already share an agency's goals and public service Offering work that is interesting, challenging, and responsible. Employees may come
ideals and socializing them so that they internalize the agency's unique values to work, meet or exceed role requirements, and possibly exhibit greater creativity and
and purposes. Employees become highly dedicated and motivated workers as work intrinsically rewarding.
they come to identify with the agency's mission and values. Joiner states the
Goal Congruence
underlying theory of motivation as follows:"... a vision is created in the minds
of employees that permits them to mesh their own personal goals with those and/or socializing employees so that they internalize organizational goals and values.
of the organization. It is this meshing that builds the level of commitment that Employees may come to work, remain with the organization, meet or exceed role re•
will eventually release human energies for the accomplishment of the organi• quirements, and exhibit greater creativity, innovativeness, and institutional loyalty.
zation's most important tasks." 61

Understood as a theory of organizational effectiveness, symbolic manage•
ment theory relies on the heart as much as the mind to motivate employees 1966), pp. 336-68.
and secure their commitment. It rests on the assumption that organizational

excellence is a product of people who care rather than systems that control.
6 2
Because of the motivational power of public service ideals, it is an approach

that is relevant to many, if not all, public agencies. As Rober t Denhardt has
written, "In restoring a sense of priority to public service, managers have
SUMMAR Y
some very special qualities to build on, not least among them is the intrinsic
Organizational culture and symbolic management theory offers one of the
appeal of public service itself. People are attracted to public organizations for
clearest alternatives to classical theory's hierarchically-arranged organizational
many reasons, but primary among them is a desire to serve—to contribute structure and its top-down, command-and-control approach to management.
something meaningful and significant to the world. This deeply personal ele• Incorporating many of the values of Theory Y and Theory Z, it calls for a less
ment of commitment distinguishes public organizations from others and can• hierarchical form of organization and a more bottom-up consensual, partici•
not be ignored by managers wishing to improve the performance of their patory approach to management. Power and authority are decentralized and
organizations."
63
workers are empowered to do their jobs to the best of their abilities consistent
wr\vjî»«- " i W L I un c rctv>rri_ i iv c AINU S Y M B O L I C M A N A lj t l V l b N I I H E O R Y
with the vision and values established by top management. Among its implica•
mission. In practice, however, several formidable barriers stand between its
tions for pubhc managers are the following:
promise and its successful implementation. Among these are the tendency of se•
• A shared vision of success. Symbolic management theory suggests that nior managers to view symbolic management as just another technique or tool
pubhc managers should articulate, or engage staff members in articulating, for controlling human behavior, lack of understanding on the part of manage•
a vision of the future that the agency aspires to bring into being. If it is ment of the underlying philosophy and theory of success, rapid turnover among
deeply felt and broadly shared, vision provides purpose and direction to senior managers that makes visionary leadership and symbolic management dif•
the organization and motivates workers to close the gap between what is ficult to sustain, unwillingness of managers at all levels to abandon their obses•
and what might be. sion with control, failure to establish the openness and trust that visionary
leadership requires, and failure to articulate the social and organizational values
• Superordinate values. Symbolic management theory suggests that pub• that build emotional attachments to organizational purposes.
lic managers should articulate, or engage staff members in articulating, the
values that will guide their decisions and the ways they will relate to each
other as they pursue their shared vision. These deliberately chosen values
may include such things as integrity, mutual respect, openness and honesty, NOTE S
commitment to quality, equal opportunity, and public service. They may
1. Gareth M or ga n , Peter J. Frost, and 11. . Kaufman, The Forest Ranger, 198 .
be expressed as principles, defining how members wish to conduct busi•
Louis R. Pondy, "Organizational S ymbol•
ness and interact with each other on a daily basis. According to symbolic 12. Schein, Organizational Culture and
ism," in Pondy et al , Organizational Sym• Leadership, 147 .
management theory, motivation, energy, and enthusiasm are highest when bolism (Gr eenwi ch , CT : JAI Press, 1983), 3 .
the values of individual staff members coincide with the superordinate 13. . See, for example, Alan L. Wilkins,
2. . M o r g a n , Frost, and Pondy, "Th e C ul tu re Audit: A Tool for U n d e r •
values of the organization. Shared values provide the glue that binds mem• "O r g a n i za • tional Symbolism," 4 . standing Organizations, " Organizational
bers together in common cause and determines their levels of loyalty, 3. Ervin g Goffman, Interaction Ritual Dynamics 12 (A u t u m n 1983): 2 4 - 3 8 .
commitment, and effort. (Garden City, NY : A n c h o r Bo oks, 1967); 14. Peter J. Frost, Larry F. M oo re , Mery l
Peter Berge r and T h o m a s Luc km an n , The
• Proactive leadership. Symbolic management theory suggests that pubhc Reis Louis, Craig C. L undberg, and Joanne
Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, Martin (eds.), Reframing Organizational Cul•
managers should resist the temptation to define their roles as caretakers NY : Doubleday, 1966). ture ( N e w b u r y Park, CA : Sage, 1991), 7.
whose job it is to oversee operations, put out fires, and keep the agency off
4. Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture 15. . Stephen Barley, G o r d o n Meyer,
the political radar screen. Serving the pubhc interest requires them to be and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, and Debr a Gash, "Cu lture s of C ul tu re :
proactive in developing an organizational culture committed to the pur• 1992), 12. Aca• demics, Practitioners and the
suit of excellence. This is achieved by engaging staff members in defining 5. Schein, Organizational Culture and Lead• Pragmatics
vision and values and then symbolizing commitment to the resulting vi• ership,!^ • of N o r m a t i v e C on t rol , " Administrative Sci•
sion and values in every action he or she takes. 6. . Edgar H. Sch ei n, " C o m i n g to a Ne
ence Quarterly 33 (March 1988): 2 4 - 6 0 .
w Awareness of Organizational Culture, " 16. T h o m a s J . Peters and R o b e r t H. Wa •

Although critics have tended to view symbolic management theory as Sloan Management Review 25 (Winter terman, Jr., In Search of Excellence: Lessons
highly paternalistic and too reliant on "brainwashing" as a control mechanism, 1984), 7. from America's Best-Run Companies ( Ne w
advocates of the theory argue that an element of paternalism and a modest level 7. Do na l d P.Warwick, A Theory of Public
York: Ha r pe r & Ro w , 1982);Ter rence E.
of values indoctrination is not all bad. Schein argues, for example, that "We can Deal and Allan A. Kennedy, Corporate Cul•
tures :The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life
see more clearly that between autocracy and democracy there lies a full range zation in the State Department (C ambridge,
(Readi ng, MA : Addison-Wesley, 1982).
of choices, and that a high degree of paternalism is not necessarily incompatible MA : Harvard Uni versity Press 1975).
17. William G. O uc hi , Theory Z: How Amer•
with bottom-up consensual, participative decision making." Managing how
6 4
8. . Schein, " C o m i n g to a Ne w
ican Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge
people feel about the organization, Schein writes, may be a good idea even if its Aw are• ness," 7.
(Reading, MA : Addison-Wesley, 1981), 58.
effects on organizational performance are not entirely clear. 9. For an early discussion of symbolic
18. Ou ch i , Theory Z, 195 .
Organizational culture and symbolic management theory promises to in• m a n a g e m e n t , see Th o m a s J . Peters, " Sy m •
bols, Patterns, and Settings: An Optimistic 19. O u c h i , Theory Z, 4 1 - 4 2 .
spire organizational members to dedicate themselves to achieving organiza•
Case for Gett ing Thi ngs D o n e , " Organiza• 20. . O u c h i , Theory Z, 83 .
tional purposes by uniting them in common cause behind a vision and set of tional Dynamics 7 ( A u t u m n 1978): 3—22.
21 . Wi lli am G. O u c h i and R a y m o n d L.
values that everyone holds dear. For public agencies it offers a theory of organi• 10. H e r b e r t Kaufman, The Forest Ranger: Price, "Hierarchies, Clans, and T h e o r y Z:
zational success built on responsiveness to the needs and concerns of stakehold• A Study in Administrative Behavior (Balti• A Ne w Perspective on O rg an i z at io n De •
ers without violating mandates or losing sight of the agency's fundamental more : Johns H o p k i n s Press, 1960). velopment, " Organizational Dynamics 7
(A u t u m n 1978): 2 5 - 4 4 .
39 U CHAPTER FIFTEEN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVE AND SYMBOLIC MANAGEMENT THEORY .331
25 .
22 . O u c h i , Theory Z, 88 . 39. . William G. Scott, Chester I. 57. . Ro b e r t D . Behn, "Wha t Righ t D o

23 . R i c h a r d Pascale and A n t h o n y Athos, Barnard and the Guardians of the Public Managers Have to Lead?" Public Ad•
Managerial State (Lawrence, KS : ministration Review 58 (May/June 1998), 209 .
The Art of Japanese Management: Applications
University Press of Kansas, 1992).
for American Executives ( Ne w Y o rk : Si mo n 58. . Tich y and De va nn a, The
and Schuster, 1981), 51 . 40. . Scott, Chester I. Barnard,H6. Transforma• tional Leader, 49 .
24 . Pascale and At hos, The Art of Japanese 41 . R o b e r t B. De n h a rd t , The Pursuit of 59. . Karl E. Weick, " Adminis ter ing E duca
Management, 51 . Significance: Strategies for Managerial Success • tion in Loosely C o u p l e d Schools," Phi
in Public Organizations (Bel mont, CA : Delta Kappa 63 (June 1982), 675 .
25 . Pascale and Athos, The Art of Japanese
Wadsw orth, 1993).
Management, 204 . 60. Weick, "Administering Education," 676 .
42 . Philip Selznick, Leadership in Admin•
26. . Pascale a n d A t h o s , The Art of
istration: A Sociological Interpretation
Japanese Management, 201 .
(Evanston, IL: Row , Peterson & Co mp an y,
27. . Pascale a n d A t h o s , The Art of 1957X40.
43 . Schein, Organizational Culture and
28. . Pascale a n d A t h o s , The Art of Leadership, 330 .
44. . Allaire and Firsirotu, " H o w to
29. . Peters and W at er ma n, In Search of Imp l e • men t Radical Strategies."
Ex• cellence, 51 .
45. . No e l M . T i c h y and David O .
30. Wi lli am G. O u c h i and Jerry B. J o h n • Ul ri c h , "Th e Leadership C h a l l e n g e — A
son, "Types of O rganizat ional Co n tr o l and Call for the T ransformational Leader,"
Thei r Re la t i on sh ip t o Em o t i o n a l Well Be • Sloan Man• agement Review 26 (Fall 1984): 5 4 -
ing," Administrative Science Quarterly 23 68 .
gun e 1978): 2 9 3 - 3 1 4 .
46. . James M a c G r e g o r Burns, Leadership
31 . Edgar H . Schein, "Do e s Japanese (Ne w Y o rk : H a r p e r & Row , 1978).
M a n ag e m e n t Style Have a Message for
47. . Burns, Leadership, 4.
A m e ri ca n M an ag ers? " Sloan Management
Review 23 (Fall 1981), 58 . 48. . Fred E. Fiedler, " A C o n t i n g e n c y
M o d e l of Leadership Effectiveness," in
32. . Lee G. Bo l m a n a n d Te r r e n c e E.
Leonard B erkow itz, ed., Advances in Exper•
Deal, Modern Approaches to Understanding
imental Social Psychology (Ne w Y o rk : Aca•
and Managing Organizations (San Francisco:
demic Press, 1964).
Jossey-Bass, 1984), 153 .
49. . Ti chy and Ul rich, " Th e
33. . Charles Co n rad , bo o k review of A
Leadership Challenge," 59 .
Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Differ•
ence, Administrative Science Quarterly 30 50. . No e l M . Tichy and Mar y Ann e
(September 1985), 426 . De • vanna, The Transformational Leader
(Ne w Yo rk:Wiley, 1986).
34. Yva n Allaire and Mihaela Firsirotu,
" H o w t o Im pl em e n t Radical Strategies i n 51 . Tichy and Ulrich, "Th e Leadersh ip
Large O rganizations," Sloan Management Challenge," 67 .
Review 26 (Spring 1985), 30 . 52. . H arrison M. Trice and Janice M.
35. . Jo an n e M arti n and Caren Siehl, " O r Beyer, The Cultures of Work Organizations
• ganizational Culture and Countercul ture : (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,
An Uneasy Symbiosis," Organizational Dy• 1993), 2.
namics 12 ( A u t u m n 1983), 53 . 53. . Charles W. Joiner, "M a k i n g the 'Z '
36. . M a r t i n and Siehl, Co n c ep t Work," Sloan Management Review
" O rganizational C ulture and 26 (Spring 1985), 60 .
Co u n t e r c u l t u re , " 53 . 54. Schein, Organizational Culture and
37. . J. Steven Ott , The Leadership, 361 .
Organizational Culture Perspective (Pacific 55. . Peter M. Senge, The Fifth
Grove, CA : B r o o k s / C o l e Publishing, Discipline: The Art and Practice of the
1989), 87 . Learning Organi• zation (N e w Yo rk :
Doubleday, 1990), 3.
38. . C. Pollitt, Managerialism in the
Public Services (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 56. . Senge, The Fifth Discipline, 359 .
61 . Joiner, "M a k i n g t h e ' Z ' C o n c e p t Work,"
60 .
62 . D e n h a r d t , The Pursuit of Significance,
111 .
63 . D e n h a r d t , The Pursuit of Significance,
72 .
64 . Schein, "Do e s Japanese M a n a g e m e n t
Style have a Message for A m e ri ca n M an •
agers?,' ^ 58 .
1 6
392
Excellence
in
Government
O ur goal has been to discern what organization theory can tell us about
organizing and managing government agencies. A few schools of
thought have been omitted solely because they have had less to say than
others about how agencies can realize their fullest potentials in serving the pub•
hc interest. As argued in Chapter 3, how well pubhc agencies perform is a criti•
cal factor in determining the quality of life in society and the extent to which
the public good is realized. The degree of success they experience in carrying
out their mandates affects, for example, how well our children are educated, our
public health protected, our borders secured, and our streets made safe.
Some observers of government believe it is unrealistic to expect public
managers to engage their staffs in the deliberate pursuit of excellence. Many, if
not most, governmental jurisdictions are highly politicized. Where this is the
case, elected executives and their political appointees are naturally concerned
with achieving the administration's political agenda. They typically do not
view themselves as executive officers of large organizations whose primary
concerns include administrative efficiency, employee morale and motivation,
the effective use of human resources, service quality, or "customer" satisfaction.
Many career public managers just below the political ranks are equally reluc•
tant to engage their staffs in the deliberate pursuit of excellence. The very real
possibility of being called to account by their superiors, and the general lack of
incentives for exercising leadership on behalf of the public good, often cause
even the most dedicated career public managers to avoid taking risks or rock•
ing the boat. They seek instead to protect themselves and their agencies by fly•
ing just below the political radar screens in an effort to avoid adverse political
fallout. Public managers are also subject to many legal and bureaucratic con•
straints regarding what they can and cannot do; consequently, they often abdi•
cate their leadership responsibilities, adopting instead a cautious, caretaker role
because it offers the course of least resistance.
That public administration takes place in a politicized and bureaucratic
environment should come as no surprise. Pohtics and bureaucratic constraints
are natural consequences of democratic governance, public accountability, and
institutional complexity. Nonetheless, the realities of politics and bureaucratic
constraints mean that committing an agency to the pursuit of excellence re•
quires a conscious choice and a determined act of will. In an article entitled
"What Right Do Managers Have to Lead?" Robert Behn argues that leader•
ship by public managers is a moral duty. Without determined leadership,
1
the constraints identified in Chapter 2, including fragmented authority,

ambigu• ous mandates, and limited discretion, cannot be overcome. And if
they are not overcome, then the agency's reason for being—to serve some vital
pubhc purpose—cannot be realized. Instead of asking what right public
managers have to lead, Behn could well have asked what right public managers
have to fail to lead.
The importance of leadership in serving the public good is the premise
around which this book has been organized and written. In bringing it to a
close it is well to review some of the primary conclusions to which our analy•
sis points.These conclusions are highlighted in the sections that follow.
1 . P U B L I C A G E N C I E S AR E E X C E E D I N G L Y
COMPLE X PROBABILISTI C SYSTEMS .
Some scholars continue to hold out hope that scientific research will yet pro•
duce a theory capable of identifying the key determinants of organiza•
tional behavior and specifying the relationships among them— a theory en•
abling scholars to predict organizational behavior and managers to intervene
to improve organizational performance. But the development of a single, all-
encompassing theory seems increasingly unlikely. Ou r ability to predict or
control organizational behavior is constrained by the sheer number of vari•
ables contained in any organizational system and the high level of interdepen•
dence among them. A single unseen change in one variable can alter other
variables in ways that cannot be known or taken into account.
Systems theory teaches us that public agencies are what Beer has called
"exceedingly complex probabilistic" systems.These systems exhibit the high•
est degree of complexity and the lowest degree of predictability; conse•
quently they are largely beyond the grasp of human comprehension, let
alone human control. For public managers to believe that they can identify,
predict, and control the countless variables that determine an agency's level
of performance is a dangerous kind of hubris. At most, public managers may
be able to discern a few basic patterns that seem to produce favorable results
394 CHAPTER SIXTEEN
under specific conditions. In the final analysis they may have to rely as much viewing our agencies through all of these lenses at once, we can gain a more
on intuition as scientific knowledge. holistic understanding of how and why they behave as they do.
However, systems theory also teaches us that complete knowledge of sys• Conversely, because each school of thought focuses on one set of performance-
tem variables and their interdependencies may not be necessary. Much can be related variables while ignoring others, public managers cannot afford to rely
done to improve organizational performance by focusing attention on a few on a single perspective to comprehend organizational dynamics or determine
strategic variables and continually working to align internal capacities with ex• where and how to intervene to improve organizational functioning. Human
ternal realities so that an agency's mission is achieved with a relatively high de• relations theorists were among the first to point out the dangers of viewing
gree of effectiveness. Although they may be overly narrow in scope and tainted organizations through a single, dominant lens.They emphasized the costs asso•
by questionable assumptions, each of the theoretical perspectives introduced in ciated with viewing organizations as rational, technically efficient machines.
the preceding chapters provides valuable clues about which variables are most But they made the same mistake in turn by hmiting their analysis of organiza•
strategic and how managers might intervene to enhance organizational per• tional effectiveness to improving interpersonal relationships. It is important for
formance. The challenge lies in taking a holistic view of what the many public managers to avoid the temptation to view organizational realities
schools of thought have to offer and developing eclectic theories about what through a single lens, act upon a single set of assumptions, or focus attention
variables require the greatest attention and what interventions are likely to on a limited set of performance-related variables. Improving organizational
produce the best results, given the nature of the agency and the situations it functioning requires a holistic approach, something which the ongoing quest
faces. In this respect, conceptual frameworks such as the McKinsey 7-S frame• for the ultimate quick fix cannot provide.
work identified in Chapter 15 are useful to keep in mind because, although
they provide no answers about how to organize and manage effectively, they
nonetheless draw our attention to important categories of variables (strategy,
3 . MAN Y S C H O O L S O F THOUG H T OFFE R
structure, systems, staff, style, skills, shared values) and encourage us to attend
to those variables in a comprehensive and balanced fashion. A N IMPLICI T THEOR Y O F
ORGANIZATIONA L EXCELLENCE .
2 . EAC H SCHOO L O F THOUGH T As summarized in Exhibit 16.1, many of the schools of thought reviewed in
the foregoing chapters offer an implicit, if not explicit, theory about how to
O F F E R S A UN I Q U E P E R S P E C T I V E enhance organizational effectiveness and maintain a state of excellence. Al•
FO R U N D E R S T A N D I N G though no one theory can provide the kind of guidance that public managers
seek, the various theories taken as whole do offer alternative strategies and
COMPLE X ORGANIZATIONS . methods and do indicate the various points at which intervention might be at•
tempted. Knowledge of organization theory can thus be an important asset for
We can think about complex organizations—their essential natures and the var• all public managers.
ious means by which to shape and guide them—from any of several perspec•
tives. Organization theory teaches us that complex organizations may be
viewed as rational machines designed to fulfill their purposes with maximum
efficiency (scientific management theory), pyramids with cascading levels of au• 4 . TH E W I S E P U B L I C M A N A G E R W I L L
thority that ensure that all work activities are properly coordinated and con•
DEVELO P A N A G E NCY - SP E CI FI C
trolled (bureaucratic and administrative management theory), cooperative social
systems composed of human beings with human needs (human relations, hu• THEOR Y O F E X C E L L E N C E .
man resources, and natural systems theory), living organisms seeking to survive
in uncertain environments (open systems theory), and tightly knit clans united Because there is no one best way to organize and manage, each public manager
in common cause by shared cultural values and beliefs (organizational culture must develop a personal theory about what it makes sense to do in different
theory). Each of these perspectives draws our attention to a different set of vari• circumstances and under varying conditions. Although differences in the mis•
ables affecting organizational performance: technical, structural, human, strate• sions that agencies perform, the nature of the work they do, the characteristics
gic, and symbolic. By using each of these perspectives as a lens through which of their workers, and the situations and environments they face make it virtu•
to view our individual agencies, we can see and understand situations in new ally impossible to develop a general theory of organizational success, it is both
ways and imagine entirely new methods of organizing and managing. And, by possible and desirable to develop a working theory appropriate to a particular
Exhibi t 16.1 T he or i e s of O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E ff ec ti ven ess
Exhib i t 16.2 M odel s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l E ff ec ti v en es s b y Sc ho o l o f T h o u g h t
Implicit or explicit theory of

School of thought organizational effectiveness School of thought Model of organizational effectiveness
Scientific management theory Weber's theory of bureaucracy Rational goal model. Internal process model
Organizational performance is enhanced by
Scientific management theory Rational goal model. Internal process model
systematizing work processes, standardizing
job tasks, and providing economic rewards Administrative management theory Rational goal model. Internal process model
for superior performance. Efficiency and Follett's pre-human relations theory Rational goal model. Internal process model.
productivity are the primary values. Human relations model
Administrative management theory
Organizational performance is enhanced Human relations theory Human relations model
by establishing clear lines of authority from Natural systems theory Rational goal model. Internal process model,
top to bottom, a distinctive division of labor Human relations model, Open systems model
among departments, and delegation of
Structural functional theory Rational goal model. Internal process model,
power and authority to administrators com•
Human relations model, Open systems model
mensurate with their responsibilities. Admin•
istrative efficiency and rationality are the Open systems theory Open systems model
primary values. Rational goal model. Internal process model,
Participative management theory
Human relations theory
Organizational performance is enhanced Human relations model
by treating workers with respect, replacing Human resources theory Rational goal model. Internal process model.
close supervision with a more sympathetic Human relations model
and relaxed form of supervision, encourag• Rational goal model, Internal process model,
Quality management theory
ing workers to vent their feelings, and de•
Human relations model, Open systems model
veloping cohesive work teams. Personal
adjustment, cooperative behavior, and Symbolic management theory Rational goal model, Internal process model,
social cohesion are the primary values. Human relations model. Open systems model
Human resources theory
Organizational performance is enhanced
by developing each worker's unique tal•
ents, creating and sustaining an environ•
agency or subunit. Such a theory can be constructed, for example, by analyzing
ment of openness and trust, removing
constraints on personal autonomy and in• which mechanisms of coordination and control or which strategies of em•
dividual discretion, enriching work, and ployee motivation make the most sense, given such factors as the agency's mis•
providing opportunities for everyone to
participate in decision making. Human
sion, the nature of its work, the characteristics of its employees, and the unique
development and intrinsic satisfaction environment in which it operates. The analysis provided at the end of each of
are the primary values. the preceding chapters was intended to facilitate the development of such a
Quality management theory Organizational performance is enhanced by working theory.
designing products and services to meet or The primary difficulty in constructing such a theory is that there is no agreed-
exceed customer expectations and by em•
powering workers to find and eliminate all
upon definition of what is meant by organizational effectiveness or how to
factors that undermine product or service know it when we see it. The significance of Quinn's competing values framework is
quality. Primary values include product or that it helps us appreciate this point.What it means for an agency to be effective
service quality, continuous improvement,
collective problem solving, and "customer" —to be a high-performing organization—may be understood in terms of at
satisfaction. least four competing sets of means-ends values. As shown in Ex•
Symbolic management theory Organizational performance is enhanced by hibit 16.2, each school of thought tends to emphasize one or more under•
communicating a clear vision of success and
standings of effectiveness and very few offer a comprehensive theory capable
its underlying values, symbolizing values and
vision in everything the manager does, and of integrating and balancing all four sets of values simultaneously. According to
creating a strong organizational culture in Quinn, it is an integrated and balanced theory of organizational effectiveness
which shared values tie members together
and provide a powerful source of commit•
that the wise manager seeks to develop. To do otherwise is to neglect impor•
ment and motivation. Intrinsic satisfaction, tant contributors to organizational success. In this respect it is important to
social cohesion, and commitment to organi• note how the more recent schools of thought appear to be more integrated
zational purposes are the primary values.
and comprehensive in their concern for all four sets of values identified in
Quinn's competing values framework. The first three schools, often referred to
as classical theory, limit their focus to the values associated with the goal Exhibit 16.3 M e c h a n i sm s o f C oo r di n a t i o n an d Cont rol b y S cho o l o f
tainment and internal process models, whereas the most recent two schools
emphasize the values associated with all four models. Perhaps this indicates School of thought Mechanism of coordination and control
growing recognition of the importance of viewing organizations through mul•
Weber's theory of bureaucracy Direct supervision. Standardization of work
tiple lenses and in a more holistic manner. processes. Standardization of worker skills
The primary limitation of Quinn's competing values framework is that it Standardization of work processes. Stan•
Scientific management theory
fails to indicate the important differences in how these values can or should be dardization of work outputs
realized. Especially worthy of note is the way each school of thought offers a dif• Administrative management theory Direct supervision
ferent path to success, not only in terms of the values that are emphasized but Follett's pre-human relations theory Mutual adjustment
also in terms of how those values can or should be realized. Developing a work• Human relations theory Direct supervision
ing theory of organizational effectiveness is not an easy task. We may conclude, Natural systems theory Direct supervision. Standardization of values
for example, that an effective agency is one that succeeds in achieving its man• Structural functional theory (No one mechanism emphasized)
dated purposes in a way that satisfies its internal and external stakeholders and in Open systems theory (No one mechanism emphasized)
a manner that is consistent with its constitutional and statutory obligations. But Participative management theory Mutual adjustment
theories of this kind leave many questions unanswered, such as who these stake• Human resources theory Mutual adjustment
holders are, what needs and expectations they hold, how to promote their satis• Quality management theory Mutual adjustment, Standardization of work
faction, what to do when their needs are in fundamental conflict, and what to outputs, Standardization of worker skills.
Standardization of values
do when legal constraints preclude taking the necessary actions. Not only will
Standardization of values
resolving these issues require careful strategic plaruiing but they will also require Symbolic management theory
attention to specific conceptual issues such as how to coordinate and control
work activities and how to motivate employees. These issues were examined at
the close of each of the preceding chapters because they are fundamental to de•
veloping a comprehensive working view of organizational effectiveness. ucts that are often unobservable or unmeasurable. Hence, public managers may
have to rely on an appropriate combination of mutual accommodation and
standardization of skills, results, and values.
5 . TH E W I S E P U B L I C M A N A G E R W I L L
AD OP T A C O N T I N G E N C Y VIE W O F 6 . TH E W I S E P U B L I C M A N A G E R W I L L
C O O R D I N A T I O N AN D C O N T R O L . ADOP T A C O N T I N G E N C Y VIE W O F
Ho w to coordinate and control work activities is one of the most basic struc• EMPLOYE E MOTIVATION .
tural questions public managers must consider in developing a comprehensive
theory of organizational effectiveness. Exhibit 16.3 identifies where each Because people are motivated by different needs, interests, and expectations,
school of thought places its unique emphasis. With two or three exceptions, conclusions about how to motivate employees must be contingent upon many
these schools do not recognize the importance of drawing upon all available different factors, including the nature of the work, the kinds of rewards avail•
strategies as circumstances warrant. The wise public manager considers under able, and the characteristics of the workers themselves. Although there cannot
what types of circumstances and with what types of employees one kind of be one best way to motivate all employees, it is possible to discern general pat•
mechanism is likely to be more efficacious than another. Because public agen• terns. It has been suggested in earlier chapters, for example, that where work is
cies do every conceivable kind of work, generalizations regarding when to use complex and of a technical, semi-professional, or professional nature, and
which mechanisms are almost impossible to state. The preceding chapters, where employees are relatively well educated and desirous of continual per•
however, suggest that direct supervision tends to be most appropriate in lower- sonal growth, those strategies that rely on intrinsic rewards may be more effec•
level positions and with relatively uneducated employees, standardization of tive than strategies that do not.This type of work is found extensively in public
work tends to be most appropriate where tasks are highly routine, and stan• agencies, a fact which suggests that intrinsic rewards-based strategies such as
dardization of results tends to be effective only where outputs and outcomes job identification and goal congruence may be particularly effective.
are observable and measurable. In government agencies work tends to be com• That work is increasingly knowledge-intensive may help to explain why
plex, performed by professionally trained employees, and involve work prod- recent schools of thought tend to place the greatest emphasis on the jo b
v-n/-v r i iC
E x h ib i t 16. 4 Mo ti v a ti o n al S t r a t e g i e s b y S c h o o l o f reaucratic, and too procedures-oriented to allow for such a possibility. It

hoped that the discussions in the previous chapters provide a heightened level
of confidence that achieving higher levels of agency functioning is entirely
School of thought Motivational strategy
possible for public managers who possess the will and determination to exer•
Weber's theory of bureaucracy Legal compliance cise leadership on behalf of the public good. Bob Stone, one of the chief ar•
Scientific management theory Legal compliance. Rewards for performance chitects of the Clinton administration's efforts to reinvent government, notes
Administrative management theory Legal compliance that the horrific events of September 11 , 2001 , underscore the vital impor•
Follett's pre-human relations theory Instrumental rewards (Considerate leader• tance of government. Because government truly matters, pubhc servants bear a
ship, Group acceptance). Job identification moral obligation to help their agencies carry out their missions as effectively as
Human relations theory Considerate leadership. Group acceptance
possible. For this to happen, Stone writes, "government at all levels—city,
Natural systems theory Instrumental rewards (Rewards for perfor•
county, state, and federal—must transform itself from a middling-performing
mance. Considerate leadership. Group accep•
tance). Goal congruence bureaucracy to a top-notch, twenty-first century, high-performing organiza•
tion." Public servants, he concludes, are perfectly capable. The y just require
2
Structural functional theory (No one strategy emphasized)

Open systems theory (No one strategy emphasized) dedicated leadership and opportunities to exercise leadership themselves.
Participative management theory Instrumental rewards (Considerate leader•
ship. Group acceptance), Job identification
Human resources theory Job identification
Quality management theory Instrumental rewards (Considerate leader• NOTE S
ship. Group acceptance). Job identification.
Goal congruence 2. Bo b Stone, Confessions of a Civil Servant
1 . R o b e r t D . B eh n , " W h a t R i gh t D o
Symbolic management theory Goal congruence Public Managers Have to Lead?" Public (Ne w York: R o w m a n and Littlefield,
Administration Review 58 (May/June 2003), p. xx.
1998): 2 0 9 - 2 2 4 .
identification and goal congruence strategies (see Exhibit 16.4). Because pub•
lic employees often gravitate to public sector careers out of a keen desire to
serve others and make a difference, these individuals are able to satisfy their
personal needs and values through the intrinsic rewards that their jobs and
their contributions to the public good can provide. For this reason the wise
public manager will take steps to ensure that these rewards are available and
attainable by, for example, removing the constraints that prevent their full re•
alization, communicating how the agency contributes to the well-being of
society, and celebrating the very real accomplishments that are made each
year. At the same time, however, the wise public manager will rely on all avail•
able strategies, not just those that offer intrinsic rewards. For example, rules
and rule enforcement—the heart of the legal compliance strategy—are nec•
essary to one extent or another in all complex organizations.
7 . L E A D E R S H I P O N B E H A L F O F TH E
PU B L I C GOO D I S A MORA L O B L I G A T I O N .
We began this chapter with two thoughts in mind: that serving the public
good is a moral obligation and, at the same time, that it may be unrealistic to
expect public managers to commit themselves and their agencies to the pur•
suit of excellence. Government is often thought to be too political, too bu•
INDEX
in administrative manage• Bell, Daniel, 171,172 Burns, Tom, 5,252-254

ment theory, 123 Bennis,Warren, 141 business
authoritarian management, Berger, Peter, 361 applying principles to agen•
220-222 Beyer,Janice M., 260 cies, 9-10
Barnard's concepts of, biographical sketches business orientation of sci•
195-196,199 Chester Barnard, 190 entific management
delegation of, 104-105 Chris Argyris, 311 theory, 93
depersonalizing, 149 Douglas McGregor, 300
Index
distributing with organiza• Elton Mayo, 153
Frederick W Taylor, 67,68 Cannon,Walter B., 187
tion structure, 257
Henri Fayol, 97 canons of integration,
exercise of power and, 43,
James D. Mooney, 103 112-115,118
136-137
Joseph Juran, 343 Carr, David K.,350
Fayol's managerial functions
Kurt Lewin, 272 Cartwright, Dorwin, 282
and, 99
Luther Gulick, 108 cause-and-effect diagrams,
fragmented, 11—12
Mary Parker Follett, 128 335-336
in generic management
Max Weber, 42 chain of command, 313—314
models, 19
Rensis Likert, 282 Chandler, Alfred, 260-261
hierarchical duties in ideal-
Robert K. Merton, 212 change. See also organizational
type bureaucracy,
W Edwards Deming, 332 change
49,50
biology Argyris' work on interper•
Mooney and Reiley's defini•
general systems theory and, sonal, 315-316
tion of, 104
240 leadership and task of orga•
motivating employees by nizational, 381-382
formal, 62-64, 65 open systems, 241
overcoming resistance to,
public accountability and, Blau, Peter M., 4,211,217
250
262 documents cycle of adaptive
responses, 228—229 Weber's theory of social,
types of, 43-44
explaining adaptive social 42-43
autocratic leadership, 274—277,
structures, 225 charismatic administrations, 45
294
resentments in punishment- charismatic authority, 44
B centered bureaucracy, Civil Rights Act of 1964,
Balchen, Bernt, 216 235-236 13-14
Barley, Stephen, 368 study of bureaucratic clan organization, 371
A origin of name, 107 directive leadership and Barnard, Chester I., 4,190-202 dynamics, 222-224 Cleveland, Frederick A., 113,
accessibility of public agencies, overview of, 4,5—6 altering of motives, technology at contingency 114
management controls,
12-13 perspectives on, 117—118 194-195,200 factor, 259,260 Coch, Lester, 279-280
315
action plans, 101,102 relevance to management competing values frame• works of, 212 Cohen, Steven, 24,350,351
formal structure's effect on
action research, 246,272,278 and performance, work applied to Boulding, Kenneth, 242-243 cohesive work groups, 180
individual, 313-314
active listening, 162,167 122-123 theories, 203-205 Brand, Ronald, 350,351 collaboration, 166
individual's growth needs,
adaptive functions, 28,29 administrative principles, 99 contributions to organiza• Brandeis, Louis, 70 collective decision making,
311-313,317
adaptive responses of organiza• Administrative State, The life of, 311 tion theory, 198-199 Bridwell, Lawrence, 299 370,373
tions, 226-230,245 (Waldo), 116 Personality and Organization, criticisms of theory, Brownlow, Louis, 107 collective problem-solving,
administration Alderfer, Clayton, 299 310,317 199-202,203 Brownlow Committee, 107, 149
authority for, 44-46 Allaire, Yvan, 377 Type Z and ideals of, 372 executive's functions, 112,113 collective responsibility, 370
avoiding Weberian orthodoxy, American corporations 196-197,379 building human capacity, 288, collective will, 130-132
artifactual level of organiza•
55-56 adapting art of Japanese tional culture, 363, 364 formal organizations, 192 294 command-and-control ap•
management to, Art of Japanese Management, The inducements-contributions bureaucracy. See also theory of proach, 305-306
spirit of formal impersonality
373-374 theory, 192-194 bureaucracy commanding, 99
in, 48 (Pascale and Athos),
ask Deming for help, life of, 190 analysis of bureaucratic competing values framework.
administrative management 373-376
338-339 limits on exercise of formal dysfunctions, 215—217 See also organizational
theory, 96-125 assumptions
need for value-based man• authority, 195-196 applying open systems effectiveness
canons of integration, adopting untested, 299-300
agement, 375-376 moral aspect of organiza• about, 28-31
112-115,118 altering basic, 324 model to, 242
Type Z organizations, 371 tions, 197-198 limitations of, 398
clarifying authority in, 123 cybernetics, 242-244 career service and, 49, 52
American Farm Bureau complex functions, 259
coordination and control in, embedding in organizations, natural systems view of conflict created by deper•
complex organizations, 1
120-121 Federation, 228 366-367 organizations, 190- sonalization, 216-217
composite longwall system,
critique of, 115—117 anthropology McGregor's Theory X and 191 determining appropriate de•
248
direct supervision and, 120 influences on organizational Y, 300-303,324 organizations as cooperative gree of, 64
Fayol's general management culture perspective, systems, 191 dynamics of, 222-224 compromise, 132
organizational culture's
theory, 97-102 361 process of decision, 196 elements characterizing conflict
basic, 364-365
Gulick on, 106-112 structural functionalism and, standardization of values, Weber's ideal-type, 49 acceptance of, 135
Athos, Anthony G., 5,
implicit and explicit theories 213-214 205-206 legal-rational authority and, created by bureaucratic
373-376 depersonalization,
in, 395-396 apathy of employees, 221-222, authentic relationships, TQ M evolves from work of, 46
Mooney's theory of organi• 233-235 346 punishment-centered pat• 216-217
315-316
zation, 102-106 Argyris, Chris, 5, 281, 286 Barnard, Claude, 187 tern, 221-222,228, full disclosure and resolving
authoritarian management,
motivational strategies used, authentic relationships and basic assumptions of organiza• 233-235 of, 134
220-222 scientific management
121-122 decision making, authority tional culture, 364—365 representative pattern,
organizational effectiveness 315-316,319 Bavelas, Alex, 278,280 221-222 theory as response to
administration and political,
in, 118-120 contributions of, 316-317 Beard, Charles A., 114 Bureau of Naturalization, 216 industry, 68-69
43-46 conformity in bureaucracy,
Beer, Stafford, 243 Burns, James McGregor, 380
Behn, Robert, 323, 384, 393 215-216
40 2
4 IND
considerate leadership strategy

consistent with Follett's quality management theory, participative, 160 bureaucratic, 215-217 role in organic management F
theories, 147,148 353-355 political environments and, recognizing, 217 systems, 253-254 Farm Security Administration,
employed by participative schools of thought and, 399 20 self-managing work teams, 219
management theory, scientific management political influences in, 17-18 E 308-309 fatigue, 159
theory, 89-90 unity of command Eastern Rate Case, 82 social systems of, 165-166 Fayol, Henri, 4,96, 97-102 ,
284,291,292
for human relations theory, structural-functional theory principle, 110 Economic Control of Quality soldiering, 71 , 74,79,163 107
177-178 and, 232-233 deficiency motivation, 298 of Manufactured Product spiritual needs of, 373—374 administrative methods, 101
theory of bureaucracy, delegation of authority, (Shewhart), 328 standardizing skills of, 32, administrative principles,
quality management theory
60-62 104-105,304 economic rewards 34, 60,62,353-354 99-100
and, 355,356
theory of integration, Deming. W Edwards, 5,327, economic incentives, 159 standardizing tools and critiques of theories,
contingency factors, 257—262
146-147 338 organizational effectiveness production processes 115-117
defined, 257
coordination Fourteen Points, 339-334 and, 78-79,93 for, 72 Gulick's restatement of
developing contingency
collective problem solving introduces SPC to Japan, of scientific management systemizing production, 71—72 management func•
for coordination and
and, 287 331-334 theory, 93 testing productivity of, tions, 111-112
control, 398-399
defined, 31 life of, 332 efficiency in organizations, 157-160 life of, 97
environmental uncertainty,
Fayol's definition of, 99 Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, 193-194 employers, 100 managerial functions, 98-99
257-258 ehminafing waste, 70,92—93
Mooney and Reiley's coor• 333-334 entropy, 186,241 organization activities, 98
illustrated, 258
dinative principle, 104 U.S. corporations ask for embedding values in organiza• environments overview of theories, 97-98 ,
important implications of, tions, 366-367
coping agency, 23 help, 338-339 cybernetic feedback in, 101-102,117,
267 Emerson, Harrington, 70
Copley, Frank, 84 Deming Method at Work, The 241-242 122-123
organizational size as, Emery, Fred, 246
259-260
Corporate Cultures (Deal and (Walton), 342 decision making in political, feedback, 241-242
Kennedy), 369 democracy employee-centered manage• 20 Feigenbaum, Armand, 5,327,
public accountability as, ment, 284
261-262 cost-effectiveness, 26 democratic leadership, influences shaping organiza• 330-331, 335
Counseling in an Organization 274-277,294 employees. See also individuals tions, 244 feudal administration, 46
resource dependence as, 261 apathy of, 221—222,
strategy as, 260-261 (Roethlisberger and Follett's theory of, 130-132 maintaining positive work• field theory, 273.
Dickson), 169 Denhardt, Robert, 347,350,379 233-235 place, 179 Fifth Discipline,The (Senge),
technology, 258-259
craft agency, 23 departmentalization, 31,110 authoritarian management uncertainty in, 257-258 382-383
continuous improvement,
Creative Experience (Follett), dependency theory, 267 and, 220-222 equifinality, 241,249-250 Firsirotu, Mihaela, 377
333-334 ,337,357
128,132,135 depersonalization characterizing in manage• equilibrium fixed attributes, 54—56
continuous quality improve•
critiques bureaucratic, 216—217 ment models, 21—22 Barnard's use of term, 191 fixed official duties, 49-50
ment (CQI). See quality
administrative management depersonalizing authority, cogs in industrial machine, inducements-contributions, focus, 28
management theory
theory, 115-117 149 81 192-194,206-208,209 Follett, Mary Parker, 4,107,
control
of Barnard, 199-202 Devanna, Mary Anne, 381,385 conformity of government, Merton doubts social systems 126-151
defined, 31-32
Fayol's definition of, 99 human resources theory, Dickson, William J. 215-216 tend tc, 214 alternative to bureaucratic
management by self-control, 317-319 active listening and inter• counseling programs for, system, 186-188,193 paradigm, 142-144
307 ideal-type bureaucracy, viewing program, 168-169 espoused values of organiza• collective problem-solving,
215-217,225 160-162,167 decision making by, 160 tional culture, 363-364 149
relinquishing, 304—306
Peters and Waterman, 377, employee counseling pro• developing potential of, 288, esprit de corps, 100 contributions of, 129-130,
Taylor's obsession with,
378 grams, 168-169 294,303 esteem needs, 297—298 141-144
84-85
scientific management publishes Hawthorne studies, economic incentives for, 159 Excellence in Government (Carr depersonalizing authority,
conventional longwall system,
theory, 81-85 156 exception principle for and Littman), 350 149
247-248
sociotechnical theory, relaxed supervision, 159,180 subordinates, 105 excellence in government, humanizing of scientific
Cooke, Morris L.,85,88
250-251 relay assembly test room experimentation and 392-401 management, 141-142
cooperation
structural contingency experiments, 157—160 Hawthorne Effect, agency-specific theories for, influence on view of work•
individual, 202
theory, 262-263 views on formal and infor• 157 395,397-398 place, 142
organizational, 191,193,
Theory Z model, 376 mal groups, 166—167 factors influencing perfor• contingencies for employee on leadership, 139-140
202
Crockett, William, 55 culture- directive leadership, 315 mance, 222—224 motivation, 399-400 life of, 128
co-optation, 217-220
embedding mecha• direct supervision. See also goal congruence with, 37, contingency views of coor• motivational strategies in
coordinating and controlling
nisms, 367 supervision 38-39 dination and control, theories, 147-148
work
cybernetics administrative management group acceptance of, 37,38 398-399 mutual adjustment and
administrative management
assumptions of, 242-244 theory and, 120 industrial productivity and implicit and explicit theories theory of integration,
theory, 120-121
feedback, 241-242 human relations theory and fatigue, 159 in organization theory, 146-147
developing contingency
organizations as self- reliance on, 176 involvement in rule devel• 395-396 obeying law of situation,
view for, 398-399 opment, 221—222
regulating systems, mechanism for coordinating leadership as moral obliga• 138-139,309
human relations theory, job identification, 37,38
242 work, 32,33 tion, 393,400-401 organizational effectiveness
176-177
natural systems perspective, labor conflicts with, 68-69 learning from all schools of of theories, 144-145
human resources theory, D 205 line and staff principle, thought, 394-395 participative management,
320-322 decentralization, 304 in natural systems theory, 105-106 overview, 392—393 149
implicit Japanese mechanisms Deci, Edward, 92 205 morale, 159-160 understanding nature of power and authority,
for, 370 decision making theory of bureaucracy and, motivating, 35-39 public agencies, 135-137,149
open systems perspective, Argyris and McGregor on, 60-62 obeying law of situation, 393-394 principles of organizational
265-266 319 domination, 132 138-139,309 exception principle for subor• coordination, 140-141
organizational culture per• Barnard's process of decision, Drucker, Peter, 143,307 participating in management, dinates, 105 resolving conflict through
spective, 385-386 196 Dynamics of Bureaucracy, The 149,279-280,294 executives integration, 132-135
organizational effectiveness collective, 370, 373 (Blau), 212 performance reviews of, 342 Barnard's theory on func• theory of democracy,
and, 31-35 group, 284-287,294 dysfunction personal attention and sym• tions of, 196-197 130-132
participative management homogeneity principle, 110 anticipating consequences pathetic treatment for, constraints on, 200-201 formal organizations, 166,192
theory, 290-291 openness in, 12—13 of, 226-227, 236-237 160,180 moral codes of, 198,209 fragmented authority, 11—12
4 IND IN D
fragmented functions, 259

French,John R. P., 279-280 failure of punishment- life of, 108 Merton's focus on, 231-232 hierarchy of needs, 297-299 Barnard's theory of,
Frost, Peter J., 368 centered bureaucracy, overview of theories, 118 quality management theory implicit and explicit theories 192-194
functional foremanship, 75—76 233-235 122-123 and, 352 in, 395-396 implications of, 209
functional principle, 105—106 focus on human relations President's Committee values emphasized with hu• integrating individual and instrumental rewards and
functions. See also structural- model, 232 on Administrative man relations theory, organizational needs, goal congruence
functional theory works by, 212 Management, 107 174-176 310 strategies in, 206-208
adaptive, 28,29 government agencies. See ex• restatement of management human relations theory, job enrichment, 308 Industrial Organization
of executives, 196—197 cellence in government; functions, 111-112 152-182. See also management by objectives (Woodward), 255
goal attainment, 28,29 public agencies theme of integration in Hawthorne studies; pre• and self-control, 307 industry
integrative, 28,29 Grace, J. Peter, 10 work, 114 human relations theory managers as facilitators, action research in, 277-281
manifest and latent, group acceptance strategy defined, 271 324-325 conflicts leading to scientific
214-215 consistent with Follett's H development of human rela• Maslow's influence on, 296 management theory,
theories, 147,148 Hammond, Thomas, 116 tions studies, 165—166 McGregor's Theory X and 68-69
organizing by, 122
defined, 37,38 Hawthorne Effect, 157 direct supervision in, Y, 300-303,324 social disorganization in
pattern maintenance, 28, 29
employed by participative Hawthorne studies, 156-165 176-177 motivational strategies used, industrial societies,
routinized, fragmented,
management theory, bank wiring observation employee counseling pro• 322-324 154-156
complex, and hetero•
292 room study, 162-164 grams, 168-169 organizational effectiveness systemization of production
genous, 259
quality management theory conservative bias in, 171 Hawthorne studies, 156-165 of, 320,321 process, 72
tension management, 28,29
and, 355,356 illumination experiments, human relations training, overview, 5,6,296 informal co-optation, 218
Functions of the Executive, The
used in human relations 156-157 167-168 recognizing interdependence, informal organizations, 166
(Barnard), 190,196,199
theory, 177,178-179 interviewing program, implications of, 179-180 324 In Search of Excellence (Peters
G group dynamics theory. See also 160-162 implicit and explicit theories relinquishing control, and Waterman), 369,377
Gaebler.Ted, 57 participative management overview, 156 in, 395-396 304-306 inspectors, 76
Galbraith, Jay, 262 theory relay assembly test room ex• influence of Gantt and research themes in, 277 self- Institute for Government
gang boss, 76 action research in industry, periments, 157—160 Gilbreths on, 127 managing work teams, Research, 106-107
Gantt, Henry L., 4,73 ,74,75 , 277-281 soldiering observed in, 163 manipulation and human re• 308-309 Institute for Social Research, 272
88,127 autocratic and democratic Hegel, Georg, 130 lations skill, 172-173 Human Side of Enterprise, The institutional rigidity, 216
Gardner, Burleigh, 167 leadership studies, Henderson, Lawrence J., 165,189 motivational strategies for, (McGregor), 3,299-300 instruction card clerks, 76
Gash, Debra, 368 274-277 Herzberg, Frederick, 5 177-179 instrumental rewards
Geneen, Harold, 374 field theory, 273 heterogenous functions, 259
organizational effectiveness I employee motivation and,
influences on sociotechnical Hickson, D.J., 259-260, ideal-rype bureaucracy, 47-53 . 37-38
General and Industrial Manage• of, 174-176
ment (Fayol), 96,97,98 theory, 246 261-262 overview, 4, 6,152 See also theory inducements-contributions
general systems theory, laissez-faire leadership, hierarchical duties of ideal-type perspective on, 173-174 of bureaucracy theory and, 206-207
240-241 275-276 bureaucracy, 49,50 practice of, 167—169 about, 41 scientific management and
Gibbsjosiah Wlllard, 186 Lewin's studies of, 273-281 hierarchy of needs, 297-299 relaxed supervision, 159,180 career service, 49 52 use of, 91-92
Gilbreth, Frank, 4,85 , 88, roots of human resources Higgin, G.W.,268 social disorganization and critique of, 215-217,225 as strategy for human rela•
127 theory in, 271 Hinings, C. R., 259-260, human irrationality, elements characterizing, 49 tions theory, 177,178
Gilbreth, Lillian, 85,88 , groups 261-262 153-156 fixed official duties, 49—50 integration
127-129 cohesive work, 180 holistic concerns, 370 structural and contextual hierarchy of duties in, 49, canons of integration,
Gilmour, Robert, 123 decision making by, Homans, George C, 189 forces ignored, 170- 50 112-115,118
goal congruence strategy 284-287 ,294 homeostasis, 187 171 rules in, 49, 50-51 emphasis in Brownlow
defined, 37,38-39 effect of leadership on, homogeneity principle, human relations training, spirit of formal impersonality, Committee Report,
inducements-contributions 274-275 110-111 167-168 48 113
theory and, 206-208 formal and informal, Hoxie, Robert E, 82-84 human resources theory, technical expertise, 49, 52 in Gulick's work, 114
organizational culture per• 166-167 human factor. See also 296-326. See also Argyris, Weber's discussions of, 48 interpenetration and, 133
spective, 386-387 group behavior and effects individuals written documentation, 49, mutual adjustment and,
Chris; group dynamics
quality management theory on productivity, 164 dehumanizing aspects of sci• 52
theory; McGregor, 146-147
and, 355-356 observing social relations of entific management, Douglas illumination experiments, resolving conflict through,
goal displacement, 215-216 work, 162-164 81,86,127-129,277 156-157
altering basic assumptions, 132-135
goals overlapping organization in, Follett's humanizing of sci• implicit methods of coordina•
324 Theory Y and, 302
ambiguity of public man• 286 entific management, tion and control, 370
authentic relationships, integrative functions, 28,29
participative management 141-142 Improving Service Quality
agement, 13-15 315-316 intensive technology, 21
and productivity of, Human Organization, The (Milakovich), 350
in generic management coordination and control in, interdependence, 324
models, 19 278-280 (Likert), 282-283 320-322 individuals. See also employees interdependent work systems,
goal attainment functions, social cohesion and, 160, Human Problems of an Industrial critiques of, 317—319 compliance with authority, 357
28,29 180 Society.The (Mayo), 153 decentralization and delega• 195-196 internal process model
Goffinan, Erving, 361 growth motivation, 298 human relations model tion, 304 cooperation of, 202 administrative management
Goodnow, Frank, 114 Gulick, Luther, 4,96 associated with natural sys• defined, 270-271 formal structure's effects on, theory and, 118,119
Gore.Al, 16,17 administrative management tems perspective, 203, developing and using hu• 313-314 defined, 28,29
Gouldner, Alvin W., 4,211 theory of, 106-112 204-205 man resources, 303 growth needs of, 311—313, emphasis in scientific man•
on adaptive social structures, application of theories by, defined, 28,29 development of, 270 317 agement, 87,88
225 112 employed in participative hierarchy of needs for, employed in participative
directive leadership and
consequences of authoritar• applying principles to gov• management theory, management controls, 297-299 management theory,
ian management, ernment, 108-109 289-290 315 integrating needs of organi• 289-290
220-222 coordination through orga• human resources theory's formal structure's effect on zation and, 310 human resources theory's
documents cycle of adaptive nizational structure emphasis on, 320,321 individual, 313-314 treating employees as, 201 emphasis on, 320,321
responses, 228 109-111 integration theory and, 144, growth needs of individuals, inducements-contributions integration theory and, 144,
critique of, 115—117 145 311-313,317 equilibrium 145
natural systems perspective
and, 203,204 latent functions, 214-215 Lippitt, Ronald, 274-277, 294 importance of worker's state middle range theories, 213
acceptance ofTheory X
quality management theory Lawrence, Paul R., 143,258-259 Liftman, Ian D., 350 of mind, 316-317 modifies Weber's theory,
assumptions, 301—302
and, 352,353 leadership long-linked technology, 21 influences relay assembly test 230,236,237
administrator's role in gov•
Weber's theory of bureau• autocratic and democratic, longwall mining systems, room experiment, questions validity of struc-
ernment, 46—47
cracy and, 58 274-277,294 247-250 157-160 tural-functionalism,
avoiding Weberian orthodoxy,
interpenetration, 133 building human capacity Lorsch, Jay W, 258-259 Lewin's influence on, 273 213-214
55-56
interpersonal competence, 316 with, 294 Louis, Meryl Reis, 368 life of, 153 sociological background of,
considerations for organiza•
interviewing program, 160-162 considerate leadership strategy, Luckmann.Thomas, 361 meeting with Pennock, 157 212-214
tional effectiveness, 27
irrationality, 153—156 37,38 Lundberg, Craig C, 368 outcomes of the interview• takes course on system
contingency thinking and
Ishikawa, Kaoru, 5,327, directive, 315 ing program, 160—162 analysis, 189
335-336,337 Follett on, 139-140 M strategic planning, 267
productivity and group Metcalf, Henry, 135
delegating responsibilities,
laissez-faire, 275-276 Madison, James, 11 behavior, 164 Meyer, Gordon, 368
304
J as moral obligation, 393, maintenance needs
effective control of, 20 roots of human resources middle range theories, 213
Jacques, Elliot, 57 400-401 of organizations, 191, theory in work of, Milakovich, Michael E., 346,350
as facilitators, 324—325
Japan organizational culture per• 202-203 ,208-209 271 Miles, Raymond E., 319
fear of employee-centered
clan organization, 371 spective of, 379-383 threats to, 224-225 on social disorganization and Mintzberg, Henry, 32,35,262
leadership, 288
Deming introduces SPC to, proactive, 388 understanding organizational human irrationality, 153- minutes as administrative
fragmented authority and
331-334 sensitivity training for, 280 behavior and, 219-220 156 method, 101,102
effect on, 11
emergence ofT Q C in, turnover in, 349 management. See also executives; McGregor, Douglas, 3,5,250, models of organizational effec•
functional foremanship,
334-338 legal compliance strategy managers; public manage• 281,286,288 tiveness . See organiza•
75-76
ideal-type model of organi• employed by theory of ment characteristics assumptions ofTheory X tional effectiveness
moral duty of public, 393
zations, 369 bureaucracy, 62-64 adopting untested assump• andY, 300-303,324 modern organization theory.
motivating employees with
philosophy of management as motivation, 36-37 tions, 299-300 See structural contin•
legal compliance, contributions by, 309—310
in, 337 scientific management's altering basic assumptions gency theory
63-64 decentralization and delega•
Japanese Union of Scientists emphasis on, 92 of, 324 obeying law of situation, tion, 304 Moe, Ronald, 123
and Engineers (JUSE), used by administrative authoritarian, 220-222 138-139,309 on decision making, 319 Mooney.James D, 4,96
331,334-335,336 management theory, by objectives, 307,340 full development of human application of theories, 112
perceptions of adaptive re•
job enrichment, 308 121-122 centralizing planning and resources, 303 coordinative principle, 104
sponses by, 229-230
job identification strategy legal-rational authority, 44 control, 79-80 political influences on, Human Side of Enterprise, critiques of theories,
consistent with Follett's levels of organizational culture, Deming's Fourteen Points 16-18 299-300 115-117
theories, 147-148 362-367 for quality, 339-334 intrinsic rewards as motiva• functional principle,
relevance of theory of bu•
defined, 37,38 artifactual, 363,364 employee-centered, 284 tors, 306-307 105-106
reaucracy for, 58—64
employed by participative basic assumptions, 364—365 employees participating in, life of, 103
reluctance to relinquish job enrichment, 308
management theory, espoused values, 363-364 149,279-280,294 control, 304-306 life of, 300 line and staff principle,
292,293 Lewin, Kurt functional, 75—76 roles in 1878,68-69 management by objectives 105-106
human resources theory autocratic and democratic group decision making, using participative manage• and self-control, 307 overview of theories,
and, 322-324 leadership studies, 284-287 ,294 ment, 149,293-294 needs-based theory of moti• 102-106,118,
quality management theory 274-277,294 managerial functions of Mani, Bonnie G., 350 vation, 318 122-123
and, 355,356 field theory, 273 Fayol, 98-99 manifest and latent functions, relinquishing control, scalar principle, 104—105
job satisfaction, 277-281 humanistic contributions of, managerial values of 304-306 Moore, Larry F, 368
214-215
Johnson, Jerry B., 376 293-294 Barnard, 199-200 March, James G, 193 self-managing work teams, moral leadership
Joiner, Charles, 382 influence on Argyris, 311 managers as facilitators, Marrow, Alfred J., 278 308-309 management and, 198,209
joint optimization, 247 life of, 272 324-325 Martin, Joanne, 368,377-378 Type Z proposed to meet moral aspect of organiza•
Juranjoseph M , 5,327,334 performance and job satis• mechanistic and organic Marx, Karl, 42 ideals of, 372 tions, 197-198
life of, 343 faction, 277-281 management systems, Maslow, Abraham, 5,296,319 McKnsey 7-S Framework, motion studies, 85
Quality Control Handbook, suggestions for sensitivity 252-254 hierarchy of needs, 297—299 373-375,394 motivation, 35—39
343 training, 280 moral leadership by, 198,209 McNair, Malcolm, 172 about, 35—36
influence on human re•
structural approach to quality Likert, Rensis, 5,139,250 rational values in, 93 sources theory, 296 mechanistic management deficiency and growth, 298
management, 344-345 contributions of, 287-288, recognizing interdependence, Matsushita, Konosuke, 373-374 systems, 253 defined, 35
work with Deming, 334,338 293-294 324 mental models, 382 employee participation and
Mayo, Elton, 4,126,149 . See
diagnosing organizational self-managing work teams, Meriam, Lewis, 113 performance,
K also Hawthorne studies
health, 282 308-309 Merriam, Charles E., 107 279-280,294
cohesive work groups, 180
Kahn, Robert L., 5,36-39, group decision making and theory of, 3 Merton, Robert K, 3,4, inducements-contributions
contributions to human re•
244,282 supervision, 284-287, management models 211-238 equilibrium, 192-194
lations theory,
kaizen, 337 294 applying business principles 173-174 analyzes bureaucratic dys• instrumental rewards, 37—38
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 143 high performance goals and to agencies, 9-10 functions, 215—217 legal compliance as, 36—37
contributions to natural sys•
Kast, Fremont E., 203 productivity, 287 factoring agency employees anticipating functional and needs-based theory of,
tems theory, 202
Katz, Daniel, 5,36-39,244, 282 life of, 282 into, 21—22 dysfunctional conse• 316-317 ,318
criticisms of human relations
Kaufman, Herbert, 366-367 needs-based theory of moti• limits of generic, 18—19 quences, 226—227, motivational strategies
theory, 170-171
Kelly, John, 250-251 vation, 318 political influences and, 236-237 administrative management
Kennedy, Allan, 369 disputes in workplace,
principles of supportive 17-18 contributions to natural theory, 121-122
Koivisto.W.A., 170,172 154-155
relationships, 284, Management of Innovation
Henderson's collaboration systems theory, 202 adopting contingencies for
Koontz, Harold, 117 293-294 (Burns and Stalker), 252 employee motivation,
with, 189 implicit theory of organiza•
theories of participative managerial functions of Fayol,
L management, 281-284 98-99
human relations training, tional change, 399-400
167-168 227-230 consistent with Follett's
laissez-faire leadership, 275-276 line-staff principle, 105-106, managerialism, 199
implications of human rela• life of, 212 theories, 147-148
large-batch and mass production 111 managers. See also executives;
firms, 255 tions theories, manifest and latent func• human relations theory,
line supervisors, 76 leadership tions, 214-215 177-179
179-180
human resources theory, standardization of values, organizational effectiveness organizational effectiveness environmental forces shaping, Osborne, David, 57
322-324 205-206 models and, administrative management 244 O t t J . Steven, 378
open systems perspective, strategic factors and decision 263-265 theory and, 122—123 formal, 166-167,192 Ouchi,William G, 5,369-372,
266 making, 196 overview, 5,239-240 centralized planning and functions of executives, 376
organizational culture per• system equilibrium, sociotechnical theory, control, 79-80 196-197 Out of the Crisis (Deming),
spective, 386-387 186-188 246-251 economic rewards and, informal, 166-167 339-340
participative management system homeostasis, 187 structural contingency theory, 78-79, 93 institutional rigidity, 216 outputs and outcomes
theory, 291-293 systems theory as mode of 251-263 factors in, 26-27 interrelationship between different government agen•
quality management theory analysis, 184-185 organic management systems, human relations theory and, technical and work, cies and their, 22—23
and, 355-356 value of systems thinking, 208 253-254 174-176 246 in generic management
scientific management,
view of organizations from, organizational behavior. human resources theory maintenance needs of, 191, models, 19
90-92 190-191 See also human and, 320,321 202-203,208-209 standardization of work
structural-functional theory, needs. See also maintenance relations theory models of, 27—31 Mooney and Reiley s defini• outputs, 34
233-236 needs defined, 3 motivating employees, tion of, 103-104 overlapping organization in
theory of bureaucracy, hierarchy of, 297-299
62-64 development of, 179 35-39 moral aspect of, 197-198 groups, 286
individuals' growth, term adopted by Roethlis• natural systems perspective natural systems view of,
Motivation and Personality
311-313,317 berger, 173 and,203-205 190-191 P
(Maslow), 297 integrating individual and Pareto, Vilfredo, 188-189
municipal research bureaus, 86 organizational change. See also open systems perspective organization activities of
organizational, 310 organizations and,263-265 Fayol, 98 Parsons,Talcott, 29, 211, 213,
Murray, H„ 268 organizational maintenance, 245
mutual adjustment cycle of adaptive responses, organizational culture per• as problem-facing and
191,202-203, 226-230 spective and, 383—385 problem-solving participative decision making,
defined, 32-33 208-209 dysfunctional consequences participative management entities, 245 160
human resources theory workers' spiritual, 373—374 and institutional theory and, 289-290 as rational instruments, 64 participative management
and, 320-322 negative entropy, 241 theory, 270-295. See also
participative management strains, 226-227, performance measurement, self-regulating systems, 242
New Patterns of Management 236-237 79 as social systems, 165—166, group dynamics theory;
theory and, 290-291 Lewin, Kurt; Likert,
quality management theory (Likert), 282 leadership and task of, quality management theory 202-203
New State, The (Follett), 128, 381-382 and, 351-353 system equilibrium of, Rensis
and, 353,354 coordination and control in,
130,132 Merton's implicit theory of, schools of thought and 186-188
theory of integration and, 290-291
146-147 NewYork Bureau of Municipal 227-230 models of, 395, technological groupings for,
Research, 106,114-115 threats to organizational 397-398 255-256 developing employee poten•
N Nohria, Nitin, 143 functioning, 224-226 scientific management theory threats to functioning of, tial, 288,294, 303
National Manufacturer's Organizational Choice (Trist et and, 77-80, 87-89 229 employee participation and
Association, 9—10
o
al.),246 task specialization and, Organizations in Action motivation, 279-280,
Oakey, Francis, 113 organizational culture perspec• (Thompson), 244-245 294
National Performance Review 77-78
obeying law of situation, tive, 360-391 . See also organization theor / group decision making and
(NPR), 16,18 theory of bureaucracy and,
natural systems perspective, 138-139,309 symbolic management 58 answers provide i by, 7 supervision, 284-287,
183-210 obstacles in implementing theory work standardization and, 78 Argyris' contributions, 294
altering of motives, TQM , 349-350 assessing practitioner- organizational structure. 316-317 group dynamics theory,
194-195,200 Onward Industry (Mooney and oriented literature, See also organizations Barnard's contributions to, 273-281
Barnard's contributions to, Reiley), 96,102,103 , 376-379 coordination through, 198-199 group productivity experi•
106 coordination and control in, 109-111 defined, 1 ments leading to, 278-
198-199
openness in decision making 385-386 environmental uncertainty as field of study, 2- 3 280
contributions of theorists
process, 12-13 cultural strength, 365 in, 257-258 Follett's contributions to, high performance expecta•
with, 202-203
open systems, 241,245 difficulties conducting cul• public accountability and, 129-130 tions, 294
defined, 184
open systems model tural research, 261-262 Lewin's contributions to, 281 Lewin as organization
direct supervision in, 205
associated with natural 367-368 Likert's contributions to, theorist, 281
formal organizations, 192 resource dependence and,
systems perspective, embedding cultural values in 287-288 Likert's theory of, 281-287
functions of executives, 261
203,204 organization, 366-367 management theory as motivational strategies
196-197 size as contingency factor,
organizational effectiveness subfield of, 3 employed, 291-293
inducements-contributions levels of organizational 259-260
and, 28,29 culture, 362-367 strategy and, 260—261 McGregor's contributions, organizational effectiveness
equilibrium, 192-194,
quality management theory motivational strategies for, technological contingencies 309-310 in,289-290
209
limitations of, 203 and, 351,352 386-387 in, 258-259 Merton's contributions to, overlapping groups, 286
relevance to open systems organizational effectiveness organizational systems, 242 211 overview, 293—294
maintenance needs of
perspective, 263—265 and, 383-385 organization charts, 101,102 organization behavior as participative management,
organizations, 191,
open systems perspective, Ouchi's Theory Z, 369-372, organizations. See also organiza• subfield, 3 149
202-203 ,208-209
moral leadership, 209 239-269. See also cyber• 376 tional change; organiza• performance orientation to, 2 sensitivity training, 280
motivations in, 206-207 netics; sociotechnical overview, 5,6-7,361-362 , tional effectiveness; personal theories of managers supportive relationships,
organizational effectiveness theory; structural contin• 387-389 organizational structure in, 7- 8 284,293-294
gency theory Pascale and Athos' The Art of adaptation of, 225 principles of organizational Pascale, Richard T, 5,373-376
in, 203-205
applying cybernetics to or• Japanese Management, clan, 371 coordination, 140-141 patriarchal administration, 45
organizations as social system,
ganizations, 241-244 373-376 as cooperative systems, 191, quality management theory patrimonial administration,
165-166,202-203
coordination and control in, practitioner-oriented litera• 193,202 and,346-347 45
origins of, 188-189
265-266 ture, 368-376 coordination of, 104 schools of thought in, 4—8 pattern maintenance functions,
overview, 4
defined, 184 proactive leadership, 388 effect of structure on indi• as subfield, 2- 3 28,29
Pareto applies system analysis
influence of general systems shared vision of success, 388 viduals, 313-314 organized labor, 68-69,81-82 Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy
to society, 188-189
theory, 240-241 superordinate values, 388 embedding cultural values organizing (Gouldner), 212
replaced by open systems
motivational strategies used, visionary leadership theory, and assumptions in, by function, 122 pay-for-performance, 91-92
perspective, 239-240
266 379-383 366-367 Fayol's definition of, 98-99 Pennock, George A., 157
performance
depersonalizing authority, Progressive era factoring employees into defined, 28, 29 development of human rela•
employee rewards for, 38
149 scientific management management models, human resources theory tions studies, 165—166
factors influencing em•
Follett on leadership, during, 85-86 21-22 and, 320, 321 employee counseling
ployee, 222-224
139-140 values associated with, fragmented authority, 11-12 integration theory and, 144, programs, 168-169
functional authority and,
Follett's theory of power and 116-117 goals, 13-15 145 human relations training,
136
authority, 135-137, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of limits of generic manage• natural systems perspective 167-168
jointly optimizing organiza•
149 Capitalism, The (Weber), ment models, 18—19 use of, 203,204 publishes Hawthorne
tional, 247 humanizing of scientific 42 output and outcomes of dif• participative management studies, 156
hnking technology and or• ferent agencies, 22—23
management, 141—142 Protzman, Charles, 331 theory use of, relaxed supervision, 159,180
ganizational structure political constraints, 16—18
motivational strategies used, pseudoscientific basis of scien• 289-290 relay assembly test room
to, 257 Pugh, D. S., 259-260,261-262
147-148 tific management, 82-84 quality management theory experiments, 157—160
measuring worker, 71,79 punishment-centered bureau•
mutual 74adjustment and Psychology of Management and, 352 studies Pareto's work, 189
organization structure unre• cracy, 221-222,228,
theory of integration, (L. Gilbreth), 128 scientific management use views on formal and infor•
lated to, 255 233-235
146-147 pubhc of, 87,88 mal groups, 166—167
pay-for-performance, 91—92 Pursuit of Significance, The
obeying law of situation, accountability to, 261-262 theory of bureaucracy and, Rohrbaugh, John, 27,28,29
performance-oriented ap• (Denhardt), 347,350
138-139,309 conflict between bureaucra• 58, 59 Rosenzweig, James E., 203
proach to organization
organizational effectiveness cies and, 216—217 rationalism routing clerks, 76
theory, 2
performance reviews, 342 in,144-145 pubhc agencies. See also excel• Q organizations as rational routinized functions, 259
overview of, 4 lence in government; quality circles, 335,336-337 instruments, 64 rules in ideal-type bureaucracy,
personal attention for employees,
participative management, pubhc management quality control, 328,344 process of rationalization, 49,50-51
160,180
149 characteristics Quality Control Handbook 42,56 Russett, Cynthia Eagle, 189
personal growth, 311—313,317
principles of organizational adding employee character• (Juran), 343 Weber and Taylor's embrace
Personality and Organization
coordination, 140-141 istics into manage• quality improvement, 344-345 of, 67-68 s
(Argyris), 310, 317 ment models, 21—22 safety needs, 297
resolving conflict through quality management theory rationalization, 42,56
personal mastery, 382 apphcation of scientific Salancik, Gerald R., 261,
integration, 132-135 continuous improvement, rational perspective, 183
persuasion, 194—195 management in, 262-263
theory of democracy by 333-334,337,357 rational values in management,
Peters.Tom, 5,3 69,377,378 , 85-86 Sarasohn, Homer, 331
Follett, 130-132 coordination and control in, 93
386 scalar principle
view of workplace, 142 applying business principles 353-355 regulatory agencies, 20
Pfeffer, Jeffrey, 261,262-263 division of labor and, 100,
Principles Governing the Retire• to, 9-10 Deming's Fourteen Points, Reiley, Alan C, 96
physiological needs, 297 ment of Public Employees 104-105
as complex probabilistic 339-334 collaboration with Mooney,
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) (Merriam), 113 Theory X and, 302
systems, 393-394 developing statistical process 102-104
cycle, 333-334 Principles of Government Account• control, 328-330 Scanlon Plan, 285
cultural strength of, 365 coordinative principle, 104
planning ing and Reporting (Oakey), Schein, Edgar H, 5,362,365,
decision making process, emergence of Japanese functional principle,
contingency thinking and 113 TQC , 334-338 366-368,382
12-13 105-106
strategic, 267 implicit and explicit theories Schoenherr, Richard A., 259,
Principles of Government Purchas• developing agency-specific line and staff principle,
Fayol's definition of, 98 in, 395-396 260
ing (Thomas), 113 theory, 395,397-398 105-106
quality, 344 interdependent work systems, schools of thought. See also
Principles of Public Personnel differences in, 19—23 overview of theories, 118
political influences 357 specific theories by name
Administration (Proctor), difficulties with generic scalar principle, 104—105
constraints on public man• Japanese adoption of SPC, coordination and control in,
113 management models, Reinventing Government
agement, 16—18 331-334 399
pubhc managers and effect
Principles of Scientific Manage• 18-19 (Osborne and Gaebler),
ment (Taylor), 3,68,77 fragmented authority in, motivational strategies and, 57 learning from all, 394-395
of, 20 models of organizational
Private Sector Survey on Cost 11-12 355-356 relaxed supervision, 159,180
Pollitt, C.,378 effectiveness, 395,
Control, 10 goals of, 13—15 obstacles in implementing, Reorganization Act of 1939,
Pollock,A.B.,268 397-398
proactive leadership, 388 Gulick's administrative prin• 349-350 112
Porter, Lyman W, 17 motivational strategies by,
problem-solving, collective, ciples for, 108-109 organizational effectiveness repair boss, 76
P O S D C O R B acronym, 399-400
149 obstacles implementing models used in, representative pattern of
111-112 351-353 overview, 4—8
procedural agency, 22-23 TQ M in, 349-350 bureaucracy, 221—222
power. See also authority organization theory and, scientific management theory,
process analysis, 335 organizational systems of, Research Center for Group
authority and exercise of, 67-95. See also Taylor,
process production firms, 255 242 346-347 Dynamics, 246,272
43,136-137 Proctor, Arthur W., 113 overview, 5,6,327,357-358 Frederick W
output and outcomes of resource dependency theory,
Follett's theory of authority production in pubhc sector, 347-351 applying in public sector,
different, 22-23 261
and,135-137 quality discovered in U.S., 85-86
systemizing process of, 72 performance reviews of, 16 responsiveness in decision
integration and, 137 338-339 coordination and control in, 89-
Taylor's systemization of quality management theory making process, 12-13
leadership and, 140 stakeholder satisfaction, 357 90
worker, 71-72 in,347-351 rewards. See economic rewards;
practitioner-oriented literature, successful applications of criticisms of, 81—85
production agency, 22 relevance of administrative instrumental rewards
368-376 TQM , 350-351 dehumanizing aspects of, 81 ,
productivity management theory Roethlisberger, Fritz, 4,126,
assessing, 376—379 total quality control as man• 86,127-129
global competition and rise effect of social cohesion on, to, 122-123 149,273. See also
160,180 scrutiny of agency decisions, agement function, 330- Hawthorne studies economic rewards, 93
of, 368 eliminating waste, 70,
group behavior and effects 12-13 331 active listening and inter•
predictability, 64—65 92-93
on, 164 technology used for work quality planning, 344 viewing program,
pre-human relations theory, 126- Quinn, Robert E., 27,28,29 , emphasis on legal compliance,
151. See also Follett, Mary Likert's System 4,282,283 , in, 20-21 160-162,167
284-285,288 pubhc management 30,87 adopts organizational behavior 92
Parker; human rela• tions Follett's humanizing of,
Likert's theories of partici• characteristics, 9—25 term, 173
theory
pative management applying business principles
R applies system analysis to 141-142
alternative to bureaucratic Rainey.Hal, 10 functional foremanship,
paradigm, 142-144 and, 287 to agencies, 9—10 organizations, 189
relay assembly test room rational goal model 75-76
collective problem-solving, decision making, 12—13 contributions to human
administrative management general business orientation
149 experiments and, differences in public relations theory,
theory and, 118-120 of, 93
157-160 agencies, 19—23 173-174
[IMUC A
historical perspective on,

86-87 social behavior scientific management and, overview of, 4 value of systems thinking, competing values frame•
implicit and explicit theories middle range theories and, 93 Selznick's work on co- 208 work applied to, 58-
in, 395-396 213 studies on, 73-74 optation, 217-220 systems thinking, 382 60
social cohesion in groups, standardization of worker skills study of authoritarian man• evolution of bureaucracy
industry conflicts leading to,
160,180 defined, 32,34 agement, 220-222
T and, 56—57
68-69 Taft, William, 113
models of organizational ef• social relations at work, quality management theory structure fixed attributes in, 54-56
162-164 and, 353-354 basis for coordination and Tannenbaum, Arnold, 282 Follett's alternative to
fectiveness and, 87—89 task interdependence, 142
motivational strategies used, social change, 42—43 theory of bureaucracy and, control, 65 paradigm, 142-144
social disorganization, 154—156 60,62 defined, 29 task setting, 73,83-84 ideal-type bureaucracy, 41 ,
90-92 task specialization, 31,77—78,
organizational effectiveness social needs, 297 standardization of worker elements missing in theory 47-53
social philosophy, 70 values, 354 of bureaucracy, 54 313 limitations of model, 53-57
in, 77-80 Tavistock Institute of Human
organized labor's criticism Social Problems of an Industrial standardization of work outputs subfields of organization theory, Merton's modifications to,
Society, The (Mayo), 153 defined,32,34 2- 3 Relations, 246 230
of, 81-82 Taylor, FrederickW, 3,4, 5,
overview of, 4,5 , 80,92-94
Social Psychology of Organiza• quality management theory management theory, 3 motivational strategies
tions, The, (Katz and and, 353,354 organization behavior, 3 67-95 ,103 employed, 62—64
as pseudoscience, 82—84 contributions to scientific
Kahn), 244 reliance of scientific man• organization theory subfield, overview, 4, 64—65
rational values in management theory,
social relationships, organiza• agement on, 90 2- 3 perspective on, 57
management, 93 67-68
tional structure and, 257 standardization of work superordinate values, 388 political authority and
social philosophy of, 70 efficiency in organizations,
social systems process, 32,33,60—62 supervision. See also direct administration, 43—46
standardization of work, 193-194
73-7 4 ,90,93 adaptative mechanisms of standardizing tools, 72 supervision relevance for management,
social structures, statistical process control decentralization and embrace of rationalism, 58-64
standardizing tools and pro• 67-68
duction process, 72 226-230 (SPC), 328-334 delegation, 304 structural elements omitted,
Merton on natural equilib• statistical reports, 101,102 depersonalizing authority functional foremanship, 54
systematic soldiering of, 71 , 75-76
74,79 rium of, 214 Stone, Bob, 401 relationships, 138 technical superiority of bu•
organizations as, 165—166, Stone, Donald, 112 exercising power and au• human factor in theories, reaucracy assumed, 53
systemization of workers, 127-129, 277
202-203 strains in organizations, 229 thority as supervisor, theory of social change,
71-72, 81 life of, 67,68
Social Theory and Social Structure strategic factors, 196 136-137 42-43
Taylor's contributions to, obsession with control,
(Merton), 212 strategic planning, 267 group decision making and, Theory of Social and Economic
67-68 84-85
sociology strategy as contingency factors, 284-287,294 Organization (Weber), 42
Taylor's obsession with philosophy of Taylorism, 70
Merton's study of, 212-214 260-261 human relations training Theory X
control, 84-85 systematic soldiering of, 71 ,
wage incentive systems, Pareto's treatise on, 189 structural contingency theory, and, 167-168 altering basic assumptions
Thompson's perspective 251—263. See also contin• relaxed, 159,180 74,79 of, 324
74-75 systemization of production,
from, 244 gency factors sympathetic treatment of implementing MBO, 307
Scott, William G„ 199,378 71-72
sociotechnical theory, 246—251 assessment of, 262—263 workers, 160,180 motivation in, 306
Seashore, Stanley, 282,283 theory oi organizational
action research and, 246 contingency factors, understanding worker's per• Theory Y
self-actualization needs, 298 effectiveness, 77—80
assessment of, 250—251 257-262,267 sonal history and, 162 assumptions of, 302—303
self-control views on informal groups,
core concepts, 246-250 development of, 251—252 supportive relationships, 284, implementing MB O using,
management by objectives 166
development of, 246 mechanistic and organic 293-294 307
and, 304,307 Taylorism, 70. See also scientific
interrelationship between management systems, surveys, 101,102 improvements in Theory Z,
self-managing work teams, management theory
technical and work 252-254 Swinth, Robert, 243,263 372
308-309 teams
Selznick, Philip, 4,211,212 organizations, 246 motivational strategies in, Swiss, James, 347-348 motivation in, 306-307
joint optimization, 247 266 symbolic interactionists, Follett on, 140 organization theory and,
explaining adaptive social self-managing work,
study of longwall mining technology's influence on 361-362 309,310
structures, 225 308-309
systems, 247-250 organizational struc• symbolic management theory. Theory Z (Ouchi), 369-372,
focus on human relations team building, 288,294
Soil Conservation Service, ture, 254-257 See also organizational 376
model, 231-232 team learning, 383
219 structural-functionalism, culture perspective Thomas.A. G.,113
task of leaders, 379 technical expertise in
work on co-optation, soldiering, 71,74,79,163 213-214 embedding cultural values Thompson,James D., 5,21 ,
structural-functional theory, 211- in organizations, 366- bureaucracies, 49, 52 23-24 ,261,262
217-220 solidarity of work groups, 160
238. See also Merton, 367 technical organizations, 246 emphasis on open systems
Senge, Peter, 382 span of control, 110-111,314
implicit and explicit theories Technology (Woodward), 255 model, 264
sensitivity training, 280 Speaker of the House of Represen• Robert K.
tatives,^ (Follett), 128 technology. See also socio• identification of organiza•
shared sense of mission, 34 analysis of bureaucratic in, 395-396
speed boss, 76 technical theory tional adaptive
shared visions, 382-383,388 dysfunctions, 215-217 introduction of, 360
as contingency factor, responses, 245
Shewhart, Walter, 327, spirit of formal impersonality, assumptions of structural- in Ouchi's Theory Z,
48 functionalism, 369-372 258-259 implications of dependency
328-329 ,332,342,343 influence on organizational
shop disciplinarian, 76 stability, 64-65 213-214 strategic alignment and, 380 theory, 267
stakeholder satisfaction, 357 bureaucratic dynamics, System 4 management pattern, structure, 254—257 Organizations in Action,
Siehl, Caren, 377-378 presumed superiority of
Sills, David, 236 Stalker, G.M., 5,252-254 222-224 282,283,284-285,288 244-245
standardization of values coordination and control in, systematic soldiering, 71,74, bureaucracy's, 53 on structural contingency
Simon, Herbert A., 115-116, types of government agency,
193 Barnard's influence in, 232-233 79,163 theory, 263
205-206 implications of, 236-237 20-21 threats
single place systems, 247 system equilibrium, 186—188,
defined,32,34-35 manifest and latent functions, Tennessee Valley Authority to maintenance needs,
skills 193
organizational culture per• 214-215 systems, 183 (TVA), 217-220,228 224-225
collaboration, 166 tension, 273
manipulation and human spective, 385—386 Merton's focus on human systems theory to organizations, 229
standardization of work relations model, 231- tension management functions, Tichy, Noel M., 380-381,385
relations, 172-173 evaluating public agencies
central planning and control 232 28,29 time and cost clerk, 76
standardizing employee, 32, via, 393-394
for, 79-80 middle range theories, 213 theory of bureaucracy, 41—66. time horizons, 29
34, 60, 62, 353-354 overview of, 6
organizational effectiveness motivational strategies in, See also Weber, Max time studies, 73,83-84
Smith, Adam, 77,109 research and analysis in,
and, 78 233-236 administrator's role, 46-47 tools, standardizing worker, 72
184-185
"* I U INDE X
total quality control (TQC), 330 U.S. State Department, 365 life of, 42
—331. See also quality unity of command principle, limitations of his model,
management theory 110 53-57
Total Quality Management, 338— unity of direction, 314 overview of theory, 4,64-65
339. See also quality Urwick, LyndaU, 107 process of rationalization, 42
management theory theory of social change,
Total Quality Management in V 42-43
Government (Cohen and value-based management, Weberian orthodoxy, 55
Brand), 350 373-376 Weiseltier, Leon, 346
Towne, Henry, 97 values Western Electric plant. See
traditional administrative competing values framework, Hawthorne studies
systems, 45 28-30 White, Leonard D, 10
traditional authority, 44 standardization of, 34—35 White, Maunsel, 71
transformational leadership, Van Maanenjohn, 17 White, Ralph K, 275-276,
380-382 visionary leadership theory, 277
Treatise on General Sociology 379-383 Whyte, William E, 167,189,
(Pareto), 189 von Bertalanffy, Ludwig, 311
Trice, Harrison M., 260 240-241,242-243 Wiener, Norbert, 241
Trist, Eric, 246 Wildcat Strike (Gouldner), 212
w
compares longwall mining Willoughby.WF., 113-114
systems, 248-250 wage incentive systems, 74—75
Wahba, Mahmoud, 299 Wilson,James Q., 22,92,147 ,
findings of equifinality, 349
249-250 Waldo, Dwight, 56,116-117
Walton, Mary, 342 Wilson, Woodrow, 10, 47
Kelly's critique of sociotech• Wirtschaft and Geselischaft, 48
nical theory, 250-251 Warner,W Lloyd, 167
Warwick, Donald P., 13,15,55 , Woodward, Joan, 5,254-257,
Turner, C, 259-260,261-262 258
TVA (Tennessee Valley 242,258,262,365
Waterman, Robert, 386 workers. See employees
Authority), 212,217-220, work organizations, 246
. 228 critique of theories, 377,
378 workplace
TVA and the Grass Roots Follett's influence on view
(Selznick), 212 In Search of Excellence, 369,
of, 142
Type Z organizations, 371—372 377
improving systems within,
overview of theories, 5
u Watertown Arsenal, 82
342-343
job enrichment, 308
Ulrich, David O., 380-381 Weber, Max
maintaining positive envi•
unit and small-batch firms, administrator's role in
ronment for, 179
255 government, 46—47
Mayo's theory of disputes in,
U.S. Department of Agriculture, on authority and exercise of
154-155
218 power, 43
critique of theory, 215-217 supportive relationships in,
U.S. Forest Service, 14,17,20,
fixed attributes in theory, 284,293-294
321,366-367 written documentation, 49, 52
U.S. Postal Service, 22 54-56
U.S. Social Security ideal-type bureaucracy, z
Administration, 20,22 47-53 Zander, Alvin, 282
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Organization Theory

and Public Management

COPYRIGHT © 2005 Wadsw orth, a division of Thomson W ad sw o rth

For permission to use material from this Europe/Middle East/Africa

Differences in Employee Characteristics 21

PRE-HUMAN RELATIONS THEORY:

Models of Organizational Effectiveness 144

HUMAN RELATIONS TH EORY:

THE NATURAL SYSTEM S PERSPECTIVE :

Origins of the Natural Systems Perspective 188

Difficulties Inherent in C onduc t i ng Cultural Research 367

16 EXCELLENC E IN GOVERNMENT 392

A c o m p l e x or gani zatio n is an organization so large and structurally

action. Theoretical knowledge places managers in a better position to under•

E xhi bi t 1.1 Major S ch oo l s of T h o u g h t

Structural- Identifying the functional 1940s- 1950s Robert Merton

hanced by establishing an administrative structure characterized by clear

Quality manage me nt theory took root in Japan in the second half of

NOTE S The Distinctive Context

that public affairs be conducted on business principles." Ninetee n years

a constitutional system that dispersed power and fragmented authority.The de•

suc• cessfully in strategic management, but they do so in a context in which

by circumscribing the behavior of agency officials with rules and procedures

of hiring decisions, discourage supervisors from taking justified disciplinary

needs, create lengthy delays in obtaining required supplies and equipment

mission of an agency in an intensely political environment is not easy. The mis•

though this may seem straightforward enough, in practice it is accomplished

MANAGEMEN T MODEL S Elected executives are reluctant to grant full autonomy

A mediating te ch no lo gy links people together in order to satisfy their

outcomes agency managers tend to rely on procedural rules to limit discretion 1

G o v e rn m e n t ' Exercise: M is i n te rp ret i n g the Government (San Francisco:Jossey-Bass,

23. . Agency awards are given by Th e

1. William E. Nelson, The Roots of Ameri•

Many factors constrain the performance of agencies other than poor

Ultimately, they lose their capacity to govern. These considerations—the im•

w h e n assessing organizational effectiveness. Q u i n n and R o hr ba ug h labeled

their conceptual scheme the competing values framework.

According to sociologist Talcott Parsons, organizations are subject to "functional

breakdowns do not occur is one of management's primary responsibilities.

freedom. In its institutional meaning it refers to a variety of tools for monitor•

ism. It thus provides a relatively unstable basis on which to govern unless it is

thority Weber labeled bureaucratic. It is best understood in contrast to the

"ideal types" to capture the essential, defining characteristics of social phe•

Coordination refers to the organization's ability to integrate the efforts of

receive special treatment by evoking an official's pity or sympathy. Weber under•

The model's usefulness is limited for three reasons: it fails to provide a

Given bureaucracy's continued evolution it is premature to conclude that

Weber's ideal-typical criteria for the bureaucratic form of organization. Th e

forward into a future of new and no w-unkn ow n types of societies."

It seems Weber failed to appreciate the extent to which bureaucracy would

As indicated in Exhibit 4.4, Weber's theory of bureaucracy emphasizes the

Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (Ne w York:

7. . Brian R. Fry and Lloyd G. Ni g ro ,

9. Part I of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft is

SCIENTIFI C MANAGEMEN T TH E TAYLO R SYSTE M

flict, and constraints on social mobility associated with advanced industrializa•

covered that by heating the new tungsten-chromium steel to extremely high

clients to give him at least 3 years to complete the conversion to scientific

element of work, and providing economic incentives to induce workers to

ries of raw materials or parts. To address this problem Taylor's associates