Historical Background of Organizational Behavior
Historical Background of Organizational Behavior
Certainly large numbers of people have been doing work for a long time. Pyramids and many
other huge monuments and structures were built, armies and governments were organized,
Civilizations spread over vast territories. This took organization and management. There are
some writings from antiquity that suggest that systematic approaches to management and
organization did evolve and were transmitted to others.
But the primary influences in organizations and management today stem from more recent
events.
Some would claim that to begin to understand our organizations today we need to look at the
Protestant Reformationa nd the Protestant Ethic. A new ethic began to evolve, an ethic that
shifted the orientation of one's life from the "next world" to this world. This ethic is best
embodied in quotes from Luther ("All men possess a calling in the world and the fulfillment
of its obligation is a divinely imposed duty") and Calvin ("Disciplined work raises a person
above the calling into which he was born and is the only sign of his election by God to
salvation"... "The soul is naked before God without Church or communion-religion is a
personal matter; worldly success and prosperity are construed as signs of God's approval").
Over time, the Protestant Reformation provided an ideological foundation for the modern
industrial society by suggesting that work is now a profound moral obligation, a path to
eternal salvation. The focuse focus is this world and materialism, not next world. The
individual's obligation is self-disciplin,and systematic work. It should be clear that the factory
system which began to evolve late in the 18th Century could never have flourished without
the ideological underpinnings of this profound shift in philosophy as exemplified by the
Protestant Ethic.
Scientific Management
The Industrial Revolution that started with the development of steam power and the creation
of large factories in the late Eighteenth Century lead to great changes in the production of
textiles and other products. The factories that evolved, created tremendous challenges to
organization and management that had not been confronted before. Managing these new
factories and later new entities like railroads with the requirement of managing large flows of
material, people, and information over large distances created the need for some methods for
dealing with the new management issues.
The most important of those who began to create a science of management was Frederic
Winslow Taylor, (1856-1915). Taylor was one of the first to attempt to systematically
analyze human behavior at work. His model was the machine with its cheap, interchangeable
parts, each of which does one specific function. Taylor attempted to do to complex
organizations what engineers had done to machines and this involved making individuals into
the equivalent of machine parts. Just as machine parts were easily interchangeable, cheap,
and passive, so too should the human parts be the same in the Machine model of
organizations.
This involved breaking down each task to its smallest unit and to figure out the one best way
to do each job. Then the engineer, after analyzing the job should teach it to the worker and
make sure the worker does only those motions essential to the task.. Taylor attempted to make
a science for each element of work and restrict behavioral alternatives facing worker. Taylor
looked at interaction of human characteristics, social environment, task, and physical
environment, capacity, speed, durability, and cost. The overall goal was to remove human
variability.
The results were profound. Productivity under Taylorism went up dramatically. New
departments arose such as industrial engineering, personnel, and quality control. There was
also growth in middle management as there evolved a separation of planning from operations.
Rational rules replaced trial and error; management became formalized and efficiency
increased. Of course, this did not come about without resistance. First the old line managers
resisted the notion that management was a science to be studied not something one was born
with (or inherited). Then of course, many workers resisted what some considered the
"dehumanization of work." To be fair, Taylor also studied issues such as fatigue and safety
and urged management to study the relationship between work breaks, and the length of the
work day and productivity and convinced many companies that the careful introduction of
breaks and a shorter day could increase productivity. Nevertheless, the industrial engineer
with his stop watch and clip-board, standing over you measuring each little part of the job
and one's movements became a hated figure and lead to much sabotage and group resistance.
The core elements of scientific management remain popular today. While a picture of a
factory around 1900 might look like something out of Dickens, one should not think the core
concepts of scientific management have been abandoned. They haven't. They have merely
been modified and updated. (For details of Scientific Management, click here)
While many people think of bureaucracy in negative terms, this model in its pure form was a
dramatic improvement over the previous model of organization which was a feudal model
based on fixed status and position by birth, not merit and unquestioned authority. Go to
the Top
The most famous of these studies was the Hawthorne Studies which showed how work
groups provide mutual support and effective resistance to management schemes to increase
output. This study found that workers didn't respond to classical motivational approaches as
suggested in the Scientific Management and Taylor approaches, but rather workers were also
interested in the rewards and punishments of their own work group. These studies, conducted
in the 1920's started as a straightforward attempt to determine the relationship between work
environment and productivity. The results of the research led researchers to feel that they
were dealing with socio-psychological factors that were not explained by classic theory
which stressed the formal organization and formal leadership. The Hawthorne Studies helped
us to see that an organization is more than a formal arrangement of functions but is also a
social system. In the following chart, we can see a comparison of traditional assumptions vs.
a newer "human relations" view.
These studies added much to our knowledtge of human behavior in organizations and created
pressure for management to change the traditional ways of managing human resources. The
Human Relations Movement pushed managers toward gaining participative support of lower
levels of the organization in solving organization problems. The Movement also fostered a
more open and trusting environment and a greater emphasis on groups rather than just
individuals
Douglas McGregor was one of the great popularizers of Human Relations approach with his
Theory X and Theory Y. In his research he found that although many managers spouted the
right ideas, their actual managers indicated a series of assumptions that McGregor called
Theory X. However, research seemed to clearly suggest that these assumptions were not valid
but rather a different series of notions about human behavior seemed more valid. He called
these Theory Y and urged managers to managed based on these more valid Theory Y notions.
Org. theory prior to 1900: Emphasized the division of labor and the importance of
machinery to facilitate labor
Leadership(1950s) Stressed the importance of groups having both social task leaders;
differentiated between Theory X and Y management
Decision theory(1960s) Suggested that individuals "satisfice" when they make decisions
Sociotechnical school(1960s) Called for considering technology and work groups when
understanding a work system
Envir. and tech. system(1960s) Described the existence of mechanistic and organic
structures and stated their effectiveness with specific types of environmental conditions and
technological types
describe and bread down the task to its smallest unit; science for each element of
work
restrict behavioral alternatives facing worker-remove worker discretion in planning,
organizing, controlling
use time and motion studies to find one best way to do work
provide incentives to perform job one best way-tie pay to performance
use experts (industrial engineers) to establish various conditions of work
These factors were supposed to ideally result in the ideal bureaucratic organization:
authority is rational and legal; authority should be based on position, not on the
person in the position
authority stems from the office and this authority has limits as defined by the office
positions are organized in a hierarchy of authority
organizations are governed by rules and regulations
Appendix: The following lists some specific experiments that were part of the Hawthorne
Studies
Frederick Taylor decides to time each and every worker at the Midvale Steel
Company. His view of the future becomes highly accurate:
"In the past man was first. In the future the system will be first."
1929 - Taylorism
Social scientist Kurt Lewin launches the Research Center for Group
Dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His contributions in
change theory, action research, and action learning earn him the title of the
"father of organization development." Lewin is best known for his work in
the field of organization behavior and the study of group dynamics. His
research discovered that learning is best facilitated when there is a conflict
between immediate concrete experience and detached analysis within the
individual.
1954 - Leadership/Management
Drucker writes The Practice of Management and introduces the 5 basic roles
of managers. He writes, "The first question in discussing organization
structure must be: What is our business and what should it be? Organization
structure must be designed so as to make possible the attainment of
objectives of the business for five, ten, fifteen years hence."
Note that his work has had little impact on this side of the ocean, although it
remains one of the best ways to learn and to improve an organization.
1978 - Excellence
McKinsey's John Larson asks colleague Tom Peters to step in at the last
minute and make a presentation that leads to "In Search of Excellence." Thus
Tom Peters spawns the birth of the "management guru business."
1995 - Ethics
On December 11, 1995 a fire burned most of Malden Mills to the ground and
put 3,000 people out of work. Most of the 3,000 thought they were out of
work permanently. CEO Aaron Feuerstein says, "This is not the end" -- he
spent millions keeping all 3,000 employees on the payroll with full benefits
for 3 months until he could get another factory up and running. Why? He
answers, "The fundamental difference is that I consider our workers an asset,
not an expense."