Transcript Employee Relations and Motivation

Employee Relations and Motivation
The Machine Metaphor of
Organization: Scientific
Management and Bureaucracy
Employee Relations and
Motivation
Integrative Framework I: Two
Models of Organization and their
Implications for Theory and
Practice
The Machine Metaphor of Organization
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Efficient organizations operate “like clockwork”
Pervasive Philosophy
Routinized, efficient, reliable machines
Humans must be made to fit the machine
Characterised by 2 main types of organization
Bureaucracies
Organizations based on Taylor’s Scientific
Management (often but not always manufacturing
industry)
The Machine Metaphor of Organization
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Dominant View of Human Nature: Theory X
(McGregor, 1960) Ordinary people are inherently:
Lazy, self-centred, lacking in ambition/willingness
to take responsibility, passive and conformist,
resistant to change, gullible and not very bright,
motivated by “sticks and carrots”
Managers must therefore:
Organize, direct, persuade, punish, reward and
control workers to meet the needs of the
organization
Consequence or cause of industrial practices???
Some History
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Nothing new?
 Use of machines to make labour easier: ancient
Egyptians, Roman engineers
 Organizing large workforces: ditto Egyptians,
ancient Chinese, Stonehenge!
 Bureaucracies: Romans armies and civil
administration, Medieval Church
 Factories/Mass Production: Romans again eg
pottery works
 But...
 Before Industrial Revolution most manufacturing
activity was Home based, involved family groups,
often self-employed, small scale, highly skilled,
often part-time/intermittent
Industrial Revolution
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Large expensive machinery and plant: Return on investment
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Water/Steam power/mass production methods: concentrated
work in factories, required large labour force close to plant
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Work involved: long hours, repetitive jobs, division of labour
(much use women and children)
But...
Before 20th Century many jobs were still highly skilled and
craftsmen worked at own pace
Problems for employers: how was labour to be organized and
controlled?
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All change: Taylorism and Scientific Management (time and
motion studies); Fordism (moving assembly line)
Bureaucracy
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Original idea philanthropic: means to regulate
arbitrary power of owners over the workforce
Weber: Definition
“A form of organization which emphasizes precision,
speed, clarity, regularity, reliability & efficiency
achieved through the creation of a fixed division of
tasks, hierarchical supervision and detailed rules and
regulations”
Hallmarks:
rational and quasi-legal system
people derive authority from fixed roles in hierarchy
roles and procedures clear – what to do and how
regulations curbed arbitrary exercise of power
Bureaucracy
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Weber: Criticisms
Bureaucracy had the potential to routinize and
mechanize every aspect of human life, eroding
human spirit, capacity for creativity, flexibility and
human action
Leads to alienation and “not my job’s worth”
attitudes
Still a major problem! Public services: accountability,
“bean counting”, paperwork: police spending 50% of
time form filling!
Does it stifle creativity and innovation?
Principles of Classical Management Theory
(from Morgan)
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Unity of command: orders from 1 superior only
Scalar chain: line of authority from top to bottom, channel for
communication and decision making
Span of control: not too large to hinder communication etc
Staff & line: staff can advise but not violate line authority
Initiative: encouraged at all levels
Division of work: specialization to achieve goals efficiently
Authority and responsibility: power to give orders & exact
obedience
Centralization (of authority): top-down; varies
Discipline: obedience, application etc adherence to rules
Subordination of individual to general interest
Equity: fair treatment
Stability of tenure of personnel
Esprit de corps: harmony as basis of strength
Scientific Management
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Grew out of Classical Management Theory (dating
back to Frederick the Great’s Prussian army)
 Still permeates management practices eg
Management by Objectives has strong element of
“mechanistic” management
 Top Management controls organization by setting
goals – those lower down achieve performance
targets
 (Depends on degree of control at each tier of the
hierarchy and discretion to achieve goals)
 Compare eg. targets in NHS, national literacy
standards, participation in HE – control begets more!
 Stipulating goals but not means – US Space
programme
Taylor’s Five Principles of Scientific
Management
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Shift all responsibility for the organization of work
from the worker to the manager: managers should
do all the thinking relating to the planning and
design of work, leaving workers with the task of
implementation
Use scientific methods to determine the most
efficient way of doing work: design the worker’s
task accordingly; specify the precise way in which
work is to be done
Select the best person to do work thus designed
Train worker to do it efficiently
Monitor worker performance to ensure procedures
are followed and targets are met
Time and Motion Studies
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Standardize work activities to achieve maximum
efficiency, effort and time
Eg. Schmidt (pig iron handler) see video
Production increased 280% (12.5 to 47.5 tons per
day)
Time and motion = observing & analysing tasks
into simplest components and working out most
efficient way to perform them
So worker forced to behave like a machine in very
precise and regular ways
Tasks split to simplest components become deskilled,
routinized and monotonous
People thought to be motivated by extrinsic rewards
– pay and fear of sack
Fordism: Completed Mass Production
Revolution
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Henry Ford: huge boost by invention of moving
assembly line
 Complete control of organization and pace of work
 Control over workforce achieved by:
 Management setting speed of line
 “Stick and carrot” motivators: no Trades Unions so
threat of job loss; high wages; perks eg “buy your
own car” schemes: Easy to replace unskilled
workers
 Huge increase in productivity achieved at human cost
 But.. Created affluent Western consumer societies;
great increases in standards of living
 See video: “On the Line”
Resistance to Extinction: (Taylor, 1998; Wall &
Martin, 1994; Wright & Lund, 1996)
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Strengths: reliable & consistent products at low cost;
high productivity and profitability
 Despite worker empowerment, smarter
automation and autonomous work groups
principles remain (increasingly overseas)
 Wright & Lund (1996) Computerised Taylorism):
introduction of new engineering standard systems
 Adler & colleagues (1993, 1998): Democratic
Taylorism: worker participation in job analysis for
new systems of performance measurement
 More subtle control: “hearts and minds” of HRM;
but also coercive control eg call centres & fast food
 Warhurst & Thompson (1998); Mabey et al (1998);
Herriot (2001) for references
Management Strategies Based on Machine
Metaphor
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Motivators: salary and perks; the privilege of having
a job; performance related pay; reinforcement
theories but extrinsic reward systems often backfire
because they reward the wrong things and punish the
right things
 See Kerr (1974) “The folly of rewarding A whilst
hoping for B” & Komaki et al in Steers, Porter &
Bigley (1996)
 Leadership Style: Transactional (traditional
management:
 Dealing with the given: planning, organizing, staffing,
budgeting, problem solving, creating procedures and
systems for maintaining order and predictability –
Doing things right (Guest 1996)
Management Strategies Based on Machine
Metaphor
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Alimo-Metcalfe (1997) Transactional Leadership
“limited to manager’s ability to provide a quid pro quo
reward or negative feedback to a follower who
responds to his or her instructions or agreed
objectives”
 Design of Work: “machine minders” (increasing
automation); deskilling (eg. call centres); increasing
use of shiftwork; Total Quality Management; targets,
audits, governance
 All strategies have at their core:
 People can be shaped to become part of the
machinery of the organization
 Is this a bad thing???
Employee Relations and
Motivation
The Organic Metaphor of
Organization: Open
Systems Theory
The Organic Metaphor of Organization
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Origins: Von Bertalanffy (1950) a biologist
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Living organisms are seen as a collection of parts
interacting and functioning as a harmonious whole in
a continuous process of exchange and interaction
with the environment
Living organisms are thus complex open systems
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Ideas explicitly applied to organizations by Katz &
Khan (1978)
But ideas had been developing throughout 1950s,
60s & 70s
The Organic Metaphor of Organization
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Organizations as Complex Open Systems
Organizations can be thought of as being complex systems like
biological organisms such as the human body, made up of
thousands of interacting parts which take inputs from the
environment, transform them in some way and produce outputs
back into the environment. Since the parts are interdependent,
changes in one part can have profound and unpredictable effects
on the other parts of the network.The system must adapt to the
demands of its external environment but at the same time it must
preserve its internal stability whilst engaging in constant change.
Complex systems can be analysed at many levels from the total
organism within its environment to the workings of an individual
cell. Similarly, understanding a work organization and people’s
behaviour within it can range from the analysis of the historical,
political, economic and cultural environment in which it operates,
through the social interactions within work groups to the goals,
aspirations and abilities of individual workers.
Dominant Philosophy of Human Nature
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Theory Y (McGregor, 1960)
People are not by nature passive, lazy etc but they become so
because of experience of organizational life
People naturally want:
Challenge, development, achievement and recognition and will
work hard to get these in the right conditions
People can learn to want:
Responsibility & self direction; commitment to organizational
goals
People are:
Naturally motivated to work for goals that they value (including
organizational goals); intelligent and capable of imagination and
innovation in solving organizational problems
Management must align individual and organizational goals
Sources of Organizational Complexity
(Schein, 1988)
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Boundaries:
Where does a large company end and its community
begin?
What is the relevant environment – Society in
general, all companies in the same market, economic
and political system, global economy???
Need to specify environmental origin of forces which
act on organizations
Stakeholders: suppliers, customers, publics,
shareholders
Sources of Organizational Complexity
(Schein, 1988)
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Multiple Purposes and Functions
Primary: product or service for profit; public service
Secondary: eg security and meaning for a community
via jobs; consumers for local businesses
Equals conflicting demands: Eg. HE – manifest
functions such as teaching and research vs latent
functions eg. sorting talent for society, promoting
social cohesion and inclusiveness, providing local
employment, contributing to local & national
economy, what else???
Sources of Organizational Complexity
(Schein, 1988)
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Representatives of External Environment
Employees are members of society, community, other
groups eg. professional bodies, unions, consumer,
religious and family groups
Multiple roles
Bring demands, expectations, cultural norms etc that
can conflict with organizational norms
Partial involvement of workforce
Coalitions, factions, interest groups, sub-cultures
within organizations
Sources of Organizational Complexity
(Schein, 1988)
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Rapid Environmental Change
Technology
Economic sector
Socio-political
Cultural values
“Turbulent”
Requires different capacity to respond: need to be
proactive not reactive
Result: mechanistic organization – ordered hierarchy
of roles etc seen as too simplistic
More complex theories of organization needed to
explain what researchers and practitioners actually
find in organizations
Characteristics of Open Systems (Katz &
Khan, 1978)
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Importation of energy, throughput and output (often
involves knowledge in contemporary work)
 Negative entropy – constant change to avoid
 Negative feedback – correcting for errors
 Dynamic equilibrium – adaptation and stability
 Differentiation – enough internal complexity to cope
with external complexity
 Integration and Co-ordination – harmoniously
functioning whole
 Equifinality – no-one can predict the final outcome(s)
Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations: History
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Von Betalanffy (1950)
 Homans (1950) organizations exist in a 3 part
mutually dependent environment
 Physical
 Cultural
 Technological
 Environment specifies activities & interactions that
engender feelings and sentiments. Changes in any
one of these produces changes in the other two
 New sentiments, norms and activities, not necessarily
specified by external environment, leads to
development of an informal system within the
official, formal system
Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations: History
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Talcott Parsons (1960s)
Social systems have 4 basic needs:
Adaptation, Goal Attainment, Integration, Pattern
Maintenance
Khan et al (1964)
Organizations composed of overlapping role sets
Role overload, role ambiguity, role conflict – related
to stress and job dissatisfaction
Cyert & March (1963)
Organizations composed of coalitions &
organizational life a process of negotiation,
bargaining & power play between shifting coalitions
in accordance with environmental demands
Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations: History
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Scott (1987)
Defines an open system organization as:
“a coalition of shifting interest groups which develop
goals through negotiation. The structure of
coalitions, their activities and outcomes are strongly
influenced by environmental factors”
Openness is not an absolute value but is determined
by the extent of its transactions with the environment
Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations: History
Turbulent
Environments Stable
Environments
Open-Rational Open-Natural
ClosedRational
ClosedNatural
Capitalist
enterprises eg
IT industry
Capitalistic
enterprises
with little need
to interact with
environment. rare
Socialistic eg
religious
communities
Socialistic eg
service
organizations.
Eg NHS
Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations: History
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Tavistock Institute (Rice, 1963; Trist, 1963)
 Socio-technical systems
 All organizations are composed of a social system –
the people – and a technical system – machines etc
 These 2 systems need to be in harmony and the
technical system must meet the needs of people
 Important ideas:
 system imports information from the environment
 Partial involvement of the workforce emphasized
 Led to shop floor democracy & autonomous work
groups
Management Strategies Based on Organic
Metaphor
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Motivators:
social factors, needs satisfaction, self
actualization
Work as its own reward
People want challenge, autonomy, interest &
recognition in their work
Leadership Style: Transformational Leadership
“Creating the conditions for adaptive change to meet
the demands of an uncertain and turbulent
environment – doing the right things” (Guest, 1996)
Manager as female??? Connectedness, cooperation, teamwork, mutual support: Manager as
facilitator and servant!
Management Strategies Based on Organic
Metaphor
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Design of Work: Job enrichment, autonomy and
responsibility, Self-directed (autonomous teams),
worker participation and control, socio-technical
systems harmony
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Dominant Theme
People work best when their physical, psychological
and social needs are met: work and work
organizations must be designed to fit people rather
than vice versa
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But...
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Have these 2 traditions merged? Do employers
“want it all” – compliant, obedient workforces plus
intelligent, innovative, committed, self-starters?
 “Hard” HRM – treats the workforce like the plant and
machinery – commodities to be deployed efficiently
 “Soft” HRM – employees deserve respect, care and
development
 What about “hearts and minds” so workers control
themselves? (Thought police – attempts to control
attitudes as well as behaviour?)
 Does rhetoric of empowerment & job satisfaction
really mean more work, more responsibility and more
stress for no more reward?