Management and Organization Behavior

Dr. Leigh Stelzer

REFERENCE OUTLINE: W&N, Chapter 1

Objectives

Identify schools of management thought and their foci.

Management is directing resources -physical and human- to accomplish goals. Managers plan, organize, direct (lead) and control. Organizational behavior recognizes the complexity of human behavior in organizational settings. In this course, we seek to relate managerial functions and organizational designs with worker motivation (satisfaction) and effectiveness (productivity).

Management History; Schools of Management Thought

Scientific management (primary focus on job design on the shop floor). Taylor, Gilbreths. Job engineering characteristics: job designed by specialists, task is specialized, division of labor, performance is machine paced or controlled by supervisor, standardization. Designers assumed the worker was motivated by money. When I talk about the "traditional approach" to management, I am referring to scientific management, the classical principles, and bureaucracy.

Administrative Management School, A.K.A. Classical principles. The primary focus is on rules for managing organizations through direct supervision. Fayol, Urwick, Parker. See discussion of Organizational Design.

Human Relations and Human Resources Schools respond to the needs and strengths of people in organizations.

A. Human Relations

A primary focus on the social or interpersonal aspects of organization. Good working conditions would increase morale and worker satisfaction which would, in turn, increase productivity. Human Relations gave rise to the "personnel" function. Mayo and the Hawthorne Studies. How is Human Relations a critique of bureaucracy and scientific management? The performance-satisfaction issue: Does satisfaction lead to performance or does performance lead to satisfaction.

B. Human Resources with a primary focus on the psychological and motivational needs of people in organizations. McGregor's Theory X is an indictment of scientific management and bureaucracy. WHY? Is it a theory of personality or organization?

Herzberg, Maslow, and Argyris.

Quantitative/Management School or Operations Research Mathematical models to solve management problem. Application to problems of scheduling production, moving products and people, and selecting locations for plants.

The Systems and Contingency approaches emphasize if-then environmental contingencies

A. Systems approach focuses on the interaction of elements that make up the organization and affect its performance. It is a total organization perspective. The emphasis on the importance of the environment and feedback make it an attractive tool for analyzing the structure and function of organizations. Systems view of uncertainty: the organization is uncertain because it lacks the information to respond to a complex, diverse, unstable environment. (See Chapter 2).

B. Contingency approach to management stresses the relationship between the conditions that face management and the response that management makes to the conditions. If-then model. Environmental and technological "ifs" are the basis of system structural and process decisions, "then". Burns and Stalker, Lawrence and Lorsch, Woodward. Ask what is the demand on the organization? what goal? (Don't confuse the if-then contingency approach with the if-then form of a hypothesis.)

Competitive Advantage School

Focus on sustained competitive advantage or a strategy for value creation that competitors cannot match. What are the sources of sustained competitive advantage?

Distinguish effectiveness and efficiency.

Changing Workforce: The world of work is changing. How will changes affect motivation and work? Work force is changing. Gender; race, ethnic groupings and discrimination; Age; Religion. See Managing Diversity, W&N, p. 234-250. Work force values: empowerment. Impatience, ideas about what motivates people.

The world social-political order is changing: Global. Diverse work force. See discussion of Global Participation, pp. 223- 229.

Technology is changing. Managing technology/computers challenges interpersonal motivational and communication skills.

Organizations are changing: downsizing, re-engineering, outsourcing, globalizing; Service replaces manufacturing.

Are ethics, distinguishing right from wrong, changing? Why is it that political correctness is telling us to practice multiculturalism and cultural relativism at home but ethnocentrism (cultural imperialism} abroad? Are the "human rights" demand of America a form of cultural imperialism? Must expatriate managers who come here to participate in a diverse work-force, give up their morals and scruples (and children) to the values of MTV, The New York Times and the Clintonites?

Management Ethics

You should critically examine the text’s section on managerial ethics.

Laws and rules can be immoral. Safety rules and regulations designed by bureaucrats and lawyers can lead to inferior quality work. Is it possible that the poor performance record of American automobiles in the 1970s and 80s were the result of manufacturers having to meet government standards?

Americans are deprived of many products and medicines by bureaucrats and politicians. (Marihuana and hemp provoke continuing controversy.) What is the motivation for this? What criteria do they use?

Consider the airbag fiasco. Children are being decapitated by airbags, adults are being killed. Why isn’t Ralph Nader in jail? The airbag was imposed because people did not want to wear seat belts. Now that airbags are killing people, we are told that they were designed to be used with seatbelts. How many lives have been saved by airbags (alone)? How much did this cost the American people? Was it worth it? Who voted for airbags?

Why do we put drug dealers in jail and make millionaires of drug company stockholders? Soon we will put cigarette manufacturers (distillers, gun manufacturers) in jail. It is illegal to "make book". Yet New Jersey sponsors gambling and heavily promotes the lottery. Politicians make laws and regulations to promote legal and illegal graft from affected business people.

Meanwhile, imposing American values (human rights?) on other cultures is ethnocentric and may be considered immoral. What has made America so smart that we should tell the world what are good, healthy, or noble products? Of course we are richer and more successful than any other nation.

It is imperative to be ethical. What should the good person do in a bad situation? You must strive to create good situations so that those around you are encouraged to do the right thing.

Schools of thought:

Utilitarian, greatest good for greatest number.

Golden Rule

Kantian individual rights

Enlightened self interest

For how long can you cheat your stakeholders or double deal with your customers, investors, suppliers, vendors, employees? Can cheating be self-correcting in the marketplace or does the marketplace need the government to supervise, regulate, threaten and enforce?