organizational theory

Question #1

“Despite the economic progress brought about in part by scientific management, critics were calling attention to the ‘seamy side of progress’ which included severe labor management conflict, apathy, boredom, and wasted human resources to examine the discrepancy between how an organization was supposed to work versus how the workers actually behaved. In addition, factors like World War I, developments in psychology and later the depression, all bought into question, some of the basic assumptions of Scientific Management.” (Internet) This is where the Human Relations School steps in. Its primary focus is the importance of attitudes and feelings of workers, while informal roles and norms influence performance. “At the most general level, human relations theory views humans as social creatures who have a need and desire for communication and interaction.” (Internet) Numerous studies have been conducted over the years trying to come up with the most efficient form of workplace management. The most famous of these studies were those performed by the Hawthorne works (a.k.a. Hawthorne Studies) which should how work groups provide mutual support and effective resistence to management techniques in order to increase production. This study concluded that workers did not seem to respond to the classical motivation approaches that were suggested by Frederic Taylor , but rather workers were interested in rewards and punishment within their own work groups. These studies, which were conducted in the 1920’s, started as a straight forward attempt to determine the relationship between the work environment and productivity. The results of the study led researchers to feel that they were dealing with socio-psychological factors that were not explained by classical theory which in turn, stressed the formal organization and formal leadership. The Hawthorne Studies helped to show that an organization is more than a formal arrangement of functions but at the same time performs the role of a social system. This position was taken by Elton Mayo , who made his own analysis of the Hawthorne experiments. He claimed that the problem of industrial societies acted as an imbalance between social and technical skills. “His analysis of the problems of industrial civilization and assessment of the human factor as nonlogical and emotional led him to view industry as a strategic in...

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...rea includes the City of Pittsburgh and the suburban South Hills with its regional office located in Mt. Lebanon. Finally is the Western Region, which services an estimated 575,000 in western Pennsylvania. This area includes the communities of Indiana, New Castle, Butler, Washington, Mon Valley, and Uniontown areas, with the regional office based in McMurray.

The company’s water supply is provided principally from surface water supplies such as rivers, streams and lakes through allocation permits from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and several river basin commissions. Water is also provided from wells and through purchase contracts and interconnection with other water providers in the area.

Bibliography

Business Ethics, October 1987. Vol. 6 Issue, p 559, p7, The Imperative of Organizational Harmon.

http://infosm.umist.ac.uk/wp/Papers/wp9919.htm

http://www.accel-team.com/motivation/hawthorne_01.html

http://www.cba.neu.edu/~ewertheim/introd/history.htm

http://www.findarticles.com/

Jaffee, David. Organization Theory: Tension and Change. Hill-McGraw, New York, New York. 2001.