Limitations of Classical Organizational Theories - Coursework Example

Limitations ical Organizational Theories Introduction Management and organizationalbehavior is not a new concept and it has evolved largely over the past decades. A huge list of people has their contributions and inputs in making management science what it looks like today. The basic concept of management and organizations exists since the oldest times when humans first learnt to form groups and societies. Not a lot of organizations existed before the 17th century except for the church and the governmental organizations. However, with the advent of the industrial revolution, nothing remained the same and change became the order of the day. This marked the start of a series of inputs from various management gurus presenting their viewpoints for improving the organizational and management practices (Juralewicz, pp. 14-25). Students who study management science and organizational behavior, discuss these theories and developments comprehensively, to not only show a sign of respect and value for their work with limited resources but also to widen one’s own perspective of looking at various management issues. However, it is also important to note that those theories do not have their relevant applications in today’s world with altogether different circumstances. This paper aims at looking at the same, the limitations of classical organizational theories, and the reasons for the same. Discussion The world of organizational behavior and management agrees on the fact that it was the idea of Henry Towne to establish organizational management as a separate field of inquiry. We can divide the classical theories of organizational management into three major categories of scientific, bureaucratic and administrative (Juralewicz, pp. 14-25). Amongst the experts who viewed organizations from a scientific point of view, the most well known of them are Frederick Winslow Taylor, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and Henry Gantt. Amongst them, Taylor remains as the “father of scientific management” (Robbins, Judge & Campbell, pp. 52-59). He was amongst the first ones to notice the practice of “soldiering” amongst the workers, which refers to the deliberate working of the workers under their full capacity. Despite the fact that the workers had some strong reasons in their mind for doing it so but it decreased the overall productivity and output of the organization, which was the biggest concern of Taylor at that time. He came up with his idea of scientific management based of our important principles. Firstly, scientific study of each task important to come up with the most efficient approach for performing a task. The second step includes the careful selection of workers and training them for the scientifically devise method. Thirdly, cooperation and monitoring of the workers is vital. Lastly, divide the work and responsibility in such a way that the workers can execute their tasks efficient and with the scientific management (Johns & Saks, pp. 12-19). Taylor called it as the “time and motion study” which focused on specialization of tasks, using scientific and efficient approaches and eliminating unnecessary motions. The Gilberths and Henry L. Gantt were the other contributors of this field whose contributions were on the same track as that of Taylor (Robbins, Judge & Campbell, pp. 52-59). Scientific management seemed to be the “next big thing” of that time because it increased the productivity of the organizations to extreme levels. However, the bubble of scientific management burst out as the organizations realized more the need of more employee inclined management approaches. It is almost impossible to incorporate all the principles of scientific management. In fact, management has actually taken a complete a U-turn from what Taylor and others had to say. Scientific management had put a great emphasis on high and well-defined degree of work specialization (Griffin & Moorhead, pp. 22-35). However, experts are talking about job rotation, which is actually the opposite of it. Scientific management included the aspect of constant, close, and careful monitoring of workers; however, management gurus these days advocate a lot of importance of autonomy in the job design model. Moreover, this model has all the potential to lead to high levels of absenteeism and high turnover (Martin, pp. 169-182). Despite the fact that scientific management was acceptable with all its problems these days but it is not applicable today. The world of past has ample supply of labor, less unionization and low degree of awareness amongst them, which is not the same as today. However, most of the organizations in the past, especially during the industrial revolution were industries with mostly labors. The same is not applicable to the white-collar managers and employees of today. High degree of specialization and specified scientific principles would mean lesser degree of autonomy for them and quick boredom. This would decrease the job satisfaction and as mentioned above would result in higher levels of absenteeism and turnover (Rollinson, pp. 4-8). In short, organizations now understand that their success depends on the factors like employee satisfaction and employee motivation however this theory does not consider them at all. Moreover, it has the potential of demotivating the employees therefore now organizations would like to adopt its practice until and unless it is working in some wild African jungle where there is ample supple of labor and no fear of absenteeism and turnover and the organization’s monopoly. Classical viewpoint of organizations also includes the bureaucratic approach of looking at the organizations and management. Max Weber is the name that is widely spoken when discussed about bureaucratic management (Wilson, pp. 6-12). Weber was born in Germany and a prominent sociologist of that time. Quite understandably, since he was a sociologist, political economist and a lawyer as well, therefore he was a strong supporter of abolishing the caste system and was against the prevailing norms of class-consciousness, status, creed, color, religion, background, and ethnicity (Harris & Hartman, pp. 1-7). He was of the view that this discrimination and selective recruitment or biased merit is leading to not only an unbalanced society, but also becoming a hurdle in achievement of the full potential of organizations (Robbins, Judge & Campbell, pp. 52-59). Therefore, Weber came up with the idea of a meritocratic and formal approach towards organizations. He agreed to scientific management on the viewpoint of specialization of labor (Johns & Saks, pp. 74-79). However, he added that it is very important to have formal rules and regulations, impersonality, well-defined hierarchy, career advancement based on merit and equal employment based on technical qualifications (Griffin & Moorhead, pp. 22-35). As more and more people and organizations adopted this strategy, they were able to get rid of unjust and non-rational approaches and were able to bring more logical and meritocratic ways of management. Without any doubts, Weber’s contribution was a turning point in the history of organizational studies. In fact, many people still regard it as alive and applicable but a critical analysis shows that it is not fully but only partially applicable (Johns & Saks, pp. 74-79). Without any uncertainty, it was a hit formula for forming an organization during the 20th century except for the last few decades (Wilson, pp. 6-12). This was because of the fact that there was no harm in binding people with strict and pre decided rules and regulations. However, the world of today is not at the same. The pattern of human growth has been exponential which means that it increases with highly increasing rate. That explains why it took thousands of years for the first human to land on earth and discover the ways of forming a society and why did it took just a few decades for the humans to fly to moon from discovering the way to fly (Johns & Saks, pp. 12-19). Now, we have reached to such extreme levels to growth and uncertainties that every new second brings with it self a new discover, a new invention and a new world altogether. Therefore, this requires quicker decisions, more terms that are flexible and ability to cope with temporariness (Harris & Hartman, pp. 1-7). Rigid and well-defined hierarchal structure fails to work in the above mentioned and required way. In fact, the new buzz in the market is decentralization, which seems to be the complete opposite of the Weber’s ideal organization (Rollinson, pp. 4-8). Quite understandably, bureaucratic organizations are only good until the point where there is a little chance of any uncertainty and diversion from the designed path as it was in these days. However, as mentioned in the above lines that organizations and managers are now hungry for innovation and higher levels of quality and this is only possible with decentralized organizational structures because they offer more autonomy and freedom (Mullins, pp. 46-49). Moreover, bureautic organizations fail to work in an environment, which is ever changing like that of today. Experts like Henry Fayol and Chester Bernard also came up with their own organizational theories of administrative management. In fact, Henry Fayol’s work was more comprehensive because he was able to come up with fourteen points of management that included discussed elements like centralization, authority, division of work and others. Moreover, Fayol also came up his own five functions of management, which are “planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling” (Knowles, pp. 5-18). However, the later experts changed it to four functions, which are “planning, organizing, controlling, and leading” (Knowles, pp. 5-18). Clearly, this indicates one identified limitation of Fayol’s theory. Despite the fact that the most of the limitations of Fayol’s theory have been discussed with similar points in the former parts of the paper but there remains one interesting element of “unity of command” (Miner, pp. 62-67). It is no longer applicable in all organizations today. Firstly, it is because of the advent of cross-departmental teams or cross-functional teams. These are a new invention and they mainly have the task of coming up with a new product idea or innovation. They have the name of “cross-functional” because they have members from different departments of the organizations working under a new team leader (Robbins & Judge, pp. 56-57). Therefore, these team members have the task of reporting to their team leader and their departmental leaders at the same time thus dampening the concept of unity of command. Secondly and quite commonly, we observe an employee stuck between the demands and orders of his immediate boss and the regional manager. Within the umbrella of classical organizational theories, Chester Bernard came up with his “Acceptance theory of authority” (Harris & Hartman, pp. 1-7). Despite the fact that on logical grounds, it is the most difficult to question and criticize this theory but there are still a few questions marks on this theory as well. This acceptance theory contradicts with the definition of the definition of leadership and the leadership studies because “leadership is the ability of an individual to influence others” (Robbins & Judge, pp. 56-57) and if we accept the acceptance theory of authority than there remains little room for accepting the leadership definition at the same time (Robbins & Judge, pp. 56-57). Moreover, all these theories were a result of the external circumstances and situation of that time. They were merely answers or solutions to the prevailing problems of that time. As the problems were abolished, the need for applying those theories washed away. Moreover, none of these contributors where claimed there theory to be as dynamic and evergreen (Griffin & Moorhead, pp. 22-35). It is the law of nature that new theories and viewpoints surpass and replace the older ones since the process of change and development is a continuous one for the human species. Despite the fact that it is still important to pay respect to these experts by studying them and taking their name but their application of their theories in altogether different world and circumstances is not possible. In conclusion, the paper inclusion discussion and analysis of various noteworthy aspects of the limitations of classical organizational theories. In addition, the paper has pointed out and examined various concepts related to the topic; however, it is expectation from this paper that researches in the future in this relation will enable a more wide-ranging understanding of the limitations. It is an expectation that the paper will be valuable for students, teachers, and professionals in better understanding of the topic. Works Cited Griffin, Ricky W., & Moorhead, Gregory. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Cengage Learning, 2009. Harris, O. Jeff., & Hartman, Sandra J. Organizational Behavior. Routledge, 2001. Johns, Gary, & Saks, Alan M. Organizational Behaviour. Pearson Education Canada, 2007. Johns, Gary, & Saks, Alan M. Organizational behaviour: understanding and managing life at work. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004. Juralewicz, Richard S. Elements of organizational behavior: theory, models, and application. University of Puerto Rico, Graduate School of Business, 1972. Knowles, Michael Cosby. Organizational behaviour: changing concepts and applications. Harper & Row, 1990. Martin, John. Organizational behaviour. Thomson Learning, 2001. Miner, John B. Organizational behavior: From theory to practice. M.E. Sharpe, 2007. Mullins, Laurie J. Essentials of Organisational Behaviour. Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2008. Robbins, Stephen P., & Judge, Tim. Essentials of organizational behavior. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Robbins, Stephen P., Judge, Timothy A., & Campbell, Timothy. Organizational Behaviour. Pearson Education, Limited, 2010. Rollinson, Derek. Organisational Behaviour and Analysis: An Integrated Approach. FT Prentice Hall, 2008. Wilson, Fiona Margaret. Organizational behaviour: a critical introduction. Oxford University Press, 1999. Read More