chapter 2 Flashcards
What are the principles to scientific management?
- Develop a science for each element of work
- Scientifically train and select each worker
- Cooperate with workers to ensure work is done according to the developed methods
- Divide work and responsibility between management and workers
What are the values to scientific management?
Efficiency maximum giant or a given investment, risk, of effort
2. Rationality strategic arrangements of work procedures
3. Productivity (and the ability to sustain it)
4. Profit
What are the pros to scientific management?
Hiring based on task related capabilities
Use of science to study the most efficacious tools and procedures
Standardized teaching of procedures
Applicable to the big picture perspective on productivity
Influenced further development of organizational theory
What are the cons to scientific management?
Treats workers as cogs in the “machine”
Assumes managers and workers share in the 4 underlying values of scientific management
Assumed worker would be happy simply knowing they are benign efficient and contributing to the profitability
Lack of incentive other than wages (workers were paid per unit produced)
Did not account for loss of productivity due to health or family loss
What was the Weberian Bureaucracy model?
- Division of labor and financial specialization
- Hierarchy
- Uniform framework of rules and procedures
- Maintenance of files and other records
- Professionalization
- Technical expertise
- Merit based
What was the Hawthorne Experiment
Primarily focused on productivity and Taylor’s Scientific Management
What is the spoils system?
appointed friends, and loyalist positions rather being based off merit
Merit system
being hired off acquired skills rather than asserted
What did the Pendleton act do?
created merit based hiring the act also created the civil service commission
What did the Brownlow Report do?
highlighted the need for reorganization within the executive branch, and the expansion of the white house staff.
What did theory x state
Don’t like to work
Prefer to be led with supervision
Lack creative work related problem solving skills
Are driven by individual fear of sanctions for poor performance
What did theory y state?
Can enjoy work if conditions permit
Prefer and can provide self control in achieving organizational objectives
Can exercise significant creative (work related) problem solving skills
Are motivated in response to ego and social rewards, and influenced by groups
Who were the Neo classical theorist?
Robert melton, Philip Selznick,Chester Barnard
What was Robert Melton’s model?
emphasis on transparency rather than secrecy
What was Philp Selznick’s model?
organizational co-optation
What was Chester Barnard’s theory?
that workers are motivated beyond just money, more complex needs; not just simpletons
What was Mary Parker Follet’s theory?
Giving orders isn’t enough to motivate satisfactory work
What was Herbert Simon’s theory?
Argued for empirical research- quasi scientific methods of controlled experiments and quantitative analysis
What was Maslow’s theory?
A person’s overall circumstance is the key to motivation
Multiple goals motivate people
What are structural system’s?
Assumes orgs are rational in pursuing their goals/objectives
What is the systems theory?
behave according to inputs from their environment, outputs resulting from organizational activity, and feedback leading to further inputs
What is an open system?
organizations are highly complex entities that interact with their environment and face uncertainty
What is a closed system?
organizations exist with few external variables and relationships, with minimal uncertainty
What is functional overlap?
functions in contemporary American bureaucracy that are performed by one bureaucratic entity may also be performed by another.
What does span of control mean?
the number of people an individual supervises within a subunit of an organization
What is groupthink?
It occurs only in highly cohesive groups that operate in an environment where there is a feeling of security
What is gobbledygook?
misleading jargon or meaningless technical terms often used purposely to obscure the meaning of communication within organizations
