UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

workplace.) These two innovations resulted in a marked increase in productivity and serve as thefoundation of scientific management as we know it.After leaving Midvale, Taylor spent several years working as a management consultantfor industrial firms. At Behlehem Steel Company, he developed several efficient techniques forloading and unloading rail cars. At Simonds Rolling Machine Company, he redesigned jobs,introduced rest breaks to combat fatigue, and implemented a piece-rate pay system. In everycase, Taylor claimed his ideas and methods greatly improved worker output. His book,Principles of Scientific Management, published in 1911, was greeted with enthusiasm bypracticing managers and quickly became a standard reference.Scientific management quickly became a mainstay of business practice. It facilitated jobspecialization and mass production, consequently influencing the U.S. business system inprofound ways. Taylor had his critics, though. Laborers opposed scientific managementbecause of its explicit goal of getting more output from workers. Congress investigated Taylor’smethods and ideas because some argued that his incentive system would dehumanize theworkplace and reduce workers to little more than drones. Later theorists recognized thatTaylor’s views on employee motivation were inadequate and narrow. And recently there havebeen allegations that Taylor falsified some of his research findings and paid someone to do hiswriting for him. Nevertheless, scientific management represents an important milestone in thedevelopment of management thought.Classical Organization TheoryDuring the same era, another perspective on management theory and practice was also emerging.Generally referred to as classical organization theory, this perspective is concerned withstructuring organizations effectively. Whereas scientific management studied how individualworkers could be made more efficient, classical organization theory focused on how a largenumber of workers and managers could be most effectively organized into an overall structure.Major contributors to classical organization theory included Henri Fayol, LyndallUrwick, and Max Weber. Weber, the most prominent of the three, proposed a “bureaucratic”form of structure that he believed would work for all organizations. Although today the termbureaucracy conjures up images of paperwork, red tape, and inflexibility, Weber’s model ofbureaucracy embraced logic, rationality, and efficiency. Weber assumed that the bureaucraticstructure would always be the most efficient approach. (Such a blanket prescription representswhat is now called a universal approach.) A bureaucracy is an organizational structure in whichtasks are specialized under a given set of rules and a hierarchy of authority. Division of labor isthe separation of work loads into small segments to be performed by one or more people. In abureaucracy, tasks are assigned through the division of labor. A set of outlined procedures existsfor each job. Because these procedures are invariable, the tasks assigned for each job becomeroutine for the employee. Thus, creativity is low.In a bureaucracy, the standards for evaluating job performance do not need to be updatedbecause required tasks never change. However, this lack of variation leads to an impersonal work4

environment, lacking incentives for extraordinary task performance and ultimately limiting thegrowth potential of individual employees.In contrast to Weber’s views, contemporary organization theorists recognize thatdifferent organizational structures may be appropriate in different situations. As with scientificmanagement, however, classical organization theory played a major role in the development ofmanagement thought, and Weber'’ ideas and the concepts associated with his bureaucraticstructure are still interesting and relevant today.THE EMERGENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIORThe central themes of both scientific management and classical organization theory arerationality, efficiency, and standardization. The roles of individuals and groups in organizationswere either ignored altogether of given only minimal attention. A few early writers andmanagers, however, recognized the importance of individual and social processes inorganizations.PRECURSORS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIORIn the early nineteenth century, Robert Owen, a British industrialist, attempted to improve thecondition of industrial workers. He improved working conditions, raised minimum ages forhiring children, introduced meals for employees, and shortened working hours. In the earlytwentieth century, the noted German psychologist Hugo Munsterberg argued that the field ofpsychology could provide important insights into areas such as motivation and the hiring of newemployees. Another writer in the early 1900s, Mary Parker Follett, believed that managementshould become more democratic in its dealings with employees. An expert in vocationalguidance, Follett argued that organizations should strive harder to accommodate theiremployees’ human needs.The views of Owen, Mansterberg, and Follett, however, were not widely shared bypracticing managers. Not until the 1930s did notable change occur in management’s perceptionof the relationship between the individual and the workplace. At that time, a series of nowclassic research studies led to the emergence of organizational behavior as a field of study.THE HAWTHORNE STUDIESThe Hawthorne studies were conducted between 1927 and 1932 at Western Electric’s Hawthorneplant near Chicago. (General Electric initially sponsored the research but withdrew its supportafter the first study was finished.) Several researchers were involved, the best known beingElton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger, Harvard faculty members and consultants, and WilliamDickson, chief of Hawthorne’s Employee Relations Research Department.The first major experiment at Hawthorne studied the effects of different levels of lightingon productivity. The researchers systematically manipulated the lighting in the area in which agroup of women worked. The group’s productivity was measured and compared with that ofanother group (the control group) whose lighting was left unchanged. As lighting was increasedfor the experimental group, productivity went up—but, interestingly, so did the productivity ofthe control group. Even when lighting was subsequently reduced, the productivity of both5

groups continued to increase. Not until the lighting had become almost as dim as moonlight didproductivity start to decline. This led the researchers to conclude that lighting had norelationship to productivity—and at this point General Electric withdrew its sponsorship of theproject!In another major experiment, a piecework incentive system was established for a nineman group that assembled terminal banks for telephone exchanges. Proponents of scientificmanagement expected each man to work as hard as he could to maximize his personal income.But the Hawthorne researchers found instead that the group as a whole established an acceptablelevel of output of its members. Individuals who failed to meet this level were dubbed“chiselers,” and those who exceeded it by too much were branded “rate busters.” A worker whowanted to be accepted by the group could not produce at too high or too low a level. Thus, as aworker approached the accepted level each day, he slowed down to avoid overproducing.After a follow-up interview program with several thousand workers, the Hawthorneresearchers concluded that the human element in the workplace was considerably more importantthat previously believed. The lighting experiment, for example, suggested that productivitymight increase simply because workers were singled out for special treatment and thus perhapsfelt more valued or more pressured to perform well. In the incentive system experiment, beingaccepted as a part of the group evidently meant more to the workers than earning extra money.Several other studies supported the general conclusion that individual and social processes aretoo important to ignore.Like the work of Taylor, the Hawthorne studies have recently been called into question.Critics cite deficiencies in research methods and offer alternative explanations of the findings.Again, however, these studies were a major factor in the advancement of organizational behaviorand are still among its most frequently cited works.HUMAN RELATIONS MOVEMENTThe Hawthorne studies created quite a stir among managers, providing the foundation for anentirely new school of management thought that came to be known as the human relationsmovement. The basic premises underlying the human relations movement are that peoplerespond primarily to their social environment, that motivation depends more on social needs thanon economic needs, and that satisfied employees work harder than unsatisfied employees. Thisperspective represented a fundamental shift away form the philosophy and values of scientificmanagement and classical organization theory.The behavioral theory of management holds that all people (including employees) havecomplex needs, desires, and attitudes. The fulfillment of needs is the goal toward whichemployees are motivated. Effective leadership matches need-fulfillment rewards with desiredbehaviors (tasks) that accomplish organizational goals.The values of the human relationists are perhaps best exemplified by the works ofDouglas McGregor and Abraham Maslow. McGregor is best known for his classic book TheHuman Side of Enterprise, in which he identified two opposing perspectives that he believedtypified managerial views of employees. Some managers, McGregor said, subscribed to what he6

labeled Theory X. Theory X, which takes a pessimistic view of human nature and employeebehavior, is in many ways consistent with the tenets of scientific management. A much moreoptimistic and positive view of employees is found in Theory Y. Theory Y, which is generallyrepresentative of the human relations perspective, was the approach McGregor himselfadvocated. Assumptions of Theory X and Theory Y are summarized in Exhibit 2.EXHIBIT 2THEORY X AND THEORYTheory X AssumptionsTheory Y Assumptions1. People do not like work and try to avoid 1. People do not naturally dislike work;it.work is a natural part of their lives.2. People do not like work, so managers 2. People are internally motivated tohave to control, direct, coerce, and threaten reach objectives to which they areemployees to get them to work toward committed.organizational goals.3. People prefer to be directed, to avoid 3. People are committed to goals to theresponsibility, to want security; they have degree that they receive personal rewardslittle ambition.when they reach their objectives.4. People will seek and acceptresponsibility under favorable conditions.5. People have the capacity to beinnovative in solving organizationalproblems.6. People are bright, but under mostorganizational conditions their potentialare underu

human behavior interacts with the organization, and the organization itself. Although we can focus on any one of these three areas independently, we must remember that all three are ultimately connected and necessary for a comprehensive understanding of organizational behavior. For example, we can study individual behavior (such as the behavior of a company’s CEO or of one of its employees .