...Research Essay What is Bureaucratic Control? Describe the elements of Bureaucratic Control and provide examples of Bureaucratic Control that can be found in your university ? Bureaucratic Control in its current context refers to management attempting to control employee output through reward and punishment in order to ensure employee work performance and conduct matches the managers expectation and follows defined company agendas’ which are in turn dictated from above by directors. This method of control is centralised, and relies heavily on administrative techniques and established hierarchies within the company to communicate its policies to employees. This essay will provide a context of the development of bureaucratic control, highlight its key factors and supply some relevant examples of this type of control at Victoria University. Bureaucratic management was first proposed by German sociologist Max Weber (Williams & McWilliams, 2010) as an alternative to the monarchical system of promoting by virtue of birthright. His definition of bureaucracy was to effect control of an organisation through knowledge. As such, the premise of this thought was to promote on merit rather than heredity to ensure maximum output through the utilisation of the most qualified rather than the most connected (in this circumstance, ‘connected’ refers to the relationship one has with those in charge). This idea of fairness versus favouritism would increase overall efficiency towards the realisation...
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...College of Commerce The Islamic University of Gaza Beginning with Max Weber, bureaucracies have been regarded as mechanisms that rationalize authority and decision-making in society. Yet subsequent theorists have questioned the rationality of bureaucracies. Which features of modern-day public bureaucracies are rational? Which are not? Buttress your argument with citations from organization and/or public administration theories. Introduction: Max Weber’s work about bureaucracy, translated into English in 1946, was one of the major contributions that has influenced the literature of public administration. However, Van Riper (1997) argues that the work of Weber on bureaucracy has no influence on American PA until the 1950’s. The word bureaucracy is derived from two words; “bureau” and “Kratos.” While the word “bureau” refers to the office the Greek suffix “kratia or kratos” means power or rule. Thus we use the word “bureaucracy” to refer to the power of the office (Hummel, 1998, 307). “Bureaucracy” is rule conducted from a desk or office, i.e. by the preparation and dispatch of written documents and electronic ones. Bureaucracy is borrowed by the field of public administration (PA) from the field of sociology. It was borrowed by PA in much a similar way that practices of business were borrowed from the field of business administration and economics. Weber (1946) presents bureaucracy as both a scientific and generic model that can work in both the public and...
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...College of Commerce The Islamic University of Gaza Beginning with Max Weber, bureaucracies have been regarded as mechanisms that rationalize authority and decision-making in society. Yet subsequent theorists have questioned the rationality of bureaucracies. Which features of modern-day public bureaucracies are rational? Which are not? Buttress your argument with citations from organization and/or public administration theories. Introduction: Max Weber’s work about bureaucracy, translated into English in 1946, was one of the major contributions that has influenced the literature of public administration. However, Van Riper (1997) argues that the work of Weber on bureaucracy has no influence on American PA until the 1950’s. The word bureaucracy is derived from two words; “bureau” and “Kratos.” While the word “bureau” refers to the office the Greek suffix “kratia or kratos” means power or rule. Thus we use the word “bureaucracy” to refer to the power of the office (Hummel, 1998, 307). “Bureaucracy” is rule conducted from a desk or office, i.e. by the preparation and dispatch of written documents and electronic ones. Bureaucracy is borrowed by the field of public administration (PA) from the field of sociology. It was borrowed by PA in much a similar way that practices of business were borrowed from the field of business administration and economics. Weber (1946) presents bureaucracy as both a scientific and generic model that can work in both the public and...
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...DesignChapter 12--Managing Organization Design Student: ___________________________________________________________________________ 1. Organizational design is the building block. Job design is how the blocks are put together. True False 2. The appropriate degree of specialization can vary, but not the appropriate span of management. True False 3. Organization design is a means to implement strategies and plans to achieve organizational goals. True False 4. One of the primary strengths of a bureaucratic form of organization structure is how it prevents favoritism. True False 5. The bureaucratic model is the model of organization design consistent with the human relations movement that stresses attention to developing work groups and concern with interpersonal processes. True False 6. A strength of Likert's System design is that it finds one best way to design an organization. True False 7. Orange County Choppers makes custom motorcycles. It uses continuous-process technology. True False 8. Woodward considered continuous-process technology simple compared to large-batch technology. True False 9. Exxon Mobil is an example of an organization that uses large-batch technology. True False 10. According to Burns and Stalker, firms that use an organic design are the most successful firms in a stable environment. True False 11. A manager at Johnson & Johnson has considerable discretion over how work...
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...A Conceptual Framework for the Design of Organizational Control Mechanisms Author(s): William G. Ouchi Source: Management Science, Vol. 25, No. 9 (Sep., 1979), pp. 833-848 Published by: INFORMS Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2630236 Accessed: 12/12/2008 16:24 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=informs. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. INFORMS is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Management Science...
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...TAKEAWAY QUESTIONS 1. What can be learned from classical management thinking? 2. What are the insights come from the behavioral management approaches? 3. What are the foundations of modern management thinking? CHAPTER 2 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After completing this chapter, students should be able to: • State the underlying assumption of the classical management approaches. • List the principles of Taylor’s scientific management. • List three of Fayol’s “principles” for guiding managerial action. • List the key characteristics of bureaucracy and explain why Weber considered it an ideal form of organization. • Identify possible disadvantages of bureaucracy in today’s environment. • Explain Follett’s concept of organizations as communities. • Define the Hawthorne effect. • Explain how the Hawthorne findings influenced the development of management thought. • Explain how Maslow’s hierarchy of needs operates in the workplace. • Distinguish between Theory X and Theory Y assumptions, and explain why McGregor favored Theory Y. • Explain Argyris’s criticism that traditional organizational practices are inconsistent with mature adult personalities. • Define system, subsystem, and open system. • Apply these concepts to describe the operations of an organization in your community. • Define contingency thinking, knowledge management, and a learning organization. • List characteristics of learning organizations. • Describe evidence-based management...
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...Companies That Compete in a Single Industry SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER Chapter 12 examines how managers can best implement their strategies in single-industry firms in order to achieve a competitive advantage and superior performance. First, the main elements of strategy implementation—structure, control systems, and culture—are analyzed in detail, focusing on the way they work together to create an organizing framework. Then the chapter turns to the topic of using structure, control, and culture at the functional level to build distinctive competencies. After that, the chapter addresses the challenges of implementing the generic business strategies of cost leadership or differentiation in a single industry. The final section covers restructuring and reengineering, two strategies that single-business firms can use to improve corporate performance. The next chapter takes up where this one leaves off and examines strategy implementation across industries and across countries—that is, implementing corporate and global strategy in firms that compete in more than one industry. TEACHING OBJECTIVES 1. Introduce the main elements of strategy implementation—structure, control systems, and culture—and their relationships to each other. 2. Demonstrate how structure, control, and culture can build distinctive competencies at the functional level. 3. Describe the use of structure, control, and culture in implementing a single-business firm’s generic business strategy. 4. Discuss the use...
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...making of strategic organisational decisions on the basis of the manager's status and authority, and access to information. (i) Entrepreneur As entrepreneurs, managers plan and initiate projects to bring about change and innovation to improve the performance of their unit and organisation. (ii) Disturbance handler As a disturbance handler role, the manager takes corrective action in response to previously unforeseen problems such as strikes, financial difficulties or change in government policy. In such situations, managers can, for instance, devise a strategy and set up committees that deal with disturbances and crises. (iii)Resource allocator As resource allocators, managers are responsible for the distribution of the organisation's resources such as money, time, equipment, staff and materials among organisational members. (iv) Negotiator The negotiator role relates to participation in negotiation activities with outside organisations (for example when negotiating a contract with suppliers) or with individuals working for the same organisation (for instance when bargaining about working terms and conditions with the trade union). Negotiation plays an important part of the manager's job because of his/her authority, responsibility and knowledge of information. 21 Evaluation of Mintzberg's role approach Mintzberg acknowledged that his categorisation of the ten roles was somewhat an arbitrary division of the manager's activities. It presented only one of the many...
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...study of organisations, their structure and management is important for the manager. Identification of major trends in management and organisational behaviour, and the work of leading writers, provide a perspective on concepts and ideas discussed in more detail in other chapters. Learning outcomes After completing this chapter you should be able to: ■ identify major trends in the development of organisational behaviour and management thinking; contrast main features of different approaches to organisation and management; evaluate the relevance of these different approaches to the present-day management of organisations; explain the relationships between management theory and practice; assess the value of the study of different approaches to organisation and management; recognise the relationship between the development of theory, behaviour in organisations and management practice; establish a basis for consideration of aspects of organisational behaviour discussed in subsequent chapters. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ Critical reflection ‘It is often claimed that what leading writers say is an important part of the study of management and organisational behaviour. Others say that all these different ideas are little more than short-term fads and have little practical value.’ What do you think? What role does management theory have in helping us solve problems we face in our organisational lives today? PART 1 THE ORGANISATIONAL SETTING THE THEORY OF MANAGEMENT A central part of the study...
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...| Transformational Leadership: Characteristics and Criticisms Iain Hay School of Geography, Population and Environmental ManagementFlinders University A prime function of a leader is to keep hope alive. (John W. Gardner)Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. (Albert Einstein) Collectively, these three short quotations capture some of the key characteristics of transformational leadership, a form of leadership argued by some (Simic, 1998) to match the Zeitgeist of the post-World War II era. Academic debate about the nature and effectiveness of transformational leadership has developed since key work on the topic emerged in the 1970s. This short paper sets out to provide summary answers to three main questions about transformational leadership. What is it? How is it applied? What are some of its key weaknesses? In the course of the discussion, the following pages also provide a brief background to the origins of transformational leadership theory and point quickly to a possible theoretical future for a transformed transformational leadership. Transformational Leadership TheoryAccording to Cox (2001), there are two basic categories of leadership: transactional and transformational. The distinction between transactional and transformational leadership was first made by Downton (1973, as cited in Barnett, McCormick & Conners, 2001) but the idea...
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...2.0 LITEREATURE REVIEW The purpose of this study was to examine leadership behaviours especially Ethical Leadership as it impacts the third sector organizations’ performance. This chapter is comprised of reviewed literature regarding leadership, ethical leadership and the third sector organisations. Specifically, this chapter will be broken down into (a) Leadership (b) leadership behaviours (c) ethical leadership in the Third Sector (d) Organisation Performance (e) the impact of ethical Leadership in the third sector’s performance. 2.1 LEADERSHIP Leadership is one of the world’s oldest preoccupation. The understanding of leadership has figured strongly in the quest for knowledge (Bass 1990). Purposeful stories have been told through the generations about leaders’ competencies, ambitions, and shortcomings; leaders’ rights and privileges; and the leaders’ duties and obligations. A review of relevant literature has uncovered many different definitions of leadership. Leadership remains one of the most relevant aspects of organizational context (Nwokocha 2011). For more than five decades ago, the term leadership has been a researchable topic. Mostly, the research work focuses on issues of quality of leadership, ability of a leader, or leadership effectiveness, or leadership styles (Daft 2008, Bass 1990, Erez et al 2001 & Yukl 2006) Stogdill (1974, p. 259) stated that “ there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define...
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... . This book is, to my knowledge, the most comprehensive and reliable guide to organisational theory currently available. What is needed is a text that will give a good idea of the breadth and complexity of this important subject, and this is precisely what McAuley, Duberley and Johnson have provided. They have done some sterling service in bringing together the very diverse strands of work that today qualify as constituting the subject of organisational theory. Whilst their writing is accessible and engaging, their approach is scholarly and serious. It is so easy for students (and indeed others who should know better) to trivialize this very problematic and challenging subject. This is not the case with the present book. This is a book that deserves to achieve a wide readership. Professor Stephen Ackroyd, Lancaster University, UK This new textbook usefully situates organization theory within the scholarly debates on modernism and postmodernism, and provides an advanced introduction to the heterogeneous study of organizations, including chapters on phenomenology, critical theory and psychoanalysis. Like all good textbooks, the book is accessible, well researched and readers are encouraged to view chapters as a starting point for getting to grips with the field of organization theory. Dr Martin Brigham, Lancaster University, UK McAuley et al. provide a highly readable account of ideas, perspectives and practices of organization. By thoroughly explaining, analyzing and exploring...
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...students at Stanford University in California. Their conversationsled to collaboration on a searchengine they called SackRub. It became so popular on campus that they kept refining and expanding the service as they worked in Larry's dormitory room. Google Inc. began with a goal of bringing order and transparency to the information available on the Internet. Even though it hasn't stopped running, or growing, since, the goal endures. The firm's mission is: "To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." And if you want to talk about success, take a look at Google'scorporate information and follow its new initiatives in the news. What is the Google difference? How did it gain such runaway popularity? The answers start with a commitment to performance excellence Courtesy Google Inc. based on solid foundations of speed, accuracy, and ease of use. These have been the guiding performance criteria from the beginning, the basis for generating user appeal and competitive advantage for Google's products in the marketplace. Google'sbelief in people also sets it apart. Recently ranked #1 on Fortune magazine's list of best workplaces, the firm gets over 2,000 job applications per day. It runs with an informal culture and small-company feel, reminiscent of a college campus. BusinessWeek says that CEO Eric Schmidt and founders Srin and Page have built "a unique, just-do-it culture." The firm's website declares: "we do everything we can to make sure our employees...
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...article is the first in a three-part series that looks at ten influential theorists and the influence they still have. The series does not attempt to create a ‘top ten’ or rank contributions in any way (they are presented in chronological order), but aims to provide food for thought and debate. Part 1 looks at Machiavelli, Fayol and Taylor – three famous theorists who have all passed into management mythology, but whose views are sometimes misunderstood. MANAGEMENT THEORISTS In a three-part series, Dilys Robinson looks at ten influential theorists and assesses their influence in business today Thinkers for the 21st century? NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, 1469–1527 The end justifies the means achiavelli lived in Florence, where he worked for the Florentine state as a secretary, then a diplomat. His best known work, The Prince,1 is based on his observation of Cesare Borgia – a cunning, cruel and self-seeking man. Machiavelli did not regard Cesare Borgia as an ideal person, but thought that, under him, the Florentines could unite Italy – and this was his long-term goal. In fact, Machiavelli’s tactic did not work, as the Medici (the ruling family of Florence) took exception to what he said, and Cesare Borgia himself also found the work insulting. Machiavelli was essentially a republican, preferring a state controlled by citizens (in his day, citizens made up only a small part of the population)....
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...Activity Based Costing: Success is in the Eye of the Beholder By Kim Soin First draft: Please do not quote without the authors’ permission. All comments and suggestions are welcome Correspondence to: Dr Kim Soin The Management Centre Kings College, University of London, Franklin- Wilkins Building 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 8WA Direct Phone Line and Fax: 0207 848 4093 E-mail: kim.soin@kcl.ac.uk 1 Activity Based Costing: Success is in the Eye of the Beholder Abstract The literature on Activity Based Costing (ABC) tends to define the ‘success’ of an ABC system in relation to the decision-making and strategy formulating opportunities it provides based on the ‘logic’ or technical attributes of ABC (Shields, 1995; Malmi, 1997). This paper argues that there is a logic of ABC and tries to identify and illustrate how people relate to, misunderstand and still ‘appropriate’ this logic and start “talking accounting”. This paper shows that the ABC system implemented in this organisation did indeed provide information for decision-making and did to some extent support the logic of ABC. The paper also shows how this knowledge was emergent, the logic was articulated, but not fully understood and it was only when the system was implemented that many attributes of the system were recognised and, in some cases misunderstood. The paper argues that the ‘success’ of this particular ABC system was dependent on the organisational context, and the changing context as well as the logic. This...
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