“The use of machines has radically transformed the nature of productive activity and has left its mark on the imagination, thoughts, and feelings of humans throughout the ages.” An organization as a machine is the first theoretical metaphor that believes that organizations operate as fully functioning machines. According to Morgan, an organization taking the mechanistic approach would be clearly defined as “…a pattern of precisely defined jobs organized in a hierarchical manner through precisely defined lines of command or communication.” Essentially, the mechanistic approach is all about maximizing efficiency and maintaining control. The concept that organizations can run like machines is one that is most easily identified with the factory work that is shown in Norma Rae. This metaphor describes communication in organizations as having three factors: instrumentality, hierarchy, and codification. While codification isn’t really shown, instrumentality and hierarchy are eminent throughout the film at the OP Henley textile mill. In Norma Rae, instrumentality and hierarchy work hand in hand. At the textile mill, there is a hierarchical line of communication …show more content…
Unfortunately, the only reason she was promoted was “to shut her up” due to the fact that Norma Rae is the only one asking for more smoking time and longer breaks. The top management there doesn’t want a subordinate worker that is constantly voicing opinions and making herself be heard by others. They don’t want the other workers to get any sort of ideas from Norma Rae. Therefore, in exchange for compliance from her, top management decides to promote her to cut off communication between her and the other workers. Even before she accepted the promotion, she knew that the position wouldn’t make her any friends. But because she accepted it, Norma had become part of the
"Classical Organizational Theory deals with the 'systematic processes necessary to make bureaucracy more efficient and effective.' Name three scholars that are credited with the development of classical organization thought that most correctly fit into this definition of Classical Organizational Theory. What were the basic arguments articulated by each in their contributions to the development of Classical Organizational Theory?"
According to Morgan he describes how organizations “are designed like machines, and their employees are in essence expected to behave as if they were parts of the machine” (Morgan, 13). Organizations that are “designed and operated as if they were machines are … usually called bureaucracies” (Morgan, 13). One of the benefits of having a bureaucracy is that it allows employees to work on one key function of the organization. It can enhance the organization’s internal controls and safeguard its assets by making people responsible to depend on others in order to carry out a specific
Communication is used by everyone, everyday, to express their thoughts and feelings. Both in fiction and in reality, people have learned to communicate with and without their words to tell people what they are trying to say. Speak, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson, elaborates on many major themes including this theme of communication. Throughout the novel, Melinda, the main character who faces her own inner demons, learns more effective ways of calling out to her family, friends, and peers around her. When she finds herself unable to speak up, she is seen expressing her thoughts through her artwork, through her actions, and sometimes directly through written notes.
“The employees were complaining for months and somehow the situation escalated to become hostile” Said the assistant Joe Haley. An organization as an entity, a whole, resembles a precise piece of machinery, because there are so many components need to function at the same time in order to make the machine work. As long as one part begins to malfunction, it will eventually influence other parts and create a vicious Domino effect, which damages the entire system quickly if not repaired
The supervisor gave all the employees a quota which were virtually impossible to meet. At time, she could not make it home on time to cook a good meal for her family as she had to work extra hours in an attempt to meet the deadline. The place was basically what one would considered back in day of slavery time. Roseanne lower her pride and reason with the boss in attempt to lower the quota, initially, the supervisor agreed with Roseanne, but Roseanne trying to create a better work place environment as the supervisor was being unreasonable. The supervisor change his mind raised the quota back to what it initially at that point got fed up exchange with her boss and quit, and most of the employees followed
Theory X, that adopts the authoritarian view that people normally abhor working and must be forced to work with punishment for failing to meet the objective. These people actually prefer to be directed and lack ambition.
The classical or traditional approach to management was generally concerned with the structure and the activities of formal organization. The utmost importance in the achievement of an effective organization were seen to be the issues such as the establishment of a hierarchy of authority, the division of work, and the span of control.
From the case study in the seminar introduces, one part of classical management theories is bureaucracy. It shows the system of rules and it is formal because every procedure and practice need to be followed. The bureaucratic organisations have the hierarchy of authority (structure) and they treat the employee in impersonal. Moreover, the fixed boundary which means the full-time tasks and every employee has the official duty. These three aspects illustrate that bureaucratic organisations are associated to the instrumental rationality. They are doing the things right (Knights&Willmott,2007). Besides Knights and Willmott had talked about this, Grey (2013) also said that bureaucracies are rational in one particular sense of the word that is the formal or instrumental rationality and this idea is means adopted to achieve the most efficient purpose that they minimise wastage and maximise production. As one important unit in Apple products is parts assembly, not in Silicon Valley but in Shenzhen, China. According to Chakrabortty (2013), this Foxconn plant has a huge number of student labour to make products. One worker performed one or two small tasks over and over again while standing for hours on end in a huge line turning out Apple products. They cannot have breaks whenever they are behind on the production targets. Obviously, workers and the organisation do not share the same goal, under Chinese law work-placements have to be directly related to a pupil
This synthesised, scientifically managed workflow was meant to improve labour productivity and economic efficiency. And thirdly, rather than having machinery at the centre of the factory and workers moving to and from the product, assembly lines were used. This meant that the workers remained stationary and the product simply flowed past them (Murray, 1989). They were essentially treated as robots and dictated by machines; operating to the duplicated, repetitive tasks daily and not given the opportunity to express potential for advancement or improvement.
In addition to the Hofstede¡¯s model analysis, it is important to examine the manner in which employees of MAC are given individual assignments and deadlines. Their policies state that employees should be recognized individually for their achievements and are rewarded accordingly. This strengthens our argument that MAC is an individualistic organization.
The view and metaphorical analogy of an organization as a machine was the result of the only frame of reference available at
The Machine Organization is defined by its standardization. Work is very formalized, there are many routines and procedures, decision-making is centralized, and tasks are grouped by functional departments. Jobs will be clearly defined; there will be a formal planning process with budgets and audits; and procedures will regularly be analyzed for efficiency. The machine organization has a tight vertical structure. Functional lines go all the way to the top, allowing top managers to maintain centralized control. These organizations can be very efficient, and they rely heavily on economies of scale for their success. However, the formalization leads to specialization and, pretty soon, functional units can have conflicting goals that can be inconsistent with overall corporate objectives.
In the early 1900’s, some of the first ideas were thrown together to allow an organization to flourish in the upcoming modern era. The first theories were known as scientific and classical management, which focused on three separate theories from Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and Max Weber. The three theories have similar ideology in the fact that organization is driven by management authority, employees only source of motivation is money, and organizations are machinelike with employees making up the parts of the machine (Papa, Daniels, & Spiker, 2008). In the Prophecy Fulfilled case study, Mary Ann (senior auditor) takes on a management role with subordinates similar to that of Weber’s Bureaucratic Theory (Daniels 1987, pp. 77-78).
Mechanistic – A mechanistic organisation is an idea grew by English scholars Tom Burns and G.M. Stalker in their work titled "the management of innovation" (1961). As indicated by them, qualities of a mechanistic organisation mix a high level of learned many-sided quality, solution and concentration.
Moving away from “Mechanistic” metaphor originated from the bureaucratic organizational theories in the early 1920s. Morgan (2006) presents a more biological view of the organization. Described as a living system the “Organism” metaphor is dependent on wider environment and functions. Such organizations are open systems and more inclined to adapt, grow, survive and to meet the needs of organizations to operate more efficiently. The flexibility to change to the best-suited structure also introduced. As organizations tend to appear and thrive in certain environments, the functions are adjusted to establish more orderly and stable environments. In line with Morgan’s “Organism” metaphor (Morgan. 2010), if they do not adapt, organizations become week and die when those needs not met.