Fundamentals of Organizational Communication

1. Fundamentals of Organizational Communication Communication Implications of Major Organizational Theories Chapter 4

2. The Scientific Management School • Scientific Management perspective • theoretical approach to organizations that emphasizes organizational design,worker training for efficiency, chains of command, and division of labor. The perspective rests on the assumption that work and organizations can be rationally or “scientifically” designed and developed.

3. Major Scientific Management Theories • Principles of Scientific Management: Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) • Four Essential Elements • Careful selection of workers • Inducing and training the worker by the scientific method • Equal division of work between management and workers • Discovering the scientific method for tasks and jobs

4. Major Scientific Management Theories • Principles of Scientific Management: Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) • Time and Motion Study • a technique for determining the efficiency of production through work observation and time measurements; used to develop work standards that can be measured for efficiency.

5. Major Scientific Management Theories • Principles of Management: Henri Fayol (1841-1925) • Credited with the first known attempt to describe broad principles of management for the organization and conduct of business.

6. Division of work Authority Discipline Unity of Command Unity of direction Subordination of individual interests to the general interest Remuneration Centralization Scalar chain Order Equity Stability of tenure of personnel Initiative Esprit de corps Fourteen Principles of Management: Henri Fayol

7. Fourteen Principles of Management: Henri Fayol • His discussion of the scalar chain is the only known treatment of horizontal communication found in organizational literature until the writings of Chester Barnard in 1938. • “the chain of superiors ranging from the ultimate authority to the lowest ranks”

8. Principles of Bureaucracy: Max Weber (1864-1920) • The father of bureaucracy • Three types of authority • Charismatic • Traditional • Bureaucratic

9. Principles of Bureaucracy: Max Weber • Bureaucracy • organizations based on formalized rules, regulations, and procedures, which make authority rational as opposed to charismatic or traditional. • Chain of command • the formal authority and reporting structure of an organization.

10. Communication Implications of Scientific Management Theories • Communication was to be a tool of management designed to facilitate task completion • Train employees • Give daily instructions • Communication was to be formal • Messages primarily from supervisors to subordinates

11. Communication Implications of Scientific Management Theories • Communication was viewed as rational and functioning to reduce uncertainty about task expectations and measurement

12. Communication Implications of Scientific Management Theories • The Functional approach to organizational communication can be used to describe communication implications from the Scientific Management viewpoint. • Organizational communication functioned to organize task performance and to clarify rules and regulations.

13. Communication Implications of Scientific Management Theories • The Functional approach… • Scientific Management theorists described messages as flowing via the chain of command primarily in a downward direction.

14. Communication Implications of Scientific Management Theories • The Meaning-Centered approach… • Communication was described as a variable of the organization controlled by management • Culture was not a primary consideration • Decision making was another organizational variable controlled by management

15. Communication Implications of Scientific Management Theories • The Emerging Perspectives… • Scientific Management theorists did not consider abuses of power, as evidenced in the Emerging Perspectives, and readily supported a legitimate power within the control of management.

16. Scientific Management Theories in Contemporary Organizations • A careful examination of most contemporary organizations reveals numerous Scientific Management principles still in operation. • Local, state, and national governments are also organized with many of these principles.

17. The Human Behavior School • The Human Behavior school shifts the emphasis from the structure of organizations, work design, and measurement to the interactions of individuals, their motivations, and their influence on organizational events.

18. The Human Behavior School • The Human Behavior Perspective assumes that work is accomplished through people and emphasizes cooperation, participation, satisfaction, and interpersonal skills.

19. Major Human Behavior Theories • Principles of Coordination: Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) • Best known for her true principles of organizations based on a stable foundation for the steady, ordered progress of human well-being. • Characterized conflict as potentially constructive and described collective responsibility and integration as supportive of business excellence.

20. Major Human Behavior Theories • Principles of Coordination: Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) • Four Active Principles: • Coordination by direct contact of the responsible people concerned • Coordination in the early stages • Coordination as a reciprocal relation of all the features in a situation • Coordination as a continuing process.

21. Major Human Behavior Theories • The Hawthorne Effect: Elton Mayo (1880-1949) • When the famous Hawthorne studies began, Mayo was experimenting with the alteration of physical working conditions to increase productivity. • They became aware that other unexpected factors were interacting with physical factors to influence work output.

22. Major Human Behavior Theories • The Hawthorne Effect: Elton Mayo (1880-1949) • Output increased not matter how the physical variables were changed. Mayo and his colleagues came to understand that a powerful and previously unrecognized influence in the experimental setting was the attention the researchers were paying to the workers.

23. Major Human Behavior Theories • The Hawthorne Effect: Elton Mayo (1880-1949) • As a result of the Hawthorne research, production could no longer be viewed as solely dependent on formal job and organizational design.

24. Major Human Behavior Theories • The Hawthorne Effect: Elton Mayo (1880-1949) • This effect, widely know as the Hawthorne effect, was the first documentation in industrial psychological research of the importance of human interaction and morale for productivity

25. Major Human Behavior Theories • Theory X and Theory Y: Douglas McGregor (1906-1964) • McGregor’s description of management assumptions about workers. Theory X characterizes assumptions underlying Scientific Management theory, and Theory Y is associated with assumptions common to Human Behavior perspectives. Theory X managers assume workers dislike work and will avoid responsible labor. Theory Y managers believe that workers can be self-directed and self-controlled.

26. Major Human Behavior Theories • Theory X and Theory Y: Douglas McGregor (1906-1964) • McGregor has been criticized for what some have called a polarized either/or approach to human nature. McGregor has responded that Theory X and Theory Y are assumptions that may be better understood as ranges of behaviors from X to Y.

27. Theory X and Theory Y

28. Major Human Behavior Theories • Participative Management: Rensis Likert (1903-1981) • Likert’s theory of employee-centered management based on effectively functioning groups linked together structurally throughout the organization

29. Likert’s Linking Pin Concept

30. Major Human Behavior Theories • Participative Management: Rensis Likert (1903-1981) • Taylor had interpreted variability in performance as a need to establish specific procedures and production standards; Likert’s interpretation called for an increase in participation by organizational members at all levels.

31. Major Human Behavior Theories • Participative Management: Rensis Likert (1903-1981) • Likert’s (1960) attitude toward communication was clear when he stated: “Communication is essential to the functioning of an organization. It is viewed widely as one of the most important processes of management.”

32. Major Human Behavior Theories • Participative Management: Rensis Likert (1903-1981) • Likert’s research also revealed that productivity was high in groups in which the supervisor and subordinate shared reasonable accurate perceptions of each other. Likert concluded from this finding that good communication and high performance go together.

33. Communication Implications of Human Behavior Theories • Effective communication was a cornerstone of the Human Behavior perspective. • Interactions at all levels were expected to be extensive and friendly, with substantial cooperation throughout the organization.

34. Communication Implications of Human Behavior Theories • Functional Approach… • The Human Behavior viewpoint saw a more complex role for communication than the Scientific Management theorists envisioned. • The relationship function of organizational communication was considered significant. • The change function of communication was everyone’s responsibility

35. Communication Implications of Human Behavior Theories • Meaning-Centered Approach… • Communication was better understood in the Human Behavior perspective than in the Scientific Management approach.

36. Communication Implications of Human Behavior Theories • Meaning-Centered Approach… • The Human Behavior perspective exhibits more concern with worker participation and satisfaction than do Scientific Management theories.

37. Communication Implications of Human Behavior Theories • Emerging Perspectives… • Despite this concern for participation, Human Behavior theorists pay little attention to the concerns of power and how communication constitutes organizing, decision making, and influence. • Women and other marginalized voices are not included as concerns.

38. Human Behavior Theories in Contemporary Organizations • Most contemporary organizations include not only Scientific Management ideas but also much of the thinking generated from the Human Behavior theorists.

39. The Integrated Perspectives School • Theories that attempt to explain how people, technologies, and environments integrate to influence goal-directed behavior.

40. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Process and environmental approaches to organizational theory attempt to describe how complex processes such as decision making influence the internal operation of organizations and are influenced by external environments

41. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Decision-Making Approach • Sociotechnical Integration • Contingency Theory • The Systems Approach • The New Systems Approaches – Flux, Transformation, Quantum Physics, Self-Organizing Systems, and Chaos Theory • Learning Organizations

42. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Decision-Making Approach: Herbert Simon (1916- ) • Simon’s concept that organizational behavior is a complex network of decisions, with decision-making processes influencing the behavior of the entire organization.

43. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Decision-Making Approach: Herbert Simon (1916- ) • Bounded rationality - assumption that people intend to be rational, but with limited information-processing capacity human decision making is based on selective perception and therefore exhibits “limited” rationality.

44. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Decision-Making Approach: Herbert Simon (1916- ) • He described decision making as the fundamental organizational process. Decision making, he said, occurs through the communication behaviors of individuals who intend rationality but can only approach rationality because of limited information-processing capacity.

45. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Sociotechnical Integration: Eric L. Trist (1909-1993) and Kenneth W. Bamforth • theoretical attempt to balance human social-psychological needs with organizational goals;

46. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Sociotechnical Integration: Eric L. Trist (1909-1993) and Kenneth W. Bamforth • Two Assumptions • Assumed that organizational production is optimized through optimizing social and technical systems • Assumed a constant interchange exists between the work system and the broader environment.

47. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Sociotechnical Integration: Eric L. Trist (1909-1993) and Kenneth W. Bamforth • Their experiments led them to conclude that meaning in work could be established through group assignments that permit individuals to be included in entire task cycles rather than working on isolated parts of a job.

48. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Contingency Theory: Joan Woodward (1916)-1971), Paul Lawrence (1922- ), and Jay Lorsch (1932- ) • Approach that rejects the “one best way” to organize in favor of the view that no specific set of prescriptions is appropriate for all organizations. As such, organizations must adapt to changing circumstances, the needs of individuals, and the environment in which the organization operates.

49. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • Contingency Theory: Joan Woodward (1916)-1971), Paul Lawrence (1922- ), and Jay Lorsch (1932- ) • Contingency theory suggests that considerable judgment is required to understand effective organizational operation because that operation “all depends on the situation.”

50. Major Integrated Perspectives Theories: Process and Environmental Approaches • The Systems Approach: Daniel Katz (1903-1998) and Robert Kahn (1918- ) • Describes organizations as made up of subsystems, which take in materials and human resources, process materials and resources, and yield a finished product to the larger environment.