Management Timed Question
The current climate of organisation has allowed psychopaths to flourish in the workplace. 'Profit at any cost' coupled with greed as a moral stance can produce a scenario where psychopaths with a lack of concern for others can flourish. The social and political conditions present in advanced industrial civilisations has produced situations where psychopathology behaviour is not only desired but required from executives.
"Extreme Managers"
Performance is monitored closely, Hours and intensity of work are increasing, roles and tasks are changing frequently and prospects for promotion are down scaled within flattered hierarchies. (McCann et al, 2008: 343) This system can lead to mental health and well-being issues of both managers and their employees. McCann points out how long hours, high levels of stress and uncertainty etc. All seem like 'just how things are'.
"Normalised Industry"
'It appears that as observers and as participants in organisations, we may have developed highly romanticised heroic views of leadership, what leaders do, what they are able to accomplish and the general effects they have on our lives'
(Menial et al, 1985: 78-79)
1. Focus 2. Simplify 3. Take responsibility end to end 4. When behind, Leapfrog. 5. Push for perfection. 6. Tolerate only 'A' Players. 7. Engage face-to-face. 8. Put products behind profits. 9. Don't be a slave to focus groups. 10. Bend reality. 11. Impute 12. Combine humanities into sciences 13. Stay hungry, stay foolish. 14. Know both the big picture and the details. Biographer, Walter Isacson celebrates the apprasive parts of Jobs' leadership as though the ends justifies the means. Have to think about ethics of how we treat people and whether abuse of segregation is ever acceptable.
14 lessons of Jobs' Leadership?
'Aesthetic labour is the employment of workers with desired corporal dispositions. With this labour, employees intentionally use the embodied attributes and capacities of employees as a source of competitive advantage' (Warhurst & Nickson, 2007: 107) Contemporary organisation often demonstrate an interest in the body is 'intended to appeal to the senses of customers, creating affective service- interaction' based on good-looking employees.
Aesthetic Labour Definition
Mainly aimed at women, for example Hooters, women are made to wear a skimpy outfit and are sexually exploited. Hooters example is interesting as the company normalised sexual harassment, flirtation, innuendo etc. As a 'normal' part of the job in the era of #MeToo and the way that this extreme example permits a picture of contemporary organisational life and the demands that are often placed upon women in organisations (Warhurst & Nickson, 2009: 396).
Aesthetic Labour on Gendered Control?
Often systematised and tightly scripted e.g. retail employees being directed: - Where to stand and at what angle to the door. - How to approach customers. - What to say to customer (I.e. scripted interactions). Employees will be trained in the correct way to perform and abide by the brand image.
Aesthetic Labour on Performance
Tight target management of picking and packing items. Physical intensity in training. Work has been broken into sub-tasks such as shelfers, pickers and packers with timings controlled and movement tracked. Staff penalised if they slip below company targets. If 4 mistakes occur in 40 hours they can get a disciplinary. If item is classed as 'missing' but then found by management, then the worker is classed as lazy and incompetent. Six penalty points if a worker is late, absent, sick they can get fired. Amazon workers have scientifically trained staff. Divided equal amount of labour between management and workers. There is cooperation between management and workers. But have set impossible targets which can lead to running as under stress which can then lead to injuries and health issues.
Amazon Case Study
'Team working' forms an essential part of organisational life, to the point where lecturers have to prepare you for it'.
Are teams 'Over-Hyped'? (HR Management)
Argued that there is a connection between organisational size and organisation structure. The larger the organisation, the more likely it was to have specialisation according to function and a concentration of authority resulting in centralised decision making as larger firms tend to be more bureaucratic.
Aston School Researchers
Sixth month observation study of 14 men working on 'bank-wiring' (mainly soldiering connections for telephone exchanges). Study noted the importance of informal groups, group norms and the means by which groups enforced these norms. For example, the group agreed a certain level of output per man per day employees who were too productive were called 'ratebusters', not productive enough were called 'chislers', i.e. name calling became a way for the group to enforce certain norms.
Bank Wiring Room (Human Relations School)
Bass states there is an increasing preference for transformational leadership. Increasingly professionals saw themselves as colleagues rather than in superior subordinate relationship. Transformational Leadership which fosters autonomy and challenging work became increasingly important to followers' job satisfaction. Here we see the distinction between leading and managing drawn by Kotter and others reprising itself with only slight differences,
Bass Discoveries (Transformational Leadership)
From 1898, a series of experiments that lay foundations for 'work and method' study. The work in question was loading 92lb slabs ('pigs') of iron into railway wagons. Taylor broke up descriptions of task into minute particulars and redesigned job by introducing break and deciding a piece-rate payment system. Identified 'first class' workers who eventually increased output from 12.5 to 47.5 ton per day, so he could justify raising their wages from $1 to $1.85 per day.
Bethlehem Steel Workers
UoK demonstrates all the characteristics of a bureaucracy: - Power localised in an office (e.g, lecturers). - Formally codified rules (handbooks and module guides). - Authority commensurate to office (marking assignments). - Positions require formal credentials and training (PHD's). - Hierarchical organisation and differential pay. - Boundaries to legitimate action (e.g. department specialisation). Not perfect bureaucracy through: - Personal Fiefdoms - Existence of a professional 'boys dub' that decides resource allocation. - Imperfect technical qualifications. - Lack of transparency, role uncertainty, precarious contracts, imperfect rewards etc.
Bureaucracy Case Study (University of Kent)
"An organisational form consisting of a hierarchy of differentiated knowledge and expertise in which rules and disciplines are arranged hierarchically". (Clegg et al, 2016:450)
Bureaucracy Defined
"You're a tool for the corporation, that's all you are... I like the idea of the team, and I think it works to a great extent. I feel part of it".
Can Culture be Managed?
'By 1984, Chrysler had earned record profits, had obtained high levels of employee morale and had helped employees generate a sense of meaning in their work'. 'Iacocca has altered the culture of the corporation to a lean and hungry team looking for victory, as a result of victory' as a result of Iacocca's leadership.' (Spector, 2014: 366) Iacocca made transformational changes in order to save what was at the time a company on the verge of bankruptcy. However, the company faced bankruptcy again only a few years later.
Case Study: Chrysler CEO; Lee Iacocca
Holacracy is a self-managed organisation (origins in self-managed teams) which seeks to remove top-down hierarchy. It is one of the most widely adopted system to self-management that results in a 'bossless' workplace which fosters flexibility and engagement in employees. 150 departments evolved in to hundreds of 'circles' when Holacracy was put into place. A 'circle' is a group of roles that disbands when change is needed. Circles are negotiators and formed every year but can be changed at any point. At meetings, 'tensions' are resolved. People don't have one job, they have multiple 'roles'. 'Lead links' are designated to communicate between circles. Everyone must use the Holacracy software, called Glass Frog.
Case Study: Holacracy at Zappos (Post-Bureaucracy) pt 1
Individuals normally hold multiple roles on different teams with leadership being distributed among roles on different teams with leadership amp on roles which are a set of responsibilities for a process outcome. Online retailer Zappos.com, a leading proponent of no-boss; non-hierarchical governance, was rocked by a mass employee defection. Almost 210/ 1500 employees took redundancy then adapt a holacratic system of 'circles' (Helmore, 2015)
Case Study: Holacracy at Zappos (Post-Bureaucracy) pt 2.
'In 1994, the parents of Allan Massies, a junior doctors who collapsed and died after working an 86 hour week at Cheshire hospital, claimed their 27 year old son was worked to death. He worked 2 days, 3 nights, including 2 unbroken periods of 27 hours and one of 24 hours' (Gillian, 2005). 'The proportion of staff working additional hours is 72%. Indicating that not enough has been done to alleviate workloads. Steady increase in both paid and unpaid overtime since 2012 is concerning as research repeatedly suggests that relying on tired and over worked staff can lead to poorer standards of car' (Korbett, 2017).
Case Study: NHS: Extreme Management
Work is intensified via the extra demands imposed by austerity. Professional identity and masculine culture contributed to long hours (unwillingness to turn down extra hours as sense of duty). Not taking time off / using accrued rest days. (Turnbull & Wass, 2015). Police issues laptops and phones keeping inspectors working 24/7. 'There is now a culture at inspecting rank of working extended hours as being the norm if I didn't work at least 5 hours extra per week, then I feel I am cheating the organisation' (Turnbull & Wass, 2015).
Case Study: Police Services (Extreme Management)
Former CEO of Apple, in less than 2 decades he transformed Apple from a near bankrupt company into the most valuable corporation in the World. Jobs has been described as evangelical, a natural performer, a perfectionist with a fiery temper and as the greatest CEO ever. Frequent reports of him humiliating staff, particularly top executives. Jobs deliberately fostered battles between senior executives in what was seen as brutally Darwinian effort to get the best from each other. 'He has a surgically precise opinion. Yes, it could sting but his ideas were so bold and magnificent. They could suck the air from the room' (Sharma & Grant, 2011). Jobs' public performances were able to evoke and evidence charisma through their drama and ways of telling a story (eg the press conference that introduced the iPhone in 2007 and a vision for the future).
Case Study: Steve Jobs (Leadership)
Changes to UK Law meant that in 2018, companies had to start reporting on their Gender Pay Gaps. Many airlines were revealed to have very large gaps between the average income for men and women at the companies. In many cases this is due to the fact that Cabin Crew (mostly women) earn less than pilots (mostly men). BA's gap was comparatively low. In 2016, BA staff went on strike to protest against their low wages and some of the unfair demands on their jobs.
Case Study: Virgin Atlantic/ British Airways?
"Depicts how concertive control evolved from the value of consensus and of the company's team workers to a system of normative rules that became increasingly rationalised". Contrary to some proponents of such systems, concertive control did not free these workers from Weber's iron cage of rational control. Instead, the concertive system as it became manifest in this case, appeared to draw the iron cage tighter and to constrain the organisations members more powerfully. (Barber, 1993: 408)
Concertive Control (Post-Bureaucracy)
Suggests that there is no one best way of structuring an organisation, rather that we need to pay attention to environmental, technological and other conditions in order to determine the best way.
Conclusion of Contingency Theory
"Some of my very best friends in Apple, the most creative people in Apple who worked on Macintosh, almost all of them said they would never, ever work for Steve Jobs again". (Gibbs, 2014).
Cons of Jobs' Leadership
Suggest that the right style of leadership is determined by the situation e.g, 'path- goal' or situational theories of leadership (Clegg et al, 2016: 128-130). Beliefs that leaders were born with traits, stable across time and situations which make them great leaders. These 'Great Man' theories of leadership proved problematic and difficult to evidence. Research focused on behaviour that leaders exhibited e.g a concern for people while most recent strands of leadership research point it as contingent, dependent on scenario. Different theories try to 'find best way of leadership' but they haven't yet found one,
Contingency Approaches of Leadership
' A perspective which argues that to be effective, an organisation must adjust its structure to take into account its technology, its environment and its size' (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2017: 535 ) 1. The Environment 2. Technology 3. Organisational Size "The basic idea of contingency approaches is to stress that all organisations have to deal with a predictable number of contingencies and shape organisations' design as it adapts to them" (Clegg et al, 2016:518)
Contingency Theory
'An ex-employee describes how the company had a 'pseudo-flat structure'. There is actually a hidden layer of powerful management structure in the company' she said which made it feel 'a lot like high school'. (Spicer, 2018) Spicer highlights the normative Control of post-bureaucratic organisation can become a mask that hides traditional power structures i.e. the organisation may present everyone is free and equal but in reality a few individuals may be hoarding power and setting the agenda.
Control (Post-Bureaucracy)
1. Control/ Resistance: Thinking about questions of power. 2. Dissent/ Consent: Particularly in relation to followers. 3. Men/ Women: Reflecting on the 'gendered' nature of perceptions of leadership. (Collinson, 2011)
Critical Leadership Studies?
Strong competitive ethic which may contribute to inconsistent treatment, inequality and a climate of stress and antagonism. Informal networks are crucial within these post-bureaucratic organisations and personal connections rather than capabilities may play a role in the allocation of opportunities and resources. There can be a lack of clarity around decision-making and roles.
Critiques of Post-Bureaucracy
Culture presents the totality of everyday knowledge that people use habitually to make sense of the world around them through patterns of shared meanings and understandings passed down through language, symbols and artefacts (Clegg et al, 2016: 203)
Culture Definition
"Emphasis of this approach was an informal work group relations, the importance of these for sustaining the formal system and the necessity of the formal system meshing with the informal system" (Clegg et al, 2016: 461).
Define Human Relations School
Bauman is saying that is it too easy for systems based on instrumental rationality to devolve into being systems that focus on means and not ends, sees modern bureaucracy as a 'mortal sleeping pill' in the way it abstracts and instrumentalizes decisions. Du Gay argues that bureaucracy is an ethical organisation form exhibiting an ethical organisation form of impersonality and fairness that prevents treatment based on prejudice / nepotism etc. It's codification of rules and uniform application of them prevents us from having to defer to some transcendent morality to make decisions.
Du Gay, 2000: 4 (Bureaucracy)
"All that lies underneath the formal bureaucratic structure: contradictory goals, chaos, deceit and ability of actors to hoard power and exploit others for personal gain. Bureaucracies can also be criticised for being impersonal and ignoring individual circumstances as people are hammered into fixed templates" (Hodson, 2012: 258-260)
Dysfunctions of Bureaucracy
'I was actually shopping there one day and they came up to me and asked if I wanted to work there' (William & Connell, 2010: 358). 'Gave you booklet of what you can and can't wear, get sent home if wearing the wrong tights' (Cutcher & Acht, 2017: 684). Instructions on how often to apply lipstick, being told to change, control the employees appearance, becoming living mannequins to show off brands clothing and must conform to brand's image.
Examples of People Experiencing Aesthetic Labour?
"Defined by the constancy of extreme working, with work spilling over a range of temporal and social boundaries, refusing containment as evidenced in the growth of corporate overwork cultures. Different dimensions of extremity are 'normalised' on Jobs held by a small 'elite' group of workers. While the distinction between their passions for versus addiction to work gets blurred" (Bozkurt, 2015: 477).
Extreme Management Definition
Expansion of the scope of work (longer hours increase on demands for multi-tasking and product knowledge, expansion of discretion. Increased mobilisation of soft skills concern for customers, supporting colleagues. Extension of 'inclusive' management practices attempts to encourage fun at work, Christmas parties etc. (Bozkurt, 2015). The corporate world is not immune to these practices with CEO's reporting a 58 hour work week.
Extreme Work at Deli-Counter
There is extreme work present in the rhetoric of workers as 'self-employed', 'Freelancers' or independent contracts (though this may be destined as an increase in precarious of work). It is cost effective for organisations and has allowed many firm to develop (e.g. Uber) or refine their business models (e.g. DPD). Need to reflect on how unstable these temporary 'freelance' jobs are the human cost that these forms of employment and have particularly via economic instability, but also perpetuating wealth and income gaps, stress, anxiety, debt and inability to plan for the future etc.
Freelancing
Have both transformational and transactional characteristics. Researchers like Bass suggest that every leader has their own unique combination of both. These might be contingently adjusted (e.g transactional in more stable environments, transformational in more rapidly changing ones). Bass & Company's research highlights many benefits to being a 'full-range' leader from increased information sharing to the increased likelihood of ethical decisions. 'Full-range Leadership' points the problematic idea that in order to be effective a leader needs to be a perfect human being. A chameleon who can become an entirely different person in response to what a follower or situation might demand.
Full-Range Leadership
Recent exposés have highlighted how companies like Google can foster toxic cultures of sexism and discrimination. In the same way that culture can legitimate nice behaviours like commitment or creativity, we need to be able to see its ability to legitimate nasty behaviours like sexual harassment and racism. In November 2018, Google employees staged a walkout to protest the treatment of women at the company. From unequal pay to forced arbitration in sexual harassment cases, in the same way that culture encourages team-building, it can also legitimate and normalize misogyny.
Google Issue
Emphasises equality and plays down hierarchy. Company has a casual atmosphere supported by a flat organisational structure with few middle managers. Informal relations are encouraged through informal dress code, theme days. Google has extensive leisure facilities, outdoor seating for 'sunshine brainstorming' etc. Google often tops lists of places that people love to work with employees often praising the freedom and the company's culture. Team building is emphasised as employees work in loose teams in relaxed atmosphere with lots of collaboration needed in work. Team members have equal amount of authority. Few single offices, most shared with 3 to 4 people. Selective recruitment, so when CV is sent in, it is stored on system so that other employees can give their view on the applicant.
Google as example
Conducted on workers at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company by Elton Mayo in 1920's. Part of a refocus on managerial strategy incorporating the socio-psychological aspects of human behaviour in organisations. Well-lit workplace increases productivity, as well as having a clean workstation, allowing employees to build and work in teams, and having regular breaks. While these were the direct findings from the Hawthorne study, none of them were groundbreaking. Western Electric were keen to prove a link between illumination and productivity in order to sell lightbulbs. Mayo describes this as Hawthorn effect - the tendency of people bribing observed to behave differently than they otherwise would. The experiment concluded lighting that could be number amongst a wide array of different factors affecting production. 'There is the feeling that better output is in some way related to a distinctly pleasanter, freer, and happier working conditions' (Mayo, 1993:69).
Hawthorne Studies (Human Relations School)
Amazon workers have scientifically trained staff. Divided equal amount of labour between management and workers. There is co-operation between management and workers. But have set impossible targets which can lead to running under stress which can then lead to injuries and health issues.
How does Amazon Case Study link to Scientific Management?
1. Selectively recruit managers and employees who will conform to represent and embody the culture. 2. Enforce common values and norms relating to the work (vids, slogans, team building events). 3. Downplaying 'Hierarchy' 4. Encouraging informality and 'fun' in work place through informal dress code and parties. 5. Storytelling and myth imaging especially around 'heroic' founders.
How is culture managed?
The Human Relations School regards workers as social being, driven by a need for belonging and acceptance. Seems to leverage this social interaction necessary so that norms emergent from group interaction might aid in achieving managerial objectives. Role of manager becomes one of 'winning hearts and minds' i.e. we care about employees but only as long as doing so continued to be profitable for us.
Human Relations Management is Normative Control
Both are interested in efficiency and increasing output, but understand the employees role in this differently. Both approaches focus on the behaviour of employees (e.g. turning up on time, employee doing what is asked of them). With commercial concern being over the impact of absenteeism and level of productivity on profitability. Both approaches are involved in legitimating the right management to manage aspects of employees that were previously seen as out of bonds or out of reach. Both are strategies or organisational control, one is rational and other is normative. Both are expensive forms of management.
Human Relations vs Scientific Management
Highlight the importance of collaboration and co-operation to productivity. Mayo argued that such collaboration and co-operation can only be created through the emergence of elite managers trained in techniques of social organisation and control. He said the role of the manager as a councillor who would help maladjusted employees respond to organisational norms.
Importance of Human Relations School and Mayo?
Studies of cabin crew people say it can be stressful as they have to present care, concern and always have a smile even when they don't want to.
Is Customer Service Worth it? (Aesthetic Labour)
Mayo provides the conservative business community with a sound body of intellectual prize-fighters who would support them when they launched their post New Deal campaign to win back the 'right to manage' that they believed had been challenged during this era and would would ensure their undemocratic demands were painted not in the language of authoritanism but that of humanism (Bruce & Nyland, 2011: 401).
Is HR Management Nice or Nasty?
As production becomes more complex, Woodward concluded the organisations chain of command becomes longer and the CEO's span of control becomes wider. The span of control of line managers as well as the number of managers was also observed to be contingent, (Clegg et al, 2016:524)
Joan Woodward in Technology and Organisational Design
Mutualism - The organisation seems to emphasise togetherness, shared responsibility, shared reward , mutual dependence is necessary to social well-being. Partnership- Structure set up in 1949 when the business was 'essentially gifted to its staff' - gave it to staff for all time. Gives each employee part ownership of the company, a share in annual profits and a say in how it is run: - Productivity increases - Absenteeism decreases - Staff turnover decreases - Levels of commitment increase - Levels is well-being improve John Lewis claims a noble purpose as a business: the happiness of its members. It could not have existed without a profoundly philanthropic prophetic - and an outright owner (no share price of shareholders to worry about) - as well as a man who was willing to sacrifice his inheritance to a dream of partnership (Johnson, 2017). The critical performative potential of the partnership model is impeded by its paternalist structures. Exclusion of Partners' participation in the market for corporate control is reflected in and compounded by a weak form of 'democratic' governance where managers are accountable to partners but not controlled by them (Paranque & Willmott, 2014: 619) John Lewis managing director Paula Nickolds says 'While others are investing in drones, we are investing in people'. This statement occurred as John Lewis announced 1,800 redundancies.
John Lewis Case Study (HR Management)
Transformational Leader: 1. Idealised Influence (charisma) 2. Inspirational Stimulation 3. Inspirational Motivation 4. Individualised Consideration Transformational leaders transform their followers by appealing to their higher ideas, values and aspirations. "Where transformational leaders uplift the morale, motivation and morals of their followers, transactional leaders cater to their followers immediate self-interest" (Bass, 1999:9) Transactional Leader: Contingent Reward (Rewards or Punishments) Management by Exception Laissez-Faire: Delegative Leadership, where leaders are hands off and allow group members to make decisions. Research found that this leadership results into the lowest productivity levels. Leader is not looking to transform or improve future but wants things to stay the same.
Key Characteristic of Transformational Leadership
1. Recruitment and selection of employees fitting a particular brand image. 2. Control of image and appearance. 3. Prescription of uniforms or enforcing of dress codes. 4. Cultivation of specific customer service skills and training on how to act in the retail environment. (Warhurst & Nickson, 2007)
Key Characteristics of Aesthetic Labour
1. Unpredictable flow of work 2. Fast-paced work under tight deadlines 3. Inordinate scope of responsibility that amounts to more than one job 4. Work-related events outside work hours 5. Availability to clients 24/7 6. Physical presence at workplace at least 10 hours a day
Key Characteristics of Extreme Working
1. Power belongs to an office separate from the office holder. 2. The relations of power in an organisation have a distinct configuration (hierarchy). 4. Action guided by disciplinary systems of knowledge. 5. Rules are formally codified. 6. Written documentation of rules. 7. Specialisation and carrying out tasks by specific office holders. 8. Limits and boundaries to the office. 9. Personnel should have authority commensurate to their office. 11. Duties, rights, obligations and responsibilities. 12. Formal credential required for organisational positions. 14. Differential pay. 15. Communication, co-ordination and control.
Key Principles of Bureaucracy
1. Individual enthusiasm manifested in the values of dedication, loyalty, self-sacrifice and passion. 2. A strong customer focus. 3. Management discourse characterised by a language of team and family. 4. Public displays such as artefacts, photos, awards and decorations etc. (Clegg et al, 2016: 219)
Key Principles of Culture
1. Work is a group, not individual activity. 2. Work is a central life interest for most people and most of their lives are patterned around it. 3. People find sense of belonging to social group and need for recognition and satisfaction which is vital for productivity. 4. When workers complain, it is likely to be a manifestation of a deeper pathological issue. 5. Management can foster collaboration within informal groups to create greater cohesion and unity at work with positive organisational benefits. (Clegg et al, 2016: 462).
Key Principles of Human Relations Management
Used for 'stable conditions' 1. Specialised differentiation of functional tasks 2. Each individual task is abstract 3. Clear definitions of rights and obligations of each role 4. Hierarchical structure of authority, control and communication 5. Concentration of knowledge at top of hierarchy (Burns & Stalker 1961) 6. 'Vertical interaction' between superviser and supervisees, with instructions and respect. 7. Translation of relative rights and obligations into functional positions. Highly organised, rigid and bureaucratic structure, epitomised by formal procedures, constant business activities and slow response to change.
Key Principles of Mechanistic
Used for rapidly changing industry 2. Less clear responsibilities, rights and obligations. 3. A 'network structure' of control, authority and communication. 4. Knowledge and technical expertise dissipated through organisation rather than just at top. 5. Commitment to task rather than obedience to hierarchy. 6. More lateral than vertical communication, consisting often of information and advice rather than instructions and decisions. 7. Individuals can make decisions and adjust their focus, role and task accordingly.
Key Principles of Organic
Knowledge spread among employees. Loose Roles. Face-to-face communication. Commitment to goals (outputs). People are treated as individuals. Consensus, dialogue, values. Merit (Performances). Open organisational boundaries. Decentralised decision making pushed to lower levels.
Key Principles of Post - Bureaucracy
Proper scientific analysis of work was required to determine the most efficient series of operations leading to the development of a true science of work. To develop a 'first class' workforce, must be scientifically selected and trained. Management and workers need to heavily co-operate in order to achieve a science of work. There should be a 'equal division of work' between management and workers.
Key Principles of Scientific Management
"The process of directing, controlling, motivating and inspiring staff towards the realisation of stated organisational goals" (Clegg et al, 2016: 123)
Leadership Definition
Popular theories of transformation/ transactional leadership offer a framework for leadership behaviour. However, we need to continue to be skeptimistic towards the uncritical celebration of leaders and the overemphasising on them as the most important parts of the organisation.
Leadership Summary
Donaldson saw managers as able to make structural adjustments to correct a 'misfit' between the organisation and its contingencies. Whether changes in market conditions, the firm's market share, rates of growth, performance etc. The organisation could adapt. (Clegg et al, 2016).
Lex Donaldson on Structural Adjustment to regain fit
Can be defined as prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of appearance unlike discrimination based on age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability etc. It is not considered to be illegal.
Lookism
Aesthetic labour presents the escalation of control to the point where not only the body / mind but the entire personhood of the worker is viewed as a tool for management in order to achieve its ends.
Managerial Control (Aesthetic Labour)
One where there is a 'greater managerial power', structural centralisation, substantial growth of organisational size, rising staff- student ratios, more emphasis on marketing and business generation and the rationalisation and computerisation of administrative structures. (Parker & Jary, 1995: 324)
McUniversity?
Bureaucracy makes 'holocaust- style' solutions not only possible, but eminently 'reasonable' and increases the probability of their choice. This increase in probability is more than fortuitously related to the ability of modern bureaucracy to coordinate the action of great number of moral individuals in the pursuit of any, also immoral ends. Bauman (1989: 18)
Modernity and Holocaust
Workers were naturally lazy and worked as little as possible
Natural Soldiering
Seeks to control the underlying experience of work to shape the thoughts and feelings that guide individuals' actions. It's about winning over 'hearts and minds' so that employees conform to the norms and values dictated by management.
Normative Control
The 'rational' control structures which underpin Taylor's thought reflect a belief in self-interest, efficiency in use of technology and organisational structures etc. Taylor's core ideas of seeking an efficient way of work though a science of recruiting, training and organising employees remains important.
Normative vs Rational Control?
Hugely popular within organisations, supposedly fuelling collaboration and creativity. Symbolic shift towards flatter organisation structures and a stripping back of many of the formal aspects of organisation associated with bureaucracy.
Open - Plan Office
Originally founded in 1844 and moved to just publishing in the 1920s. Has since then become the largest book publisher in the world. In 2017, company posted the largest loss in its history. To cope and improve their continual losses over the next few years they announced a restructuring plan in 2013 to invest in digital learning and emerging markets. Which led to job cuts in 2016 and 2017 to facilitate changes.
Pearson Publishing
1. A bias for action. 2. Being close to the customer. 3. Productivity through people. 4. Hands-on, value-driven, committed management. 5. Stick to what you know. 6. Simple form, lean staff. 7. Simultaneous loose-tight properties.
Peters and Waterman in Detail
'Broad term to describe a new organisational form. The principal features of post- bureaucracy includes the reduction of formal levels of hierarchy, an emphasis on flexibility rather the rule following and the creation of a more permeable boundary between the inside and outside of organisations' (Grey & Garsten, 2001:230)
Post-Bureaucracy Definition
Which underling Taylor's thought reflect a belief in self-interest, efficiency in use of technology and organisational structures etc.
Rational Control
Impartial application of rules leads to fairer organisation if written rules say everyone must wear ID badges, then they should be able to stop the CEO or celeb to get them a badge. Bureaucracy has no space for nepotism or favouritism, everyone follows the rules. In commitment to impartiality, bureaucracy seems nice rather than nasty. The codification of rules means that it is not particularly changeable (except through procedures) and operates on a rational structure of control.
Rules? (Bureaucracy)
"These companies give people control over their destinies, turn the average Joe and Jane into winners and they let and even insist that people stick out".
Said by Peters & Waterman, 1982: 238-9
Principle that there is one best way to organise work and organisation. Science of management is based upon principles of standardisation of time and rationalisation of motion as decided by time and motion experts (Clegg et al, 2016)
Scientific Management Definition
Role of manager seems to be changing from one who controls to one who is supposed to enable self-control. Most forms expect employees to self-manage to assign themselves to groups, set their own goals etc. Create a flat 'bossless' environment. This offers workers greater freedom, autonomy and capacity to be engaged in their work.
Self-Management (Post-Bureaucracy)
A system of organisation that price lagged the rational application of written rules by office holders with specific spheres of competence within a hierarchy while it has often been vilified for its formalism and instrumental rationality. We can perhaps see how an ideal bureaucracy can function as an impetus towards fair organisational conduct.
Summary of Bureaucracy
Critically reflect on the fact that we have a term to describe the ways in which employees are subjected to inhuman conditions by systematically cultivating what are workaholic environments that expose workers to stress, burnout and psychic dysfunction etc. Between long hours, excessive demands beyond the scope of a single job and unpredictability, contemporary work seems quite nasty. UK's public services in particularly seems to be characterised by extreme work and need to reflect on the management ideology.
Summary of Extreme Management
Mayo suggests that the best way of management is to pay more attention to the social relationships at work, allowing for informal group relationships and team working that can motivate and encourage workers, not through overt rational control, but through norms and collective agreement.
Summary of Human Relations Management
Broader social trends have led to organisations being understood as needing freedom, flexibility, informality, decentralised control and less burdensome rules and regulations. The rise of post-bureaucratic organisational teams as well as the emphasis of self-management can be thought of as a response to this.
Summary of Post-Bureaucratic System
Workers co ordinated and cooperated with each other in order to exceed output to keep jobs and maximise staff levels
Systematic Soldiering
"Our endeavour was to learn what really constituted a full day's work for a first-class man; the best day's work that a man could properly do, year in and out and still thrive under".
Taylor Frederick Quote
Scientific study of work leading to its division into minute and regularised movements. Belief in the existence of a 'one best way' to manage. Separation of the conception of work from its execution - a shift in control of work to management and the legitimation of management as a profession. Workers understood as being motivated primarily by wages/ monetary rewards.
Taylorism Principles
Prompts you to critically reflect on whether culture management is morally defensible as a practice. Willmott highlights the double think and other forms of oppressive control that are taken for granted parts of organisational life. Nothing off-limits for manager, can affect employees beliefs, feelings and appearance.
The Work of Wilmott (1993)
1. Assumes people are born with qualities that are stable across time and situations which differentiate leaders from non-leaders (Clegg et al, 2016:126) 2. Assumes that leadership is an observable set of behaviour that can be taught (Clegg et al, 2016: 126)
Theories of Leadership: 1. Trait Theories 2. Behavioural Theories
"The decisive reason for the advance of bureaucratic organisation has always been its purely technical superiority over any other form of organisation". Precision, speed, ambiguity, knowledge of the files continuity, discretion, and personal costs - these are all raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration. (Weber, 1967: 214)
Weber's Beliefs
An official or office holder occupies a particular sphere of competence in which they are vested with legal-rational authority in order to carry out specific responsibilities, make decisions etc. Other key things to note about the concept of office is that it is not attached to the individual (i.e. operates on the basis of legal- rational authority). An office holder should be trained or have technical qualification that qualify them for the office. They should be compensated with a wage, there is a hierarchical organisation of offices that can be promoted through.
Weber's Beliefs on the 'Office'
1. Person possesses authority because of how compelling they are, how inspiring and powerful they seem etc. (A religious leader). 2. Person possesses authority because of custom (eg. Monarchy). 3. Person possesses authority because they have been given it by a system of rules, statutes, codes and regulations (e.g. a manager).
Weber's Types of Authority: 1. Charismatic 2. Traditional 3. Rational-Legal
The use of engineering principles would lead to a reduction in waste and increase in production and efficiency, benefitting the employees and society in general Born in 1856, credited with development of 'scientific management' style of managing reflective of the application of engineering logic to the organisation of people. Taylor's attempt to find the 'one best way' of managing continues to shape organisations in the present day. Taylor believed that workers 'soldiered' or deliberately worked at less than their full capacity.
What did Frederick Taylor do?
"Restructuring of the company is designed to strengthen dramatically Pearson's position in digital education services and in our most important markets for the future".
What did John Fallon (CEO) say?
"Managers plan, budget, organise, oversee staffing and achieve planned objectives by controlling and problem solving. Leaders conversely develop a vision or set of direction, align people to it and then motivate and inspire them to achieve it"- (Kotter 2001)
What do Leaders really do?
There is no one best way of structuring an organisation but rather that we need to pay attention to the environment, technology and size of the company in order to determine the best way.
What does Contingency Theory suggest?
The typical person in authority occupies an 'office'. In the action associated with his status, including the commands he issues to others. He is subjected to an impersonal order to which his actions are oriented. There is an obligation to obedience only within the sphere of rationality delimited authority which, in terms of the order, has been conferred upon him. (Weber, 1947: 330)
What is an Office?
Bellamy predicted that people might not have to work or would only work a few hours each week. Where people would retire at 45. Such a society could be possible as machines produce goods. But the opposite of his predictions happened, we work longer hours, retiring at later age if affordable. Some firms are experimenting with 4 days week but it is only a few companies.
What was the 'Future of Work' suppose to look like?
Born in 1864, credited with being the author responsible for the first chronicling and describing bureaucracy. Contemporary usage of term as 'red-tape' or inevitable nasty form of management is reductive. Despite the fact that Weber saw bureaucracy as fair and impartial, it has gathered a reputation for being nasty seen as inefficient, stifling creativity and innovation and dehumanising.
Who is Max Weber?
Born in 1889, credited with research that pioneered the Human Relations School of Management. Mayo believed in 'one best way' of managing but believed this was achieved though work groups and teams.
Who was Elton Mayo (Human Relations Management)