Greg Dawson
Management 710
Morgan Chapter 2
Question 1
 The John Henry story and Chapter two of Morgan do relate. Organizations that are designed and
operated as if they were machines are now usually called bureaucracies. Most organizations are
bureaucratized in some degree, for the mechanical mode of thought has shaped our most basic
conceptions of what organizations is all about.
 Organizations are rarely established as ends in themselves. They are instruments created to achieve
other ends. This is reflected in the origins of the organization, which derives from the Greek organom,
meaning tool or instrument.
 Machines now influence virtually every aspect of our existence. They have increased our productive
abilities a thousandfold.
 We refer to organizations as if they were machines: in a routinized, efficient, reliable, and predictable
way.
Question 2
 The machine metaphor relates to Morgan in the following:
1. Set goals and objectives and go for them.
2. Organize rationally, efficiently, and clearly.
3. Specify every detail so that everyone will be sure of the jobs that they have to perform.
4. Plan, organize, and control.
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Working in management, I see how machines can increase production tremendously. I also see
workers become dependent on these machines. They sometimes lose their ability to think and be
creative concerning their jobs. They also become so dependent on these machines, that when the do
break down, they do not know how to handle the situation.
I have also learned that machines do not have personal problems!
Some employees get in the routine of doing the same thing over and over again, like a machine, and it
can be difficult to present new ways or ideas to create a more efficient workplace.
Question 3
 I believe that machines push an individual to worker faster and produce more output. Machines can be
made to run faster which in turn requires the individual to work faster to keep up with the machine. As
in the John Henry story, John died at the end as a result of exhaustion.
 In the sandwich production process, the machines can be set to run faster, thus pushing an employee to
catch and sort quicker.
 I think that machines can require us to work faster, possibly causing health problems such as stress to
keep up or carpal tunnel.
Question 4
 With innovation comes new technology that can be programmed into computers and machines.
Technology has helped to perpetuate the machine-like nature of work. Along with repetition comes
speed in processing and productivity. If you do the same thing over and over again, you build up
speed.
 Innovation and repetition lead to faster means of getting to the final goal. Innovation can come from
new technology or new ideas.
Question 5
 Machines break down, but they do not have personal problems. They are always there. They do not
have to go home early. They do not have children or need a lot of maintenance.
 I think a lot of managers are concerned with getting the product out to the market. They become use to
machines and their ability to not need all the maintenance associated with employees.
 Employees sometimes fell that a company treats them unfairly because of managers not giving them
the attention they feel they need or deserve.
 If we think of ourselves as machines, we have the tendency to forget about the more simple aspects of
life. We are always pushed to get production out.
 We tend to forget about families and other aspects that are important.
 I see many managers and co-workers putting in a lot more hours in a day than should be. I see them
not avoiding their families, but being so tires after a full day of work that they are to exhausted to
spend time with them.
 I think today, you see a lot more people in counseling, an increase in the divorce rate, and even an
increase in the suciside rate of managers. I hear of a lot more health problems associated with
management positions.
 I think the good does outweigh the bad. A successful manager has been introduced to a lot of decision
making that effects many people. In many cases, the decisions a successful manager makes, helps to
keep other individuals employed and help the company to grow.
Question 6
 Most organizations operate on the same principles. They want what is best for their final user and
employees.
 I think that if a company is organized and successful, then the morale of employees is much higher.
 Usually firms that have good organization, their employees want to come to work. In firms where
organization is not so much important, employees are hesitant about work, and can have bad attitudes
toward the company.
Chapter 3 Questions
Question 1
 Theories of motivation, pioneered by Abraham Maslow, presented the human being as a king of
psychological organism struggling to satisfy its needs in a quest for full growth and development.
 Maslow's theory suggests that humans are motivated by a hierarchy of needs progressing through the
physiological, the social, and psychological.
 Maslow's theory suggested that bureaucratic organizations that sought to motivate employees through
money or by merely providing a secure job confined human development to the lower levels of the
need hierarchy.
 Many management theorists were quick to see that jobs and interpersonal relations could be redesigned
to create conditions for personal growth that would simultaneously help organizations achieve their
aims and objectives.
 These ideas provided a framework for Human Resource Managers.
Question 2
 Much attention was focused on the idea of making employees feel more useful and important by giving
them meaningful jobs and by giving as much autonomy, responsibility, and recognition as possible as a
means of getting the involved in work.
 Job enrichment, combined with a more participative, democratic, and employee-centered style of
leadership, arose as an alternative to the excessive narrow, authoritarian, and dehumanizing work
orientation generated by scientific management and classical management theory.
Question 3
 Yes, Maslow's theory can be applied to organization. See answer to Question 2
Question 4
 Some successful firms avoid organizational hierarchies and avoid narrow departmentalization, with
individuals and groups defining and redefining roles in a collaborative manner in connection with the
task facing the organization as a whole.
 These firms create innovative, team-based organizations having more in common with an amoeba than
a machine.
.Question 5
 The organismic metaphor opens our mind to a systematic and novel way of thinking.
 By exploring the parallels between organisms and organizations in terms of organic functioning,
relations with the environment, relations between species, and the wider ecology, it has been possible
to produce different theories and explanations that have very practical implications for organization
and management.
 One of the greatest strengths of the metaphor stems from the emphasis placed on understanding
relations between organizations and their environment.
 The management of organizations can often be improved through systematic attention to the "needs"
that must be satisfied if the organization is to survive.
 Another advantage of the metaphor is that is stresses the virtue of organic forms of organization in the
process of innovation.
 The metaphor is making important contributions through a focus on the "ecology" and
interorganizational relations.
 A disadvantage of the metaphor is that organisms live in a natural world with material properties that
determine the life and welfare of its inhabitants.
 Organizations are very much the product of visions, ideas, norms, and beliefs, so their shape and
structure is much more fragile and tentative than the material structure of an organism.
 Organizational environments can also be seen as being a product of human creativity because they are
made through the actions of the individuals, groups, and organizations who populate them.
 Another limitation of organismic metaphor rests in the assumption of "functional unity".
Question 6
Question 7
 Yes, you have to draw the line at some point when you feel that the companies integrity is in danger.
Question 8
 The population-ecology view of organization in effect develops an equivalent ideology for modern
times, holding up a mirror to the organizational world and suggesting that the view we see reflects a
law of nature.
 In effect, natural law is involved to legitimize the organization of society.
 There are real dangers in doing this because when we take the parallels between nature and society too
seriously we fail to see that human beings, in principle, have a large measure of influence and choice
over what their world can do.
Question 9
 Organization ecology suggests that organisms do not evolve by adapting to environmental changes or
as a result of these changes selecting the organism and their environments.
 It is the pattern, not just the separate units comprising the pattern, that evolves.
Morgan Chapter 4
Question 1
 Daniel Dennett suggests that what we see and experience in the brain as a highly ordered stream of
consciousness is really the result of amore chaotic process where multiple possibilities--what he calls
"multiple drafts"--are generated as a result of activity distributed throughout the brain.
 There is no master, centralized intelligence.
 The brain as a system engages in an incredibly diverse set of parallel activities that make
complementary and competing contributions to what eventually emerges as a coherent pattern.
Question 2
 Genghis ahs been designed as a kind of "mechanical cockroach" that has six legs and no brain.
 Each leg has its own microprocessor that can act as a sensing device that allows it to "think for itself"
and determine its action.
 Within the body of the machine other semi-independent "thinking" devices coordinate communicatin
between the legs.
 The walking process emerges as a result of the piecemeal intelligence.
 The independence of the legs gives great flexibility and avoids the mammoth task of processing all the
information that would be necessary to coordinate the operation of the six legs as an integral process.
Question 3
 Computers have come a long way in the last 10 years. They are now compact, and can do thousands
more calculations a second years ago. I think it would be very hard for society to operate without
computers. They have become integrated into our lifestyle.
Question 4
 With computers and just in time inventory systems, there is no need to tie up cash in large inventories.
With the help of computers in forecasting, orders can arrive when needed. Warehouse space can be
saved, and in the case of goods that have to be refrigerated, electricity can be saved.
Question 5
 Intelligence is a must now days for organization. Computers can generate the information needed, but
employees have to have the ability and know how to get the information out of the computers.
Computers practically run some businesses today, turning machines on and off, and even alerting them
when there is a problem.
Question 6
 A reward or punishment.
Question 7
 Key employees can see changes that need to be made, but the bureaucracy and red tape is always there.
People forget to make changes. Time is also a major factor. Problems associated with implementation
can keep thing from being addressed. Employee turnover--need I say more.
Question 8
 Defensive routines seem to be learned early in life and hinges on various kinds of face-saving,
processes through which people seek to protect themselves and others from embarrassment or threat.
 In organizational context, formal structures, rules, job descriptions, and various conventions and
beliefs offer themselves as convenient allies in the process of self-protection and are used both
consciously and unconsciously for this purpose.
 Defensive routines can become a central part of the culture of organization, generating shared norms
and patterns of "groupthink" that prevent people from addressing key aspects of the reality with which
they are dealing.
Question 9
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Strategic development may run ahead of organizational reality because of the tendency for current
operations to get caught in patterns of single-loop learning.
Despite an outright commitment to constant improvement, many TQM programs have caught in old
bureaucratic patterns and cultural norms, leading to failure in the region of 70 percent.
Question 10
 Intelligent leadership is good, but anyone can make a mistake. Once a mistake is made, it is almost
impossible to go back and correct it. Mistakes can cost companies millions of dollars.
Question 11
 Holograms are self-organizing phenomena.
 There is no coherent images of the brain to which everyone subscribes.
 Principles of Holograms
1. Build the "whole" into the "parts". Networked Intelligence, Structures that reproduce themselves
2. The importance of redundancy. Information processing & skills and the design of work
3. Requisite Variety. Internal complexity must match that of the environment
4. Minimum Specs. Define no more than absolutely necessary.
5. Learn to learn. Scan and anticipate. Double0looped learning.
Morgan Chapter 5
Question 1
 Some social scientists believe that often more useful to talk about the culture of industrial society
rather than of industrial societies because the detailed difference between countries often mask more
important commonalities.
Question 2
 Mission statements or corporate views can have a very profound effect on life in an organization.
Some organizations preach the mission statement to new and existing employees. Mission statements
are a way of life for many corporations.
Question 3
 He believes that Japanese organizations combine the cultural values of the rice fields with the spirit of
service of the samurai. Whereas the former is crucial for understanding solidarity in the factory, the
latter accounts for many characteristics of management and for the pattern of interorganizational
relations that has played such a crucial role in Japan's economic success.
Question 4
 It is difficult to judge a culture form the outside.
 What seems to be acceptable from a Western viewpoint may be completely acceptable from within.
 Japanese organizations often celebrate overall accomplishments while ignoring some of the most
distasteful aspects of the work environment.
 Japanese arrive early and stay late.
 Japanese have constant pressure to achieve demanding work targets.
Question 5
 Winning is everything in our culture. Look at some of the fights after football games. Nobody want to
go home a loser. Some people even have to go to counseling to help deal with the fact they do not
always win.
Question 6
 Each opinion is regarded as an unnatural species. Only an exchange of slogans and beliefs were
exchanged.
Question 7
 The company seemed to emphasize cooperative values and an identity rooted in the world of
agriculture rather than in that of competitive business.
 Coexisting with the surface of friendly cooperation was a ethos was at best superficial. Meeting and
other public forums always seemed dominated by polite yet disinterested individuals.
Question 8
 H-P kept is full complement of staff, emphasizing that all members of the H-P team shared the same
fortune and that a measure of job security was possible even in unfavorable times.
 Enthusiasm for work and an ethos of sharing problems and ideas in a n atmosphere of free and open
exchange were values the organization activity encouraged.
Question 9
 The story here is one of tough and uncompromising leadership of Harold Green. Success was built on
a ruthless style of management that converted a medium sized communications business into one of
the world's largest and most powerful and diversified conglomerates, operating in over 90 countries.
 He took the ruthless approach and made it happen. Good for him.
Question 10
 Women are entering the workforce at astonishing numbers. I think they will need to take the
mainstream approach. Women let family issues get to them more than men. They will have to
understand they have a business to run, and that sometimes you have to make big decisions that effect
a lot of people.
Question 11
 Weick encourages us to recognize that the relations between an organization and its environment are
socially construed.
 Garfinkle demonstrated that the most routine and taken-for-granted aspects of social reality are in fact
skillful accomplishments.
 Sundow has illustrated that even in the administration of justice, an area of human activity where
action is supposed to be determined by clearly defined rules, the application of a specified law calls
upon background knowledge on the part of the legal officer or judge that goes well beyond what is
stated in the law itself.
Question 12
 We must attempt to understand culture as an ongoing, proactive process of reality construction.
Question 13
 They all strive to produce the best product with the best management team and employees.
Question 14
 The cultural metaphor directs attention to the symbolic significance of almost every aspect of
organizational life.
 Organizations ultimately rest in shared systems of meaning, hence in the actions and intrepretative
schemes that create and recreate that meaning.
 The cultural metaphor points toward another means of creating and shaping organized activity: by
influencing the ideologies, values, beliefs, language, norms, ceremonies, and other social practices that
ultimately shape and guide organized action.
 It encourages us to recognize the relationship between an organization and its environmnet asre
socially constructed.
 Cultural metaphors are the contribution that makes our understanding of organizations change.
Question 15
 There is often more culture than meets the eye.
 Corporate culture rests in distinctive capacities and incapacities that are built into the attitudes and
approaches of organizational members.
 Managers can never control culture in the sense that means that it pervades activity in a way that is not
amendable to direct control by any single group or individual.