Organizational BehaviorScientific Management
Dr. Len Elovitz
Chapter 1 & 3 in Owens & Valesky
 What is the prime function of
administration?
Organizational Behavior
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Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study of human behavior
in the context of an organization.
OB is both a field of scientific inquiry and a field of applied
practice.
Origins of scientific inquiry come from social science
disciplines:
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Cultural anthropology, sociology, social psychology, political science,
and economics.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Kurt Lewin—father of social psychology-1930’s
Margaret Mead—cultural anthropologist-1940’s
Pioneers in the discovery of the group decision
making process—a central concept of OB.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Why Study Organizational Behavior
and its History?
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Leadership and administration means working with and
through other people to achieve organizational goals.
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A major cause of failure by principals is not having a theory of
practice.
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Only by knowing the contributions of those who came before
us, can we prepare ourselves for making strategic and tactical
decisions to undergrid our leadership.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Public Administration as a
Beginning
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Woodrow Wilson wrote a now-famous essay The
Study of Administration in 1887.
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He argued for the study of administration as a subject
fit for serious treatment by universities.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Industrial Revolution – 1790’s1860’s
 Colonial Economy Prior to 1790
 Started with mechanization of the textiles
industry
 Iron production
 Steam power
2nd Industrial Revolution –
1860’s
 Began with Bessemer Steel
 Use of electricity & internal combustion
engine
Information Age
 Also commonly known as the Computer
Age or Digital Age
 characterized by the ability of individuals
to transfer information freely, and to
have instant access to information that
would have been difficult or impossible to
find previously.
“The Information Age formed by capitalizing on the
computer microminiaturization advances, with a
transition spanning from the advent of the personal
computer in the late 1970s to the internet's reaching a
critical mass in the early 1990s, and the adoption of
such technology by the public in the two decades after
1990. Bringing about a fast evolution of technology in
daily life, as well as of educational life style, the
Information Age has allowed rapid global
communications and networking to shape modern
society.”
Wikipedia
Industrial Age Learning Assumptions
• Children are in deficit mode and schools will fix
them
• Learning takes place in the head, not the body as
a whole
• Everybody learns, or should learn, in the same
way
• Learning takes place in the classroom, not the
world
• There are smart kids and dumb kids
Industrial Age School Assumptions
• Schools are run by specialists who
maintain control
• Knowledge is inherently fragmented
• Learning is primarily individualistic and
competitive
• Experts can save us
• Don’t open the door to the community
• Any change can be handled quickly,
efficiently, and linearly.
Industrial Age School
 Mid 18th century
 Designed like a factory
 Assembly line
– Segregated by age - grades
– Everyone moves together
– Each stage has a supervisor - teacher
– Uniform speed controlled by bells
– How is this type of an organization managed?
Information Age School Assumptions
 Learning centered rather than teacher centered
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learning
Encourage variety, not homogeneity
Understand world of interdependence and
change rather than fact and right answers
Schools need to constantly explore theory-in-use
Reintegrating education within walls of social
relationships that link community
Industrial Revolution
 Goal
– greater profitability
 Objective
– Lower the unit costs of production
 Solution
– Assembly line - Henry Ford
Ford Assembly Line
BMW Assembly Line
Another Brick in The Wall
Impact of the Industrial
Revolution

Frederick W. Taylor—father of Scientific Management was
influenced by Wilson’s essay.
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Engineer – Midvale & Bethlehem Steel
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Pig-Iron
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 Taylor’s goal- increase worker productivity.
 There is one best way of doing things
 That method could be discovered through
scientific study & analysis
 Time-and-motion studies
 Efficiency experts
Principles of Scientific Management
Frederick Taylor - 1900-15
1. Eliminate the guesswork of rule-of-thumb approaches to
deciding how each worker is to do a job by adopting
scientific measurements to break the job down into a
series of small, related tasks
2. Use more scientific, systematic methods for selecting
workers and training them for specific jobs instead of
allowing workers to choose their own tasks and train
themselves as best they could
Principles of Scientific Management
3. Establish the concept that there is a clear division of
responsibility between management and workers, with
management doing goal setting, planning, and supervising,
and workers executing required tasks.
4. Establish the discipline whereby management sets the
objectives and the workers cooperate in achieving them.
-Frederick Taylor
TAYLOR’S PRINCIPLES
 TOP-DOWN
 AUTHORITARIAN
 TIME-MOTION STUDIES
 RIGID DISCIPLINE ON THE JOB
 LITTLE INTERACTION BETWEEN WORKERS
 INCENTIVE PAY SYSTEMS
 EFFICIENCY EXPERTS
Application to Education
 How do Taylor’s principles apply?
 Is that good or bad?
Impact of the Industrial Revolution
(continued)
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Frank B. Gilbreth, one of Taylor’s close colleagues, studied
time and motion in performing routine tasks.
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led to a best-selling book and motion picture Cheaper by the Dozen.
Scientific Management led to:
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Time and motion studies
Rigid discipline on the job.
Concentration on tasks with minimal interpersonal contact.
Strict application of incentive pay.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Application to Education
 Starting in the early 1900s administrators began
applying Taylor’s principles to schools
 Developed learning outcomes and take periodic
measurement to see if they are reached
 Documentation of teaching activities to minimize
time waste
 Platoon schools (1908 Gary, Indiana) run on rigid
schedules controlled by bells
 Departmentaliztion
Educational Administrators –
1900-1930
 Saw themselves as managers not educators
 Leadership departments at colleges did
research on things such as best way to
maintain floors, etc.
 Adopted the attitudes of business and
industrial managers
 Principals set the rules teachers followed
them
Administrative Management Theory
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Henri Fayol, a French industrialist, published General
Industrial Management in 1916.
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Unlike Taylor, who tended to view workers as extensions of factory
machinery, Fayol focused his attention on the manager rather than on
the worker.
He clearly separated the processes of administration from other
operations in the organization, such as production.
He emphasized the common elements of the process of administration
in different organizations.
Believed a trained administrative group was essential to improving the
operations of an organization
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Henri Fayol’s Contributions
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Fayol defined administration in terms of five
functions:
Planning
 Organizing
 Commanding (interpreted as Leading)
 Coordinating
 Controlling (interpreted as evaluating)
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 Do Fayol’s functions of an administrator
apply in education?
Luther Gulick 1930s
 Helped FDR
reorganize the
executive branch
 Built onto Fayol
 The functions of a
chief executive
– POSDCoRB
• Planning
• Organizing
• Staffing
• Directing
• Coordinating
• Reporting
• Budgeting
Division of labor
 The more a task is broken down into its
components, the more specialized and
effective workers can become
 Tasks were grouped into jobs and jobs into
departments
 Leads to standardization
Span of Control
 The number of workers directly supervised
 5 to 10 considered optimum
Homogeneity
 Departments are formed in one or more of
the following different ways:
–
–
–
–
Major Purpose
Major Process
Clientele Served
Location
 Is bureaucracy a dirty word?
 In the early 1900s, people began to
increasingly be the focus in large
organizations
 Mixing people of diverse backgrounds,
values, beliefs and talents led to social,
economic and political tensions
 Conflict between people and organizations
led to labor unrest – unions, communism
Weber
 Believed that hope lied in the establishment
of well run bureaucracies
 Wrote 1910 – 20, but not translated until
1940’s
 Not recognized until after WWII
 Warned against the dangers
Max Weber
 Hope lied in the establishment of well run
bureaucracies that would be:
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•
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•
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Fairer
More Impartial
More Practicable
More rational
More Efficient
More Impersonal
Weber’s Principles of
Administration
 A division of labor based on functional specialization
 A well-defined hierarchy of authority
 A system of rules covering the rights and duties of
employees
 A system of procedures for dealing with work situations
 Impersonality of interpersonal relations
 Selection and promotion based only on technical
competence
Criticism of Weber
 Not attentive to dysfunctional features of
his model
 Neglects the informal organization
 Does not recognize potential internal
contradictions among the elements of his
model
 It is gender biased
Bureaucracy in Schools –
Division of Labor
– Level
• Elementary
• Middle
• Secondary
–
– Subject
– English
• Math
• Science
– Biology
– Chemistry
Efficiency increases due to specialization – teachers become
Experts at performing assigned tasks.
Consequences of Specialization
 Boredom – 5 1-act plays in one day
 Narrow thinking – it’s not my job
 Low involvement in solving school
problems
 Departmental competition
 Resistance to transfers
Impersonality
 Assures equality of treatment by
administrators and teachers.
 Decisions based on facts not feelings.
 Consequences
– Sterile atmosphere
– Low morale
– Poor teaching model not dealing with students
as human beings
Hierarchy of Authority
Consequences
 Enhances coordination but frequently at the
expense of communication
– Distortion –
• “don’t give me no bad news”
• Telephone game
– Blockage – failure to pass along information
Rules & Regulations
 Statutes – Title18A
 Code – Title 6
 Board Policy
 Regulations
 School procedures
Consequences
 Provide continuity, coordination, stability
and uniformity, but can lead to rigidity and
goal displacement
– Administrators and teachers become so rules
oriented that they forget that rules and
regulations are a means to reach the goals not
the goals themselves
– Interferes with ability to change
Career Orientation
 “… a system of promotion according to
seniority, achievement, or both. Promotion
is dependent on the judgment of superiors.”
 Salary guides
 Merit Pay
 Tenure
 Up and out of the classroom
The informal organization
 A system of interpersonal relations that
forms spontaneously within all formal
organizations
 Formation of subgroups and cliques
 Where is the power?
Internal conflicts
 Is authority based on technical competence
and knowledge or legal powers and
discipline?
 We’ll discuss in more detail later in the
course
 Professional organizations such as schools
where subordinates may have a greater
knowledge and expertise than
superordinates
Feminist critique
 Although Weber would argue that his
bureaucracy by its nature is gender neutral,
emphasis on full-time commitment and
extensive training hinders women who
routinely face the conflict of job and family
demands.
 Emphasis on authority, rules, regulations
and rationality creates paternalistic
domination
The Rise of Classical Organizational
Theory

Raymond Callahan in Education and the Cult of Efficiency,
described how superintendents rushed to apply scientific
management principles.
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Ellwood Cubberley, a leading scholar in education, wrote a
landmark textbook in 1916.
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Schools were “factories in which the raw materials are to be shaped and
fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life.”
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
The Rise of Classical Organizational
Theory (continued)
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Fred Ayer ( U of Texas)—studied superintendents’ work in 1926-27.
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Board Meetings
Wrote reports
Supervised Teachers
Went to the post office
Ran the Mimeo
Inspected Toilets
Inspected Janitors’ work
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University programs in preparing administrators focused on management
tasks. – areas of research included efficient techniques for cleaning floors
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Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick (1937) synthesized classical
organizational principles. Noted for their contribution of:
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Formal Organizational Charts--elements of organization could be grouped by
function.
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Organizational Concepts of Classical
Theory
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Scalar Principle (“line and staff”).
Unity of Command.
Exception Principle. - Policy & Regulation
Span of Control.
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The Ideas of Mary Parker Follett
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Influenced by the Stock Market crash of 1939 and her views of
the corporate world, led to modifying classical management
theory.
Productvity is improved by considering the individual
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Her four principles of administration:
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coordination by direct contact of the responsible people concerned.
coordination in the early stages.
coordination as the reciprocal relating of all the factors in the situation
(“law of the situation”).
coordination as a continuing process.
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 Management Summary