The theories of public administration are drawn on from a variety of sources. The term 'administration' refers to an activity or function. The organisation, by contrast, stands for the object within which administration resides and takes place. Conceptually, the organisation has a wider connotation than administration. Hence instead of talking about administrative theories, the phrase ‘organisation theories’ is preferred.
Studies on organisation have been an ongoing process and the body of knowledge now available as organisation theory is the product of constantly evolving discussions on the phenomenon of organisation. Writings on Organisation can broadly be classified into two basic categories.
One group stands out as a distinct cluster because of its substantive interest in finding out and advocating "one best way" of structuring an organisation. This stream of thought has been called the 'universal organisation design theory.
The second group, by contrast. is much less orthodox and more flexible, as it concedes a degree of structural fluidity. and adjustment in response to such factors as technology and environmental changes. This second group has been labelled 'situational design theory’.
The two contrasting streams of thought are also known as 'closed-system and 'open-system approaches to organisational analysis. Under universal design theory, influential thoughts that have relevance to public administration alone can be identified as:
(a)
Scientific management school:
(b)
Classical theory of management, or administrative management theory;
(c) Bureaucratic theory.
Among these, the upcoming sections in this paper will discuss and evaluate the Classical theory of management, or administrative management theory.
The Classical Organisation Theory
Even though Scientific management was developed in the classical mould by Taylor and his followers, it was narrowly conceived as it focussed on efficiency at the operative level. Therefore, during the first half of this century, a broader approach to Organisation was initiated by a group of writers whose interest was chiefly in formal organisational structure and the basic management process. March and Simon have characterised this body of knowledge as administrative management theory and its proponents were called 'departmentalists’. This is also known as the traditional or classical theory of management.
The combination of the definition of the field as proposed by Wilson and the Scientific Management and Departmentalists prescriptions for organisational management and structure (relying heavily on Hierarchy as a primary mechanism for control and coordination) constituted the core of the classical approach to public administration. Weber is also related to the classical approach, but his analysis covered much wider ground.
Basic Premises of The Classical Organization Theory
The classical organization theory assumes that administration is a universal structural construct, which has universal applicability, regardless of the situation and context, and is susceptible to the same kind of problems. Therefore, the protagonists of this theory think that certain universal principles of organization can be worked out to facilitate the smooth functioning of the organization.
Contextually speaking, the classical organization theory was born in a typical Western ambience at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution had reached its apogee and efficiency and economy, became the watchwords of industrial productivity. The classical organization theory with its inherent structural bias rose up to the occasion to streamline productivity.
The classical organization theory is built
around four key pillars. They are:
●
the division of labour
●
the scalar
processes
●
the functional
processes
● structure, and span of control
The
classical theory of
organization has the
following basic premises:
1.
Efficiency and economy
are the universal goals
of all organizations;
2.
To achieve
efficiency and economy,
there is a
need to design
and re-design organizational structures
in such a
manner that the
various structural parts
of an organization function
with coordination harmony; and
3. With a view to developing greater rational structures, an organization should follow certain ‘principles’ of formal designing and re-designing various organizational parts, so that the goals of maximizing efficiency and economy are achieved with the least effort and resources.
Major Principles of the Classical Organisation Theory
The
following are the major
principles of the classical
organization theories:
1.
This school of thought assumes administration
as a universal structural construct, which is amenable to certain common
principles of organization.
2. The proponents of this approach have shown their keen interest in discovering the true basis on which division of work in an organization should be carried out.
3.
The proponents of this
approach, however, are not totally in the oblivion of the
danger of the excessive de-centring of the organizational tasks. Hence,
they put a lot of emphasis on
proper coordination in an organization.
4.
This school of thought equally favours an
element of restraint in the use of authority in administrative matters.
5.
The advocates of this school are
strongly in favour of the unity of command and direction.
6.
This school also favours the centralization
of authority.
7. Another important feature of this school of thought is the managerial perspective. Most scholars belonging to this traditional approach of administration form a typically managerial perspective and thereby prescribe a host of techniques or principles to make the organization successful.
Major Proponents of the Classical Organisation Theory
The major proponents of this theory are Henry Fayol, Luther Gullick, Lyndall Urwick, J.D. Mooney, A.C. Reiley, Mary Parker Follett, and R. Shelton, among others. In the following sections, each of these theories shall be discussed in detail.
Henry Fayol
Fayol is perhaps one of the earliest
administrative theorists to discuss the universal principle of
administration. Owing to
his long personal
experience, Fayol had
interpreted administration from the point of
view of a
manager and spelt out five
key elements of
administration, namely,
1.
planning,
2.
organizing,
3.
command,
4.
coordination, and
5. control.
He had contributed a host of papers on mining, engineering, and geology, of which 'General Principles of Administration' (1908), 'General and Industrial Management' (1916), and 'The Administrative Theory of the State' (1923) deserve special mention.
Moreover, Fayol refuted the popular distinction between management and public administration. Instead, he had opined that administration is an activity common to all human undertakings, whether in the home, business, or government.
Fayol had further developed fourteen principles of administration, which may be briefly stated as follows:
1. Division of work. The object of division of work is to derive the benefits from the principle of specialisation which can be applied not only in technical work but in all other work as well. Unlike Taylor, Fayol pointed out that the division of work has its obvious limits.
2. Authority and responsibility. Authority and responsibility are correlated terms. Responsibility is the essential counterpart of authority and they go hand in hand together. An ideal manager is expected to have official authority arising from an official position as well as his inherent personal authority. Such personal authority is composed of intelligence, experience, moral worth, ability to lead, past service, etc.
3. Discipline. Discipline is in essence obedience, application, energy behaviour and outward marks of respect shown by employees. 'Discipline is what the leaders make through the observance of agreements because agreements spell out the formalities of discipline. Three requisites of discipline are (a) good supervisors at all levels, (b) clear and fair agreements and (c) judicious application of penalties or sanctions.
4. Unity of command. This principle requires that an employee should receive orders from one superior only. Dual command wreaks havoc in all concerns. ance authority is undermined, discipline is in jeopardy, order disturbed and stability threatened".
5. Unity of direction. Fayol discussed this principle of unity of direction is different from that of unity of command. While the unity of direction is concerned with the functioning of the body corporate, unity of command is only concerned with the functioning of personnel at different levels. For the accomplishment of a group of activities having the same objectives, there should be one head and one plan. 'A body with two heads is in the society as in the animal sphere a monster and has difficulty in surviving
6. Subordination of individual interest to general interest. Common interest must prevail over individual interest but some factors like ambition, laziness, weakness and others tend to reduce the importance of general interest.
7. Remuneration of personnel. As the price of services rendered, remuneration should be fair and satisfactory to both. the parties.
8. Centralisation. Everything which goes to increases the importance of the subordinate's role is decentralisation; everything which goes to reduces it is centralization. The question of centralisation or decentralisation holds to the effective utilisation of all faculties of the personnel.
9. Scalar chain. It is the chain of superiors or the line of authority from the highest executive to the lowest one for the purpose of communication. The need for swift action should be reconciled with due regard to the line of authority by using 'gangplank' or direct contact.
10. Order. This is a principle of organisation. relating to things and persons. Material order requires a place for everything and everything in its place while social order demands the engagement of 'the right man in the right place.
11. Equity. Equity is greater than justice since it 'results from the combination of kindliness and justice. The application of equity requires much good sense, experience and good nature with a view to securing devotion and loyalty from employees.
12. Stability of tenure. Stability of tenure is essential to get an employee accustomed to doing new work and to enable him to perform it well.
13. Initiative. The freedom to propose a plan and to execute it is what is known as an initiative that increases zeal and energy on the part of human beings. Since the initiative is one of the keenest satisfactions for an intelligent man to secure as much initiative from employees as possible.
14. Esprit-de-corps. It rests on the adage 'union is strength'. It is also an extension of the principle of unity of command whereby teamwork is ensured. To maintain proper esprit-de-corps in the enterprise, organisational politics and abuse of written communication are to be guarded against.
He was
also of the
opinion that good
administration required efficient management-
ers
and wanted his
managers to have
the following traits:
1.
physical
qualities,
2.
mental qualities,
3.
moral qualities,
4.
general education,
5.
special knowledge,
and
6. experience.
Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick
Despite their individual contribution, they have been mostly clubbed together for their seminal publication entitled 'Papers on the Science of Administration (1937). In the said book they have introduced a popular acronym 'POSDCORB' to the administrative theory encapsulating the crux of administration. The said acronym identified seven functions of management: planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting.
1.
Planning
involves developing an outline of the things that must be accomplished and the
methods for accomplishing them. It attempts to forecast future actions and
directions of the organization.
2.
Organizing
establishes the formal structure of authority through which work subdivisions
are arranged, defined, and coordinated to implement the plan.
3.
Staffing
involves the whole personnel function of selecting, training, and developing
the staff and maintaining favourable working conditions.
4.
Directing, closely related to leading,
includes the continuous task of making decisions, communicating and
implementing decisions, and evaluating subordinates properly.
5.
Coordinating involves all activities and
efforts needed to bind the organisation together to achieve a common goal.
6.
Reporting
verifies progress through records, research, and inspection; ensures that
things happen according to plan; takes any corrective action when necessary;
and keeps those to whom the chief executive is responsible informed.
7. Budgeting concerns all activities that accompany budgeting, including fiscal planning, accounting, and control.
However,
individually, both of them
contributed a lot to the organization
theory to merit separate mention.
Gullick is also known for his theory
of departmentalization and the principle of organization. The theory of departmentalization addresses the problem of the assignment of
duties in an organization. It is
generally viewed that the departments are often locked horns
on the issues of assignment of duties. Gullick has brought about his
theory of departmentalization to get rid of this crisis.
Mary Parker Follett
Follett is another important proponent of classical organization theory. Though trained as a political scientist, she ventured into social administration subsequently. Special mention should be made of her for her significant contribution to the development of management thought. However, at the same time, she differed from other writers of the period in some remarkable ways.
It is important to note that Organisation was, to Follet, a social system and management a social process. Therefore Psychological and sociological aspects of management were given prominence in her writings. In many ways, Follett can be looked at as the harbinger of the behavioural science approach to organisational analysis.
Of many of her innovative ideas, four deserve special mention.
1.
Social conflict, in her view, is inevitable;
it is neither good nor bad and it all
depends on how conflict is put to use. Conflict can be used to produce Harmony, not simply victory or accommodation.
2. Cooperation in an organisation, according to Follett, is a process and an outcome, not a precondition. This goes against the dominant paradigm in organisation theory literature that organisation is a cooperative social system.
3. Group Process constitutes a critical theme in Follett's thought process. As she said. “individuals achieve their true expression in group relationships, individual activities realise increased range and enhanced significance in the group setting.”
4. Communication in an organisation, in her view, should flow horizontally. This is in refutation of the classical view that communication should follow the formal chain of command.
5. According to Follett, Control in the organisation is pluralistic and cumulative. Here also, her view runs counter to the conventional idea of control being concentrated at the apex of the organisational pyramid.
6. She has argued that Authority should flow from the law of the situation, rather than be based on personal imposition.
7. In a novel way, she has conceptualised Leadership as the ability to create functional unity in the organisation through proper correlation of controls instead of personal power to command based on position.
A person well ahead of her time, Follett presented innovative ideas that have influenced behavioural analysis of organisational life very significantly.
Evaluating the Classical Organisation Theory
Classical organizational theories and their derived principles have many critics. A few major criticisms are as follows:
1. The classical principles are lacking in specificity and hence are not very helpful for the practising administrator. For example, the principle of division of work and specialisation is easy to understand, but it tells very little about how the tasks in an organisation should actually be divided. The principle of span of control, which looks apparently acceptable, does not provide a specific guideline. In actual situations, the span of control has been found to be much wider than what the principle suggests and yet the organisations concerned have operated successfully.
2. The classical principles cannot be wholly followed, and some of the principles contradict others. Thus, a short span of control and a short chain of command do not go together. Herbert Simon has severely criticised the classical theorists and has rightly dismissed the principles as 'no more than proverbs'.
3. Classical theory has been most severely criticized by behavioural scientists. It has been characterised as too mechanistic and incompatible with human nature. March and Simon'' have called it the 'machine model' theory, while Warren Bennis has observed that the focus of the classical theory is on 'organisations without people'.
Despite these criticisms, the importance of classical organization theory in the history of administrative thought cannot be denied. Its proper evaluation has to be made against the historical time period of its birth. What the classical theorists wrote was naturally conditioned by the state of society and technology of their time.
The classical viewpoint can be considered as a first approximation to theory in the development of concepts of organisation and management. The ideas of the classical theorists regarding the unity of command, the delegation of authority, the span of control and departmentalisation are still much in use in the structuring of organisation. Many of the present-day management theorists accept the basic framework of the classical school and seek to enrich it with the recent developments in the behavioural and management sciences.
Essentially,
however, the so-called theories of the classical school are principles, as
these are practice-derived prescriptions to help management produce planned
results. Subsequent developments in the nature of work and technology have, of
course, brought about radical changes in formal organisations and organisation
theory.
