Planning is one of the most important factors to determine the success of any organization. Every single organization, no matter its size needs to focus on its planning in order to make sure that it does not fail in the future. With the proper planning it becomes possible for the organization to move systematically and takes steps accordingly. Planning helps to predict possible outcomes and take precautions accordingly in order to make sure that the organization does not suffer any kind of losses due to risks. Keeping aside planning for the time being it is important to understand what organization is. Organization is a group or assembly of people who work cooperatively in the attempt to achieve something together.
An organization is responsible for providing individual persons the platform and opportunity to act in a cooperative manner so that they could work for a common goal. Therefore it can be understood that in order to manage a group of individuals is not an easy task and needs proper management. It requires a significant amount of planning to manage the people of an organization to make sure that the project goes on as desired. According to Hiriyappa (2009), organizations adopt different organizational theories that help the organizations to proceed in its pursuit of success. Organizational theories provide the basic framework for the organizations using which the companies are able to achieve what milestone or benchmark they wish to achieve. Different organizations have different policies. But organizational theories have a few common features. In the words of Kondalkar, (2007), with passing time the theories are changing accordingly due to various facts such as technological modifications and alterations in the resources. Keeping this in mind, this study is conducted in order to explore the effect of changes on the organizational theories. With the help of the study the researcher would be able to explore the paradigm wars in organization theory.
Different researchers suggest different opinions regarding organizational research. According to some researchers, organizational theory provides an interdisciplinary focus on 5 factors. They are-
- Effect of social factors and organizations on the behavior and attitude of the employees within the organization.
- The impact of individuals on the working of the organization.
- Performance, success and consistency of the organization.
- The mutual effects on environment that includes resource and tasking and the effect of politics and culture on the organization (Durand, 2006).
- Involves with both epistemology and methodology that associates research on all these topics.
The history of organizational theories dates back to the late 19th century when the world was going through a major industrial revolution. Organizational theories are greatly affected by the political factors. As said by Czarniawska-Joerges (2006), organizational theories came into existence on the fact that different polices were becoming necessary to prevent management from exploiting workers. Organizational theories also came into play when new recruitments were involved in a company. Making of new policies became highly essential to make sure no conflict rose regarding the recruitment. However, with passing time the constantly changing paradigm of the industries forced the companies to change the industrial theories accordingly. As a matter of fact it turned out to be a struggle for the organizations to cope up with the constantly changing scenario of the industries. Considering all the facts there are three major organizational theories. They are classical, neo-classical and modern organizational theory.
The classical organizational theory is the first generation organizational theory that was developed in the early phases when the organizational theories were just being introduced. The first generation writers considered organization as a complex machine of which human beings are the different parts of the machine. In the words of Daft (2016), the researchers believed that the efficiency of the machine can be improved if the efficiency of the parts were improved; therefore the efficiency of the organizations would improve if the efficiency of the human beings of the organization improved. As a result they suggested that appointing specialists to perform certain jobs would help the organizations to excel. They also focused on the point that coordinating and integrating workers together also help to improve the performance of the organization.
The classical researchers considered that focusing on the top level management would help to improve the performance of the organization. They considered if the people at the managerial level were professional and expert, it would help to improve the performance. If the managers were able to perform their respective tasks properly and efficiently, then the staffs at the lower levels would also excel, thereby improving the overall performance of the organizations. The researchers also considered if the organization was divided into groups and departments, then it would be beneficial for the organization. According to Cunliffe (2008), since this theory focuses on the structure of the organization, therefore it is considered as the structural theory of organization. As far as the classical researchers of organizational structure are considered, organizational theory rests upon four main pillars. They are-
- Division of labors- the division of labor involves assigning people according to their specialization and allowing them to focus on a single task at hand. The division of labor involves dividing the labors into groups or departments based on their specialization. The division of labor also considers a concept that if a job is done by many specialists the job would be performed much better. If a specialist is assigned a small part of a job in which he has excelled, it can be predicted that he would deliver the best performance. Similarly different labors of the group would deliver their best performance which would make sure that the final output is the outstanding and excellent. Simultaneously, if the workers are assigned fixed small parts of the job, it would help the workers to achieve excellence and deliver the best output due to the practice they have received through time.
- Scalar and functional process- scaling or designating the workers is a tactical technique of deriving the best performance out of the workers. The workers are assigned different posts with specific tasks. This way the workers are taught their individual duties which would help to steer them to perform better. For instance a manager is responsible for managing his staffs. With the daily execution of the same task the manager starts excelling in his task and starts to perform better and managing his subordinates.
- Structure- the organization is divided into small unites called as departments. The departments are responsible for managing and controlling specific tasks of a certain organization. The tasks or outputs of the individual departments are integrated to get the final output of the organization. Breaking the organization into structures help to simplify the tasks performed by the organization.
- Span of control- the span of control determines the control of every individual manager. In other words the span of control determines the power that has been authorized to the individual managers. Assigning the duty and responsibility determines the span of control.
The neoclassical organizational theories were based on the classical theories. It was based on the physiological and mechanical attributes of the organization. The neo-classical organizational theory considered viewing the social, economic and technical terms of the organizational situation. It also focused on the social process of group behavior that can be understood in terms of clinical methods. In simple words the neo classical organizational theories focused on the social factors that impacted the organization. In the words of Shafritz, Jang & Ott (2016), since the workers of the organization have direct relation with the society and the jobs performed at the organizations directly affect the society, therefore social factors needs to be considered when designing organizational theories.
When compared with the classical organizational theories, it was seen that the neo-classical theories mostly focused on the variables. Since society has direct impact on the organization therefore it is mandatory to take into consideration the role of society and the way society has impact on an organization. The neo classical theory considers both formal as well as informal forms of the organization. Since the classical organizational theory did not take into consideration the human behavior, therefore this was definitely an upgrade in term of theory. Another fact that helped the neo classical approach to be better than the classical approach is that classical approach considered organization to be an isolated and ideal condition. But neo classical approach started taking into consideration all the factors that had direct impact on the organization. Apart from that there are a few other advantages that the neo classical approach had. It took into consideration that even in an organization there are small informal organizations. According to Hannan, Polos & Carroll (2011), human beings are independent and his behavior is directly affected by the social factors. The neo-classical theory is mostly based on the resource dependence theory. That is because it takes into consideration the external factors such as competition, market conditions or availability of resources. The continuous changes of parameters and conditions are challenging for the organizations. It becomes difficult for the organizations to make themselves suitable for the continuously changing conditions.
The modern organizational theory is the most recent approach. According to Wagner (2010), in case of modern theories the mutually dependent variables are all taken into consideration and analyzed properly. Only after proper analysis is the decisions made. Both internal and external factors are taken into consideration. The modern organizational theory also focused on the theory of contingency or back up plans. Since a specific plan has the probability to fail, therefore the organization must keep in store a contingency plan. This plan would help the company to get out of critical situations.
The modern organizational theories had quite a few advantages over classical and neo classical approach. That is because it took into consideration both the present and future prospects of the company. It also takes into consideration the variables. Therefore it can be said that the modern organizational theory is a more developed and systematic organizational theory. The modern organizational theories focused on the institutional theory, which means the theory was mostly based on the resilient aspects such as the social factors. The different social factors such as reputation and authoritative factors were taken into consideration. Even the changes in population and the population density started make impact on the decision making. The modern organizational theories took the demographics into consideration for managing the organizations.
After studying the different organizational theories, it can be said that with the change in time the theories kept on changing. With passing time new attributes and variables came into the picture that started affecting the performance of the organization. This turned out to be a challenge for the organizations. According to Jaffee (2008), it became quite a difficult task for the organizations to cope up with ever changing organizational theories. When the upgrades of different theories are considered, it can be seen that it has turned out to be a major difficulty. After certain interval the theories changed and it became difficult for the management to synchronize with the hanged theories. Technology is also another factor that has evolved in the recent times. Considering the major impact of technology on the organizations, it became even more challenging for the organizations to adapt. The continuously changing determinist theories have made it difficult for the organizations to continue with the operations. The necessity of making modifications in the company policies and rules became necessary with the changes in the theories. Different factors were introduced in the theories which made it difficult for the organizations to cope up. Taking into consideration all these factors, it can be said that organizational theories has really turned out to be a struggle for the organizations.
This study focuses on how the organizational theories have evolved with time. Additionally the study also focused on the fact that with every changing theory, new factors added up that changed the organizational theory by a great deal. This study also helped to differentiate between the different theories and sort out the key points that isolated the other theories. Finally the study helped to prove the fact that changing organizational theories has been a really difficult task for the organization to cope up with.
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Durand, R. (2006). Organizational evolution and strategic management. London: SAGE.
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