Historical Background of Organizational Behavior

(prepared by Professor Edward G. Wertheim, College of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115)

Table of Contents

Certainly large numbers of people have been doing work for a long time. Pyramids and many other huge monuments and structures were built, armies and governments were organized, Civilizations spread over vast territories. This took organization and management. There are some writings from antiquity that suggest that systematic approaches to management and organization did evolve and were transmitted to others.

But the primary influences in organizations and management today stem from more recent events.

Some would claim that to begin to understand our organizations today we need to look at the Protestant Reformationa nd the Protestant Ethic. A new ethic began to evolve, an ethic that shifted the orientation of one's life from the "next world" to this world. This ethic is best embodied in quotes from Luther ("All men possess a calling in the world and the fulfillment of its obligation is a divinely imposed duty") and Calvin ("Disciplined work raises a person above the calling into which he was born and is the only sign of his election by God to salvation"... "The soul is naked before God without Church or communion-religion is a personal matter; worldly success and prosperity are construed as signs of God's approval").

Over time, the Protestant Reformation provided an ideological foundation for the modern industrial society by suggesting that work is now a profound moral obligation, a path to eternal salvation. The focuse focus is this world and materialism, not next world. The individual's obligation is self-disciplin,and systematic work. It should be clear that the factory system which began to evolve late in the 18th Century could never have flourished without the ideological underpinnings of this profound shift in philosophy as exemplified by the Protestant Ethic.

Scientific Management

 The Industrial Revolution that started with the development of steam power and the creation of large factories in the late Eighteenth Century lead to great changes in the production of textiles and other products. The factories that evolved, created tremendous challenges to organization and management that had not been confronted before. Managing these new factories and later new entities like railroads with the requirement of managing large flows of material, people, and information over large distances created the need for some methods for dealing with the new management issues.

The most important of those who began to create a science of management was Frederic Winslow Taylor, (1856-1915). Taylor was one of the first to attempt to systematically analyze human behavior at work. His model was the machine with its cheap, interchangeable parts, each of which does one specific function. Taylor attempted to do to complex organizations what engineers had done to machines and this involved making individuals into the equivalent of machine parts. Just as machine parts were easily interchangeable, cheap, and passive, so too should the human parts be the same in the Machine model of organizations.

This involved breaking down each task to its smallest unit and to figure out the one best way to do each job. Then the engineer, after analyzing the job should teach it to the worker and make sure the worker does only those motions essential to the task.. Taylor attempted to make a science for each element of work and restrict behavioral alternatives facing worker. Taylor looked at interaction of human characteristics, social environment, task, and physical environment, capacity, speed, durability, and cost. The overall goal was to remove human variability.

The results were profound. Productivity under Taylorism went up dramatically. New departments arose such as industrial engineering, personnel, and quality control. There was also growth in middle management as there evolved a separation of planning from operations. Rational rules replaced trial and error; management became formalized and efficiency increased. Of course, this did not come about without resistance. First the old line managers resisted the notion that management was a science to be studied not something one was born with (or inherited). Then of course, many workers resisted what some considered the "dehumanization of work." To be fair, Taylor also studied issues such as fatigue and safety and urged management to study the relationship between work breaks, and the length of the work day and productivity and convinced many companies that the careful introduction of breaks and a shorter day could increase productivity. Nevertheless, the industrial engineer with his stop watch and clip-board, standing over you measuring each little part of the job and one's movements became a hated figure and lead to much sabotage and group resistance.

The core elements of scientific management remain popular today. While a picture of a factory around 1900 might look like something out of Dickens, one should not think the core concepts of scientific management have been abandoned. They haven't. They have merely been modified and updated. (For details of Scientific Management, click here)

While many people think of bureaucracy in negative terms, this model in its pure form was a dramatic improvement over the previous model of organization which was a feudal model based on fixed status and position by birth, not merit and unquestioned authority. Go to the Top

The Human Relations Movement

Despite the economic progress brought about in part by Scientific Management, critics were calling attention to the "seamy side of progress," which included severe labor/management conflict, apathy, boredom, and wasted human resources. These concerns lead a number of researchers to examine the discrepancy between how an organization was supposed to work versus how the workers actually behaved. In addition, factors like World War I, developments in psychology (eg. Freud) and later the depression, all brought into question some of the basic assumptions of the Scientific Management School. One of the primary critics of the time, Elton Mayo, claimed that this "alienation" stemmed from the breakdown of the social structures caused by industrialization, the factory system, and its related outcomes like growing urbanization.

The Western Electric (Hawthorne Works) Studies (1923-1933) Cicero, , ILL.

The most famous of these studies was the Hawthorne Studies which showed how work groups provide mutual support and effective resistance to management schemes to increase output. This study found that workers didn't respond to classical motivational approaches as suggested in the Scientific Management and Taylor approaches, but rather workers were also interested in the rewards and punishments of their own work group. These studies, conducted in the 1920's started as a straightforward attempt to determine the relationship between work environment and productivity. The results of the research led researchers to feel that they were dealing with socio-psychological factors that were not explained by classic theory which stressed the formal organization and formal leadership. The Hawthorne Studies helped us to see that an organization is more than a formal arrangement of functions but is also a social system. In the following chart, we can see a comparison of traditional assumptions vs. a newer "human relations" view.
Traditional Assumptions
  • people try to satisfy one class of need at work: economic need
  • no conflict exists betwene individual and organizational objectives
  • people act rationally to maximize rewards
  • we act individually to satisfy individual needs
Human relations Assumptions
  • organizations are social systems, not just technical economic systems
  • we are motivated by many needs
  • we are not always logical
  • we are interdependent; our behavior is often shaped by the social context
  • informal work group is a major factor in determining attitudes and performance of individual workers
  • management is only one factor affecting behavior; the informal group often has a stronger impact
  • job roles are more complex than job descriptions would suggest; people act in many ways not covered by job descriptions
  • there is no automatic correlation between individual and organizational needs
  • communication channels cover both logical/economic aspects of an organization and feelings of people
  • teamwork is essential for cooperation and sound technical decisions
  • leadership should be modified to include concepts of human relations
  • job satisfaciton will lead to higher job productivity
  • management requires effective social skills, not just technical skills

Results of the Hawthorne Studies and the related research

These studies added much to our knowledtge of human behavior in organizations and created pressure for management to change the traditional ways of managing human resources. The Human Relations Movement pushed managers toward gaining participative support of lower levels of the organization in solving organization problems. The Movement also fostered a more open and trusting environment and a greater emphasis on groups rather than just individuals

Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y

 Douglas McGregor was one of the great popularizers of Human Relations approach with his Theory X and Theory Y. In his research he found that although many managers spouted the right ideas, their actual managers indicated a series of assumptions that McGregor called Theory X. However, research seemed to clearly suggest that these assumptions were not valid but rather a different series of notions about human behavior seemed more valid. He called these Theory Y and urged managers to managed based on these more valid Theory Y notions.
  • Work is inherently distasteful to most people
  • Most people are not ambitious, have little desire for responsibility, and prefer to be directed
  • Most people have little capacity for creativity in solving organizational problems
  • Motivation occurs only at the physiiological and security levels
  • Most people must be closely controlled and often coerced to achieve organizational objectives
  • Work is as natural as play if the conditions are favorable
  • Self-control is often indispensible in achieving organizational goals
  • The capacity for creativity is spread throughout organizations
  • Motivation occurs at affiliation, esteem, and self-actualization levels, not just security, physiological levels
  • People can be self-directed and creative at work if properly motivated

SCHOOLS OF HISTORICAL THOUGHT AND THEIR COMPONENTS BY DECADE

Org. theory prior to 1900: Emphasized the division of labor and the importance of machinery to facilitate labor

Scientific management(1910s-)--Described management as a science with employers having specific but different responsibilities; encouraged the scientific selection, training, and development of workers and the equal division of work between workers and management
Classical school(	1910s- )  Listed the duties of a manager as planning, organizing, commanding employees, 
				coordinating activities, and controlling performance; basic principles called for specialization of work, 
				unity of command, scalar chain of command, and coordination of activities
Human relations(1920s-)Focused on the importance of the attitudes and feelings of
				 workers;  informal roles and norms influenced performance
Classical school revisited (1930s):Re-emphasized the classical principles 
Group dynamics(1940s)	Encouraged individual participation in decision-making; 
				noted the impact of work group on performance
Bureaucracy--(1940s)	Emphasized order, system, rationality, uniformity, and consistency 
				in management; lead to equitable treatment for all employees by management
Leadership(1950s)	 Stressed the importance of groups having both social task leaders; 
				differentiated between Theory X and Y management
Decision theory(1960s)	Suggested that individuals "satisfice" when they make decisions
Sociotechnical school(1960s) Called for considering technology and work groups when understanding a work system
Envir. and tech. system(1960s) Described the existence of mechanistic and organic structures and stated 
				their effectiveness with specific types of environmental conditions and technological types
Systems theory-(1970s):  Represented organizations as open systems with inputs, transformations, 
				outputs, and feedback; systems strive for equilibrium and experience equifinality
Contingency theory(1980s): Emphasized the fit between organization processes and characteristics 
				of the situation; called for fitting the organization's structure to various contingencies

Landmarks in Management Thought

Appendix: The Protestant Reformation and the Protestant Ethic

Impact of the Protestant Reformation on work

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Appendix 1: Taylorism (Frederic Winslow Taylor, 1856-1915)--Scientific Management

Principles of Scientific Management Go to the Top









Some Results of the Scientific Management Movement

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Principles of Scientific Management

Some Results of the Scientific Management Movement

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Weber's Model of Bureaucracy

At about the same time German sociologist Max Weber, observing the organizational innovations of the German leader Bismark, identified the core elements of the new kind of organization. He called it bureaucracy.

The Basic Elements of the Bureaucratic Structure


(Note: many of these aspects have existed for thousands of years) These factors were supposed to ideally result in the ideal bureaucratic organization:
Appendix: The following lists some specific experiments that were part of the Hawthorne Studies

Relay Assembly Test Room Experiments

Relay Assembly Test II, 1927

Interviewing stage, 1928

Bank Wiring Observation Room (1931-1932)


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