What do the terms management and work organisation mean?

Lu Shang

Since they were created, management and work organisation have been wide-spreadly used in variety of circumstances, business negotiations in particular. Over the last century, several famous theorists have contributed their own approaches of what is meant by such complex items management and organisation (management theory and practice, 4th edition, G.A.Cole, P3). Meanwhile, confusion arose by variety of concepts in different theories. For instance, the classic definition of management states it is an activity, but the statement is not accepted by most of the modern writer (G.A.Cole, P3).

In my essay, I am going to withdraw the definition of management at first by considering the most basic thought, which most of the theorists share in common. The interpretation of key elements will be added to deconstruct the complex. Then, a synopsis of work organisation will be carried out, as well as its comprehension.

In the early twenties, most of the theory writers had been influenced deeply by Adam Smith and F.W.Taylor’s scientific management approach, so Henri Fayol came out with his classic definition, which tends to be more specific about command and control (G.A.Cole, P3). At the time when neo-humanist of Herzberg and McGregor became popular and practical, the importance of motivation and coordination between staff and manager is emphasised. However, in 21st century when technology and efficiency have been improving with passing days management is more likely to be a balance of all sorts, in order to overcome obstacles caused by technological changes. Following definition is the opinion of G.A.Cole in Management Theory and Practice, and it is the one, which I consider is the most basic but appropriate definition of a modern term of ‘management’:

“Management is a process which enables organisations to achieve their objectives by planning, organising and controlling their resources, including gaining the commitment of their employees.”

------ G.A.Cole, 3

From the definition, we can divide three main natures of management- process, content and control; this is mentioned in the book called Management an Introduction by Boddy and Paton.

“Management relates to all activities of the organisation and is undertaken of the organisation and is undertaken at levels of the organisation. Management is not a separate, discrete function…”--- Management and Organisation Behaviour, Laurie J Mullins.

As a content of organisation, a role of management is setting up the goals (objectives). To plan strategies to achieve the goals is also a part of management function. If we suppose objectives as a whole is a goal and an organisation is a team, then the process show how to lead the team to score the goal is management and the coaches are ...

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Control, in a more literature way, is a culture of management. It sounds cruel, but it is the most important components in overall managing activities. It enables management to know if some corrective action is needed to meet the objectives and plans. At the very beginning, control was purely power culture in Taylor’s theory; employers used it as a tool to maintain the maximum output of an employee. It was known as a supervising system.

However, in a modern organisation, control is no longer purely power play or monitoring performance, it is more likely to be management of all types of resources within a production line. In order for a business to make profit, it is important to ensure the right quality of goods are produced at the right time at the right cost and with the right quality. Be more specific, managing resources is the way of making sure the appropriate amount of input are ordered for production line, and the most efficient method is used to provide high quality product, and a right range of goods are produced on time. Overall management in operation is to maximise the profit and minimise the cost in production line. In this case, management is a tactic that provides the players the information of the most appropriate technique and timing; hence the team can achieve a maximum number of goals within a given period of time. In other words, management raise the competitiveness of a team, consequently the firm become economic of scale and the profit is maximised.

“…The process agenda refers to how it (management) does it…” (Boddy and Paton, 15). As a process, management helps an organisation to achieve its pre-set objective or targets. Process agenda is the most important feature of management, because without processing the objective in practical there is no meaning of the existence of an organisation. Process component includes three actions:

“Managing diverse stakeholder interests, involving others in decision making and communicating”

These three issues are more likely to concern more on ethical problems and motivating the employees. To manage diverse stakeholder interests is actually dealing with pressure group such as Green Place, which might be become an obstacle in the use of resource. For example, animal protestors are continuing give pressures to the fashion designer for using furl. Involving others in decision-making is pretty much like Japanese approach, which gives more responsibilities and privileges to employees, and therefore encourage them to put more attention on increasing average labour turnover. A good communication is often a motivator to employees. When the information is passed effective around the organisation, employees will probably think they have chance to gain the recognition of their achievement, therefore satisfied their self-esteem. In addition, a good communication also helps manager to keep employees on focus of objectives. Due to the hierarchical structure of modern organisation, information was not always passed on effectively, man-made mistakes occur frequently. In this technological generation, pace of a business has been a substantial item to be considered.

Work organisation is the way to organise the work and workforce. From the very beginning, when the scale of production remained small, most of the products were produced in several family workshops. The goods were sold in a marketplace or sold to a trader who collected all the goods from villages. Before the first revolution started, factories were formed; the skill workers in workshops, i.e. the males were recruited to be workforces in factories. The scale of production was enlarged as well as the profit, but not the productivity. Until 1776, division of labour was first introduced by Adam Smith in his THE WEALTH OF NATIONS; and it became the most famous and influential statement at his period. Adam took example of pin factory:

“A pin maker with his utmost industry, make one pine in a day, and certainly could not make twenty…but it is divided into a number of branches…one man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cut it, a fourth point points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct…those tem people …could make among them upwards of forty thousand pins in a days…”

Division of labour was widely applied in practical; productivity in manufactories was increased dramatically. It also turned individual working into coordinating work, which is more efficient and effective in manufacturer massive production. In 1910s, F.W.Taylor enhanced Adam’s division of labour in Shop Management, but he also introduced a new theory- division of management. Taylor created the Functional Foreman and with it a rdivision of management- a planner, a inspector, a gang boss, a speed boss, a repair boss, a time clerk, a route clerk, a disciplinarian. Division of management restricted the control of time and motion and therefore productivity. In Taylor experiment on mining factory, the productivity was increased by 200%. However, lack of humanist is always the downside of scientific management. High rate of labour turnover sometimes became a constant factor lag the productivity behind; so scientific theory is not a long-term solution for a company who is willing to expand. Human relation school was established at mid 1920s, sociological factor was first brought in management, and more attention was introduced to social dimension of work. The most significant achievement is Elton Mayo’s Hawthorn effect:

“It was the third stage of the investigation, which was to observe a group performing a task in nature setting… The result confirmed the importance of informal social groupings in determining levels of output… and it led to a full realisation and understanding of the informal group as an outlet for aspirations of the worker…”

---- Writers on Organizations, Pugh .D .S & Hickson, D.J., 152-155

The group dynamic was then recognised as having positive effects upon productivity, and therefore the form of work organisation began to change from individual working to team working.

As the size of organisations grows, diseconomies of scale i.e. problem of coordination and communication often occur. Thus the way of organising the work became more and more complicated. There are two forms of dividing work: horizontally and vertically. Horizontal dividing is described as “management divides work into smaller task, with people or departments specialising on one or more of these.” in Management an Introduction. “Horizontal specialisation” is a modern approach of division of labour, but rather than working individually, the tasks are set to different departments i.e. large groups. The significant advantage is time saving, the same amount of task but using less time to finish it.

Vertical dividing is the cause of hierarchical structure within an organisation, and it is also a continuity of horizontal dividing. When the tasks are divided to different department, the managers of each department are responsible for the aspect of work. However, they are the brain of the work, the main job of manager is to plan the overall direction of the department and monitor the operation processes. The supervisors who are in span of the control of each manager are responsible of achieving the work, which is the ‘hand’. Modern approach of vertical form of organising the work is to delegate the task directly to shop floor employees without passing thought mid class managers or supervisors.

All in all, there are no fixed definitions for management and work organisation, because they vary from time to time. One other reason why we cannot judge the most appropriate convention of those two terms, it is because the need of organisations are not the same they might be similar but they will somehow have their unique characteristics, therefore to performance the best, the way of managing and organising the work adopt by business will definitely be differed from other. With the change in technology and life style, new rules or structure of management or work organisation might emerge and thus modified its original definition. Hence, management and work organisation cannot be defined particularly.

Appendix

Mullins, L.J. (1987), Management and Organisation Behaviour, The bath Press, Avon
Pugh, D.S. & Hickson, D. J. (1989), Writers on Organisation, England
Cole, G. A. (1993), Management Theory and Practice, Guernsey, Channel Islands
Boddy, D. & Paton, R. (1998), Management An Introduction, Gosport, Hampshire
Shafritz, J. & Steve nott, .J (1991), Classics of Organization Theory, Belmont, California