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INTRODUCTION
Man is intent on describing himself into a web of collectivized patterns. ``Modern man has
learned to accommodate himself to a world increasingly organized. The trend toward ever more
explicit and consciously drawn relationships is profound and sweeping; it is marked by depth
no less than by extension.`` This comment by Seidenberg summarizes the influence of
organization in many shapes of human activity.
Some of the reasons for hectic organizational activity are found in the main transitions which
revolutionized our society, shifting it from a rural culture, to a culture based on technology,
industry, and the city. From these shifts, a way of life occurred and characterized by the
proximity and dependency of people on each other. Proximity and dependency, as conditions
of social life, harbor the threats of human conflict, capricious antisocial behavior, instability of
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human relationships, and uncertainty about the nature of the social structure with its
concomitant roles.
Of course, these threats to social integrity are still exist to some degree in all societies, ranging
from the primitive to the modern. But, these threats become serious when the harmonious
functioning of a society acts upon the maintenance of a highly intricate, delicately balanced
shape of human collaboration. The civilization we have generated depends on the preservation
of a precarious balance. Hence, disrupting forces impinging on this shaky form of collaboration
must be prohibited or minimized.
Traditionally organization is seen as a intermediary for accomplishing goals and objectives.
While this approach is nifty, it tends to obscure the inner workings and internal aims of
organization itself. Another fruitful way of behaving organization is as a mechanism having
the ultimate aim of offsetting those forces which undermine human collaboration. In this
approach, organization sloping towards to minimize conflict, and to lessen the meaning of
individual behavior which deviates from values that the organization has established as
worthwhile. Further, organization increases stability in human relationships by decreasing
uncertainty regarding the nature of the system's structure and the human roles which are
inherent to it. Parallel to this point, organization enhances the predictability of human action,
because it limits the number of behavioral alternatives available to an individual. (Scott, 1961)
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the open system perspective concentrates on that an organization as a sef-regulation system
and an open system, exchanging with its external environment.
Organization theories comes from organization practices and in turn serve practices. Nicholson
explains them as ``a series of academic viewpoints which attempt to explain the multiplicities
of organizational structure and operating process (Nicholson, 1995).`` In other words,
organization theories are knowledge systems which study and explain organizational structure,
function and operation and organizational group behavior and individual behavior (Zhu, 1999).
Complete organization science should include 4 layers: philosophy, methodology, theory and
application, and organization theory takes place on the third layer, under the direction of
methodology, it builds various management theories, management methods and management
techniques by management practices. (Yang, Liu and Wang, 2013) The relationship of them
shows as the following figure:
LITERATURE REVIEW
Classical organization theory was the first and main theory of organizations. The classical
theory found itself in the industries of the 1930’s and still has great influence today (Merkle,
1980). The classical theory is including professions of mechanical and industrial engineering
and economics. The theory is based upon: (Shafritz, Ott, Jang, 2005).
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There is one best way to organize for production, and that way can be found via
systematic, scientific inquiry.
Power driven machines resulted in production workers, and, in turn, shifted individual
craftsmanship.
Organizations should work like machines, using people, capital, and machines as
their inherited parts.
The job of the scientific manager, once ‘one best way’ was found, was to impose this
The division of labor is without doubt the cornerstone among the four elements. From
it the other elements flow as corollaries. For example, scalar and functional growth
needs an specialization and departmentalization of functions. Organization structure is
naturally base upon the direction which specialization of activities travels in company
development. Finally, span of control problems result from the various number of
specialized functions under the jurisdiction of a manager.
The scalar and functional processes deal with the vertical and horizontal growth of the
organization, respectively. The scalar process means the growth of the chain of
command, the delegation of authority and responsibility, unity of command, and the
obligation to report. The division of the organization into specialized parts and the
regrouping of the parts into compatible units are elements of pertaining to the functional
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process. This process concentrates on the horizontal evolution of the line and staff in a
formal organization.
The span of control concept relates to the number of subordinates a manager can
effectively supervise. Regardless of interpretation, span of control has importance, in
part, for the form of the organization which evolves via growth. Wide span yields a flat
structure; short span results in a tall structure. Further, the span concept directs attention
to the complexity of human and functional interrelationships in an organization.
Classical organization theory is dealt with hierarchical levels of authority and coordination
along with horizontal differentiations between units (Shafritz et al., 2005). Early structural
theorists include Adam Smith, Daniel McCallum, Fredrick Winslow Taylor, Max Weber, and
Henri Fayol. Smith’s (1776) division of labor underlines the positive effects of specialization
in regards to overall productivity within the organization. This work came at the dawn of the
industrial revolution and is the most serious and influential statement on the economic rationale
of organization (Shafritz et al., 2005). McCallum (1856) dealt with general principles of
Smith’s organization, concentrated on the flow of information up and down and is credited
with designing the first organizational chart (Shafritz et al., 2005).
``Taylor expanded on the work of Smith and McCallum by focusing on increasing output by
using scientific methods to discover the fastest, most efficient, and least fatiguing production
methods (Shafritz et al., 2005).`` Taylor’s (1916) approach underlines scientific management
and its use in making the worker more efficient, thereby generating more wealth for themselves
and the world. Taylor looked for to find the most advantageous vehicle to get work done with
in the design of the organization. Weber took a more macro view at the organization, drawing
upon studies of ancient organizations in Egypt, Rome, China, and the Byzantine Empire
(Shafritz et al., 2005). Weber (1922) defines a bureaucracy, a specific set of structural
arrangements, and how those in the organization function. Fayol focused his study on the
theory of management within the organization and believed that his concept of management
was universally applicable as well (Shafritz et al., 2005). His primary contributions were his
14 principles that caused clear organizational success (Fayol, 1949). Each of these men built
their theories through using each other’s work. These theorists sought organizations as
machines requiring boundaries between units. They based upon predictability and accuracy,
achieved via control, specialization, the vertical flow of information, and limited exchanges
with the external environment (Kuk, 2012).
The importance of these works is their collective progression explaining the efficiency of work
and the definition of organizations. ``The maturation of classical organization theory parallels
the development of student affairs organizations in that they have both expanded with time.
Individual deans of men and women broadened into personnel departments and, eventually,
divisions dedicated to student services (Ambler, 2000).`` As these new organizations
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developed, they used scientific management and established bureaucracy to more efficiently
serve students, while their demands for service increased and diversified.
As one would expect, people are seen as a means to an end under this theory. Very little thought
is put into how workers feel about doing a job or the ideas they may have for developing them.
The main focus is on maximizing efficiency in order to meet financial goals. For each job there
is thought to be one best way for achieving the goal. Specialization also defines this theory.
The production worker, who is a specialist in only one or two steps of the process, is quickly
replacing the craftsman, who in the past would implement a series of tasks to produce a product.
Structures are seen as the basic intermediaries for organizations to achieve the bounded
rationality. In classical organization theory, the rationalization of organizational structure is the
main object. Organizational issues are researched on static-structure-legal perspective, and the
core is the rationalization. Classical organization theory underlines the organizational
specialities are impersonal and rational; concentrates on the organizational structure designing,
the basic principle and the basic management function of organizations. The classical
organization theory is the typical management philosophy in the perspective of Human-
Machine relationship, which based on the hypothesis of ‘economic man’. People lost their
humanity in society, into a machine, and lost initiative in the work.
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different manufacturing methods. The first was similar to crafts-style production, in which each
employee was responsible for all of the 18 tasks involved in producing a pin. The other had
each employee implementing only one or a few of the 18 tasks that go into making a completed
pin.
Smith found that factories in which employees specialized in only one or a few tasks had better
performance than factories in which each employee implemented all 18 pin-making tasks. In
fact, Smith could reach the result that 10 employees specializing in a particular task could,
between them, make 48 000 pins a day, whereas those employees who performed all the tasks
could make only a few thousand at most. Smith questioned that this difference in performance
occurred due to the employees who specialized became much more skilled at their specific
tasks, and, as a group, were thus able to produce a product faster than the group of employees
in which everyone had to implement many tasks. Smith concluded that increasing the level of
job specialization the process by which a division of labor occurs as various employees
specialize in different tasks over time increases efficiency and causes higher organizational
performance. (Wren, 2009)
Based on Adam Smith’s observations and experiences, early management practitioners and
theorists focused on how managers should organize and control the work process to maximize
the advantages of job specialization and the division of labor.
This great increase of the quantity of work, which, in consequence of the division of
labor, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three
difference circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman;
secondly to the saving of the time which is generally lost in the passing from one species
of work to another and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which
ease and abridge labor, and enable one man to do the work of many.
It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the various arts, in consequence
of the division of labor, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal
opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people.
“If we examine, and consider what a variety of labor is employed about each of them,
we shall be sensible that without the assistance and cooperation of many thousands, the
very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to,
what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly
accommodated.``
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In 1813 Owen published a pamphlet, A New View of Society, where he explained his vision
of society. He also became active in developing living conditions of employees via the
accomplishment of developments in housing, sanitation, public works and establishing schools
for the children. Owen strongly believes that character is a product of circumstances and that
environment and early education is critical in forming good character. While being extremely
controversial during his lifetime, Owen is known as with being the forerunner of the modern
human relations school of management.
Charles Babbage, a noted English mathematician, is credited as being the “father of the modern
computer” for implementing the main research for the first practical mechanical calculator as
well as doing basic research and development on an “analytical engine” acknowledged to be
the forerunner of today’s modern computer. His interest in management came largely from his
concerns with work specialization or the degree to which work is divided into its parts. This is
now recognized as being the forerunner of contemporary operations research.
Babbage’s other major management contribution stemmed from the development of a modern
profit-sharing plan including an employee bonus for useful suggestions as well as a share of
the company’s profits. While both Owen and Babbage were significant nineteenth century
management innovators, their efforts lacked the central tenets of a theory of management.
Owen was primarily known as with making specific suggestions regarding management
techniques in the areas of human relations while Babbage is credited with developing the
concepts of specialization of labor and profit sharing. These pre-classicists paved the way for
the theoretical ferment of the classical school of management. (Ibid.)
Sufficient power conferred to enable the same to be fully carried out, that such
responsibilities be real in their character
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Means of knowing if such responsibilities are faithfully executed
Great promptness in the report of all derelictions of duty that the evils may be corrected
Such information, to be obtained through a system of daily reports and checks that will
not embarrass principal officers, nor lessen their influence with subordinates
The adoption of a system, as a whole, which will not only enable the General
Superintendent to detect errors immediately, but will also point out the delinquent.
``To ensure the best results, the organization of productive labor must be directed and
controlled by persons having not only good executive ability, and possessing the
practical familiarity of a mechanic or engineer with the goods produced and he
processes employed, but having also, and equally, a practical knowledge of how to
observe, record, analyze and compare essential facts in relation to wages, supplies,
expense accounts, and all else that enters into or affects the economy of production and
the cost of the product.``
``There are many good mechanical engineers; -- there are also many good business
men; -- but the two are rarely combined in one person. But this combination of qualities,
together with at least some skill as an accountant, either in one person or more, is
essential to the successful management of industrial works, and has its highest
effectiveness if united in one person, who is thus qualified to supervise, either
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personally or through assistants, the operations of all departments of a business and to
subordinate each to the harmonious development of the whole.``
``Under the head of Shop Management fall the questions of organization, responsibility,
reports, systems of contract and piece work, and all that relates to the executive
management of works, mills and factories. Under the head of Shop Accounting fall the
questions of time and wages systems, determination of costs, whether by piece or day-
work, the distribution of the various expense accounts, the ascertainment of profits,
methods of book keeping, and all that enters into the system of accounts which relates
to the manufacturing departments of a business, and to the determination and record of
its results.``
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Accounting
His major emphasis was on people. It addressed such variables as division of work, authority
and responsibility, discipline, unity of command, unity of direction, subordination of individual
interest to general interest, remuneration of personnel, centralization, scalar chains, order,
equity, stability of personnel tenure, initiative and esprit de corps.
Fayol's 14 principles are as follows: (Shafritz et al., 2005)
Division of Work: The object of division of work is to produce more and greater work
with the same effort. Division of work allows reduction in the number of objects to
which attention and effort must be directed and has been recognized as the best means
of making use of individuals and of groups of people.
Authority and Responsibility: Authority is the right to give orders and the power to
exact obedience. Authority is not to be conceived of apart from responsibility that is
apart from sanction – reward or penalty – which goes with the exercise of power.
Responsibility is a corollary of authority, it is its natural consequence and important
counterpart, and wheresoever’s authority is exercised responsibility arises.
Nevertheless, generally speaking, responsibility is feared as much as authority is sought
after, and fear of responsibility paralyses much initiative and destroys many good
qualities. A good leader should possess and infuse into those around him courage to
accept responsibility.
Unity of Direction: The principle is expressed as: one head and one plan for a group
of activities having the same objective. Unity of direction (one head one plan) should
not be confused with unity of command (one employee to have orders from one superior
only). Unity of direction is provided for by sound organization of the body corporate,
unity of command turns on the functioning of the personnel. Unity of command cannot
occur without unity of direction, but does not flow from it.
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calling to mind. But ignorance, ambition, selfishness, laziness, weakness, and all human
passions tend to cause the general interest to be lost sight of in favor of individual
interest and a perpetual struggle has to be waged against them.
Centralization: Like division of work, centralization relates to the natural order; this
turns on the fact that in every organism, animal or social, sensations converge towards
the brain or directive part, and from the brain or directive part orders are sent out which
set all parts of the organism in movement.
Scalar Chain: The scalar chain is the chain of superiors ranging from the ultimate
authority to the lowest ranks. The line of authority is the route followed – through every
link in the chain – by all communications which start from or go to the ultimate
authority. This path is dictated both by the need for some transmission and by the
principle of unity of command, but it is not generally the swiftest.
Order: Material order means a place for everything and everything in its place. Social
order means a place for everyone and everyone in his place.
Equity: Why equity and not justice? Justice is putting into execution established
conventions, but conventions cannot foresee everything, they need to be interpreted or
their inadequacy supplemented. For the personnel to be encouraged to carry out its
duties with all the devotion and loyalty of which it is capable it must be treated with
kindliness and equity results from the combination of kindliness and justice. Equity
excludes neither forcefulness nor sternness and the application of it needs much good
sense, experience, and good nature.
Stability of Tenure of Personnel: Time is needed for an employee to get used to new
work and succeed in doing it well; always assuming that he possesses the requisite
abilities. If when he has got used to it, or before then, he is removed, he will not have
had time to render worthwhile service. If this be repeated indefinitely the work will
never be properly done. The undesirable consequences of such insecurity of tenure are
especially to be feared in large concerns, where the settling in of managers is generally
a lengthy matter. Much time is required indeed to get to know men and things in a large
concern in order to be in a position to decide on a plan of action, to gather confidence
in oneself, and in spite it in others.
Initiative: Thinking out a plan and ensuring its success is one of the keenest
satisfactions for an intelligent man to experience. It is also one of the most strongest
stimulants of human endeavor. This power of thinking out and executing is what is
called initiative, and freedom to propose and to execute belongs too, each in its way, to
initiative. At all levels of the organizational ladder zeal and energy on the part of
employees are augmented by initiative. The initiative of all, added to that of the
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manager, and supplementing it if need be, shows a great source of strength for
businesses. This is mainly apparent at difficult times; hence it is required to encourage
and develop this capacity to the full.
Esprit de Corps: Union is strength. Business heads would do well to ponder on this
proverb. Harmony, union among the personnel of a concern, is great strength in that
concern. Effort, then, should be made for creation of it.
``What is the real meaning of this? All that you have to do is to bring wealth into this
world and the world uses it. That is the real meaning. The meaning is that where in
1840 cotton goods were a luxury to be worn only by rich people when they were hardly
ever seen on the street, now every man, woman, and child all over the world wears
cotton goods as a daily necessity.``
``The one great thing that marks the improvement of this world is measured by the
enormous increase in output of the individuals in this world. There is fully twenty times
the output per man now than there was three hundred years ago. That marks the increase
in the real wealth of the world; that marks the increase of the happiness of the world,
that gives us the opportunity for shorter hours, for better education, for amusement, for
art, for music, for everything that is worthwhile in this world.``
``Scientific management at every step has been an evolution, not a theory. That series
of proper eliminations, that evolution, is what is called scientific management. Every
element of it has had to fight its way against the elements that preceded it, and prove
itself better or it would not be there tomorrow.``
``Scientific management does not exist and cannot exist until there has been a complete
mental revolution on the part of the workmen working under it, as to their duties toward
themselves and toward their employers, and a complete mental revolution in the outlook
for the employers, toward their duties, toward themselves, and toward their workmen.
``
``The new outlook that comes under scientific management is this: The workmen, after
many object lessons, come to see and the management come to see that this surplus can
be made so great, providing both sides will stop their pulling apart, will stop their
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fighting and will push as hard as they can to get as cheap an output as possible, that
there is no occasion to quarrel. Each side can get more than ever before. The
acknowledgement of this fact represents a complete mental revolution…``
``These are things which make scientific management a success. These new duties,
these new burdens undertaken by the management have rightly or wrongly been divided
into four groups, and have been called the principles of scientific management. The first
of the great principles of scientific management, the first of the new burdens which are
voluntarily undertaken by those on the management side is the deliberate gathering
together of the great mass of traditional knowledge which, in the past, has been in the
heads of the workmen, recording it, tabulating it, reducing it in most cases to rules,
laws, and in many cases to mathematical formulae, which, with these new laws, are
applied to the cooperation of the management to the work of the workmen. The next of
the four principles of scientific management is the scientific selection of the workman,
and then his progressive development. The third principle is the bringing together of
this science of which I have spoken and the trained workmen. The fourth principle is
the plainest of all. It involves a complete re-division of the work of the establishment.``
``Under scientific management you ask no one. Every little trifle, here is nothing too
small, becomes the subject of experiment. The experiments develop into a law; they
save money; they increase the output of the individual and make the thing worthwhile.``
``One of the first principles, we adopted was that no man in that labor gang could work
on the new way unless he earned sixty percent higher wages than under the old plan.``
``Under the new, the teacher is welcomed; he is not an enemy, but a friend. He comes
there to try to help the man get bigger wages, to show him how to do something. It is
the great mental change, the change in the outlook that comes, rather than the details of
it.``
``The very fair and proper question, the only question to ask is “Does it pay?” because
if scientific management does not pay in dollars and cents, it is the rankest kind of
nonsense. There is nothing philanthropic about it. It has got to pay because business
which cannot be done on a profitable basis, ought not to be done on a philanthropic
basis, for it will not last.``
``The case of which I am going to tell you is one in which my friend Barth went to
introduce scientific management in the works of an owner, who, at between 60 and 70
years of age, had built up his business from nothing to almost five thousand men.``
``Scientific management makes no pretense that there is any finality in it. We merely
say that the collective work of thirty or forty men in this trade through eight or ten years
has gathered together a large amount of data. Every man in the establishment must start
that way, must start our way, I do not care what it is, and we will make an experiment
to see if it is better. It will be named after him, and he will get a prize for having
improved on one of our standards. There is the way we make progress under scientific
management. There is your justification for all this. It does not dwarf initiative, it makes
true initiative. Most of our progress comes through our workmen, but comes in a
legitimate way.``
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Henry Gantt - Gantt Chart
Henry L. Gantt worked with Taylor on several projects. But when he went out on his own as a
consulting industrial engineer, Gantt began to reconsider Taylor's incentive system.
Abandoning the differential rate system as having too little motivational impact, Gantt found a
new idea. Every worker who finished a day's assigned work load would win a 50‐cent bonus.
Then he added a second motivation. The supervisor would earn a bonus for each worker who
reached the daily standard, plus an extra bonus if all the workers reached it. This, Gantt
reasoned, would spur supervisors to train their workers to do a greater job. Every worker's
progress was rated publicly and recorded on individual bar charts, in black on days the worker
made the standard, in red when he or she fell below it. Going beyond this, Gantt originated a
charting system for production scheduling; the "Gantt chart" is still in use today. In fact, the
Gantt Chart was translated into eight languages and used all over the world. Starting in the
1920s, it was in use in Japan, Spain, and the Soviet Union. It also shaped the basis for two
charting devices which were created to assist in planning, managing, and controlling complex
organizations: the Critical Path Method (CPM), originated by Du Pont, and Program
Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), developed by the Navy. Lotus 1‐2‐3 is a creative
application of the Gantt Chart. (Witzel, 2012)
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Max Weber – Bureaucracy
Greatly influenced by Taylor, his work on implications of bureaucracy. He benefited from an
ideal type approach to extrapolate from the real world the central core of features characteristic
of the most fully developed bureaucratic form of organization.
Characteristics of Bureaucracy (Shafritz et al., 2005)
There is the principle of fixed and official jurisdictional areas, which are mostly ordered
by rules, that is, by laws or administrative regulations.
The principles of office hierarchy and of levels of graded authority mean a firmly
ordered system of super and subordination in which there is a supervision of the lower
offices by the greater ones.
The management of the modern office is act upon written documents (the files) which
are secured in their original or draught form.
Office management, at least all specialized office management and such management
is distinctly modern usually presupposes via and expert training.
When the office is fully developed, official activity demands the full working capacity
of the official, irrespective of the fact that his obligatory time in the bureau may be
firmly delimited.
The management of the office follows general rules, which are more or less stable, more
or less exhaustive, and which can be learned.
Planning
Organizing
Staffing
Directing
Coordinating
Reporting
Budgeting
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STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE CLASSICAL THEORY
Strengths: (Shafritz et al., 2005)
• This theory has a narrow focus on developing production related economic goals (strength
and weakness).
Weaknesses: (Ibid.)
• This closed-system, rational theory is maybe too narrowly focused on production and reduces
the human component to simply machines.
• This theory helped invent the industrial revolution, which led to deterioration of individual
craftsmanship.
• It allows capital intensive economies.
• Classical theory is largely derived intellectually rather than empirically – this was the basis
of much criticism.
• It is primarily concerned with anatomy/structure rather than individual needs and potentials.
• It did not take large-scale changes in environments into consideration too much.
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Administrative are presented as the 3 main categories under classical theory. The predominant
and common characteristics of all the 3 branches is they underline the economic rationality of
management and the organization. The economic rationality is based on the assumption that
people are motivated to by the economic incentives and that they make choices that yield the
greatest monetary benefits. Classical theorists recognized human emotions but also felt that a
logical and rational structuring of jobs could control human emotions. The primary contribution
of the classical school of management includes applying science in practical management,
developing basic management function and processes, and determining the application of
specific principles of management. (Ibid.)
In the modern world, the classical theory is greatly criticized as being out-dated. The notion of
rational economic person is often strongly criticized. Reward based management might be
100% applicable in the 19th century and for few people/organizations today. This might not
hold good in the current work where the aspirations and education levels of people has greatly
changed. Also organizations have grown more complex and hence require more creativity,
ownership and judgment from each of the employees. Classical theory also assumes that all
types of organizations can be managed according to one set of principles, but this need not be
true in all cases. With changes in objectives, structures and environment, Organizations have
made changes in principle and how organizations need to be managed efficiently and
effectively for better productivity. (Ibid.)
The principles detailed by the classical theory are not wholly scientific and also did not stand
for the test of time. They reflected the individual’s empirical observations and their own logical
deductions and not a true scientific-based research and evidence. Although the classical theory
is criticized as outdated and has become history, still this is the leading school of thought and
the most popular kind of management found in practice in today’s business structures even
though they do not in practical terms reflect universal application and appeal.
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