FAYOLS Criticism

Fayols theory has been criticised on the following grounds :

1. Too formal: Fayols theory is said to be very formal. However, in any scientific and analytical study facts
and observations have to be presented in a formal manner.
2. Vague: Some of the concepts have not been properly defined. For example, the principle of division of
work does not tell how the task should be divided. Again, to say that an organisation needs coordination is merely to
state the obvious. In the words of Herbert Simon, administrative theory suffers from superficiality,
oversimplification and lack of realism.
3. Inconsistency: Principles of administrative theory were based on personal experience and limited
observations. There is too much generalisations and lack empirical evidence. They have not been verified under
controlled scientific conditions. Some of them are contradictory. For example, the unity of command principle is
incompatible with division of work. The theory does not provide guidance as to which principle should be given
precedence over the other.
4. Pro-management Bias(human element/emotions/side): Administrative theory does not pay adequate
attention to workers. Workers are treated as biological machines or inert instruments in the work process.
5. Historical value: Fayols theory was relevant when organisations operated in a stable and predictable
environment. It seems less appropriate in the turbulent environment of today. For example, present-day managers
cannot depend entirely on formal authority and must use persuasion to get the work done. Similarly, the theory
views organisations as power centres and do not recognise the role of a democratic form of organisation.
6. He neglected the structural aspect and his treatment of the organistion was considered defective.
7. Peter Drucker, observes that some of the worst mistakes of organisation-building have been committed by
imposing a mechanistic model of an ideal or universal organisation on a living business.
8. The empirical(based on testing and experiments) base used by Fayol for generating a full-fledged theory
of management is too narrow.
9. He proceeded too theorise functionalism on the basis of functions undertaken in a manufacturing
company. It would be unrealistic to expect that the insights and derivations from the mining organisation would be
equally applicable to the needs and challenges of other organisations.
10. His model, functional structure rapidly becomes costly in terms of time and effort, and runs a high risk of
misdirecting the energies of the organisation away from performance.
11. Fayol have mostly ignored the social-psychological or emotional needs of the employees.
TAYLOR FALLBACK

1.Exploitation of Workers

Taylor's Scientific Management put unnecessary pressures on the employees to perform the work faster. Importance

was given to productivity and profitability. This resulted in exploitation of the employees. Therefore, many

employees joined trade unions. This also resulted in mistrust between management and employees.

2. Problem of Unity of Command

Taylor used functional foremanship. So, the workers have to report to eight bosses. This breaks the principle of unity

of command, where the workers have to report to only one boss. Lack of unity of command can create confusion

and chaos in the organization.

3. Mechanical Approach

Taylor's approach was a mechanical approach. He gave too much importance to efficiency. He did not consider the

human element. Taylor considered workers as robots, which could speed up the work at any cost.

4. Problem of Separation of Planning from Doing

Taylor said to separate planning from doing. In reality, we cannot separate planning from doing. The planners should

also be engaged in doing, then only they will be able to make realistic plans for the organisation.

5. Individualistic Approach(Espirit de corpse)

Taylor's scientific management gives too much importance to individual performance and not to group performance.

However, the success of an organisation depends not only on individual performance of workers, but also on group

performance of workers.

6. Wrong Assumptions

Taylor assumed that workers are motivated only by financial gains. However, in reality, workers are motivated not

financial incentives but also by social needs and personal egos.

7. Narrow Application(no universal applicability)

Taylor's scientific management has narrow application. It can be applied only when the performance of the workers

can be measured quantitatively. It can be applied only for factories where the performance can be measured

quantitatively. It cannot be used in the service sector because in this sector the performance of a person cannot be

measured quantitatively.

MAX WEBBER THEORY OF BUREAUCRACY

2. Well-defined Hierarchy of Authority.

3. Follows the principle of Rationality, Objectively, and Consistency.
4. Formal and Impersonal relations among the member of the organization.
5. Interpersonal relations are based on positions and not on personalities.
6. Well-defined Rules and Regulations.(terms and conditions of work-employment
contract, job, pay, time, discipline, authority, responsibility, code of conduct)
7. Well-defined Methods.
8. Selection and Promotion Basis.
9. Bureaucratic is given autonomy.
10.written down decisions-for verifications and enforceability.

10. THEORY OF BUREAUCRACY BY MAX WEBER AND FEATURES BUREAUCRACY SHOULD HAVE
i. Division of Work
ii. Authority Hierarchy
iii. Formal Selection
iv. Formal Rules and Regulations
v. Impersonality
vi. Career Orientation

ADVANTAGES
1. Clarity in working-no duplicity of work
2. Discipline would prevail
3. Preferential treatment prevented-so as by following the procedure
4. Legal interpretation to workplace
5. Contract formed-verifiability and enforceability
6. Raise grievance redressal.

11. CRITICISM OF BUREAUCRACY THEORY THE CRITICISM

2. Too much emphasis on rules and regulations which leads to rigidity and stifles creativity.
3. No importance is given to informal groups.
4. Involves a lot of paper work.
5. Unnecessary delay in decision-making.
6. Not suitable(universal) for all type oriented organization.
7. Too much importance is given to the technical qualifications.
 8. Difficulties in coordination and communication.
9.employee refrain to indulge in someone elses work.
10. leadership crises-conflict b/w law abiders and law breakers.
11.red tapism,nepotism and corruption.
12.No concern towards human emotions.
13.No consideration to production process.

ELTON MAYO

1. Illumination experiments

2. Relay assembly test room experiments

3. Interview phase

4. Bank wiring observation room experiment

Illumination Experiments:

These experiments took place, initially between 1924 and 1927, in the Hawthorne Plant of Western Electric

Company, involving the companys industrial engineers. The experiments involved manipulation of illumination for

one group of workers (test group) and comparing their performance and productivity with another group for whom

illumination was not manipulated (control group).

In the first spell of the experiments, the performance and productivity of the test group (for whom the illumination

was manipulated) improved. However, this did not last long. In fact, the control groups performance also improved

in between, even though there was no change in the light conditions of this group.

With such contradicting results, researchers concluded that the intensity of illumination was not related to the

productivity of workers. There must be something else besides illumination, which must have influenced the

performance of the workers in Western Electric Company. Elton Mayo and his associates from Harvard University

got involved at this point to conduct the subsequent phase of experiments.

Relay Assembly Test Room Experiments:

This set of experiments was conducted under the guidance of Elton Mayo between 1927 and 1933. At this stage,

researchers were concerned about other working conditions like working hours, working conditions, refreshments,

temperatures, etc. To start with, the researchers selected six women employees of the relay assembly test room.

Their job was to assemble a relay (a small device) using thirty-five spare parts. Selected women employees

(samples) were put in a separate room and briefed about the experiments. In the test room, the variables like

increased wages and rest period, shortened workday and workweek, etc. were altered.

In addition to this, the sample workers were also given the freedom to leave their workstations without per mission

and were also given special attention. Productivity increased over the study period. Such results led the researchers

to believe that better treatment of subordinates made them more productive.

They highlighted the significance of social relations. Finally, researchers were convinced that workers would

perform better if the management looked after their welfare and supervisors paid special attention to them. This

syndrome was later labelled as the Hawthorne effect.

Interview Phase:

In this phase of the experiments, about 21,000 people were interviewed over three years between 1928 and 1930.

The purpose of the interview was to explore in depth the attitudes of the workers.

On the basis of the results of these interviews, the following conclusions were drawn:

1. A complaint may not necessarily be an objective recital of facts. It also reflects personal disturbance, which may

arise from some deep-rooted cause.

2. All objects, persons, and events carry some social meaning. They relate to the employees satisfaction or

dissatisfaction.

3. Workers personal situation is die result of a configuration of their relationships, involving sentiments, desires,

and interests. Such relational variables influence die workers own past and present interpersonal relations and result

in their personal situations.

4. Workers assign meaning to their status in the organization and attach much importance to events and objects and

specific features of their environment, such as hours of work, wages, etc.

5. Workers derive satisfaction or dissatisfaction from the social status of their organization. It means they also look

for social rewards, in the form of an increase in their personal status, borne out of their association with an

organization of repute.

6. Workers social demands are influenced by their social experiences within their groups, both inside and outside

the workplace.

Bank Wiring Observation Room Experiment:

This part of the Hawthorne experiments was conducted to test some of the ideas that had cropped up during the

interview phase. It was conducted between 1931 and 1932. In this experiment there were fourteen participants

(samples), including wiremen, solder men, and inspectors.

In this phase of the experiment, there was no change in the physical working conditions. Payments to sample

workers were based on an incentive pay plan, which related their pay to their outputs. Sample workers had the

opportunity to earn more by increasing their outputs. However, die researchers observed that output was constant at

a certain level.

Analysis of the results showed that the group encourages neither too much nor too little work. On their own, they

enforce a fair days work(norm). Group norms, therefore, are more important to workers than money is. The

study thus provided some insights into die workers informal social relations within their groups.

The Hawthorne experiments therefore focused on the importance of human relations and thus contributed

immensely to management theories.

Criticism:

Despite its brilliant contributions to the theories of management, the behavioural approach to management

was criticized on the following grounds:

1. It is believed that procedures, analysis of the findings, and conclusions drawn from there are not linked to each

other rationally. In fact, the conclusions are

not supported by adequate evidence.

2. The relationship between satisfaction/happiness of the workers and productivity was established through

simplistic assumptions, while in reality the situation is more complex due to behavioural phenomena.

3. Furthermore, all these studies failed to focus on the attitudes of the workers, which played a crucial role in

influencing their performance and productivity.

System Approach to Management: Definition, Features and Evaluation!

In the 1960, an approach to management appeared which try to unify the prior schools of thought. This approach is

commonly known as Systems Approach. Its early contributors include Ludwing Von Bertalanfty, Lawrence J.

Henderson, W.G. Scott, Deniel Katz, Robert L. Kahn, W. Buckley and J.D. Thompson.

They viewed organisation as an organic and open system, which is composed of interacting and interdependent

parts, called subsystems. The system approach is top took upon management as a system or as an organised whole

made up of sub- systems integrated into a unity or orderly totality.

Systems approach is based on the generalization that everything is inter-related and interdependent. A system is

composed of related and dependent element which when in interaction, forms a unitary whole. A system is simply an

assemblage or combination of things or parts forming a complex whole.

One its most important characteristic is that it is composed of hierarchy of sub-systems. That is the parts forming the

major system and so on. For example, the world can be considered-to be a system in which various national

economies are sub-systems.

In turn, each national economy is composed of its various industries, each industry is composed of firms and of

course a firm can be considered a system composed of sub-systems sudi as production, marketing, finance,

accounting and so on.

Features of Systems Approach:

(i) A system consists of interacting elements. It is set of inter-related and inter-dependent parts arranged in a

manner that produces a unified whole.

(ii) The various sub-systems should be studied in their inter-relationships rather, than in isolation from each other.

(iii) An organisational system has a boundary that determines which parts are internal and which are external.
(iv) A system does not exist in a vacuum. It receives information, material and energy from other systems as inputs.

These inputs undergo a transformation process within a system and leave the system as output to other systems.

(v) An organisation is a dynamic system as it is responsive to its environment. It is vulnerable to change in its

environment.

In the systems approach, attention is paid towards the overall effectiveness of the system rather than the

effectiveness of the sub-systems. The interdependence of the sub-systems is taken into account. The idea of systems

can be applied at an organisational level. In Appling system concepts, organisations are taken into account and not

only the objectives and performances of different departments (sub-systems).

The systems approach is considered both general and specialised systems. The general systems approach to

management is mainly concerned with formal organisations and the concepts are relating to technique of sociology,

psychology and philosophy. The specific management system includes the analysis of organisational structure,

information, planning and control mechanism and job design, etc.

As discussed earlier, system approach has immense possibilities, A system view point may provide the impetus to

unify management theory. By definitions, it could treat the various approaches such as the process of quantitative

and behavioural ones as sub-systems in an overall theory of management. Thus, the systems approach may succeed

where the process approach has failed to lead management out of the theory of jungle.

Systems theory is useful to management because it aims at achieving the objectives and it views organisation as an

open system. Chester Barnard was the first person to utilize the systems approach in the field of management.

He feete that the executive must steer through by keeping a balance between conflicting forces and events. A high

order of responsible leadership makes the executives effective. H. Simon viewed organisation as a complex system

of decision-making process.
Evaluation of System Approach:

The systems approach assists in studying the functions of complex organisations and has been utilized as the base

for the new kinds of organisations like project management organisation. It is possible to bring out the inter-relations

in various functions like planning, organising, directing and controlling. This approach has an edge over the other

approaches because it is very close to reality. This approach is called abstract and vague. It cannot be easily applied

to large and complex organisations. Moreover, it does not provide any tool and technique for managers.