Comprehensive Study Guide: Classical Administrative Management, Scientific Management, and Human Relations & Human Resources Perspectives
CLASSICAL ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE
Core Objective & Systemic Focus
Classical Administrative Management seeks to maximize organizational effectiveness by rationalizing the design, structure, and management of the organization as a whole (Tompkins Chapter 6, pp. 96–107).
The perspective contrasts directly with shop-floor efficiency models by focusing on top-tier administrative architecture: creating a highly formalized structure, establishing clear lines of authority and responsibility, enforcing a distinct division of labor, and delegating authority commensurate with assigned responsibility.
Core Theoretical Contributors
Henri Fayol: Developed a comprehensive general management theory applicable to all complex administrative organizations.
James D. Mooney and Alan C. Reiley: Concentrated on formal organizational structural principles, hierarchy, and functional differentiation.
Luther Gulick: Synthesized classical principles and applied them specifically to public sector administration and executive branch governance (notably through the Brownlow Committee).
Henri Fayol: Six Essential Organizational Activities (Tompkins pp. 98–99)
Technical: Production, manufacture, and operational adaptation of goods or services.
Commercial: Buying, selling, exchange, and market transactions.
Financial: Raising, managing, and optimizing capital expenditures.
Security: Protection of organizational property, assets, and personnel.
Accounting: Tracking balance sheets, stock levels, costs, statistics, and financial losses.
Managerial: Harmonizing, coordinating, and integrating the other five functional activities toward overarching administrative goals.
Henri Fayol: Five Fundamental Managerial Functions (Tompkins p. 99)
Planning: Forecasting future conditions and drafting operational action plans.
Organizing: Building the material and human structural framework of the organization, ensuring managers supervise an appropriate span of subordinates.
Commanding: Communicating goals, maintaining employee activity, motivating staff, and addressing personnel incompetence.
Coordinating: Unifying, binding together, and harmonizing all organizational activities and collective efforts.
Controlling: Ensuring all organizational actions conform to established rules, plans, directives, and schedules; monitoring subordinates and holding them accountable without encroaching on delegated authority.
Henri Fayol: Fourteen Administrative Principles (Tompkins p. 100)
Division of Work: Specialization allows individuals to acquire expertise and increase output.
Authority and Responsibility: Authority is the right to issue orders; responsibility is the obligation to perform. They must remain equal.
Discipline: Respect for operational agreements, obedience, application, and outward marks of respect.
Unity of Command: An employee should receive orders from exactly one immediate superior.
Unity of Direction: One leader and one unified plan for a group of activities sharing the same objective.
Subordination of Individual Interest: Organizational objectives must override individual or subgroup interests.
Remuneration: Fair, equitable payment for services rendered.
Centralization: Finding the optimal balance between centralizing and decentralizing decision-making based on context.
Scalar Chain: The explicit line of authority extending from the highest executive rank to the lowest supervisory level.
Order: Material and social order; a defined place for everything and everyone, and everything/everyone in its place.
Equity: Treating subordinates with kindness, fairness, and justice.
Stability of Tenure: Minimizing unnecessary turnover to allow personnel time to master their duties.
Initiative: Encouraging personnel to conceive and execute plans to foster enthusiasm.
Esprit de Corps: Cultivating harmony, team cohesion, and mutual trust within the workforce.
Situational Flexibility Nuance: Principles are flexible, adaptable guidelines rather than rigid, universal laws; application depends entirely on situational context (Tompkins pp. 99–100).
Henri Fayol: Essential Administrative Methods (Tompkins p. 101)
Survey: Comprehensive diagnostic reviews analyzing organizational history, resources, immediate needs, social/political/economic environments, and future forecasts.
Action Plan: Documents defining short-term and long-term directions, goals, and operational means.
Statistical Reports: Daily, monthly, or annual quantitative reports acting as control mechanisms to trigger supervisory interventions.
Minutes: Written records preserving departmental proceedings, decisions, and coordination obstacles.
Organization Chart: A visual blueprint of unit hierarchies, functional mandates, and reporting structures used to diagnose duplication of effort, overlapping responsibilities, unstaffed functions, and structural misalignment.
Mooney & Reiley: Structural Principles of Organization (Tompkins pp. 102–106)
Coordinative Principle: The master principle of organization; authority serves as the fundamental source of coordinating power.
Scalar Principle: The vertical division of labor creating a chain of superior-subordinate relationships through delegation. Delegation transfers authority and operational responsibility downward, but delegating officials remain ultimate accountable superiors (Tompkins p. 104).
Functional Principle: The horizontal division of labor differentiating work by distinct duties and operational mandates. Military operational analogy: Generals versus Colonels represents scalar differentiation; Infantry versus Artillery represents functional differentiation (Tompkins p. 105).
Exception Principle: Subordinates independently resolve routine, repetitive operational problems and refer unusual, difficult, or non-standard problems upward to higher management (Tompkins p. 105).
Line and Staff Dynamics: Staff units advise, research, and support line units; direct command authority is reserved exclusively for line units to preserve unity of command. In real-world agencies, functional authority exercised by staff units can blur this structural boundary (Tompkins pp. 105–106).
Structural Fit Contingency: Structure must align with environmental demands and organizational purpose. Example: The decentralized Roman administrative system managed an expanding geographic empire, whereas the early Catholic Church utilized a highly centralized system to integrate local churches into a single spiritual institution (Tompkins p. 106).
Luther Gulick: Public Sector Application & Departmentalization (Tompkins pp. 106–107)
Applied administrative principles to executive branch design via the Brownlow Committee.
Four Bases of Agency Departmentalization:
Purpose: Organizing around major public goals (e.g., education, public health).
Process: Organizing around specialized professional skills or technical methods (e.g., legal counsel, engineering).
Persons: Organizing around specific clienteles served (e.g., veterans, elderly populations).
Place: Organizing around geographic boundaries (e.g., regional districts, police precincts).
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT THEORY (TAYLORISM)
Core Systemic Philosophy & Logic
Formulated by Frederick W. Taylor, Scientific Management treats organizational effectiveness as a problem of physical efficiency and output maximization (Tompkins Chapter 5, pp. 67–87).
Systemic Sequence: Plan it standardize it measure it reward output retain centralized control.
The Seven Components of Scientific Management
Systematization of the Production Process: Management deliberately designs workflows, physical plant layouts, production scheduling, inventory, and material movement. Tompkins example: Taylor's plant layouts, progress charts, and machine groupings. Public service example: A EMS system adjusting ambulance deployment by time of day based on incident volume.
Systematization of Tools: Standardizing, centrally maintaining, and issuing tools tailored specifically for assigned tasks rather than allowing worker choice. Tompkins example: Dedicated tool-room specialists. Public service example: Standardizing municipal EMS equipment (e.g., defibrillators, IV kits, medications).
Standardization of Work ("One Best Way"): Scientific time-and-task study breaking work down into elementary physical motions and unit times to specify the single most efficient execution method.
Performance Measurement: Gathering hard statistical output data daily per worker, replacing managerial reliance on instinct, common sense, or guesswork. Supports cost accounting, piece-rate wages, and targeted supervisory intervention.
Economic Incentives: Paying substantially higher wage rates to workers meeting or exceeding scientifically determined output standards, neutralizing soldiering. Uses differential piece-rate or task-and-bonus wage systems.
Centralized Planning and Control: Establishing a central planning office staffed by engineers and experts to design operations, remove planning discretion from front-line workers, and direct execution.
Task Specialization: Extreme division of labor; reassigning routine task elements from expensive skilled craftspeople to lower-cost, less-skilled laborers.
Empirical Experiments and Tactical Mechanisms
Pig Iron Handling Experiment (Tompkins pp. 73–74): Task involved moving \,\text{lb} pigs of iron. Job broken into elementary steps (pick up pig, walk level, walk incline, drop pig, return empty). Timed fast workers with allowances for rest and unavoidable delays. Standard increased from \,\text{tons/day} to \,\text{tons/day} (a increase, nearly ). Standard was so demanding that only a small share of laborers could maintain the pace without exhaustion.
Shovel Experiment: Varied shovel design and scoop sizes to determine optimal physical load. Optimal scoop weight determined to be approximately \,\text{lbs} per scoop. Small-faced shovels issued for dense iron ore and large-faced shovels issued for light coke to maintain the \,\text{lb} load standard.
Differential Piece-Rate Wage Math (Tompkins p. 74): Standard set at perfect pieces per day. Reaching standard paid \,\text{cents} per piece ( per day). Missing standard (e.g., pieces) dropped pay rate to \,\text{cents} per piece ( per day). Defective output penalized further.
Functional Foremanship (Tompkins pp. 75–76): Divided shop-floor supervision into specialized roles. Line foremen: gang boss, speed boss, inspector, repair boss. Planning staff: routing clerk, instruction card clerk, time-and-cost clerk, shop disciplinarian. System failed in practice due to violating unity of command and creating administrative overhead.
Public Sector Applications (Tompkins pp. 85–86): Morris L. Cooke applied methods to Philadelphia public works (street paving, snow removal, utility performance). Municipal Research Bureaus institutionalized standardized position classifications, salary structures, performance appraisals, statistical reporting, centralized purchasing, program evaluation, and policy analysis.
Soldiering Dynamics & Remediation
Soldiering Definition: Workers deliberately operating at a pace slower than their physical capability.
Causes: Natural human tendency to take it easy, combined with systematic soldiering—the organized, informal group restriction of output driven by fear that management will reduce piece rates if productivity rises.
Taylor's Solution: Scientifically determine a fair day's work standard, mandate exact methods, measure individual output continuously, and provide high differential piece-rate financial rewards.
Practical Limits & Major Theoretical Criticisms
Limits of "One Best Way": Effective for repetitive, routine tasks (processing tax returns, permit reviews, eligibility checks), but fails in complex human services (teaching special-needs children to read, counseling organ donors' families) requiring discretionary judgment.
Adaptation Risk: Rigid standard operating procedures improve predictability but destroy agency adaptability in turbulent political environments (Tompkins p. 87).
Four Major Criticisms (Tompkins pp. 81–84):
Workers as Cogs: Treated human workers as extensions of machinery, stripping autonomy and ignoring social needs.
Conflict with Labor: Opposed by organized labor leaders for undermining craft union skills, reducing bargaining scope, displacing jobs, and destroying worker initiative.
Pseudoscience (Hoxie Criticism): Demonstrated that time studies contained subjective human judgments, measurement errors, and arbitrary manager value choices.
Obsession with Control: Concentrated all planning authority in expert planning rooms, creating oppressive surveillance systems.
Savas / NYC Snow Emergency Case Study (1969/1971)
Background: A Feb 9, 1969 storm dumped \,\text{inches} of snow on NYC. Outer boroughs remained unplowed for days. Mechanics demanded more mechanics/maintenance; contractors demanded hiring private bulldozers.
Diagnostic Finding: Analytical measurement revealed NYC possessed sufficient aggregate plowing capacity to clear primary streets in under \,\text{hours} and all streets in \,\text{hours}$.
Root Cause: Geographic deployment mismatch. Refuse trucks fitted with plows were distributed based on garbage collection needs, not plowing demand. Queens had of primary street plow-miles but only of plows. Manhattan had of primary plow-miles but of plows.
Systemic Fix: Reallocated plowing capability using alternative winter vehicles (street flushers with plows), matched borough capacity directly to primary plow-miles, established a union Sunday emergency roster, and instituted pre-weekend plow mounting.
Result: Tested during an \,\text{inch} storm on Jan 1, 1971; the city was cleaned completely within a few hours.
HUMAN RELATIONS PERSPECTIVE
Origin & Core Foundations
Originated from the Hawthorne Experiments () at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works, testing physical factors like illumination and rest breaks on workers assembling Bell system equipment.
Proved productivity is driven by social, psychological, and interpersonal workplace dynamics rather than technical work design alone.
Five Primary Human Relations Factors
Employee Morale: Workers' overall emotional attitudes and feelings toward work.
Relaxed Supervision: Less rigid monitoring, reducing employee fear and anxiety.
Personal Attention & Sympathetic Treatment: Managers actively listening to workers' personal concerns, treating them as human beings rather than production inputs.
Participative Decision-Making: Providing workers opportunities to contribute to decisions affecting their immediate work environment.
Considerate Leadership: Leadership attentive to worker needs, boosting morale and encouraging employees seeking approval from authority to meet performance expectations (Tompkins p. 178).
Formal Norms versus Informal Norms
Formal Norms: Explicit roles, written procedures, authorized expectations, and policies defined by official management.
Informal Norms: Unofficial group behavior patterns, social rules, and norms developed organically by workers. Can adapt to, resist, or facilitate formal goals.
Bank Wiring Observation Room Experiment (Tompkins pp. 163–164)
Incentive Structure: Departmental pay was tied directly to total weekly group output.
Group Behavior: Workers feared that maximum output would prompt management to lower the piece-rate pay scale. The group established its own internal output quota and enforced compliance across all members.
Four Informal Rules Enforced by Group Pressure:
Do not be a "rate-buster" (producing too much output).
Do not be a "chiseler" (producing too little output).
Do not "squeal" or report coworkers to supervisors in ways that harm group interests.
Do not maintain excessive social distance or act officious.
Takeaway: Informal group norms prevail over formal economic incentive systems and defeat their intended effects.
Work Overload and Informal Adaptations
Unrealistic administrative mandates create a mismatch between formal expectations and operational capacity, forcing workers to develop informal adaptations:
Field Lieutenants: Unrealistic supervisory task lists cause lieutenants to informally rank duties and perform secondary tasks minimally.
State Caseworkers: When evaluations strictly punish incorrectly granting benefits, caseworkers adapt informally by becoming hyper-cautious, ignoring incorrect benefit denials.
Police "Wall of Silence": An informal group code prohibiting officers from testifying against colleagues protects group solidarity while conflicting with public interest goals.
Paramedic / EMS Rule-Bending: Overloaded paramedics informally bend formal rules during resource pressures to preserve scarce unit time for critical life-threatening emergencies.
Goal Displacement & Informal Adaptations
Goal Displacement: Occurs when a subgroup's informal working norms conflict with organizational public aims.
Functional Adaptations: Informal adjustments are not inherently harmful; under resource scarcity, worker shortcuts may help pursue the core agency mission.
HUMAN RESOURCES PERSPECTIVE (McGREGOR'S THEORY X AND THEORY Y)
Core Premise & Underlying Philosophy
Douglas McGregor (Tompkins Chapter 13, pp. 299–309) posits that management practices grow directly from assumptions regarding human nature.
Organizations frequently blame workers for poor motivation instead of examining whether management's own control systems created passive, hostile behavior.
Theory X versus Theory Y: Conceptual Matrix
Dimension: View of Work
Theory X: Average humans inherently dislike work and avoid it if possible.
Theory Y: Physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest.
Dimension: Control
Theory X: Workers need coercion, direction, close control, or threat of punishment.
Theory Y: External control is not the only means; committed people exercise self-direction and self-control.
Dimension: Responsibility
Theory X: Average workers prefer direction, avoid responsibility, have little ambition, and seek security.
Theory Y: Under proper conditions, humans learn not only to accept but to seek responsibility.
Dimension: Creativity
Theory X: Management reserves judgment and creativity for managers/supervisors.
Theory Y: Capacity for imagination, ingenuity, and creativity is widely distributed across personnel.
Dimension: Human Potential
Theory X: Standardization and tight supervision restrict discretionary human capability.
Theory Y: Modern organizations utilize only a fraction of employees' intellectual potential.
Dimension: Management Logic
Theory X: Direction, external control, formal authority, standardized procedures, surveillance, extrinsic rewards/punishments.
Theory Y: Integration, delegation, trust, capability development, intrinsic rewards, accountability for agreed results.
Critical Nuances & Misconceptions
Theory Y is NOT Permissive Management: Does not mean soft, passive, or structureless administration. Requires clear expectations, organizational goals, discretion boundaries, high standards, and open communication (Tompkins p. 306). Difference lies in exercising authority through trust and development rather than surveillance.
Continuum, Not Binary: Theory X and Theory Y represent extreme poles on a continuum. Routine operations align with X-like controls; complex professional work aligns with Y-like management.
Performance Data Application Example (College Dean Scenario)
Theory X Orientation: A Dean scrutinizes student course-evaluation metrics from the college level down through departments, programs, and individual faculty, enforcing central monitoring.
Theory Y Orientation: A Dean reviews overall college-level trends, leaving detailed breakouts to program/department managers closest to units, cultivating trust, low fear, and room for pedagogical risk-taking (Tompkins p. 304).
THEORY Y MANAGEMENT PRACTICES & MECHANICS
The Integration Principle
Creating conditions where employees achieve higher-level personal needs (growth, responsibility, achievement, self-respect) while directing efforts toward organizational objectives (Tompkins p. 303).
Full Development of Human Potential
Metaphor: McGregor describes human capacity as something to be "grown" (cultivating fertile soil through opportunities, responsibility, and judgment) rather than mechanically "manufactured."
Decentralization & Delegation (Tompkins p. 304)
Pushing operational decision-making downward to personnel closest to the work while top managers retain overall mission/strategy formulation.
Four Delegation Requirements:
Information: Units need operational data to self-evaluate and correct performance.
Risk Acceptance: Higher managers must accept that subordinates will make occasional mistakes.
Accountability: Authority and accountability move downward together; freedom is paired with mutually agreed results.
Climate: Open communication, high trust, low fear, and tolerance for experimentation.
Relinquishing Conventional Control (Tompkins pp. 304–306)
Command-and-control supervision breeds worker passivity and dependency.
Manager Role Shift: Transition from authoritarian boss to teacher, internal consultant, and colleague assisting staff in reaching goals.
Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Rewards (Tompkins pp. 306–307)
Intrinsic Rewards: Internal psychological satisfaction inherent in work—pride, achievement, competence, autonomy, personal growth.
Extrinsic Rewards: Money, status symbols, avoidance of punishment. Useful for compliance, but incapable of generating deep commitment or creativity.
Dynamic Hook: Theory X applies force from the outside; Theory Y removes unnecessary constraints so internal motivation can flow.
Management by Objectives (MBO) and Self-Control (Tompkins p. 307)
Subordinates define how their roles contribute to agency mission, establish approved objectives, and exercise self-control in execution.
Features: Challenging goals, manager as consultant, self-appraisal cycles.
Theory Y MBO versus Theory X MBO: Theory Y MBO emphasizes mission alignment and participation; Theory X MBO imposes targets as mechanisms of top-down surveillance.
Job Enrichment versus Self-Managing Work Teams
Job Enrichment (Tompkins p. 308): Redesigning individual job content by combining tasks into natural work units, reducing supervisory controls, and introducing challenging tasks. Effective for public sector professionals; ineffective for workers not seeking personal growth.
Self-Managing Work Teams (Tompkins pp. 308–309): Group-level structural governance redesign. Teams of interdependent workers receive authority over schedules, task assignments, quality controls, performance standards, and peer evaluations. Supervisors transition to providing technical support.
Main Obstacle: Managerial reluctance to yield traditional decision-making authority.
CRITICISMS, LIMITATIONS, AND SYNTHESIS OF HUMAN RESOURCES THEORY
Comprehensive Critique (Tompkins pp. 317–319)
Overly Optimistic Assumptions: Overestimates worker motivation; many employees do not seek added responsibility or self-actualization.
Too Normative / Prescriptive: Assumes employee-centered, participative management is the universal "one best way."
Lack of Comprehensiveness: Overemphasizes behavior while ignoring structural, technological, environmental, and political determinants.
Understated Economic Rewards: Neglects the enduring power of pay and financial security.
Overstated Goal Integration: Assumes individual and organizational goals naturally align, ignoring structural management-labor conflicts.
Underplayed Power Motives: Ignores self-serving political behavior, aggressive power struggles, and organizational conflict.
Mixed Empirical Evidence: Inconclusive support regarding whether job content or employee involvement drives productivity.
Core Surviving Contributions
Uncompromising emphasis on treating employees with human dignity and respect.
Developing human potential as an organizational asset.
Improving decision quality and social cohesion through collaborative participation.
Seeking win-win solutions through collective problem-solving.
The Great Implementation Paradox
Human Resources Theory offers a compelling alternative to bureaucratic control, but executing it requires organizational conditions that are extraordinarily difficult to build: deep trust, openness, psychological maturity, self-discipline, patience, and leadership willingness to yield power.
PUBLIC MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS & PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
Strategic Guidance for Public Managers (Tompkins pp. 324–325)
Recognize Interdependence: Command-and-control treats workers as dependent on supervisors. Human Resources Theory stresses managers depend on front-line staff for agency success.
Alter Basic Assumptions: Structural reforms fail if managers retain Theory X assumptions. Managers must trust delegated authority and treat mistakes as learning costs.
Manager as Facilitator: Transition from issuing directives to empowering staff and removing bureaucratic hurdles. Crucial in government where jobs are intrinsically rewarding but red tape destroys morale.
Boundary Caution: Human Resources Theory is a diagnostic starting point, not a complete final answer. Workers vary in growth needs and maturity.
Integrative Assignment Diagnostic Lens & Analytical Sentence Frame
Six Diagnostic Dimensions for Agency Analysis:
Formal versus informal norms operating in the agency.
Centralization versus delegation of decision-making authority.
Reliance on close surveillance control versus self-control.
Degree of real front-line operational discretion.
Balance between intrinsic and extrinsic reward mechanisms.
Structural barriers created or removed by managerial systems.
Analytical Sentence Frame: "This practice reflects a more Theory X/Theory Y orientation because ________. Its likely organizational consequence, according to the Module 7 framework, is ________; however, the Human Resources perspective also cautions that ________."
DIAGNOSTIC COMPARISONS & INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORKS
Cross-Perspective Diagnostic Comparison
Classical Administrative Management: Focuses on formal structure, scalar hierarchy, authority/responsibility alignment, span of control, and coordination. Core question: Who is explicitly responsible for performance throughout the formal hierarchy?
Scientific Management (Taylorism): Focuses on shop-floor work processes, tool standardization, time studies, output measurement, deployment, and economic incentives. Core question: Is the physical work process scientifically designed, deployed, measured, and incentivized for maximum efficiency?
Human Relations: Focuses on informal group dynamics, worker morale, supervisory style, personal attention, considerate leadership, and group social norms. Core question: How do informal group norms, morale, and social relationships affect productivity and rule adherence?
Human Resources: Focuses on managerial assumptions (Theory X vs Y), human potential development, goal integration, intrinsic motivation, self-direction, and employee participation. Core question: Are managerial assumptions and structures creating passive dependence or enabling responsible self-direction and intrinsic growth?
Shared Limitations of Early Perspectives
Both Classical Administrative Management and Scientific Management treat organizations as closed rational systems.
Neither provides tools for securing resources from external political environments, nor do they account for worker morale, social needs, or participative decision-making.
COMPREHENSIVE STUDY QUESTIONS & DETAILED ANSWERS
Human Relations & Human Resources Study Questions
Question 1: List the five factors potentially affecting worker productivity emphasized by Human Relations.
Answer: (1) Employee morale, (2) relaxed supervision, (3) personal attention and sympathetic treatment, (4) participative decision-making, and (5) considerate leadership.
Question 2: What is an informal norm? What are two examples from the Bank Wiring experiment?
Answer: An informal norm is an unofficial behavioral pattern or social rule that develops outside official policies and written procedures. Examples from Bank Wiring: (1) Do not be a rate-buster by producing too much output; (2) do not be a chiseler by producing too little output. Group norms also discouraged reporting coworkers to supervisors and maintaining excessive social distance.
Question 3: How can overloading front-line workers or supervisors lead to informal adaptations/norms?
Answer: When formal administrative duties exceed realistic capacity, workers informally prioritize tasks, cut corners, or apply rules selectively. Field lieutenants prioritize an unrealistic list of supervisory duties; state caseworkers judged only on incorrect benefit grants become hyper-cautious; EMS paramedics informally bend formal procedural rules under resource constraints to preserve scarce unit time for critical life-threatening emergencies.
Question 4: Explain the concepts in Theory X versus Theory Y and fast exam checks.
Answer: Theory X assumes workers inherently dislike work, avoid responsibility, and require coercion, direction, and close control; it favors standardized procedures, formal authority, surveillance, and extrinsic rewards/punishments. Theory Y assumes work is natural, individuals exercise self-direction when committed to goals, responsibility can be learned, and human potential is underutilized; it favors integration, delegation, self-control, development, intrinsic rewards, and accountability for agreed results. Fast check: Stems emphasizing fear, surveillance, top-down directives, or narrow discretion signal Theory X. Stems emphasizing trust, delegation, self-control, development, or decision authority close to work signal Theory Y.
Scientific Management Study Questions
Question 1: Explain the seven components of Scientific Management.
Answer: (1) Systematize the production process; (2) systematize tools; (3) standardize work ("One Best Way"); (4) measure performance against hard standards; (5) use differential economic incentives; (6) centralize planning/control in experts; and (7) specialize work into narrow tasks. Together they maximize operational output and physical efficiency.
Question 2: What is soldiering? What was Taylor's solution?
Answer: Soldiering is workers deliberately operating below productive capacity, driven by natural slacking and systematic worker agreement to prevent piece-rate reductions. Taylor's solution: Scientific task/time study, establishing a fair day's work standard, prescribing methods, continuous measurement, and high individual piece-rate financial rewards.
Question 3: What was the approach and purpose of the pig-iron and shovel experiments?
Answer: Controlled time observation breaking tasks into elementary physical motions. Pig iron: Standard rose from \,\text{tons/day} to \,\text{tons/day} (a increase) with structured rest allowances. Shovel experiment: Varied shovel designs to establish an optimal scoop load of \,\text{lbs}, matching tool size to material density (small shovels for iron ore, large shovels for coke). Purpose: Replace custom guesswork with scientifically determined standards and methods.
Question 4: Illustrate practical limits to the "One Best Way" philosophy.
Answer: Applicable to repetitive, routine work (processing permits, tax returns, eligibility checks), but fails in complex human services (special-needs teaching, organ donation counseling) requiring discretionary judgment. Rigid SOPs also reduce agency adaptability in turbulent political environments.
Question 5: Give two current-practice examples where Scientific Management is used in public service.
Answer: Example 1: Municipal ambulance systems dynamically varying unit deployment by time of day based on incident volume data. Example 2: Public school systems monitoring standardized test scores, comparing benchmarks over time, and setting quantitative performance targets. Standardized municipal EMS equipment is another tool-systematization example.
Question 6: Savas snow case: capacity, mechanics' view, and solution?
Answer: NYC possessed sufficient aggregate plowing capacity to clear primary streets in under \,\text{hours} and all streets in \,\text{hours}$, disproving mechanics' demands for more maintenance and contractors' demands for private bulldozers. Root cause was geographic deployment mismatch (refuse trucks distributed for garbage, not plowing). Solution: Reallocated flushers fitted with plows, aligned borough capacity to primary plow-miles, established a Sunday emergency roster, and pre-mounted plows.
Question 7: Give two Classical and two Scientific Management questions for Happyville.
Answer - Classical: (1) Who is explicitly responsible for response-time performance throughout the chain of command? (2) Do field lieutenants have a manageable span of control and necessary information? Answer - Scientific: (1) Does unit deployment by time and location match the spatial pattern of crimes-in-progress? (2) What response-time standard and method should be established, measured, and reinforced through incentives?
Classical Administrative Management Study Questions
Question 1: What is span of control and what factors alter it?
Answer: Span of control is the number of subordinates supervised directly by one manager. Classical theorists suggested about subordinates per supervisor, but Gulick noted it varies based on: (1) Routineness (more routine work wider manageable span); (2) geographic dispersal (more dispersal narrower span); and (3) range of supervisor duties (more duties narrower span).
Question 2: Define division of labor and give examples.
Answer: Division of labor breaks complex work into distinct specialized tasks assigned to specific units or personnel. Fayol's first principle notes specialization builds expertise. Mooney/Reiley's functional principle divides work horizontally by kinds of duties (e.g., infantry vs. artillery). Examples: Automobile assembly lines, university academic departments, operating room specialized roles.
Question 3: Explain unity of command, the scalar principle, and exceptions.
Answer: Unity of command means an employee receives orders from only one immediate superior. Scalar principle is the vertical chain of authority created through delegation. Mellow exception: Interdepartmental task forces where workers retain home supervisors while accepting project direction. Not-so-mellow exception: Matrix organizational structures where employees report formally to two superiors in conflicting chains of command.
Question 4: What is the authority/responsibility axiom?
Answer: Responsibility assigned to a position must be paired with authority required to accomplish the task. Delegation transfers authority and operational responsibility downward, while delegating managers retain ultimate accountability. Example: A police lieutenant held responsible for field unit misconduct must possess explicit authority to inspect units, issue directives, and initiate formal discipline.
Question 5: Why is the organization chart a basic Administrative Management tool?
Answer: Makes formal organizational structure visible. Visualizes unit hierarchies, clarifies reporting channels, establishes functional mandates, and diagnoses structural defects such as duplication of effort, overlapping responsibilities, unstaffed functions, and lack of functional unity.
Question 6: What is formalization and how does it relate to administrative methods?
Answer: Formalization is the reliance on written rules, standard operating procedures, action plans, reporting systems, and official controls to clarify behavior and ensure accountability. Methods include Fayol's surveys, action plans, statistical control reports, meeting minutes, and organization charts. Illustrated by public works reforms where timesheet fraud and weak task assignments were resolved through formal work orders, automated tracking, and supervisor certifications under penalty of perjury.