6 Early Contributors

Dr.Shafali Nagpal

5.1  Learning Objective

5.2  Introduction

5.3 Chester Barnard contribution to Management Thoughts

5.4 Formal and Informal Organisations

5.5 Frank and Lillian Gilberth Theory

5.6 Gantt Contribution

5.7 Perspectives

5.8 Summary

5.1 Learning Objectives

After completing this module, you will be able to:

Objective:

1. To understand the great classical theories of management.
2. To enable a sense of humour about the beginning of the contributors towards management practices.
3. To build a relationship between early management thoughts and modern thought of control.

Introduction

The early contributors include Chester Barnard who studied organization in systematic way and defined organizations in two types. Frank and Lillian Gilbreth who are considered the founders of modern industrial management, who sought to improve workers’ productivity while making their work easier. Gantt’s contribution who is often seen as a disciple of Taylor and a promoter of the scientific school of management. In his early career, with the influence of Taylor – and Gantt’s aptitude for problem-solving – resulted in attempts to address the technical problems of scientific management. In this module we will learn in detail their contributions in management.

Chester Barnard

Chester Barnard was the President of new Jerray Bell Telephone Company. He served in various other organizations too. His critical writings include The Functions of Executive (1938). Organization and Management (1948). Elementary Conditions of Business Morals.His writings had the important impact on the humanorganization. In his organization theory he adopted a sociological approach, and in dealing with the functions of executives, he stressed the importance of leadership and communication. Barnard divided organization into formal and informal. He said that informal organization is an important part of a formalorganization.

General Framework

Barnard considered corporations as cooperative structures, which he defined as a complicated of physical, biological, non-public and social components that are in a selected systematic relationship via motive of the cooperation of two or greater people for at least one particular give up. Basically, in line with Barnard, we enter into cooperative arrangements to accomplish matters we cannot do on my own. He viewed corporations in biological terms corresponding to a residing organism that seeks to survive in antagonistic surroundings. Also, he diagnosed that a company isn’t self-enough, however, desires to depend on assets from the outdoor surroundings that allow it to function and also limits a company’s moves. As an example, an organization needs capital, hard work, equipment, and sources to feature and achieve its desires. However, technological know-how and technology are assets inside the environment that can be tapped through an employer but also restriction what it can accomplish. We cannot attain a purpose this is outdoor the legal guidelines of physics, for instance.

Consistent with Barnard, an agency wishes to acquire system equilibrium. In the context of this principle, attaining equilibrium includes interrelated tactics. The primary system relates to the stability of the employer’s traits and its outside environment. The second one technique attempts to stabilize the contributions that contributors of the business enterprise make to the company’s collective cause and the degree of pleasure both the corporation and individuals receive within the exchange.

Barnard’s Contributions to Management Thought:

Barnard suggested social systems approach to management. His main contributions to management thought can be described as follows:

1. Theory of Formal Organisation:

Barnard gave a theory of legal organization. He defined it as “a system of consciously coordinated activities of forces of two or more persons.” According to him, organisation consisted of human beings whose activities were co-ordinated and therefore becomes a system : According to Barnard initial existence of structure depends upon three elements : (i) the willingness of persons to contribute efforts to the co-operative system (ii) there should be an objective of co-operation and (iii) proper communication system is necessary.

Source: https://www.google.co.in/url?saforganizational-structure.php&psig

2. Organizational Equilibrium:

Barnard suggested an equilibrium model describe the balance achieved between the contributions of the members of an organisation and return contribution made by the organisation to the fulfilment of individual goals of the members. Barnard treated organisation as separate from the environment where it works.The persons working in the organisation have two roles—a personal role and an organisational role. There should be a balance between what employees get out of the organisation (money, status, recognition, etc.) and what they contribute in the form of time, knowledge, discomfort, production, etc.

Source: https://www.google.co.in/url/organizational-equilibrium/

3. Acceptance Theory of Authority:

Barnard did not agree with the classical concept of authority where it comes from top to bottom. He said that power comes from the bottom. In his opinion power is confirmed only when it is accepted by a person to whom it has been addressed. Disobedience of such communication is a denial of authority.According, to Barnard the decision as to whether an order has the authority or not lies with the person to whom it is addressed, and does not reside in persons of authority or those who issue these orders. Thus in Barnard’s view, if a subordinate does not accept his manager’s authority, it does not exist.

A person will take authority under following conditions’:

(a)  He can and does understand the communication;

(b)    At the time of his decision, he believes that it is not inconsistent with the purpose of the organisation.

(c)  At the time of his decision, he believes it to be compatible with his interest as a whole; and

(d)  He is able (mentally and physically) to comply with it.

4. Functions of the Executive:

Barnard postulated three types of duties for the executives in forma! Organisational setup. These functions are:

(a)  Maintaining proper communication in the organisation

(b)   Obtaining essential services from individuals for achieving corporate goals

(c)  Formulating purposes and objectives at all levels.

5. Informal Organisation:

Barnard was of the opinion that both formal and informal organisations co-exist in every enterprise. Friendly organisation refers to those social interactions which do not have a consciously co-ordinated common purpose.

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

The Gilbreths are considered the founders of modern industrial management, who sought to improve workers’ productivity while making their work easier. They were, above all, scientists who asked to teach managers that all aspects of the workplace should constantly be questioned, and improvements consistently adopted. In this way, their work advanced appreciation for the importance of the addressing the needs of workers, and through taking care of those individuals, the whole purpose would be better served.

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were a married American couple. Both were engineers and had an interest in scientific management, and Time and Motion Studies, working at a time with Frederick Taylor, the Father of Scientific Management. Together, they raised twelve children in New Jersey.They are also known through the book and movie Cheaper by the Dozen, which was written by their son Frank Jr. and their daughter Ernestine. The book and movie cover their family life, and also some of their works as engineers. For example, there are scenes which depict the Gilbreth’s conducting tests, such as testing to determine the most efficient way to button up a vest and using a stopwatch to help in their investigation. Another example would be Frank Gilbreth demonstrating, while fully clothed, the most efficient way to bath one’s self, using the least amount of time and least number of motions necessary.Frank Gilbreth was a building contractor who, though not having any formal education beyond high school, and not a disciple of Taylor, was interested in and worked at achieving efficiency in the workplace. In his place of work, much like Taylor, he helped the company he used to work for to enable the workers to do their jobs efficiently.

The Gilbreths applied their management techniques in running their large household. They created a Family Council, with a purchasing committee, a budget secretary, and a utility committee. Two of their children later wrote humorous accounts of their family life, Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes.Under Lillian’s persuasion, Frank Gilbreth changed his career from construction to management. In 1908, Frank published his first book, Field System.

After their marriage, Lillian Gilbreth had to handle several major responsibilities—her studies, her family, and their family business. She worked as a systems manager in her husband’s consulting business and had helped her husband in his projects. In 1910, the Gilbreths moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and Lillian Gilbreth decided to enter Brown University to complete her doctoral studies in psychology. She earned her PhD in 1915, her dissertation entitled, The Psychology of Management. It was the first degree granted in industrial psychology.

Work

The Gilbreths were pioneers in the field of industrial engineering. Frank Gilbreth discovered his vocation when, as a young building contractor, he sought ways to make bricklaying faster and easier. This grew into a collaboration with his eventual spouse, Lillian Moller, who studied the work habits of manufacturing and clerical employees in all sorts of industries to find ways to increase output and make their jobs easier. He and Lillian founded a management consulting firm, Gilbreth, Inc., focusing on such endeavours. Their Summer School of Scientific Management trained professionals to implement new ideas about management.

They were concerned with the mental and physical health of the workers. Through analyzing complex machinery, they invented new tools and methods to simplify their use. Their work led to a better understanding of the importance of the well-being of the individual in a business setting.

The Gilbreths were able to reduce all motions of the hand into some combination of 17 essential actions. These included grasp, transport loaded, and hold. Frank Gilbreth named the motions therbligs, “Gilbreth” spelled backwards with the the transposed. He used a motion picture camera that was calibrated in fractions of minutes to time the smallest of actions of the workers.

Work with physically challenged

During World War I, Frank Gilbreth worked to improve treatment of injured soldiers. He first observed the movements of the injured soldiers, and then taught them new methods to manage their daily activities.Frank Gilbreth also helped improve surgical procedures in hospitals. He was the first to propose that a surgical nurse serves as “caddy” (Gilbreth’s term) to a surgeon, by handing surgical instruments to the surgeon as called for. Gilbreth also devised the standard techniques used by armies around the world to teach recruits how to rapidly disassemble and reassemble their weapons even when blindfolded or in total darkness. These innovations have arguably helped save millions of lives.

Pioneer in ergonomics

After the death of her husband, Lillian Gilbreth turned her attention toward household work and increasing the efficiency of kitchen appliances. Working for General Electric, she interviewed over 4,000 women and collected data on simple household chores, such as collecting garbage or washing dishes. She then used the data to design the proper height for sinks, stoves, and other kitchen appliances. She patented numerous appliances that made work in the kitchen easier. In her two works, The Homemaker and Her Job (1927) and Living with Our Children (1928), she wrote that home needs to be a happy place to live, where everyone would achieve fulfilment. Since wives and mothers needed to be active managers of their homes, Gilbreth tried to find optimal combinations of items in a typical home to make their lives easier.

Relation to Taylorism

Although the Gilbreths’ work is often associated with that of Frederick Winslow Taylor, there was a substantial philosophical difference between the Gilbreths and Taylor. The symbol of Taylorism was the stopwatch, and Taylorism was primarily concerned with reducing the time of processes. The Gilbreths, however, sought to make operations more efficient by reducing the motions involved. They saw their approach as more concerned with workers’ welfare than Taylorism, in which workers were often perceived primarily about profit. This led to a personal rift between Taylor and the Gilbreths, which after Taylor’s death turned into a feud between the followers of the Gilbreths and of Taylor. After Frank’s death, Lillian Gilbreth took steps to heal the rift, although some friction remained over questions of history and intellectual property.

Legacy

The Gilbreths were, above all, scientists who sought to teach managers that all aspects of the workplace should constantly be questioned, and improvements invariably adopted. Their emphasis on the “one best way” and the therbligs predates the development of continuous quality improvement (CQI) (George 1968: 98), and the late twentieth-century understanding that repeated motions can lead to workers experiencing repetitive motion injuries.Although the Gilbreths and Frederick Winslow Taylor worked independently, their approaches to improving efficiency logically complemented each other, with the Gilbreths’ focus on action and Taylor’s on time, as time and motion are two sides of the effectiveness improvement coin. Indeed, the two fields eventually became time and motion study.

Henry Gantt was born into a family of prosperous farmers in Maryland in 1861. His early years, however, were marked by some deprivation as the Civil War brought about changes to the family fortunes. He graduated from Johns Hopkins College in 1880 and was a teacher before becoming a draughtsman in 1884 and qualifying as a mechanical engineer. From 1887 to 1893 he worked at the Midvale Steel Company in Philadelphia, where he became Assistant to the Chief Engineer (Fredrick W. Taylor) and then Superintendent of the Casting Department.

Gantt and Taylor worked well in their early years together, and Gantt followed Taylor to Simonds Rolling Company and on to Bethlehem Steel. From 1900 Gantt became well known in his right as a successful consultant as he developed interests in broader, even conflicting, aspects of management. In 1917 he accepted a government commission to contribute to the war effort in the Frankford Arsenal and for the Emergency Fleet Corporation.

Gantt’s contribution

Gantt is often seen as a disciple of Taylor and a promoter of the scientific school of management. In his early career, with the influence of Taylor – and Gantt’s aptitude for problem-solving – resulted in attempts to address the technical problems of scientific management. Like Taylor, Gantt believed that it was only the application of scientific analysis to every aspect of work which could produce industrial efficiency and that improvements in management came from eliminating chance and accidents. Gantt made four individual and notable contributions:

1. The task and bonus system

Gantt’s work and bonus wage system was introduced in 1901 as a variation on Taylor’s differential piece-rate system. With Gantt’s system, the employee received a bonus in addition to his regular day rate if he accomplished the task for the day; he would still receive the day rate even if the work were not completed, whereas Taylor’s piece-rate system penalized employees for substandard performance. As a result of introducing Gantt’s system, which enabled workers to earn a living while learning to increase their efficiency, production often more than doubled. This convinced Gantt that concern for the worker and employee morale was one of the most important factors in management, and led him eventually to Part Company from Taylor on the fundamentals of scientific management.

2. The perspective of the worker

Gantt realized that his system offered little incentive to do more than just meet the standard. He subsequently modified it to pay according to time allowed, plus a percentage of that time if the task were completed in that time or less. Hence a worker could receive three hours pay for doing a two-hour job in two hours or less. But here Gantt brought in innovation, by paying the foreman a bonus if all the workers met the required standard. This constituted one of the earliest recorde attempts to reward the superintendent for teaching employees to improve the way they worked.

In Work, wages and profits Gantt wrote:

‘Whatever we do must be in accord with human nature. We cannot drive people; we must direct their development….the general policy of the past has been to drive; but the era of force must give way to that of knowledge, and the system of the future will be to teach and lead, to the advantage of all concerned’.Gantt was interested in an aspect of industrial education which he called the ‘habits of industry’ – habits of industriousness and cooperation, doing work to the best of one’s ability, and pride in the quality as well as the quantity of work.

From his experience as a teacher, Gantt hoped that his bonus system would help to convert the foreman from an overseer and driver of workers to a helper and teacher of subordinates.

3. The chart

Gantt’s Bar Chart started as a simple but effective mechanism for recording the progress of employees towards the task standard. A daily record was kept for each worker – in black, if he met the standard, in red, if he didn’t. This expanded into further charts on a quantity of work per machines, amount of work per worker, cost control and other subjects.

It was while grappling with the problem of tracking all the various tasks and activities of government departments on the war effort in 1917, that Gantt realized he should be scheduled by time and not on quantities. His solution was a bar chart which showed how work was scheduled over time through to its completion. This enabled management to see, in graphic form, how well work was progressing and indicated when and where the action would be necessary to keep on time.

Gantt Charts have been applied to all kinds of projects to illustrate how scheduling may be best achieved. To illustrate a Gantt Chart, we take the mini-project of redecorating an office with the steps of:

a) Establishing the terms of reference and standards of quality, cost and time.

b) Informing all appropriate personnel and customers.

c) Arranging alternative accommodation.

d)  Preparing the office.

e)  Redecorating.

The Gantt Chart provided a graphic means of planning and controlling work and led to the development of PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) diagrams.

4. The social responsibility of business

After the death of Taylor in 1915, Gantt seemed to distance himself further from the core principles of scientific management and extended his management interests to the function of leadership and the role of the firm itself. As his thinking developed, he believed increasingly that management had obligations to the community at large, and that the successful organization had a duty towards the welfare of society.In Organizing for work, he argued that there was a conflict between profits and service, and that the businessman who says that the benefits are more important than the service he renders ‘has forgotten that his business system had a foundation in service, and as far as the community is concerned has no reason for existence except the service it can render.’ These concerns led him to assert that: ‘the business system must accept its social responsibility and devote itself primarily to service, or the community will ultimately make an attempt to take it over to operate it in its interest.’

Gantt was hugely influenced by the events in Russia in 1917 and, in fear that large companies was sacrificing service to profit, he began to attack the profit system itself, calling for public service corporations to ensure service to the community.

In perspective

Gantt’s contributions to the advancement of management science are of great significance. Gantt was a prolific writer and speaker. He addressed the American Society of Mechanical Engineers on some occasions. One of his papers – Training workmen in habits of industry and cooperation (1908) – has been noted by several commentators as giving a unique insight into the human relations dimension of management at a time when scientific management was at its peak.His approach to the foreman as teacher marks him as an early contributor to human behavioural thought in a line which stretches back to Owen and forwards with Mayo to the present day. His approach to the duty of the firm towards society also singles him out as one of the earliest spokesmen on the social responsibility of business. But it is the inventor of the Gantt chart that he will be remembered.It has been suggested that his thinking became somewhat vague shortly before his death, as he began to situate the work of the firm in a broader, national and political context. It seems that there was a struggle in his later years between service and appropriate rewards on the one hand and socialist control policies on the other.

Summary

Chester Barnard adopted sociological approach. In dealing with the functions of executives, he stressed the importance of leadership and communication. Barnard divided organization into formal and informal. He said that informal organization is an important part of formal organization. The Gilbreths were scientists who sought to teach managers that all aspects of the workplace should be constantly questioned, and improvements should be constantly adopted. Their emphasis was on the “one best way” and development of continuous quality improvement (CQI) Although the Gilbreths and Frederick Winslow Taylor worked independently, their approaches to improving efficiency logically complemented each other, with the Gilbreths’ focus on motion and Taylor’s on time, as time and motion of efficiency improvement which eventually lead to time and motion study. Gantt approach to the duty of the firm towards society also singles him out as one of the earliest spokesmen on the social responsibility of business. Of all his major contributions, he will always be remembered is PERT.

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