Take home assignment Organization Sciences
Master Beleid, Communicatie en Organisatie – Advies en Verandering
By Zita Divendal, student number 2555921 September 21th, 2015
Question 1
Pugh and his colleagues at Aston took a particular approach to contingency theory.
A.
What is the distinctive characteristic of the approach to contingency theory of Pugh and his colleagues? (150 words)
Pugh and his colleagues at Aston take a particular look at the contextual
characteristics in relation to the structure of an organization. The elements they examine are origin and history, ownership and control, size, charter, technology, location and interdependence. According to Pugh and his colleagues, besides the contingency an organization has to deal with, these elements have a proved effect on how an organization is acting. In this way you can declare the contingency is not such an unstable factor, but can be clarified.
In addition to the research of Woodward, it is possible to name the relative effects these elements have on the organizational structure. For example, Pugh and his colleagues have found that the climate of an organization is influencing the structure. The more an organization has formal relationships, the greater the authority of the managers and therefore a social distance between the levels in an organization exists.
Word count: 150
B.
Present and explain 2 reasons why this approach led to different results than Burns and Stalker’s work on contingencies? (150 words).
A difference of the view of Pugh and his colleagues is that their research is about a generalized view of organizations, while Burns and Stalker make a
differentiation into two management styles, the mechanic and the organic, which are two opposites. The style of management Pugh et al. establish is a style that could be seen as in between the two styles Burns and Stalker refer to, because there are factors that influence the organization structure, but it is quite
determined how these must have effect. The other difference is they only researched organizations with a high concern in technology. The kind of
organizations in the research of Burns and Stalker is not named. Because they look different at organizations and do research based on different characteristic, their results are obviously different too.
Question 2
Fleming and Sturdy (2011) describe the managerial regime in a call centre in their article: “Being yourself’ in the electronic sweatshop: New forms of normative control”. Please read their case description closely.
A. Call centres are presented by Fleming and Sturdy as (electronic)
panopticons. Describe what is meant by panoptic power structures and explain by using Fleming and Sturdy’s empirical descriptions (max. 150 words).
A panopticon is a way of control, based on the principle that people feel they’re being controlled. This is distracted from the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here the prison guard had his seat in the middle of a place like an Arena and everywhere around him are prisoners in their cells. The prison guard can’t watch all the prisoners at the same time, but the idea that the prisoners can be watched, make them act like they’re being watched. An electronic panopticon exists at a call center, because every move an employee makes, is being registered. The employees know that the way they help the customers and do their work, is monitored and can be seen by their managers, although they’re not watched directly. Also the organization makes use of targets to stimulate the employees to work hard, based on their performance. Both are electronical methods of
surveillance.
Word count: 147
B. Would you describe the regime in this call centre as ‘rational-bureaucratic control’ (Weber) or ‘humanistic-normative control’
(Kunda)? In answering this question, provide a brief description of the essential ideas of Weber and Kunda, and then illustrate your answer by referring to examples from the case description (max. 150 words).
The regime in this call centre is one with a humanistic-normative control. It is definitely not a rational-bureaucratic control, towards the ideas of Weber. This has rational and traditional grounds, while the call centre in the case of Fleming and Sturdy wants to be innovative in a way that is a contradiction of a situation with traditions, established rules and managers giving commando’s to the employees. Kunda describes an organization with a solution towards a traditional,
bureaucratized organization. The solution named by Kunda exists of participative decision making and a corporate philosophy. The case Fleming and Sturdy
mention has an obvious philosophy: ‘just be yourself’ is the norm for the
employees. This philosophy is one where employees are seen as the important and unique factor for the organization, and therefore have a big contribution in the strategy.
Word count: 137
