Chapter 3: Modernist organization Theory: back to the future?

1) Discuss the fundamentals of the modernist paradigm, its historical roots, and how it
relates to organisational theory.
Refer to chapter 3 of the core textbook for detailed discussion on the modernist
paradigm. Discuss the fundamentals of the paradigm and its characteristics e.g. a
central feature of modernism is interest in the form of organisations. To the modernist,
an organisation, like any form of life, is a system that is made up of parts or
subsystems. The importance of bureaucracy should be highlighted. Moreover, the
answer should also explore the historical roots of modernism. A good answer will
explore modernist organisational theory, and the importance of systems theory in
relation to this. Critique of the paradigm should also be explored.
ANSWER:
Q: Discuss the fundamentals of the modernist paradigm, its historical roots and
how it relates to organizational theory?
Q: Explore in detail the relationship between modernist organizational theory and
bureaucracy?
Ans: Modernism is a period in history which started around the early 1900’s and
continued until the early 1940’s. It was a movement where traditional forums and
religious faith were becoming outdated in the new economic and industrialized world.
In the early 1900’s, the world was advancing towards new technologies e.g. the
combustion engine, the automobiles, the airplanes etc. Theorists such as FH
Bradly, Albert Einstein, and Henry Bergson began to change the way people used to
see the external world. The world was changing quickly because of Globalization so
culture had to redefine itself.
Add few lines on Characteristics of Modernism here from the Presentation
The organizational theory (OT) is mostly concerned with the modernist
perspective. It is the study of organizational designs, relationship and structures. OT is
all about how we interact with others in social contexts. It helps us to reflect upon and
understand who we are and why we are. This is to drive theories of how
organizations function and how they should be managed (Pugh, 1977). Modernism
is an approach that understands OT. One of the main characteristic is interest in the
organization. To the modernists, organization is the system that is constituted of
subsystems. They depend on each other and are related to each other, sometimes in
simple ways and sometimes in complex ways. There are two systems mainly “open and
closed”. Open system means that they exist within an external environment so they
change with time. As system experience any disturbances, the cells in organizations
change in order to adjust in new circumstances.
People’s interest in general systems theory started in the years after World War II,
it has remained the powerful idea in the progression of organization and management
theory. They suggest that for the organizations to be successful they need to be
designed and managed in a way that have a clear structure, rational sense of order and
stability and distinctive areas of authority.
Explain Scientific Theory a little bit and its relationshio with Modernism (u can see
presentation for this)
Add few lines from page 73 of book (Key components of OT to function effectively) –
Just write one small paragraph in your own words
Basically the roots of modernist organization theory comes from the ‘’ European
Enlighten project’’. It was a movement concerned with the standing of humanity. It
helps humans to be free from the power of monarchies and religion.
In an organization, there are three management styles; Autocratic, Democratic
and Lassies Fair. Autocratic relates to a one man control which is more closely
associated to a bureaucratic theme as there is no say of the managers working in an
organization. As far as Democratic is concerned, there is more participated role of the
management in the decision making process. This type of leadership can be in any
organization from private businesses to schools to governments. The last type of
leadership Laisses-fair is the direct opposite of autocratic leadership. Instead of single
leader making all decisions for an organization, laisses-fair leader value few decisions
and allow their staff to choose appropriate workplace situation.
Examples of these types of leaderships are as follows;
Leona Helmsley (Helmsley Hotels) is an example of autocratic leadership. Leona was
recognized for her harsh and authoritarian leadership within Helmsley Hotel Empire.
Howell Raines, editor of New York Times is also an example of autocratic leadership.
The daily pressure associated with publishing one of the highest quality newspaper in
the world is extreme. Autocratic leadership is not effective in situation where employees
might become resentful or fearful. It also degrades the work environment. The example
of Democratic leadership would be Indra Nooyi, she was the CEO of Pepsi and she
took interest in personal lives of employees. She was able to let people below her take
some leadership positions and help her start the process of growing the company to
bigger and better things. Steve Jobs the owner of Apple and Mack Zuckerberg CEO
of Facebook are the best examples of a laisses faire leadership. Laisses faire
leadership gives full authority to its managers to build a strong team. That’s why Apple
and Facebook are so powerful in this globalized world.
Modernism has challenges aspects as suggested by Michael Reed (1993). He uses two
terms that ‘technologies’ can enable modernism to be embedded in the organization.
They were Ontology and Epistemology. Ontology was the study of human beings. The
way humans understand the nature is and how to be a human. In Epistemology,
modernist believe to be the way in which we know what are the truths, facts of
organization’s life.
What are the key challenges of modernism?
Moreover, modernism gives a lot of importance to bureaucracy. A bureaucratic
form (hierarchal structure) of organization allows large organizations to deal with
constantly draggy environment. They continue to be dominant today. It is a way
organizing large numbers of people who need to work together. Organizations in the
public and private sector including universities and governments rely on bureaucracies
to function. George Ritzer was influenced by the work of Max Weber (the popular
theorist) and put a change on human interaction. Weber’s main work was of
bureaucracy. Bureaucratic organization represented rationalization and Ritzer
suggested that socially structured form of the fast food restaurant has become the
organizational force representing rationalization. McDonalds serves as the case model
of this process in the 1990’s. McDonalization is the best example of bureaucratic
environment as it has extended constrained creativity, and humanity in a larger form. Till
date not much innovation has been seen in Mcdonalds and it has been following the
same rational it started off with in 1900’s.
Modernism also came in the form of Lehmann Brothers, small general store
founded by the Lehmann Brothers in 1850 that used to sell dry goods. The Lehmann
Brothers were so powerful back in 1900s so they managed to survive all the
bankruptcies from 1900-1998. Despite of its survival, the Lehmann brother got over
confident and invested a large sum in U.S housing market which brought Lehmann
Brothers to its knees. One of the major reasons was modernist approach followed by
the management of the company.
The modernism approach was not so successful because one of the biggest company
failed but Mcdonaldization is also a modernism approach and it is going strong till date.
Both are two different views of modernized world while one is successful but the other is
not because of bankruptcy it was shutdown. In my point of view Modernism misses few
points as in this approach there is no neo modernism element of human interaction. It is
more of an autocratic and bureaucratic approach which is very stringent in to today’s
dynamic world. I would say that modernism should be towards post modernism as it’s a
more flexible approach involving human interaction and cultural impact. Moreover, this
school of thought resulted in the specialization of labor, maximization and centralized
decision making while ignoring the social creeds for job satisfaction of employees.
2) Explore in detail the relationship between modernist organisational theory and
bureaucracy.
Refer to chapter 3 of the core textbook for detailed discussion on the modernist
paradigm. Bureaucracy is of fundamental importance to the modernist paradigm. The
answer should explore this in considerable detail e.g. how bureaucracy can be utilised
to achieve modernist objectives. For the modernist, the bureaucratic form of
organisation with its hierarchical sense of order, with its carefully designed structures
and ways of working, enables large organisations to respond to a rapidly changing
external environment. Bureaucratic organisation became the dominant approach to
design in many societies during the twentieth century and continues into this century in
new forms. The answer should also explore the characteristics of a bureaucratic
organisation.
Modernism is a period in history which started around the early 1900’s and
continued until the early 1940’s. It was a movement where traditional forums and
religious faith were becoming outdated in the new economic and industrialized world.
In the early 1900’s, the world was advancing towards new technologies e.g. the
combustion engine, the automobiles, the airplanes etc. Theorists such as FH
Bradly, Albert Einstein, and Henry Bergson began to change the way people used to
see the external world. The world was changing quickly because of Globalization so
culture had to redefine itself.
Add few lines on Characteristics of Modernism here from the Presentation
The organizational theory (OT) is mostly concerned with the modernist
perspective. It is the study of organizational designs, relationship and structures. OT is
all about how we interact with others in social contexts. It helps us to reflect upon and
understand who we are and why we are. This is to drive theories of how
organizations function and how they should be managed (Pugh, 1977). Modernism
is an approach that understands OT. One of the main characteristic is interest in the
organization. To the modernists, organization is the system that is constituted of
subsystems. They depend on each other and are related to each other, sometimes in
simple ways and sometimes in complex ways. There are two systems mainly “open and
closed”. Open system means that they exist within an external environment so they
change with time. As system experience any disturbances, the cells in organizations
change in order to adjust in new circumstances.
People’s interest in general systems theory started in the years after World War II,
it has remained the powerful idea in the progression of organization and management
theory. They suggest that for the organizations to be successful they need to be
designed and managed in a way that have a clear structure, rational sense of order and
stability and distinctive areas of authority.
Explain Scientific Theory a little bit and its relation with Modernism (u can see
presentation for this)
Add few lines from page 73 of book (Key components of OT to function effectively) –
Just write one small paragraph in your own words
Basically the roots of modernist organization theory comes from the ‘’ European
Enlighten project’’. It was a movement concerned with the standing of humanity. It
helps humans to be free from the power of monarchies and religion.
In an organization, there are three management styles; Autocratic, Democratic
and Lassies Fair. Autocratic relates to a one man control which is more closely
associated to a bureaucratic theme as there is no say of the managers working in an
organization. As far as Democratic is concerned, there is more participated role of the
management in the decision making process. This type of leadership can be in any
organization from private businesses to schools to governments. The last type of
leadership Laisses-fair is the direct opposite of autocratic leadership. Instead of single
leader making all decisions for an organization, laisses-fair leader value few decisions
and allow their staff to choose appropriate workplace situation.
Examples of these types of leaderships are as follows;
Leona Helmsley (Helmsley Hotels) is an example of autocratic leadership. Leona was
recognized for her harsh and authoritarian leadership within Helmsley Hotel Empire.
Howell Raines, editor of New York Times is also an example of autocratic leadership.
The daily pressure associated with publishing one of the highest quality newspaper in
the world is extreme. Autocratic leadership is not effective in situation where employees
might become resentful or fearful. It also degrades the work environment. The example
of Democratic leadership would be Indra Nooyi, she was the CEO of Pepsi and she
took interest in personal lives of employees. She was able to let people below her take
some leadership positions and help her start the process of growing the company to
bigger and better things. Steve Jobs the owner of Apple and Mack Zuckerberg CEO
of Facebook are the best examples of a laisses faire leadership. Laisses faire
leadership gives full authority to its managers to build a strong team. That’s why Apple
and Facebook are so powerful in this globalized world.
Modernism has challenges aspects as suggested by Michael Reed (1993). He uses two
terms that ‘technologies’ can enable modernism to be embedded in the organization.
They were Ontology and Epistemology. Ontology was the study of human beings. The
way humans understand the nature is and how to be a human. In Epistemology,
modernist believe to be the way in which we know what are the truths, facts of
organization’s life.
What are the key challenges of modernism?
Moreover, modernism gives a lot of importance to bureaucracy. A bureaucratic
form (hierarchal structure) of organization allows large organizations to deal with
constantly draggy environment. They continue to be dominant today. It is a way
organizing large numbers of people who need to work together. Organizations in the
public and private sector including universities and governments rely on bureaucracies
to function. George Ritzer was influenced by the work of Max Weber (the popular
theorist) and put a change on human interaction. Weber’s main work was of
bureaucracy. Bureaucratic organization represented rationalization and Ritzer
suggested that socially structured form of the fast food restaurant has become the
organizational force representing rationalization. McDonalds serves as the case model
of this process in the 1990’s. McDonalization is the best example of bureaucratic
environment as it has extended constrained creativity, and humanity in a larger form. Till
date not much innovation has been seen in Mcdonalds and it has been following the
same rational it started off with in 1900’s.

 Bureaucratic Structure is supposed to be strictly impersonal and

NEW TOPIC
Contingency and organization design (pp 83-84).