TABLE OF CONTENTS After studying this chapter, students should be able to describe:
what an organisation is;
the ways in which organisational theories differ;
the organisational and management ideas of the classical thinkers;
the development and principles of scientific management;
the concept of bureaucracy;
the human relations theories and the work of Elton Mayo;
the essentials of systems thinking as it pertains to organisations;
what is meant by contingency theory and how it relates to organisations.
The origins of organisations can be traced back to ancient civilisations where various groupings of individuals, such as armies and civic administrations, were designed as social structures that would facilitate collaborative activities to achieve the desired goals.
The industrial revolution in the nineteenth century triggered rapid economic and manufacturing growth, with emerging businesses radically altering the pattern of working life from individual or family run cottage industries. New methods of running businesses were required and, although all organisations can exhibit similar characteristics, the evolutionary path for individual businesses is determined by such factors as size, diversity, ownership, nature of the business and the complexity of the business environment.
Talcott Parsons (1960) [1] described the development of organisations as the principal mechanism by which things get done in a highly differentiated...
