Define, in your own words, those five perspectives and answer the following questions:

 

Classical

With the advent of the 2^nd Industrial Revolution, different perspectives evolved on how to manage workers within organizations which included efforts from Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol and Max Weber. In various ways, they sought to maximize the productivity of the worker.

 

Human Relations

While the productivity of the worker was important, further studies including those by Elton Mayo brought about the understanding that when a worker’s needs are appreciated, the performance of the worker improves. The Human Relations Perspective had a more “social” element to it and as a result, was seen as a valuable addition to previous efforts in the Classical Perspective to improving worker productivity.

 

Human Resources

The Human Resources Perspective took the Human Relations Perspective a grand step forward. Instead of simply acknowledging the social interactions of the workers, the Human Resources Perspective looked to grow the worker into the framework of the effort made by the organization. The worker was encouraged to be a part of a team that would grow a feeling of “ownership” in the effort and also improve the concern the worker had for the quality of the effort.

 

Systems

The Systems Perspective encouraged a “breath of life” into the structure of the organization. It sought to increase the value of communication and interaction within an organization so as to address issues that, if ignored or left for individual efforts to solve, could result in failure within the organization.

 

Cultural

The Cultural Perspective goes beyond the Scientific Perspective in that it does include the important points in that perspective but it also borrows from the Human Resources Perspective and melds the two together, creating a culture. The Cultural Perspective looks take that further by introducing shared, near-religious, sets of beliefs as to what and how the organization will develop its efforts.

  

Think of an organization you have worked in. What theoretical perspective did the organization take towards its workers? What was it like working within the boundaries of that perspective?

 

The company for which I currently work has two rather different perspectives of which each is within a very separate business unit within our singular office setting. On one hand, our software test facility, located in one of two buildings on our campus, employs a Classical Perspective in that each worker is trained to perform specific and highly technical tasks. Each worker is to work independently and social interaction is rare, limited and discouraged beyond a few minutes. Management can often be seen discouraging conversations so as to bring workers back to the tightly-scheduled processes.  In our management and education services facility, a very different perspective or culture can be experienced. The perspective that best fits this environment that I now work is the Human Resources Perspective. Meetings are all-inclusive and efforts are made and welcome participation by all in the audience. Beyond the meetings and staffing differences between our software test facility and our management/educational services departments, there is a clear effort to encourage new product development. In our software test facility, new ideas are discouraged as the emphasis is on the tasks at hand. New ideas, though, coming from the management/educational services side are welcomed and even rewarded financially. Regular meetings of the members of new product development teams seek to “brain storm” ideas to establish whether they are aligned with the efforts of the organization as a whole, but also if there are ways to improve the alignment or possibly to find additional spin-off ideas. Patents are an important effort in our business and a bonus is given to workers whose submitted ideas are eventually granted patents. The patent process may take several years but the overall effort gives the workers a feeling of ownership and responsibility for the efforts of the organization.

I worked within the software test facility for a little over a year and while I did appreciation the rigorous structure, I felt that my contributions to the company could be greater in the role as an educator. I also work often on projects that either remedy problems within our current efforts or on ideas that could extend our brand. I have worked in our educational services division for a year and a half and thoroughly believe it is a better fit for who I am and as a result, feel that I made a good decision to make the transition from one side of our company to another. In our software test facility, I enjoyed the work of establishing benchmarks and quality control for our products but I felt that working alone on repetitive work was not an ideal fit and once I began working in the education department, I saw opportunities for my own talents grow and become beneficial for others in my department. I felt the latitude of a department that embraced a Human Resources Perspective allowed me to become a more valuable entity within our company.