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Chester Irvish. Barnardand the

Theory of Organizations

http://www.onepine.info/pbarnard.htmhttp://www.onepine.info/pbarnard.htm

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People Whose Ideas Influence

Organizational Work

http://www.onepine.info

Chester Irving Barnard (18861961) president of the newJersey Bell TelephoneCompany, help advancethinking about organizationswhen he published TheFunctions of the Executive in1938 - an influential 20thcentury management book.

His importance lies in creating anew theory aroundorganizational structures,focusing on the organization ascommunication system

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What is said about Barnard

He looked at organizations as systems of cooperation of human activity,and was worried about the fact that they are typically rather short-lived.

This happens because organizations do not meet the two criterianecessary for survival: effectiveness and efficiency.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Barnard )

He give us a much more realistic view of what really goes on in formalorganization. According to Barnard individual have only a limited amountof power. A person can do only so much when acting alone.http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/aa4/dli62.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Barnardhttp://www.wowessays.com/dbase/aa4/dli62.shtmlhttp://www.wowessays.com/dbase/aa4/dli62.shtmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Barnard

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Barnards key concepts:

Importance of an Individual's behaviour

ComplianceConcept of "zone of indifference".

Communication

Focused on importance of communication in informalorganization.

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Barnards key concepts: (cont.)

Other points

Organizations made up of individual humans with individual motivations

Every large organization includes smaller, less formal groupings whose goalsneed to be harnessed to those of the whole - this is managements responsibility

Management efficiency vs. effectiveness

Authority only exists in so far as the people are willing to accept it

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What else in Barnards theory in the

Classics of P.A.(page: 104108)

Civil society organizations

Learning the organization ropes in most organizations is chiefly

learning whos who. Whats what, whys why of its informal society.

(107)

it is undeniable that major executives and even entire executive

organizations are often unaware of wide-spread influences, attitudes,

and agitations within their organizations. (107)

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Relevance of Chester Barnards lessons:

Theory of Jay P. Chandran

Barnards text is extremely difficult to read due to theundeserved obscurity to his labored and lugubriousstyle

In todays world of mergers and acquisitions,corporate rightsizing and rapidly evolvingtechnologies, some of the values and principlesespoused by Bernard may seen archaic and evenanachronistic. Surprisingly, however, these values

and principles find and echo in the hearts of many,and rekindle their faith in the nobility of the humanspirit and the basic goodness of human nature

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Personal Perspectives

Informal organizations provide a balance to the power of formalorganizations over its workforce - however, they have gone alittle too far to the extend that formal organizations have lostcontrol.

-> Affect effectiveness

-> and thereafter efficiency

Civil society organizations are used as tools by politicians on theopposition sometime for good causes, but often times, theymake a huge mess in governments.

How long should they stay? (Durability)

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Joke: What can Barnard say about

this?

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Comments? Questions?

Remarks?