Classics of Public Administration

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Title Classics of Public Administration
Publication Type Book
Pub Year 1987
Authors Shafritz, J. M., & Hyde A. C.
Publisher Dorsey Press
Keywords bureaucracy, control, mechanistic organization, motivation, scientific management
Notes control"The philosophy of management by directive and control--regardless of whether it is hard or soft--is inadequate to motivate because the human needs on which this approach relies are today unimportant motivators of behavior. Direction and control are essentially useless in motivating people whose important needs are social and egoistic. Both the hard and the soft approach fail today because they are simply irrelevant to the situation." (p. 260)
bureaucracy"Another feature of the bureaucratic structure, the stress on depersonalization of relationships, also plays its part in the bureaucrat's trained incapacity. The personality pattern of the bureaucrat is nucleated about this norm of impersonality. Both this and the categorizing tendency, which develops from the dominant role of general, abstract rules, tend to produce conflict in the bureaucrat's contacts with the public or clientele." (p. 112)
scientific management"Taylor, generally considered the 'father of scientific management', pioneered the development of time and motion studies. Today, scientific management is frequently referred to as pseudo-scientific management because of its conceptualization of people as merely extensions of machines--as human interchangeable parts of a large impersonal production machine." (p. 3)