ORG 716 Week 2 Classical and Modern Perspectives Example

From Time Studies to Isomorphism: Classical and Modern Organizational Theory Applied to a Multisite Device Maker

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

ORG/716: Organizational Theory and Design

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Lakehead Medical Components, its sites, practices and figures are composites written for a model paper.

Week 1 introduced Lakehead Medical Components, a composite contract manufacturer of medical device parts based in St. Paul, Minnesota, with plants in Plymouth, Tijuana and Penang. Its four sites were built or acquired in different eras and run on different management ideas. St. Paul schedules and pays by standard times set decades ago; Penang runs self-managed cells. This paper compares classical and modern organizational theory and uses them to explain the differences.

Classical Perspectives

Taylor (1911) proposed scientific management: break each job into its motions, time them to set a single standard method, select and train workers to it and pay them for meeting standards. Weber described bureaucracy as an ideal type based on written rules, a hierarchy of offices, specialized roles, impersonal application of rules and selection by competence, which he saw as the most technically efficient form of administration. Fayol set out principles of administration such as unity of command, scalar chain and span of control. Together these ideas assume a stable environment, people motivated mainly by pay and order and efficiency gained by design from the top.

At St. Paul, all three are visible. Standard times for each molding and assembly operation drive scheduling and an incentive bonus. A thick procedures manual defines who approves what. Supervisors manage spans of about 25 operators each, a figure chosen in the 1990s.

What Classical Theory Still Contributes

In a regulated manufacturer, classical ideas are not obsolete. FDA quality system regulations require documented procedures, defined responsibilities and controlled changes, which are bureaucratic principles in modern form. Standard work remains the basis of process validation. The question is not whether to use classical ideas but where they fit.

Classical Theory's Costs

The same ideas carry costs. At St. Paul, standard times set three decades ago no longer reflect current equipment: a 2023 study found that about a third of standards were loose by more than 15 percent, which means the incentive pays for output that is easy to reach. Operators guard loose standards because tightening them would cut pay. The procedures manual has grown to more than 1,400 pages, and supervisors admit that operators rely on experienced colleagues more than the documents. Narrow job definitions make it hard to move people between lines when demand shifts. These are the rigidities that critics of bureaucracy have long described: rules that once served goals come to be followed, or evaded, for their own sake.

Human Relations

The Hawthorne studies, reported by Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939), suggested that work groups' informal norms and social relations shaped output in ways formal incentives did not, though later scholars questioned the studies' methods and interpretations. The human relations school that followed stressed supervision, participation and belonging. At St. Paul, operators' informal output norms limit the incentive's effect: experienced operators say they hold to a pace that avoids raising the standard.

Contingency Theory

Burns and Stalker (1961) studied firms in Scotland and England and found that mechanistic structures, with clear hierarchy and rules, suited stable conditions, while organic structures, with flexible roles and lateral communication, suited changing conditions. Contingency theory generalized this: effective structure depends on environment, technology, size and strategy. Penang serves customers launching new products every few months, so its organic cells fit its environment; Tijuana's high-volume mature parts suit a more mechanistic design. St. Paul faces a mixed environment, with long-running parts and growing new work, and its mechanistic structure fits only part of it.

Penang is not better managed than St. Paul so much as better matched to what its customers ask of it.

Population Ecology

Hannan and Freeman (1977) shifted attention from individual organizations to populations, arguing that structural inertia limits how much organizations can adapt and that environments select among organizational forms. From this view, the contract manufacturing industry's consolidation reflects selection: small single-site firms are being absorbed by larger multisite players. Lakehead's acquisitions are part of that process. Critics note that population ecology leaves little room for managerial choice, a limit for a study aimed at leaders.

Institutional Theory

DiMaggio and Powell (1983) argued that organizations in a field become similar through coercive pressures from regulators and powerful customers, mimetic pressures to copy successful peers under uncertainty and normative pressures from professions. Medical device suppliers face all three: FDA and ISO requirements, customer audits that push common quality systems and quality professionals trained in the same standards. Lakehead's corporate quality team has pushed a single procedures system across all sites for these reasons, even where local practice differs.

Comparing Assumptions

About people: classical theory sees workers as needing direction and pay incentives; human relations sees social beings; contingency and institutional views are less focused on individuals.

About the environment: classical theory assumes stability; contingency theory makes the environment central to design; population ecology makes it the selector; institutional theory adds social and regulatory expectations.

About effectiveness: classical theory equates it with efficiency; contingency theory with fit; institutional theory with legitimacy as well as efficiency.

About change: classical theory sees change as redesign from the top; population ecology sees inertia and selection; contingency theory sees adaptation to conditions.

Resource Dependence

Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) proposed a resource dependence view, which holds that organizations act to manage dependence on outside parties that control critical resources, adds one more angle. Lakehead depends heavily on five device brands that account for 60 percent of revenue and on a few suppliers of medical-grade resins. Its acquisitions can be read partly as efforts to reduce that dependence by adding customers and capabilities. The perspective also explains why customer quality auditors hold so much sway over site practices.

Theories as Layers

The perspectives are best read as layers that built on one another rather than replacements. Contingency theory kept the classical interest in structure but made its form depend on conditions. Institutional theory kept the open system attention to environments but added meaning and legitimacy. Human relations did not abolish rules; it showed what happens around them. For a practitioner, the layering is useful: each newer view adds a question the older ones did not ask.

A Position

For Lakehead, contingency theory best explains why the sites differ and what each needs, while institutional theory explains the pressure toward uniform quality systems. The tension between the two is the company's central design problem: fit local conditions while meeting common regulatory and customer expectations. Classical principles remain the foundation of regulated work, and human relations insights explain why formal systems at St. Paul are partly ignored.

Conclusion

Classical and modern perspectives differ most in how they treat the environment and people. Applied to a multisite device maker, classical theory explains the procedures and standards that regulation requires, human relations explains informal resistance, contingency theory explains why sites need different structures and institutional theory explains pressure toward sameness. Together they frame the structural questions taken up in Week 3.

References

Burns, T., & Stalker, G. M. (1961). The management of innovation. Tavistock.

DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147-160. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095101

Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1977). The population ecology of organizations. American Journal of Sociology, 82(5), 929-964. https://doi.org/10.1086/226424

Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (1978). The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective. Harper & Row.

Roethlisberger, F. J., & Dickson, W. J. (1939). Management and the worker. Harvard University Press.

Taylor, F. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management. Harper & Brothers.