Alternative Historical Analysis of Evolution of Managerial Rationality as a Contested Ideology and Practice - Coursework Example

Engineering Management [Name of writer] [Course name] [Professor’s name] [Date] Engineering Management Abstract Managerial rationality is a powerful mode of thought and code of conduct in the modern world. Its emergence in the early twentieth century offered a clear vision of social order as a panacea for inefficiency and chaos, replacing former ideologies such as Social Darwinism, welfare capitalism, and religious discourses of labor. Common wisdom -- in academic and popular circles alike -- asserts that managerial rationality represents the American industrial way, a natural extension of economic progress, and the inevitable outcome of universal business practices. The managerial revolution is, likewise, generally portrayed as a 'silent revolution' with no obvious protagonists or antagonists. It is represented as a narrative of progression carried out by social agents for the benefit of all people. A major objective of this paper is to offer an alternative historical analysis of the evolution of managerial rationality as a contested ideology and practice. Mainstream management history likes to adopt the portrayal of managerial rationality as a natural and inevitable outcome of modernization, despite the fact that such a portrayal dismisses workers' resistance to the importation of management practices into their factories. In contrast I suggest that altogether management systems encountered vociferous resistance and were often promoted against the interest of industrial employers, against the interest of fellow engineers, and against the interest of workers. In the course of the analysis I unravel the multiple and contested meanings that managerial rationality assumed in early industrial and management history. Management's dissemination proceeded at a rate faster than any other twentieth-century social ideology, and it played a critical role in diffusing repertoires of instrumental rationality worldwide. My aim will be to show how engineers had planted the seeds for the managerial revolution and how the managerial revolution, in turn, furnished business with its organizing principles. Effecting this change presented no simple task for engineers, the main actors in this drama. Engineers sought ascendancy for their systems and themselves in a context where capital and labor were much more powerful. Engineers triumphed. By redefining industrial conflict as a mechanical problem rather than as a result of political struggles, engineers were able to universalize their particularistic interests, to depoliticize the conflictual nature of their rationality, and eventually to monopolize industrial discourse and almost completely silence alternative ideological voices. Consequently, the conflicts, objections, and struggles that actually took place left no marks on managerial historiography and on our collective consciousness. Introduction The rise of the 'systems' paradigm -- and its various interpretations -- in American industry was an outcome of several intertwined processes, not the least of which was the growth of an engineering-based ideology of 'systematization'. Systematization was an ideology that crystallized within technical circles and was promoted by engineering magazines. The ideology stood for rhetoric and practice, empirical and metaphysical, deductive and inductive, a category of the mind and a formal aspect of organizations. It was a mélange of ideas and arrangements, technical and administrative, that were categorized under one crude rubric: systems. The advent of management systems represents a relocation of power from the traditional capitalist order into the hands of technocrats who did not control means of production but rather invented practices of engineering rationality. These technocrats did not base their authority on ownership, nor did they employ brute power. They worked by means of a discourse that shaped their surrounding reality. Their authority did not appear as controlling. They offered a helpful, rational hand for the mutual interest of employers and employees. Their ideology of rationality appeared neutral, outside the realm of power, politics, and ideology. The cultural image that was promoted by this ideology trespassed from the technical field of engineering into social and economic domains. Eventually it also became a persuasive and enduring generic paradigm in the literature on organizations. The ideology found natural support in the political culture of the Progressive era, and in the political economy of labor relations. It became a formative language for the constitution of the ideological phase of the managerial revolution. In the 1850s, the first practicing managers were civil engineers, but it was mechanical engineering that spawned and nurtured the management movement until it was 'ready and strong enough' to attempt to reform and reorganize American industry. At first, mechanical engineers were professionally concerned with the formulation of uniform codes and standards, and with achieving predictability and regularity in production. With the rapid growth of the large corporate firm, and upon successfully dealing with technical uncertainties, mechanical engineers expanded their professional engagement to include the reduction of organizational uncertainty through the introduction of administrative systems. Engineers were well equipped to provide solutions and systems, such as the one perfected in Ford Motors, which seemingly provided order and certainty. They brought in professional road maps, tools, and the (predominant) metaphor that the organization is analogous to a machine composed of interchangeable parts (Patrick, 1992, p 146-158). Engineering rationality of systematization and standardization started to expand, setting out to colonize human, social, political, moral, and economic issues in the management of the firm. In other words, entities previously distinct became related, 'translated' into a single unified field. American Machinist explicitly promoted the application of the methods of investigation adopted in physical researches to social issues. The distinction between the worker and the machine was becoming blurred in mechanical engineering discourse. There seems to be an ever increasing desire to make the worker more and more part of the machine he is manipulating, until even his understanding is mechanical. Espousers of this unbounded engineering ideology argued that with the aid of standardization, parts are constructed with such accuracy that they may be assembled without hindrance, and each individual may be substituted for another of its kind. Since the difference between the physical, social, and human realms was blurred by acts of translation, society itself was conceptualized and treated as a technical system. As such, society and organizations could, and should, be engineered as machines that are constantly being perfected. Hence, the management of organizations (and society at large) was seen to fall within the province of engineers. Social, cultural, and political issues could be framed and analyzed as 'systems' and 'subsystems' to be solved by technical means. Management Branches out of Engineering Literature In the early 1880s, editors and writers in the field of engineering strived to establish the role of the engineer as an expert in the management of organizations. By viewing organizations as technical systems, and the management of organization as an integral branch of mechanical engineering, engineers worked to extend the boundaries of their profession. They sought to enhance their centrality within industrial firms and to convince the public at large that their project was socially responsible (Anthony, 1986, p 121-130). It was probably Henry Towne paper "The Engineer as an Economist", presented at the ASME meeting in Chicago in 18851 that for the first time singled out management as a legitimate professional area for mechanical engineers. It was the first formal attempt to integrate the new wave of engineering -the engineering of social and human endeavors -- into business ideology. In his paper Towne recognized the executive duties of organizing and superintending the operations of the industrial establishments. He claimed that shop management is of equal importance to technical engineering problems. While mechanical engineering was by then a well-defined science, with a distinct literature, with numerous journals and with many associations for the interchange of experience, the management of firms was at a disadvantage. It was 'unorganized, almost without literature, with no organ or medium for interchange of experience, and without associations or organizations of any kind'. Towne was positive that the remedy 'should originate from engineers', mechanical rather than civil: 'We have in our membership much more than have the Civil Engineers or Mining Engineers, men who are managers of labor, who are either owners or representative of owners, and who therefore control capital. There are fewer purely professional men and men having no direct responsibility for the management of others in this Society than in either of the other engineering societies (quoted in Noble 1977: 267). Towne recommended establishing an 'Economic section' within ASME with two main divisions, one for 'Shop Management' and another for 'Shop Accounting'. The expansion of the engineer's province, as Noble put it, to the management and economics of firms received more legitimization when individuals such as Oberlin Smith and Henry Metcalfe annexed additional territories such as inventory evaluation and shop orders as integral parts of mechanical engineering. To be sure, Towne, Metcalfe, and Smith did not present a unified concept of management, and the idea of establishing a specialized section was not immediately adopted. Nevertheless, these efforts represented a departure from the standard presentation of technical papers in ASME and the beginning of a managerial collective consciousness within ASME circles. Furthermore, the expansion of engineering to management did not start with the 1885 ASME meeting. These presentations legitimized and formalized a movement that already existed in industry. The question of how to trace the institutionalization of management often puzzles business historians. The systematic examination of the two magazines -American Machinist and Engineering Magazine -- provides an opportunity, both quantitative and qualitative, to determine the historical time-frame in which management differentiated itself from engineering. In American Machinist, the average number of entries on management increased from 49 per year before 1895 to 112 items per year after 1905. The number of entries related to management in Engineering Magazine approximated an average of 30 items per year. Most early entries on management addressed small fragments of managerial issues. For example, one writer discussed the spread of the industrial betterment movement, arguing that it 'has improved employees' condition and increased the prosperity of many firms. Another discussed the legal problems associated with consolidation of two firms in which one had a contract with its employees and the other did not. There were articles on 'Scientific versus Intuitive administration', the success of 'modern management methods', 'the liability of corporate directors', personnel issues, authority and organization of responsibilities, the role of the manager vis-à-vis other functions in the firm, the adequacy of engineers as managers, employer-employee relations, the training of managers -- and there were invitations to visit shops which implemented novel management techniques (Engineering Magazine, September 1916: 849-54). The concept of management as a unified whole was probably first articulated by a British engineer, Slater Lewis, in the late 1890s. Lewis served as general manager for several British companies, and became the director of the British Electrical Engineering Company. He also published a book on a systems approach to managing firms, entitled The Commercial Organization of Factories (Litterer 1986). In a series of articles in the Engineering Magazine, Lewis complained that the attention of engineers was traditionally focused on the design of products while 'the internal routine and administration of shops' have been left in the hand of 'practical' men with whom 'rule of thumb is supreme' (Litterer 1986, p 234-239). Lewis used the concept of 'organization' to designate the overall arrangement of the parts of management. To him, the 'organization' of the firm was an entity that needed special research and care. A year later, Alexander Hamilton Church continued to develop this notion of unified organizations -- entities that regulate actors and could be understood in abstract forms -- and focused on the problems associated with controlling large organizations. The writings of Lewis and Church crystallized an early awareness of organization and management theories. It should be noted, however, that most writers in the area of economic and management history argue that interest in systems was stimulated and justified by rapid industrial growth during these years and emergent problems of cost-price ratios, wages, the coordination of production, and the integration of firms. These phenomena were part of the reality of industrial firms, and they were indeed becoming problematic. The discourse on management systems would not have been cultivated and would not have flourished if not for additional contextual forces that made management practice and discourse desired and legitimate. First among these forces was the ideological work of mechanical engineers whose enthusiasm about management issues cannot be overemphasized. The following discussion should therefore be read as an illustration of the professional project of constructing and legitimizing the two concepts by translating them from one realm to another. The terms 'system' and 'systematizing' were already in frequent use by engineers from the 1870s. Individuals such as Alexander Hamilton Church, John Dunlap, Horace Arnold, and Harrington Emerson, who were labeled 'expert systematizers', praised the value of 'systematic organizations', promoted methods to advance 'systematization', and even criticized 'over-systematization' for red tape or lack of concern with human interest2. The work of the systematizers -- which amounted less to a coherent theory than to a series of maxims -- was recorded in various magazine articles and books. They conceptualized the enterprise as a unified whole, controlled and coordinated in a systematic fashion. Systems discourse emerged triumphantly from engineering literature, supporting the ideological phase of the managerial revolution early in the twentieth century. It ultimately became the master blueprint for the management and organization theories that were formalized in the 1940s-1960s. The work of translation done by engineers from the beginning of the century generated several rationalizations for the implementation of systems. These justifications addressed different constituencies and were based on standards accepted in American society particularly during the Progressive era. Systems are efficient. The main justification for the introduction of systems was anchored in a functionalist logic, necessitated by industry and the economy. Systems were presented as transcendental, making them a corollary of the universal story of organizations. Systems were a necessary constituent of the universal realm of organizations since they transcended idiosyncrasies of operation in terms of time and place. Idiosyncrasies, it was said, interfere with the universal and efficient functioning of the system. The rule of transcendentality suggested that the system cannot be reduced to individual participants or to its elementary parts. It marked the system as a durable structure that could survive people, locations, and history. Harrington Emerson stressed the historical nature of the system: 'the object . . . is to annihilate time, to bring back the past, to look into the future, to annihilate space, to condense a whole railroad system into a single line' (Emerson Harringtom, 1911, p 67-74). Systems ensure harmony of action. As a corollary of its wholeness, the system was presented as ensuring harmony. The following description in Engineering Magazine put it in technical language: An example of perfect harmony of action is found in an automatic system, say for producing wood screws, or pins. The material goes in at one end and comes out of the other, commercially perfect; the process is wholly mechanical. Such a harmony and clockwork precision interconnects machines, and human behavior was the focus of many systematizers. Admirers of technology suggested that the repeated pace of technological development led to the mechanization of human beings. The machine and its discipline shaped the human mind to be more rational and scientific. The systematization of management facilitated the view that organizational order should be machine-like. In describing a system at the Tiffany Motor Co. of New Jersey, W. E. Thompson suggested that 'a system should keep the bearings oiled and the machine running smoothly' (Leland,1961, p 421-477). He labeled the system as 'semi-automatic'. John Dunlap, editor of Engineering Magazine, envisioned 'a completely automatic factory at the end of the industrial revolution' (Leland, 1961, p 421-477). The definition of 'harmony' as an ideal technical relation of input and output was later echoed in the notion of 'dynamic equilibrium', promulgated in the 'open systems' perspective in organization theory. Systems transcend bounded rationality. Frequently mentioned in the engineering literature as a reason for the introduction of systems were the limitations of individual actors in maintaining rational organization behavior. For example, Horace Arnold (known also as Henry Roland) stated in 1899: Even if entire honesty and sincerity prevailed at all times in all business transactions, the mere differences due to variations in individual understandings of orders, would render it impossible to conduct any business of magnitude on verbal specifications ... all men had absolutely infallible memories, and were incapable of making any statement at variance with those memories, it would be possible, perhaps, to carry on a successful and prosperous manufacturing business without the use of shop books or factory accounts3. To the systematizers, general rules and laws had to be discerned and formalized, while individuals had to become invisible. Administrative systems -- such as cost accounting, production control, and wage schemes -- transcended the capriciousness of individual actors and reduced dependence upon them. The editors of the American Machinist addressed this contrast on numerous occasions: 'In considering the methods of factory management . . . They fall naturally into two main classes. On the one hand is that class of the factory which depends on the individual capacity of its employees and on the other the one depending on the perfection of its system for its results'4. Systems are a measure against uncertainty: 'Uncertainty', the hobgoblin of organizational order, was constructed by organizational theorists as an entity feeding on human limitations and the 'given' complexity of the market. Systems were offered as rational measures to confront uncertainty. Systematizers were convinced that mechanical 'system' signified an underlying reality in organizations; that, in light of the chaotic state of factory practices, there was a real need to 'eliminate confusion, oversight and neglect', to 'coordinate efforts', and to accomplish these things by the use of standardized procedures and routine managerial work through 'system'. The following excerpt from the Engineering Magazine in 1902 clarifies that systems require formal explication: 'One rule in particular is necessary for any system. That is, all orders must be in writing. This must be adhered to strictly. Written orders reduce the liability of error; they fix absolutely the responsibility. They promote accuracy and care in the preparation of orders' (Quote from Engineering Magazine cited in Litterer Joseph, 1961a, p 461-487). There were several rationales given for the need to formalize the system. One of them was the limitation of the human mind. As early as 1885, Metcalf also linked formalization to the reduction of ambiguity, not in planning but in operation: 'The trouble is not in foreseeing necessities, nor in starting the work to meet them; but in constantly running over the back track to see that nothing ordered has been overlooked, and in settling disputes as to whether such and such an order was or was not actually given and received' (Cited in Litterer Joseph, 1961a, p 461-487). The emergence of professional management, with salaried managers, business schools, and formal theoretical foundations, is a recent phenomenon. The New York Public Library did not have a single title on management prior to 1881, whereas in 1910 it already carried 240 titles. The first school of industrial management was established in Pennsylvania in 1881, but it was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that additional schools of business were instituted nationwide. In the late 1890s the language of industrial management was identified, and its first maxims were formalized (Aldrich Howard 1979, p 112-124). In practice, American engineers had to navigate the aircraft of management through stormy and rough conditions. These travails are absent from management theory and its official historiography. But this is not the only fallacy associated with management historiography. In the history of ideas, ideological revolutions are often attributed to single individuals, the great thinkers of their time. Liberalism is attributed to Locke, communism to Marx, and psychoanalysis to Freud. In this vein, management ideology is attributed to Frederick Taylor. The acceptances of Taylor’s principles of management as a functional, unquestioned necessity was not a one-man project, nor were his principles formulated altogether peacefully. They came at the end of turbulent transformations, bitter struggles, and processes of delegitimization. As early as the 1860s, engineers perfected their technical skills and led an industry-wide project of standardization and systematization. In the 1890s this project was extended into a public political campaign. Engineers publicized their project by monopolizing the liberal discourse about rationality, human nature, progress, equality, and moral standings. They created a new discourse which became not only the underpinning ideology of management, but a prism through which social and cultural issues were interpreted and determined. Through this campaign engineers were able to transform their technical view of mechanical objects into a grand theory of society. The engineers elaborated ideas about political economy, government, international relationship, gender, race, war, and peace. Their views were expressed in newspapers, magazines, and professional meetings, thereby preparing the groundwork for the managerial revolution. Conclusions Prior to the 1880s, engineers played only a minor role in the traditional capitalist order. Firms were by and large controlled by family capitalism. The large corporations had not yet emerged. The so-called 'robber barons' exercised centralized control over production, marketing, and organization (Jones 1968). Smaller manufacturers personally supervised their enterprises. In the power structure of this industrial order, there was little place for autonomous engineers. Lacking their own means of production, engineers could only offer their engineering principles in order to gain a respectable position in the industrial order. Moreover, they encountered opposition from manufacturers who were apprehensive about the introduction of management methods. Manufacturers viewed the attempt to invent management practices as a strategy employed by engineers to expand their professional territory. To them, management systems were costly and superfluous. At the other pole of the capitalist order, the proletariats were forming their interests, strategies, and representatives. They, too, rejected engineering-based managerial ideas. The triumph of these practices as well as their rational discourse placed engineers in the position of a new middle class of professionals at the epicenter of the stratification system of their time. They replaced earlier ideologies of 'unscrupulous' and 'chaotic' capitalism with a modern, 'benevolent', liberal terminology. The natural, objective, and 'apolitical' image of management rationality was used to legitimize its direct political application. Yet, rationality is culturally embedded, self-serving, and hegemonically imposing. It has become an invisible trope, an accepted epistemological assumption, and one which has infused other disciplines such as sociology, psychology, history, and political science, not to mention economics. Works Cited Aldrich Howard E. Organizations and Environments, 1979. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Anthony P. D.. The Foundation of Management, 1986. London: Tavistock. Diggins Patrick J. The Rise and fall of the American Left, 1992. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Emerson Harrington. Efficiency as a Basis for Operations and Wages, 1911. New York: Engineering Magazine. Jenks Leland H. "Early Phases of the Management Movement", 1961. Administrative Science Quarterly, 5: 421-77. Jones Peter, (ed.), the Robber Barons Revisited, 1968. Boston: D. C. Heath & Company. Litter. The Emergence of Systematic Management as Shown by the Literature of Management from 1870-1900, 1986. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. Litterer Joseph A. "Systematic Management: The Search for Order and Integration". 1961a. Business History Review, 35: 461-487 Noble David F. America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism, 1977. New York: Oxford University Press Read More