How Techniques of Rationalisation Aim to Increase Efficiency and Control in Organisations - Literature review Example

EXPLAIN HOW TECHNIQUES OF RATIONALISATION AIM TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY AND CONTROL IN ORGANISATIONS By of the (Tutor) Name of school (University) City Date Introduction Rationalization can be understood as the placement of emotions, values and traditions to motivate behaviors in the society therefore replacing the current societal values that motivate their current behaviors through more rational thoughts and values (Cherepanov, Feddersen, & Sandroni, 2013). A case could be for example, an industrialized country trying to influence the ideologies of another country that is underdeveloped in order to get them industrialize. As such the industrialized country is seeking to replace that which is an outdated culture of production practiced by the other country. Additionally, rationalization can be targeted towards removing unreasonable elements from certain people. As such those who engage rationalization are seen to employ reason as well as think in a rationalistic manner. Thus rationalization will feature technology adoption; bureaucracies among others. This essay therefore seeks to discuss how organizations adopt rationalization in order to improve efficiency and cut costs. Further the essay will explain how rationalization can be employed in the kitchen area of Junction Hotel to improve its efficiency. Discussion Rationalization Organizations will engage rationalization as a means to organize their actions in to systems that are logically coherent. The focus for this rationalization process is therefore to make the company as efficient as possible. As such rationalization will ensure the organization substitutes rules that are logically consistent to traditions. This will result in to increase in work processes and effectiveness due to introduced arrangements in steps on a certain activity (Baxter, Sale, Engle, & Blackmond, 2012). Therefore organizations will realize an increase in human activity; increase the effectiveness of the human activities; and improvement of technology. This implies the company or organization will ensure the right way that simplifies production process is achieved as a goal to rationalization. Go, (2013) discusses: During the industrial revolution, an increased societal rationalization was thought to lead to trapping man in bureaucracy and rationality iron cage. However, Taylor’s time and motion studies assumed an ethic that people will put more effort in work and behave in a rational manner in order to maximize their income. As such, this people will put before their own personal goals and objectives the perceived requirements of their companies. Therefore Taylor replaced the rule of thumb that existed in the methods of work with a more scientific manner of doing things. He advocated for scientifically training and empowering employees to improve their skills rather than just let them work. Taylor therefore believed in true science to provide solution to fair work standard problems. He thus replaced rule of thumb methods with new scientific ways and that is rationalization in practice. Many factories then took to implement Taylor’s principles and among the people who adopted them were Henry Ford. This enabled the factories to increase their productivity up to thrice the initial level. In Henry Ford’s automobile company, he applied the principles of Taylor. Families too in that era began performing their tasks in relation to Taylor’s principles. As such, Taylor rationalized the manufacturing industry of Henry ford including other people’s home operations. Therefore Taylorism contributed to rationalization of the industries (Cobley, 2014). Henry Ford and Fredrick Taylor personified rationalization planning and organizing. As such they combined the rationalization of production and that of administration that Henry Fayol and Max weber. Factories thus adopted bureaucracies in their operations (Palmer, & Clegg, 1996). The implementation of Taylor’s three principles increased productivity of factories. Tylorism has thus been important because it has led to the development of work design concept, work measurement design as well as work control among other important functions. As Taylor discussed the rational man, motivated by profits he designed principles that ensured rationalization of factories become a reality and benefitted people. They included scientific task design; scientific selection; equal division of labor and management worker cooperation. Henry Ford a beneficiary of these principles using the assembly line raised wages by 5 dollars a day. In determining the impact of productivity, Taylor used the shovel experiment. This enabled designing of a shovel that tripled the amount of materials one worker would shovel in a day. This implied more output and subsequently more pay. Therefore increasing productivity in this sense means increasing income of an individual (Cobley, 2014). Taylorism thus provided the foundation upon which industrial revolution benefitted from technological advancements. This has made the current man power requirement in production be lowered. Taylor needed to reduce the cost of production that meant a cheaper labor cost. As such the industrial workforce muscle had to be reduced. This is where technology comes to play. Thus the management of a factory is now able to gain control over the cost of production within their firms. Therefore to realize efficiency within the organization, workers had to follow the instructions of the managers who are tasked with organizing and directing work. His role was thus fundamental in separating planning from implementing. This ensured that efficiency does not go down (Cobley, 2014). The industrial revolution has seen countries therefore compare what others are doing and try rationalizing their operations towards the direction of other better performing countries. Therefore societies began industrializing in certain places and not all places. As such, we can use Taylor’s rationalization to have contributed to industrial revolution in terms of promoting scientific ways of reducing costs of production. The scientific knowledge thus was transmitted to other societies contributing to industrial revolution in those regions. Profit motivation has served to drive this system because those who run the factories needed to maximize the output, hence, the scientific knowledge lad to reorganization of the techniques of production as well as development of new business practices. Rationalization is now practiced in the contemporary organizations. Ritzer, (2011) discusses: McDonalds is a perfect example of how rationalization is practiced in the contemporary world and specifically in the food industry. The term McDonalds was invented by a person called George Ritzer in order to give description to sociological phenomenon that is taking place in our society today. McDonaldization began with the likes of Henry Ford with his assembly line influenced by Taylorism. Therefore McDonalds is just a process of rationalization that has been a little bit taken to extreme levels. This is because for this technique every task they undertake can be rationalized. They have thus taken all the tasks within their operational objectives and broken them down repeatedly to the smallest level that is very efficient. As such they single out the most efficient method and utilize in their operations. This has given rise to very efficient logical sequence methods that are always completed in the same way to produce the suitable outcome. With a predictable outcome, McDonalds have controlled all the aspects of their processes and made quality their measure of good performance. Therefore McDonalds have realized four main dimensions in their rationalization which include: efficiency, calculability, predictability and control. Additionally, McDonalds have ensured deskilling; consumer workers; and irrationality. Evaluating Rationalization Rationalization has improved efficiency in organization. This has ensured increased production at a lower cost and subsequent increase in returns. According to Cvetkovi (2009), the following are some of the benefits of rationalization: Removal of loss sources: this is through reducing cost of production such as human labor. This has an impact on the expenditures that a factory will incur on the wages. Therefore losses due to labor costs are reduced. Increased productivity and quality: this is enabled when rationalization is adopted by the organization due to minimizing on input and maximizing on output. Decrease of own cost: organizations thus can measure the cost, evaluate and make adjustments reducing the production costs. Decrease of risks: with a reduced labor force or reduced employees the risks are reduced in the sense that the high production costs including recurrent employee wages are cut down. Increased profit: with a reduction in production cost, labor cost among other related costs the profits are bound to be higher. Others include: creation of working conditions that are optimal so that the organization can make the most of its employees; exchange of experience between different companies where ideas and experiences can be gained through information sharing; the interests of sellers, producers and consumers are able to be harmonized since all of them are able to meet their needs. However, rationalization has also presented some disadvantages. This includes an organization structure that is rigid and very much formalized. This has led to bureaucracy that Max Weber has often described as an iron cage. This is because the system behaves like an iron cage prison that traps people in it. As such the freedoms and expressions as well as potentials of people have been prohibited. This is bad for the growth and development of a society. Chosen Topic: Organizational Change In the today’s world, organization change rapidly. Benn, Dunphy, & Griffiths, (2014) explains: The production skills are often reorganized to ensure maximized profit making. As organizations go through changes, they introduce new machines; develop new practices as well as new ideas. The market has a varied of need that keep changing. Therefore organizational change will occur following these adjustments so that a company is bale to transit from its current state to the desired future state. In order to manage this change, planning and implementation of the process should be carried out in a manner that the employees resistance is minimized the cost as well and the effectiveness of the effort to bring the change is maximized. Organization change involves restructuring, reorganization, and turnaround. As such it follows changes in business strategies or alteration of the organizations major sections. This change has drivers which can be pointed towards the new desired state. They may include the competitive environment which forces the organization to adjust or be faced out of competition. Secondly, consumer demand can be a driver to organization change in an attempt to meet the consumers’ needs. Third, organizational change can be driven an emergence of a new technology. This occurs especially when the technology presents better and efficient ways of achieving the organization’s goals. Economic conditions on the other end can also be a driver towards organizational change especially harsh economic conditions. This occurs when organizations want to cut cost or change strategies to enable it survive in the industry. Finally, government policy can cause an organization to change its strategies in order to conform to certain laws or policies. Organizational change is significant ot any organization since those companies that fear change might just disappear in the market. As such organizational change is always geared to ensure companies survival as well as increased output (Brown, 2014). Organizational change is much similar to rationalization. This is because the rationalization process in itself is a form of organizational change (Basu, n.d.). The similarities range from establishment, implementation and monitoring. The following are different ways in which rationalization and organizational change relate. First, rationalization in itself as explained in the above paragraph is a form of organization change. Rationalization is a strategy that an organization can pick on when affecting a change in its operations. Secondly, rationalization and organizational change both happen to increase the input or profits. Organizational change drivers discussed above include need to increase the organization’s profits or income. On the same note, rationalization objective is always geared towards maximum profit making by the organization. Rationalizations normally involve cutting on the loss sources. This is a driver for implementing organizational change. This is because an organization that is making many losses can make changes directed towards cutting on these losses. Additionally, an organization that is exposed to a lot of risk factors such as loss, stiff competition among other risks that can see it faced out will adopt changes. These organizational changes will be geared towards preventing the company from these risks. Similarly rationalization reduces the risk factors as one of its goals in an organization. This therefore gives another similarity between the two processes. Rationalization when engaged by an organization creates optimal working conditions. Similarly, when an organization considers making changes towards ensuring maximum productivity it will have employees work evaluated to assess their efficiency. This will then be followed by establishment of optimal work conditions that will lead to implementation of activities that relate to that effect. This gives as a similarity between this two processes Junction Hotel Specific areas of work at junction hotel that both rationalization and organizational change can be applied include the Kitchen area. This is where most of the labor is found including the critical expertise. Rationalization and organizational change can be adopted to ensure that optimum working conditions for those who engage their labor in production of food is achieved. The losses incurred through wastage of foods that are disposed. This can be reduced through improving efficiency by engaging organizational change in terms of quality of products. This implies products with reduced perishability. Organizational change too can lead to adoption of new technology in production which ensure that only food that will be consumed is produced and thus minimizing wastages. Whimster, & Lash, (2014) explains: Rationalization and organizational change further can bring about bureaucracies, one that, Max Weber has often described as an iron cage. This will ensure that the system is operating in a manner that the loss sources in the kitchen are reduced. Organizational change and rationalization can also lead to better communication in the kitchen between workers. Better communication reduces errors which lead to a lot of wastages. This will save Junction hotel a lot of losses improving the efficiency in the kitchen. Organizational change has got an impact on rationalization as a process (Burke, 2013). This is because, rationalization will be aiming at efficiency and as such lay down the processes and activities that need to be broken down to a level where the most effective is chosen. Organizational change can result in to new ways of production, bureaucracies which ensure efficiency in the overall organizational activities. The main similarities between organizational change and rationalization are that, they all: lead to: increased profits, reduced loss sources, risk reduction; harmonization of the interests of sellers, producers and customers; increased productivity; increased quality; cutting of costs; as well as exchange of experience among companies. The difference however is that rationalization may be targeted towards work and operating measures while organizational change may affect the entire organization from its structure to products. Rationalization is a tool for making a organizations production become more effective or rather efficient. It therefore implies rational actions are taken with the workers initiatives as well as their professional executions to of the activities that have been rationalized. The rationalization process is targeted economically at reaching the highest performances of an organization. Organizational change targets not only the activities of the organization but also the products and services as well. This essay has therefore discussed rationalization as an efficiency tool that organizations use to maximize their output. Additionally the essay has explained the benefits of this tool to organizations. Further the essay has discussed a related topic which is organizational change and its importance. Similarities and differences between the two have also been discussed and how they can be used in Junction Hotel to improve its productivity. Reference Palmer, G., & Clegg, S. R. (1996). Constituting management: markets, meaning, and identities. Berlin, W. de Gruyter. Cherepanov, V., Feddersen, T., & Sandroni, A. (2013). Rationalization. Theoretical Economics, 8(3), 775-800. Go, J. (2013). For a postcolonial sociology. Theory and Society, 42(1), 25-55. Whimster, S., & Lash, S. (Eds.). (2014). Max Weber, rationality and modernity. Routledge. Cobley, E. (2014). Graham Swifts Waterland and the Ideology of Efficiency. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 55(3), 272-290. …………. Benn, S., Dunphy, D., & Griffiths, A. (2014). Organizational change for corporate sustainability. Routledge. Brown, T. (2014). Change by design. HarperCollins e-books. Ritzer, G. (2011). The McDonaldization of society 6. Pine Forge Press. Engle, J. (2012). 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