The Human Relations Approach

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The Human Relations Approach
What Conrad & Poole (1998) refer to as a "relational strategy of organizing" is more commonly called the "human relations approach" or "human relations school" of management by organizational theorists. This human relations approach can be seen as being almost entirely antithetical to the principles of classical management theory. Where classical management focused on the rationalization of work routines, human relations approaches stressed the accommodation of work routines and individual emotional and relational needs as a means of increasing productivity. To a great extent, the human relations approach can be seen as a response to classical management -- an attempt to move away from the inflexibility of classical management approaches. The human relations approach can also be seen as a response to a highly charged and polarized social climate in which labor and management were viewed as fundamentally opposed to one another, and communism was seen as a very real and immediate danger to the social order -- the notion of class struggle propounded by Marxist theorists was taken very seriously. By focusing on the extent to which workers and managers shared economic interests in the success of the organization, the human relations approach can be seen as an attempt to move beyond the class struggle idea. Of course, the human relations approach (which really emerged in the late 1930s) was made possible by the fairly coercive suppression of the most radical organized labor movements. The sidebar describes one such movement, and is provided in order to indicate the social climate extant in the period immediately preceding the emergence of the human relations approach. In essence, the human relations approach sees the organization as a cooperative enterprise wherein worker morale is a primary contributor to

productivity, and so seeks to improve productivity by modifying the work environment to increase morale and develop a more skilled and capable worker.

The Human Relations Approach: Basic Principles The basic principles of the human relations approach are as follows: (1) Decentralization -- The strict notion of hierarchy employed by classical management theorists is replaced with the idea that individual workers and functional areas (i.e., departments) should be given greater autonomy and decision-making power. This requires greater emphasis on lateral communication so that coordination of efforts and resources can occur. This communication occurs via informal communication channels rather than the formal, hierarchical ones. (2) Participatory Decision-Making -- Decision-making is participatory in the sense that those making decisions on a day-to-day basis include line workers not normally considered to be "management." The greater autonomy afforded individual employees -- and the subsequent reduction in "height" and increase in span of control of the organizational structure -- requires that they have the knowledge and ability to make their own decisions and the communication skill to coordinate their efforts with others without a nearby supervisor. (3) Concern for Developing Self-Motivated Employees -- The emphasis on a system of decentralized and autonomous decision-making by members of the organization requires that those members be highly "self-motivated" (that is, able to set their own task-related goals and monitor their own performance in achieving them). So one goal of managers in such an organization is to design and implement organizational structures that reward such self-motivation and autonomy. Another is to negotiate working relationships with subordinates that foster effective communication in both directions. Thus, the human relations approach suggests changes in the structure of the organization itself, in the nature of work, and in the relationship between supervisor and subordinate. Each of these changes relies upon assumptions about the individual, the organization, and communication -- just like any other theory of organizations. What are these assumptions? From your reading of Conrad & Poole (1998), can you identify them?

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