ADMINISTRATIONUNRAVELED

Revealing a Unified General Theory

By George H. McCleskey
 Copyright 2011 George H McCleskey

ISBN 9781937520373
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November 2011
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 CONTENTS

THE GENESIS OF THE UNIFIED GENERAL THEORY

A brief commentary and overview with annotated references.

WHY IS A GENERAL THEORY OF ADMINISTRATION NEEDED

The case and context for a general theory of administration focused on an argument for it
made by Dr. Edward H. Litchfield.

URWICK ASSEMBLES THE ELEMENTS OF ADMINISTRATION

A summary of Lyndall Urwicks synthesis of his work with work that he selected from other
scholars primarily Henri Fayol, Mooney and Reiley and F. W. Taylor. Urwick presents 27
principles of administration arranged in a logical scheme.

THE UNIFIED PATTERN OF ADMINISTRATION

This is the core of the Unified General Theory. It is comprised of Lyndall Urwicks logical
scheme of 27 administration principles and 5 additional governing principles organized into a
functional logical flow chart.

WEBERS BUREAUCRACY
Max Webers ideal, legal, monocratic type of Bureaucracy is a supplementary component of
the Unified General Theory. It emerges naturally, rationally and unavoidably in the application of
The Unified Pattern of Administration to develop an enterprise.
MASLOWS HIERARCHY OF HUMAN NEEDS
Abraham Maslows theory of motivation is a supplementary component of The Unified
General Theory. It emerges naturally, rationally and unavoidably in the application of The
Unified Pattern of Administration to develop an enterprise.

PRESTHUS ACCOMMODATION OF INDIVIDUALS IN BUREAUCRACY

Robert Presthus interdisciplinary analysis of the influence of big organizations upon
individuals is the complementary component that emerges naturally, rationally and unavoidably
from the interaction of the 2 supplementary components. It evokes 3 modal type categories of
accommodation, Upward Mobile, Ambivalent and Indifferent.
THE UNIFIED GENERAL THEORY OF ADMINISTRATION
The Unified General Theory is summarized. It is novel, natural, rational and unavoidable.

-AppendixIMPLICATIONS
A list of some of the more apparent implications that can be deduced from the propositions
of the Unified General Theory of Administration.

-AppendixDISPLAYS
Figure 1The Principles of Administration Logical Square
Figure 2The Principles of Organization and Coordination Logical Square
Figure 3The Principles of Command and Control Logical Square
Figure 4Urwicks Pattern of Administration
Figure 5Urwicks Elements of Administration
Figure 6The Unified Pattern of Administration
 Chapter One - THE GENESIS OF THE UNIFIED GENERAL THEORY

For the last hundred or so years thousands of books, technical papers and periodicals
about administration have accumulated. This is knowledge that could be useful to those
concerned with administration if they just knew what was there, where it is and they had the
motivation, time and opportunity to look for it. Very few that need it ever have the opportunity to
access more than the tiniest bit of it. There was a time in my career when I needed some of this
administration knowledge but didnt know if it existed or where to find it if it did exist.
My need for administration knowledge developed early in a 31-year management career
with a large industrial enterprise. Early in those years events occurred that were confusing or
puzzling or frustrating or sometimes even seemed irrational. Policies believed to be rational and
necessary would accomplish their intended purpose but would also cause collateral damage that
was detrimental to the organization. Here are a few very brief illustrative examples.
There was a standard cost system in which actual costs were compared to standard
budgets and the variances evaluated as a measure of performance. It was obvious that the
standards were too generous because good performances were being routinely achieved with
little or no special effort. It was apparent that production costs could be significantly reduced and
profits increased by tightening these standard budgets. A program to accomplish this offered cash
awards to management for developing and installing improved practices that reduced costs
accompanied by progressively tightened standard budgets. The awards were generous and
management entered into the program with zeal. Eventually appropriate standards were achieved
but they were not recognized as such. The standards continued to be tightened but the
accompanying changes that were supposed to reduce costs frequently did not do so. The end
result was standard costs that became as much too tight as they were once too loose creating an
apparent decline in performance. The organization was actually performing effectively but was
perceived as ineffective.
Organizations can internalize counterproductively in their own worst interest. They can
become so attached to internal procedures and controls that they lose sight of the harmful effects
that can result when dedication to procedure supercedes dedication to the objectives for which
the procedure was developed. Management and non-management personnel were observed
who day after day and year after year performed their work competently and dependably but with
benign apathy. Sometimes even arising out of this apathy to intense activity to perpetuate an
undesirable status quo apparently unaware of its adverse effect upon the operation and its
personnel.
Internalization can also reach beyond internal counterproductively and become an external
threat. Manufacturing units had monthly shipping directives of specific orders to be shipped that
month. Occasionally it would become apparent that some of the orders would not ship on time. To
meet the shipping directive, orders that were promised for the following month but could be
shipped in the current month would be pulled into the current month to replace those that were
promised but would not be ready for shipment. Customers who expected delivery of their orders
as promised had based their business plans and operations upon that promise but received
instead a disappointing broken delivery notice. Other customers were asked to accept unplanned
for early deliveries that they didnt want or need. Eventually, customers turned to more reliable
suppliers resulting in a progressive decay in market participation.
Sales representatives make promises to customers to get orders that the producing unit
subsequently rejects because it cant fulfill the promises made. This will adversely affect sales
performance, so the sales unit persuades the executives that the order is very important and is
just too good to lose. The producing unit is directed to accept the order, give it special attention
and work it in somehow. Months later, the special order ships on time because of executive
mandated special attention, but other orders that were preempted in the process ship late. The
producing unit is penalized with a poor shipping performance and other customers are burdened
with late shipments.
Over the years, these and other counterproductive events in great variety continued to
occur. There had to be some sort of rationale within which these dysfunctional events could at
least be understood and possibly be corrected. A personal off-the-job effort searching for these
rationales ended with my acceptance of a career advancing invitation to be sponsored for a
course of study leading to a Sc.D. in Metallurgical Engineering. Ironically, this event initiated a
long and very different path that has led, serendipitously, to the result that the personal research
effort it interrupted had been seeking. The Sc.D. program was entered with much enthusiasm but
out of economic necessity working in the steel mill also continued. By the end of the first semester
it was apparent that this arrangement wasnt going to succeed despite the attraction for the
subject. The disconcerting events in the workplace continued to be a distraction and a source of
subject. The disconcerting events in the workplace continued to be a distraction and a source of
frustration. They couldnt be ignored because they often added burdensome complications to
work responsibilities. With more regret than realized at the time, my participation in the Sc.D.
Program was terminated and my personal efforts were redirected back to the search for rationales
but this time with a more formal and intense procedure.
Since the troubling events were occurring in business situations and the way that the
people conducted their business affairs, it seemed reasonable that Business Administration
should be a resource for answers. An MBA evening program was entered and eventually
abandoned. By the end of the first year it had become apparent that it would not be the source of
answers for the concerns of this pursuit. Just as Metallurgical Engineering basically taught the
mechanics of Metallurgy, Business Administration basically taught the mechanics of Business.
Since these troubling events dealt with people, perhaps psychology could be the source
where the answers could be found. This time, instead of engaging in a course of psychological
study, time and effort were devoted to reviewing the psychological course content and the
publications available in the Psychological Department library. Psychological books and
periodicals were reviewed. The table of contents and some of the chapters and articles were
scanned or read to assess what they offered. It eventually became apparent that psychology
would not be the source for the answers.
Dr. Alfred Berger, my sponsor for the Metallurgical Sc.D. program, was supportive of this
search for the right place to study and was aware of these disappointments. He made a crucial
suggestion that Dr. Brinkloe, an Industrial Engineering Professor, should be consulted. Dr.
Brinckloe evidenced a genuine interest in these concerns and after several discussions he
suggested that the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) should be
explored. The procedure used for Psychology was repeated at GSPIA. The class offerings and
the GSPIA library were thoroughly assessed. GSPIA offered courses with unusual titles such as
Diplomacy, Negotiation, Bureaucracy, Power etc. Books about bureaucracy, administration and
organization were reviewed that addressed subject matter dealing with people and organizations
from a different perspective. The GSPIA faculty suggested that the Public Administration
curriculum offered the most potential for what they perceived as the nature of my concerns. A
formal request for entry into the Ph.D. in Public Administration program was submitted. The
request took almost a year to process because I did not fit the appropriate candidate profile for this
program. Eventually, acceptance as an unusual but acceptable candidate was granted. The
purpose of briefly relating these trials and tribulations is to illustrate just how difficult, expensive
and time consuming it can be for someone to muddle their way to the discovery of extraordinary
sources of administration knowledge like GSPIA and why not many do so.
By the end of the 1st trimester, the very small GSPIA library had become a gold mine of
administration knowledge. By the end of 3 trimesters I had accumulated a sizeable collection of
random, unconnected nuggets of administration knowledge. These did not readily coalesce into a
rationale nor did they present an apparent context for understanding. They were just isolated
pieces of information that I was certain were part of the big puzzle but did not know how to put
them together. I thought that these were unusual finds so it became a standard procedure to
purchase a copy of the source document or, if unavailable, to make copies if possible or if
necessary make extensive notes. Fortunately, at this time, an article by Dr. Edward Litchfield
surfaced that specifically addressed this issue. In essence, Dr. Litchfield stated that there is a lot
of excellent knowledge about administration widely distributed throughout several disciplines. He
believed that most of the value and contribution to our understanding of organizations and
administration are yet to be revealed because the information has not been assembled and
correlated into a comprehensive totality of any kind. He then made the case for a General Theory
of Administration to serve as a framework for assembling this knowledge into a coherent whole.
No one had yet done so and he speculated that until someone did much of the real value of all of
this knowledge would remain obscure or hidden and unavailable. I decided to respond to Dr.
Litchfields call and try to develop a way to assemble administration knowledge into a coherent
whole or as he called it, A General Theory of Administration. I also viewed it as a good subject of
choice for the Ph.D. dissertation.
This formal pursuit at GSPIA ended four trimesters through the six trimester in-residence
part of the Ph.D. program. Several major unforeseeable events in both my personal and
professional lives converged simultaneously necessitating my reluctant withdrawal from the
GSPIA Ph.D. program with virtually no prospects for subsequent reentry. Now, more than 30
years later, the quest is nearly finished. During those intervening years, as time allowed, I
continued working to develop the General Theory drawing primarily from experience and the
large volume of administration information nuggets accumulated while at GSPIA. This effort
became an avocation and the scope of the effort gradually broadened and eventually expanded
into the development of a Unified General Theory of Administration. The term Unified was added
to recognize that some of the components of the theory were adopted from the Administration field
to recognize that some of the components of the theory were adopted from the Administration field
and that other parts were adopted from the fields of Sociology and Psychology. The Unified
General Theory of Administration also provides the context within which rationales for the
dysfunctional events described earlier can be understood.
The Unified General Theory of Administration has its roots in, and surprisingly derives
most of its substance from, the often vilified classical school of administration study that began
late in the 1890s and reached its peak of activity between 1935 and 1950. Organizations have
been around for centuries but a concerted interest in studying them did not begin until the turn of
the century. In Germany, Max Weber studied and published his work on social and economic
organization in the late 1890s and early 1900s. His relevant work was translated into English in
1947. Henri Fayols work on industrial management was published in French in 1916 and was
available in England but was not published in the United States until 1949. Lyndall Urwick, in
England, published his assembly and arrangement of administration principles in 1943. In the
United States, Abraham Maslow published his work on human motivation in 1943, Ralph Currier
Davis published his work on the fundamentals of top management in 1951 and in 1962 Robert
Presthus published his analysis and theory of human accommodation in bureaucracy. By 1962
the components that are assembled into The Unified General Theory of Administration had
already become part of the huge accumulation of administration knowledge.
The Unified General Theory of Administration is the product of my original work
synthesized with work adopted from these classical school scholars to form the Unified Pattern of
Administration that is the composite core component of the Unified General Theory. This
composite core also includes melded, supplemental work adopted from 6 additional scholars and
is augmented with edifying commentary adopted from another group of 11 scholars.
The liberal use of quotations was chosen as the most functional method of adopting and
embedding the work of these referenced scholars. The preference, to the greatest possible extent,
was to use their exact words without change or embellishment. For the most part, what these
scholars had to say was said well, and in my judgment, nothing could be gained by tampering
with their expression of their work. In almost every instance, it was the way that they said what
they said that captured my attention in the first place and motivated me to excerpt them verbatim
into my body of research. I have chosen to use the quotes from these scholars to express what I
want to convey in lieu of unethically paraphrasing the content and presenting it in my own words. I
have endeavored to be meticulously careful not to adopt and present the work of others as my
own. There was, occasionally, a need to paraphrase a few excerpts to facilitate brevity. In those
instances I have credited the originator of the central thought or idea. There are also a few
segments where I have extracted sentences and short paragraphs out of context and synthesized
them into a paragraph to enhance understanding by excluding the intervening case examples
and supporting commentary, arguments and references that the original authors used to validate
their positions. Most of the time it was possible to credit these sources as well. If there was a
dominant source for the text, the surname of that source is identified with [brackets]. Text that is
not referenced or credited is mine. However, this work was accumulated and developed over
more than 30 years and there is always the possibility that a connection to an old reference has
faded in memory or has been lost. All things considered, I could not have developed The Unified
General Theory of Administration without the many years of thinking, study and explanation of
administration and related phenomena by those scholars whose work has become a part of it.
I have chosen to liberally paragraph the text and to use italics, underlines and bold print to
highlight words and phrases to enhance comprehension and make the text less formal and easier
to read. The reader is asked to tolerate these and other format idiosyncrasies. They are
deliberate, functional and none are committed out of ignorance of the rules of formal writing form.
The case is also presented without the overburden of added arguments to persuade you for its
acceptance. I believe that the case as presented should persuade on its own merit and either be
obvious or become obvious upon reflection. The overall proposition is that the Unified General
Theory of Administration is novel, natural, rational and unavoidable.
The following is a functionally annotated, bibliographic listing of the scholars mentioned
above whose work was adopted and assembled into the Unified General Theory of
Administration.
THE 6 PRIMARY SCHOLARS:
LITCHFIELD, EDWARD H.adopted basis for a General Theory of Administration Notes
on a General Theory of Administration
1956 Administrative Science Quarterly, (June) Ithaca: Cornell University
DAVIS, RALPH CURRIERadopted basis for the Governing component 1951 The
Fundamentals of Top Management New York: Harper and Brothers
URWICK, LYNDALLadopted central core component 1943 The Elements of
Administration New York: Harper & Brothers
Administration New York: Harper & Brothers
WEBER, MAXadopted supplementary core component Legitimate Authority and
Bureaucracy
1976 Organization Theory ed. D. S. Pugh London: Cox and Wyman Ltd
1947 Extracted from: Max Weber: The Theory of Social and Economic Organizations.
Translated and edited by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons New York: Oxford University
Press
MASLOW, ABRAHAM H.adopted supplementary core component A Theory of Human
Motivation
1963 Readings in Managerial Psychology eds. Harold J. Leavitt and Louis R. Pondy
Chicago: The University Press 1943 Abridged from: The Psychological Review L)1943),
370 396
PRESTHUS, ROBERTadopted complementary core component
1962 The Organizational Society: An Analysis and a Theory New York: Random House

THE 6 SECONDARY SCHOLARS:

Anderson, Louis F.adopted addition to the central core component 1929 Das Logische,
seine Gesetze und Kategorien Leipzig: Felix Meiner
Etzioni, Amitaiadopted addition to a supplementary core component
1965 Modern Organizations ed. Alex Inkeles Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall
Fayol, Henriadopted addition to the central core component General Principles of
Management
1976 Organization Theory ed. D. S. Pugh London: Cox and Wyman Ltd
1949 Extracted from: General Industrial Management, Chapter 4, p19 42 Pitman: ?
McGregor, Douglas M.adopted addition to a supplementary
core component The Human Side of Enterprise
1964 Readings in Managerial Psychology eds. Harold J. Leavitt and Louis R. Pondy
Chicago: The University Press
1957 Extracted from: Adventures in Thought and Action: Proceedings of the Fifth
Anniversary Convocation of the School of Industrial Management, M.I.T. Cambridge Mass:
Technology Press
Mooney, James D. & Reiley, Alan C. adopted addition to the central core component
1939 The Principles of Organization New York: Harper & Brothers
Mouzelis, Nicos P.adopted addition to a supplementary core component
1968 Organization and BureaucracyAn Analysis of Modern Theories Chicago: Aldine
Publishing Company
Edifying commentaries were adopted from the following 11 additional scholars.
Buchele, Robert B.
1977 The Management of Business and Public Organizations New York: McGraw-Hill
Costello, Timothy W. and Zalkind, Sheldon S.
1963 Psychology in Administration A Research Orientation Englewood Cliffs:
PrenticeHall
Heady, Ferrel 1943 Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective Englewoods Cliffs,
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Gemmill, Paul F. 1943 Fundamentals of Economics New York & London: Harper &
Brothers
Katz, Daniel Human Interrelationships and Organizational Behavior
1962 Concepts and Issues in Administrative Behavior eds. Sidney Malick and Edward H.
Van Ness Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall
Massie, Joseph H. Management Theory 1965 Handbook of Organizations ed. James G.
March Chicago: Rand McNally
Rush, Harold M. F. 1968 Behavioral ScienceConcepts and Management Application
New York: National Industrial Conference Board
Scott, William G. 1966 Organization Theory Homewood: Richard D. Irwin
Tead, Ordway 1951 The Art of Administration New York: McGraw-Hill
Thompson, Victor A. 1968 Modern Organization New York: Alfred A. Knopf
Urwick, Lyndall (from a 2nd source) Organization as a Technical Problem 1937 Papers
on the Science of Administration New York: Columbia University
 Chapter Two - WHY IS A GENERAL THEORY OF ADMINISTRATION NEEDED?

We are basically engaged in surviving and perpetuating our existence. We have

demonstrated the ability to improve our condition by supplementing what nature has provided.
History records that when men lived individually and separately it took all of a mans powers just
to stay alive. We have found it increasingly necessary throughout our existence to cooperate with
other humans in collective action for mutual profit or common benefit, while coping with our own
individualities. We have collected and recollected into increasingly larger communities. Along the
way these communities established laws, developed institutions, customs, beliefs and tastes
which have richly complicated the relationships among them. We have established local, county,
state, and federal governmental organizations; public and semipublic authorities to provide water,
transportation, education, waste removal, and other essential life support services; an extensive
network of financial institutions and a variety of business enterprises incomprehensibly varied
and large in number. Collectively, all of these organizations constitute the actual environment in
which the individual is sustained and regulated. Virtually every aspect of our lives today is
administered, managed, directed, controlled or affected by or through an organization of one kind
or another. We have become a society, an economic social order existing as state and system
which sustains and restricts us. The initial goals, which drew us together for survival, have been
progressively overlaid with other goals, producing exceedingly complex societies such as the
United States is today. Virtually everyone in these exceedingly complex societies is dependent
upon thousands of organizations and hundreds of thousands of other humans for sustaining their
individual existences.
Fly over New York City imaginatively in an airplane, and remove the roofs from
successive buildings in your minds eye. What do you see? You see people, tens of thousands of
them at work. You see top executives in quiet offices thinking, planning, conferring, issuing orders
that affect people in distant localities where their companies have plants. You see boards of
directors hearing reports and adopting policies that may mean more or less employment in Akron,
Detroit, and Pittsburgh. You see department store heads in conference with merchandising
managers. You see office managers in insurance companies, banks, investment houses,
wholesaling firms, facilitating the labors of many. You see huge hospitals in which doctors, nurses
and auxiliary staffs are working to restore health. You see universities, colleges and schools in
which administrators and teachers are providing education. You see governmental bureaus;
federal, state, and municipal; in all of which some phase of public welfare is being served.
Everywhere there are people managing and there are people being managed. This is taking
place in organizations large and small and for all kinds of purposes. Relatively, this is a new
situation, both in the number and size of the organizations in operation. Anything like this was
unknown two hundred years ago. (Tead, 1951: 1,2)
Modern civilization depends largely on organizations as the most rational and efficient
form of social grouping known. By coordinating a large number of human actions, the
organization creates a powerful, economic social tool. It combines its personnel with its resources
weaving together leaders, experts, workers, machines and raw materials. At the same time it
continually evaluates how well it is performing and tries to adjust itself accordingly in order to
achieve its goals. All this allows organizations to serve the various needs of society and its
citizens more efficiently than smaller and more natural human groupings, such as families,
friendship groups, and communities. Organizations are not a modern invention. The Pharaohs
used organizations to build the pyramids. The Emperors of China used organizations a thousand
years ago to construct great irrigation systems. And the first Popes created a universal church to
serve a world religion. Modern society, however, has more organizations, these fulfilling a greater
variety of societal and personal needs, involving a greater proportion of its citizens, and affecting
a larger segment of their lives. In fact, modern society has so many organizations that a whole set
of second order organizations is needed to organize and supervise organizations. In the United
States, such regulatory commissions as the Security and Exchange Commission, the National
Labor Relations Board, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Aviation Agency, and
the Federal Reserve Board are examples. This increase in the scope and rationality of
organizations has not come without social and human cost. Many people who work for
organizations are deeply frustrated and alienated from their work. The organization, instead of
being societys obedient servant, sometimes becomes its master. But it is widely agreed that the
undesirable side effects do not outweigh the considerable benefits of organizations. Although few
people would agree to return to a more traditional society where human groupings were small,
intimate and inefficient, constant efforts are being made to reduce the frustrating and distorting
side effects of these huge social instruments of modern society, while maintaining, even
enhancing, their efficacy. (Etzioni, 1964: 1,2)
enhancing, their efficacy. (Etzioni, 1964: 1,2)
People do not naturally and eagerly work shoulder to shoulder or as between one group
and another in happy ways. There are frictions and strains; there are misunderstandings; there is
indifference to productive results; there is an actual sense of conflict among individuals and
groups. There is cooperation of sorts, or no productive outcomes would result; but it is often what
someone has aptly described as antagonistic cooperation. Indeed, as compared with the previous
modes of human activity, in hunting, pastoral, agricultural or handicraft societies, the present
physical intensification of human relations and their pervasive actuality throughout the waking life
of people have created an intensely artificial situation and problem. This in itself puts a tax upon
the adjustive powers of persons, which is essentially a new demand on human nature. To
assume that these new kinds of confining and continuing relations can carry on without benefit of
thought and planning for good and productive results would surely be an astonishing
hope.(Tead, 1951: 2,3)
The lack of an adequate theory of administration has hindered both the integration of
knowledge developing in allied fields and the orientation of thought into a larger concept of social
action. Lack of a generalized theory makes it appear that there are no universal aspects of
administration, but only special types of administration. More is known about the parts of
administration than about the totality. Failure to place the subject in a larger setting has led to the
ignoring of variables affecting the administrative process. (Litchfield, 1956: 3)
The preceding excerpt and those that follow argue for a General Theory of Administration.
They are adopted from an essay by Dr. Edward H. Litchfield who, at the time, was Dean of the
Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, Cornell University. His essay, Notes on
a General Theory of Administration was published in 1956 in the first volume of Cornells
Administrative Science Quarterly.
The most serious indictment that must be made of present thought is that it has failed to
achieve a level of generalization enabling it to systematize and explain administrative
phenomena that occur in related fields. Indeed, so far are we from broad generalizations about
administration that we appear to maintain that there is not a generic administrative process but
only a series of isolated types of administration. We seem to be saying that there is business
administration and hospital administration and public administration; that there is military
administration, hotel administration, and school administration. But there is no administration.
We buttress this conclusion and make a general theory more difficult of attainment by developing
separate schools in these fields in our universities. We organize ourselves into separate
professional societies, and we have developed separate bodies of literature, which speak to one
another infrequently. (Litchfield, 1956: 7)
Actually our practice is years ahead of our thought. There is abundant evidence to
demonstrate our unexpressed conviction that there is much that is common in administration.
Here are a few illustrations of the point. The emerging concepts of human relations,
communications, or operations research are as applicable to a hospital as they are to a bank. The
constant movement of executive personnel from business to government, from the military forces
into large business, from both government and business into education, is emphatic testimony
supporting our conviction that knowledge and skills are transferable from field to field because of
an essential universality in the administrative process itself. Again, it is a commonplace to
observe that management consulting firms find their knowledge and skills applicable in the
department store, on the one hand, and in the government bureaus or the university, on the other.
We are thus faced with the serious dichotomy of a practice that acknowledges common ground
among applied fields of administration and of a body of thought which makes no effort to delineate
areas of common interest. As theorists we have not yet established generalized concepts which
keep pace with the facts of contemporary administration. (Litchfield, 1956: 8,9)
If current thought fails to generalize the constants or universals in administration, it must
also be criticized for its failure to accord a broad role to the variables in the administrative
process.
Thus, while we are prepared to insist that there are many applied types of administration,
we seem to be saying that within any one field the process is relatively fixed. The often violent
attack upon the principles in administration school of thought was a reaction against the view
that in any single field administration must be regarded as a constant pattern of functions and
activities. It is true that we have been influenced by social science research sufficiently to
accommodate the informal organization and that under pressure of good public relations we
have adapted administrative performance to some of the demands of the communities in which
we find ourselves. It is also true that, in our unwillingness to seek broad generalizations about
administration in all fields, we have admitted modifications in administration by insisting that the
specialized situation of competition, or politics, or military necessity, and so on, made
administration different in each of our fields. This admission is important in modifying our rigidity
of thought in this particular connection even though we have found it stultifying in our attempts to
of thought in this particular connection even though we have found it stultifying in our attempts to
develop conceptual generalization. In spite of all of these modifications in the type of absolutist
administrative thought that reached its peak in the highly legalistic nineteenth century public
bureaucracies and in classical military management, we have not yet crossed an essential divide.
That circumstances modify administrative activity we concede, but we must go further and affirm
our view that administration is not only constant and universal in some respects but is also a
variable in an equation of action; that one of its fundamental characteristics is its relationship to
the other variables in that equation. Beyond this we must articulate those other variables so that
we may understand their interrelationship. We must maintain that ultimate understanding of the
administrative process comes only with an appreciation of the place of that process in the larger
system of administrative action. Many of us have felt for a long time that such theory as we have
is set forth in terms which lend themselves neither to empirical verification nor to critical
theoretical analysis. We urgently need our thought set forth in straightforward propositions that we
may then establish, modify, or destroy as research or more careful analysis may dictate. There is
little prospect that the study of administration will ever approach scientific stature unless we are
able to so articulate our thought. (Litchfield, 1956: 9, 10)
It is virtually impossible to codify our existing knowledge without some conceptual
framework within which to do so. Theory is important for this purpose in any field of investigation,
but it is crucially significant in an applied field which must ultimately draw together knowledge
now scattered through all of the social and behavioral sciences and through the many applied
areas of business, public, military, hospital and educational administrations. (Litchfield, 1956: 10,
11)
Dr. Litchfields compelling arguments persuaded me to upgrade my efforts into a project to
develop a General Theory of Administration. This eventually expanded to include the
development of a larger system of administrative action that synthesizes sociological and
psychological components with administration and the administrative process components. I call
this synthesis the Unified General Theory of Administration.
The next section begins the development of the Unified General Theory of
Administration with Lyndall Urwicks assembly of administration principles, that he called The
Elements of Administration.
 Chapter Three - URWICK ASSEMBLES THE ELEMENTS OF ADMINISTRATION

This section summarizes Lyndall Urwicks synthesis of his work with the work of other
scholars into logical relationships. If Henri Fayol had not documented his principles of
administration; If Louis F. Anderson had not identified the logical relationships among principles,
processes and effects; If Mooney and Reilly had not organized their principles of organization in
accordance with Andersons logical relationships;
Its doubtful that Lyndall Urwick would have developed and organized his principles of
administration and I would not have developed the Unified General Theory of Administration.
In the 1940s Lyndall Urwick, a British consultant, was an exponent of the traditional
classical approach to administration. Urwick concentrated less on building an entire philosophy of
administration and more on collecting the basic ideas of earlier writers into an eclectic summary
of classical concepts. He tediously compared the frameworks of Fayol, Taylor, Mooney and
Reiley, and others and found a remarkable consistency in their conclusions. (Massie, 1968: 413)
There are principles which can be arrived at inductively from the study of human
experience of organization, which should govern arrangements for human association of
any kind. These principles can be studied as a technical question, irrespective of the
purpose of the enterprise, the personnel composing it, or any constitutional, political, or social
theory underlying its creation. They are concerned with the method of subdividing and
allocating to individuals all the various activities, duties, and responsibilities essential to the
purpose contemplated, the correlation of these activities and the continuous control of the work of
the individuals so as to secure the most economical and most effective realization of
purpose. (Urwick, 1937: 49)
Urwicks work was published in 1943 in a book titled, The Elements of Administration.
This brief discussion of the Elements of Administration is based on five lectures delivered under
the auspices of the London branch of the Institute of Industrial Administration at the Polytechnic,
London, in May and June, 1942. The main point underlying this series of lectures is that it
focuses in a logical scheme various Principles of Administration formulated by different
authorities. The fact that such Principles worked out by persons of different nationalities, widely
varying experience and, in the majority of the cases, no knowledge of each others work were
susceptible to such logical arrangement, is in itself highly significant. (Urwick, 1943: 7)
Urwicks research and analysis identified 27 administrative principles. He adopted 17
principles from the work of Henri Fayol, 1 key principle from the works of F. W. Taylor and Mary
Parker Follett and 9 principles from the work of Mooney and Reiley. Mooney and Reiley had
arranged their 9 principles dealing with Organization and Coordination into a Logical Square
discipline that follows the order of the basic logical laws as revealed in Louis
F. Andersons Das Logische, seine Gesetze und Categorien.
The most distinguished American authors who have written on the theory of organization,
Mr. J.C. Mooney, President of the General Motors Export Corporation, and Mr. A.C. Reiley,
adopted a logical scheme from a German author, Louis F. Anderson. This scheme postulated:
First that every principle has its process and effect, and
Second, that if these have been correctly identified, the process and effect will, in their turn,
be found to have, each of them, a principle, process and effect. Thus completing a logical square
of nine items. (Urwick, 1943: 17)
Urwick adopted Mooney and Reileys Logical Square arrangement of Organization and
Coordination principles along with Andersons logical scheme and created a sequence of 3
Logical Squares, 1 primary and 2 subordinate each comprised of 9 principles for a total of 27.
Urwick developed a primary Logical Square, The Principles of Administration, Figure [1] (pg 102).
It is comprised of 8 of the 17 principles that he adopted from the work of Henri Fayol plus the 1
key principle he attributed to the work of Frederick W. Taylor and Mary Parker Follett. Mooney and
Reileys Organization and Coordination Logical Square, Figure [2] (pg 103) is the 2nd in the
sequence. It is subordinate to the 3 principles that comprise the 2nd line of Urwicks primary
Logical Square. Urwick developed the Command and Control Logical Square, Figure [3] (pg
104). It is 3rd in the sequence and is subordinate to the 3 principles comprising the 3rd line of his
primary Logical Square.
The Principles of Administration
Urwicks Development of the Primary Logical Square
Henri Fayol was a famous French industrialist. For 30 years he was Managing Director of
one of the largest coal and iron combines in the country. When he took it over it was on the verge
of bankruptcy. When he retired it was brilliantly successful, with an exceptionally strong balance
sheet. Towards the end of his life he tried to reduce to a logical form, the principles on which his
sheet. Towards the end of his life he tried to reduce to a logical form, the principles on which his
success as an administrator had been built up. He always insisted that the success had nothing
difficult or unusual about it. It followed simply and logically from strict adherence to
principle.(Urwick, 1943: 15,16)
Fayol analyzed the operations which occur in business into 6 main groups; technical,
commercial, financial, security, accounting and administrative operations. Thus, he regarded
Administration merely as one of a group of major functions. Administration, regarded in this way,
he wrote, must not be confused with government. To govern is to conduct an undertaking towards
its objective by seeking to make the best possible use of all the resources at its disposal; it is, in
fact, to ensure the smooth working of the 6 essential functions. Administration is only one of these
functions. (Urwick, 1943: 16)
Fayol broke down this key function of Administration into 5 main aspects:
to planto organizeto commandto coordinateto control.
But the word he used, prevoyance, which has been translated to plan, really covers 2
functions. He wrote prevoir [literally, to foresee] as used here means both to foretell the future and
to prepare for it. In other words, the one term meant both Forecasting and Planning. These 6
aspects of Administration fall into main groups related as to process and effect. That is to say:
Forecasting [process] leads to a Plan [effect]Organization [process] has as its object Coordination
[effect]Command [process] issues in Control [effect]. (Urwick, 1943: 16)
Fayols analysis was simply concerned with aspects of Administration with operations.
But elsewhere he lists, somewhat empirically, 16 Administrative Duties. The 2nd of his
Administrative Duties provides a very sound principle on which to base Forecasting, that is,
Appropriateness; see that the human and material organization are suitable. His 14th
Administrative Duty equally provides a principle on which to base Planning, that is Order; ensure
material and human order. (Urwick, 1943: 17)
Thus the Logical Square is completed with the exception of the principle underlying the
whole process of Administration. And here it is not unduly straining probability to imagine that
Fayol himself would have inserted Investigation. Certainly to students of scientific management,
the idea of research into facts as the basis of all activity is fundamental. And every writer of note
on the subject is at one on the point. For instance, Mary Parker Follett, in the last lecture that she
delivered in public before her death wrote, I have given four principles of organization. The
underpinning of these is information based on research. F. W. Taylor, when he first attempted to
reduce his practice to generalizations, put first of the new duties devolving on management that,
They develop a science for each element of a mans work that replaces the old rule of thumb
method. Both sides must recognize as essential the substitution of exact scientific Investigation
and knowledge for the old individual judgment or opinion. (Urwick, 1943: 17, 18)
These 3 principles; Investigation, Forecasting and Planning, each with its corresponding
principle, process and effect, make up the perfect Logical Square summarizing the main aspects
of Administration. The underlying principle on which the whole art rests is Investigation. It enters
into process with Forecasting and the effect is Planning. Forecasting has its own principle,
namely, Appropriateness. It enters into process with Organization, since the first thing you do
when you look ahead is to try to provide the means, human and material, to meet the future
situation which you foresee. Its effect is Coordination. Finally, Planning finds its underlying
principle in Order. Order enters into process with Command, and the effect is Control. This
arrangement of the material is shown in tabular form in Figure [1] (pg 102). (Urwick, 1943: 18)

The Principles of Organization and Coordination

Urwicks Discussion of the adopted Mooney and Reiley Subordinate Logical Square
Figure [2] (pg 103), is Urwicks depiction of the Logical Square that was developed by
Mooney and Reiley with 9 Organization and Coordination principles. The several paragraphs that
follow summarize Urwicks rationale for his adoption of this logical arrangement of principles that
Mooney and Reiley called a Logical Frame of the Principles of Organization. This Logical Square
is subordinate to the 2nd line of Urwicks primary Logical Square, Figure [1], The Principles of
Administration. The principles which should guide the administrator in determining the activities
necessary to any purpose and arranging them in groups which may be allotted to individuals
have been outlined by Mooney and Reiley. The first point to remember is the position of
Organization in the general scheme of Administration in Figure [1]. It comes in the 2nd line. It is
the way by which Forecasting enters into process. That is to say, it is not an end in itself, it is a
means to an end. (Urwick, 1943: 42)
The employment of more than 1 person towards a given end necessarily involves division
of labor. The purpose of Organization is to secure that this division works smoothly, that there is
unity of effort or, in other words, Coordination. Mooney and Reiley wrote of Coordination: This
term expresses the principles of Organization in toto, nothing less. This does not mean that there
are no subordinated principles, it simply means that all the others are contained in this one of
are no subordinated principles, it simply means that all the others are contained in this one of
Coordination. The others are simply the principles through which Coordination operates and
becomes effective. (Urwick, 1943: 44)
Mooney and Reiley identified the principle at the root of the process of Organization as
Authority. Authority enters into process with what Mooney and Reiley have called the Scalar
Process. The supreme coordinating Authority must rest somewhere and in some form in every
Organization. Consequently, it is equally essential to the very idea and concept of Organization
that there must also be a process through which this coordinating Authority operates from the top
throughout the entire structure of the organized body. Mooney and Reiley comment that this is
the same form in Organization which is sometimes called hierarchical.(Urwick, 1943: 45, 46)
The Scalar Process (hierarchy) differentiates between different levels or gradations of
Authority. Authority Delegates part of its own Authority over others. But always at the end there is
the last link in the chain where what is Delegated is not Authority, but responsibility for the
discharge of specific functions. Mooney and Reiley use Functionalism in this special sense to
express differentiation or distinction between different kinds of duties as contrasted with different
levels of Authority. Always in Organization, grouping of activities runs in these 2 contrary senses;
one in which the dividing lines are vertical, indicating kinds or varieties of Functions, and the
other in which the dividing lines are horizontal, indicating levels of Authority. It is impossible to fix
any activity accurately in any Organization unless it is placed in both these senses, just as it is
impossible to fix a point on a map or chart except in terms of both ordinates. The Scalar Process
is not an end in itself. It is simply a means to the ultimate end of Organization, which is the
Assignment and Integration of Functions. Thus Authority moves through the Scalar Process to the
functional effect of Assignment and Integration of Functions. (Urwick, 1943: 47 48)
This leads to the 2nd line of the Mooney and Reiley Logical Square. The Scalar Process
has its own principle, process and effect. The principle is Leadership, the process is Delegation
and the effect is Functional Definition. Thus Leadership becomes the form which Authority
assumes where it enters into process. It should be unnecessary to insist on the importance of
precision in this matter. Management, which regards the exact definition of every job and every
function in its relation to other jobs and functions as of first importance, may sometimes appear
excessively formalistic, but in its results it is justified by all business experience. (Urwick, 1943:
4953)
But while specific functions may become almost infinite in their variety, dependent on the
complexity of the procedure necessary to attain the given purposes, there is no conceivable duty,
function or even individual job of any kind which does not belong to one of three broad classes.
And these three classes are related as principle, process and effect. These classes of activities
are Determinative, Applicative and Interpretive, or to use the terms common in writing of
government, they are legislative, executive and judicial. (Urwick, 1953: 53,54)
The Assignment and Integration of Functions finds its underlying principle in Determinative
Functionalism that enters into process with Applicative Functionalism and takes effect in
Interpretative Functionalism.
Determinative Functionalism = Legislative/Determining that something should be done.
Applicative Functionalism = Executive / Doing that something.
Interpretive Functionalism = Judicial / Deciding questions that arise in doing it in
accordance with predetermined rules and practices. [Urwick]
It may frequently happen that something of all three of these functions is present in the
same job. But the fact that functions may not be segregated in Organization does not in any way
destroy their identity as functions. The task of the organizer is to secure the integrated correlation
of all functions. To do this he must know that these three primary distinctions are present
universally in Organization. He must identify them as they appear in every job and make them the
basis of his correlation. (Urwick, 1953: 54)
It is particularly interesting to note that Fayols work was entirely unknown to Mooney and
Reiley when they wrote their comparative study of organization in government, military,
ecclesiastical and industrial undertakings but there are statements exactly corresponding to each
of Mooney and Reileys 9 principles in Fayols aspects of Administration and in his empirical lists
of Principles and Administrative Duties. (Urwick, 1943: 42)
In every Organization there is a collective job to be done, consisting always of the sum of
many individual jobs. The task of Administration, operating through management, is the
Coordination of all the human effort necessary to this end. Such Coordination, however, always
presupposes the jobs to be Coordinated. The job as such is therefore antecedent to the man on
the job, and the sound Coordination of these jobs considered simply as jobs, must be the first and
necessary condition in the effective Coordination of the human factor. ( Massie, 1968: 388389)
Coordination of the human factor is dealt with next in the Command and Control Logical
Square.
 The Principles of Command and Control
Urwicks Development of the Subordinate Logical Square
This 3rd Logical Square, Figure 3 (pg 104), was developed by Urwick. It is comprised of
the remaining 9 of the 17 principles that he adopted from the work of Henri Fayol. It is subordinate
to the 3rd line of his primary Logical Square, The Principles of Administration Figure [1]; Order
enters into process with Command and takes effect in Control. The next several paragraphs
summarize Urwicks rationale for his arrangement of principles in this 3rd Logical Square.
Since to secure the general interest is the basis of Command and the reason for its
existence as an aspect of Administration, it finds its underlying principle in the one word quoted
by Fayol as his 8th Principle, namely, Centralization. This does not imply that the whole sum of
the commanding in any undertaking should be gathered together in the center. On the contrary,
this would do violence to the principle of Delegation. In any large undertaking many subordinate
officers must and should exercise functions of Command. A supreme coordinating Authority must
rest somewhere and in some form in every Organization. Authority therefore is the basic principle
of Organization. It enters into process through the Scalar Process that finds its underlying
principle in Leadership, so when Planning enters into process through Command, it finds a
corresponding underlying principle in Centralization. (Urwick, 1943: 81)
So regarded, Centralization is merely the executive aspect of the principles of Authority
and Leadership which have already been discussed. Obviously subordinate Delegated
Command will result in control of only a part of an undertaking. Therefore by definition it is liable
to sectional interest. It is essential that at some point in the executive structure of the undertaking
that the general interest should be represented authoritatively, so that it may balance and
reconcile sectional enthusiasms. That is the meaning of the term Centralization as used here.
(Urwick, 1943: 81)
Centralization enters into process with Appropriate Staffing, Fayolss 6th Administrative
Duty see that each department has a competent and energetic head. Just as Leadership entered
into process with Delegation, so Command can only enter into process when there is someone to
whom to Delegate. Finally just as Leadership through Delegation resulted in Functional
Definition, so Command through Appropriate Staffing takes effect in Fayols 14th Principle,
Espirit de Corps.
The Leadership effect, Functional Definition, is a formal, static, suitable distribution of
duties and responsibilities.
The Command effect, Espirit de Corps, is psychological and dynamic leading to high
morale among those employed by the undertaking.
The Organization design on the drawing board comes to life through a commander who
can lead helped by subordinates whose spirits are fused with his. (Urwick, 1943: 81,82)
To provide such subordinates must therefore be a primary duty of Command. Appropriate
Staffing accordingly finds its underlying principle in Selection and Placement, expressed in
Fayols 6th Administrative Duty, make careful selection of staff, each employee where he can be
of most service. (Urwick, 1943: 82)
Selection and Placement having provided an Appropriate Staff, enters into process with
Rewards and Sanctions. Fayol says in his 9th Administrative Duty and his 7th Principle, reward
men fairly and judiciously for their services and in his 10th Administrative Duty, impose penalties
for mistakes. (Urwick, 1943: 85)
Judicious Selection and Placement supported by a system of Rewards and Sanctions
acceptable to the personnel concerned result in Initiative. Fayols 8th Administrative Duty and 13th
Principle were encourage the desire for Initiative. Administration finds its most significant reward
in the Initiative of all those working within an enterprise that is directed freely and energetically
towards its objective. It is fundamental to organizations composed of human beings, and the point
which distinguishes them from all mechanical structures, that there is no motive power other than
the will and determination of each individual participating in the undertaking. (Urwick, 1943: 88)
Appropriate Staffing takes effect in Esprit de Corps, or morale. It is brittle, sensitive stuff,
the spirit of any great undertaking. When it is good it is unmistakable. When it is bad it is a
choking fog, which undermines the courage and stifles the effort of even the best men and women
among the personnel. And yet it is almost impossible to define precisely the elements which go to
make or to mar this atmosphere. (Urwick, 1943: 89)
Espirit de Corps finds its underlying principle in Fayols 11th Principle, Equity. Equity
means something more than justice in the legal sense. It connotes not only a strict interpretation
of the letter of the regulations, but still more a sensitive understanding of their spirit, that mixture of
inspired common sense and human wisdom which can always break all the rules to keep the
golden rule.(Urwick, 1943: 91)
Equity enters into process through Discipline, Fayols 3rd Principle and 11th
Administrative Duty. No group of men or women can live tolerably together, no group can pursue
Administrative Duty. No group of men or women can live tolerably together, no group can pursue
any common objective, without discipline. If a group of human beings have to live together, there
must be some Discipline or life becomes too complicated. Since every person in the group
wishes to live his or her own life as much as possible, Discipline is the minimum amount of
regulation necessary to make the common portion of that life practical. It is the same with common
objectives. People cannot travel to the same destination in the same vehicle by moving
independently. That is, one has to submit to the discipline of a regular schedule. The facilities
are there. But people can only remain on condition that those who want to use them accept that
Discipline. That is the essence of Discipline as far as it is necessary in civil life. Enough
regulation to enable people to do a collective job precisely, enough selfcontrol to ensure that they
dont get in each others way. Necessary Discipline is essentially impersonal. It has nothing to
do with the will of the manager or foreman. Its necessity is inherent in the work, in the nature of the
tools and materials and processes employed. No one is giving orders. It is someones function
to work out Plans. The Plans are the orders. The necessity for Discipline of this kind is self-
evident to the great majority. They resent it if the Plans are badly drawn, inefficient, but not the fact
that there must be Plans. That is the law of the situation, not the edict of someone set in
Authority. No one minds conforming to a real situation once they understand that that is what they
are doing. They appreciate that without such discipline it is impossible for a large group to follow
a common objective. There is in fact no reason whatever why all Discipline of this character
which is necessary should not be imposed by consent. (Urwick, 1943: 9395)
The only justification for any item of procedure is that it helps to get the work done. That is
why Fayols 16th Administrative Duty, avoidance of red tape, is an essential part of Discipline.
Red tape is regulations which do not issue from the necessities of the job, but from someones
passion for procedure for its own sake. The effects of red tape lead sensible workers to resent
Discipline. The cure for that resentment, where it is unfounded, is explanation. Where it is well
founded, the only cure is to cut away the red tape. Equity expressed through a sound system of
Discipline which avoids red tape, issues in Fayols 12th Principle, Stability of Staff, the long term
retention of firmly established, steadfast personnel (Urwick, 1943: 95)
SUMMARY
The goal of Administration is Control! Fayols sixth aspect of Administration was Control.
His fifteenth Administrative Duty is subject everything to Control. (Urwick, 1943: 97)
Control is a continuing activity. That is perhaps the most arresting single fact about
modern ideas of Administration. The various aspects, which Fayol has analyzed, if arranged in
order of time make the segments of a complete circle. Forecasting leads to Planning. The next
operation is Organization, which issues in Coordination. Then comes Command and, finally
Control, next to Forecasting again and appropriately next to it, since much of the material thrown
up by a modern system of Control is as valuable for looking forward as for reviewing the past. It is
the factual basis of Forecasting the next period ahead. (Urwick, 1943: 102)
These relationships are not visible in the Logical Square format but are visibly depicted in
Urwicks first construction, Pattern of Administration, Figure [4] (pg 105). Urwicks second
construction, The Elements of Administration, Figure [5] (pg 106), depicts the Principle, Process
and Effect dynamics associated with the peaks of equilateral triangles. In this Elements format,
the 3 Logical Squares are organized as 3 related sets each comprised of 3 nested triangles.
Urwick commented, The fact that these principles that were collected from the writings of half a
dozen different people, many of whom made no attempt to correlate their work with that of others,
can be presented in a coherent and logical pattern is in itself strong evidence that there is a
common element in all experience of the conduct of social groups, that a true science of
administration is ultimately possible. Working in a field where there are still so many unknown
factors, so much territory unexplored, the student can do no more than suggest a framework
of thought, an arrangement of ideas and principles which may help others to make their
own synthesis out of their own experience. (Urwick, 1943: 118)
In addition to that hopeful summary, Urwick also anticipated the need to comprehend the
human factor in administration. They should never forget for a moment that the raw material in
which administration works is human beingshuman beings with hopes and passions, loves and
hates, fears and the divine courage of the spirit: a mixture, much like the administrator. That is
without question the root of the matter, to remember that each individual, however humble, in the
ordering of whose life an administrator may have some share, is but a replica of his own
limitations. No one would pretend that understanding of the principles is as yet perfect. But even
in their present incomplete form they are a far better guide to the effective integration of human
effort than personalities or politics or a precarious balancing of power between various vested
interests. What is most urgently needed is a widespread recognition of this fact and social
determination to give effect to it. (Urwick, 1943: 118)
In the next section, Urwicks work and these closing summary suggestions are synthesized
 In the next section, Urwicks work and these closing summary suggestions are synthesized
with my various experiences and transformed into the integrated, functional Unified Pattern of
Administration.
 Chapter Four - THE UNIFIED PATTERN OF ADMINISTRATION THE CORE
COMPONENT

The Unified Pattern of Administration, Figure [6] (pg 107), is a 2 part functional flowchart. It
depicts the Logical Square relationships and designated actions of Urwicks 3 Logical Squares of
27 Administrative Process principles coupled with 5 additional Governing principles that were
alluded to but not specified by Urwick. The following describes the 4 actions that occur among the
principles.
All curved vertical lines have an arrow and represent the action enters into process with.
A straight vertical line with an arrow represents the action takes effect in.
A straight vertical line without an arrow represents the action result in.
All 90 degree angle lines have arrows and represent the action finds its underlying
principle in.
It is worth the effort to refer to Figure [6], while reading through this section.
The Unified Pattern of Administration has 2 parts, Governing, and Administrative Process.
Urwick, with a quote from Fayol in the header section of the Administration Logical Square (pg
102), recognized Administration and Governing as different and separate functions.
Administration must not be confused with government. To govern is to conduct an undertaking
towards its objective by seeking to make the best possible use of all the resources at its disposal.
To this Urwick added: The general objective and broad policy of any undertaking are therefore
given before administration starts.
GOVERNING
Governing is the 1st of 2 parts that comprise the Unified Pattern of Administration.
Governing is the result of Governing Authority. It is subordinated under Governing Authority and
finds its underlying principle in Governing Objectives that enter into process with Administration
and result in Administrative Process, the 2nd of the 2 parts.
Governing Authority has overall control of the enterprise. It could be the owners, a Board of
Directors, Board of Regents, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Board of Governors, an individual; or whatever
is appropriate for the type of enterprise which could be industrial, commercial, civil, educational,
military, hospital, etc. Governing Authority provides the oversight to direct the enterprise seeking
to obtain the best possible use of all of the resources at its disposal. Governing Authority finds its
underlying principle in Governing Objectives that encompass the purpose, objectives and general
policies of the enterprise.
Ralph C. Davis, a Professor of Business Organization at Ohio State University, was one of
the chief representatives of the classical approach to administration. Professor Davis focused his
work on business organizations. He recognized that the Governing Objectives of a business
should be balanced to service both internal business objectives and external objectives relative
to the public interest and to the total environment in which the business must function and survive.
The Unified General Theory of Administration adopts Professor Daviss views but expands
their scope to include all types of enterprise such as industrial, commercial, civil, educational,
military, hospital, etc. Consequently in the quotes adopted from his work that follow, the term
business has been replaced with the general term enterprise.
Enterprise objectives may be any of the values that the enterprise is required or expected
to acquire, create, preserve, or distribute. They may be tangible or intangible. Enterprise
objectives may be broken down into three general classes: primary, collateral, and secondary.
(Davis, 1951: 10)
primary objectivesThe economic values provided by the enterprise are necessarily the
primary objectives of the enterprise. The primary mission of an enterprise is to supply the public
with whatever goods and/or services it desires at the proper time and place, in the required
amounts having the desired qualities, and at a price that the public is willing to pay. (Davis, 1951:
10)
collateral objectivesThese are the values that an enterprise is expected to supply
without detrimental sacrifice of the primary objectives. Collateral objectives includes chiefly
those personal and social objectives that are affected by the operations of the enterprise.
Personal collateral objectives are values that individuals and groups within the enterprise seek
to acquire and distribute among themselves. The term includes good wages for operative
employees, good salaries for management employees, good dividends for investors, and other
such values, both tangible and intangible. Social collateral objectives are those broad, general
values that are deemed necessary to the wellbeing of society that can be affected by enterprise
activity. These would include the interests of broader groups such as, political, religious or social
groups. Enterprise activity should also be conducted with due regard for them. Collateral
groups. Enterprise activity should also be conducted with due regard for them. Collateral
objectives should also include the interests of other groups such as dealers, suppliers, and
bankers, when they are associated with the particular enterprise. Collateral objectives rank with
but after primary objectives. (Davis, 1951: 10, 11)
secondary objectivesSecondary objectives include those values that are needed by the
enterprise for the accomplishment of its primary and collateral objectives with the required
economy and effectiveness. These values are not necessarily secondary in importance. They are
secondary in incidence of service. They rank, therefore, after primary and collateral objectives.
(Davis, 1951: 11)
A key secondary objective is the necessary and important service of maintaining working
conditions including physical facilities in accordance with established standards. The purpose of
maintenance standards is chiefly for reasonable assurance that the enterprise will have good
physical conditions of work because effective and economical accomplishment of enterprise work
depends on such conditions. Accomplishment of the immediate objectives of maintenance work
does not directly satisfy the needs of either the customer or the employee. It contributes indirectly
to their satisfaction, however. Maintenance is a staff service in most enterprises. It is a function of
staff to provide the enterprise with the service values it needs for the satisfactory accomplishment
of its objectives. Secondary objectives become more and more the objectives of staff departments
with continued enterprise growth. Their accomplishment frequently presents difficult internal
problems for management. [Davis]
Policies are basically statements of principles and rules that are set up as guides and
constraints for administrative thought and action. The principle purpose of policy is to enable
Administration to relate enterprise work to its objectives. Policies govern decisions based on
previously approved plans concerning what should be done, how it should be done, who should
do it, where it should take place and similar questions. They guide the coordination of action
after it has been initiated. Consequently policies are a fundamental consideration in planning,
organizing, and controlling enterprise activities. (Davis, 1951: 13)
Enterprise organization in a modern industrial society is inevitably charged with a public
interest. An enterprise should conduct its activities in conformity with accepted standards of
proper conduct for political as well as moral reasons. The larger the enterprise, the more this
becomes necessary. Standards of conduct are criteria of the extent to which a given enterprise is
compatible with the public interest. They condition our relations with customers, employees,
investors, and others. Acceptance tends to be based on the system of values that is currently in
effect in the society. Hence standards of business conduct tend to be relative like any ethical
criteria. They may be established by custom, law, court decisions, administrative rulings of
governmental agencies, voluntary codes of trade associations, or other means. The
contributions of ethical standards of business conduct are fundamental. There is accordingly a
universal need for them in legitimate business activities. (Davis, 1951: 9, 11, 12, 130)
Objectives must be given a primary position in any discussion of Administration. Governing
Objectives should be established before entering the Administrative Process. The Administrative
Process guides the implementation or analysis of an enterprise from principle to principle. The
choices made from the options available for each principle should be guided by Governing
Objectives. Governing Authority establishes Governing Objectives to define the purpose of the
enterprise, establish its broad policies and set enterprise objectives. Governing Objectives should
provide Administration with the functional degrees of freedom and constraints and with the ethical
standards within which it will operate in pursuing the purposes and general interests of the
enterprise.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS
Governing Objectives enter into process with Administration and result in Administrative
Process. Administrative Process is the 2nd part of the Unified Pattern of Administration (pg 107) It
depicts a logical flow chart of Urwicks 27 Logical Square principles that are subordinated under
Administration. The principles of Administrative Process establish the organization and the staff
required to implement the Governing Objectives.
The Administrative Process begins with Investigation. Investigation is the underlying
principle on which the whole art of Administration rests. Investigation or research is the basis for
prediction and is the principle that precedes the process of Forecasting. Investigation deals with
making a detailed research inquiry or systematic inquiry into an examination of facts. [Urwick] The
purpose of Investigation is to identify and estimate the full scope and variety of the economic
requirements for the fulfillment of the Governing Objectives. The first thing to be done
administratively when you look ahead is to define and set up the general structure of the
enterprise with reference to its objectives, its means of operation and its future course as
determined by Planning. It is to give form to the whole and to every detail its place. [Fayol]
Investigation enters into process with Forecasting and takes effect in Planning.
Investigation enters into process with Forecasting and takes effect in Planning.
Governing Objectives are executed through Administrative Process that divides into 2
branches via its 2nd principle Forecasting and its 3rd principle Planning.
The Coordinative Branch of Structure and Task Principles is subordinated under
Forecasting.
The General Interest Branch of Staffing and Behavior Principles is subordinated under
Planning.
Forecasting should be in terms that correspond with the realities of the situation, i.e. with
the general objective and broad policy of the undertaking. Forecasting has its principle, process
and effect. The underlying principle is Appropriateness that enters into process with Organization
resulting in Coordination. Appropriateness deals with the suitability of the Organization for its
intended purpose. [Urwick] See that the human and material Organization are suitable for the
objectives, resources and needs of the enterprise. [Fayol]
The first point to remember is the position of Organization in the general scheme of
Administration. It is the way by which Forecasting enters into process. That is to say, it is not an
end in itself, it is a means to an end. Forecasting itself postulates an a priori decision of the main
objectives and general policies of the enterprise. Moreover, Forecasting cannot take effect in
Planning unless a great deal of detailed precision has been used in defining the Governing
Objectives. This applies also to Organization and to every part of any Organization. The
Organization should only exist in order to carry out some specific purpose implicit in the Forecast
and the Plan. Every piece of it should make a definite and authorized contribution to that purpose.
Otherwise there is no reason for its existence. (Urwick, 1943: 42)
Forecasting deals with the way in which the Organization structure is designed and
assembled. In good engineering practice, design must come first. Similarly in good social practice
design should come first. The effort to work out principles of Organization structure first and
separately from the Staffing problems which arise from them, is worthwhile. Logically it is
inconceivable that any individual should be appointed to a position without a clear idea of the
responsibilities and relationships attached to it and the standard of performance that is expected.
Unless jobs are clearly put together along lines of functional specialization it is impossible to train
new men to succeed to positions as the incumbents are promoted, resign, or retire. It is important
to think consciously and technically about Organization and to lay out structure first and not think
about Staffing until structure has been determined. [Urwick]

Coordinative Branch of Structure and Task Principles

The principles subordinated under Forecasting are the Coordinative Branch of Structure
and Task Principles . Organization, to classical writers, refers to the structure and process of
allocating authority and jobs so that common objectives can be achieved. Organization has a
much more limited meaning to classical writers than it does to students concentrating on social
relationships. It relates chiefly to the formal relationships between positions and jobs.
Organization as structure and process should be predetermined and formalized completely in
advance of performance. It is distinctly different from the function of placement of human beings in
the structure. Organization involves the dividing of jobs and the grouping of positions in a
hierarchy; it precedes any phase of management involving human interrelationships. [Massie]
Social and behavioral relationships will be addressed subsequently via
Planning.
The purpose of all Organization is to unify effortthat is, Coordination. Appropriateness
enters into process with Organization and results in Coordination. [Urwick] Coordination deals
with the methodical integration of functional activities to achieve the goals of the enterprise. This
term expresses the principles of Organization in total, nothing less. This does not mean that there
are no subordinated principles; it simply means that all the others are contained in this one of
Coordination. The others are simply the principles through which Coordination operates, and thus
becomes effective. [Mooney& Reiley]
The principles of Coordination are subordinated under Organization that has its own
principle, process and effect. Organization has Authority as its underlying principle, the Scalar
Process (hierarchy) as its process and Assignment and Integration of Functions as its effect.
Mooney and Reiley identified the principle at the root of Organization as Authority, by which they
meant formal Authority, conferred by the Organization. Authority is the jurisdictional, legal or
rightful power to command, enforce laws, exact obedience and determine or judge. It is
impossible to conceive of the existence of Organization at all unless some person or persons are
in a position to require action of others. [Urwick] Authority typically is defined by classical writers
as the right and power to act, and thus is viewed as flowing downward in an organization.
[Massie] Authority enters into process with what Mooney and Reiley have called the Scalar
Process (hierarchy). The supreme coordinating authority must rest somewhere and in some form
in every Organization. Consequently it is equally essential to the concept of Organization that
in every Organization. Consequently it is equally essential to the concept of Organization that
there must be a process, formal in character, through which this coordinating authority operates
from the top throughout the entire structure of the organized body. [Urwick] The Scalar Process is
the term used by classical theory for the hierarchy principle that states Authority and responsibility
should flow in a clear and unbroken line from the highest executive to the lowest operative
usually depicted by an Organization chart of functions and responsibilities. [Massie]
An addendum to the principle of Authority is provided by F.
W. Taylor. He pointed out that it is essential to the conception of Authority that Authority
and responsibility should correspond. Any individual or group to whom is assigned Authority for
which he is or they are not held accountable to someone will tend to exercise that Authority with
decreasing effectiveness. It is of great importance to smooth working that at all levels Authority
and responsibility should be coterminous and coequal. (Urwick, 1943: 45,46)
The Scalar Process (hierarchy) has its own underlying principle, process and effect. The
principle is Leadership, the process is Delegation and the effect is Functional Definition.
Leadership becomes the form that Authority assumes where it enters into process. As Mooney
and Reiley observe, Leadership represents Authority, and it must possess all of the Authority
necessary to the exercise of its Leadership. Usually the supreme coordinating Authority appoints,
elects or designates its leaders. Leadership enters into process with Delegation. Delegation
deals with the conferring of specified Authority by a higher Authority. It includes the Delegation of
Authority to sub-delegate Authority. [Urwick] Delegation takes effect in Functional Definition.
Functional Definition is the definition of every job and its relation to other jobs.
The Scalar Process (hierarchy) differentiates between levels or gradations of Authority.
Authority Delegates part of its own Authority over others. But always at the end there is the last
link in the chain where what is delegated is not Authority, but responsibility for the discharge of
specific functions. Mooney and Reiley use Functionalism in this special sense to express
differentiation or distinction between different kinds of duties as contrasted with different levels of
Authority. Always in Organization the grouping of activities runs in two contrary senses, one
indicating the kinds or varieties of activity, and the other indicating the levels of Authority. It is
impossible to fix any activity accurately in any Organization unless it is placed in both of these
senses, just as it is impossible to fix a point on a map or chart except in terms of both ordinates.
The end and aim of formal Coordination within any undertaking is simply a means to the ultimate
end of Organization, which is the Assignment and Integration of functional activities. As already
noted, wherever more than one person is engaged in any joint undertaking there must be division
of labor. Thus Authority moves through the Scalar Process (hierarchy) to the functional effect of
Assignment and Integration of Functions. (Urwick, 1943: 47,48)
Specific Functions may become almost infinite in their variety. They are dependent on the
complexity of the procedure necessary to attain the given purpose. There is no conceivable duty,
function or even individual job of any kind that does not belong to one of three broad classes that
are related as principle, process and effect. They are concerned respectively with one of three
things, determining that something shall be done, doing that something and deciding questions
that arise in doing it in accordance with predetermined rules and practices. These classes of
activities are Determinative, Applicative and Interpretative, or to use the terms common in
government, they are legislative, executive and judicial. It is not unusual for all three of these
functions to be present in the same job. But the fact that functions may not be segregated in
Organization does not in any way destroy their individual identity as functions. (Urwick, 1943:
53,54)

Principle > Legislative = Determinative Functionalism =

Determining that something shall be done.
Process > Executive = Applicative Functionalism =
Doing that something.
Effect > Judicial = Interpretive Functionalism =

Deciding questions in accordance with predetermined rules and practices. [Urwick]

It will be noted that practical writers are the least definite about the judicial function. That is
merely a reflection of current practice in industry and indeed in public administration, where the
judicial function is seldom differentiated from the executive function. As Mooney and Reiley
comment: Business executives are about the only presentday counterparts of the governor
judges of antiquity. Without intending any sinister implication, they may all be classed as modern
Pontius Pilates, which means that they may initiate, judge and then execute their own sentences.
It is possible that the backwardness of modern industrial Organization in isolating the judicial
function may lie at the root of much discontent with the system, though the cause is unrecognized
and the sense of grievance is expressed in other ways. (Urwick, 1943: 54, 55)
and the sense of grievance is expressed in other ways. (Urwick, 1943: 54, 55)
Determinative Functionalism enters into process with Applicative Functionalism and takes
effect in Interpretive Functionalism. Interpretive Functionalism is the terminal principle of the
Coordinative Branch of Structure and Task Principles that are subordinated under Forecasting.
General Interest Branch of Staffing and Behavior Principles.
Organization is the way that Forecasting entered into process. Organization is not an end
in itself. It is a means to an end. Organization was developed to carry out the specific purposes
stipulated in the Forecast. Investigation enters into process with Forecasting and takes effect in
Planning. If action taken in accordance with Forecasting is to be methodical, orderly, purposeful,
and not at the mercy of each new circumstance, there must be Planning. [Urwick]
The principles subordinated under Planning are the General Interest Branch of Staffing
and Behavior Principles. Planning is a detailed scheme, program or method worked out
beforehand for the accomplishment of the Governing Objectives. Planning is the result of
Investigation entering into process with Forecasting. Planning has Order as its underlying
principle. Order is the maintaining of persons or things in their proper places especially in relation
to each other. Each person or thing has a proper function, duty or the like arranged according to a
definite predetermined Organization scheme. Order enters into process with Command and the
result is Control. Control is a process that measures current performance and guides it toward
some predetermined goal. It also deals with the conflict between individual interests and the
general interests of the enterprise. Control is the result of the principles that are subordinated
under Command. These are sociological and psychological principles dealing with organized
manpower and behavior. The objective of Command and Control is to establish and sustain the
general interest of the enterprise and assure that its interest is not interfered with by individual or
other interests.
Nowhere is the strain between the organizations needs and the participants needs,
between effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction, more evident than in the area of organizational
Control. In part, the two sets of needs support each other. To the degree that the two sets of needs
are compatible, little Control is necessary. The participants will tend to do what is best for the
organization, in order to gratify their own needs. The Organization, in seeking to serve its needs
will serve theirs. But, such meshing of needs is never complete, and is usually quite incomplete.
Hence, deliberate efforts have to be made by Organization to reward those who conform to its
regulations and orders and to penalize those who do not. Thus the success of an Organization is
largely dependent on its ability to maintain Control of its participants. (Etzioni, 1964: 48)
Command finds its underlying principle in Centralization, its process in Appropriate
Staffing and its effect as Espirit de Corps. Centralization is the executive aspect of the
Organization principles of Authority and Leadership. The principles subordinated under
Command deal with manpower and behavior and are implemented through the Coordination
principles of Authority and Leadership that are subordinated under Organization. Command is the
possession and power to exercise the Coordination principle of Authority. Authority is the
underlying principle of Organization that enters into process through the Scalar Process
(hierarchy) that in turn found its underlying principle in Leadership. Therefore, when Planning
enters into process through Command, it takes effect as Centralization. Centralization is a
corresponding principle to Leadership because the objective of Centralization and its implied
counterpart decentralization is the optimum distribution of Authority. Everything that increases the
subordinates role is decentralization. Everything that reduces it is Centralization. Delegated
Command only controls part of an enterprise consequently it is liable to sectional interest.
Therefore it is essential in the executive structure that the general interest should be represented
authoritatively, so that it may balance and reconcile sectional and other conflicts. [Urwick]
Command can only enter into process when there is someone to whom to Delegate. To
provide such subordinates must therefore be a primary duty of Command. Thus, Centralization
enters into process with Appropriate Staffing via the Organization principle of Leadership that
entered into process through Delegation.
Leadership through Delegation results in Functional Definition. Functional Definition is
formal and static resulting in
a suitable distribution of duties and responsibilities.
In contrast, Command through Appropriate Staffing results in Esprit de Corps that is
psychological and dynamic. It is the source of morale among those employed by the enterprise
to perform those duties and assume those responsibilities. [Urwick]
Appropriate Staffing requires the determination of the skills and capabilities necessary to
satisfy the various hierarchical functional requirements. It includes the personnel function of
recruitment, the training of the staff and the maintenance of favorable conditions of work.
Accordingly, Appropriate Staffing finds its underlying principle in Selection and Placement, its
process is Rewards and Sanctions and its effect is Initiative. Selection and Placement is the
process is Rewards and Sanctions and its effect is Initiative. Selection and Placement is the
careful selection and judicious placement of personnel congruent with the needs and
requirements of the hierarchical duties and responsibilities. It enters into process with Rewards
and Sanctions. In addition to fair and just compensation, Rewards and Sanctions provide rewards
for unusual and/or exceptional performance of duties and responsibilities and penalties for
incomplete and/or unsatisfactory performance. Judicious Selection and Placement, supported by
a system of Rewards and Sanctions acceptable to the personnel concerned, result in Initiative.
Initiative is the energy or aptitude displayed in self-initiated activity without prompting or direction.
Administration finds its most significant reward in the Initiative of its personnel that is directed
freely and energetically towards the enterprise objectives. [Urwick]
Appropriate Staffing takes effect in Espirit de Corps, or morale. Espirit de Corps is the unity
of spirit that is the moving force that insures the maximum of coordinated efficiency that results
from a common spirit of comradeship, enthusiasm and devotion. It is brittle, sensitive stuffthe
spirit of any undertaking. When it is good it is unmistakable. When it is bad it is a choking fog,
which undermines the courage and stifles the effort of even the best men and women among the
personnel. And yet it is almost impossible to define precisely the elements, which go to make or to
mar this atmosphere. [Urwick]
Espirit de Corps finds its underlying principle in Equity, its process is Discipline and its
effect is Stability. Equity deals with the state, ideal or quality of being just, impartial and fair. It is
the result of the combination of kindliness and justice including forcefulness and sternness
applied with good sense, good nature and experience. Equity means more than justice does in
the legal sense. It connotes not only a strict interpretation of the letter of the regulations, but still
more a sensitive understanding of their spirit, that mixture of inspired common sense and human
wisdom which can always break all the rules to keep the golden rule. Equity enters into process
through Discipline. Discipline deals with a state of Order based upon submission to rules of
Authority. It is a systematic method of obtaining obedience. No purposeful group can subsist
tolerably together or pursue any common objective, without Discipline. Discipline is a systematic
method to obtain obedience through the submission to rules or Authority. The nature of that
Discipline depends on the nature of the task. Discipline is the minimum amount of regulation
necessary to make the common portion of the task practical and tolerable. Enough regulation to
enable people to do a collective job precisely and enough self-control to ensure that they dont
get in each others way. Necessary Discipline is essentially impersonal. It has nothing to do with
the will of the manager or foreman. Its necessity is inherent in the work, in the nature of the tools
and materials and processes employed. The only justification for any item of procedure subject to
discipline is that it helps to get the work done. No one is giving orders. It is someones function to
work out Plans. The Plans are the orders. That is the law of the situation, not the edict of
someone set in Authority. There is no reason whatever why all Discipline of this character which
is necessary should not be imposed by consent. [Urwick]
Equity expressed through a sound system of Discipline issues in Stability of the workforce.
Stability results from the long-term retention of firmly established steadfast personnel. [Urwick]
SUMMARYThe Unified Pattern of Administration
The Unified Pattern of Administration has 2 distinct functions; Governing comprised of 5
newly designated principles followed by Administrative Process comprised of Urwicks 27
classical Logical Square principles.
The Unified Pattern of Administration, (pg 107), is the core component of The Unified
General Theory of Administration. It is an open system that can accommodate changes. The
flow chart structure can accommodate alteration for new findings or ideas in the applied areas, in
the formal anatomy of organization and in the behavioral aspects of its human population. The
Unified Pattern of Administration has 3 roles in The Unified General Theory of Administration.
In its 1st role it provides the framework upon which administrative knowledge can be
assembled, organized, codified, integrated and correlated. Administration related knowledge
should find an accommodation under the 5 Governing principles or the 27 Administrative Process
principles. A very large volume and variety of documented knowledge is scattered through the
many applied areas of business, public, military, hospital, education etc., and through the social
and behavioral sciences. The assembly and organization of this massive volume and variety of
knowledge under the 32 principles will be a task of unusual size and scope. It is far beyond the
purpose and range of this present work and is set aside as a project for others or for another time.
In its 2nd role, The Unified Pattern of Administration serves as a prescriptive guide for the
design or analysis of an enterprise manned with personnel to pursue its Governing Objectives. It
identifies the principles that should be carefully and seriously thought about when analyzing,
reorganizing or establishing an enterprise. The principles are universally applicable to all of the
applied areas of Administration. The principles identify what should be considered and the
sequence of consideration. There is a preferred sequential route through The Unified Pattern of
sequence of consideration. There is a preferred sequential route through The Unified Pattern of
Administration flow chart (pg 107) that begins with Governing Authority and by following the
arrows ends with Stability. Where there is a choice between horizontal and vertical arrow paths
take the horizontal path first. Continue doing so until arriving at Functional Definition, the first of
four terminating principles. Then backup and follow, as encountered, the vertical arrow paths that
were bypassed until finally arriving at Stability, the final terminating principle. The principles
should be objectively evaluated in the order that they occur along this path. After deliberation a
decision to exclude a principle from consideration may be legitimate. Each principle, evaluated in
turn, can affect the decisions to be made in the evaluation of subsequent principles. The role of
these principles is to guide. They should all be considered and acted upon as appropriate for a
given enterprise situation. The principles do not instruct. They are the guides that should be
followed to appropriately design an organization and to appropriately man it. The development or
analysis process proceeds principle by principle through the Administrative Process in the
context of the Governing Objectives of the enterprise being established or analyzed. Ideally the
ways and means of implementing the principles would be selected from the most appropriate
options accumulated and organized under the primary principles as proposed in the Patterns 1st
role. In the meantime, until the accumulation of Administration knowledge has been collected,
assembled, organized, codified, integrated and correlated, the choices available for each
principle will necessarily continue to be only those that the designer is aware of or that can be
found through a practical research effort.
In its 3rd and very unusual role, The Unified Pattern of Administration is the host to 3 latent
Unified General Theory of Administration components. In addition to all of the attention that
humans accord themselves generally, they have also developed self-inspection disciplines such
as psychology, and sociology. The accumulation of administration related knowledge in these
fields is, like administrative knowledge, voluminous and distributed. The 3rd role latent
components come from these related knowledge sources about humans and human behavior.
They are:

Bureaucracy, a latent supplementary sociological component;

Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs, a latent supplementary psychological component;
Presthuss Accommodation of Individuals in Bureaucracy, is a latent complementary
sociological/psychological component that results from the interaction of Bureaucracy and
Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs.
These latent components emerge naturally, rationally and unavoidably during the
development and manning of an enterprise with the Pattern of Administration. They are
addressed individually in the order listed above in the sections that follow.
The Unified Pattern of Administration is functional in all of the applied areas of
Administration such as industrial, commercial, civil, educational, military, hospital, etc. The
Unified Pattern of Administration is constant in its classic basic structure, but it will vary in
form and content with the physical, cultural and technological environments of the applied
areas. These variations in manner are as important as the constancy in structure. In every
case, there is constancy in fundamental principles. The differences that exist from one field
of application to another are but variations in the way in which a constant process is
performed or accomplished. [Litchfield]
 Chapter Five WEBERS BUREAUCRACY A SOCIOLOGICAL COMPONENT

Webers Bureaucracy is a latent, supplementary, sociological component of The Unified

General Theory of Administration. Bureaucracy is natural, rational and unavoidable. As we
develop Organizations we, unwittingly for many, and unavoidably for all, introduce bureaucratic
characteristics into the design. An unlimited variety of hierarchical structures exist among
Organizations. These hierarchical structures of Organizations are all inherently and variably
bureaucratic. They will all be the products of the division of labor and the hierarchical distribution
of Functions and Authority.
Organization theory has recognized that Bureaucracy is one of the greatest social
inventions of the modern western world. Organizational structure is as old as the human race, but
its conscious and systematic exploitation for dealing with all areas of life by both public and
private institutions is coincidental with the development of industrial capitalistic society. Max
Weber, through Bureaucracy, has given us the classical analysis of the ways in which organized
patterns can be employed for rational purposes. (Katz, 1962: 166)
The characteristics of Bureaucracy were first formulated in a systematic manner by the
German sociologist Max Weber (18641920), a prolific writer and man of many interests. His
definitions and theories set the foundations for all subsequent work on the subject. He was
impressed with the effectiveness of the government offices in Germany in his time. He sought to
draw from them a model for efficient organization of large-scale activities. His theory of
Bureaucracy abstracts what he believed to be the essential characteristics of large-scale
organizations as follows:
Official business is conducted according to stipulated rules, through offices whose
specialized work is delineated in terms of impersonal criteria.
Officials cannot appropriate their offices. Official business and private affairs, official
revenue and private incomes are strictly separated.
Officials are given the authority necessary to carry out assigned functions, but the means of
compulsion at their disposal can be used only under clearly defined conditions.
The offices are linked functionally in a hierarchy. Each office is directed toward common
goals.
Officials are personally free to accept appointment to an office. Offices are offered on the
basis of technical qualifications, constituting a full time occupation.
Although modifiers of Webers theory have pointed out that Bureaucracy can have serious
faults, such was the power of Webers original analysis that many scholars still use his theory of
Bureaucracy as the starting point for explaining why and how large scale organizations, both
governmental and business, function. (Buchele, 1977: 4)
Internally, the bureaucratic organization is a complex structure of technical
interdependence superimposed upon a strict hierarchy of authority. The hierarchical institution is
monocratic. It is a system of superior and subordinate role-relationships in which the superior is
the only source of legitimate influence upon the subordinate. Everyone in the organization finds
himself in such a relationship. We shall refer to this theory as the monocratic conception of
Bureaucracy. It is our prevailing organizational ideal. (Thompson, 1968: 19, 20)
The several paragraphs that follow were adopted and condensed from the book,
Organization and Bureaucracy: An Analysis of Modern Theories , written by Dr. Nicos P.
Mouzelis and published in the United States in 1968. In his book Dr. Mouzelis discusses Webers
ideal, legal monocratic Bureaucracy as a useful analytical development tool.
In order to understand Webers ideas about Bureaucracy, we shall have to place them in
the more general context of his theory of domination. Weber distinguished three principles of
legitimation which define three pure types of domination; charismatic domination, traditional
domination and legal domination. Legal domination is the belief in the rightness of law. The
typical administrative apparatus corresponding to the legal type of domination is called
Bureaucracy. (Mouzelis, 1969: 15, 16, 17)
Webers ideal type of Bureaucracy has been the starting point and the main source of
inspiration for many students of organization. The ideal type of Bureaucracy is a conceptual
construction of main characteristics into a logically precise and consistent form, a form which in its
ideal purity, is never to be found in the real world. Briefly, the main characteristics of the ideal
bureaucratic type of organization are:

High degree of specialization

Impersonality of relationships between organizational members
Recruitment of officials on the basis of ability and technical knowledge
Differentiation of private and official income
 Differentiation of private and official income
Hierarchical authority structure with limited areas of command and responsibility

The characteristics contained in the ideal type correspond, more or less, to actual features
of existing organizations. With the aim of maximum efficiency, these characteristics are linked to
one another by a system of control based on rational rules that try to regulate the whole
organizational structure and process on the basis of technical knowledge. Authority is
legitimized by a belief in the correctness of the rules. The loyalty of the bureaucrat is oriented to
an impersonal order, to a superior position, not to the person who holds it. The decisive criterion
is whether or not the authority relations have a precise and impersonal character as a result of the
elaboration of rational rules. In order to rationalize and make an administrative machine efficient,
one has to control and guide administrative behavior by strict rational rules thus limiting individual
initiative to a minimum. (Mouzelis, 1969: 38, 39, 40, 41)
Many criticisms of Webers concept of Bureaucracy are rather irrelevant, as they make the
assumption that the ideal type has the same logical status as a simple classificatory type, or as an
empirical model. For example, the ideal type has been criticized for not focusing on other crucial
aspects of organizational reality such as informal organization and dysfunctional consequences.
To such criticism, Weber could reply that it was not his intention to construct a model of
Bureaucracy that would, as much as possible, approximate the real world. Rather, he tried to
identify the administrative characteristics typical of a certain kind of organization. The only way
to make a valid criticism of Webers concept of Bureaucracy is to consider it as what it was meant
to be, an ideal type, and to analyze it on this level. Webers construct was meant to be an
analytic tool contributing directly to the explanation and interpretation of social phenomena. It
was not meant by Weber to be simply an extreme type. Weber does not consider the ideal type
as a theoretical model, that is as a set of interconnected hypotheses which can be validated or
rejected by empirical research The ideal construction must be objectively possible. It must also
make sense to us, give us the feeling of consistency and plausibility. It is this kind of intuitive
understanding, of empathetic knowledge which plays a great role in the construction and
comprehension of the ideal type. In the case of Bureaucracy, it is the meaning of rationality,
grasped in the above intuitive manner, which links together the various ideal characteristics and
which gives consistency and logic to the whole construct. (Mouzelis, 1969: 43, 44, 45, 46)
An ideally rational organization, in the Weberian sense, is an organization performing its
tasks with maximum efficiency. Thus the selection and exaggeration of the various empirical
elements and their interconnections were established in such a way, that a perfectly efficient
organization would result if ever such an extreme type could exist in reality. In other terms,
Weber attached the attribute of rationality to the combination of empirical elements that he
incorporated into his ideal type. This evaluative assumption is not a hypothesis to be checked by
further research. It is simply the meaning of Bureaucracy that results when this type of
organization is imagined in isolation from all alien elements that, in the real world, distort its
ideal rationality. The issue at this point is to what extent it is possible to construct a conceptual
model of a perfectly rational organization. The model would be constructed by specifying in detail
and without previous research, the combination of characteristics that should, if ever realized,
give the maximum degree of efficiency. Or in other words, to what extent is it possible, assuming
the members of an organization to be acting in the most efficient way in the accomplishment of
their tasks, to find out by the imagination only what the characteristics of such an organization
should look like?(Mouzelis, 1969: 46, 47)
For Weber the ideal type is a conceptual tool which helps us to understand better social
phenomena, by analyzing the discrepancy between their ideal form and their concrete state. In
our case the problem should be to compare the ideal type of Bureaucracy with a real
administration, find out the differences, and try to explain them. Even if a conceptual construction
of an ideal Bureaucracy was possible, in order to make the comparison, we ought to know
something about concrete Bureaucracy. But to do this, we have to use a non-ideal model, that is a
model which attempts to describe, explain and approach, as much as possible, the real situation.
One should construct a realistic model, learn something about actual efficiency or inefficiency of
real organizations and then try, on the basis of this knowledge to speculate on the hypothetical
form of an entirely rational model. Thus one does not need an ideal type in order to understand
realty, but rather one needs some knowledge of reality in order to construct an ideal model (at
least in the study of Bureaucracy). Weber uses the ideal type of Bureaucracy as a tool for
comparison with real situations. In this context the ideal type helps to isolate the factors on which
the comparison becomes critical. (Mouzelis, 1969: 48, 49)
The following is a list of features describing Webers ideal legal monocratic type of
Bureaucracy from Amatai Etzionis book Modern Organizations. Etzioni condensed these
features from the book, MAX WEBER: The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, a
translation of Webers Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons
translation of Webers Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons
published in the United States in 1947.
Weber spelled out in considerable detail the features of the bureaucratic structure. They
all specify what makes a highly rational structure.
A continuous organization of official functions bound by rules. Rational organization is the
antithesis of ad hoc, temporary, unstable relations; hence the stress on continuity. Rules save
effort by obviating the need for deriving a new solution for every problem and case; they facilitate
standardization and equality in the treatment of many cases. These advantages are impossible if
each client is treated as a unique case, as an individual.
A specific sphere of competence. This involves a sphere of obligations to perform
functions that have been marked off as part of a systematic division of labor; the provision of the
incumbent with the necessary authority to carry out these functions; and that the necessary means
of compulsion are clearly defined and their use is subject to definite conditions. Thus a systematic
division of labor rights and power is essential for rational organization. Not only must each
participant know his job and have the means to carry it out, which includes first of all the ability to
command others, but he also must know the limits of his job, rights, and power so as not to
overstep the boundaries between his role and those of others and thus undermine the whole
structure.
The organization of offices follows the principle of hierarchy; that is, each lower office is
under the control and supervision of a higher one. In this way no office is left uncontrolled.
Compliance cannot be left to chance, it has to be systematically checked and reinforced.
The rules, which regulate the conduct of an office, may be technical rules or norms. In both
cases, if their application is to be fully rational specialized training is necessary. It is thus normally
true that only a person who has demonstrated an adequate technical training is qualified to be a
member of the administrative staff. Weber thought that the root of the authority of the bureaucrat is
his knowledge and his training. Not that these replace legitimation, but his command of technical
skill and knowledge is the basis on which legitimation is granted to him.
It is a matter of principle that the members of the administrative staff should be completely
separated from ownership of the means of production or administration. There exists, furthermore,
in principal, complete separation of the property belonging to the organization, which is controlled
within the spheres of the office, and of the personal property of the official. This segregation of the
bureaucrats personal residence from the organization keeps the officials bureaucratic status
from being infringed by the demands of his non-organizational statuses.
In order to enhance this organizational freedom, the resources of the organization have to
be free of any outside control and any incumbent cannot monopolize the position. They have to
be free to be allocated and reallocated according to the needs of the organization. A complete
absence of appropriation of his official position by the incumbent is required.
Administrative acts, decisions, and rules are formulated and recorded in writing. Most
observers might view this requirement as less essential or basic to rational organization than the
preceding ones, and many will point to the irrationality of keeping excessive records, files, and the
like, often referred to as red tape. Weber, however, stressed the need to maintain a systematic
interpretation of norms and enforcement of rules, which cannot be maintained through oral
communication.
Weber pointed out that officials should be compensated by salaries and not receive
payments from clients to ensure that their primary orientation be to the organization, to its norms
and representatives. Moreover, by promoting officials systematically, thus channeling their
ambitions by providing them with careers, and by rewarding those loyal to it, the corporation
would reinforce this commitment.
Underlying the whole analysis is a set of principles that follows from the central
organizational problem as Weber saw it. The high rationality of the bureaucratic structure is
fragile; it needs to be constantly protected against external pressures to safeguard the autonomy
required if it is to be kept closely geared to its goals and not others.
The rules Weber specified are concerned with relationships between bureaucrats, i.e.,
those who make up the administrative body of the organizational hierarchy and structure. But,
Weber indicated organizations have non-bureaucratic heads. Although the bureaucrats follow the
rules, the head sets them; although the administrative body serves the organizations goals, the
head decides which goals are to be served; although the bureaucrats are appointed, he is often
elected or inherits his position. Presidents, cabinets, boards of trustees, and kings are typical non-
bureaucratic heads of bureaucratic organizations. These organizational heads fulfill an
important function in helping to maintain the emotional and in this sense, non-rational
commitment to rationality. {Etzioni, 1964: 53,54)
The following is Webers discourse on his ideal legal monocratic type of Bureaucracy. It is
adopted directly from the above mentioned book, MAX WEBER: The Theory of Social and
Economic Organization.
Economic Organization.
Experience tends universally to show that the purely bureaucratic type of administrative
organization, that is, the monocratic variety of Bureaucracy is, from a purely technical point of
view, capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency and is in this sense, formally the most
rational known means of carrying out imperative control over human beings. It is superior to any
other form in precision, in stability, in the stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability. It thus
makes possible a particularly high degree of calculability of results for the heads of the
organization and for those acting in relation to it. It is finally superior both in intensive efficiency
and in the scope of its operation, and is formally capable of application to all kinds of
administrative tasks.
The development of the modern form of the organization of corporate groups in all fields is
nothing less than identical with the development and continual spread of bureaucratic
administration. This is true of church and state, of armies, political parties, economic enterprises,
and organizations to promote all kinds of causes, private associations, clubs, and many others. Its
development is, to take the most striking case, the most crucial phenomenon of the modern
western state. However many forms there may be which do not appear to fit this pattern, such as
collegial representative bodies, parliamentary committees, soviets, honorary officers, lay judges,
and what not, and however much people may complain about the evils of bureaucracy, it would
be sheer illusion to think for a moment that continuous administrative work can be carried out in
any field except by means of officials working in offices. The whole pattern of everyday life is cut
to fit this framework. For bureaucratic administration is, other things being equal, always, from a
formal, technical point of view, the most rational type. For the needs of mass administration today,
it is completely indispensable. The choice is only that between Bureaucracy and dilettantism in
the field of administration.
The primary source of the superiority of bureaucratic administration lies in the role of
technical knowledge, which, through the development of modern technology and business
methods in the production of goods, has become completely indispensable. In this respect, it
makes no difference whether the economic system is organized on a capitalistic or a socialistic
basis. Indeed, if in the latter case a comparable level of technical efficiency were to be achieved,
it would mean a tremendous increase in the importance of specialized Bureaucracy.
When those subject to bureaucratic control seek to escape the influence of the existing
bureaucratic apparatus, this is normally possible only by creating an organization of their own
which is equally subject to the process of bureaucratization. Similarly, the existing bureaucratic
apparatus is driven to continue functioning by the most powerful interests which are material and
objective, but also ideal in character. Without it, a society like our own, with a separation of
officials, employees, and workers from ownership of the means of administration, dependent on
discipline and on technical training, could no longer function. Even in case of revolution by force
or of occupation by an enemy, the bureaucratic machinery will normally continue to function just
as it has for the previous legal government.
Though by no means alone, the capitalistic system has undeniably played a major role in
the development of Bureaucracy. Indeed, without it capitalistic production could not continue and
any rational type of socialism would have simply to take it over and increase its importance. Its
development, largely under capitalistic auspices, has created an urgent need for stable, strict,
intensive, and calculable administration. Only by reversion in every fieldpolitical, religious,
economic, etc.to small scale organization would it be possible to any considerable extent to
escape its influence. On the one hand, capitalism in its modern stages of development strongly
tends to foster the development of Bureaucracy, though both capitalism and Bureaucracy have
risen from many different historical sources. Conversely, capitalism is the most rational economic
basis for bureaucratic administration and enables it to develop in the most rational form especially
because, from a fiscal point of view, it supplies the necessary money resources.
Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally the exercise of control on the basis of
knowledge. This is the feature of it, which makes it specifically rational. This consists on the one
hand in technical knowledge which, by itself, is sufficient to ensure it a position of extraordinary
power. But in addition to this, bureaucratic organizations, or the holders of power who make use
of them, have the tendency to increase their power still further by the knowledge growing out of
experience in the service. For they acquire through the conduct of office a special knowledge of
facts and have available a store of documentary material peculiar to themselves. Bureaucracy is
superior in knowledge, including both technical knowledge and knowledge of the concrete fact
within its own sphere of interest, which is usually confined to the interests of a private business
and capitalistic enterprise. (Weber, 1947: 337339)

SUMMARYBureaucracy
It is far more fruitful to speak of a degree of bureaucratization rather than of Bureaucracy or
non-Bureaucracy in an absolute sense. Bureaucracy is actually a characteristic possessed to a
non-Bureaucracy in an absolute sense. Bureaucracy is actually a characteristic possessed to a
greater or lesser extent by all formal Organizations. (Scott, 1967: 249)
There are almost as many formulations of the essential characteristics of Bureaucracy as
there are writers on the subject. Nevertheless, the area of agreement on the structural and
organizational features that are central is substantial. The pivotal structural characteristics can be
reduced to three: (1) hierarchy, (2) division or specialization of labor and (3) qualification or
competence. The pivotal organizational features that are central are a body of rules governing the
behavior of members, a system of records, a system of procedures for dealing with work
situations, and size sufficient at least to assure a network of secondary group relationships. The
variations come mostly in the way these aspects are expressed and in the divergence that comes
when behavioral traits are added. (Heady, 1966: 20)
The ideal type of Bureaucracy is a tool of comparison for developing, analyzing and
evaluating the Organization design of an enterprise. The purpose of the comparison is to locate
where, how, and by how much the real Organization will fall short of the impossible to achieve
efficiency levels of the ideal type of Bureaucracy. These then can receive special attention and,
where possible, alternative or supplemental actions to counteract or neutralize these control
shortfalls could be implemented to improve control over the general interest of the enterprise.
Organization is a discrete entity with characteristics and Bureaucracy is a variable
characteristic of Organization. Bureaucracy has objective existence in Organization and is not
merely an idea. The usual and normal goal of an Organization is to be the most efficient and
effective possible. The closer that an Organization approximates a Weber ideal type monocratic
Bureaucracy the greater will be the probability that it can approach that most efficient and effective
goal. Bureaucracy does not have a separate existence but is latent in The Unified Pattern of
Administration. It develops and takes form naturally, rationally and unavoidably through the
design and operation of an Organization.
Humans, like Organizations, are discrete units. They are entities with characteristics.
Humans man the Organizations and bring with them, among their many characteristics, Maslows
Hierarchy of Human Needs that is a latent, supplementary, psychological component of The
Unified General Theory of Administration. It is discussed in the next section.
 Chapter Six - MASLOWS HIERARCHY OF HUMAN NEEDS A PSYCHOLOGICAL
COMPONENT

Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs is a latent, supplementary, psychological component

of The Unified General Theory of Administration. It provides a functional basis for
understanding the basic behavior of people in general and in Organizations in particular.
Abraham H. Maslow (19081970) was an American psychologist and leading exponent of
humanistic psychology. He developed a theory of motivation describing the process by which an
individual progresses from basic needs such as food, shelter, sex etc. to the highest need of what
he called self-actualization, the fulfillment of ones greatest human potential. Maslows Hierarchy
of Human Needs is a systematic list of the kinds of satisfactions that man requires. Regardless of
how much more there might be behind and underneath human behavior, it is not necessary to
look beyond Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs to understand the fundamental motivation for
the basic behavior of humans as they seek satisfaction for those needs.
There are at least five sets of goals which we may call basic needs. These are briefly
physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. In addition, we are motivated by the
desire to achieve or maintain the various conditions upon which these basic satisfactions rest and
by certain more intellectual desires. These basic goals are related to one another, being
arranged in a hierarchy of influential power. This means that the most highly influential goal will
monopolize consciousness and will tend of itself to organize the recruitment of the various
capacities of the organism. The less influential needs are minimized, even forgotten or denied.
But when a need is fairly well satisfied, the next most influential need emerges, in turn to
dominate the conscious life and to serve as the center of organization of behavior, since gratified
needs are not active motivators. (Maslow, 1964: 23)
The several subsections that follow were adopted from, The Human Side of Enterprise, a
paper on motivation by Douglas M. McGregor. McGregors paper relates Maslows Hierarchy of
Human Needs to the industrial management arena oriented to an organizational environment.
McGregor extracted core elements from Abraham Maslows paper, A Theory of Human
Motivation. Maslows paper is also the source of other paragraphs referenced herein to him. The
Maslow and McGregor papers are included in Readings in Managerial Psychology edited by
Harold J. Leavitt and Louis R. Pondy published in 1964.
McGregor began: Perhaps the best way to indicate why the conventional approach of
management is inadequate is to consider the subject of motivation. In discussing this subject I will
draw heavily on the work of my colleague, Abraham Maslow of Brandeis University. His is the
most fruitful approach I know. Naturally, what I have to say will be overgeneralized and will ignore
important qualifications. (McGregor, 1964:271)

Physiological Needs
Man is a wanting animal. As soon as one of his needs is satisfied, another appears in its
place. This process is unending. It continues from birth to death. Mans needs are organized in a
series of levels, a hierarchy of importance. At the lowest level, but preeminent in importance when
they are thwarted, are his physiological needs. Man lives for bread alone, when there is no bread.
Unless the circumstances are unusual, his needs for love, for status, for recognition are
inoperative when his stomach has been empty for a while. But when he eats regularly and
adequately, hunger ceases to be an important need. The sated man has hunger only in the sense
that a full bottle has emptiness. The same is true of the other physiological needs of manfor
rest, exercise, shelter, protection from the elements. A satisfied need is not a motivator of
behavior! This is a fact of profound significance. It is a fact that is regularly ignored in the
conventional approach to the management of people. One example will make my point.
Consider your own need for air: Except as you are deprived of it, it has no appreciable motivation
effect upon your behavior. (McGregor, 1964: 271)

Safety Needs
When the physiological needs are reasonably satisfied, needs at the next higher level
begin to dominate mans behavior, to motivate him. These are called safety needs. They are
needs for protection against danger, threat, and deprivation. Some people mistakenly refer to
these as needs for security. However, unless man is in a dependent relationship where he fears
arbitrary deprivation, he does not demand security. The need is for the fairest possible break.
When he is confident of this, he is more than willing to take risks. But when he feels threatened or
dependent, his greatest need is for guarantees, for protection, for security.
The fact needs little emphasis that since every industrial employee is in a dependent
relationship, safety needs may assume considerable importance. Arbitrary management actions,
relationship, safety needs may assume considerable importance. Arbitrary management actions,
behavior which arouses uncertainty with respect to continued employment or which reflects
favoritism or discrimination, unpredictable administration of policythese can be powerful
motivators of the safety needs in the employment relationship at every level from worker to vice-
president. (McGregor, 1964: 271, 272)

Social Needs (Love)

When mans physiological needs are satisfied and he is no longer fearful about his
physical welfare, his social needs become important motivators of his behavior; needs for
belonging, for association, for acceptance by his fellows, for giving and receiving friendship and
love.
Management knows today of the existence of these needs, but it often assumes quite
wrongly that they represent a threat to the organization. Many studies have demonstrated that the
tightly knit, cohesive work group may, under proper conditions, be far more effective than an equal
number of separate individuals in achieving organizational goals.
Yet management, fearing group hostility to its own objectives, often goes to considerable
lengths to control and direct human efforts in ways that are inimical to the natural groupiness of
human beings. When mans social needs and perhaps his safety needs too, are thus thwarted, he
behaves in ways that tend to defeat organizational objectives. He becomes resistant,
antagonistic, and uncooperative. But this behavior is a consequence not a cause. (McGregor,
1964: 272)
Ego Needs
Above the social needs, in the sense that they do not become motivators until lower needs
are reasonably satisfied, are the needs of greatest significance to management and to man
himself. They are the egoistic needs, and they are of two kinds:
Those needs that relate to ones self esteem; needs for self-confidence, for independence,
for achievement, for competence, for knowledge.
Those needs that relate to ones reputation; needs for status, for recognition, for
appreciation, for the deserved respect of ones fellows.

Unlike the lower needs, these are rarely satisfied; man seeks indefinitely for more
satisfaction of these needs once they have become important to him. But they do not appear in
any significant way until physiological, safety and social needs are all reasonably satisfied.
The typical industrial organization offers few opportunities for the satisfaction of these
egoistic needs to people at lower levels in the hierarchy. The conventional methods of organizing
work, particularly in mass production industries, give little heed to these aspects of human
motivation. If the practices of scientific management were deliberately calculated to thwart these
needs, which of course they are not, they could hardly accomplish this purpose better than they
do. (McGregor, 1964: 272, 273)
SelfFulfillment Needs
Finally, a capstone, as it were, on the hierarchy of mans needs. There are what we may
call the needs for self-fulfillment. These are the needs for realizing ones own potentialities, for
continued self-development, for being creative in the broadest sense of that term. (McGregor,
1964: 273)
It is clear that the conditions of modern life give only limited opportunity for these relatively
weak needs to obtain expression. The deprivation most people experience with respect to other
lower level needs diverts their energies into the struggle to satisfy those needs, and the needs for
self-fulfillment remain dormant. (McGregor, 1964: 273)
The several subsections that follow were extracted from Maslows previously identified
paper. They fill the gaps and expand and enhance important aspects of Maslows Hierarchy of
Human Needs that McGregor cautioned that he had, of necessity, overgeneralized or bypassed.

Preconditions for the Basic Need Satisfactions

There are certain conditions which are immediate prerequisites for the basic need
satisfactions. Danger to these prerequisites is reacted to almost as if it were a direct danger to the
basic needs themselves. Such conditions as freedom to speak, freedom to do what one wishes
so long as no harm is done to others, freedom to express ones self, freedom to investigate and
seek for information, freedom to defend ones self, justice, fairness, honesty, orderliness in the
group, are examples of such preconditions for basic need satisfactions. Thwarting these freedoms
will be reacted to with a threat or emergency response. These conditions are not ends in
themselves but they are almost so, since they are so closely related to the basic needs, which are
apparently the only ends in themselves. These conditions are defended because without them
apparently the only ends in themselves. These conditions are defended because without them
the basic satisfactions are quite impossible, or at very least, very severely endangered. (Maslow,
1967: 17)

Degrees of Relative Satisfaction

So far, our theoretical discussion may have given the impression that these five sets of
needs are somehow in a stepwise, or all or none relationship to one another. We have spoken in
such terms as the following: If one need is satisfied, then another emerges. This statement might
give the false impression that a need must be satisfied 100 per cent before the next need
emerges. In actual fact, most members of our society who are normal are partially satisfied in all
their basic needs and partially unsatisfied in all their basic needs at the same time. A more
realistic description of the hierarchy would be in terms of decreasing percentages of satisfaction
as we go up the hierarchy of needs levels. For instance, if I may assign arbitrary figures for the
sake of illustration, it is as if the average citizen is satisfied perhaps 85 percent in his
physiological needs, 70 per cent in his safety needs, 50 percent in his love needs, 40 percent in
his self-esteem needs, and 10 per cent in his self-actualization needs. (Maslow, 1964: 21)
As for the concept of emergence of a new need; after satisfaction of the lower level need,
this is not a sudden, transition phenomenon but rather a gradual emergence by slow degrees
from nothingness. For instance, if lower level need A is satisfied only 10 per cent then need B
may not be visible at all. However, as this need A becomes satisfied 25 percent, need B may
emerge 5 per cent; as need A becomes satisfied 75 per cent, need B may emerge 90 per cent
and so on. (Maslow, 1964: 2122)

Unconscious Character of Needs

These needs are neither necessarily conscious nor unconscious. On the whole, however,
in the average person, they are more often unconscious. It is not necessary at this point to
overhaul the tremendous mass of evidence, which indicates the crucial importance of
unconscious motivation. It would by now be expected, on a priori grounds alone, that
unconscious motivations would on the whole be rather more important than the conscious
motivations. What we have called the basic needs are very often largely unconscious although
they may, with suitable techniques and with sophisticated people, become conscious. (Maslow,
1964: 22)

The Role of Gratified Needs

It has been pointed out above several times that our higher needs usually emerge only
when more influential needs have been gratified. Thus gratification has an important role in
motivation theory. Apart from this, however, needs cease to play an active determining or
organizing role as soon as they are gratified.
What this means, for example, is that a basically satisfied person no longer has the needs
for esteem, love, safety, etc. The only sense in which he might be said to have them is in the
almost metaphysical sense that a sated man has hunger or a filled bottle has emptiness. If we are
interested in what actually motivates us and not in what has, will, or might motivate us, then a
satisfied need is not a motivator. It must be considered for all practical purposes simply not to
exist, to have disappeared. This point should be emphasized because it has been either
overlooked or contradicted in every theory of motivation I know. (Maslow, 1964: 22)

SUMMARYMaslows Hierarchy of Human Needs

Psychologys earliest attempt to concern itself with the why of human behavior was to
provide a catalog of driving forces that, having been labeled instincts, were then said to explain
behavior. More recently, the innate or constitutional nature of some of these forces has been
questioned but the same cataloging technique has been pursued; the motivational forces now
being called drives or needs. Current motivational theory questions the usefulness of organizing
our thinking around a mere listing of drives or needs. Yet its apparent that mans behavior is
oriented around certain broad types of satisfactions. We can recognize this fact and set up a
systematic list of the kinds of satisfactions that man requires. This can be a useful procedure if it is
seen as a point of departure into the dynamics of motivation and not, as itself, the final answer.
(Costello, 1963: 59)
Maslows theory assumes that individuals can be characterized as being primarily at an
observable level at a given time or in a given set of circumstances. The matter of time and
circumstances is a crucial variable in understanding the hierarchical nature of need and
motivation. Since the lower levels needs are the most urgent ones, they must continually be
satisfied in order for a person to be motivated toward higher level needs. But even when the lower
level needs are satisfied, if they are threatened, they again become the stimulus for motivation. A
man who is safe may risk his safety, even his life, if he becomes hungry enough. Or a person,
man who is safe may risk his safety, even his life, if he becomes hungry enough. Or a person,
whose prime motivation has been esteem, may drop down a level to seek belongingness if the
sense of belongingness is threatened. Any thwarting or possibility of thwarting of these basic
human goals, or danger to the defenses which protect them or to the conditions upon which they
rest, is considered to be a psychological threat.(Rush, 1969: 18).
The fulfillment of the human needs as outlined in Maslows hierarchy are held to be
universal and applicable at least in the lower levels, to all persons. In fact, he calls the first four
needs deficit needs because their fulfillment, he holds is so much a part of the natural
development of a normal personality that they are stimulated only in their absence or deficit. That
is, one strives for fulfillment of each successive level of the first four steps of the hierarchy
because of lack of food, lack of safety, lack of love, and lack of esteem. Self-actualization,
however, far from being a deficit need, is labeled a growth need. This implies that a person who
has reached this summit has already taken care of the deficit needs. Thus, man is viewed as goal
seeking from the beginning of life to its end. The ubiquitous nature of his goals serves as a
measure of mans nature and the form his behavior takes. (Rush, 1969: 1719).
In the conflict between the individuals efforts to satisfy his needs and the organizations
inability to provide satisfaction for all of those needs, an accommodation by the individual
becomes necessary. Virtually everyone in the organization eventually has to make adjustments to
accommodate the limited opportunities for finding satisfaction of their Maslows Hierarchy of
Human Needs. The accommodations mode is achieved through a process of socialization
between the organizations institutional needs and the individuals needs which acts upon, and
shapes the individuals organizational personality and behavior. The accommodation mode for the
individual is the resultant of the conflux of Bureaucracys structural, sociological, and political
pressures and constraints that converge upon the individual when he becomes a member of the
organization and endeavors there to seek satisfaction for his Maslows Hierarchy of Human
Needs. [Presthus]
The interaction of the two latent supplementary components, Bureaucracy and Maslows
Hierarchy of Human Needs, generates a latent complementary component, Presthus
Accommodation of Individuals in Bureaucracy, that is discussed in the next section.
 Chapter Seven - PRESTHUS ACCOMMODATION OF INDIVIDUALS IN
BUREAUCRACY A SOCIOPSYCHOLOGICAL COMPONENT

Presthus Accommodation of Individuals in Bureaucracy, is the 4th and last component of

The Unified General Theory of Administration. It is the latent, complementary result of the
interaction between the sociological and psychological supplementary components, Bureaucracy
and Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs.
The accommodation of individuals to organizational demands has attracted the attention
of writers throughout history. The form most generally used is the modal type described by Max
Weber as a generalized rubric within which an indefinite number of particular cases may be
classified. While lending themselves to oversimplification and misinterpretation, such types
have a long and distinguished intellectual history, beginning in the Western world with Platos
philosopher kings, guardians, and workers. Psychology is replete with typologies such as
Jungs introverts and extroverts and James tender minded and tough minded. Used judiciously,
such types have the great virtue of helping one order the infinite complexity of the real world.
Indeed, it is hard to see how conceptualization in any field can proceed without such
generalizations. (Presthus, 1962: 9)
In 1962, Robert Presthus, a Cornell University political scientist and editor of its
Administrative Science Quarterly, developed a theory and presented it in a book titled The
Organizational SocietyAn Analysis and a Theory.
This book is an interdisciplinary analysis of big organizations and their influence upon the
individuals who work in them. The analysis and theory draw upon several social sciences. A
major object is to show how individuals work out an accommodation in organizations and to
develop a theory of organizational behavior that posits three ideal types of accommodation to big
organizations: Upward mobiles, Indifferents, and Ambivalents. (Presthus, 1962: preface)
Contemporary organizations have a pervasive influence upon individual and group
behavior expressed through a web of rewards, sanctions, and other inducements that range from
patent coercion to the most subtle of group appeals to conformity. Ironically, members often
accept this instrumental bargain; and why they do is a matter of central interest. The
organizations with which we are concerned may be defined as large, fairly permanent social
systems designed to achieve limited objectives through the coordinated activities of their
members. We are concerned with organizations in which people spend their working lives.
Members are expected to be loyal to the organization, to behave consistently and rationally
according to technical and professional criteria, and to defer to the authority of the organizations
leaders. While our society provides a broad scope for individual choices, organizational
influences have significantly changed the conditions under which they are made. (Presthus,
1962: 37)
Big organizations impose socialization through their authority systems, their rational
procedures, and their limited objectives. The specialization and discipline of big corporations
have both functional and dysfunctional consequences. Their gains in material rewards, industrial
efficiency and military power are clear enough. Their dysfunctions are more subtle and pervasive,
raising problems of individual autonomy, integrity, and self-realization. Prominent among them
today is a displacement of value from the intrinsic quality of work to its byproducts of income,
security, prestige and leisure. This displacement stems from the impersonality, the specialization,
and group character of work in the typical big organization. Such organizational conditions and
expectations have fostered the growth of certain personality types whose skill and behavior meet
the demands of the organizational society. We shall define three such types as the Upward
mobiles, the Indifferents, and the Ambivalents. (Presthus, 1962: 79)
The following are brief, verbal collages of characteristics condensed from Presthuss
extensive development and descriptions of the variety of individuals that comprise each of his 3
modal types.

Presthus Modal TypeThe Upward Mobile

Although the Upward Mobile behavior may at times appear unappealing, we are
concerned with it only as a form of accommodation to the bureaucratic environment. The Upward
Mobiles are typically distinguished by high morale; their level of job satisfaction is high. The
dividends they receive include disproportionate shares of the organizations rewards in power,
income, and ego reinforcement. Having accepted its legitimacy and rationality, they can act on the
basis of the organizations value premises. The demand is for conformity. Since the larger
purposes of the organization have been accepted, they find involvement easy. They can overlook
the contradictions in the routine operations of the organization and are able to find certainty and
consistency in an organization that is imperfect. They can usually assume the appropriate roles
consistency in an organization that is imperfect. They can usually assume the appropriate roles
whether or not they identify with the underlying ideals. Ritualistic behavior is often used to
conceal resentment or hostility that, indulged in, would paralyze interpersonal relations. In the
main, the Upward Mobiles self system enables them to accept manipulation of themselves and of
others as part of the vocational bargain. Upward Mobiles include those who want power and who
have the self-discipline and the temperament to achieve it. In any case, status aspirations play an
important part in behavior. The acquisition of status and prestige becomes an end in itself rather
than a derivative of some significant achievement. It seems equally clear that status has
obligations as well as rights and privileges. Those possessing large amounts of it enjoy
preferential amounts of income, authority, and security; but in return they must behave in ways
approved by the status conferring group or organization. While they may possess the talent and
inspiration to do creative work this genial ethic encourages them to choose alternatives that
promise greater reward in less time. (Presthus, 1962: 167203)
The Upward-Mobiles are a modal bureaucratic type. Their values and behavior include
the capacity to identify strongly with the organization, permitting a nice synthesis of personal
rewards and organizational goals. Their most functional value is a deep respect for authority.
Their interpersonal relations are characterized by considerable sensitivity to authority and to
status differences, and superiors are viewed as nonthreatening models for their own conduct.
Meanwhile, their subordinates are regarded with a considerable detachment that permits
universalistic decisions that meet organizational as opposed to individual needs. (Presthus,
1962: 203, 204)
Presthus Modal TypeThe Ambivalent
A second modal type of accommodation in big organizations is Ambivalence, a small
disenchanted minority. Creative and anxious, their views often conflict with bureaucratic claims
for loyalty and adaptability. Despite the inability to meet bureaucratic demands, the Ambivalent
type plays a critical social roll, namely that of providing the insight, motivation, and the dialectic
that inspire change. Their innovating role is often obscured because the authority, leadership, and
money needed to institutionalize change remain in the hands of the upward mobile organizational
elite. Nevertheless, few ideals or institutions escape their critical scrutiny.
In their view custom is no guarantee of either rationality or legitimacy. Ambivalents have
high aspirations. Their intellectual interests are narrow and deep, accuracy and persistence are
highly developed, and verbal facility and intelligence are markedly superior. The Ambivalents
ordinarily play a specialist, cosmopolitan role. They honor theory, knowledge and skill but
socialization, as an independent professional, often blinds them to legitimate organizational
needs for control and coordination. Attempts to impose standards from without are seen as
presumptuous and denigrating. As a result, there is always a gap between their self-perception as
an independent professional and the galling realization, punctuated daily by organization
authority, that they are really just employees. Their skill is not always recognized, even though it
is perfectly clear that their technical judgments have been decisive. We may regard the
Ambivalent as an idealistic, independent personality. Their interpersonal relations become
difficult both for themselves and their superiors, who are much less interested in them than they
think. Although they recognize that felicitous relations are a bureaucratic necessity, they
frequently reject the compromise required to play the status game. They often find themselves in
conflict with hierarchical status barriers. The effort to penetrate such barriers requires political and
interpersonal skills that the Ambivalent does not always have. They cannot avoid seeing people
as individuals and cannot make decisions that affect others adversely without undue personal
strain. On the one hand, they want success yet they resist paying the price in collectively
validated behavior. (Presthus, 1962: 25782)
The Ambivalents tender-minded view of human relations disqualifies them for the
universalistic decision making required for success on organizational terms. The stereotyped
procedures and group decision making of big organization prove stifling. Its systems of authority
and status often seem to rest upon subjective bases rather than upon the objective, professional
claims that motivate them. If their values did not include prestige and influence, a happier
accommodation might be possible. But these emphasize their inability to assume the roles
required achieving them. The Ambivalent type is uniquely unsuited to the bureaucratic situation.
(Presthus, 1962: 285, 286)

Presthus Modal TypeThe Indifferent

Only Indifference or withdrawal remains to be discussed as a mode of accommodation.
Indifference is the typical pattern of accommodation for the majority of organization personnel.
The Indifferents are found among the great mass of waged and salaried employees who work in
the bureaucratic situation. The Indifferents are those who have come to terms with their work
environment by withdrawal and by redirection of their interests towards off the job satisfactions.
environment by withdrawal and by redirection of their interests towards off the job satisfactions.
They have also been alienated by the work itself, which has often been downgraded by
automation, by assembly line and by other methods. In industrial psychology the main effort has
been to compensate for the deadening effect of the work by providing a happy work place. Less
attention has been given to alienation from the job. We are not speaking here of pathological
kinds of alienation, but of modes of accommodation that often seem basically healthy. While the
Upward Mobile strives for success and power obtainable mainly through big organizations, the
Indifferent seeks that security which the organization can also provide for those who merely go
along. Such security seeking varies with the demands of personality. One individual may have
been taught to expect more than life can reasonably offer. Anxiety and frustration follow as his
unrealistic claims are discounted. Another may have learned to expect less. This is encouraged
by such bureaucratic conditions as hierarchy and specialization. The Indifferent reaction, then, is
the product of both social and organizational influences. But organizational factors seem to
outweigh class induced mobility expectations. However strong such expectations are, they rarely
survive in an unsympathetic environment. The resulting accommodations may also reflect
personal failures of nerve and energy, bad luck, and so on. But, essentially, indifference is
manifested in a psychic withdrawal from the work arena and a transfer of interest to off work
activities. They go through the motions paying lip service to organizational values, but they no
longer retain any real interest in the organization or in work for its own sake. (Presthus, 1962:
205209)
Since job satisfaction is a product of the relation between aspirations and achievement,
the Indifferents are often the most satisfied of organization personnel. Their aspirations are based
on a realistic appraisal of existing opportunities. In this sense, the Indifferent is the most normal of
individuals. To some extent, then, Indifferents deflect bureaucratic claims by limiting their
aspirations and transferring them elsewhere. Their off the job activities rarely reinforce their
occupational role. Work becomes a tool with which they buy satisfactions totally unrelated to
work. Thus separation of work from personal life underlies the Indifferents perception of the
bureaucratic situation. Although they must accept the economic bargain, selling their skill and
energy for forty hours a week, the remaining time is jealously guarded as their own. The
Indifferents recapture their identity by withdrawing. By the very act of withholding part of
themselves, they experience a certain autonomy. The Indifferents tend to find their real
satisfactions in extra-vocational activities. While the Upward Mobiles carry their job home with
them, the Indifferents separate their work from their personal experiences. The paycheck is what
counts. The Indifferents interpersonal relations are generally satisfactory. Since neither the
organizations rewards nor its sanctions are very compelling, their attitude toward authority is
generally uncomplicated. While the personal qualities that permit the Indifferent to accommodate
without undue strain vary individually, we can assume that some constant values are at work.
Clearly, they are not driven by exceptional needs for power and success. Since they are quite
literally not going anywhere, they escape the status pressure and the manipulation of self and
others required for organizational success. The bureaucratic struggle is observed with
detachment (Presthus, 1962: 218226)
The behavior of the Indifferent is a modal type of accommodation. Bureaucratic conditions
of work have encouraged indifference in white-collar and professional areas as well as in the
blue-collar world. The typical Indifferent tends to reject the organizational bargain that promises
authority, status, prestige, and income in exchange for loyalty, hard work, and identification with
its values. Instead, they separate their work from the meaningful aspects of their life. The tension
between such values and the organizations claims encourages withdrawal, the rejection of
majority values, and a refusal to compete for them. In so defining the work bargain they often
reveal realistic perceptions of themselves and their life chances. The mass character of society,
the power and remoteness of its organizations and ones resulting feelings of helplessness are
among the psychological bases for alienation. The structural conditions for big organization often
mean, too, that the organization rejects the Indifferent. Such conditions make indifference the
most common pattern of bureaucratic accommodation. (Presthus, 1962: 254, 255)

SUMMARYPresthus Accommodation of Individuals in Bureaucracy

This theory of adaptation rests upon the findings of cultural psychology, which replaced
earlier conceptions of a static human nature with the idea of a marketing personality who could
nicely adjust to changing social and organizational expectations. In this context we can think of a
bureaucratic personality as an adaptive type with three discrete modal type patterns of
accommodations, the Upward Mobiles, the Indifferents, and the Ambivalents. (Presthus, 1962:
165, 166)
Presthus 3 modal types of accommodation are representative of each type as a class not
as individuals. They are amalgams of dominant and recognizable characteristics. Within each of
these types there are an unlimited variety of individuals. The bureaucratic situation also evokes
these types there are an unlimited variety of individuals. The bureaucratic situation also evokes
various degrees of motivation. One Upward Mobile may have compulsive success drives that are
quite unrealistic, while another may retain a rational estimate of his own ability and of the rewards
he may reasonably expect. With the Indifferents and Ambivalents a similar range of behavior
exists. Our types must, therefore, be viewed as modal patterns of adjustment to the bureaucratic
situation. (Presthus, 1962: 166)
The characteristics of each type are not absolutely mutually exclusive. It would not be
unusual for an individual from any 1 of the 3 types to have a few characteristics from the other two
but these would be overwhelmed by the dominant characteristics of the primary type but could
have an impact on the accommodation.
The Upward Mobiles are a small minority of individuals that react positively to the
bureaucratic situation and can succeed in it. The Indifferents are the large uncommitted majority
that see their jobs as mere instruments to obtain offwork satisfactions. The Ambivalents are a
small typically introverted minority with intense intellectual interests and limited interpersonal
facility that want status and power but are not able to play the disciplined role required to achieve
them. (Presthus, 1962: 15)
An Amplification of Presthus Accommodation of Individuals in Bureaucracy
Presthus generalized the proportional distribution of Upward Mobiles, Indifferents and
Ambivalents in bureaucracies. He postulated that the Indifferents were a very large group and that
the Upward Mobile and Ambivalent groups were each very small in number relative to the
Indifferents. It is possible to more closely approximate the proportional distribution among the
three modal types.
Convergence is an attribute of hierarchical role systems. The administrative hierarchy of
roles converges rapidly to the top, limiting the opportunities for advancement to all but a very few.
The Peter Principle humorously stated, In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of
incompetence. Actually, in a hierarchy, most employees never get the opportunity to rise to their
level of incompetence because There is not much room at the top.
This can be demonstrated with an example based on information that accumulated over a
40-year period in the personnel records of one of the many plants of a mature international
industrial corporation with over 300,000 employees. A mature enterprise is one that has stopped
growing and expanding. The corporations many plants and other independent operations were
also individually mature and were self-supported with administrative infrastructures that operated
independently but under close corporate orchestration and oversight. During the 40-year data
period, the employee population of the studied plant grew from about 8,000 employees to about
12,000 and stabilized at about 10,000 over the last 10 years. The plant operated continuously, 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.
The information presented here is a byproduct of a major, and at that time pioneering,
endeavor that automated the conduct of the plants business with computer based information-
processing technology. Some side issue business aspects were also studied because of the
ready availability of computer based data. One of these side issues was the career mobility of
management personnel. I directed this study and validated the data sources, procedures and
results.
There were five formal levels of management at the analyzed plant. The position titles in
the example are the dominant, main line operations titles. The data for each dominant title
includes data from equivalent level administrative staff and technical positions. A normal
management career span was 3035 years. The management career hierarchy began with the
bottom level position of Turn Foreman or equivalent.
Of those individuals who entered the Plant Management ranks:
90% spent all of their career at the 1st Level as Turn Foreman
9.4% spent the rest of their career at the 2nd Level as General Turn Foreman
0.5% spent the rest of their career at the 3rd Level as Department Superintendent
Less than 0.1% spent the rest of their career at the 4th Level Division Superintendent or
beyond
Promotion to the 5th LevelGeneral Superintendent occurred, but was very rare!

Advancement to the next higher level usually occurred within the first 5 years of
incumbency. After 5 years at a level, advancements were rare and unusual. Promotions were
arithmetically infinitesimal from the 4th level to the 5th and highest-level plant position of General
Superintendent and from there on to the hierarchy of corporate executive positions.
At most of the three Superintendent levels there was an Assistant Superintendent position
that in addition to its essential functional utility, also facilitated the short tenure mobility of Upward
Mobile individuals. These Assistant Superintendent positions were usually occupied by near end-
Mobile individuals. These Assistant Superintendent positions were usually occupied by near end-
of-career individuals but they were also used for relatively short periods as career development
positions for Upward Mobile individuals.
Consider the bleak prospects of the 1st level Foremen. 90% of them spend their entire
management career at that 1st level. Most spend those years at the same plant, in the same
department, and usually on the same job. This also applies to the un-promoted 2nd level General
Foremen and 3rd level Department Superintendents. Indeed, an individual was fortunate to rise
even one level, and was truly blessed to rise two levels in the formal management hierarchy. This
distribution of opportunity is representative of all large, mature organizations. Normally, it would
take at least twenty years to become a General Superintendent, but it did not always work that
way. The tenure at successively higher management levels got shorter with each promotion for
those very few who would eventually reach the top plant and the higher corporate executive
levels, thus allowing career time for the rise to and through the corporate executive positions.
These select individuals were obvious en-route and were commonly viewed and referred to as
being on the fast-track.
The conditions and results in this example generally and variably are representative of all
mature hierarchical enterprises. There is not much room at the top in any of them. It is very
simply a case of time based, arithmetical, hierarchical convergence.
The example deals with management personnel in a hierarchical management role
structure. Management included operating, technical and administrative personnel variably
comprising 10% to 15% of the plants total personnel. The prospects for progressive hierarchical
success with increasing opportunities for workplace satisfaction are minimal at best for most of
the management personnel but are even less so for the remaining 85% to 90% of non-
management personnel. Non-management career paths for most are nonexistent. For some, there
is a very limited range of mobility into better-compensated non-management jobs. These are
usually achieved through attrition; by seniority or a formal bidding process, an arbitrary award, or
by pre-established skill progression from apprentice to journeyman. Although there are a few
exceptions, the best non-management compensation did not match that of 1st level management.
There is little job satisfaction for non-management personnel beyond Maslows physiological
level or for some, as was the case with this industry, the safety level if they work in a unionized
industry. Most of the nations non-management workforce does not. Both non-management and
management personnel have to make adjustments in their working lives to accommodate for the
almost nonexistent opportunities to find sources of satisfaction in the workplace for their higher
level Maslow Hierarchy of Human Needs. This adjustment is occasionally but very slightly eased
for some through mock mobility that is achieved by upgrading position titles. Janitors are titled
custodians; reporters titled journalists; clerks titled administrators; secretaries titled executive
assistants; salesmen titled sales executives; large banks create innumerable vice-president titles;
executive support staffs are given assistant-to-the titles; etc. The described circumstances are
ubiquitous in mature hierarchical organizations. They occur there naturally, rationally and
unavoidably.
It is possible to suggest a reasoned numerical estimate of the proportional distribution
among the three modal types. At least 90% of all management and non-management personnel
in a mature hierarchically structured enterprise can be classified as actively Indifferent, at least
57% can be classified as actively Ambivalent and at least 12% classified as active Upward
Mobiles. The residual 1% is a mix of individuals in the process of modal type transition and those
with dysfunctional personalities such as, malcontents, individuals in denial, etc.
Very few Upward Mobile individuals remain active Upward Mobiles throughout their
career. Some Upward Mobile individuals must arithmetically top-out at every low, middle and top
management level where they eventually transition to Indifferent.
A few Ambivalent individuals will make the transition to Upward Mobility and a few will
eventually accept their lack of mobility and transition to Indifferent.
Indifference is the typical pattern of accommodation for the majority of organization
personnel. The Indifferents make up virtually all of the great mass of non-management employees
and most of the management employees from foreman to vice-president. The Indifferents are
those who have come to terms with their work environment by withdrawal and by a redirection of
their interests toward off-the-job satisfactions. (Presthus, 1962: 205208)
At least 90% of the personnel of a mature enterprise will naturally, rationally and
unavoidably eventually transition to Indifference.
 Chapter Eight - THE UNIFIED GENERAL THEORY OF ADMINISTRATION

The Unified General Theory of Administration is novel, natural, rational and

unavoidable. It is a synthesis of 4 components. The core component is The Unified Pattern of
Administration. (pg 107) It is comprised of 32 administration principles and is host to 3 latent
components. There are 2 latent supplementary components that interact naturally, rationally and
unavoidably to generate a latent complementary component.
The comprehensive Unified Pattern of Administration core component is a logical
functional flow chart system of 32 principles. It mutates into the dynamic Unified General Theory
of Administration when it is applied to implement an enterprise. It is an open system that can
accommodate addition and alteration for new findings or for new ideas in the applied areas, in the
formal anatomy of organization, or in the behavioral aspects of its human population. The Unified
Pattern of Administration has 2 parts. In the 1st part, the establishment of an enterprise begins
with a Governing Authority. Governing Authority results in Governing that is subordinated under
Governing Authority. Governing Authority finds its underlying principle in Governing Objectives
that enter into process with Administration and take effect in Administrative Process.
Administration represents executive activity in the exercise of power or duties to implement the
Governing Objectives through the 2nd part, the Administrative Process. The Administrative
Process represents humans working cooperatively, in collective action, for mutual profit, common
benefit and individual satisfaction through acts or operations arranged or constituted into a whole
of interdependent parts called Organization that exists in and is affected by the ecological, social
and political conditioning of its environment.
Bureaucracy is the 1st latent supplementary component. It takes form naturally, rationally
and unavoidably through the development and implementation of an Organization. It develops
through the distribution of authority and the subdivision of jobs in harmony with the nature and
level of Control imbedded in its implementation.
Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs is the 2nd latent supplementary component. It
emerges naturally, rationally and unavoidably through the staffing of an Organization. It is
individually variable with each human that populates the Organization.
Presthus Accommodation of Individuals in Bureaucracy is the latent complementary
component. It emerges naturally, rationally and unavoidably as a result of the interaction of the 2
latent supplementary components in the implementation of an enterprise. It is individually variable
with each human that populates the Organization.
The Unified Pattern of Administration has 3 roles in the Unified General Theory of
Administration: it is a framework of principles for organizing knowledge; it is a guide for
enterprise design or analysis; and it is the comprehensive source of 3 latent components.

1st RoleAs a Framework for Organizing Knowledge

The 32-principle flowchart provides a framework upon which Administration knowledge
can be assembled, organized, codified, integrated and correlated. This knowledge is distributed
through the many applied areas of Administration and the social and behavioral sciences. These
are primary principles that can be progressively subdivided as necessary to accommodate the
assembly and arrangement of accumulated knowledge. The assembly and organization of the
massive volume and variety of knowledge under these primary principles is a formidable task of
unusual size and scope that is beyond the purpose of this work and is set aside as a future project
or for others to undertake.

2nd RoleAs an Enterprise Design or Analysis Guide

The Unified Pattern of Administration, is a guide for the design or analysis of an enterprise
manned with personnel selected to pursue its Governing Objectives. The Unified Pattern of
Administration is comprised of principles that should each be carefully and seriously considered
when establishing, analyzing, or reorganizing an enterprise. The principles are universally
applicable to all applied areas of Administration.
There is a designated sequential path that should be followed through The Unified Pattern
of Administration, (pg 107). It begins with Governing Authority, and by following the arrows,
finishes with Stability. Where there is a choice between horizontal and vertical arrow paths take
the horizontal arrow path first. This first occurs at Forecasting and again at Scalar Process and
ends at Functional Definition. Return to Scalar Process and follow the bypassed vertical arrow
path. This path ends with Interpretative Functionalism and completes The Coordinative Branch of
Structure and Task Principles that are subordinated under Forecasting.
Return to Forecasting and follow the bypassed vertical arrow path to Planning that is the
entry to the General Interest Branch of Staffing and Behavior Principles. Follow that path to
entry to the General Interest Branch of Staffing and Behavior Principles. Follow that path to
Appropriate Staffing and take the horizontal path that ends with Initiative. Return to Appropriate
Staffing and follow the bypassed vertical arrow path. This final path ends at Stability
simultaneously completing both the General Interest Branch of Staffing and Behavior Principles
and The Unified Pattern of Administration. The principles should be objectively evaluated in the
order that they occur along this path. Each principle, evaluated in turn, can affect the decisions to
be made in the evaluation of subsequent principles. The role of these principles as sequenced is
to guide. They should all be considered and acted upon as Appropriate for a given enterprise.
The Unified Pattern of Administration is a guide. It does not instruct how to appropriately
develop an organization or how to appropriately man it. In the future, the ways and means of
implementing the principles will be selectable from the variety of options that should someday be
organized and accumulated under the individual principles as proposed in the 1st role of The
Unified Pattern. In the context of the Governing Objectives, the design process proceeds through
the Administrative Process. Ideally the process would guide the design, assembly and staffing of
an organization with the most appropriate options from those accumulated under the principles of
the 1st role. In the meantime, until the accumulation of Administration and related knowledge has
been collected, assembled, organized, codified, integrated and correlated, the design options
available for the principles will necessarily continue to be only those that the designer already
knows about or that can be found through practical and reasonable research.

3rd RoleAs the host of 3 latent components

The Unified Pattern of Administration is the comprehensive host of 2 latent supplementary
components Bureaucracy and Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs and a latent complementary
component, Presthus Accommodation of Individuals in Bureaucracy that results from their
interaction.
Bureaucracy, is a supplementary component of the Coordinative Branch of Structure and
Task Principles that is latent in the principles that are subordinated under Organization. It is a
variable product of the implementation of the Coordinative Branch of Structure and Task
Principles in the establishment of an enterprise with a general interest goal that aspires to
achieve efficiency and control in its operation. The closer that the implementation approximates
Webers ideal monocratic type of Bureaucracy the greater will be the probability that it can
approach its stated general interest goals.
Bureaucracy is a characteristic possessed to a greater or lesser extent by all formal
organizations. It is far more fruitful to speak of a degree of bureaucratization rather than of
bureaucracy or non bureaucracy in an absolute sense. Bureaucracy is part of the general
extension of organized activities in most facets of life in our society. (Scott, 1967: 248, 249)
Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs is a supplementary component of the General
Interest Branch of Staffing and Behavior Principles that is latent in the principles that are
subordinated under Command. Through Staffing, humans bring Maslows Hierarchy of Human
Needs into the enterprise with individual variability in each employee. The extent to which the
enterprise can satisfy these individual needs, or otherwise offset its failure to do so with
alternative rewards, penalties, and sanctions, governs employee willingness and dedication in
fulfilling the enterprises expectations of their efforts. Circumstances of employment perceived to
be rational from the perspective of the enterprise might not be perceived to be rational by its
employees and vice versa. The impersonality of the large organization to its human members is in
general responded to in kind by the individuals impersonality toward the organization in return.
[Urwick]
Presthus Accommodation of Individuals in Bureaucracy is the latent complementary
component that results from the conflict that arises through the interaction of the two
supplementary components, the general interest control of Bureaucracy and the individual
employees Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs. Bureaucracy exercises general interest control
over its members who find that some of their needs are satisfied and some are not by conforming
to the organizations control. The basic source of organizational conflict is the incomplete and/or
the incongruent matching of the needs and wants of the members and the needs of the enterprise.
The bureaucratic situation evokes three modal typologies of personal accommodations, each
associated with one of three modal personality types, the Upward Mobiles, the Ambivalents, and
the Indifferents. These accommodations are the result of interaction between the bureaucratic
situation and the individuals personality. Over a period of time such responses are continually
reinforced and become relatively consistent because they meet compelling individual needs.
The Unified General Theory of Administration unifies the universal aspects of
administration with related knowledge from the allied fields of sociology and psychology into a
system of administrative action that functions within the larger economic system of social action.
The starting point of this economic system is the existence of human needs and wants.
Economics is the science that deals with the production, distribution and consumption of
Economics is the science that deals with the production, distribution and consumption of
commodities and services. Commodities are something tangible and useful. Services are
something intangible and useful. Economics is driven by our wants for commodities and services
such as food, clothing, shelter, transportation, education, health care, entertainment, vacations,
public utilities, religion, protection, etc. Economics also deals with mans efforts to secure these
wants. Two economic conditions that are found in every society generate conflicts. They are the
multiplication of human wants and the limitation of commodities and services for satisfying those
wants. All of mans wants must be satisfied out of limited quantities of these commodities and
services. This requires economic arrangements for their production and distribution. [Gemmill]
The mobilization of the resources required to implement these economic arrangements is
Administration. Mankind orchestrates Administration with organizations of humans engaged in
enterprises for the development, production, management and distribution of commodities and
services through governments, businesses and hospitals; military, financial and educational
institutions; religions and all other such human activities. The Unified General Theory of
Administration comprehends this overall economic system of administrative action.
Enterprises are tailor-made. They are the products of the vision, motives, resources and
capabilities of those that establish and operate them in combination with the influences of the total
environment in which they exist. People build and operate hierarchical enterprises that range
from spectacularly successful to spectacularly unsuccessful. Everything that is good or bad with
an enterprise has been conceived by people and executed by people. If motivated to do so,
people can make changes for improvement that will benefit society in general and individuals in
particular.
The Unified General Theory of Administration is the engine of economics! It is the
natural, rational and unavoidable instrumentality with which economic objectives and
functions, in infinite combinations and variety, are implemented through organized human
endeavor.
The following are some of the implications that can be deduced from the Unified General
Theory of Administration.

IN GOVERNING:
It is implied that a Governing Authority (Board of Directors, Owner etc.) is responsible for
the enterprise and should exert control of the General Interest of the enterprise through Governing
Objectives to assure conformity with its General Interest and with accepted standards of proper
business conduct, customs, conventions and societies legal degrees of freedom and constraints
such as laws, statutes, ordinances, regulations etc.
It is implied that members of the Governing Authority should be functional and operative
and not just ceremonial.
It is implied that members of the Governing Authority must have the capability to
appropriately contribute to determining and guiding the General Interest of the enterprise.
It is implied that members of the Governing Authority should not simultaneously serve as
members of Administration. They are mutually exclusive responsibilities and accountabilities.
It is implied that Administration should always serve at the pleasure of the Governing
Authority.
It is implied that Governing Objectives should precisely define the General Interest of an
enterprise and empower Administration with the appropriate degrees of freedom and constraint
for their implementation.
It is implied that Governing Objectives are also the means through which Governing
Authority should regulate and audit the compliance of Administration and Management with the
General Interest of the enterprise.
It is implied that ethical standards of business conduct should be specifically established
through Governing Objectives.
It is implied that profit should not be the only Governing Objective of an enterprise.
It is implied that organization size should be no larger than necessary to implement its
Governing Objectives.

IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS:

It is implied that Administration is a system of principle and process, not one of formula and
equation.
It is implied that it is the means through which the functions necessary to develop, operate
or analyze an enterprise including those that use formula and equation are accomplished. These
include management, financial, accounting, manufacturing, commercial, technical, personnel,
security and whatever else is necessary for the intended purpose.
It is implied that it is applicable and useful in all manners of human society for all varieties
of enterprise i.e. public, business, military, hospital, education etc.
of enterprise i.e. public, business, military, hospital, education etc.
It is implied that using the Unified Pattern of Administration for the design, operation or
analysis of an enterprise will yield the best possible result consistent with the abilities and
diligence of the designer, operator or analyst.
It is implied that at least 32 principles and related processes should be consciously and
appropriately considered in establishing, operating or analyzing an enterprise.
It is implied that most developers, operators and analysts of enterprises are not or have not
been consciously aware of the 32 Administration principles and related processes.
It is implied that developers, operators and analysts in the past would have achieved a
better result if they had been consciously aware of the principles and related processes in the first
place.
It is implied that relevant principles not consciously considered in developing, operating or
analyzing an enterprise will naturally, rationally and unavoidably self-implement with random,
undefined and unintentional results.
It is implied that superior enterprise leadership is unlikely if based only on technical or
professional proficiencies without a sound philosophy of administration.
It is implied that an enterprise mechanic has administrative skills acquired chiefly through
on the job experience. An enterprise professional, in addition to on the job experience has a
sound philosophy of administration and a broad, fundamental basis for effective thinking.
It is implied that bureaucracy, the name given to the hierarchical organization of specialties
that results from the progressive subdivision of authority and work, is a natural, rational and
unavoidable enterprise characteristic that is possessed in variably significant and substantial
degrees by all formal enterprises.
It is implied that the more closely that Webers ideal, monocratic bureaucracy is
approximated in the design and operation of an enterprise the greater will be the ability of the
Governing Authority, Administration and Management to serve the General Interest of the
enterprise.
It is implied that, the more closely that an enterprise does approximate Webers ideal,
monocratic bureaucracy the less degrees of freedom there will be for employees to obtain,
progressive compensation and gratification for their contributions to the enterprise.
It is implied that most employees will become Indifferent. They will eventually exchange
their work for the available appropriate compensation and gratification and concomitantly develop
a benign indifference to enterprise objectives in the unilateral bargain.
It is implied that personnel in key positions throughout an enterprise from the lowest to the
highest levels should be developed and rewarded to encourage long term retention.
It is implied that Administration and Management are not interchangeable. Administration
is the process and agency that delegates and distributes Authority and objectives to
Management. Management is the process and agency that guide and direct the operations of the
enterprise to pursue the implementation of objectives through the principles of the Administrative
Process.
It is implied that amalgamated symbiotic enterprises should be governed individually with
Governing Objectives that are peculiar to their individual purposes. Penalties from the faults
and/or failures of one should not be visited upon the others.
It is implied that there can be good regulation, bad regulation, under regulation and over
regulation but there is no such condition as too much good regulation in the conduct of
human affairs.

We need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
Appendix - DISPLAYS
Figure 1The Principles of Administration Logical Square
Figure 2The Principles of Organization and Coordination Logical Square
Figure 3The Principles of Command and Control Logical Square
Figure 4Urwicks Pattern of Administration
Figure 5Urwicks Elements of Administration
Figure 6The Unified Pattern of Administration
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Shipping: $2.75 or $5.00 for shipping first book (media mail vs. first class), .50 cents for
each additional copy regardless of method.
Insurance: $1.30 Books not insured will ship at buyers risk.