The Ideology of Administration: the Development of Managerial Rationality in Organisations

Abstract

The study of administrative thought and practices has undergone major changes since the 1960s: commentators have been increasingly concerned with the context of administrative decisions and the situating of these accounts within the broader paradigmatic social science frameworks. The intellectual imperialism of the functionalist orthodoxy has been increasingly challenged by perspectives that are attentive to the significance of organisational actors' definitions of the situation and the class-invested basis of organisational structures. In its orthodox variant, organisations are seen as a given good - their reality is objectively given, functionally necessary and/or political neutral. Enquiry is informed by a technocratic concern to improve the design of organisational structures and processes, and to translate means into ends in the most efficient and effective manner, the assumption being that such achievements will be broadly beneficial for all groups. Guided by such instrumental concerns, the search for organisation/administrative theory came to be guided by this instrumental rationality where organisation/administrative theory was particularised and deflected into the service of instrumental rationality devoted to constant refinement rather than a widening of 'rationality' concerns. There is minimal consideration of the relevance of social theory - of theories of society and theories of knowledge - for the study of organisations. This preeminence of the instrumental rational paradigm is partly because critical discussion of organisation/administrative theory was not available or was in its infancy. This 'rational' approach purports to reveal, even if it fails to 'rationally' account for, the behaviour of agents within administration/organisation. As social sciences underwent a paradigmatic shift, so did organisation/administrative theory. Concerned with a reified, a historical reading of organisations, new studies pointed to the contrarieties of rationality itself, suggesting that there are indeed different permutations for the construction and transformation of organisational realities. This, they argued, needs to involve a better appreciation of history and structure, in particular, how the structure and dynamics of capitalism is reflected in both the organisation and administration of work and the theories that inform and legitimate its design. As the capitalist organisation of work extends and strengthens its grip upon society, the organisation of the labour process (including the process of distribution) becomes more complex and more sophisticated forms of control (and ownership). In this light, orthodox theories of organisation/administration are seen to assume and secure processes of rationalisation and innovation necessary to the process of accumulation. By contrast, these new critical analyses address questions of which class is the primary beneficiary of current organisational structures and practices; who is empowered to maintain or change these structures?; and what is the source of the institutional power that enables or constrains the actions of different individuals and groups, etc.? More importantly, these studies focus on organisational practices as a loosely coupled network of social practices geared to the integration and regulation of those basic activities necessary for the production of goods and the provision of services. In this way organisation/administration theory encompasses the range of social practices through which management attempts to retain a semblance of control over productive activity within the shifting pattern of material and ideational constraints contained within the social situations in which they operate. These practices are deemed to be inherently unstable and contradictory to the extent that they are geared to the integration and regulation of productive activity through the implementation of control mechanisms at different levels of the organisation, based on divergent rationales and logics. This divergence is seen to create severe problems of managerial coordination and control which have given rise to organisational solutions that generate novel instabilities and conflicts calling for alternative 'coping strategies' on the part of management. This thesis points out that administrative practices are manifold and that a rational critique of organisation/administrative theories and practices can only proceed on the basis of a rejection of paradigmatic closure. This cannot be based upon an appeal to an essence of humanity that is being denied. Nor can it be the identification of an oppressive class, since this obscures the extent to which everyone is engaged in the reproduction of oppressive social practices. Instead, by focusing upon organisational practices which reflect and sustain the contradictory separation of instrumental rationality and substantive rationality, the task of critical organisation/administrative analysis is to penetrate their practical production in order to reveal how this dualism simultaneously promotes and impedes the possibilities for emancipatory change.