The Organisation Man: Management And Organisational Behaviour In The 1950s And 60s

Collectivist Mentality vs. Individual Creativity

The Organisation Man is a book penned by William H. Whyte in the year 1956. This book was written on management conducting extensive interviews with the managers of large organisations like Ford, General Electric and IBM. This book told about rugged individualism and employees of these organisations became preferable in advancing the organisational needs with own creativity. This book highlights the process of collectivism and rules of pop culture working in the 1950s and 1950s. Businessmen in this time wore grey or blue suits, white shirts and long dark times and that was identical of the business personality. This book argued about believes against individualism and Americans Giant Organisations put them into the collectivism. In order to solve the issues within the organisation, the book told that individuals dedicated their lives to the organisations (Whyte 2013). Organisations wanted long services from the employees and doubtless loyalty, however, the large organisation’s main motto was to meet the objectives of the organisations. Therefore, in this way, individual creativity did not flourish and collectivist mentality made the ‘Organisation of Man’.

With the advancement of time, previously, rugged individualism has changed to the social ethic. Moreover, Whyte talked about essential rightness of group working and he spoke about individual’s wrongness. American values of dressing, praying, buying clothes are now changing in the organisations. However, the organisations now want more ‘all-rounded’ employees. There are various types of employees within the workplace and leadership qualities develop to the employees. The commander type of employee is aggressive and domineering. This type of employee does not waste time and finds the positive sides in all perspectives. In addition, drifter type of employee is the opposite of commander and these employees are disorganised. However, in case of any creativity and variety are needed, they give their best (Burrell and Morgan 2017). The pleaser types of employees within an organisation always want to please all employees, unlike the attackers. Pleasers can praise the other employees about their skills. Additionally, the performers type of employees provides the impression to the management about their doing and these employees take credit of the work which they did not even do. Achievers are the types of employees who display lots of confidence in each action and they are aware of their own work (Coccia 2014). Therefore, the fact of organisation man is no longer working and in recent time, the concept of team work is now in management operation. All-rounded employees are now brilliantly changing the style of working and bemoaned the work culture of the 50s and 60s Americans work place.

Changing Nature of Work and All-Rounded Employees

In a previous time, the employees followed the collectivism, however, in recent time, interpersonal communication is important to communicate within the workplaces. Interpersonal communication is soft skill and soft skills can be classified into two, social skills and individual skills (Young et al. 2015). In interpersonal communication within the workplace have many components, in communicators, it means that these employees can receive and send the messages. The message is one of the important parts of the communication; this can be body language, speech and gestures. Feedbacks are important from the receiver and context of feedbacks depends on the receiver. In addition, in the previous time, the employees in 50s and 60s America, these employees are monotonously homogeneous (De Bono et al. 2014). That time, employees follow the group work and the work pattern was same. The communication flow was not important because employers took the major decision. However, before the time of civil rights, affirmative action related to the women’s movement shook the workplace. Of late, the workplace is far more complex and heterogeneous in interpersonal communication.

In Whyte’s book, the work culture of Americans large organisation was different and Protestant Ethic was about the pursuit of employees’ salvation through hard work, competitive struggle and achievement. On the other side, social ethic tells that employee alone is isolated and when he works with others as a team, he would become worthy. In working within a team, communication is important and employees have to communicate their concepts to others. In addition, conflict management is important as negotiating with team members enable the employees to settle any dispute. Listening to during the communication helps employees to be effective team members (Barley et al. 2017). In the previous time, work ethic was that dressing should be good, collectivism was important, listening skills were significant. Whyte’s book told about the human potential within the organisation was life and happiness.

Whyte told that Americans workforce liked to be organisation men. The government that time supported the concept of organisation men as big companies supported the American economy. In managerial ideology, the managers want the employees must work for the benefits of organisation and organisations are growing more egalitarian. However, the changing nature of works is coming into the forefront, such as:

In recent time, most of the organisations are going to be digital and outsourcing practices of the organisations are increasing. The organisations want to decrease the costs by transferring their work to outside suppliers and they do not complete it within the organisation (Young et al. 2015). These new trends of the working give the benefits of creating more employment opportunity. The young generation is now working more in digital technology and it provides large employment opportunity.

Importance of Interpersonal Communication in Modern Workplaces

In the previous time, the employees tried to be in the same organisations, however, this norm is being changed. Now, the employees are changing the organisations frequently and employees are doing this because of dream job they want. Job hopping gives the employees more money as the salary is depended on last drawn salary of the employees. It gives more opportunity for advancement of a career that suits the skills. The organisation gets the skilled employees in this way than current workforce.

In a previous time, employees used to work in tight-shift, however, casualisation process preponderance of full-time and permanent positions to casual and contract positions. In Australia, this casualisation is growing as 35% of the employees are working on contract basis (De Bono et al. 2014). However, in the 50s and 60s time, the permanent workforce was observed mostly. In dressing sense, the workforce may not need to come with formal dress and they can come with business formal or casual dress also.

Most importantly, the change has come in the working flexible hours. Employees do not want now to work for fixed hours, with the introduction of gig economy; the employees want now to work as flexible working hours and even from home also. Flexible working hours give the boost in work-life balance and it makes a better family life. 

The Organisation Man described the employees who worked in the large companies in America and they were mainly white-collared professionals. In order to corporate conformity, the employees submerged their ambition. However, in recent time, employees are instead of being committed or loyal to the organisations, they focus mainly on accomplishment and career. They are now free agents and organisations now want to take advantage of the contribution of employees. Organisations now provide hospitable culture and climate to the employees. On the contrary, Whyte showed the shift in equality and inequality are not the fact of the worry of the business people, economists and politicians; however it is needed to do integrated analysis (Newyorker.com 2017). The concept of Organisation Man is recognisable world and social ethics are seen in today’s world also. In today’s world, many starts up broke and the global market scenario is showing up the crisis in the economy. Whyte showed the concept of the merger in global conglomerate can solve the issue through the power of collective surveillance and soft-power. The organisations are hypercompetitive, globalised and technology-driven. Knowledge is the key word for surviving within an organisation. In a previous time, the management kept strong control over employees, in recent time HR activities are doing the same with CCTV and other technologies. Organisations are giving the work-life balance and some other motivations as to organisation require compliant workers.

Reference List

Barley, S.R., Bechky, B.A. and Milliken, F.J., 2017. The Changing Nature of Work: Careers, Identities, and Work Lives in the 21st Century. Academy of Management Discoveries, 3(2), pp.111-115.

Burrell, G. and Morgan, G., 2017. Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis: Elements of the sociology of corporate life. Abingdon: Routledge.

Coccia, M., 2014. Structure and organisational behaviour of public research institutions under unstable growth of human resources. International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 20(4-6), pp.251-266.

De Bono, S., Heling, G. and Borg, M.A., 2014. Organizational culture and its implications for infection prevention and control in healthcare institutions. Journal of Hospital Infection, 86(1), pp.1-6.

The Organisation Man (2017). What “The Organization Man” Can Tell Us About Inequality Today. The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-the-organization-man-can-tell-us-about-inequality-today [Accessed on: 9 Sep. 2017].

Whyte, W.H., 2013. The organization man. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Young, W., Davis, M., McNeill, I.M., Malhotra, B., Russell, S., Unsworth, K. and Clegg, C.W., 2015. Changing behaviour: successful environmental programmes in the workplace. Business Strategy and the Environment, 24(8), pp.689-703.