Is the Organization Man irresponsible ?

Résumé du document

Organizations are not only business organizations but include the army, the administration, the education system etc… «Organizations are omnipresent in modern societies. Individuals are born in a health organization, are trained for years in educative organizations, then are employed in professional organizations which pay them salaries which enable them to become clients of diverse market organization or public organizations » wrote Mintzberg.

The worker often appears to be a simple cog in the bureaucratic wheel, who, like Adolf Eichmann or Maurice Papon, contents himself with executing directives taken at a higher level. For example, the Nuremberg Defense stated that the accused were "just following orders" and were therefore not responsible for their crimes. However, the example of the World War II Resistance shows that the individual in the organization keeps a room for manoeuvre and a certain free will. Thus, can we argue that the Organization Man is irresponsible?

Extraits

[...] Consequently, the worker is made aware of his responsibility. We can establish a parallel between this idea and the Mintzberg's concept of adhocracy In this case, employees work to fit with the clients' expectations. If the strategic decisions are still the task of managers, the workers teams can take initiatives concerning operational decisions. Individuals can value their environment and their goal The Organization Man is not simply an individual who turn a blind eye of the consequences of his task focusing on the way he realizes his work. [...]

[...] More than 60% of people obey to the scientist's authority. The guinea-pig, just like the worker in the organization, seems to be deeply absorbed by the technical details of his task and therefore forget the consequences. This idea is shown in the movie Docteur Fol Amour which depicts the high concentration of a bomber crew which is trying to drop a bomb. In these cases, the rationality is used as a mean of doing something and is not anymore the finality of the action. [...]

[...] II) The Organization Man can conserve a part of freedom We can not consider the Organization Man as an individual completely alienated. In fact, we must bear in mind that in organizations reminds a part of freedom due to uncertainty and that individual can value their environment and the human relations they build in their work more than a simple goal to achieve. Uncertainty enables people to keep a part of freedom in the organization The scientific organization of labour is based on a rational treatment of tasks governed by various impersonal rules. [...]

[...] Organizations can be divided in subsystems (departments, divisions, teams etc) which have their own way to work but always in order to accomplish an overall goal. We can liken organizations to systems. In a system, like in an organization, inputs, such as people or machines are integrated and coordinated in order to produce a global output. Moreover, both are governed by a set of procedures, measures and policies. Furthermore, we must emphasize that organizations are not only business organizations but include the army, the administration, the education system etc «Organizations are omnipresent in modern societies. [...]

[...] In short, the diversity of cases workers meet and the fact that they distinguish their career from their private life allow individual to develop an original approach of their work: they are no longer a simple cog in the wheel. To conclude, we can say that responsibility of the Organization Man depends on the way his work is organized and structured. If the worker of the Fordist firm seems to be unaware of the consequences of his task, the new labour organization systems leave grounds for freedom and initiative in order to improve efficiency. However, we could argue that the instability of work can bound individuals' initiatives and that, scared to be mistaken, workers can prefer delegate their responsibilities. [...]