Why was there no specialized administrative theory in the classical period?

The period from the end of the 19th century to the 1930s of the 20th century was the emergence and initial development period of administrative management. Since capitalism has entered a rising stage in the late 19th century, with the rapid development of social economy, social public affairs have increased dramatically, and the functions of the government have also continued to expand, gradually becoming more complex and specialized. In particular, the U.S. government's intervention in social economics and world affairs has caused its institutions to expand rapidly. Therefore, it has become necessary to study a set of practical principles and regulations to improve administrative efficiency. In this case, developing administration into an independent discipline has become a top priority. The emergence of administration is the requirement of the times and an inevitable product of the development of modern society, economy and culture. Since administration is a discipline that studies government, administration was born out of political science and has deep-rooted roots with political science. At the same time, due to the vigorous rise of the second industrial revolution, the West has successively completed an important transition from liberal capitalism to monopoly capitalism. The socialization of production led to the continuous expansion of the scale of enterprises, the emergence of monopoly organizations, and the rise of the scientific management movement in management. At this stage, the emergence and formation of administration was greatly influenced by the scientific management of industrial and commercial enterprises. Many principles and principles are borrowed or transplanted.

Administration born out of political science

Wilson’s administrative thoughts

Wilson (1856-1924) was the 28th president of the United States. Advocating the establishment of an administrative science, "it will pave the way for government work and strengthen and streamline government organizations." In this book, Wilson put forward the view of separation of politics and administration, believing that politics is a world of power struggle, with democracy as the value criterion; administration is a neutral technical system, aiming for efficiency. Therefore, Wilson is known as the founder of modern administration in the United States.

His publication of "Administrative Studies" in "Political Science Quarterly" in 1887 created the starting point for the development of administration and marked the birth of administration as a formal discipline. In the article, Wilson believed: "The operation of constitutional government is becoming more difficult than the formulation of constitutional government." He advocated using more knowledge resources to help manage the country. "The goal of administrative research is to understand: first, what work the government can perform appropriately and successfully. Second, how the government can complete these appropriate tasks at the least possible cost." He also proposed three entry points for reforming the civil service system. : First, civil servants must be recruited openly and on a merit-based basis; second, the professional quality of government officials must be improved; third, the role of bureaucracy must be overcome. At the same time, we attach great importance to the important supervisory role of public opinion and believe that public opinion supervision should have social authority, relative independence, high effectiveness and appropriateness.

Wilson proposed the idea of ??separation of politics and administration. It laid the foundation for the development of the modern civil service system. In this regard, Wilson believed that politics and administration should theoretically be separated from each other. The goal pursued by politics is democracy; the goal pursued by administration is efficiency. Politics is the activity of elected politicians, administration is the management work of technocrats. Politicians participate in elections and formulate public policies, while administrative bureaucrats are only responsible for implementing policies and remain politically neutral. Politicians decide whether or not to stay based on the number of votes they receive, while administrative bureaucracy becomes a lifelong job. This provides a theoretical guarantee for administration to learn from the research results of management.

Goodnow’s administrative thoughts

Goodnow (1859-1939) was one of the founders and first president of the American Political Science Association. The separation from political science played a major role. In 1900, Goodnow published the book "Politics and Administration", which strictly demonstrated the dichotomy of politics and administration. He believed that politics and administration should be functionally distinguished, but this distinction is only relative. Crossover and penetration are inevitable. In his book "Politics and Administration", he believed: "The government has two completely different functions." That is, the politics and administration mentioned in the title of the book. However, the division of labor among government agencies cannot be as clear as the two functions of government. Politics involves the formulation of policies, while administration involves the facts of policies. Decentralization is the basis of this distinction.

The legislative body expresses the will of the state and formulates policies with the assistance of interpretation by the judiciary. The executive branch implements these policies impartially and apolitically. How to limit the administrative control of party politics within a reasonable range, Goodnow proposed some principle measures:

First, the principle of moderate administrative concentration. American politics adheres to the principle of separation of powers. This decentralization is not only reflected in the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers, but also in the vertical decentralization of powers between the federal central government and state governments, and between state governments and local governments. Goodnow believes that the local political community tends to sacrifice national interests. The central government tries to control local power through legislation, but local power agencies with administrative power will adopt passive and non-implementation methods to strand central policies and make the country The will cannot be carried out. To solve this problem, it is necessary to strengthen the centralization of power in the administrative system while retaining legislative decentralization.

Second, the principle of extra-legal adjustment. The so-called extra-legal adjustment is to promote the coordination of national politics and administration, central and local governments through the unity of will of political parties. Under the circumstances at that time, political parties participating in political campaigns, before entering the state power system, were only "private corporations" and had no status within the legal system. However, in order to succeed in the election, political parties must unite their will, act in a unified manner, and achieve organizational control within the party. Once such a political party enters the central and local government power systems through electioneering, the centralized unity formed by the political party in the election campaign can play the coordination function of "top, bottom, left, and right."

Third, bring political parties into the orbit of legal management. Since political parties actually play a fundamental role in coordinating politics and administration, it is necessary to regulate party behavior in an institutionalized manner and bring political parties into the orbit of legal management. At the same time, it is necessary to establish and improve the referendum election system to prevent the emergence of political party dictatorship and political party division. This further raises the important issue of how to deal with the important relationship between the administrative pursuit of efficiency and the political pursuit of fairness.

Politics must exercise appropriate control over administration through legal control and extra-legal control (party regulation), and at the same time maintain administrative centralization. Only in this way can politics be ensured by the people and administrative efficiency be high. Goodnow's views laid the theoretical foundation for early American administration.

The administrative thoughts of White and Willoughby

White (1891-1958) was an American political scientist and historian, and an authority on American public administration. In 1926, he published the book "Introduction to Administration", which advocated exploring the laws of administrative activities and establishing an administrative knowledge system and general principles. He summarized the administrative elements into four parts: organizational principles, personnel administration, financial administration, and administrative regulations, emphasizing the necessity and possibility of scientific administrative work. In 1927, Willoughby published "Principles of Public Administration", which studied the public administration of government agencies and systematically expounded the administrative theoretical system. In the works of White and Willoughby, the theories and methods of scientific management were absorbed and some common management principles were formed, such as the principle of systematization, the principle of planning, the principle of standardization, the principle of coordination, the principle of efficiency, etc. etc., and on this basis, the theoretical system of "modern administration" was formed - mainly composed of five parts, namely "administrative organization", "personnel administration", "financial administration", "material administration" and "organ (affairs)" manage". These two works by White and Willoughby are recognized as the earliest popular academic works and textbooks on administration. Their publication also marked the formal formation of "modern administration" (historically known as "traditional administration").

Administration under the influence of management

Since the purpose of administrative research at that time was to pursue administrative efficiency, the scientific management that took business organizations as the research object was also applicable to administrative organizations. Therefore, management scientists such as Taylor, Fayol and Max Weber were also early representatives of administration.

Taylor's Scientific Management

Taylor (1856-1915) is the founder of scientific management and is known as the "Father of Scientific Management". He wrote many books, the more famous of which are "Piece Rate" published in 1895, "Factory Management" published in 1903, and "Principles of Scientific Management" published in 1912.

Three starting points for scientific management are put forward: first, efficiency comes first, that is, seeking the highest work efficiency, and the central issue of management is to improve work efficiency; second, any method can be adopted to seek the highest work efficiency; third, both labor and management should ** *Collaboration.

Expounds the four organizational principles of management science: First, it advocates the separation of the management functions of managers in the organization from the work functions of employees; The second emphasis is on the specialization of organizational management functions, and all managers should Share a certain management function as specifically as possible; the third is to emphasize that organizational plans must be planned, standardized and procedural; the fourth is to emphasize the exception principle of organizational management, that is, it is advocated that senior managers should delegate some of their powers to lower-level managers and only themselves Retain decision-making or control over exceptions so you can focus on the most important things.

In terms of improving labor productivity, Taylor proposed five main contents of scientific management: work quota, work standardization, ability to adapt to the job, differential piece-rate payment system, and separation of planning and execution functions. The systematic study of work flow organization, dividing tasks into small parts, and trying to speed up the completion of tasks. Through the scientific management revolution, labor production efficiency has been greatly improved.

Fayol’s Organizational Management Theory

Fayol (1841-1925) is another outstanding management thinker. He published his timeless masterpiece "Industrial Management and General Management" when he was 75 years old. Fayol's contribution is that he first pointed out that management is one of the functions of an enterprise (other functions are technical functions, business functions, financial functions, safety functions and accounting functions). Define management as the practice of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling. Here he distinguished leadership from management. Leadership is to seek as much benefit as possible from all the resources owned by the organization to guide the organization to achieve its goals, and it is to ensure the smooth completion of the five basic functions of the organization.

His organizational management theory believes that the organizational pyramid is the result of the growth of functions, and the development of functions is horizontal, because as the workload of the organization increases, the personnel in the functional departments will increase; the growth and development of the hierarchical series is vertical and is caused by the need to increase management levels to guide and coordinate the work of lower-level management departments. Additionally, he emphasized the importance of organizational charts in his theory. Fayol proposed the famous 14 management principles based on his many years of work experience: 1. Division of labor. 2. Rights and responsibilities are commensurate. 3. Discipline. 4. Unified command. 5. Unified leadership. 6. Personal interests are subordinated to collective interests. 7. Remuneration of personnel. 8. Concentrate. 9. Hierarchy. 10. Order. 11. Fairness. 12.Stability of personnel. 13.Pioneering spirit. 14. Unity of personnel. He emphasized the important role of collective spirit in corporate management.

Secondly, Fayol proposed the famous "Fayol Springboard" principle. In a hierarchical organizational structure, orders and instructions are passed from top to bottom along the line of control authority or command, and reports and instructions are also passed up one level at a time. Large organizations have many levels and have many horizontal connections between departments. In this way, if a problem occurs between two departments, it must be reported to the top level according to level, and the top level will pass the decision down level by level, and then solve it. It will inevitably lead to inefficiency. The solution to Fayol's Springboard Principle is that if two departments have a problem to solve, they should first negotiate and solve it by themselves. Only when the problem cannot be solved, the parties will report it to the superior for coordination. Fayol's Springboard Principle aims to solve general affairs quickly and timely while maintaining unity of command, so that the top level of the organization can be freed from complicated affairs and focus on some major issues. Furthermore, Fayol believed that organizational effectiveness depends on some intrinsic elements of the organization. In his view, it is very important for an organization to select people and give full play to their strengths. The organization should also provide training and education to people. This idea had a certain impact on the subsequent development of human relations and behavioral science. Fayol's theory is a useful supplement to Taylor's scientific management and made an important contribution to classical management theory.

Max Weber’s Bureaucratic Organization Theory

Max Weber (1864-1920) was a famous German classical management theorist, economist and sociologist who worked in the late 19th and 20th centuries. One of the most influential theoretical masters in the early Western social sciences, he is honored as the "Father of Organization Theory". He was the first scholar to systematically discuss the characteristics of bureaucracy and analyze its role in Western European industrial society. Weber's concept of bureaucracy refers to a specific form of social organization aimed at management. Weber's theory of bureaucracy is linked to his theory of authority. In his opinion, there are three forms of authority:

The first is charismatic authority, that is, the authority relies on its own extraordinary characteristics or talents, or abilities that are beyond the reach of ordinary people to influence its followers.

The second is traditional authority, that is, the exercise of authority relies on traditions, customs, habits and recognized norms.

The third is reasonable and legal authority, also called rational authority, whose exercise relies on the organization's rules and regulations, laws and decrees, etc.

These three types of authority have their respective organizational characteristics. For example, the characteristics of an organization under charismatic authority are that interpersonal relationships are based on a deep emotion. The relationship between leaders and followers is that of savior and disciple. There are no positions, appointments, promotions, no clear authority, no There are rules and regulations to follow and everything is handled at will.

The organizational characteristics of traditional authority are that the authority is arbitrary and determines the distribution of power, and the behavior of organizational members is centered on winning the favor of the authority. As a result, there are constant strife and struggles within the organization, unclear organizational functions, and unclear rights and responsibilities. Officials were selected based on loyalty rather than necessary qualifications.

In Max Weber’s view, the characteristics of a bureaucratic organization characterized by rational authority show its organizational characteristics consistent with industrial society. This characteristic is reflected in:

( 1) Every position in the hierarchical structure is an indispensable factor in forming a complete organizational form;

(2) There is a clear division of labor system in this structure. In order to complete the work goals, each position Each position has corresponding legal powers;

(3) Various work decisions have certain documented legal formulas;

(4) Executive power and legislative power are separated, Administrators are managers with management expertise rather than legislators;

(5) Administrators at each level must have special talents and undergo special training;

(6 ) personnel are selected through open competitive examinations;

(7) Each position must have clear scope of responsibilities;

(8) Positions are not privately owned and cannot be inherited.

Weber rationally and creatively proposed the organizational theory and organizational principles of administrative organization science, which was his greatest contribution in the history of management thought.

Summary

In short, Western administration in this period had just become independent from political science, and the research content was still partial and unsystematic. At the same time, it was influenced by management. Therefore, there is too much emphasis on the mechanical efficiency of the organization and neglect of social benefits; too much emphasis on the static aspects of the organization and neglect of the dynamic aspects of the organization; turning administrative agencies into closed systems and ignoring the influence of the external environment; one-sided emphasis on people's material interests and neglecting people. Mental factors and lack of respect for people. In any case, they jointly created a new field. Although there are many difficulties, it is these shortcomings that provide broad space for the rapid development of administrative science in the future.