Buy essay on Chester Barnard

Chester Barnard was a successful businessman, whose impressive innovative presentation of organization and leadership theory was based on a synthesis of personal business experience and ideas derived from books on social sciences. He defined the organization as a coherent functioning system that allows its member individuals to achieve, due to their interactions, the results that they could never get working singly. Leadership, according to Chester Barnard, means to identify organizational goals and objectives, to establish communication systems, to create incentives for involvement, retention and motivation of employees. Barnard’s contribution to the idea of leadership and decision-making process, as well as his understanding of the importance of values and culture of the organization as a whole, still continue influencing the development of management theory.[1]
1. Introduction
The main Chester Barnard’s scientific contribution consists in the analysis of the organization’s objectives and the role of its leader. He deliberately acted against dominating previously “rational” and “scientific” approach to organization, in which he had seen an excessive warp in the direction to economic motivation and analysis of formal structure. Therefore C. Barnard attached great importance to understanding of both formal and informal systems, needs of organization in satisfaction of humanistic needs and demands of the environment and the symbiosis of leaders and their followers. His definition of organization as a “cooperative system” was a result of deep analysis, rethinking of various scientific publications and personal management skills. [3]
The number of printed at that time theoretical works about this problem was very small, and Сhester Barnard noted that in contrast to the theory of political systems, scientists knew little about the large formal organization as a tool for a specific social process. His works are grasped with great difficulty – the author admitted that it needs a few readings to understand and some people consider them virtually unreadable. Nevertheless, many of his thoughts were picked up by other authors and independently developed by them over the past fifty years (mainly ideas about leadership, decision-making and motivation). [1]
2. Chester Barnard, the pioneer of his science
– Biographic data.
Chester Barnard was born in a poor family in the village of Malden on the 7th of November, 1886. He graduated from school at age of 15 and began working as a piano tuner in the Boston firm Emerson Piano. The boy quickly felt the need for further education and soon got a scholarship in Mount Hermon School. Two years later he had been admitted to Harvard (1906) that he graduated in 1909 without a degree, because his thesis did not correspond to the existing at that time scientific standards. [3]
Chester Barnard was proposed to work as an employee in the department of statistics in AT&T company, recently organized by Walter Gifford, the old friend of his family. The company was under a deep restructuring and active extension, and Chester Barnard climbed up quickly the service ladder. In 1927 he became a president of the newly created company New Jersey Bell Telephone, and held this position for 21 years up to retirement, successfully leading the company in the difficult years of Great Depression and World War II. Despite his paternalistic philosophy and searching ways of cooperation with the employees, Barnard was eventually forced to make a contact with the labor union representatives for the conclusion of collective agreement. Chester Barnard was not an opponent of labor unions, but supported corporate policies aimed to save the freedom of administrative maneuver as a means of impeding the restrictions created by labor unions. He actively advocated the integrated collaborative approach to the problem of relations with employees, not recognizing the system of collective agreement on the ground that it is counterproductive for both workers and administration, as it facilitates the opposition of their interests. “Barnard’s primary concern was the problem of organizing, the complexities involved in coordinating numerous actors of potentially divergent interests under the conditions of environmental uncertainty and instability.” (Oliver E. Williamson, 1995, p.11)[3]
During manager career Chester Barnard read many books on various fields of social sciences and maintained close contacts with the scientists in Boston. Thanks to versatile educated biochemist from Harvard L.J. Henderson he familiarized with the works of Pareto and became interested in the theoretical problems of sociology, which proved to be excessive for classical economy and theory of organizational management. With the help of a dean of Harvard School of Business Administration Wallace Dunham he got acquainted with Philip Cabot, Elton Mayo. Some intuitive conclusions based on the analysis of their studies are consciously included in his theory of organization. [3]