6 organization as machine
Organization as Machine
What is an Organization as a Machine?
An organization drifting into a mechanistic model of operation with a profound sense of order, control, logic, and reason.
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“We tend to expect them (organizations) to operate as machines: in a routinized, efficient, reliable, and predictable way” (Morgan, 13).
What is a machine?
Machines are made up of parts with specific roles that operate together to perform a particular task. Each part of the machine is vital to its productivity.
Let’s think about a machine as if it’s a car.
The goal of any car is to transport people or goods from one location to another. To achieve this objective, a car has to be composed of exclusive parts with specialized roles—an engine to provide mechanical power, wheels that allow the car to move, headlights that illuminate the path ahead, and so much more.
What’s notable about this analogy is that a car declines in performance if any of its parts don’t function properly. A car simply can’t achieve transportation if one of its wheels are flat, or if the engine refuses to burn fuel. Each malfunctioning part of a car needs to be fixed or replaced, or else it decreases in value and productivity. The same logic can be applied to organizations that operate as machines; its fundamental nature is intended to be systematic, highly efficient, and objective-oriented. Organizations that adopt a mechanistic approach revolve around routinization and orderly connections between its defined parts.
Examples
For example, Amazon treats their warehouse employees like parts of a car—if an individual doesn’t meet their quota or industry standards, they are fired and replaced, just like a faulty car part is replaced.
“Taylor’s system mechanized the workplace so that it could be ‘manned’ by interchangeable workers” (Morgan 25).
- Amazon can afford to push the human limit of what is physically possible because they can easily replace employees who don’t meet their standards to run the organization in the most efficient way possible—just like parts of a machine.
- However workers are not machine parts, and unlike replacing machine parts, replacing workers can come with consequences such as negatively affecting the morale of other workers, organizational culture, work environment, and turnover rate.
- Amazon’s high rate of turnover among its hourly associates — around 150% a year, which is the equivalent of having to replace the entire workforce every eight months. (Kantor et al., 2021) -L
An organization that utilizes a mechanistic model relies on the centralization of power. In fact, authoritarian leadership is viewed as exceptional and necessary for this organization to operate efficiently. Centralized power within mechanistic organizations often lends itself to the formation of hierarchical positions (Figure 1). Decisions are typically made at the top of the hierarchy by chief executive officers (CEOs) and then are communicated down to laborers and manufacturers at the bottom. The top-down authority model embedded within mechanistic organizations also contributes to the standardization and replaceability of lower-ranking positions. CEOs and other decision-making roles are often less replaceable and harder to obtain than labor-intensive and manufacturing jobs that make up the majority of an organization.
The History of Organization as Machine
Society has always been driven by mechanistic human interaction. Since the beginning of organized human society, there have been social implications and power dynamics that hold people into their existence.
In early civilizations there needed to be a power dynamic that held order within the community. This was just for structure and for the most part never exploitative of the people, but as time progressed, monetary value began corrupting the world. Kings and emperors who held large piles of resources began using their people as means to bring more wealth to their dynasty. Citizens were used as tools of war to take control of land, desirable materials, and resources to improve one’s power.
After enough wealth and power had been consolidated, the age of empires subsided, but an even more troubling method of mechanizing humans for power began, the industrial revolution. People began existing as laborers for the ultra wealthy, where their concerns and voices were nonexistent. Large factory owners would use children like interchangeable parts to their production methods. Injury, death, or any other real disability warranted a replacement, and a new laborer was promptly filling the shoes of anyone non-able-bodied. All for a pay that was nearly nothing. But what warrants this horrendous exploitation of humans? MONEY. The elite are only concerned with improving their own status and have developed society with their influence to control and regulate humans for profit.
Now conditions have only gotten a tad better. Workers are guaranteed healthy conditions but even then this is minimally enforced. The global supply chain of capitol has only perpetuated the exploitation of humans for profit, and society has built its self around the perpetuation of wealth. -Q
It is fascinating that despite making serious advancements in organizational structure and life since the industrial revolution, one of the largest, most successful operations still utilizes the machine model. This of course is referencing shipping conglomerate Amazon. For some, their success is an endorsement of organizations as machines, but when you look closer at the interpersonal level, it is apparent that efficiency requires great sacrifice from its workers. Specifically, Amazon warehouse employees, at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy are abused. In southern California, almost half of the workforce has received a GED or less, meaning they are not qualified, per our capitalist society’s standards, for many jobs besides labor. This leads to fertile ground for Amazon to recruit people who are willing to endure brutal conditions for income. It also means that everyone is replaceable.
There are countless testimonies to the horrific working conditions in Amazon’s warehouses but I want to focus on Chanel Hawkes’ account. During the pandemic, she lost her job and was able to find employment at Amazon. She recalled her shifts felt like “sprinting for 10 hours a day.” after not much time, her wrist began to hurt and she contacted her supervisors. Instead of referring her to workers’ compensation doctors, allowing her to do an easier job, or reducing her quotas, they told her to eat more protein and get back to work. After not being able to fulfill her quotas due to her injury, she was terminated. Amazon claims to care about its workers but how can a machine care about all of its parts when it knows they’re replaceable and prioritizes itself and its functioning above all else?
Mechanic organizations like Amazon not only injure its members physically like in the case of Hawkes, but also emotionally. The act of knowing you are replaceable is disheartening and only increases the stress put on you by the oppressive organization as well as adding to the desperation of needing a job and income. Additionally, the unattainable quotas amazon enforces expects its workers to behave like machines, completing tasks at a rate impossible for humans to accomplish. The final step in stripping away the humanity of its workers is constant surveillance, “Cameras were at workstations, in break rooms, in locker rooms, devices would flag managers if you took ‘time off task.’ It was dehumanizing.” (Morin qtd in Roosevelt).
The idea of an organization of a machine is executives and investors of organizations expect employees to perform at a level of no emotion and a high sense of control.
There was a clear starting point, it was born out of the industrial revolution. These machines changed society, efficiency, and way of life.
Machines created efficiency and society believed workers can be a part of that change…in turn act like machines, or force them to. Machines have the ability to quantify things and make them more objective, people are now quantified, and even worse, work defines a human.
Is it possible that organizing ourselves as machines has any benefits?
In some aspects of the workplace, it may be beneficial to organize ourselves like machines. Having structure, schedules, and clearly defined goals can be very beneficial in the workplace for increased efficiency. If we organize ourselves entirely as machines, we lose all creativity and growth. However, if we have consistency and structure in certain areas, our brains are not working too hard on everyday things, and therefore have more energy for creative endeavors. Mundane tasks such as checking emails and filling out forms can be performed in a mechanistic manner, leaving mental energy for community bonding, meetings with coworkers or clients and creative solutions. On days when your mind is elsewhere or your energy has been spent up, it can be helpful to have mechanistic methods to rely on. To see a similar, but maybe better way of organizing, see the Organizations as an Organism metaphor. Overall, remembering to take care of ourselves as humans first and striking a balance in organizations is important. -E
Reflecting on that piece: “The strengths and limitations of the machine as metaphor for organizations are reflected in the strengths and limitations of mechanistic organizations in practice” (Morgan 27). We need to realize that the machine can be so much more than a limiting factor as an organizational metaphor. If society creates healthy machines that benefit everyone, the machine can switch out its old cog, to make a much more love worthy organizational metaphor.
Reflection Questions:
- What are some examples of mechanistic organizations in your life?
- After looking at this Article on Organizations as a Network of conversations, does the author promote the Machine? What do you think the relevance of conversations in the workplace is in the context of the machine?
- Why do so many large organizations structure themselves as machines? How might this be harmful to the people involved? In organizations you are a part of, could acting like a machine help or hurt them in pursuing their shared goal? How might it negatively affect their goal?
- What are alternative ways we can organize ourselves? How are these different and similar to the machine? (see other metaphors)
- Why is this metaphor important? What does it expose about organizations?
Bibliography
Kantor, Jodi, et al. “The Amazon That Customers Don’t See.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 June 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html.
Morgan, Gareth. 2006. “Chapter 2: Mechanization Takes Command: Organizations as Machine,”
Images of Organization, Updated Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 11-31.
Roosevelt, Margot. 2018. “Amazon’s $15 Minimum Wage Gives a Lift to California’s Vast Warehouse Region.” Los Angeles Times, October 3.
Roosevelt, Margot. 2021. “‘The algorithm fired me’: California bill takes on Amazon’s notorious work culture,” Los Angeles Times, August 31.
lovingly edited / written by Molly, Emma, Quin, and Lilin
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the previous writers of this chapter, to Barbara for being an amazing professor, and to our peers who have supported us through this semester.