Abstract
Power is one of the key ideas in management, and so is the concept of authority. However, most studies on power are rather instrumental, dealing with the place of power in management, and how to achieve it. Less attention has been paid to the essential concepts of power and authority themselves in management thought and how they have evolved. To clarify these concepts, and to better understand the notions of power and authority in management and their proper use in organisations, this paper goes back to one of the pioneers in management thought: Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933). She had an original vision of power, holding that genuine power is not ‘power-over’, but ‘power-with’. At the same time, she defended an authority based on function and responsibility. We explain what her account implies for management in theory and practice.
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References
See, eg, D McClelland and D Burnham ‘Power is the Great Motivator’ Harvard Business Review (March- April 1976) reprinted Jan-Feb 1995 pp 2–11; J Pfeffer and G Salancick The External Control of Organizations New York, Harper and Row 1978; and J Pfeffer Managing with Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations Boston, Harvard Business School Press 1992.
A short biography of M P Follett can be found in A Gabor The Capitalist Philosophers. The Geniuses of Modern Business — Their Lives, Times and Ideas New York, Crown Business 2000 pp 45–64.
Her main works in management are: Dynamic Administration. The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett (edited by H C Metcalf and L Urwick) New York-London, Harper & Brothers 1940 (our quotations); a 2nd ed was published by Pitman, London 1973. Freedom & Co-ordination. Lectures in Business Organization, edited, with an Introduction, by L Urwick New York-London, Garland Publishing 1987 (originally published by Management Publications Trust, London 1949). They will be mentioned respectively as DA and FC. She was not at first interested in management in itself. Her first book was titled The Speaker of the House of Representatives, where her interest was in looking at the political process, including cooperation, one of her key subjects. Her next book was The New State: Group Organization, the Solution of Popular Government Philadelphia, Pennsylvania State University Press 1998 (originally published by Peter Smith, Gloucester, Mass 1918). This book was more ambitious in scope, but again it was not on management as such, but more on Political Science and an expression of how democracy should work for the citizens. Afterwards she wrote Creative Experience London, Longmans Green and Co 1930 (originally published in 1924) which is a psychological approach to society with some philosophical discussions. These last two books will be mentioned as NS and CE respectively.
P Graham (ed) Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management. A Celebration of Writings from 1920s (Introduction by Peter Drucker) Boston, Harvard Business School Press 1995
P F Drucker ‘Introduction Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management’ loc cit 1995 p 4
Loc cit pp 4–7
‘What is the central problem of social relations? It is the question of power; this is the problem of industry, of politics, of international affairs.’ (CE p xii)
Literally she says: ‘… our task is not to learn where to place power; it is how to develop power.’ (CE p xii)
F W Taylor The Principles of Scientific Management Mineola, Dover Publications 1998 (original edition: New York, Harper and Brothers 1911)
H Fayol Administration Industrielle et Générale Paris, Dunod 1916
Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick Papers on the Science of Administration New York, Institute of Public Administration, Columbia University 1937
See Taylor loc cit chapter 2.
‘... This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if applied to an educated mechanic, or an intelligent laborer. With a man of the mentally sluggish type of Schmidt it is appropriate and not unkind, since it is effective in fixing his attention on the high wages which he wants, and away from what, if it were called to his attention, he probably would consider impossible hard work’ (Taylor loc cit 1998 p 19).
Explicitly she writes: ‘...cooperation is not…/…merely a matter of good intentions, of kindly feeling. It must be based on these, but you cannot have successful cooperation until you have worked out the methods of cooperation, by experiment after experiment, by a comparing of experiments, by a pooling of results... It is my plea above everything else that we learn how to cooperate...’ In ‘Management as a Profession’ (1927) in: Michael T Matteson and John M Ivancevich (eds) Management Classics Chapter 2 (Third Edition) Plano, Business Publications 1986.
‘Those political scientists who use the words power, control and authority as synonymous, are confusing our thinking.’ (DA p 111)
DA p 99
J M Ivancevich and M Matteson Organizational Behavior and Management (Fourth edition) Chicago, Richard D Irwin 1996 p 362
CE p 181
DA p 101
DA p 103
DA p 101
DA p 115
FC p 24
CE p 187
DA p 105
DA p 115
CE p 189
CE p 186
CE p 193
CE p 189
DA p 57
DA p 62 Very often she expresses her thoughts through anecdotes or by using the voice of others. That is what she does on this point.
FC p 36
CE p 187
CE p 192–193
CE p xiii
DA p 105
CE p 111
DA p 44
CE p 73
CE p 73
DA p 45
CE p 63
We appreciate this suggestion from Nigel Laurie.
See CE p 50 and pp 91ff.
The rough meaning of the German term ‘Gestalt’ is holistic patterns or configurations.
About Gestalt theory see, eg, Barry Smith (ed) Foundations of Gestalt Theory München, Philosophia Verlag 1988.
An address before the Kant Society, Berlin, 7th December 1924: Über Gestalttheorie, Erlangen 1925. Translation by Willis D. Ellis published in his Source Book of Gestalt Psychology New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co 1938. Reprinted by the Gestalt Journal Press, New York 1997. Available on: http://www.enabling.org/ia/gestalt/gerhards/wert1.html (2003).
FC pp 21–22
CE p 75
DA p 91
CE p 184
DA p 106
DA pp 31ff
DA p 35
DA p 36
CE p 188
DA p 77
DA p 172
DA p 123.
DA p 77.
DA p 111
DA pp 112–113
FC p 18
FC p 22
DA p 69
DA p 156
DA p 148
DA p 205
DA p 111
FC p 22
DA pp 150–151
DA p 111.
DA p 147
FC p 27
DA p 110
DA p 64
DA p 110
DA p 159
DA pp 159–160
DA p. 34
K Mattson ‘Reading Follett. An Introduction to The New State’ in: M P Follett The New State p xi 1998 loc cit
P F Drucker ‘Introduction’ in P Graham (ed) Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management. A Celebration of Writings from 1920s p 7 Boston, Harvard Business School Press 1995
Max Weber The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (Talcott Parsons edition) Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press 1957. Published originally in German as Part I of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. According to Weber, legal-rational authority rests on the belief in the legality of enacted rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands (In business firms, the legal rights of stockholders as owners of the firm). Traditional authority rests on the belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under them (probably not applicable to business firms, except for the fact that often almost divine rights in decision-making are attributed to ‘managers’ — implicitly in most business schools). Finally, charismatic authority rests on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him.
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Melé, D., Rosanas, J.M. Power, Freedom and Authority in Management: Mary Parker Follett’s ‘Power-With’. Philos. of Manag. 3, 35–46 (2003). https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20033221
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20033221