Principles of Hotel Management

E
STABLISHED
 W
AY
The term “classical” in English language refers to something
traditionally accepted or long established. The beginning of the
classical organisation theory can be traced back to the heydays
of industrial transformation in the second half of the nineteenth
century when some perceptive observers felt obsessed with the
problem of growing size of the industries. In the beginning, the
large scale operations were carried out by the organisations

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with the help of unskilled and semi-skilled people but later on,
the technological development changed the industrial scene
completely. Many new economic, social and technical problems
sprang up. The need for solving these problems called for the
development of organisational forms and management practices
which were quite different from the traditional ones. This
phenomenon changed the individualistic nature of organisation
and management into mechanical nature. This view was current
till the first half of the twentieth century.
The classical writers viewed the organisation as a machine
and human beings as different components of that machine.
Their approach has focused on input-output mediators and
given less attention to constraining and facilitating factors in
external environment. Workers were considered to be driven by
economic considerations who could be solely motivated by
economic rewards. While managers were regarded as kind-
hearted, rational, intelligent and qualified people. Because an
organisation was treated as a machine, it was felt that its
efficiency could be increased by making each individual efficient,
so that both the organisation’s and the workers’ interests might
be served. Increased human productivity would facilitate the
organisation in achieving its goals and objectives while on the
other hand workers would get higher wages in return for their
increased productivity. Thus, management is to emphasise on
the improvement of machine in order to get higher productivity
from the people at the minimum expense. The emphasis was
on specialisation of performance and coordination of various
activities.
The classical theory was based on the following assumptions:
(i) The relationship between workers and management
was established through formal communications, defined
tasks and accountability and formalised procedures and
practices to minimise conflict between them.
(ii) Workers are considered to be driven by economic

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Principles of Hotel Management
considerations who can be motivated basically by
economic rewards. Money is considered the main
motivator.
(iii) The managers were characterised as rational, kind-
hearted, intelligent and qualified personnel but they are
supposed to deal with the workers firmly in the system.
(iv) The theory assumes that the organisation is a machine
and the people its components. In order to make any
improvement in the whole system, internal factors were
considered and less attention was given on factors in
the external environment which may constrain and
facilitate the system.
(v) It has been assumed by the theory that both workers
and managers are rational. Workers can easily perceive
that their interests can be served only by increasing the
productivity and getting more wages for higher produc-
tivity, on the other hand, management gets the fruits of
higher productivity. Management tries to find out best
ways of doing a job by introducing new improvements
in machines and devoting time to such technical enginee-
ring and administrative aspect of organisation which can
make the man produce as much as he can with minimum
expenses so that workers can contribute more to the
organisation and earn more for themselves in return.
(vi) The theory puts special emphasis on error and