The Pin Factory - 1106 Words

What are the reasons that hierarchies emerge in organizations? What about the roles and the nature of this emergence? Does this aid in structuring these organizations/work areas? In this essay, I will be relating the description of activities that take place in an early industrial pin factory from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations to the organizing and structuring of work. The relation will be described done by examining the division and specialization of labour, requirements that lead to the need for coordination, Horizontal and Vertical Differentiation required for coordination and how structure/hierarchy arises and if it is in fact needed. We can see that through the division and specialization of labour that Adam Smith’s pin factory†¦show more content†¦Just as the pin factory example showed, the one task of creating a pin was broken down into multiple roles/subunits (Horizontal Differentiation) and just as these tasks can be simplified and more efficient by dividing them into roles and subunits, they need to people coordinate them. These people can range from a simple manager of a subunit, all the way to the owner of the organization, creating an organizational hierarchy (Vertical Differentiation). When these processes and forms of coordination work together, this is what drives the building of the organization as a whole. The extent of which is determined by the organizations structure. Structure and hierarchy come from how work and the work processes are coordinated together and relating how tasks and coordination of these tasks is to be obtained. When determining the authority in the structure of an organization, there are two major options, centralized and decentralized. A centralized organizational setup is where the authority to make important decisions is retained by managers at the top of the created hierarchy whereas a decentralized organizational setup is where the authority to make important decisions about organizational resources and to initiate new projects is delegated to managers at all levels in the hierarchy. Each choice is made based upon the main goal/task of the organization and what would better fit the organization. Whether work/theShow MoreRelatedTheories of Frederick Taylor and Adam Smith Public Administration966 Words   |  4 Pagesby a description of work in a pin factory: he argues that the factory with the workers who are devised into s eparate tasks of pin making such as One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a particular business, to whiten the pins is another makes a significantly larger amounts of pins when compared to the factory where one worker carries outRead MoreTrade Policies For National Enrichment845 Words   |  4 PagesIn Defense of Mercantilism In his Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith proposes trade policies for national enrichment, but his suggestions may actually limit the earning potential of nations. Using examples such as the pin factory, Smith clearly demonstrates that dividing labor roles among people increases efficiency. The specialization of each member allows the aggregate wealth of a nation to increase because each member took home a part of a much greater quantity of products manufactured. By thatRead MoreChapters Take Away1283 Words   |  6 Pagesmanufacturers are attempting to catch up. LECTURE OUTLINE I. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT THEORY †¢ As the industrial revolution swept through Europe and America, owners and managers of new factories found themselves unprepared for the challenges accompanying the change from small scale crafts production to large factories in which goods were made by sophisticated machines. †¢ Bosses began to search for new techniques to manage their organization’s resources, with emphasis placed on ways to increaseRead MoreSmith s Vision : Division Of Labor1330 Words   |  6 Pagesand in the workplace. Through the examples of a hypothetical pre-modern arrow-maker (16) and pin-makers from his own time (7), Smith presents the ever-increasing specialization within the workforce as a natural progression of the early division of society by profession. However, in his explanation of the division of labor, Smith falls short in establishing the factor of self interest in the example of the pin-maker, thus somewhat undermining the consistency of his theories on the division of labor.Read More The Wealth of Nations Essay1349 Words   |  6 Pagesnumber of tasks that were each alloted, as specialisations, to individual workers. Smith suggested that a pin factory that had adopted such a quot;division of labourquot; might produce tens of thousands of pins a day where as a pin factory in which each worker attempted to produce pins, from start to finish, by performing all the tasks associated with pin production would produce very few pins. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; In an outline that seems to prefigure Karl Marx quot;materialist conceptionRead MoreThe Industrial Revolution During Mid 19th Century843 Words   |  4 Pagesthe development of science and industry, however; there were social consequences due to that expeditious progression as it did not necessarily influence the quality of life in a positive manner. The rapid development of cities and the growth of factories and mills gave rise to large slum populations, hence, resulting in serious concerns for the health of the society as it was towards a damaging decline. The architecture of these cities was transforming and adapting itself in order to meet the needsRead MoreHow Natural Harmony Was A Key Characteristic Of Economic Growth Through Capitalism1422 Words   |  6 Pagesbenefits of these divisions of labour were demonstrated by Smith through the ‘pin factory’ model in which he described the 18 step process of producing a pin, but when visiting a pin factory he discovered that through the division of labour, just ten men were employed and produced 48,000 pins a day, which would be impossible had the ten employees performed all 18 steps themselves, resulting in an output of just 10-20 pins. This supports the idea put forward by Sarkey et al that specialisation is instrumentalRead MoreAdam Smith s Economic Philosophy1500 Words   |  6 Pagesthe final product is complete. An example of this would be the use of an assembly line while making pins, as Smith mentions in his book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Smith explains that the larger pin manufacture he saw with many workers, was more efficient than the small manufacture of only ten employed workers who could make â€Å"upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day† (Smith, 4). Smith then goes on to explain that, â€Å"But if they had all wrought separately andRead MoreThe Shaping Of The Modern World Essay1407 Words   |  6 Pagesma chines, factory owners were in high demand of products and workers were worked even more. One can argue that since the industrial revolution brought machines to make mass productions easier why were workers working longer shifts? ​ According to the Sadler Report of the House of Commons, an interview done by Esquire, Matthew Crabtree; an ex textile factory worker, gave an insight to things that was driving the capitalism economic market (Reily n.d.). Crabtree started working in the textile factory at ageRead MoreCareer Mothers of the 1950s936 Words   |  4 Pageswomen worked in factories which boosted industrialization at the beginning of the century. They were soon involved in sweatshops where they worked in tenement rooms with very horrible conditions and very low pay. These sweatshops came around because bosses sweated the workers by making them work longer hours for less pay. Women would usually work around fifty-six to fifty-nine hours per week and sometimes into the weekend with no overtime pay. The employment of women in factories began to decline