Administration, Theories of

JoAnn Danelo Barbour

The Industrial Revolution produced a growing number of increasingly complex organizations, including schools and school systems. Organizational scholars of the time, most often experienced practitioners, were seeking new and better ways to manage their organizations, focusing especially on the industrial worker. Many of the concepts and principles that were developed within classical organization theory had a lasting influence on organizational thought, essentially to maximize performance to increase production. Administration theory (formal organization theory) was one of three major strands identified within classical organizational theory that included scientific management and bureaucracy. Within this growing group of organizational theorists, the professional school superintendency evolved as a new administrative position in educational systems only after other approaches failed to administer effectively the growing, complex, urban systems of public education. In the last 20 years of the nineteenth century, as industries were moving toward a model of efficiency and scientific rationality rose in full ...

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