NCM 107 Henri Fayol Henri Fayol (Istanbul, 29 July 1841Paris, 19 November 1925) was a French mining engineer

and director of mines who developed a general theory of business administration.[1] He and his colleagues developed this theory independently of scientific management but roughly contemporaneously. He was one of the most influential contributors to modern concepts of management.

Theory Fayolism Fayol's work was one of the first comprehensive statements of a general theory of management.[2] He proposed that there were five primary functions of management and 14 principles of management[3] Functions of management 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. to forecast and plan to organize to command to coordinate to control (French: contrler: in the sense that a manager must receive feedback about a process in order to make necessary adjustments).

Principles of Management 1. Division of work. This principle is the same as Adam Smith's 'division of labour'. Specialisation increases output by making employees more efficient. 2. Authority. Managers must be able to give orders. Authority gives them this right. Note that responsibility arises wherever authority is exercised. 3. Discipline. Employees must obey and respect the rules that govern the organization. Good discipline is the result of effective leadership, a clear understanding between management and workers regarding the organization's rules, and the judicious use of penalties for infractions of the rules. 4. Unity of command. Every employee should receive orders from only one superior. like from top to bottom in an organization. 5. Unity of direction. Each group of organisational activities that have the same objective should be directed by one manager using one plan. 6. Subordination of individual interests to the general interest. The interests of any one employee or group of employees should not take precedence over the interests of the organization as a whole. 7. Remuneration. Workers must be paid a fair wage for their services. 8. Centralisation. Centralisation refers to the degree to which subordinates are involved in decision making. Whether decision making is centralized (to management) or decentralized (to

subordinates) is a question of proper proportion. The task is to find the optimum degree of centralisation for each situation. 9. Scalar chain. The line of authority from top management to the lowest ranks represents the scalar chain. Communications should follow this chain. However, if following the chain creates delays, cross-communications can be allowed if agreed to by all parties and superiors are kept informed. 10. Order. People and materials should be in the right place at the right time. 11. Equity. Managers should be kind and fair to their subordinates. 12. Stability of tenure of personnel. High employee turnover is inefficient. Management should provide orderly personnel planning and ensure that replacements are available to fill vacancies. 13. Initiative. Employees who are allowed to originate and carry out plans will exert high levels of effort. 14. Esprit de corps. Promoting team spirit will build harmony and unity within the organization. Fayol's work has stood the test of time and has been shown to be relevant and appropriate to contemporary management. Many of todays management texts including Daft[4] have reduced the six functions to four: (1) planning; (2) organizing; (3) leading; and (4) controlling. Daft's text is organized around Fayol's four functions....

Frederick Winslow Taylor Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 March 21, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency.[1] He is regarded as the father of scientific management and was one of the first management consultants.[2] Taylor was one of the intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement and his ideas, broadly conceived, were highly influential in the Progressive Era.

Management theory Taylor thought that by analyzing work, the "One Best Way" to do it would be found. He is most remembered for developing the stopwatch time study, which combined with Frank Gilbreth's motion study methods later becomes the field of time and motion study. He would break a job into its component parts and measure each to the hundredth of a minute. One of his most famous studies involved shovels. He noticed that workers used the same shovel for all materials. He determined that the most effective load was 21 lb, and found or designed shovels that for each material would scoop up that amount. He was generally unsuccessful in getting his concepts applied and was dismissed from Bethlehem Steel. Nevertheless, Taylor was able to convince workers who used shovels and whose compensation was tied to how much they produced to adopt his advice about the optimum way to shovel by breaking the movements down into their component elements and recommending better ways to perform these movements. It was largely through the efforts of his disciples (most notably H.L. Gantt) that industry came to implement his ideas. Moreover, the book he wrote after parting company with Bethlehem Steel, Shop Management, sold well.

Elton Mayo George Elton Mayo (26 December 1880, Adelaide - 7 September 1949, Guildford, Surrey) was an Australian psychologist, sociologist and organization theorist. He lectured at the University of Queensland from 1911 to 1923 before moving to the University of Pennsylvania, but spent most of his career at Harvard Business School (1926 - 1947), where he was professor of industrial research. On 18 April 1913 he married Dorothea McConnel in Brisbane, Australia. They had two daughters, Patricia and Gael.

Research Mayo is known as the founder of the Human Relations Movement, and was known for his research including the Hawthorne Studies and his book The Human Problems of an Industrialized Civilization (1933). The research he conducted under the Hawthorne Studies of the 1930s showed the importance of groups in affecting the behavior of individuals at work. Mayo's employees, Roethlisberger and Dickson, conducted the practical experiments. This enabled him to make certain deductions about how managers should behave. He carried out a number of investigations to look at ways of improving productivity, for example changing lighting conditions in the workplace. What he found however was that work satisfaction depended to a large extent on the informal social pattern of the work group. Where norms of cooperation and higher output were established because of a feeling of importance, physical conditions or financial incentives had little motivational value. People will form work groups and this can be used by management to benefit the organization. He concluded that people's work performance is dependent on both social issues and job content. He suggested a tension between workers' 'logic of sentiment' and managers' 'logic of cost and efficiency' which could lead to conflict within organizations. Disagreement regarding his employees' procedure while conducting the studies:

The members of the groups whose behavior has been studied were allowed to choose themselves. Two women have been replaced since they were chatting during their work. They were later identified as members of a leftist movement. One Italian member was working above average since she had to care for her family alone. Thus she affected the group's performance in an above average way.

Summary of Mayo's Beliefs:

Individual workers cannot be treated in isolation, but must be seen as members of a group. Monetary incentives and good working conditions are less important to the individual than the need to belong to a group. Informal or unofficial groups formed at work have a strong influence on the behavior of those workers in a group. Managers must be aware of these 'social needs' and cater for them to ensure that employees collaborate with the official organization rather than work against it. Mayo's simple instructions to industrial interviewers set a template and remain influential to this day i.e. A. The simple rules of interviewing:- 1. Give your full attention to the person interviewed,

and make it evident that you are doing so. 2. Listen - don't talk. 3. Never argue; never give advice. 4. Listen to: what he wants to say; what he does not want to say; what he can not say without help. 5. As you listen, plot out tentatively and for subsequent correction the pattern that is being set before you. To test, summarize what has been said and present for comment. Always do this with caution that is, clarify but don't add or twist.

Abraham Maslow Abraham Harold Maslow (April 1, 1908 June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of self-actualization.[2] Maslow was a psychology professor at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a "bag of symptoms.

Hierarchy of Needs

An interpretation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom.[26]

A visual aid Maslow created to explain his theory, which he called the Hierarchy of Needs, is a pyramid depicting the levels of human needs, psychological and physical. When a human being ascends the steps of the pyramid he reaches self actualization.

At the bottom of the pyramid are the Basic needs or Physiological needs of a human being, food and water and sex. The next level is Safety Needs: Security, Order, and Stability. These two steps are important to the physical survival of the person. Once individuals have basic nutrition, shelter and safety, they attempt to accomplish more. The third level of need is Love and Belonging, which are psychological needs; when individuals have taken care of themselves physically, they are ready to share themselves with others, such as with family and friends. The fourth level is achieved when individuals feel comfortable with what they have accomplished. This is the Esteem level, the need to be competent and recognized, such as through status and level of success. Then there is the Cognitive level, where individuals intellectually stimulate themselves and explore. After that is the Aesthetic level, which is the need for harmony, order and beauty.[27] At the top of the pyramid, Need for Self-actualization, occurs when individuals reach a state of harmony and understanding because they have achieved their full potential.[28]Once a person has reached the self actualization state they focus on themselves and try to build their own image. They may look at this in terms of feelings such as self confidence or by accomplishing a set goal.[29]

The first four levels are known as 'Deficit needs' or 'D-needs'. This means that if you don't have enough of one of those 4 needs, you'll have the feeling to get it. But when you do get them then you feel content. These needs alone are not motivating.[30] Maslow wrote that there are certain conditions that must be fulfilled in order for the basic needs to be satisfied. For example, freedom of speech, freedom to express oneself, and freedom to seek new information[31] are a few of the prerequisites. Any blockages of these freedoms could prevent the satisfaction of the basic needs.

Douglas McGregor Douglas Murray McGregor (1906, Detroit1 October 1964, Massachusetts) was a Management professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and president of Antioch College from 1948 to 1954.[1] He also taught at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

The Human Side of Enterprise In the book The Human Side of Enterprise, McGregor identified an approach of creating an environment within which employees are motivated via authoritative, direction and control or integration and selfcontrol, which he called theory X and theory Y,[3] respectively. Theory Y is the practical application of Dr. Abraham Maslow's Humanistic School of Psychology, or Third Force psychology, applied to scientific management. He is commonly thought of as being a proponent of Theory Y, but, as Edgar Schein tells in his introduction to McGregor's subsequent, posthumous (1967), book The Professional Manager : "In my

own contacts with Doug, I often found him to be discouraged by the degree to which theory Y had become as monolithic a set of principles as those of Theory X, the over-generalization which Doug was fighting....Yet few readers were willing to acknowledge that the content of Doug's book made such a neutral point or that Doug's own presentation of his point of view was that coldly scientific". Graham Cleverley in Managers & Magic (Longman's, 1971) comments: "...he coined the two terms Theory X and theory Y and used them to label two sets of beliefs a manager might hold about the origins of human behaviour. He pointed out that the manager's own behaviour would be largely determined by the particular beliefs that he subscribed to....McGregor hoped that his book would lead managers to investigate the two sets of beliefs, invent others, test out the assumptions underlying them, and develop managerial strategies that made sense in terms of those tested views of reality. "But that isn't what happened. Instead McGregor was interpreted as advocating Theory Y as a new and superior ethic - a set of moral values that ought to replace the values managers usually accept." The Human Side of Enterprise was voted the fourth most influential management book of the 20th century in a poll of the Fellows of the Academy of Management.

Mary Parker Follett Mary Parker Follett (3 September 1868 18 December 1933) was an American social worker, management consultant and pioneer in the fields of organizational theory and organizational behavior. She also authored a number of books and numerous essays, articles and speeches on democracy, human relations, political philosophy, psychology, organizational behavior and conflict resolution. Along with Lillian Gilbreth, Mary Parker Follett was one of two great women management gurus in the early days of classical management theory. She admonished overmanaging employees, a process now known as micromanaging, as bossism and she is regarded by some writers as the mother of Scientific Management. As such she was one of the first women ever invited to address the London School of Economics, where she spoke on cutting-edge management issues. She also distinguished herself in the field of management by being sought out by PresidentTheodore Roosevelt as his personal consultant on managing not-for-profit, non-governmental, and voluntary organizations. In her capacity as a management theorist, Mary Parker Follett pioneered the understanding of lateral processes within hierarchical organizations (which recognition led directly to the formation of matrixstyle organizations, the first of which was DuPont, in the 1920s), the importance of informal processes within organizations, and the idea of the "authority of expertise"--which really served to modify the typology of authority developed by her German contemporary, Max Weber, who broke authority down into three separate categories: rational-legal, traditional and charismatic.

Chester Barnard Chester Irving Barnard (November 7, 1886 June 7, 1961) was an American business executive, public administrator, and the author of pioneering work inmanagement theory and organizational studies. His landmark 1938 book, The Functions of the Executive, sets out a theory of organization and of the functions of executives in organizations. The book has been widely assigned in university courses in management theory and organizational sociology.

The Functions of the Executive Main article: The Functions of the Executive Barnard's classic 1938 book The Functions of the Executive discusses, as the title suggests, the functions of the executive, but not from a merely intuitive point of view, but instead deriving them from his conception of cooperative systems. Barnard summarized the functions of the executive as follows: Establishing and maintaining a system of communication; Securing essential services from other members; Formulating organizational purposes and objectives. Authority and incentives Barnard formulated two interesting theories: one of authority and the other of incentives. Both are seen in the context of a communication system grounded in seven essential rules:

The channels of communication should be definite; Everyone should know of the channels of communication; Everyone should have access to the formal channels of communication; Lines of communication should be as short and as direct as possible; Competence of persons serving as communication centers should be adequate; The line of communication should not be interrupted when the organization is functioning; Every communication should be authenticated.

Thus, what makes a communication authoritative rests with the subordinate rather than with his superior. Barnard's perspective had affinities to that of Mary Parker Follett and was very unusual for his time, and that has remained the case down to the present day. He seemed to argue that managers should obtain authority by treating subordinates with respect and competence. As for incentives, he proposed two ways of convincing subordinates to cooperate: tangible incentives and persuasion. He gives great importance to persuasion, much more than to economic incentives. He described four general and four specific incentives. The specific incentives were: 1. Money and other material inducements; 2. Personal non-material opportunities for distinction; 3. Desirable physical conditions of work;

4. Ideal benefactions, such as pride of workmanship etc. The general incentives were: 1. 2. 3. 4. Associated attractiveness (based upon compatibility with associates) Adaptation of working conditions to habitual methods and attitudes The opportunity for the feeling of enlarged participation in the course of events The condition of communing with others (personal comfort with social relations, opportunity for comradeship etc., )

Herzberg Two-factor theory The Two-factor theory (also known as Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory and Dual-Factor Theory) states that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction. It was developed by Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist, who theorized that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction act independently of each other.[1] Two-factor theory fundamentals: Attitudes and their connection with industrial mental health are related to Maslow's theory of motivation. His findings have had a considerable theoretical, as well as a practical, influence on attitudes toward administration.[2] According to Herzberg, individuals are not content with the satisfaction of lower-order needs at work, for example, those associated with minimum salary levels or safe and pleasant working conditions. Rather, individuals look for the gratification of higher-level psychological needs having to do with achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and the nature of the work itself. So far, this appears to parallel Maslow's theory of a need hierarchy. However, Herzberg added a new dimension to this theory by proposing a two-factor model of motivation, based on the notion that the presence of one set of job characteristics or incentives lead to worker satisfaction at work, while another and separate set of job characteristics lead to dissatisfaction at work. Thus, satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not on a continuum with one increasing as the other diminishes, but are independent phenomena. This theory suggests that to improve job attitudes and productivity, administrators must recognize and attend to both sets of characteristics and not assume that an increase in satisfaction leads to decrease in unpleasurable dissatisfaction. The two-factor, or motivation-hygiene theory, developed from data collected by Herzberg from interviews with a large number of engineers and accountants in the Pittsburgh area. From analyzing these interviews, he found that job characteristics related to what an individual does that is, to the nature of the work he performs apparently have the capacity to gratify such needs as achievement, competency, status, personal worth, and self-realization, thus making him happy and satisfied. However, the absence of such gratifying job characteristics does not appear to lead to unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Instead, dissatisfaction results from unfavorable assessments of such job-related factors as company policies, supervision, technical problems, salary, interpersonal relations on the job, and working conditions. Thus, if management wishes to increase satisfaction on the job, it should be concerned with the nature of the work itself the opportunities it presents for gaining status, assuming responsibility, and for achieving self-realization. If, on the other hand, management wishes to reduce dissatisfaction, then it must focus on the job environment policies, procedures, supervision, and

working conditions.[1] If management is equally concerned with (as is usually the case), then managers must give attention to both sets of job factors. The theory was based around interviews with 203 American accountants and engineers in Pittsburgh, chosen because of their professions' growing importance in the business world. The subjects were asked to relate times when they felt exceptionally good or bad about their present job or any previous job, and to provide reasons, and a description of the sequence of events giving rise to that positive or negative feeling. Here is the description of this interview analysis: Briefly, we asked our respondents to describe periods in their lives when they were exceedingly happy and unhappy with their jobs. Each respondent gave as many "sequences of events" as he could that met certain criteriaincluding a marked change in feeling, a beginning and an end, and contained some substantive description other than feelings and interpretations The proposed hypothesis appears verified. The factors on the right that led to satisfaction (achievement, intrinsic interest in the work, responsibility, and advancement) are mostly unipolar; that is, they contribute very little to job dissatisfaction. Conversely, the dis-satisfiers (company policy and administrative practices, supervision, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, and salary) contribute very little to job satisfaction.[3] Two-factor theory distinguishes between:

Motivators (e.g. challenging work, recognition, responsibility) that give positive satisfaction, arising from intrinsic conditions of the job itself, such as recognition, achievement, or personal growth,[4] and Hygiene factors (e.g. status, job security, salary, fringe benefits, work conditions) that do not give positive satisfaction, though dissatisfaction results from their absence. These are extrinsic to the work itself, and include aspects such as company policies, supervisory practices, or wages/salary.[4][5]

Essentially, hygiene factors are needed to ensure an employee is not dissatisfied. Motivation factors are needed to motivate an employee to higher performance. Herzberg also further classified our actions and how and why we do them, for example, if you perform a work related action because you have to then that is classed as movement, but if you perform a work related action because you want to then that is classed as motivation. Unlike Maslow, who offered little data to support his ideas, Herzberg and others have presented considerable empirical evidence to confirm the motivation-hygiene theory, although their work has been criticized on methodological grounds.

Chris Argyris Chris Argyris (born July 16, 1923 in Newark, New Jersey, USA) is an American business theorist, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, and a Thought Leader at Monitor Group.[1] He is commonly known for seminal work in the area of "Learning Organizations". Action Science, Argyris' collaborative work with Robert W. Putnam [2] (not to be confused with Robert D. Putnam) and Diana McLain Smith,[3] advocates an approach to research that focuses on generating knowledge that is useful in solving practical problems. Other key concepts developed by Argyris include Ladder of Inference, Double Loop Learning (Argyris & Schn 1974), Theory of Action/Espoused Theory/Theory-in-use, High Advocacy/High Inquiry dialogue and Actionable Knowledge. Chris Argyris early research explored the impact of formal organizational structures, control systems and management on individuals and how they responded and adapted to them. This research resulted in the books Personality and Organization (1957) and Integrating the Individual and the Organization (1964). He then shifted his focus to organizational change, in particular exploring the behaviour of senior executives in organizations (Interpersonal Competence and Organizational Effectiveness (1962); Organization and Innovation (1965). From there he moved on to an inquiry into the role of the social scientist as both researcher and actor (Intervention Theory and Method (1970); Inner Contradictions of Rigorous Research (1980) and Action Science (1985) with Robert Putnam and Diana McLain Smith). His fourth major area of research and theorizing in significant part undertaken with Donald Schn was in individual and organizational learning and the extent to which human reasoning, not just behavior, can become the basis for diagnosis and action (Theory in Practice (1974); Organizational Learning (1978); Organizational Learning II (1996) all with Donald Schn). He has also developed this thinking in Overcoming Organizational Defenses (1990) and Knowledge for Action (1993).

Action Science Argyris' concept of Action Science begins with the study of how human beings design their actions in difficult situations. Human actions are designed to achieve intended consequences and governed by a set of environment variables. How those governing variables are treated in designing actions are the key differences between single loop learning and double loop learning. When actions are designed to achieve the intended consequences and to suppress conflict about the governing variables, a single loop learning cycle usually ensues. On the other hand, when actions are taken, not only to achieve the intended consequences, but also to openly inquire about conflict and to possibly transform the governing variables, both single loop and double loop learning cycles usually ensue. (Argyris applies single loop and double loop learning concepts not only to personal behaviors but also to organizational behaviors in his models.)

Model 1 illustrates how single loop learning affects human actions. Model 2 describes how double loop learning affects human actions. The following Model 1 and Model 2 tables introduce these ideas (tables are from Argyris, Putnam & Smith, 1985, Action Science, Ch. 3.) Other key books conveying Argyris approach include Argyris & Schon, 1974 and Argyris, 1970, 1980, 1994). Table 1 Model 1 Theory-In-Use Governing Variables Consequences for the Behavioral World Consequences for Learning

Action Strategies

Effectiveness

Define goals and try to achieve them

Design and manage the environment unilaterally (be persuasive, appeal to larger goals)

Actor seen as defensive, inconsistent, incongruent, competitive, controlling, fearful of being Self-sealing vulnerable, manipulative, withholding of feelings, overly concerned about self and others or under concerned about others

Decreased effectiveness

Maximize winning and minimize losing

Own and control the task (claim ownership of the task, be guardian of definition and execution of task)

Defensive interpersonal and group relationship Single-loop (dependence upon actor, learning little additivity, little helping of others)

Minimize generating or expressing negative feelings

Unilaterally protect yourself (speak with inferred categories accompanied by little or no directly observable behavior, be blind to impact on others and to the incongruity between rhetoric and behavior, reduce incongruity by defensive actions such as blaming, stereotyping, suppressing

Defensive norms (mistrust, lack of risk taking, conformitment, emphasis on diplomacy, power-centered competition, and rivalry)

Little testing of theories publicly, much testing of theories privately

feelings, intellectualizing)

Be rational

Unilaterally protect others from being hurt (withhold information, create rules to censor information and behavior, hold private meetings)

Little freedom of choice, internal commitment, or risk taking

Table 2 Model 2 Theory-In-Use Consequences for the Consequences Behavioral for Learning World

Governing Variables

Action Strategies

Consequences for Quality of Life

Effectiveness

Valid information

Design situations or environments where participants can be origins and can experience high personal causation (psychological success, confirmation, essentiality)

Actor experienced as minimally defensive (facilitator, collaborator, choice creator)

Quality of life will be more positive than Disconfirmable negative (high processes authenticity and high freedom of choice)

Free and informed choice

tasks are controlled jointly

Minimally defensive interpersonal Double-loop relations and learning group dynamics

effectiveness of problem solving and decision Increase making will be great, long-run especially for difficult effectiveness problems

Protection of self is a joint enterprise and oriented toward Internal growth commitment to (speak in the choice and directly constant observable monitoring of categories, its seek to implementation reduce blindness about own inconsistency and incongruity)

Learningoriented norms (trust, individuality, Public testing open of theories confrontation on difficult issues)

Bilateral protection of others

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (July 7, 1868 - June 14, 1924) was an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of motion study, but is perhaps best known as the father and central figure of Cheaper by the Dozen.

Death and legacy Gilbreth died of heart failure on June 14, 1924, at age 55. He was at the Lackawanna railway station in Montclair, New Jersey, talking on a telephone. Lillian outlived him by 48 years.[1][2] Although the work of the Gilbreths is often associated with that of Frederick Winslow Taylor, there was a substantial philosophical difference between the Gilbreths and Taylor. The symbol of Taylorism was the stopwatch; Taylor was primarily concerned with reducing process times. The Gilbreths, on the other hand, sought to make processes more efficient by reducing the motions involved. They saw their approach as more concerned with workers' welfare than Taylorism, which workers themselves often perceived as primarily concerned with profit. This difference led to a personal rift between Taylor and

the Gilbreths which, after Taylor's death, turned into a feud between the Gilbreths and Taylor's followers. After Frank's death, Lillian Gilbreth took steps to heal the rift (Price 1990); however, some friction remains over questions of history and intellectual property.[3] Frank and Lillian Gilbreth often used their large family (and Frank himself) as guinea pigs in experiments. Their family exploits are lovingly detailed in the 1948 book Cheaper by the Dozen, written by his son Frank Jr. and daughter Ernestine (Ernestine Gilbreth Carey). The book inspired two films of the same name - one (1950) starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy, and the other (2003) starring comedians Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt. The latter film bears no resemblance to the book, except that it features a family with twelve children, and the wife's maiden name is Gilbreth. A 1952 sequel, titled Belles on Their Toes, chronicles the adventures of the Gilbreth family after Frank's 1924 death. A later biography, Time Out For Happiness, was authored by Frank Jr. alone and published in 1971; it is out of print and considered rare. Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil "Max" Weber was a German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself.[1] Weber was a key proponent of methodological antipositivism, presenting sociology as a nonempiricist field which must study social action through interpretive means based upon understanding the meanings and purposes that individuals attach to their own actions. Weber is often cited, with mile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science.[2][3][4] Weber's main intellectual concern was understanding the processes of rationalisation, secularization, and "disenchantment" that he associated with the rise ofcapitalism and modernity.[5] Weber argued that the most important difference among societies is not how people produce things but how people think about the world. In Webers view, modern society was the product of a new way of thinking.[6] Weber is perhaps best known for his thesis combining economic sociology and the sociology of religion, elaborated in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber proposed that ascetic Protestantism was one of the major "elective affinities" associated with the rise of capitalism, bureaucracy and the rational-legal nation-state in the Western world. Against Marx's "historical materialism," Weber emphasised the importance of cultural influences embedded in religion as a means for understanding the genesis of capitalism.[7] TheProtestant Ethic formed the earliest part in Weber's broader investigations into world religion: he would go on to examine the religions of China, the religions of Indiaand ancient Judaism, with particular regard to the apparent non-development of capitalism in the corresponding societies, as well as to their differing forms of social stratification.[a] In another major work, Politics as a Vocation, Weber defined the state as an entity which successfully claims a "monopoly on the legitimate use of violence". He was also the first to categorize social authority into distinct forms, which he labelled as charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal. His analysis of bureaucracyemphasised that modern state institutions are increasingly based on rational-legal authority. Weber also made a variety of other contributions in economic history, as well as economic theory and methodology. Weber's thought on modernity and rationalisation would come to facilitate critical theory of the Frankfurt school. After the First World War, Max Weber was among the founders of the liberal German Democratic Party. He also ran unsuccessfully for a seat in parliament and served as advisor to the committee that drafted

the ill-fated democratic Weimar Constitution of 1919. After contracting the Spanish flu, he died of pneumonia in 1920, aged 56.[2]