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"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" was described by the New York Times as one of the most influential works in philosophy in the latter half of this century. Written by the late Thomas S. Kuhn in 1973, it introduced the phrase paradigm shift to the world. Kuhn's intent was to show that science did not always make smooth, gradual, incremental progress. Sometimes - at the most important times -in fact, science changes by means of revolutions. The discovery of X-rays by Roentgen in 1895 presents an example. In simple terms, his cathode ray screen glowed when it should not. This anomaly, for which his operative paradigm had not readied him, played an essential role in paving the way for the discovery that followed. Initially, he thought something had gone wrong, which is true in the case of most paradigm shifts. But it had not. X-rays were greeted not only with surprise but with shock. Lord Kelvin initially pronounced them an elaborate hoax. A paradigm shift, in contrast to "normal science," means crisis. It means tearing down an established framework and reassembling the pieces into something new.
Kuhn, of course, was using science as a backdrop for paradigm shifts. But this century also has witnessed profound shifts in management thought. As in science, they have not become accepted without difficulty, manifested by resistance against a background provided by expectation. That is because the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques and so on shared by managers changes.
The Hawthorne results provide an example. Before these experiments, the advocates of scientific management were overwhelming in the plurality. The very idea that six individuals could be transformed into a self-managing, high-producing, collegial, small group in which no single individual was in charge collided head-on with what was known. Their theory (the advocates of scientific management) was so entrenched as conventional wisdom that it prevented them from seeing what was accomplished. Scientific management had such an immense restriction on managements' vision that only usual and expected results were accepted, even in circumstances when anomalies were observed with increasing frequency. Such were treated as violations of expectations. Classical theorists like Barnard and Urwick were quick to grasp the implications of the Hawthorne experiments, but both seem to have deliberately distorted their...