ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the career patterns of the four members of the managerial team, to understand better their expectations and their possible motivations. It describes the relationships with each other, emphasizing the recurrent pattern of conflict. Comprehensive studies of human relations problems at the management level are usually hampered by two sets of difficulties. These are the complexity of the role structure in modern organizations causes much ambiguity and overlapping, making it impossible to match really comparable cases and the general emphasis on status and promotions gives a crucial importance to the human relations game. The chapter analyzes the pattern of adjustment of each of the four persons and the meaning of conflict in a bureaucratic system of organization. These four members are: one director in charge of general co-ordination, planning, and sales; one assistant director responsible for production; one technical engineer responsible for both machine and building maintenance; and one comptroller in charge of supplies, accounting, and personnel administration.