democratic control by the members of a police department would inevitably lead to the department being in conflict at various times with the will of the community( e. g., one favoring a hard-line approach to crime control versus the other being in favor of a more moderate approach). Internally, large numbers of officers at the lower levels of the police department do not want to be treated like ― cogs in a machine ‖ and desire some voice in how the department operates. Thus, the challenge for police managers is how to maintain an organization that meets society’ s needs and the needs of the officers who work in it. This requires an understanding of such things as the different ways of organizing and the contrasting assumptions that various organizational forms make about the nature of people. Such knowledge is found within organizational theory. Traditional Organizational Theory Traditional theory is associated with organizations described as classical, mechanistic, and closed systems, which assume little influence from outside of the organization. Its underlying assumption is that there is one best way to structure and operate an organization. This body of knowledge evolved over centuries and crystallized between 1900 and the 1950s. The three branches or stems of traditional organizational theory are( 1) scientific management,( 2) the bureaucratic model, and( 3) administrative, or management, theory. Taylor: Scientific Management The father of scientific management is Frederick W. Taylor( 1856 – 1915), and the thrust of his thinking was to find the ― one best way ‖ to do work( see Figure 5.1). In addition to its status as a theory of work organization, Taylor’ s scientific management is a theory of motivation in its belief that employees will be guided in their actions by what is in their economic self-interest. A Pennsylvanian born of Quaker – Puritan parents, Taylor was so discontented with the ― evils ‖ of waste and slothfulness that he applied the same careful analysis to finding the best way of playing croquet and of taking a cross-country walk with the least fatigue that was to be the hallmark of his later work in factories. 8 From 1878 to 1890, Taylor worked at the Midvale Steel Company in Philadelphia, rising