In Gulick's own words, the elements of POSDCORB are as follows:
Planning, that is working out in broad outline the things that need to be done and the ethods for doing them to accomplish the purpose set for the enterprise;
Organizing, that is the establishment of the formal structure of authority through which work subdivisions are arranged, defined, and co-ordinated for the defined objective;
Staffing, that is the whole personnel function of bringing in and training the staff and maintaining favorable conditions of work;
Directing, that is the continuous task of making decisions and embodying them in specific and general orders and instructions and serving as the leader of the enterprise;
Co-Ordinating, that is the all important duty of interrelating the various parts of the work;
Reporting, that is keeping those to whom the executive is responsible informed as to what is going on, which thus includes keeping himself and his subordinates informed through records, research, and inspection;
Budgeting, with all that goes with budgeting in the form of planning, accounting and control.
Gulick's "Notes on the Theory of Organization" further defines the principles of POSDCORB by explaining that if an executive's workload becomes too overwhelming, some of the elements of POSDCORB can be organized as subdivisions of the executive, depending on the size and complexity of the enterprise.
Under Organizing, Gulick emphasized the division and specialization of labor in a manner that will increase efficiency. Gulick notes that there are three limitations to division of labor. The first occurs when labor is divided to the point where any one task in the division of labor would require less than the full time of a worker, in which case a worker may need to be employed in other tasks to fill up their time. The second limitation to division of labor arises from technology and custom, where certain tasks may only be handled by certain workers either because of a lack of technological means or customs at the time. Gulick gives the example of a single worksite in which only plumbers do the plumbing work and electricians do the electrical work, though this may not take up their full work time. Work in these areas could be re-combined in a manner to increase efficiency, however union considerations could prevent this. The third limitation to division of labor is that it must not pass beyond physical division into organic division, or intricately related activities must not be separated from each other. Gulick gives the example that while it may seem more efficient to have the front end of a cow grazing in pasture at all times and the back half being milked at all times, this would not work due to the intricate connection between the halves that is needed for the whole to function.
Gulick notes that organization of specialized workers can be done in four ways which are:
By the purpose the workers are serving, such as furnishing water, providing education, or controlling crime. Gulick lists these in his organizational tables as vertical organizations.
By the process the workers are using, such as engineering, doctoring, lawyering, or statistics. Gulick lists these in his organizational tables as horizontal organizations.
By the clientelle or materiel or the persons or things being dealt with, such as immigrants, veterans, forests, mines, or parks in government; or such as a department store's furniture department, clothing department, hardware department, or shoe department in the private sector.
By the place where the workers do their work.
Gulick is careful to recognize that these modes of organization can often cross, forming a complex and interrelated organizational structure where organizations like schools will include workers and professionals not in the field of education such as doctors or nurses, janitors, secretaries, police departments might include non-police professionals, a shoe department including buyers as well as salespeople, etc.
Under Coordination, Gulick notes that two methods can be used to achieve coordination of divided labor. The first is by organization, or placing workers under managers who coordinate their efforts. The second is by dominance of an idea, where a clear idea of what needs to be done is developed in each worker, and each worker fits their work to the needs of the whole. Gulick notes that these two ideas are not mutually exclusive, and that most enterprises function best when both are utilized.
Gulick notes that any manager will have a finite amount of time and energy, and discusses span of control under coordination. Drawing heavily from military organizational theory and the work of V. A. Graicunas, Sir Ian Hamilton, and Henri Fayol, Gulick notes that the number of subordinates that can be handled under any single manager will depend on factors such as organizational stability, the specialization of the subordinates and whether their manager comes from the same field or specialty, and space. Gulick stops short of giving a definite number of subordinates that any one manager can control, but authors such as Sir Ian Hamilton and Lyndall Urwick have settled on numbers between three and six. Span of control was later expanded upon and defended in depth by Lyndall Urwick in his 1956 piece The Manager's Span of Control.
Also under coordination, as well as organization, Gulick emphasizes the theory of unity of command, that each worker should only have one direct superior so as to avoid confusion and inefficiency.
Still another theory borrowed from military organizational theory, particularly Sir Ian Hamilton and Lyndall Urwick and brought to prominence in non-military management and public administration by Gulick and Urwick is the distinction between operational components of an organization, the do-ers, and coordinating, the coordinating components of an organization who do the knowing, thinking, and planning. In the military, this is divided between "line" and "staff" functions. Gulick gives the private-sector example of a holding company performing limited coordinating, planning, and finance functions, with subsidiary companies carrying out their work with extensive autonomy as it saw fit according to the parent company's overall direction.
Influence from French Administration Theory
Gulick states that his statement of the work of a chief executive is adapted from the functional analysis elaborated by Henri Fayol in his "Industrial and General Administration". Indeed, Fayol's work includes fourteen principles and five elements of management that lay the foundations of Gulick's POSDCORB tasks of an executive.
Fayol's fourteen principles of management are as follows:
Division of Work
Authority and Responsibility
Discipline
Unity of Command
Unity of Direction
Subordination of Individual Interest to General Interest
Remuneration of Personnel
Centralization
Scalar Chain (line of authority with peer level communication)
Order
Equity
Stability of Tenure of Personnel
Initiative
Esprit de Corps
Fayol's influence upon Gulick is readily apparent in the five elements of management discussed in his book,
Planning - examining the future and drawing up planwhich are:s of actions
Organizing - building up the structure (labor and material) of the undertaking
Command - maintaining activity among the personnel
Co-ordination - unifying and harmonizing activities and efforts
Control - seeing that everything occurs in conformity with policies and practices
In his 1987 piece "Deja Vu: French Antecedents of American Public Administration," Daniel Martin notes that virtually all of the principles in American Public Administration up to 1937 and the coining of the POSDCORB acronym, including the POSDCORB principles, were present in the French literature on the subject by 1859, but that this literature had largely been forgotten by the theorists of that era, thus the "re-invention" of these principles in the later French and American literature.
Place in Management and Public Administration History
POSDCORB generally fits into the Classical Management movement, being classified as an element of scientific management, which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. Gulick's POSDCORB principles were instrumental in highlighting the theory of span of control, or limits on the number of people one manager could supervise, as well as unity of command to the fields of management and public administration.
According to notable Public Administration scholars such as Nicholas Henry, POSDCORB, the principles it represents, and subsequent expansions upon the POSDCORB concept form the height of Public Administration in an era when it was seen as just another aspect of the field of management as a whole.
Gulick's work has been heavily cited and expanded upon by scholars and practitioners in the fields of management and public administration since the publication of Papers on the Science of Administration in 1937.
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