Gulick gave ten principles of organization.

These are:
1. Division of Work or Specialization.
2. Bases of departmental organization.
3. Co-ordination though hierarchy.
4. Deliberate co-ordination
5. Co-ordination through committees
6. Decentralization
7. Delegation
8. Unity of Command
9. Span of Control
10. Line and Staff
Gulick also identified seven important elements of
administration. He coined an acronym “POSDCORB” to
illustrate these functional elements. POSDCORB stand for
planning, organising, staffing, directing, co-ordinating,
reporting and budgeting.

These are explained below:

1. Planning - Planning refers to the estimation of human

and material resources available to the organization to
achieve the organizational objectives with economy and
efficiency.
2. Organization - Organization is the structure of
administration which operationalizes the various
activities.
3. Staffing - It refers to the personnel aspects such as
recruitment, appointment, promotion, discipline,
retirement etc. It is one of the most important functions to
achieve the organizational objectives.
4. Directing - It refers to the orders issued by the
managers to subordinates directing the activities of the
administration.
5. Coordinating - It means securing co-operation and
teamwork between the various units and among the
employees.
6. Reporting - Through reporting the management keeps
 itself informed about the various activities going on in the
organization. It may take corrective measures based on
this feedback.
7. Budgeting - This covers the entire field of financial
administration. As finances are the life-blood of any
organization, this function of budgeting is indispensable
to the functioning of any organization.
Like the POSDCORD of Gulick, Urwick
enunciated his eight principles of
administration.

These are:

1. The principle of objective

2. The principle of correspondence
3. The principle of responsibility
4. The scalar principle
5. The principle of span of control
6. The principle of specialization
7. The principle of coordination
8. The principle of definition
Besides the above principles some of the other important
principles given by them are explained below:

1. The Theory of Departmentalization

Luther Gulick identified four bases on which different

departments are created. These are: Purpose, Process,
Persons and Place. These bases are called four P’s of Gulick.
These are described as under:

Purpose: The functions and goals of the organization can be

a criterion for creating departments in any organization. For
example, welfare department, sanitation department etc. are
the departments created for some specific purposes. Co-
ordination becomes quite easy in such type of departments.
However there may be some disadvantages also in such a
classification. These are: problems faced during division of
work, lack of opportunities various specialists etc.
Process or Skills: Processes or skills involved in the
functioning of the department can be other criterion for
creating departments. All the works involving same
knowledge, skills and processes may be grouped together and
can form a department. Such department can undertake
activities which are required by other departments as well.
Hence it saves time and energy of other departments also to
do the similar kinds of things e. g. the O & M division of
Department of Administrative Reforms in Government of India
undertakes the function of monitoring methods of work of the
various departments and recommends changes in it.

Persons or Clientele: Departments may also be created

according to the clientele served by them e. g. the old age
welfare department serves clients of old age only. The major
advantage of such types of departments is that the personnel
working in such departments acquire skills in dealing with a
particular clientele. Women, handicapped, children etc. can be
some other forms of clientele on the basis of which particular
departments could be created. The major disadvantage of
such departments is the overlapping and duplication in their
functioning.

Place or Territory: It is one of the most important bases of

departmentalization. District or tribal areas or hilly areas could
be some of the bases of creating new departments. All the
functions created in a area are clubbed together. This is
helpful in intensive development of the area and promotes
area specialization as well as the co-ordination.

The above bases of departments have been criticized on the

ground that they are incompatible with each other. Some of
the bases are overlapping e. g. the engineering department
could be classified as process based as well as purpose
based. Further in governmental agencies the nature of
processes is sometimes so complex that it may not be
possible in every case to classify the different activities in
terms of such simplistic bases.

 2. Unity of Direction

This principle favours one executive or head should lead the

organization. Urwick was against the use of committees for
purposes of administration as they were slow, wasteful and
ineffective. According to him well managed administrative
agencies were always headed by a single administrator. In
such a case problem of co-ordination does not arise.

3. Unity of Command

Gulick and Fayol were of the same view regarding this

principle. According to Fayol “a man cannot serve two
masters”. Lot of uncertainty, confusion and irresponsibilities
can arise due to violation of this principle. However Gulick is
aware of dual control in some of the field offices and suggests
a framework of ‘integrated dual supervision’ in such cases.

4. The Principle of Staff

This principle states that in the performance of organization

activities the support of staff of large number of officials is
necessary. There can be two types of staff: special staff and
general staff. The general staff assists the chief executive in
mainly planning functions while the specialist staff helps in
carrying out the specialized tasks. Gulick took the idea of staff
from military’s concept of line and staff. Staff officials help in
relieving the chief executive from the unnecessary burden of
work and to concentrate on the main priorities of the
organization.
 

5. The Principle of Span of Control

This principle states that a supervisor cannot control more

than an optimum no of workers at a time. To Urwick this
optimum no is five to six. When the number of sub- ordinates
increases arithmetically then the number of relationships
increases geometrically. This shows that at supervisory levels
there remains a problem of managing the sub-ordinates