History and Management Theory

Importance of Theory and History

• Management theories are based in reality and help build and guide organizations toward set goals.
• Understanding the historical context gives a sense of heritage and helps managers avoid repeating past errors.
• A theory is a conceptual framework for organizing knowledge and providing a blueprint for action.

Management in Antiquity

• Sumerians, around 3000 B.C., used written rules and regulations for governance.
• Babylonians had extensive laws and policies for governance.
• Egyptians utilized management practices to construct pyramids.
• Greeks used different governing systems for cities and states.
• Romans had an organized structure for communication and control.
• Chinese used organization structures for government and the arts.
• Venetians used organization design and planning concepts to control the seas.
• These examples represent management breakthroughs and practices over the last 4,000 years.

Early Management Pioneers

• Robert Owen was among the initial managers who recognized the importance of human resources and he raised the working age for children, reduced hours, and supplied meals.
• Charles Babbage focused mathematically on production efficiency and believed in the division of labor.

Classical Management Perspective

• Consists of two branches: scientific management and administrative management.
• Scientific Management focuses on improving the production of individual workers.
• Administrative Management focuses on managing the total organization.

Steps in Scientific Management

• Develop a science for each element of the job, replacing old rule-of-thumb methods.
• Scientifically select employees and train them to do the job per the science developed.
• Supervise employees to ensure prescribed methods are followed.
• Continue to plan the work, using workers to get the job done.
• Frederick Taylor saw workers soldiering, or deliberately working below their potential, so he created the four step method

Contributors to Scientific Management

• Frank and Lillian Gilbreth developed numerous techniques to eliminate inefficiency.
• Henry Gantt introduced the Gantt chart for scheduling work.
• Harrington Emerson advocated for specialized management roles.

Contributors to Administrative Management

• Henri Fayol was the first to identify the four management functions.
• Lyndall Urwick integrated scientific and administrative management.
• Max Weber studied efficient organizational structure.
• Chester Barnard wrote about acceptance of authority.

Classical Management Today

• Contributions include laying the foundation for management theory, identifying key processes, and making management a valid field of study.
• Limitations include being best used in simple, stable organizations, having universal procedures that may not be appropriate in some situations, and viewing employees as tools rather than resources.

Classical Management Perspective: Summary

• Scientific management focused on employees and productivity, pioneered by Taylor, Gilbreths, Gantt, and Emerson.
• Administrative management focused on the total organization for efficiency, with theorists like Fayol, Urwick, Weber, and Barnard.
• Contributions laid the foundation for modern management theory, emphasizing important processes, functions, and managing.
• Limitations include being more suitable for stable/simple organizations, prescribing universal procedures, and viewing employees as tools instead of resources.

Behavioral Management Perspective

• Emphasizes on individual attitudes and behaviors, along with group processes.
• Hugo Munsterberg founded industrial psychology by applying psychology to industrial settings.
• Mary Parker Follett was an early pioneer of this theory.

Hawthorne Studies

• Conducted Hawthorne Studies and found increased productivity in both control and experimental groups.
• Increased productivity was attributed to heightened employee morale due to extra attention.
• Later studies identified "rate busters" (overproducers) and "chiselers" (underproducers).
• Human behavior was determined to be more important in the workplace than previously believed.

Human Relations Movement

• Stemmed from the Hawthorne studies.
• A basic assumption of the movement is that a manager's concern for workers will lead to increased satisfaction and improved performance.

Theory X and Theory Y

• Theory X assumes people dislike work and need control.
• Theory Y assumes people are self-motivated and creative at work.

Emergence of Organizational Behavior

• Contemporary field concentrating on behavioral perspectives on management.
• Includes a holistic view of behavior, covering individual, group, and organizational processes.

Behavioral Management Today

• Contributions include providing insights into interpersonal processes like motivation and group dynamics, focusing managerial attention on these, and viewing employees as resources.
• Limitations include the difficulty in predicting behavior, reluctance of managers to adopt concepts, and ineffectively communicated research to managers.

Behavioral Management Perspective: Summary

• Focuses on employee behavior in an organizational context, initiated by industrial psychology and the human relations movement.
• Key contributors include Mayo, Maslow, and McGregor.
• Organizational behavior is a contemporary outgrowth that recognizes the complexities of human behavior.
• Contributions include providing insights into motivation and group dynamics, shifting the view of employees as resources.
• Limitations include the difficulty in predicting behavior, managers' reluctance to adopt concepts, and poor communication of research findings.

Quantitative Management Perspective

• Applies quantitative techniques to management that include decision-making, economic effectiveness, mathematical models, and the use of computers.
• Management science focuses on the development of mathematical models.
• Operations management focuses on helping the organization more efficiently produce its products or services.

Quantitative Management Today

• Contributions from sophisticated techniques assist decision-making, especially in planning and controlling, as well as increased awareness of complex processes.
• Limitations include inability to fully explain or predict human behavior, excessive mathematical sophistication at the expense of other skills, and unrealistic assumptions.

Quantitative Management: Summary

• Focuses on applying mathematical models and processes to management situations and aided decision making and problem solving.
• Contributes sophisticated quantitative techniques to assist in decision-making and improved the understanding of complex processes and situations.
• Limitations include inability to predict behavior, excessive mathematical focus, and reliance on unrealistic assumptions.

Integrating Perspectives for Managers

• A system is an interrelated set of elements functioning as a whole.
• An open system interacts with its environment.
• A closed system does not interact with its environment.
• A subsystem is a system within another system.
• Synergy is when two or more subsystems working together produce more than they could alone.
• Entropy is a normal process leading to system decline.

Contingency Perspective

• A universal perspective tries to identify the "one best way" to do something, including classical, behavioral, and quantitative approaches

Systems and Contingency Perspective

• The contingency perspective suggests that appropriate managerial behavior in a given situation depends on a wide variety of elements; it believes each organization is unique.
• Managers should use portions from each perspective relevant to their situation using systems and contingency approaches

Integrating Management: Summary

• Recognition of internal interdependencies and environmental influences by applying systems perspective
• Insights for motivating performance and understanding individual behavior, groups and teams, and leadership using behavioral management perspectives
• Response to particular characteristics of situation using contingency perspective
• Techniques for improving decision making, resource allocation, and operations using quantitative management perspectives
• Methods for enhancing efficiency and facilitating planning, organizing, and controlling using classical management perspectives

Contemporary Applied Perspectives

• Major impacts include Theory Z, In Search of Excellence, biographies of successful business leaders, and authors like Peter Senge and Malcolm Gladwell.

Contemporary Management Challenges

• Include an unpredictable economy, globalization, ethics, quality, the service economy, and the impact of social media.