Management History: From Sumer to More

Management Ideas and Practices Throughout History

• In 5000 BCE, Sumerians used written records.
• From 4000 to 2000 BCE, Egyptians planned, organized, and controlled pyramid construction and consulted staff for advice.
• In 1800 BCE, Hammurabi had controls and used witnesses in legal cases.
• In 600 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar had wage incentives and production control.
• In 500 BCE, Sun Tzu used strategy to identify and attack opponents' weaknesses.
• In 400 BCE, Xenophon considered management to be a separate art.
• In 400 BCE, Cyrus focused on human relations and motion study.
• In 175, Cato wrote job descriptions.
• In 284, Diocletian delegated authority.
• In 900, al-Farabi focused on leadership traits.
• In 1100, Ghazali emphasized managerial traits.
• In 1418, Barbarigo created different organizational forms and structures.
• In 1436, Venetian introduced numbering, standardization, and interchangeability of parts.
• In 1500, Sir Thomas More critiqued poor management/leadership.
• In 1525, Machiavelli emphasized cohesiveness, power, and leadership.

Why Managers Are Needed Today

• During the Industrial Revolution, the availability of power allowed the replacement of skilled artisans with low-paid, unskilled labor.
• Work shifted from fields, homes, or small shops to large, formal organizations.

Scientific Management

• Scientific Management involves thoroughly studying and testing different work methods to find the most efficient way to complete a job.
• Frederick W. Taylor is considered the Father of scientific management and developed its four principles.
• Time study involves measuring the time taken by good workers to complete each part of their jobs.

Taylor's Four Principles of Scientific Management

• Develop a science for each element of a man's work, which replaces the old rule-of-thumb method.
• Scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past, he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could.
• Heartily cooperate with the men so as to ensure all of the work being done is in accordance with the principles of the science that has been developed.
• There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the management and the workmen.

Scientific Management - Further Points

• Frank and Lillian Gilbreth used motion study to simplify work and improve productivity by eliminating unnecessary motions.
• Motion study consists of breaking each task into separate motions.
• Motion study typically resulted in production increases ranging from 25 to 300 percent.
• Motion studies also impacted the employment of disabled workers and Lillian had an impact on workplace safety, ergonomics, and child labor.
• Henry Gantt developed the Gantt chart.
• The Gantt chart shows all tasks that should be completed and when.

Bureaucratic Management

• Max Weber introduced the idea of bureaucracy.
• Bureaucracy involves exercising control through knowledge, expertise, or experience, rather than favoritism or birthright.

Elements of Bureaucratic Management

• Qualification based hiring
• Merit-based promotion
• Chain of command
• Division of labor
• Impartial application of rules and procedures
• Records in writing
• Managers separate from owners

Beneficial Improvements of Bureaucratic Management

• Bureaucratic Management improves organizational functioning
• It replaces fairness with favoritism
• Its goal of efficiency replaces personal gain
• Logical rules replace arbitrary decision making

Principles of Management by Henry Fayol

• Division of work
• Authority and responsibility
• Discipline
• Unity of command
• Unity of direction
• Subordination of individual interests to the general interests
• Remuneration
• Centralization
• Scalar chain
• Order
• Equity
• Stability of tenure of personnel
• Initiative
• Esprit de corps

Human Relations Management

• Mary Parker Follett developed an approach of integrative conflict resolution.
• Integrative conflict resolution looks for alternatives that meet both parties' needs.
• Elton Mayo played a significant role in Hawthorne Studies.
• Mayo helped people understand the effects of group interactions, employee satisfaction, and group dynamics on individual and group performance.

Hawthorne Studies: Elton Mayo

• Human factors related to work are more important than physical conditions.
• Workers are not just extensions of machines, and financial incentives are not always the most important motivators.
• Managers better understood the effect of group social interactions, employee satisfaction, and attitudes on individual and group performance.

Human Relations Management - Further Points

• Chester Barnard proposed a comprehensive theory of cooperation in formal organizations.
• Organization - System of consciously coordinated activities or forces created by two or more people.
• Willing cooperation within an organization relies on workers perceiving executive authority and willingness to accept it.

Operations Management

• It Uses quantitative methods to find how to:
  • Increase productivity
  • Improve quality
  • Manage/reduce costly inventories
• Methods
  • Quality control, forecasting, capacity planning, linear programming, scheduling and inventory systems, project management, and cost-benefit analysis

Operations Management - Key Figures

• Eli Whitney - Private gun contractor
  • Introduced the concept of manufacturing using standardized, interchangeable parts
• Gaspard Monge
  • Explained techniques for drawing three-dimensional objects on paper
• Oldsmobile Motor Work
  • Invented just-in-time inventory systems

Information Management

• The paper and printing press revolutionized the business use of information.
• Typewriters and personal computers enabled easier and faster business correspondence.
• Telegraph, telephone, and Internet increased access to timely information.

Systems Management

• System: set of interrelated elements/parts that function as a whole.
• Subsystems: smaller systems operating within a larger system.
• Synergy: occurs when subsystems produce more together than apart.
• Types:
  • Closed systems sustain themselves without interacting with their environments.
  • Open systems sustain themselves only by interacting with their environments.

Contingency Management

• Contingency approach: there are no universal management theories.
• Effective management theory depends on problems managers are facing at a particular time and place.
• Management is harder.
• Managers must look out for key contingencies that differentiate today's situation from yesterday's.