Management Thoughts Classical school

1. Management Thoughts Classical school

2. 1. Classical school 1.1 Classical scientific school The classical scientific branch arose because of the need to increase productivity and efficiency. The emphasis was on trying to find the best way to get the most work done by examining how the work process was actually accomplished. The classical scientific school owes its roots to several major contributors, including Frederick Taylor, Henry Gantt, Frank, Gilbreth. Frederick Taylor is called the “father of scientific management.” Taylor believed that organizations should study tasks and develop precise procedures. As an example, in 1898, redesigning the shovels the workers used, Taylor was able to decrease the number of people shoveling from 500 to 140.

3. Basic assumption is that there is one best way to do any job • Developing new standard methods for doing each job • Selecting, training, and developing workers instead of allowing them to choose their own tasks and train themselves (work scrutiny and specialization) • Developing a spirit of cooperation between workers and management to ensure that work is carried out in accordance with devised procedures • Dividing work between workers and management in almost equal shares, with each group taking over the work for which it is best (division of work & specialization)

4. 1.2 Classical administrative school Whereas scientific management focused on the productivity of individuals, the classical administrative approach concentrates on the total organization. The emphasis is on the development of managerial principles rather than work methods. Contributors to this school of thought include Max Weber, Henri Fayol, Mary Parker Follett, and Chester Barnard. These theorists studied the flow of information within an organization and emphasized the importance of understanding how an organization operated.

5. Max Weber : In the late 1800s, he disliked that many European organizations were managed on a “personal” family-like basis and that employees were loyal to individual supervisors rather than to the organization. He believed that organizations should be managed impersonally, professionally and that a formal organizational structure, where specific rules were followed. This nonpersonal, objective form of organization was called a bureaucracy.

6. Weber’s Principles of Bureaucracy

7. Weber believed that all bureaucratic organization have the following characteristics: A well-defined hierarchy. All positions within a bureaucracy are structured in a way that permits the higher positions to supervise and control the lower positions. This clear chain of command facilitates control and order throughout the organization. Division of labor and specialization. All responsibilities in an organization are specialized so that each employee has the necessary expertise to do a particular task. Rules and regulations.Standard operating procedures govern all organizational activities to provide certainty and facilitate coordination.

8. Impersonal relationships between managers and employees. Managers should maintain an impersonal relationship with employees so that favoritism and personal prejudice do not influence decisions. Competence. Competence, not “who you know,” should be the basis for all decisions made in hiring, job assignments, and promotions in order to foster ability and merit as the primary characteristics of a bureaucratic organization. Records. A bureaucracy needs to maintain complete files regarding all its activities.

9. Henri Fayol, a French mining engineer & CEO, developed 14 principles of management based on his management experiences. These principles provide modern-day managers with general guidelines on how a supervisor should organize her department and manage her staff. Although later research has created controversy over many of the principles, they are still widely used in management theories.

10. Criticisms of Classical School From organized labor • too much pressure to perform placed on the workers • unfair division of rewards between management and labor From behavioral scientists (later) • presents an oversimplified approach to worker motivation • pays insufficient attention to social factors in the workplace that affect worker behavior • too authoritarian in approach • demands excessive specialization of jobs and tasks

11. The human relations school

12. The human relations approach to management • Popular during the 1940s and into the 1950s • This approach to management grew out of eight years of studies by MIT Professors Mayo, Roethlisberger, and Dickson. The studies culminated in the publication in 1939 of Management and the Worker.

13. The studies took place at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company near Chicago. • The researchers found that the largest effect on workers productivity did not result from the lighting or temperature or any other physical element in the workplace, but rather on the workers’ relationships with each other and with their supervisors. • The Hawthorne Effect is the name given to the finding that workers perform better when they know they are given special attention. • (supervision)

14. The findings led to an emphasis on building relationships between managers and workers • It was believed that improving this relationship would result in worker satisfaction with their job and subsequent improved worker performance

15. One of the major conclusions of the Hawthorne studies was that “workers' attitudes are associated with productivity” Another was that the workplace is a social system and informal group influence could exert a powerful effect on individual behavior

16. Criticisms of human relations approach • Criticized widely for ignoring the reality of business life and economic variables • Accused of equating high morale with high productivity • Accused of representing a naive and simplistic view of the nature of man • “There are a lot of happy but unproductive workers”.

17. Systems Theory “what is a system?” A system is a collection of part unified to accomplish an overall goal. If one part of the system is removed, the nature of the system is changed as well. For example, a pile of sand is not a system. If one removes a sand particle, you’ve still got a pile of sand. However, a functioning car is a system. Remove the carburetor and you’ve no longer got a working car. A system can be looked at as having inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes.

18. At an organization. • Inputs would include resources such as raw materials, money, technologies and people. These inputs go through a process where they’re planned, organized, motivated and controlled, ultimately to meet the organization’s goals. Outputs would be products or services to a market. • Outputs would be, e.g., enhanced quality of life or productivity for customers/clients, productivity. • Feedback would be information from human resources carrying out the process, customers/clients using the products, etc. Feedback also comes from the larger environment of the organization, e.g., influences from government, society, economics, and technologies. • This overall system framework applies to any system, including subsystems (departments, programs, etc.) in the overall organization.

19. The Organization as an Open System The

20. What a system like organization should look for? ………Synergy • Performance that results when individuals and departments coordinate their actions • Performance gains of the whole surpass the sum of the performance of the individual components.

21. Systems theory may seem quite basic. Yet, decades of management training and practices in the workplace have not followed this theory. This interpretation has brought about a significant change (or paradigm shift) in the way management studies and approaches organizations.

22. Contingency Theory of Mgt.

23. Contingency Theory • No “the solution” • Basically, contingency theory asserts that when managers make a decision, they must take into account all aspects of the current situation and act on those aspects that are key to the situation at hand. • Basically, it’s the approach that “it depends.” For

24. example, the continuing effort to identify the best leadership or management style might now conclude that the best style depends on the situation. • If one is leading troops in the Persian Gulf, an autocratic style is probably best (of course, many might argue here, too).If one is leading a college, a more participative and facilitative leadership style is probably best.

25. Contingency theories are a class of theory that contend: • that there is no one best way of organizing / leading in general managing and that an organizational / leadership style that is effective in some situations may not be successful in others. • In other words: The optimal management style is contingent upon various internal and external constraints.

26. Four important ideas of Contingency Theory are: 1. There is no universal or one best way to manage 2. The design of an organization and its subsystems must 'fit' with the environment 3. Effective organizations not only have a proper 'fit' with the environment but also between its subsystems4. The needs of an organization are better satisfied when it is properly designed and the management style is appropriate.

27. Contingency theories of decision making (Vroom and Yetton, 1973). • Effectiveness of a decision procedure depends upon a number of aspects of the situation: • the importance of the decision quality and acceptance • the amount of relevant information possessed by the leader and subordinates • the amount of disagreement among subordinates with respect to their preferred alternatives

28. Robert Blake and Jane Mouton Model. Autocratic leader