The situational Orientation of Modern Management

Management involves the organization and coordination of a business entity and its everyday activities with an aim at achieving its defined objectives. The management function is usually included as a factor of production alongside the materials, machines, and finances. According to Peter Drucker, the primary task of management includes both innovation and marketing. Modern management practice borrows from Thomas More’s (1478-1535) study of certain enterprises in light of their inefficiency and failures. Consequently, management can be said as consisting of the interlocking functions of policy-making together with planning, organizing, controlling, and directing of corporate resources to achieve policy objectives. Besides overseeing their organizations, managers are responsible for making vital decisions. However, the combination of both classic management concepts and emerging trends makes it hard for any single management theory to be universally acceptable in decision-making in today’s dynamic world. To support this assertion, it is imperative to conduct a useful perspective of both the historical and current approaches to management.  An understanding of these key approaches to management theory and practice helps us appreciate the evolution of management, where it lies today, and its possible future. Thus, this paper will discuss both the historical (scientific, bureaucratic and human relations) and the contemporary (contingency, systems, and management by objectives) theories of management in order to comprehend the range of complicating factors which prevent the practice of management from ever becoming an exact science.  

The Historical Perspective

            Under the historical context, three important theories of management are worth studying namely: the scientific theory, the bureaucratic theory, and the human relations approach. Frederick Winslow Taylor was among the earliest theorists of management with his scientific management ideology. Together with his associates, Taylor studied how work was performed and how affected worker productivity. Taylor’s perspective focused on the notion that making people work harder was not efficient as compared to optimizing how the work was done.                                                                                                                                                   The scientific management theory asserts that there is one best way of doing something. Thus, it is in conflict with modern approaches like the contingency approach and management by objectives which promote personal responsibility and pushing the decision-making process through all organizational levels. A central idea in scientific management is that employees are given more autonomy so in order for them to employ appropriate approaches in managing the situation at hand. However, teamwork is one area where pure scientific theory is in opposition to modern practice. Essentially, scientific theory breaks tasks into small steps to focus on how individuals can better do their specific series of steps. The methodologies of today prefer a holistic examination to work systems to evaluate efficiency and thus maximize productivity. Therefore, the deeper specialization that scientific theory calls for is against the modern ideals of providing a motivating and satisfying work environment.                                                                        Taylorism and most scientific approaches separate manual from mental work. On the other hand, today’s productivity enhancement practices require that ideas, experience and knowledge of employees be incorporated in the workplace. Thus scientific management theory in its pure state will emphasize more on the mechanics and fail to value people as part of the of work.  It is imperative to note that motivation and job satisfaction are vital ingredients in an efficient and productive firm. However, despite the fact that scientific management being not practiced widely today, it has provided a number of significant contributions towards the development of management practice, especially if incorporated or used alongside other management approaches.                                                                                                                                            The second theory under the historical context is the bureaucratic approach to management. This theory is conceptualized as having potential for replicability, scalability, and sustainability due to its reliance on formal structures (Gittell-Douglass, 2012). However, bureaucratic approaches lack the capacity for caring, being timely, and offering informed responses to emergent situations. The bureaucratic approach segments the organization into areas of functional specialization. It shapes their communication and thought processes into areas of narrow expertise. As posited by Weber, information under this approach is mainly integrated at the top and only moves within functional silos, while those on the frontline work with some autonomy but only within their area of expertise. Bureaucratic management has four major characteristics that each has some advantages over other management approaches. These characteristics are professionalism, functional specialization, reliance on formal rules, and hierarchy without domination (Gittell-Douglass, 2012). For instance, this approach’s emphasis on formal rules is a substantial improvement over both the relational and despotic approaches where work is done through personal favors.  Moreover, bureaucracy, through functional specialization, capitalizes on division of labor to rest expert training and a functional specialization of work.                                                                                                                                      On the other hand, there are some shortcomings of the bureaucratic approach. If solely relied upon, the bureaucratic approach limits the managerial span of attention given that all coordination is realized from the hierarchy’s apex (Gittell-Douglass, 2012). An over reliance to this approach will thus foster inattentiveness to emerging situations. Even Marx Weber was worried that the depersonalization that is characterized with bureaucratic processes coupled with its inhibition of emotional connection would result in alienation and disabling of the human spirit. Applied alone, bureaucracy can fragment the emotional from the rational; just as it does to parts of the whole. Therefore, the bureaucratic approach can be said to work well in some situations but work poorly in other situations, especially those characterized with modern life. To be more specific, the bureaucratic approach will work relatively well in slow-moving and predictable environments as opposed to uncertain, ambiguous and complex ones (Gittell-Douglass, 2012).   Thus, the bureaucratic approach also passes as one method that does not provide the one best way of management.                                                                                                      The other historical approach of interest is the human relation theory.  The human relations theory and its idea of creating conducive work environment is attributed to Elton Mayo who criticized the industrial society (O’Connor, 1999). With more division of labor and an uncontrolled work environment, workers were subjected into immense boredom, discontent and restlessness that manifested itself in frequent outbursts of violence that usually targeted the management. According to Mayo, a positive work environment results in employee morale, motivation, collaboration and reduces absenteeism and turnover. Another assertion of the human relations approach is that supervisors need to form close relationships with their subjects in order to reduce management-employee friction. The shortcomings of this approach are portrayed within the precincts of identifying the good and preventing what is bad (O’Connor, 1999). Hence, employing an effective approach towards the mistakes of people is very important. A lack of a comprehensive evaluation of the factors and the balances involved will beget counterproductive results. Thus, this approach also does not stand alone in the management process and it requires to be integrated among other approaches.  

The Contemporary Perspective

            The contingency, systems, and MBO theories fall under the contemporary perspective of management. In the 1960s and 1970s, Fred Fiedler pioneered the area of contingency management. Fiedler suggested that the level to which junior staff like or trust their superiors/manager, the degree at which tasks are structured, and the manager’s formal authority are major influences of a leadership situation (Smith & Lewis, 2011). Thus task or relationship oriented leadership would each work properly if they correspond to the characteristics of the situation. As the business environment become more global, competitive and fast paced, and as the internal processes become complex, contradictory demands increasingly become persistent and salient (Dweck, 2006). The contingency approach offers a single response to tensions since it explores conditions for choosing among competing demands. The managers’ responses to organizational tensions may be key determinants of its fate. Hence, contingency theory assesses the conditions that compel managers to choose between exploratory and exploitative measures in decision-making (Smith & Lewis, 2011). According to the contingency lens, organizational success depends on an alignment between the internal system and the external environment. Thus, the role of the manager in this regard is to identify and then resolve tensions.                                                                                                         However, a paradox perspective has been developed to offer an alternative (Smith & Lewis, 2011). Just like the contingency approach, a paradox perspective pursues tensions across phenomena in all levels. As opposed to the contingency approach, the paradox perspective assumes the existence of tensions within dynamic and complex systems. These underlying tensions are not only normal but, if harnessed, can be beneficial and powerful. Thus, in as much as the contingency approach remains influential as a model for organizational theorizing, the paradox perspective has also emerged to offer a timely alternative. Therefore, as organizations continue to face conditions of change, plurality and scarcity, the salience of persistent tensions is not only increase but also the effectiveness of singular management strategies is challenged.          A system is simply a collection of parts (or subsystems) put together to accomplish a general goal (a system of people is an organization) (Corley & Gioia, 2011). Systems have inputs, processes, and outputs with ongoing feedback. The removal of one part of the system results in change in the system’s nature.  Many management theorists happily identify with this ideology that has consequently resulted in an approach that purports to develop the ultimate unification all sciences into one great conceptual model. The systems approach was propagated into the limelight in 1961 by Scott when he illustrated the relationship between organization theory and general systems theory (Corley & Gioia, 2011). The systems approach has been praised due to its potential usefulness in comprehending the complexities of organizations. The systems theory has provided some relief from the shortcomings of rather mechanistic approaches. It has also provided a rationale for dismissing principles that are premised on a somehow closed-system thinking.                                                                                                                However, many unresolved dilemmas have been suggested by experience in utilizing the theory’s concepts. For instance, contingency views reflect a step toward more explicit relationship patterns, and a more applicable theory. The systems theory lays more emphasis on the survival goal of the organism as opposed to relating to the issue of the entire system’s effectiveness in its suprasystem (the environment) (Corley & Gioia, 2011). This observation implies that issues pertaining to the organization’s effectiveness need to be concerned with three levels of analysis: the environment, social organization as a system, and the subsystems (employees) within the organization. Consequently, many managers are using both the systems approach alongside the contingency approach implicitly and intuitively. Hence, this signifies that even the systems theory cannot stand alone as a best way approach to modern management.                                    Management by objectives (MBO) is another contemporary management approach that was developed by Peter Drucker where a balance is often sought between the employees’ objectives and those of the organization. Thus, MBO is about when, why and how organizational objectives can be achieved (Drucker, 2007). The essence of Drucker’s fundamental principle is to identify joint objectives and then provide feedback on the results. This approach asserts that challenging but attainable objectives enhance both employee motivation and empowerment. By increasing commitment, the managers are provided with an opportunity to focus on fresh concepts and innovation that leads to both the development and objectives of their organizations (Drucker, 2007). However, Drucker points out to five conditions that must be met for this approach to be effective: determining the organizational objectives, translating organizational objectives to workers, stimulating employee participation when determining objectives, monitoring progress, and evaluating to award reward achievements.                                                                                                           It can be said that the MBO approach was designed to enhance organizational performance at all levels. Therefore, a comprehensive system for evaluation is essential in this approach. It is only the formulation of SMART goals and objectives that can make the evaluation processes very easy (Drucker, 2007). It, therefore, implies that Drucker’s five steps can never be a one-off exercise. Rather, it is a development cycle where the organizational objectives are taken as a starting point and hence they are supposed to be translated to a personal level.      Managerial theory and other models implied suffer from prescribing a single best way approaches for all management circumstances. It is therefore clear that most management prescriptions lie in their consistency with the specific circumstances to which they apply.

References

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Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.

Smith, W., & Lewis, M. (2011). Toward a Theory of Paradox: A Dynamic Equilibrium Model of Organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36 (2): 381–403.

Gittell, G. Douglass, A. (2012).  Relational Bureaucracy: Structuring Reciprocal Relationships      into Roles. Academy of Management Review, 37 (4): 709–733.

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