SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

THOUGHTS

PRESENTED BY:- VIVEK PRATAP SINGH

introduction• The purpose of studying various schools of management thought

is to enable you to recognize and appreciate how developments in the field of management could contribute to current practices.

• An examination of these past and present approaches can help to discover the strengths and weaknesses of current managerial practices and finally enable you, as a potential manager of an information centre, to choose appropriate management styles.

• Today’s management is both a reflection of and a reaction to past management theories.

THE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT THOUGHTS

• Scientific Management• Administrative Management• Bureaucratic Organization• Human Relations School• Behavioural Schools• Systems Theory• Contingency Theory• Organizational Humanism• Management Science

THEORY IN MANAGEMENT• Management is an applied science.• Management theory has evolved in a symbiotic relationship to its

related and supporting disciplines like mathematics, statistics and behavioural sciences, depriving the motivation to devise its own conceptual framework independent of related disciplines. Moreover, management research has been kept psychologically and philosophically closer to practice than to theory.

• To become a theory, an experience or practice needs to undergo several modifications, syntheses and tests.

CLASSIFICATION OF MANAGEMENT THEORIES

• i) Classical management theory• ii) Neoclassical management theory• iii) Modern management theory• Under each group a few schools of thought are identified.

CLASSICAL MANAGEMENT THEORY

• Classical management theory consists of a group of similar ideas on the management of Organizations. it generally concerns ways to manage work and organizations more efficiently.

• Scientific Management• Administrative Management• Bureaucratic Organization• The predominant and common characteristic to all three branches is

the emphasis on the economic rationality of management and organization.

• The economic rationality of the individual employee at work assumes that people choose the course of action that maximizes their economic reward.

Scientific Management

• Scientific management was introduced in an attempt to create a mental revolution in the workplace.

• It can be defined as the systematic study of work methods in order to improve efficiency

• In the late 19th century, management decisions were often arbitrary and workers often worked at an intentionally slow pace. There was little in the way of systematic management and workers and management were often in conflict.

Administrative Management

• Focuses on the management process and principles of management.

• In contrast to scientific management, which deals largely with jobs and work at the individual level of analysis, administrative management provides a more general theory of management.

• Henri Fayol is the major contributor to this school of management thought and according to him this school basically deals with people in system.

• Although administrative management has been criticized as being rigid and inflexible and the validity of the functional approach to management has been questioned, this school of thought still influences management theory and practice

• The functional approach to management is still the dominant way of organizing management knowledge, and many of Fayol's principles of management, when applied with the flexibility that he advocated, are still considered relevant.

Bureaucratic Management

• It focuses on ideal form of organization and follows the same.• Max Weber was the major contributor. Weber's theory

of bureaucratic management also has two essential elements. First, it entails structuring an organization into a hierarchy. Secondly, the organization and its members are governed by clearly defined rational-legal decision-making rules.

• Based on observation, he concluded that many early organizations were inefficiently managed, with decisions based on personal relationships and loyalty.

NEO-CLASSICAL THEORY• The Neo-classical theory, which is identified with the

period from 1920s to 1950s, is concerned with the human oriented approach and emphasized the needs, drives, behaviours and attitudes of people.

• Human Relations School• Behavioural Schools

Human Relations School

• the manager should possess skills for diagnosing the causes of human behavior at work, interpersonal communication, and motivating and leading workers, the focus became satisfying worker needs. If worker needs were satisfied, wisdom held, the workers would in turn be more productive.

• Thus, the human relations school focuses on issues of communication, leadership, motivation, and group behavior.

• The human relations school of thought still influences management theory and practice, as contemporary management focuses much attention on human resource management, organizational behavior, and applied psychology in the workplace.

The Behavioral School

• developed, in part, because of perceived weaknesses in the assumptions of the classical school.

• The classical school emphasized efficiency, process, and principles. Some felt that this emphasis disregarded important aspects of organizational life, particularly as it related to human behavior.

• Thus, the behavioral school focused on trying to understand the factors that affect human behavior at work.

MODERN MANAGEMENT THEORY

• Modern management theory highlights the complexity of the organization as well as individuals and the diversity of their needs, motives, aspirations and potentials.

• Systems Theory• Contingency Theory• Organizational Humanism• Management Science

Systems Theory

• This has emerged as a way of looking at the organization as a whole not as people or some task.

• A system is an entity made up of two or more interdependent parts that interact to form a functioning organism.

Contingency Theory

• The contingency approach stresses the absence of a single best way to manage and emphasizes the need for managerial strategies based on all relevant facts.

• This theory says that organization must be designed to fit its situation, particularly the organizations environment and the technology it uses.

Organizational Humanism

• This school of thought is an extension of behavioural schools of neoclassical theory and hence has much in common with behavioural schools.

• The underlying philosophy of this school is that individuals need to use all of their capacities and creative skills at work as well as at home.

Management Science

• the management science approach also known as quantitative approach is evolved from the early application of some of the scientific management techniques of classical theorists.

• This approach facilitated disciplined thinking, achieving precision and perfection by expressing relationships among variables and facts in quantitative terms.

PROBLEMS AND CONFLICTS IN MANAGEMENT THEORIES:

• It also appears that unification of different schools of thought, of the theories in management is unlikely and each will maintain its viewpoint

• Management theories have to be dynamic and embrace a number of upcoming subjects and concepts.

• The recent trend is to play greater attention to comparative management theory, which emphasizes cross-cultural ‘study as well as variations within a given culture.

SUMMARY

• There are many more names of schools of management thoughts in the literature of management, but most of them substantially overlap one another. There are also problems in synthesizing a unified theory of management for all possible environment as management methods vary with the requirement in the situation.

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