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Practical Tasks:

Exercise 1. Give the definitions of the notions: practical managers and social scientist.

Exercise 2. Think of the synonyms to the following words: to think over, own, to manufacture, to use, vice versa, investigation, to forecast, all-embracing, research, purpose, possibility.

Exercise 3. Answer the questions:

  1. Who have contributed to the understanding of management?

  2. What’s the contribution of practical managers to management theory?

  3. What’s the contribution of scientific managers to management theory?

  4. What’s the contribution of social managers to management theory?

  5. What were the views of the earliest social managers?

  6. How have they been called?

  7. What is Neo-Human Research School?

  8. What are their views?

Exercise 4. Discussion:

  1. Is management theory up-to-date and demanded? Why?

  2. Is it necessary to study management theory for managers? May be practice is quite enough?

Text 2. Classical Theories.

The classical approach to management was primarily concerned with the structure and activities of formal, or official, organisation. Issues such as the division of work, the establishment of a hierarchy of authority, and the span of control were seen to be of the utmost importance in the achievement of an effective organisation. The two greatest exponents of classical theories were undoubtedly Henri Fayol (1841-1925) and F.W.Taylor (1856-1915). Between them these two practising managers laid the foundations of ideas about the organisation of people at work and the organisation of work itself. At first these ideas were developed separately, Fayol in France and Taylor in the United States. By the 1930's their work was being promoted and developed by writers such as L.F.Urwick and E.F.L.Brech on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bureaucracy. While Fayol and Taylor were grappling with the problems of management, a German sociologist, Max Weber (1864-1924), was developing a theory of authority structures in which he identified a form of organisation to which he gave the name 'bureaucracy'. The distinguishing features of a bureaucracy were a definition of roles within a hierarchy, where jobholders were appointed on merit, were subject to rules and were expected to behave impartially.

Human Relations and Social Psychological Schools. The fundamental idea behind the human relations approach to management is that people's needs are the decisive factor in achieving organisational effectiveness. The leading figure of human relations was Professor Elton Mayo, whose association with the so-called 'Hawthorne Studies' between 1927 and 1932 provided an enormous impetus to considerations of the human factor at work. Many of the issues raised by Mayo and his colleagues were taken up in the post-war years by American social psychologists. An early major influence here was Abraham Maslow's work on motivation based on a hierarchy of human needs, ranging from basic physiological needs (food, sleep etc) to higher psychological needs, such as self-fulfilment. Other important contributors included McGregor, Argyris, Likert and Herzberg.

Systems and Contingency Approaches. By the late 1960s another group of theories began to challenge the dominance of human relations and psychology. These were theories that viewed organisations as complex systems of people, tasks and technology. The early work on this approach was conducted by British researchers from the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, who, despite their title, recognised that human or social factors alone were not the most important consideration in achieving organisational effectiveness. They recognised that organisations were part of a larger environment with which they interacted and in particular were affected by technical and economic factors just as much as social ones. They coined the phrase 'open socio-technical system' to describe their concept of a business enterprise. An 'open' social system is one that interacts with its environment, eg a commercial enterprise, a 'closed' social system is self-contained, eg a strict monastic community.

Arising out of the open systems approach is an essentially pragmatic 'theory' which argues that there is no one theory at present which can guarantee the effectiveness of an organisation. Management has to select a mix of theories which seems to meet the needs of the organisation and its internal and external pressures at a particular period in its life. This has been termed a contingency approach to management. Notable exponents of this approach are Pugh and colleagues in the United Kingdom, and Lawrence and Lorsch in the United States.

Modern Approaches to Management. The emphasis in management theorising over the last twenty years has been on organisational effectiveness with its focus on strategic issues. This emphasis implies more than just efficiency, which is concerned with 'doing things right'. Effectiveness is primarily a question of 'doing the right things' even more than performing them efficiently. Thus, the concerns of modern theorists have been topics such as developing strategic mission and implanting organisational values/culture (i.e. doing the right things) as well as on managing change, promoting total quality management, achieving organisational excellence, facilitating personal empowerment and optimising stakeholder relationships.

Conclusion. The task of management is carried out in the context of an organisation. Over the past eighty years or so the development of coherent theories to explain organisational performance has moved away from approaches that relied purely on a consideration of structural or human relations issues in favour of more comprehensive perspectives. Early ideas about management were propounded at a time when organisations were thought of as machines requiring efficient systems to enable them to function effectively. The emphasis, therefore, was on the efficient use of resources, especially human resources, in the service of a mechanistic model of organisations. Later theorists modified this approach by taking account of social and environmental as well as technical factors in.