CH 2- Management, Yesterday and Today 

Historical background: Ancient management

• Egypt’s pyramids                 - Great wall of china         - Venetians (warships)

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Adam smith: advocated the division of labour to increase productivity

Industrial revolution:

• Substitute machine for human labour
• Created large organisms in need for management

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Mind-map of Management theories:

1. Scientific Management:

Frederick Winslow Taylor: father of scientific management

Theory: using scientific methods to define define the “one best way” for a job to be done

• Putting the right person on the job with the correct tools and equipment
• Having standardised method of doing the job
• Providing an economic incentive to the worker

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Frank and Lillian Gilbreth:

• Focused on increasing worker productivity through the reduction of wasted motion
• Developed an instrument (microchronometer) to time worker motions and optimise their performance

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Current uses of scientific method:

• Use time and motion studies to increase productivity

• Hire qualified employees

• Provide incentive systems based on output

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1. General Administrative Theory

Is characterised by people "on the ground" who share personal experiences, improve practices, and help others to run an organisation.

Administrative management theory primarily focuses on improving the efficiency of management so that lower-level employees can recognize appropriately and the tasks can be done consistently \n

Henri Foyol

• Believed that the practice of management was distinct from other organisational functions
• Developed 14 principles of management that applied to all organisation situations

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Max Weber

• Developed a theory of authority based on an ideal type of organisation (bureaucracy)

• Emphasized: rationality, predictability,impersonality, technical skills, authoritarianism

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1. Quantitative Approach:

“Operations research / management science”

Is a research strategy that focuses on quantifying the collection and analysis of data.

• Evolved from maths and statistical methods to solve WW2 problems

Focuses on improving managerial decision making by:

• Statistics

• Optimisation models

• Information models

• Computer simulations

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1. Organisation Behaviour:

The study of people at work, people are the most important asset of an organisation

• Early OB advocates: - Robert owen     - Hugo Munsterberg     - Mary Follett

-Chester Barnard

• Hawthorne Studies: series of productivity experiments conducted from 1927-1932

• Experimental findings: productivity increased under imposed adverse working conditions

• Effect incentive plans was less than expected

  \n Research findings:

• Social norms, group standards, and attitudes influence individual output and work behaviour more strongly than monetary incentives

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5. The systems approach:

Systems: set of interrelated and interdependent parts arranged in a manner that provides a unified whole

Types of systems:

• Closed systems: are not influenced by and do not interact with their environment (all system input/output is internal)
• Open systems: dynamically interact to their environments by taking in inputs and transforming them into outputs that are distributed into their environments

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Map of open system:

• Coordination of the organisation’s parts is essential for proper functioning of the entire organisation
• Decisions and actions taken in one area of the organisation will have an effect in other areas of the organisations
• Organisations are not self-contained and must adapt to changes in their external environment

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6. The Contingency Approach:

“Situational approach”: no one universally applicable set of management rules by which to manage organisations

• Organisations are individually different, face different situations (contingency variables), and require different ways of managing

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Contingency variables:

• Organisation size
• Routineness of task technology
• Environmental uncertainty
• Individual differences

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Current trends and issues:

• Globalisation
• Ethics
• Workforce diversity: increasing heterogeneity in the workforce

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Entrepreneurship: process  of starting new businesses, generally in response to opportunities

Entrepreneurship process:

• Pursuit of opportunities
• Innovation in products, services, or business methods
• Desire for continual growth of the organisation

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E-business: electronic business

1. E-business enhanced organisation: e-business units within traditional organisations
2. E-business enabled organisation: e-business tools and applications used within traditional organisation
3. Total E-business organisation: organisation’s entire work processes revolve around e-business model

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Learning organisations: organisation that has been developed the capacity to continuously learn+adapt, and change

Knowledge organisations: cultivation of a learning culture where organisation members gather and share knowledge to achieve better performance

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Quality Management:

• Philosophy of management driven by continual improvement in the quality of work processes + responding to customer needs and expectations

→ Quality is not directly related to cost

→ Poor quality results in lower productivity

→ intense focus on the customer

→ empowerment of employees

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