The Evolution of Management - Case Study Example

Running head: EVOLUTION OF MANAGEMENT The Evolution of Management: From the ical Perspective to a Globalized Work Setting Your College The Evolution of Management: From the Classical Perspective to a Globalized Work Setting Management is a crucial piece of organizational success. Without competent management, the tasks and goals of lower levels within a business or group stand without direction or purpose. Therefore, it is important for managers to be well educated and well informed about principles that could prove to be the difference between going under and staying ahead. The principles of management have changed dramatically within the past century, shifting between a classical perspective, to a humanist perspective, to a scientific perspective that takes into account the various technological and globalizing principles occurring within the modern workforce. Regards, some elements of effective management have remained true throughout all of these changes, including the necessity of innovation and the importance of culture. By analyzing each of these elements in terms of one’s own work experiences, a student of management can develop both a complete picture of how management has evolved through the years and how seemingly outdated principles can serve as a useful guide toward driving success from one’s team. The formal study of management is relatively recent, despite the fact that individuals have been managing others within organizations since ancient times. The earliest studies of management principles began with the classical perspective, which emerged during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This was brought on by the factory system that appeared in the 1800s during the Industrial Revolution. During this time, work was increasingly centralized into one location, as opposed to the rural agricultural setting in which most of the world worked before that point. Another distinctive feature about the factory system was the organizational structure that needed to be enforced in order for effective and efficient work processes to start. In the absence of effective management principles, factories could not cope with training employees, scheduling complex manufacturing operations, and handling increases in labor dissatisfaction among workers. Accordingly, a better management system and a more efficient factory became the subject of an increasingly academic interest among intellectuals (Daft & Marcic, 2008, p. 24). In response to this problem, the number of professional managers increased nearly sevenfold between 1880 and 1920. These managers developed and tested solutions to the challenge of organizing, coordinating, and managing large groups of people and their productivity. At this point, modern management through the classical perspective became necessary for large businesses with many employees. Within the classical perspective, there are three different emphases or subfields: (1) scientific management, (2) bureaucratic organization, and (3) administrative principles (Daft & Marcic, 2008, p. 25). Scientific management refers to scientifically determined changes in management practices as the solution to improving labor productivity. This movement was carried through by Frederick Winslow Taylor, who believed that improving productivity meant that management should change accordingly and that the nature of this change should conform to scientific principles. This involved the application of science to estimate the productivity of each worker and the attempt to maximize that productivity by analyzing situations that workers find themselves in. Another subfield, that of bureaucratic organizations, became popular in Europe following the late-19th century in the belief that a rational authority would lead to higher productivity. This theory was based on the observations of sociologist Max Weber, who thought that the depersonalization of the hierarchical workplace led to a more objective standard for success. A third subfield, that of administrative principles, focused on the total organization rather than individual workers. In this system, scientific principles would not be applied to individual workers, but to the whole organization. The principles advocated under this approach were applied to a wide variety of business contexts. The classical perspective, which incorporates each of the above subfields, led to a more skillful approach to management. By embracing scientific accuracy, managers could take a more fundamental role in directing the productivity of their workers. However, other techniques for management emerged in the early-20th century that challenged the “objective” or “rational” approach typified by the classical perspective. The humanistic perspective sought to ground management principles in an understanding of human behavior, needs, and attitudes in the workplace. This incorporated the idea of human relations and human resources. "Human relations" refers to the thought that the satisfaction of employees’ needs leads to greater productivity. Psychologists demonstrated this principle with the Hawthorne studies, in which worker productivity was measured against changes in the workplace. However, regardless of the particular changes taking place, workers became more productive because of the simple fact that management was paying attention to their needs. As a result, managers within the humanistic perspective began to pay attention to human relations and human resources, which addresses the higher-level needs of employees (Daft & Marcic, 2008, p. 30). After World War II, management principles changed quite dramatically. The management science perspective, which emphasized mathematics, statistics, and other quantitative measures, emerged as the dominant paradigm. Within management science, the total quality management (TQM) philosophy of W. Edwards Deming took hold through the 1980s and 1990s (Daft & Marcic, 2008, p. 33). TQM is the view that focuses on managing a whole organization in order to achieve the highest quality product. This involves involving employees, focusing on the customer, continuously improving, and benchmarking progress. Managers can involve employees by giving them task significance, or giving employees an idea of how their work contributes to the product. Benchmarking and continuous improvement refers to the implementation of small goals, based on objective standards, in order to achieve a better result going forward. Lastly, focusing on the customer involves on ensuring that each customer is satisfied with what the company has produced. Arguably, the total quality management theory within the management science perspective is still the dominant paradigm of management school today. Six Sigma, which was a business management strategy developed in the 1980s, is still widely used today among the world’s largest and most successful corporations, and it is very much a part of the TQM tradition (Tennant, 2001, p. 10). Six Sigma strategy is based on the idea that companies should improve the quality of outputs by removing the causes of errors and variability in manufacturing and business processes. TQM and management science is unique from the classical perspective to the extent that it is focused neither on the individual nor on the system. Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of scientific management within the classical perspective, once said, “In the past the man has been first. In the future, the system must be first” (Wheeler, 2010). In this way, the classical perspective is unique from the humanistic perspective because classical is focused on the system and humanistic is focused on the individual’s lower- and higher-level needs. The modern perspective of management science, through the TQM theory, is focused most of all on the process and the product of that process. Six Sigma, for instance, says nothing about how to increase productivity of the workers by focusing management’s attention to them as individuals and it says nothing about how to increase productivity of the workers by applying scientific principles. Instead, it focuses on the process and how it could be made less volatile, less defective, and more efficient. However, this is not to say that modern management ignores human resources theory or the need to incorporate science into management. In fact, companies are increasingly recognizing the necessity of a human resources department within their organizations, and they are recognizing the impact that technology can have on the workplace. Therefore, it seems the classical perspective and the humanistic perspectives still play a role, even if they are no longer the dominant ways of thinking. This is especially true with the increasingly globalized and technologized workplace. Since the mid-1990s, when the TQM theory took hold, in management education, offices have been defined by their utilization of technology. Some companies even allow their employees to work through the internet and networks, which introduces a completely new spectrum of challenges and opportunities for contemporary managers (Kurtus, 2001). Clearly, employees can be much more productive using these technologies than they otherwise would be. For instance, the use of digital spreadsheets allows tasks that once took weeks to be done in minutes. However, technologies like computers and mobile phones makes the classical perspective of improving the system nearly inapplicable due to the fact that work no longer occurs in the kind of way that Taylor observed in the late-19th century (Wheeler, 2010). Instead, contemporary managers rightly focus on how technology (and employees using that technology) contribute to the efficiency and quality of the process used to produce the product. In terms of globalization, the humanistic perspective is important but it is not sufficient to great management within an organization. As companies continue to expand their operations to different countries and incorporate individuals from diverse backgrounds into their workforce, those companies must provide the tools for those employees to be productive. Although companies should ensure that this diversity is being encouraged with an open company culture, there still needs to be objective measurements of whether these new individuals are contributing to the total success of the organization by making the process more efficient as a whole. The key to doing this is adopting the management science perspective and evaluating every element in the organization as it relates to quality control. In my own current work environment, management science is the dominant way of evaluating individuals and the process, as opposed to a classically oriented or a humanistic-oriented evaluation. Working in the restaurant industry, it is an interesting case because what is being supplied to the customer is a service, not a product. However, the principles of management are the same: what is important is ensuring quality through removing possible causes of variation so that every time a customer experiences the service, that service should be the same and without defects. Last month, when a repeat customer came into the restaurant for his usual bowl of broccoli and cheddar soup, he complained to his waiter and to the manager that his soup was bad. Both members of the staff were surprised by this complaint; however, as they should have, they took the complaint very seriously. After considering every step in the process of the creation of broccoli and cheddar soup, the manager was unable to determine what caused the customer’s bad experience. Rather than dismissing it as a freak occurrence and not worth following with action, the manager mandated that his chefs stick to a very specific recipe for all of the soups, entrees, and other meals at the restaurant. The idea behind this step was to minimize variation caused by chef errors. Accordingly, rather than relying wholly on memory and skill to create the soup, chefs would be required to always consult the recipe before and during the process of making the soup. By following the total quality management approach, the manager minimized variation in the process and followed the management science perspective. The evolution of management has been a very complex process with changing emphases on the individual worker, the system as a whole, or the process and quality outputs. Regardless of what different theorists have emphasized through their management principles, they have all sought the common goal of making organizations more efficient. Modern principles as opposed to classical ones tend to emphasize efficiency and productivity simply as a matter of objective measurement and quality assurance in order to create a competitive advantage over the industry. A key part of this advantage is innovation, which is just as important today as it was one hundred years ago. It is interesting how the manager’s concept of innovation, productivity, and the process will mirror changes in the world such as the further globalization and technologization of the workplace. References Daft, R., & Marcic, D. (2008). Management: The New Workplace (7th ed.). New York: South-Western. Kurtus, R. (2001, May 28). Basic Principles of Total Quality Management (TQM). Retrieved May 3, 2011, from School for Champions: http://www.school-for-champions.com/tqm/principles.htm Tennant, G. (2001). Six Sigma: SPC and TQM in Manufacturing and Services. New York: Gower Publishing Company. Wheeler, R. (2010). Judicial cooperation among state courts in Europe and the United States: A comparative approach. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution. Read More