Title: History of Management Thought and Practice in the 20th century
1History of Management Thought and Practice in the
20th century
2The employee today
- Man does not live by bread alone (Bible)
- Nor does he work for bread alone
- A new breed of employee
- Has different values, needs, motivations
- Is better educated, more sophisticated, more
aware of political, social, and economic
developments
3What is behavioral science?
- The systematic study of behavior
- Usually used to describe the study of human
behavior in social settings - Encompasses many schools of thought and several
academic disciplines including - Psychology, sociology, anthropology,
socioeconomics, political science, and education
4Predictability of behavior
- Unlike biological or phsical sciences, the
behavioral sciences subject of inquiry is more
variable - People and their environment are forever changing
- Behavioral sciences seek to predict how most
people are likely to behave under a given set of
conditions
5Business and behavioral science
- Fairly recent interest of business in behavioral
science due to mutual need - The need for predictability of behavior in
business - Understanding the behavioral processes that lead
to productivity and efficiency
6The industrial revolution and rise of the factory
(England, 1750)
- Small entrepreneurial organization before
industrial revolution - Advances in technology fueled the Industrial
Revolution in England - The invention of the steam power was particularly
important - Steam power enabled the opening of large textile
mills where the cloth was made on powered looms
7Industrial revolution (contd)
- The introduction of factory led to the need to
organize work through specialized tasks workers - Adam Smith wrote of the advantages of the
division of labor in The Wealth of Nations
8Industrial revolution (contd)
- The growth of factories also required the
organization and supervision of workers - Workers came to work in factories instead of
working at home - Small factories could be managed by the owners,
but larger factories required hiring supervisors - Supervisors were generally promoted from the
ranks of workers due to their technical skills
as well as there peacekeeping skills.
920th Century Age of modern management
- An era of great scientific advances, and of
social change - There was tremendous excitement about what the
new century would bring
10The Setting America at the turn of the 20th
century
- The typical worker has less than a 6th grade
education - in a population of 58 million, there were only
about 15000 college graduates each year - the industrial emphasis in the US was now on
manufacturing rather than agriculture - There was a surfeit of available labor.
11Classical management theory
- Classical management theory focuses on the study
of the principles and functions of management and
the authority structures of organizations. - It is early in the 20th century. US Steel began
in 1901, Ford Motors in 1903, and General Motors
in 1908. Everyone was interested in determining
what managers really do in organizations. - The focus is still solidly on managers.
Theorists have not yet starting thinking about
the workers.
12Classical management theory (contd)
- Henri Fayol (1841-1925)
- A French mining engineer who became president of
his company by the age of 37. - Wrote Administration Industrielle et Generale
published in 1916. - Focused on middle and upper management activities
in multi-unit organizations. - Classified what managers do into FIVE FUNCTIONS
OF MANAGEMENT. These functions in some form are
still the basic organizing scheme for most
introductory management textbooks. - Planning, Organizing, Commanding, Coordinating,
Controlling - He also defined 14 principles of effective
management.
13Scientific management
- Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915) wrote The
Principles of Scientific Management, published in
1911. - Taylor stated that it was the responsibility of
management to - Determine the one best way to do each job through
precise, objective measurement. - Select the best person for the job
14Scientific management (contd)
- Train the best person and the best way of
doing each job - Provide a proper days wage for a proper days
work as a incentive for high performance. (There
was abundant labor available, most managers
didnt care that much about whether or not their
workers were satisfied.) - Assumed the goals of the individual and the
organization to be the same
15Scientific management (contd)
- Contributions of Scientific Management
- emphasized the gathering of factual data
concerning jobs and tasks - persuaded managers to abandon haphazard
approaches to planning and organizing work - stressed the role of management in organization
work, training workers and instituting incentives
16Criticisms of scientific management (contd)
- From organized labor
- too much pressure to perform placed on the
workers - unfair division of rewards between management and
labor - From behavioral scientists (later)
- presents an oversimplified approach to worker
motivation - pays insufficient attention to social factors in
the workplace that affect worker behavior - too authoritarian in approach
- demands excessive specialization of jobs and tasks
17The human relations approach
- Popular during the 1940s and into the 1950s
- This approach to management grew out of eight
years of studies by MIT Professors Mayo,
Roethlisberger, and Dickson. The studies
culminated in the publication in 1939 of
Management and the Worker.
18The human relations approach (contd)
- The studies took place at the Hawthorne plant of
the Western Electric Company near Chicago. - The researchers found that the largest effect on
workers productivity did not result from the
lighting or temperature or any other physical
element in the workplace, but rather on the
workers relationships with each other and with
their supervisors. - The Hawthorne Effect is the name given to the
finding that workers perform better when they
know they are given special attention.
19The human relations approach (contd)
- The findings led to an emphasis on building
relationships between managers and workers - It was believed that improving this relationship
would result in worker satisfaction with their
job and subsequent improved worker performance
20Criticisms of human relations approach
- Criticized widely for ignoring the reality of
business life and economic variables - Accused of equating high morale with high
productivity - Accused of representing a naive and simplistic
view of the nature of man - There are a lot of happy but unproductive
workers.
21The study of groups
- In the late 1930s there arose a movement in
psychology that provided a basis for the study of
groups. - Kurt Lewin
- Gestalt principles The whole is greater than the
sum of its parts - Groups have a personality of their own
- Cohesive groups with values, beliefs, goals
actions. - The study of organizational behavior
22The social welfare movement
- A movement started in England as a result of the
Great Depression in 1929 - Free market principles based on the notion of the
Invisible Hand were abandoned - Keynesian principles stimulated the adoption of
social security policies - Labor unions gained prominence and power
23The human resources approach
- Popular in the late 1950s through the 1960s
- Based on the work of Douglas McGregor (The Human
Side of Enterprise, 1960), Rensis Likert (New
Patterns of Management, 1961), and Chris Argyris
(Personality and Organization, 1957)
24The human resources approach (contd)
- McGregors book proposed that managers come in
two types (The Theory Y manager was, of course,
the example of the one best way to lead) - Theory X managers who believe that workers are
generally lazy and must be forced to be
productive - Theory Y managers who believe that workers want
to better themselves, to develop new skills and
gain new knowledge - Effective Theory Y managers treat their workers
as valuable resources (hence the Human Resource
approach).
25Comparing the human relations and the human
resources approaches
- Human relations approach
- Improve the worker-manager relationship. This
will lead to a satisfied worker. A satisfied
worker will be a more productive worker - Human resources approach
- When managers treat their workers as valuable
resources and help them improve their skills and
knowledge, this helps the worker perform better,
and that in turn increases worker job
satisfaction.