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Critical evaluation to the application of principles and ideas drawn from

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BS4S16-Leadership and Management Theories
Mrs. Lesley Long

Critical evaluation to the application of principles

and ideas drawn from leadership and management
theories in contemporary organisational settings.

14095548
21st December2015
14095548

Contents
1) Introduction ............................................................................................................... 2

2) Classical approach-Bureaucracy theory ................................................................... 5

3) Process Theories of Motivation-Expectancy theory .................................................. 8

4) Systems Approach-Open Systems Theory ............................................................. 12

5) Leadership Theories-Transformational leadership.................................................. 16

6) Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 20

7) References ............................................................................................................. 23

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1) Introduction
What can be proved theoretically might fail in practicality and vice versa. Stoner, et.al.

(2003) state that theory is the sensible perception of people toward their world

experience. From this point of view, evaluating theoretical thoughts requires a perfect

understanding to the surrounding culture. Culture is very depending on time and place,

hence, what acceptable one day in somewhere might be rejected in different place and

time. According to Ackoff (1974) what is proper for one environment might be completely

improper for another. Moreover, theoretical frames are effected by the organizational

culture that illustrates rights and wrongs, good and bad, and what kind of beliefs

appropriate for sharing and taking among the employees (Watson, 1994; Dawson, 1996).

In other words, culture distinctively creates a pattern of thinking within the organizations

by the shared beliefs and values. Based on these principles, organization is defined as a

self-organizing social system that comprise people with different interests (Fuchs, 2006).

Moreover, organization is an association that unifies people to achieve a common goals

(Dawson, 1996). In this context, imposing particular structure on an organization without

considering the individuals’ interaction can lead to a failure in applying any theoretical

frame. Therefore, in the twentieth century with the industrial revolution, scientists,

psychologists, and sociologists have carried out their researches and focused on

structures and patterns of the organizations. Since that, a constellation of theories were

emerged, tested, and evolved as well as the concepts management and leadership were

aroused, and recognized as umbrellas for these theories.

Although, management and leadership are complementary to each other and go hand in

hand, they are overlapping and confusing for the majority of people. Accordingly, some

definitions and differences of both management and leadership are hastily mentioned to

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clarify this ambiguity. According to Weijrich and Koontz (1993) management has a formal

authority over the office by performing specific functions such as organizing, planning,

staffing, controlling, directing, and coordinating in order to achieve specified objectives.

While leadership does not require a formal authority whereas the leader functionality is

about inspiration and motivation. Weijrich and Koontz (1993) explain that the managers

are basically administrators who write plans and monitor the progression of the

organization as well as set the budgets. Conversely, leaders fundamentally contribution

to change the individuals and organizations. Unlike the formality of management,

leadership is simply an effective relationship between leaders and followers. Hence,

managers can be relatively a good or bad leaders. Clearly understanding management

and leadership theories is important for the successful of the organizations in reacting

with the internal and external challenges especially in modern era. Therefore, appropriate

Management and leadership are fundamental hub for any organization toward achieving

its objectives.

Bracker (1980) state that regardless of the Latin word ‘Manu agere’, the term

management means the leading by hand which means giving the directions. It is also

considered as the required actions’ guidance and control to execute programs. It definitely

indicates that an affective plan or program is essential for a successful management

process. Drucker (1974) defines management as an activity aims to perfectly use the

resources to fulfil objectives in cooperating with other people. Accordingly, management

is a process that consists of strategic planning, defining objectives, optimal using of

resources, developing the assets whether human or financial in order to achieve

objectives, and finally evaluating performances in addition to record and document facts

for future reviews.

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As an important aspect and major factor of management, leadership immensely

contributes to organizational and national wellbeing (Weihrich et al., 2008). Effective

leaders like Lee Iacocca and Jack Welch can make things happen. For example, they

turned Chrysler and General Electric around from the bankruptcy’s brink to the most

profitable organizations over the world (Robbins and Coulter, 2007). The prominent

nations such as America, United Kingdom, and France are also perfect examples for the

effectiveness of leadership (Weihrich et al., 2008). According to Yukl (1998) Leadership

is an interaction process between leaders and other staff in which motivate them to

achieve organization’s objectives. Kelly-Heidenthal (2004) defined leadership as the

ability to demonstrate direction that aligns employees to achieve unified goals and future

aspirations. Additionally, leadership is process of inspiring group of individuals by one

person to collectively achieving a unified goal using appropriate means (Roussel, Russell

and Swansburg, 2006). Regardless of these definitions, the vital component of leadership

is the possibility of transforming crowd into useful organization.

In this essay a selection of leadership and management theories are defined, discussed,

and critically evaluated whether theoretically or empirically in accordance to statements

of researchers. These theories are Weber’s bureaucratic theory from classical approach,

Vroom’s expectancy theory from human relation approach, Ludwig’s open system theory

from system approach, and finally Bass and Avalio’s transformational theory from

leadership. Theories are randomly chosen from various approaches of different periods

in order to experience their validity within the contemporary organizations. Practical

examples for successful and failed stories of modern organizations and famous

characters are presented and linked to the related theory.

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2) Classical approach-Bureaucracy theory

Bureaucracy theory by the German socialist and scientist Max Weber is amongst

theories and models that compose the classical thought of management and grounds fits

with Taylorism theory of scientific management and Fayol’s theory of administration. The

environment conditions shaped these three theories in the same term that made them the

milestone of the classical approach of management (Hatch and Cunliffe, 2013). Weber’s

theory of bureaucratic management concentrating on ideally structuring the organization.

It distinguished by eight principles and the most important is the written work, the written

rules, managers’ authority of checking and balancing system, and the reward. The

majority of these principles still in practice in the big contemporary organization around

the world (Grey, 2005; Horner, 1997). However, the opposition of its characteristics with

enterprise, since its failure in actively involving people in daily activities that cause

inefficient organization’s performance. The defined rigid roles, the hierarchical structure,

and strictly following the same routine and rules can lead to an excessive anxiety with

strict obligation to the regulations (Merton, 1968). In the same context, the personality,

the provision, and the most active minds eventually can be negatively influenced and

depressed by rationalization and specialization of work that closely monitored and

supervised (Schumpeter, 1950). Moreover, the depth of skills that caused by the narrow

bureaucratic task’s range can hinder the success of entrepreneurial development where

the mastery of wide range of roles is required (Lazear, 2005). In such firms, employees

are specialist in their area however their absence automatically breakdown the chain of

process which considered an inefficient use of resources and low entrepreneurship

among bureaucratic firms’ employees.

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Additionally, the long process of decision-making due to the direction of communications

from top to bottom regardless of hierarchical structure and the barriers that hinder the

horizontal flow of information between organization’s employees result in slowing the

reactions toward the new situations when there is no provision. However, the hierarchical

structure, whether the organization has internal markets for labors or not, allows the viable

career for internal advancement. Moreover, within the bureaucratic organizations there is

less dependency on personal relationship in the prospect of employee’s career regardless

of role’s formalization and responsibilities. To avoid the risk of entrepreneurial venture,

employees of bureaucratic organizations less probable to overwhelm into

entrepreneurship (Sørensen, 2007).

According to scholars, the wide knowledge for the external environment of the firm helps

in identifying the entrepreneurial opportunities and provide an easy access to the network

of suppliers and buyers (Saxenian, 1996; Gompers, Lerner, and Scharfstein, 2005).

However, the bureaucratic firm’s employees are more inwardly focused due to the

administrative function which leads to lack of comprehensive to the entrepreneurial

landscape whether by the lack of the experience to the firm’s environment or the rarity of

social links to main actors in the environment. Du Gay (1999) argued that changing the

contemporary managerial to materialize ought to begin from external environment. That

is because of the global system of trade as well as production and finance globalization

consequentially increase the competitiveness pressure. The repercussions of global

interconnectedness’ intensification of patterns seriously influence the organizational life

whether in private or public sector. Only adaptable and flexible organization can copy the

revolution of the globalization.

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After eight years of its founding in 1880, Eastman Kodak released slogan said “You press

the button, we do the rest” in order to express its ground-breaking innovation strategies

and technology. In 1976 as a global brand Kodak monopolized 85% of camera sales and

90% of films market in America. The company considered one of the most valuable 100

brands in the world for four decades from 1960’s to 1990’s. The key factors of its business

strategy were customer satisfaction, productivity, local markets, and advertisement. Early

in 2012 the company was no longer existing in the camera markets when filed for chapter

11 bankruptcy and its activities were confined into three divisions named by graphics

(Kurpiel, 2015). Although, Kodak was not clearly adopting particular management style,

the distribution of several layers of management starting from the top manager to the

lowest employee is relative to the bureaucratic style.

Larry Matteson one of the company executive in 1979 reported to the company

management his expectation about the probability of substituting the films by digital in

2010. However, the hierarchical structure slowed the decision process and delayed the

adaptability with upcoming changes. On the other hand, unlike Kodak, the Japanese

company Fujifilm responded quickly to the customer requirements and adapted to the

market changes because of the adoption of a healthy management style that provide

fluent exchange of information and high valuation to the employees (Durling, 2000).

Other management failure influenced the business life of Kodak was the less

understanding to the external environment and the inability of adaption accordingly. In the

first half of 1980’s the conversion to the digital photography was inevitable and clear

(Larish, 2012) however the complacency drove Kodak to ignore the serious threat posed

to major theme of its film business. Conversely, Fujifilm squeezed the possible money to

the new venture and invested in different industry.

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3) Process Theories of Motivation-Expectancy theory

Landy and Becker (1987) state that at least one of behavior’s feature must be consisted

into motivation process these features are initiation, direction, persistence, intensity and

a particular action termination. In the early twentieth century the researchers became

more aware of the differences among individuals motivations and started to examine the

possibility of introducing other interpretations for those differences. Therefore, each group

of researchers focused on a particular aspect of the motivation process such as the

internal drives for motivated behavior, the effect of learning and the relation between

behavior and consequences, and the individuals’ cognitive process effect. Those

research’s theoretical streams classified the thoughts about motivation process into three

main categories: the theories of content motivation, the theories of process motivation,

and outcome theories (Steers, Porter, and Bigley, 1996). Process theories in general

focus on people’s approaches to generate, control, and sustain their motivation. These

approaches participate to emerge various theories based on the perception of how to

motivate people. Hastily, these are some of the process motivation theories. The equity

theory of Adams (1963) assumes people believe that their contribution and the obtained

outcome are balanced. Another theory is procedural justice theory of Folger and his

colleagues (1985) as an extension of Adams’ theory, it also considers the decision

process’ justice. Moreover, the Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory that state,

because the expectations are directly affected by the environment, they are subordinate

to the continuous learning process. The center of motivational process is expectancy

theory that originally developed by the Canadian psychologist Vector H. Vroom (1964).

Vroom built his theory upon two models which are the valence model that identified as

the endeavors to grasp the outcome’s perceived attractiveness by the aggregation of the
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attractiveness related to the resultant outcome, and the force model which act by

associating outcome’s expectancy and the individual valence by grasping the motivational

force (Geiger et al., 1998).

Like all theories and models expectancy theory has merits and weaknesses from the

prospective of criticists whether empirically or theoretically. Ivancevich el at (2012)

argued that direct tests among numerous studies have supported the expectancy theory

in accurately predicting the employee’s behavior. Therefore, psychologically

understanding the cause of motivation can help managers to identify the directive factors

that influence their employees’ performance and behavior, and consequentially

understanding the organizational behavior. The theory facilitates the motivation process

by identifying each stage separately and linking between the main theme of motivation,

efforts with performance, performance and rewards, and finally rewards with personal

goals (Parjit and Bagga 2014). Accordingly, understanding what motivate and demotivate

individuals can help in creating a perfect competitive workplace and providing an

environment and culture that can support the motivation process. According to Newstrom

and Keith (1999) the expectancy theory reflects the assumption of theory Y as people are

capable individuals in which their dignity must be valued. However, expectancy theory

was criticized of that the exerting effort of the majority of workforce in their lowest level,

that might not be valid, if the organization rewards employees for their performance

instead of effort, job difficulty, or skill level (Robbins, Stephan and Timothy, 2013).

Understanding the different cause of motivation is another fundamental aspect as

expectancy theory proved the difficulty of specifying a particular rewards for defined group

of employees. In this sense, differences in culture impose the fact that the reward’s

linkage to the performance is vary from worker to another (Shermerhorn, Hunt and

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Osbourne, 2002). Cole and Kelly (2011) argued that autonomy’s variety, task

identification, and feedback are an intrinsic factors that the expectancy theory emphasis

on to improve work redesign.

Parjit and Bagga argued that all the social science theories have weaknesses and the

expectancy theory as well. Although, theory is realistic than others and highly probable to

be understood as well as still an important theory in the motivation arena, managers might

need to contribute some other theory and not to completely depending on it alone. Like

all other motivation theories, expectancy theory can never objectivize and theorize

whether the nature, the behavior, or the attitude of a humans and consequentially their

motivation (2014). Lawler and Suttle (1973) claim that the simplicity of Vroom’s theory is

deceptive. As theory consider multiple variables, the empirical applicability and examining

of theory might be suspected. Calculating the motivation according to theory assumption

might be cumbersome for the employees, additionally, the lack of one or more of

parameters such as time, favorable situation, willingness, resources, or ability can

negatively influence managers’ decision in identifying a particular employee’s motivation.

Moreover, quantifying expectancy, instrumentality, and valence in realistic term is more

difficult than theoretical and realistically applying the suggested formula is a subject of

controversy. These reliable measures expectancy, instrumentality, and valence are

suggested to be developed (Lawler and Suttle, 1973; Newstrom and Keith, 1999).

One company that use the expectancy theory principles as part of its managerial process

is the Taiwanese company Acer that founded in 1976. The first initiative name for Acer

was Multitech until changed in 1987. In 2000 the development of technology as well as

the user-friendly computers became the strategic direction for the company which reflect

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on its performance in 2005 as it was ranked the fourth for branded personal computers

vendors (Gadget Reviews, 2013).

Unlike the Chinese family, Acer uniquely structured by Shih in 1976 with a wide

individuals’ responsibilities and financial contribution. Acer exploit the desire of becoming

the boss by localizing the decision-making throughout the plants and offices worldwide

and allow the local mangers to act as managers. This technique stimulates the desires of

managers to imitate each other, additionally, the rewarded managers become

consequentially an icons for the employees to follow (Shih, 2005). Moreover, acer

encourages the local ownership for both employees and general public by enabling local

managers and employees to participate in profits and the success of business. The

unique willingness of Acer motivate the employees to enthusiastically share business’

responsibilities and unify the goals of both company and employees. By such approach

Acer guaranties the loyalty of their employee and motivate franchise to maximize the local

profitability and growth and sequentially maximize the overall company’s success (sahai,

2013).

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4) Systems Approach-Open Systems Theory

According to (Skyttner, 1996; Wang, 2004) the system consists of a set of elements each

element’s behavior affects the overhaul’s behavior whereas the element’s effect and

behavior are both interdependent. However, none of them has independent influence on

it. In other words, Steele (2003) defines system as a comprising of interdependent

subsystems that their inter-relationships provide an equilibrium to the larger system. The

concept of system theory was originated from economics, biology, and engineering by

Ludwig bertanlanffy in 1940. It explores the generalized laws and principles of various

systems and interprets their origin, stability, and development (Alter, 2007). As well as

concerns with systems operability and how to integrate them according to their

commonality or patterns (Melcher, 1975; Bausch, 2002). In the opposite of Elton Mayo

and Henry Fayol approaches that typically adopt close systems in order to study the

organizational behavior, general systems theory concerns with the open systems

(Bastedo, 2004). The organization’s structure is articulately different regardless of

objectives, stakeholders’ requirements, and environmental measures. The interaction

with the external environment is the base foundation of (OST) open systems theory which

considers the organizations’ strong relationships with the external environment in which

reflects on their ability to adjust to the new environmental changes whether by information

process or not (Katz and Kahn, 1978).

First applying of OST concept to the organization was in 1978 by Katz and Kahn whereas

the organization was considered as an energetic input-throughput-output system.

Consequentially, the output energy reactivates the whole system. Additionally, the ability

of each entity to process the information about its environment increases the adaptability

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of skills according to new conditions. Accordingly, organizations become more open to

the external environment by exploit resources such as raw material, customer’s needs,

and market’s requirement as inputs and transform them into outputs by various processes

and human resources. The continual environmental feedback contributes to improve

services or products (Capps and Hazen, 2002). Open system theory summarizes

systems theory’s idea in framework of knowledge that concentrate on the structure and

interdependent relationship between elements (Katz and Kahn, 1978). The

transformation within open systems improves the fitness of the subsystems vertically and

horizontally with each other and throughout the organization as well as with the external

environment (Fioretti and Visser, 2004). The open systems theory repeatedly investigates

the cyclical process of input, transformation, and output of both systems and subsystems

within the organizations (Stewart and Ayres, 2001). Because of the common properties

that classify the systems, recognizing the properties of the whole system is possible by

knowing its class without observing the system. Moreover, the systems can possess the

properties of systems in lower-level in addition to the similar-level systems (Ashmos and

Huber, 1987).

Although, the systems theory has a potential benefits, it has some criticisms. One of these

criticisms that the model does not specify the time and the methodology to collaborate

with the needs of the organization, nor determine the alternatives in the event of analysis

addresses any potential conflicts between the organization’s structure, organizational

environment, work environment, and the work itself. It is therefore, the uncertainty to

identify the right response is one challenge to the system theory (Yoon and Kuchinke,

2005). The shortage in precisely specify the system affects the understanding of what is

considered by systems theory and what is not (Shrode and Voich 1974). Another critic is
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the difficulty of distinguishing transformations and boundaries especially when there is

multiple interaction and communication channel (Castells, 1996). Additionally, Clippinger

(1999) argued that the open system theory failed to immediately define the needs of the

organization to adapt with the rapid environmental changes that cause an overlap

between tasks and groups. When the components of the system are inconsistent or lack

of power and resources theory does not provide an effective ways for such situations

(Stewart and Ayres, 2001). According to the analysis of the concept of systems by

Ashmos and Huber (1987) despite the commonness of using open systems model in

labeling and legitimizing organizational studies, it is less used in research guiding. In

another words, a few studies were guided by a formal properties of open systems

although it have properties that important to the research of the organization.

Undoubtedly, the open system view has not been applied formally to perform the

information’s studies of inputs and feedback such as organizational intelligence and

boundaries, as well as the differentiation’s studies for example specialization and

integration. Identifying the management as a control center that directs the operations of

organization by focusing on boundaries, feedback, environment, and adaptive response

gives an impression that mangers must manage the organizational changes. Finally, the

classic form of systems perspective that applied to the organizations in order to provide

sufficient alternatives failed to achieve the objectives (Beeson and Davis, 2000).

Open system theory is widely used in the healthcare organizations especially in nursing

work. A hospital’s inpatient unite or a team of nurses in a healthcare centre are nested in

a section or department in larger environment. According to open systems theory, the

working group is considered as an input that deliver the nursing services as throughput

to import an output in form of recipients’ care, staff, information, and fiscal resources.
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These outputs subsequently become a subsystem of nursing production. The feedback

of the distal outputs such as human resources, clinical, and the outcome of the

organization cyclically reactivate the system. The positive outcomes ensure the loyalty of

community’s members and retain the staff performance as well as the sustainability of

accreditation and funding of the organization. As explained in open systems theory the

subsystems interacted with internal and external demands. Whereas environmental

factors such as labour market, characteristics of population, and legislations might be

external demands to healthcare organizations. For that, to counteract these demands

healthcare organizations adjust their system functionality according to the feedback in

cyclical manner. Sequentially, each subsystem interactively adapts to the new demands

in corporation with other subsystems within the organization. An example for the

interdependence between organization, subsystems and external factors in healthcare

sector is the reaction toward overcrowding in emergency department by introducing more

nurse practitioners.

The outputs of nursing services and its delivery are both influenced by inputs and

throughputs. Therefore, the nursing work as a production subsystem cannot perform

individually. Whereas, it performs interdependently with other subsystems within the

super-system of the organization which dynamically influenced by the external

environment. The success of the nursing work is depending on how to interact with the

global work demands in coordinating with vertical and horizontal subsystems in the

healthcare organization.

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5) Leadership Theories-Transformational leadership

One of the most fundamental managerial quality for a person is the leadership which

cannot be possessed by everyone (Mills, 2005). According to the political leader James

McGregor Burns (1978) the distinction between transactional and transformational

leadership is that transactional leader motivates the employees by using the rewards’

policy to increase their efficiency and loyalty. On the other hand, the transformational

leaders are involved with the followers which motivates them to exchange their maximum

performance and loyalty in order to fulfil an extraordinary outcome. Transformational

leaders focus on developmental requirements of the individual follower rather than the

structure and systems of the organizations. They helps the followers to look at things from

different perspective (Robbins and Coulter, 2007). Transformational leadership concept

was first introduced in 1978 by Burns to be modified and widely spread into organization

by Bass and Avalio in 2002 (Jung & Sosik, 2002). According to Warrilow (2012) the theory

of transformational leadership is all about people who positively change their followers’

attitude toward the homogeneity and collaboration. The motivation, performance and

morale can be enhanced by variety of methodologies such as unifying the sense of

identity of the followers with the organizational identity, the existence of a role model

increasing their inspiration and interesting, stimulate them for bigger roles among the

team. Evaluating the followers provides a perfect understanding of their abilities and helps

in fairly delegating the task which improves followers’ performance. The transformational

leadership style has four dimensions (Judge and Piccolo, 2004):

- Idealized or charismatic influence this characteristic displays ethical principles and

sold moral and has the ability to be a role models to followers.

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- Inspirational motivation, this characteristic proves the capability of leaders to be a

cheerleader as well as demonstrating the optimism, enthusiasm, and commitment

to a unified objective.

- Intellectual stimulation, this characteristic instills creativity and encourages the

followers to approach old problems innovatively.

- Individual consideration, this characteristic demonstrates leaders as mentors and

coaches who invest their followers’ development and pay an attention to their

individual’s needs and desires.

Behind all these features of the transformational leadership characteristics there are

major criticisms. The libertarians and the consultants of organizational development have

questioned the transformational leadership’s morality (Rafferty and Griffin, 2004). Hall et

al., (2002) state a key criticism of the transformational leadership that the potential of

power abusing. In other words, they might ultimately affect their followers emotionally and

apart from the positive moral value. Regardless of Stone, Russell and Patterson

observation (2004). The transformational leaders who trusted and respected by their

followers have the powerful effect over them witch can be a threat if there is any

narcissistic desires on power and manipulation as well as some dependent followers may

unfortunately cling to their leaders. Furthermore, to avoid the dictatorship and protect the

minority from being oppressed by the majority, transformational leadership lacks the

balance compensatory interest, the power and the influences (Bass, 1990). Therefore,

transformational leadership in the absence of morality might be an application of

undesirable social end which described by Yukl (1989, p226) as “dark side of charisma”

that means equally there is a negative example in the opposite of every positive

charismatic transformational leaders. For an instance, the leader of Jonestown suicide

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Rev Jones is a ‘dark side’ of transformational leadership (Wunrow, 2004). The real

transformational leaders in order to occur positive changes must boost their moral

foundation by adopting honesty’s moral values, fairness, and loyalty in addition to the

maximum value human rights (Rafferty and Griffin, 2004). Barnett, McCormick & Conners

(2001) argued that because of their contribution to the organizational improvement and

effectiveness as well as the institutional culture, the transformational leadership is

considered a facilitative of changes and effective in turbulent environments. Other

transformational leadership criticisms that summarized by Bass in 1977 that involving the

sharing leadership, equality, consensus, and contributed decision-making is controversy

to the organization development as well as the perspective of that followers’ losses more

than benefits and they are manipulated is ingrained by the transformational leadership.

Motivating employees to emotionally follow their self-interests toward organizations

benefit may result in a catastrophic ends (Carlson and Perrewe, 1995). Finally, the

organization’s culture is the milestone of the relationship between leaders and followers.

Whereas, the individuals are essentially influenced by organization’s culture. Therefore,

an acceptable behavior in one organization might be rejected whether in another

organization or socially.

According to Slater (2003) the youngest CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in General

Electric’s history is the legendary leader Jack Welch who took over the company in 1981

and transformed it into the most competitive enterprise. With his unique character and

leadership style during the two decades journey with GE, he really made a big history.

The transformational leadership style was a fundamental factor in his success. His vision

is to make employees passionate about their tasks. Additionally, unlike controlling people,

the contribution of ideas can inspire them which result in emerging a new leaders.
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Informally, Jack through regular meetings encourages the new ideas and proposals.

Moreover, Welch dally encourages his followers to simplify things and get rid of

bureaucratic system which slows the process of the decision making and put unnecessary

procedures on their shoulders. When Welch joined General Electric and saw that the

company was sinking, he looked at the old problems with innovative way and laid out new

strategies. He preferred the openness and inspiring the employees rather than controlling

or commanding them. One of welch beliefs is what is effective in past might not perfect

for future which made him defying the majority of company’s historical aspects as risky

move toward a more competitive enterprise. To capturing intellect and encourage people

to contribute their ideas and solutions he turned the company into learning organization

and eliminated the traditions and hierarchy. Another belief of welch is that the employees

to perform their job perfectly needs to the company’s encouragement and support by

creating the vision and let them act freely apart from over management.

Mr. Welch and his trade mark ‘candor’ during his career life from 1981 to 2001 has

increased General Electric value from $13 billion Company to several hundred of billion

enterprise (Davis, 2015).

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6) Conclusion
Through the previous evaluation to constellation of management and leadership theories

from various approaches, it becomes clearer that the fundamental aspect for any theory

to be effective is the organizational and national culture. Therefore, theories that

practically proved and contributed to famous organizations’ success previously, recently

they contribute to obstruct the organization’s development and cause in business failure.

The relation between theories and the surrounding culture can be examined through the

theorists’ competence, and the aspects of their theories. Therefore, each theory definitely

expressing its innovators view that based on the surrounding culture. In twentieth century

theorists copied the industrial revolution and concentrated on scientific aspects.

Therefore, human needs were neglected and more attention was bayed to the productivity

and profit which contributed to emerge classical approach theories. The principles of

these theories were about evaluating efforts according to time and achievement without

regard to the human side. The later expansion of the industrial activities resulted in larger

organizations that required more effort to supervise the operations. Hence, theories were

evolved to conform to the new situation and the hierarchical structure was first presented

to delegate the observation missions. Although, Weber’s bureaucratic theory which is a

theme of this approach effectively participated to the success of various organizations

previously, there is a doubt in its efficiency nowadays due to the complexity of

communication between organization’s hierarchical levels and the deliberate negligence

to the human factors as well as the top to bottom management style.

Because of the accompanied limitations, psychologists come up with new theories to

address the imbalance of the classical approach by focusing on the human relations and

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how to psychologically enhance employees’ behavior toward their tasks and the

organization goals. Regardless of the new thoughts theorists pursued the motivation

approach theories which tried to create some balance between employees’ needs and

organization’s requirement. One of these theories was vroom’s theory of expectancy. It

basically works on predicting employees’ desires in order to motivate them toward fulfilling

a unified objectives. Despite the success of expectancy theory, it is criticized by the

inapplicability of using the expectancy equation due to the difficulty of providing all factors

at one time, in addition to the differences between individuals’ culture reduces the

opportunities of successful prediction which might result in counterproductive.

The recent technological development and the emerging of multinational organizations

effectively contributed to create new environments and competitors which result in

overlapping the cultures. This development in concepts pushed toward a new

management styles to copy the rapid evolution in markets. Theorists with engineering

base confined their focus on organizational systems and their influence on each other as

well as how they are effected by the internal and external environment which

consequentially influenced by culture. Around these concepts Katz and Kahn built their

theory of open systems. Although OST succeeded in easing the communication between

various levels of systems within the organization and with the external environment as

well as increasing their interactive with the rapid evolving of the market, there is

uncertainty that the theory identified right responses for new changes which might result

in certain reactions. Moreover, theory is accused of ambiguity that there is not clear

definition for what is in and out of system.

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Finally, the increasing of awareness among the employees became an impediment to the

top to bottom management style, whereas employees started to follow charismatic

leaders who are respectful, trustful, knowledgeable, and influential rather than traditional

managers who tend to apply a dull roles and policies apart from employees’ needs. Those

new leaders induced researchers to study their characteristics which result in two

categorizations of leaders: transactional and transformational leaders. Transformational

leader encourages followers to participate their thoughts and ideas, and works hand in

hand with the followers in order to motivate them and unify their objectives with the

organization’s goal. Transformational leader are model for their followers in which they

respectfully follow his orders to fulfil an extraordinary objectives. However, the followers’

trustful and loyalty to the leaders can be immorally abused to achieve unethical personal

ends.

In confirmation, the success of management and leadership theories relies on the internal

and external environment that effectively control the organizational structure, culture, and

performance. Additionally, to successfully implement any management style, it is crucial

understanding the surrounding culture whether for individuals or organization. The

organizational and individual culture vary according to time and location. Therefore,

theories that contributed to great successes in particular organization one day, they

essentially considered a major reason of collapsing different organization in different era.

22
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