ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT THOUGHT

Management concepts probably evolved from the time man

began undertaking organized activities in groups. Among the
early civilizations, the capacity for complex forms of organized
activity clearly existed as evidence by their ability to govern
large territories and populations, wage long wars, construct
structures like pyramids and canals, etc. Though systematic
writing about management did not exist until this century,
Claude eorge, in his !istory of Management Thought traces
the development of management ideas among the di"erent
civilizations from early history up to the present century.
ORIGINS OF MODERN MANAGEMENT
Most management writers trace the beginnings of modern
management thinking to writings which began in the early part
of this century.
The Six Major Infuences
1) Scientifc Management
#s a type of management which is characterized and guided by
the use of scienti$c approaches to the solution of managerial
problems in business and industry. Frederick W. Taylor is
known as the Father of Scientifc Management that put
emphasis that organizations placed on production.
According to his study that any ma%or problem confronting an
organization could be resolve if management would
scienti$cally determine and communicate to employees their
expected output of the employees and improve the operating
e&ciency of management. !e also viewed workers as an
economic utility, whose motivation to wo'k stemmed from their
$nancial needs, (that workers had to produced more at a lower
cost and that they would enable them to increase their
earnings.)
That the cornerstone of *cienti$c Management was use of time
and motion study for increasing worker+s e&ciency using
machine.
Time study , concerned with the amount of time it takes to
complete a tasks
Motion study , is concerned with the e&ciency of the motion
involved in performing a task.
2) Henri Fayol and the rocess !iew of Management
!e was a -rench industrialist who wrote about management on
the basis of his experience, he was also an engineer by training.
!e looked at management from a broader perspective, that of
de$ning the task of managing an industrial enterprise as a whole.
!e was the $rst to de$ne management as consisting of the
functions of planning, organizing, coordinating, commanding and
controlling. -ayol identi$ed several "#rinci#les of
management$ such as.
!"# Uni$% o& Co''an( , states that the more often an
individual reports to a single superior, the more likely it is that the
individual will feel a sense of loyalty and obligation and the less
likely it is that there will be confusion about instructions.
!"! Uni$% o& Direc$ion , the principles that there should be a
single set of goals and ob%ectives that uni$es the activities of
every one in an organization.
!") Inse*ara+i,i$% o& Au$hori$% an( Res*onsi+i,i$% , this
principles says that if a person is responsible for accomplishing a
certain task in the organization, he should be given su&cient
authority to accomplish that task.
!"-Sca,ar Princi*,e , this principles suggest that there must be
a clear line of authority running step by step from the highest
to the lowest level of the organization. This clear line of
authority will make it easier for organizational members to
understand, a/ to whom they can delegate0 b/ who can
delegate to them0 c/ to whom they are accountable
!". Princi*,es o& S*ecia,i/a$ion , this principles states that an
organizational unit becomes more e&cient the more it specializes
in the performance of a set of similar or related activities overtime.
!"0 Princi*,es o& Cen$ra,i/a$ion , this principles believes that
managers should retain $nal responsibility but also need to give
their subordinates enough authority to do their %obs properly.
%entrali&ation , decreasing the role of subordinates in decision
making
'ecentrali&ation , increasing their role in decision making.
!"1 Princi*,es o& Es*ri$ (e Cor*s , this principles promote
team spirit that will give the organization a sense of unity. 1ne
way to achieve this spirit is to use verbal communication instead of
formal written communication.
Also includes are the following. 2/ 3ivision of 4abor, 5/ 3iscipline, 6/
*ubordination of individual interests to the common goal, 7/
'emuneration, 8/ The 1rder, 9/ :;uity, </ #nitiative and =/ *tability of
Tenure
!is conception of the nature of management and the principle of
organization which he proposed were more fundamental and
general than those proposed by his predecessor, and continue to be
in>uential even today.
There are also other principles in management which also important
according to !enri -ayol, such as.
() The Human )elations Mo*ement
An approach that seeks to stimulate cooperative on the basis of an
understanding of and genuine concern for employees as individual
and as members of a work group
:lton Mayo and -ritz 'oethlisberger are the two names associated
with the development of this school of thoughts. Mayo and
'oethlisberger interpret the results of the experiment in a very
di"erent way. The increased of productivity observed in the
experiment as mainly a response of the workers to the psychological
not the physical environment in the experimental situation.
They argued that social and psychological factors, e.g. giving
workers as a sense of importance, overcoming workers suspicions
about management, the in>uence of the informal groups to which
workers belonged, where potentially more important variably in
improving worker performance than the work methods and other
physical factors in the work environment in which scienti$c
management movement of that time was preoccupied with.

+) The ,uantitati*e -##roaches to Management

An approach to management that emphasizes the use of advance
mathematics and statistics and the application of information and
systems theory.
1ne of the ma%or components of contemporary management
literature is the contributions of the ;uantitative science,
mathematics and statistics. The e"ort to de$ne management
problems more precisely in ;uantitative tern is old science @orld
@ar ##.
Acko" and *asieni, the methods of ;uantitative sciences $rst found
systematic application in the war e"ort in Aritain in early days of
@@##. The initial application of the ;uantitative sickness was called
O*era$ions Research or OR so called because the study teams
were assigned to $eld commanders to solve problems involving actual
operation in the war e"orts.
Acko" and *asieni identify the following stages in the operations
research approach in solving management problems.
7.2 -ormulating problems
7.5 Constructing the model
7.6 3eriving the solutions
7.7 Testing the model and evaluating the solution
7.8 #mplementing and maintaining the solution
Aefore problem solving can begin the ma%or elements of the problem
must be identi$ed. 1nce the ma%or elements of the problem have
been identi$ed, the 1' team must begin to formulate the problem in
speci$c terms, you must de$ne what elements of the problems can be
changed by a decision and what criteria the proposed solution will
have to meet.
To determine the best solution to the problems various solution
must b e tested. Bou can experiment in the real worth with
changes in prices, production rates and personnel to $nd a good
solution. Bou can construct a mathematical model that
symbolically incorporates the elements of the problems.
1nce the basic model has been constructed, a solution to the
problem must be derived. The values of controllable variables will
be changed and each change the model will be analyzed. The
best values that best meet the manager+s ob%ectives will represent
the solution to the problems. The entire process will be
meaningless to the manager unless the $ndings are implemented.
#t is the manger who must apply the $ndings.
Exa'*,es o& O*era$ions Research Mo(e,s 2hich ha3e &oun(
2i(es*rea( a**,ica$ions in +usiness inc,u(e
#4 In3en$or% Mo(e, , are among those best approached through
1' techni;ues because they involve the balancing of con>icting
ob%ectives.
Managers should also be concerned with maintaining
inventories at the optimum level considering the operating
re;uirements and $nancial resources of the business.
#nade;uate stock of raw materials could disrupt production and
lose sales. The classical inventory model for :conomic 1rder
Cuantity D:1C/ consider two ma%or components of inventory
costs namely.
#"# Ho,(in5 Cos$s , consist of the desired rate of return
on the investment in inventory and other costs like insurance,
warehousing and storage expenses.
#"! Or(erin5 Cos$s , refer to the costs of procuring the
inventory items like the clerical salaries of the purchasing
department sta".
!4 6inear Pro5ra''in5 76P4 , typically deals with the
problem of allocating limited resources among competing
activities in the best possible or optimal way,
4inear Erogramming are widely used to determine the best way to
allocate limited resources to achieve some desired end. The problems for
which linear programming might be used and those that can be expressed
in terms of linear F that is directly proportional,relationships.
)4 Re*,ace'en$ Pro+,e's , *ome expensive items in an
organization will deteriorate overtime or become obsolete , machinery
and trucks are obvious examples. #f they kept for too long a period of
time, they become ine&cient and increasingly expensive to operate. 1n
the other hand replacing them may also involve considerable costs. 1ne
type of problem is to decide exactly when such items must be replaced.
-4 8ueuin59:ai$in5 6ine Mo(e,s , are develop to help managers
decide how long a waiting line would be most preferable. The models will
predict the probable result of various changes in the system involved.
#f trucks arrive at a loading platform at the rate of approximately 5G
minutes to load each truck, a ;ueue or waiting line will form when trucks
arrive late or when the loading pace slow down. There are cost
associated with such a waiting line, and these costs increase as the line
grows F gasoline expenses if engines are idling, truck driver wages, and
tra&c congestion.
.4 Se;uencin5 an( Coor(ina$ion , *e;uencing problem arise
when we have to decide in what order the parts of a %ob are to be
performed.
#n a factory assembly line, a product must pass through several work
stations before it is completed. 1n a poorly planned line, some stations
will be idle while others are over burdened. The problem is to se;uence
the work stations in such a way that idle time is minimized and working
time at all stations is roughly e;ualized.
The ;uantitative approaches thus far are most widely used in production
management and $nance.
.) The Systems -##roach
Attempts to view the organization as a uni$ed, purposeful system
composed of interrelated parts.
'ather than dealing separately with the various parts of an organization,
the system approach tries to give managers a way of looking at
organization as a whole. *ystem theory tells us that the activities of any
part of an organization a"ects the activity of every other parts.
A s%s$e' , is de$ned as a set of elements which are related to
each other in a certain way. A system has both s$ruc$ure
Dconsisting of its elements/ and *rocess Dthe way the elements
interact to produce a given outcome or results/.
At the $rm level, systems concepts are useful given the
multidimensionality of many problems within the $rm, and as a way
of relating the $rm to many external variables in its environment.
/) Management and %ulture
The origins of contemporary management thoughts and practices
would be incomplete if it did not consider a more recent change in
perspective concerning the nature of management activity.
The cross cultural research in management had previously shown
that managerial practices di"ered in countries with di"erent cultural
traditions, such research generally assumed that industrialization
possessed its own logics which would ultimately lead to the same or
similar practices of management everywhere.