Contingency approach

to management
Business management: Miss
Kumar
Where are we up
to?
Contingency approach
While the classical and behavioural management approaches continue
to provide important lessons for managers, other ideas have also
emerged during the last couple of decades.
Contemporary management approaches represent major innovations
in ways of thinking about management and appropriate
management practices.
One of the most important contemporary viewpoints is the
contingency approach to management. It stresses the need for
flexibility and the adaptation of management practices and ideas to
suit changing circumstances.
Contingency approach: adapting to
changing circumstances
Contingency theorists point out to managers that no two situations
are absolutely identical. Each situation, therefore, requires its own
unique solution.
For example, you may have used a particular strategy to complete a
task for assessment. Although this strategy may have been quite
successful for that particular task, another assessable task may well
require a completely different approach.
Contingency theorists stress that the traditional classical approach
to management was not necessarily wrong, but is no longer
adequate for our needs today. They also urge managers to borrow
and blend from a wide range of management approaches and
practices.
Contingency approach: adapting to
changing circumstances
Advocates of the contingency approach believe that managers need to
be adaptable and flexible in their techniques to solving problems.
The contingency approach, therefore, advocates that managers
extract the most useful ideas and practices from a wide range to
best suit their businessʼs present requirements. It emphasises that
an appropriate management response to one set of circumstances
may be quite inappropriate to another.
Advantages & disadvantages