Assignment 1 Theories of Management

Assignment 1Organization today they are increasing productivities simply because of the application of classical and human relation theory which enhances the smooth running of the organization, most organization are guided by this theory.Drucker P.(2005),defined management as the organization and coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve defined objectives. The author pointed out that management is often included as a factor of production along with such things such as machines, materials and money.Cole (2004) defines management as an act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively.

The management process includes planning, organizing, coordinating, controlling and allocating resources and people.Classical approaches to management gained prominence during the industrial revolution. Its focus was on the efficiency, productivities and output of workers as well as their contribution to the bottom line Parker and Ritson (2005).Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) is known as the father of scientific management. His approach emphasized empirical research to increase organizational productivity by increasing the efficiency of the production process.

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The only way to expand productivity was to raise the efficiency of workers, scientific management theory states that jobs should be designed so that each worker has on well control task and specific procedures and methods for each job must be strictly followed. Management theory rest on a fundamental belief that managers are not only superior intellectually to the average employee, but they have a positive duty to supervise staff and organize their work activities.The classical theory of management advocated a scientific study of tasks and the works responsible for them.

It was the foundation of many modern management theories and it aimed to improve operations within an organization. Classical management theory was broken into three schools of thinking, scientific management which looked at the best way to do a job, bureaucratic management which focused on rules and procedure and administrative management which emphasized the flow of information within the organization of which different organization around the globe apply this and it is contributing toward the success of the organization.Fayol was the first to identify the five functions of a manager and the fourteen principles of management.Fayol ideas about administrative management have become a universal part of the modern management concepts and are still the basis of management thoughts and actions.The primary purpose of the administrative management theory was to find a balance between the structure of the administration and the mission of the organization. According to this theory administrative efficiency was improved when defined lines of authority are present and those at the top of administration had the most responsibility for the organization, administrative efficiency was correlated with departments being divided by a clear separation of labor and administrators with the most responsibilities serving as organizational authority. This theory believes that employees are motivated by financial rewards. It proposes that employees will work harder and be more productive if they are awarded incentives based on their work, employers who can motivate their employees using this tactic may be able to achieve increased production, efficiency and profit.Scientific management principles are very common in manufacturing and factories. The assembly line in car manufacturing is an example of the application of scientific management principles to manufacturing.Henry ford of motors company ultimate goal was to produce cars for the mases that will be cost effective on the part of the company and affordable to the clients around the globe. He employed the use of Taylor work which reviewed the work flow at the factory to increase efficiency and productivities of the company. This review involves the stationery of labourers at their respective points and allowing the larger part of the car body moving from one laborer point to the order, there is a time sequence of the part of the car moves from one point to the other. The laborers are expected to carry out their respective tasks which involve fixing the smaller parts of the cars into the larger body.Henry ford continued to review and streamline the processes to further to reduce the turnaround time for producing a car, this continued until 1913 when he was able to introduce a power driven assembly line in his new factory at Michigan. Between 1908 and 1913 ford motors was already able to reduce the average time of manufacturing a car to 93 minutes and by 1914 they had captured about 49% of the automobile industry.The concept of the assembly line not only led to cost savings but facilitated mass production of model cars, ford motors is the most successful company in the production of car model. These cars were also available for consumers at affordable rates. The concept of the assembly which also as result of ford motors application of scientific management is still relevant in the automobile industry and other manufacturing industries around the globe. In today world where technology is ever changing most company still uses this approaches and this is an indication that this theory is still relevant toward the success of any organization, however Elton Mayor pioneered human approach management in the 1930 at the Hawthorne plant in the United States of America. He is credited with the belief that if employers care more about their employees, it will go a long way to motivate them. This will have a positive impact on productivity thereby leading to increase in profitability. Elton further went to prove that when employers pick interest in their employees, the employees feels more valued and empowered. They feel like they are part of the organization success of which on the long run will motivate them to perform better.Nestle offers free lunch to its employees, they also offer free medical care to their employees within an organization these are social factors that motivate employees thereby stimulating increase in productivity. A leading bank in Nigeria offer day care for their employees that recently returned from maternity leave and are nursing their babies, the period for that service is only one year. Nigeria state government increased the maternity leave for women from 3 months to 6 months and also granted 10 days paternity leave for men.Some of this examples mentioned above are measures put in place by employers to motivate their employees, in Nigeria Company such as Shell and Nestle have good welfare policy that considers the health and well-being of their employees. They emphasize on health living and safety precautions that will encourage employee not be absent from their work.Efficiency of processes classical approach is important as well as proper administrative duties of an organization which involves people management are very significant toward the survival of an organization.Prior to scientific management jobs were carried out by skilled craftsmen who have mastered the job over a long period of time so that they can perform the job more effective and accurate, they were masters of the job thus took decisions with respect to their jobs without cognizance of the organizational goals. The autonomy posed by the skilled craftsmen led to a lot of inefficiencies which affected the bottom line of the organization used of skilled craftsmen was also expensive and time consuming.The application of scientific method which calls for efficiency of workers led to the review of the skilled craftsmen, the review further broke down skilled crafts into simpler bits and processes such that it could easily be learnt by unskilled workers. It broke down a task into steps and sequences that is expected to be followed for workers to complete his given responsibilities.Max Weber is a German theorist and sociologist who supported Henri Fayol administrative principles. He envisioned management of an organization to be on an impersonal and rational basis, his theory was a result of the ways organizations in Europe operated in the 19th century. They operated as a personal and family like business, employee loyalty was to a single individual, this affected decision making as employers tend to make decisions based on sentiments and personal reasons.Max Weber believes an organization that is built on rational authority would be more productive and adapt to changes especially in a dynamic environment, employee acquisition and development will be based on competence and technical qualification.A bureaucratic organization is built on rules and regulations which are binding on all employees and most importantly the hierarchy. Managers will depend not on personality for dishing out orders but on legal power invested in managerial position. Bureaucracy has its bottle necks with its endless rules and levels of authority but has been a standard way of dealing with employees in an organization.Government insitutions are bureaucratic there is a hierarchy that must be strictly adhered to from the director general to the lower staff. It is not based on the technical knowhow of workers but on the level of authority.Abraham Maslow theory is often represented in the form of pyramid, of which most organization today still applying this theory.Physiological this includes the survival of the human body, what the body requires to survive, this includes food, shelter, water and air. This level is very important as failure of an employee at this level will be disastrous, this could be the reasons why some organizations offer free lunch to their employees. This level must be fulfilled first to enable the employee to think properly during the work within an organization.Safety the security of life is very important, an employee within an organization will be very worried if he doesn't have security over himself and his family. Absence of security will demotivate an employee and as results sometime might lead to the cause of high labour turnover.Love and belongingness after the physiological and safety levels have been fulfilled, the next is love or sense of belonging. The peer group or age grade system or learning communities or associations offers employees a sense of belonging. It offers them opportunities to share experiences and seek solutions to their challenges, a problem shared it brings solution towards the problem.Esteem, self-esteem or self-respect of employees instills confidence in them. They feel motivated, low self-esteem and self-respect could lead to psychological imbalances and depression of employees.Self-actualization this is the level that an employee could say he has discovered himself, at this level, all the major needs have been taken care of or addressed. The employee will be able to achieve whatever he can.An average executive director in the banking industry in Nigeria is entitled to a mortgage, two drivers, two cars, family vacation ones in a year, residential security, gasoline supply at residents for power etc. The organizations have basically taken care of every need of the executive director, all that is expected of the director is to work and achieve the set goals of the organization.The human approach to management is psychological and reguires the ability to influence the behavior of employees to do the right thing in order to increase productivity, employees are human and not machines or processes that need to be streamlined to increase productivity. The well-being, social interactions, individual achievements and career paths have to be taken into consideration in the planning and structure of an organization. An employee's growth should be directly proportional to the growth of the organization. The employer should be able to support its employees in training and development so that employee feel that they are important assets of the organization, productivities will increased if the management value the employees contribution which will motivate the employees to perform better so that the vision and mission of the organization will be realized.McGregor theory X and theory YDouglas McGregor formulated theory x and y suggesting two aspect of human behavior at work or two different views of individuals employees, one of which is negative called theory x and the other is positive called theory Y.According to McGregor, the perception of managers on the nature of individuals is based on various assumptions.Assumptions of theory XAn average employee intrinsically does not like work and tries to escape it whenever possible, since the employee does not want to work, he must be persuaded, compelled or warned with punishment so as to achieve organizational goals.A close supervision is required on part of managers. The managers adopt a more dictorial style.Many employees rank job security on top and they have little or no aspiration or ambition. Employees generally dislike responsibilities and this has caused them to resist to change, An average employee needs formal direction.Assumptions of theory YEmployees can perceive their job as relaxing and normal, they exercise their physical and mental efforts in an inherent manner in their jobs. Employees may not require only threat, external control and coercion to work, but they can use self-direction and self-control if they are dedicated and sincere to achieve the organizational objectives. If the job is rewarding and satisfying then it will result in employees loyalty and commitment to organization.An average employee can learn to admit and recognize the responsibility, in fact he can even learn to obtain responsibility. The employees have skills and capabilities, their logical capabilities should be fully utilized. In other words creativity, resourcefulness and innovative potentiality of the employees can be utilized to solve organizational problems.Thus, we can say that theory x presents a pessimistic view of employees nature and behavior at work, while theory y presents an optimistic view of the employees nature and behavior at work. If correlate it with Maslow theory we can say that theory x is based on the assumption that employees emphasize on the physiological needs and the safety needs, while theory x is based on the assumption that the social needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs dominate the employees.Implications of theory X and theory YQuite a few organization use theory X today. Theory X encourages use of tight control and supervision. It implies that employees are reluctant to organizational changes. Thus it does not encourage innovation.Many organizations today are using theory y techniques. Theory y implies that the managers should create and encourage a work environment which provides opportunities to employees to take initiative and self-direction. Employees should be given opportunities to contribute to organizational well-being. Theory Y encourages decentralization of authority, teamwork and participative decision making in an organization. Theory Y searches and discovers the ways in which an employee can make significant contributions in an organization. It harmonizes and matches employee's needs and aspirations with organizational needs.If firms decentralize control and reduce the number of levels of management, each manager will have more subordinates and consequently will be forced to delegate some responsibility and decision making to them. Broadening the scope of an employee's job adds variety and opportunities to satisfy ego needs.Consulting employees in the decision making process taps their creative capacity and provides them with some control over their work environment. Having the employee set objectives and participate in the process of evaluating how well they were met. Such an environment would result in a high level of motivation as employees work to satisfy their higher level personal needs through their jobs.McGregor's ideas have had a significant contribution to the field of management. Perhaps the most important is in how organizations view their employees, a paradigm shift from seeing them as indolent and directionless to the understanding that humans want to work, want to self-direct and make a contribution and that it is the responsibility and duty of managers to create the conditions for employees to contribute positively. To put it simply, creating the understanding that managers, according to Head (2011, p. 205) need to be transformational rather than transactional. At the same time, Head argues that McGregor's ideas led to a greater understanding that teamwork is essential to organizational success.As part of this, it also led organizations to understand the need for management equality in the workplace, that to get the best out of the diverse human capital of an organization, all members had to be treated the same and offered the same opportunities to contribute. However, not all would agree that McGregor's ideas have taken root and influenced the modern organization. Lerner (2011, p. 225) argues that it does not seem apparent that these insights and subsequent discoveries have taken firm hold in the minds and behavior of managers. Certain less than optimal even dysfunctional behavior persists. Whilst this might be true, it does bring us back to the point that McGregor made, that this knowledge is infancy and that a great deal more research needs to be done.Perhaps to sum up his contribution, we can use a quote from Lerner (2011, p. 218), 'what he sought in general, and perhaps more profoundly, was a better understanding of how human factors affected, and were incorporated into, organizational behavior and outcomes. In conclusion classical management which addresses the need to increase efficiency and productivity is still very relevant in today management, human management is very important and is requires the employer to closely pay attention to its employees as this will motivate them to work harder so that productivities of an organization will be increased. These principles are very relevant as they complement each other, this approach is still been used in an organization such as Nestle which is into manufacturing and also still manage its staff ,the combination of both principles could be said to be the backbone of the organization.ReferenceAbhijith,R. (2011) Classical Approach of Management. Available at net.Cole, A. (2004) Management Theory and Practice, 7th edition. United Kingdom, South Western Gengage Learning.Thenmozhi, M. (2012) Management Concepts and FundamentalsHersey (2013) Management of Organizational Behaviour: Utilizing Human Resources 6th edition.Parker and Ritson, P.(2005) Revisiting Fayol: Anticipating Contemporary Management, British Journal of Management,Vol 16.Saylor Foundation (No date) Scientific Management Theory and Ford Motor Company, Available at