How Does Classical and Human Needs Theories Influence Contemporary Management Theories: A Critical Survey

Title:  Classical and Behavioral Theories of Management

Assignment 1 Week 1-5: Critical Essay

Student: (R1802D4628417)

Course: Theories of Management (UU-MBA-712-ZM)

Institution: UNICAF - ZAMBIA

Teacher: Chrysostomos Kalos

Date:  09 September 2018

How does classical and human needs theories influence contemporary management theories: A critical survey.

Definition of terms:

            Classical:        Relating to an earlier or older form or ways.

           Theory:            An idea to explain something.

           Modern:           Relating to present or immediate past.

          Management:   The organization and administration of the undertakings of a business in

                                    Order to achieve its defined aims, goals and objectives.

Management

Management is an incremental process that facilitates organizations to define and attain their objectives through planning, organizing, and leading, motivating and controlling their resources. Classical and Human needs theories are made up of distinct management ideas that assisted in comprehending principles which constitute the management process. In these essay, those theories will be thoroughly discussed, evaluated and their influences to modern management practices determined, with modern day examples of their applications in organizations. Classical theories ae the fundamental scholarly ideas to  theory of management and were composed by Frederick Taylor (1859-1915)- Scientific Theory, Henri Fayol (1841-1925)- Administrative Theory, Max Weber (1864-1920)- Bureaucratic Theory. Henri Fayol’ theory was the most insightful big-picture management focused form of management idea which became the ideal model for all other different approaches to management with the most relevant explanation of management devised from it. He argued that to manage is to forecast a plan, organize, command, coordinate and control thus clearly defining effective operations of every successful organization. Every organization starts by laying out a plan to achieve its objectives through its carefully designed vision and mission. In order to reach the vision, there has to be clear administration of the organization’s resources towards that.

History of Classical Theories of Management

Classical theories of management are oldest school of thought ideas which initiated around 1900 and continued into the 1920s, during the industrial revolution, when people moved from farms to factories as well as from shops to large companies. The main sparks of the industrial revolution were 1. Power generation and usage which helped power factory machineries instead of work by hand thus speeding up work, 2. Machinery innovations in which made work easier and faster as well as 3. Transportation through rail roads and speed boats making jobs easier and speedier also. These major rapid changes in the way work was done came with emerging new issues that people needed to grasp; 1. Community of workers 2. Employees working in conjunction with machinery and 3. Fast evolution of industry, led to people looking for answers to handling those incoming challenges. The key questions to be answered were how to organize, how to maximize productivity and how to manage the people working in those factories?

These questions were answered through ideas or theories by Frederick Taylor, Max Weber and Henri Fayol. The key concerns of these theories were to increase the efficiency of workers and organizations based on management practices, which they believed were an outcome of careful observation. Henri, Frederick, and Weber's overlapping management theories combined to constitute what is presently referred as Classical theories of management, which assumed people are rational.  

 3 main classical theories

Max Weber, through his bureaucratic management theory, argued that organizations should emulate government and judicial systems, using a legally acceptable and logical way in contrast to resembling the general, family like ways of leading where the father controlled all major decisions. Weber argued that these was an efficient form of leading organizations.

Using his bureaucratic approach, each employee’s power of control should be linked to his job title in the organization’s chain of command, meaning you only have authority relating to your job and if you leave that job you no longer have that authority thus balancing one’s power and keeping things legally balanced and rational. He stated that clear rules should govern performance, hiring and firing should be determined by standardized guidelines. Due to his concerns for favoritism, he wanted to hire the best people for the job and organize them in a logical sensible way, thus increasing organizational productivity and service delivery. Weber was a big picture type of thinker compared to Taylor and Fayol.

Frederick Taylor, through his scientific management theory, believed in the practical application of scientific knowledge to work, in which he saw that the work should modified to suit a particular individual or task was a big obstacle in bringing about desired productive outcomes. I.e. He believed by people doing work in their own ways was not the best to be productive. So he made time-motion study more acceptable by explaining it thoroughly; how much time each single task should take and how many activities it should take to fine one best way to do each single task.

He devised reducing the amount of time per task by breaking down each task into small steps, standardizing each task and performing every tasks in the new one right way after finding out all the inefficiencies from using earlier methods.

According to Du, Bramley, Nazareth and Andrews (2014),” time-motion study ideas were initiated by Frederick Taylor and Frank Gilbreth around 1920s with the intention to make physical processes easier.” where Gilbreth determined that bending and picking up bricks took too much time and motions, then came up with a system where bricks roll, raised them in a shelf and made other changes to reduce time and motions taken as people did not need to bend to pick them up. This sped up the process by about 300% as one person could now lift up about three times the bricks. His way was successful and dramatic in some ways.

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