Contemporary Management Essay

The Classical heed improvement attempted to apply logic and scientific methods to dole outment of complex organisations, such as factories. It fictional that there was one best way to manage an enterprise. Classical Management comprises three different approaches scientific Management, which represents Frederick W Taylors work out, developed scientific principles of focus, focusing on the individual, rather than the team and aimed to improve talent through production- airwave time studies, breaking each job down into its components and designing the quickest and best methods of execute each component. He also encouraged employers to reward productivity. Employees did the physical labour, managers did the planning and organising.According to Taylor, employees were god by money. From Taylors research emerged time studies, work studies and industrial engineering, making an important contribution to the central procedures of many an(prenominal) organisations. Bureaucratic Mana gement emerged from the work of Max Weber, who developed an ideal model organisation, hierarchical in grammatical construction, governed by a condition of impersonal, formal rules and policies.Weber believed this was the most efficient way to organise and govern an enterprise. Henri Fayols Administrative Management assumed that 14 general principles of management could be applied to any authority or circumstance 1. division of work 2. authority 3. discipline 4. unity of command 5. unity of counsellor 6. subordination of individual interest to the common good 7. remuneration 8. centralisation 9. hierarchy 10. order 11. fair-mindedness 12. stability of staff 13. initiative 14. espirit de corpsFayol divided managerial activities into five functions planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and reassureling. This idea set the basis for many modern management techniques stressing rational central planning. The benignant transaction approach, focusing on work relationships a s the key to improving workplace productivity, was inspired by the Hawthorne studies performed by Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger. They canvass the effects of physical working conditions on employee productivity and fatigue.These studies suggested that leaders are able to positively enamor employee need and productivity by showing concern for employee relationships. Mayo discovered that a work base would establish its own informal group performance norm, which represented what it considered to be a fair take of performance. The work group would convince ratebusters to slow down and slackers to work straightaway. Mayos conclusion that work is a group activity had a profound influence on modern individual management. dickens key aspects of the human relations approach are employee motivation and leadership style. Pay can make a motion only lower level needs and once those are satisfied, non-monetary factors such as praise, recognition, and job characteristics motivate human behaviour. Fayols Management approach ferocityed maximum efficiency and productivity through measuring operating procedures viewed money as the one true motivator for workers stressed the need for managerial control and viewed organisations as machines.Taylors Scientific approach over-simplified the issues, emphasised the individual rather than the team and was hostile to exchange unions and labour organisations. Whereas Fayol and Taylor both emphasised the production process and adjusted humans to this process, Mayos Human Relations approach emphasised the coordination of human and social elements in an organisation through consultation, participation, communication and leadership.However, the equality merely replaced rational economic man with emotional social man and this approach merely shifted the clean for poor performance from structural to personal attitudes and emotions. Both approaches held that there was one best way to manage all organisations. Assess the relevance of Classical Management theorists to the management of contemporary organisations. The modern assembly line pours out finished products faster than Taylor could ever have imagined. This production efficiency is just one bequest of Scientific Management.Its efficiency techniques have been applied to many tasks in non-industrial organisations, ranging from fast-food service to the training of surgeons. However, Taylors emphasis on productivity and speed placed undue pressures on employees to perform at faster and faster levels. This led to exploitation and resulted in more workers joining unions. Modern management is still viewed as a process that enables organisations to achieve their objectives by planning, organising and controlling their resources, as advocated by Fayol, but views gaining the commitment of their mployees through motivation as a key element. Hierarchical organisation (introduced by Fayol) has become the dominant, traditional mode of structure in large corporations and civil/public service departments. In some cases this mechanistic model works best, however, the emphasis is on efficiency and control, whereas a greater balance between people and performance is loosely considered the more desirable approach nowadays.Although the Classical Management (vertical/hierarchical) approach dominated organisational structure for decades, the Human Relations Movement (horizontal/inter-departmental), encouraging adaptation to external changes, seems the more relevant approach for modern management. Contemporary management builds on the Classical and Behavioural approaches and goes beyond them. The Systems approach of different strokes for different folks finally regurgitate the one best way theory to bed and has dominated modern organisational analysis since the 1980s.The Contingency approach views the organisation as an organism, segmenting as it grows, each segment specialising in knowledge and activity, all of which must contest with their external environment and integrate harmoniously. The main difference between Classical and Contemporary approaches is the modern imprint that it is futile to search for one best way to manage an organisation. Instead, managers must take into account the sexual and external environment to match the appropriate management practices to the surrounding circumstances for an effective outcome.