With Reference to Appropriate Literature and Cases, Critically Evaluate the Influence of Classical and Human Relations Approaches in Management Today

Introduction

Management means different thing to different persons with no single agreed definition of what management is. According to Ghislain Deslandes he describes management as “a vulnerable force, under pressure to achieve results and endowed with the triple power of constraint, imitation and imagination, operating on subjective, interpersonal, institutional and environmental levels” (G Deslandes 2014). Another definition claims that management is the process of reaching organizational goals by working with and through people and other organizational resources (Anon 2008).

Management itself has five basic functions that make up the management process which are: planning, organizing, coordinating, influencing and controlling,(Lallan Prasad and SS Gulshan 2011), (Calia Roberts n.d.) which are reflected in all facets of life even in daily livings such as housekeeping to running complex organizations although for management of large complex settings some required skills are needed that include interpersonal, diagnostic, technical and leadership for its success.

The history of management has witnessed series of changes, with some claims that it started way back from antiquity (David D. Van Fleet 2015), and evidenced by some projects such as the Pyramids of Egypt, and the Great wall of China that inherently supports a management approach for such remarkable feat. Some others take the view that it started properly in the mid 1800’s and had witnessed a lot of evolution still ongoing with the first documented management approach being the Classical (Bureaucratic, Scientific, Administrative) (Taylor 1911), then Behavioral or sometimes called Neo classical in 1930’s to 50, then Systems between 1950’s to 1970’s, to Contingency 1960,s to 1980’s and finally Quality viewpoint in the 1990’s(George, Claude S. 1972). The history itself will be incomplete without the mention of a few names such as Henri Fayol, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Chester Barnard, Elton Mayo and Max Weber, and Mary Parker Follet just to mention a few who very much influenced management as we know it today.

Classical Approach in Management

While there exists many approaches in management, and it is most unlikely that any one organization will use a singular approach, but by design or necessity one of the approaches usually is dominant and the management easily relates to that approach. Classical approach to management consists mainly of the Scientific, Bureaucracy and Administrative theorist. The major purpose being to get the job done while making the workers to work more effectively and efficiently, all in a bid to improve productivity with little or no attention given to the human factor (Lea Terry 2011).

Scientific theory and its place in management

The scientific approach pioneered by Frederick Winslow Taylor an American Engineer was tailored to improve industrial efficiency (Taylor 1911). He tried to apply science to labor and had the belief that there was a best way to do a job and this could only be gotten by studying the individuals while on the job with some famous example being the shovel experiment where he observed workers shoveling while unloading railroad cars, here he tried to determine the best way to handle the work done by the workers. In summary Taylor tried to make the work done by humans to become mechanical and efficient by not working hard but working right.

Taylor went ahead to propose the four principles of Scientific Management which are stop use of thumb or normal ways people work such as that which utilizes non formal way of working, might work today and fail the next day rather he proposed to study the work and determine the optimal means to perform the job, secondly he claimed that work should not be given to just any worker to do the job rather identify suitable workers for the particular job then enable them acquire necessary skills in order to perform maximally, thirdly there is a need to supervise the workers and ensure instructions and directions are given and fourthly allocate time for functions so that workers work while managers train and plan the process(Taylor 1911). A flaw to this was that Taylor had little regards for workers (Taylor 1903) and even went ahead to set time for work and output expected to be performed and the exact time that it should be carried out(Taylor 1911) and continually argued for standardization and its enforcement by management (Montgomery 1989) with workers being churned into efficiency machines (Drury 1915). By the late 1930’s this approach had become both unpopular among union and obsolete although parts of it still is utilized in organizations today.

Organizations that continue to use a hybrid version of the scientific approach are the manufacturing industries such as automobile, According to Marxism-Thaxis (2010), Taylorism approach of management is still used in Volkswagen with claims that they make production workers pass a fitness training so they can do all that is required in the factory such as carrying , lifting, picking and it is claimed that the build bodies of the workers before the bodies of the cars so the workers fit in the car production. This as earlier stated can be seen in most manufacturing company as they workers need to be suitable in order to ensure smooth workings at the plant.

Administrative theory and its place in management

Administrative approach towards management was pioneered by Henri Fayol a French mining engineer, and he was the originator of the functions of a manager along with the fourteen principles of management that included:

• Division of work –Every job need to be divided into different tasks, in order for a product to be produced. Fayol believed that if each worker does a specific task, the worker will acquire skills and become an expert leading to greater efficiency.

• Authority and Responsibility –Management is expected to give orders based on authority and as always with this authority comes responsibility. The responsibility being that with the right orders productivity should be maximal.

• Discipline – Where there is no discipline chaos will reign, discipline is expected at all level and ideally this should be part of all organization culture.

• Unity of command – Too many cook spoil the broth, different supervisors giving different orders will lead to confusion by the worker, so Fayol proposed that a worker should have only one manager although this is no more the case in most organizations with different organograms and reporting channel in most organizations today.

• Unity of direction – Fayol highlighted the need for one plan, one goal and a common vision, with