Question

How can knowledge of past schools of management thought benefit today’s managers? Give at least one example of a management theory that you agree with and at least one example of a management theory that you do not agree with. Explain your reasoning.

Answer 1

Past schools of management thought provides the Managers a roadmap to future. Most of the theories have taken into consideration all possible scenarios that may exist in the Corporate world, rather, the old Management Gurus have unanimously agreed to the fact that Management is all pervasive. Hence, be it managing the home or an Organization, it is important to comprehend the management theories for better results.

However, it is to be noted that not all the Management theories are still relevant today. Some have evolve over a period of time, while some are not really significant to today’s management style owing to certain different set of challenges that managers of today face in the industry, which is rather different from the ones that those Management Gurus may have recorded during the past time.

But overall, I strongly vouch for the scientific management theories. Fredric Taylor introduced the scientific management theory by advocating for the scientific principles of management. His theory of scientific management aimed at improving the economic efficiency of the Organizations and was more concerned with the labor productivity. His principles of time and motion study under this theory, holds true even in today’s management scenario. Human resources are rather invaluable assets to the Organization. However, an Organization needs to understand the quantum of break required to rejuvenate this resource and how much time at a stretch needs to be given to the motion or the on-going process of activities that is undertaken by the Human resource.

In terms of its current use in Organizations, an appropriate study of this principle, throws light upon how efficiently can the Human resources be handled in order to avail optimum levels of productivity through them. Here, this theory supports today’s understanding of the management concept. Taylor’s differential piece rates plan also holds steady in management.

On the other hand, I believe ‘Bureaucracy Theory’ introduced by Max Weber, do not actually hold true today. Weber always focused upon dividing the entire Organization into hierarchies and establishing a definite authority and control that are very strong in nature, to control the actions of the employees and of the Organization at large. In fact, he urged the Organizations to prepare the Standard Operating Procedures for all its routine task in a comprehensive way. Bureaucracy in today’s world is not applicable universally to all people across all the Firms in a similar way. Especially, the Firms need to respond to the changing market demands in a timely manner but bureaucracy impedes the innovative steps in the Organization. If the Companies are selling its products in old, matured markets where innovation are not much called for, Bureaucracy could still be prevalent. However, today’s world is very fast moving. Demands and preferences of the consumers change rapidly. In most of the cases, where innovation is the only solution, the quick adaptation of the changes in a given environment is not possible under the Bureaucratic theory because it is rather rigid in nature. Therefore, restructuring the workplaces to new management thinking and techniques may not be completely feasible under this theory and hence I disagree to the same.