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Assignment Instructions

Week 4 Paper:  Why Do You Do What You Do?

Identify an organization and develop an organizational chart listing all the key leaders. List their roles as well as discuss how their responsibilities tie to the organization’s mission, vision, and values.  Please feel free to use your company.  However, if that information is not available, please conduct a search and select a company that provides the information.  Contact your instructor if you have any questions about how to proceed.

Directions:

• The assignment should be between 5-7 pages which include the cover page and reference page.
• Your paper should include an introduction and conclusion that summarize the contents of the entire paper.
• Your paper should be written in proper APA format.  This link will take you to the section of the APUS library that can assist you with formatting:  apus.campusguides.com/content.php
• References: A minimum of two references are required for this assignment.  You may use your textbook as a reference in addition to the two references.

Edwin Villa Rivera

Prof. Teresa Buehler-Rappold

Management Theory and Principle Milestones

American Military University

20 JAN 2019

Management Theory and Principle Milestones

Introduction

The management of people and employees barely existed before the industrial revolution as most tasks were handled by the business owners themselves. Industrial revolution sparked innovation management theories that gave business owners and managers insight into the best managerial practices to manage people and employees. The field of management has evolved over time, with managers now having unlimited resources at their disposal to learn new skills and scale their businesses and companies to greater heights (Rose, Spinks &Canhoto, 2014). This paper provides an overview of the key management theory and principle milestones over time, their significance, their highlights and also their limitations.

Fayol’s Principles of management

Henry Fayol was the founder of the 14 principles of management. He was at one point the director of a mining company which was facing a deep financial crisis. Fayol had to figure a way to undo the mess and this led him to develop the 14 principles of management to revive the mining company. These principles of management included the successful strategies that put the company back on its feet. The significance of Fayol’s principles of management during that time was to create personal and professional development within companies and business by giving managers the opportunity to develop and work on their management practices. These principles also gave managers the tools they needed to lead, making the management process more efficient. On top of these 14 principles, Fayol also came up with a list of the primary functions of management which complement the 14 principles. The 14 principles of management are the division of work, authority, discipline, remuneration, the unity of command, centralization, order, initiative, team spirit, the stability of tenure of personnel, scalar chain, equity, the unity of direction and lastly subordination of individual interests(Morden, 2017).  Fayol identified the primary functions of management to be planning, forecasting, controlling, coordinating, organizing and commanding. The highlight of Fayol’s principles of management was that they have defined the true meaning of management. They brought positive change to organizations as they led to excellent decision making. These principles also made managers equipped managers with skills that made them more effective. In as much as the principles brought about efficiency in organizations, they had their own limitations. They were criticized for not being flexible and they could only be applied by companies in specific sectors especially manufacturing and construction where grading of results can be done immediately. The principles also put more focus on management and paid little attention to the problems of employees and workers. Moreover, the principles to do not touch on the important aspects of management, for example, motivation and communication (Anheier, 2014).

Scientific management theory

The scientific management theory was founded by Frederick Taylor. Taylor defined the techniques of scientific management as he felt that the creation of an efficient division of labor could be well determined through scientific management techniques as opposed to the informal rule of thumb knowledge. Taylor was once a manager at a certain machine shop where he noted that some of his employees were not putting in the effort required resulting in production inefficiencies. This pushed him to create a system whereby each job the desired outcome for each job was stated, and the progress of the work being done was measured. His techniques of scientific management were significant as they were able to look into ways the different ways a company could save time and money when its employees worked at peak performance. Taylor’s major focus was, therefore, improving work performance through specialization and division of labor. He came up with four major principles to improve workplace efficiency. The first principle is studying how workers handle their tasks and formulating new ways of improving task performance. The second principle is codifying new methods of task performance into standard operating procedures and written rules. The third principle is carefully selecting employees so that their skills match the needs of the task and training them to handle and perform tasks according to the set standards and procedures. The fourth and last principle is formulating an acceptable level of task performance then coming up with pay system to reward employees who performance exceeds the acceptable level.

The highlight of Taylor’s scientific management theory was that they become so popular and many organizations adopted them and put them into practice. The limitations of this Taylor’s scientific theory were that managers used the scientific principles for their selfish gains. After noting an increase in performance by their employees, most managers instead of rewarding these employees with bonuses, chose to add them more work, leaving many employees dissatisfied with their jobs. To add to that, increase in work performance led to layoffs because only a few employees were needed. Thus, Taylor’s scientific management theory resulted in the exploitation of employees. This theory also gives too much importance to individual work performance and neglects the importance of group performance.

The Bureaucratic management theory

The bureaucratic management theory was funded by a German Sociologist, Max Weber. Max came up with the bureaucratic style of management, whose significance was ensuring that organizations treated employees equally and each employee was given a clear description of the organization’s division of labor. Max Weber emphasized that bureaucracy contributed to an organization’s efficiency and economic effectiveness. He formulated systematic processes and organizations hierarchies to maximize efficiency and eliminate favoritism. Max developed the bureaucratic management of approach following the old organizational structures during the industrialization period, which he intended to displace. He started his work so as to help Germany manage its industrial enterprises at a time when the country was struggling to become a world power. He placed emphasis on the need for organizations to operate and govern employees in a rational manner. His principles of bureaucratic management, included a chain of command, application of consistent and complete rules, selection and promotion of employees based on qualification, separation of personal and official property and lastly proper division of labor.  The highlight of this management theory was that it structured large organizations making them work more effectively. The limitations of this theory were that it demotivated and demoralized employees because employees in a bureaucratic organization had no chance to voice their opinion or even participate in decision making. In addition, decision making was quite slow in bureautic organizations because of the many rules and formalities that these organizations had to follow.

Human relations theory of management

The human relations theory of management was founded by Elton mayo during the industrial revolution period. During this period, the main focus of the business was productivity and so Elton started carrying out experiments in order to prove the importance of people in productivity, as compared to machines. This theory became significant at this time as it emphasized the need for employers to encourage their employees in order to make them more motivated resulting in high work performance. Mayo’s human relations approach had a number of features. One, it stated that managers ought to have a clear and basic understanding of human behavior in all aspects. Secondly, it is required for managers to study the interpersonal relationships among their employees at work. Third, it is only through good human relations that higher production and high levels of motivation can be attained. Lastly, management must draw concepts of the various behavioral sciences. The highlight of this theory was that it had a major impact on management thinking and even practices. More researchers began to pay attention to the human element in organizations. The major limitation of this theory was that it was quite difficult to predict human behavior in the workplace and research on the human behavior approach failed to address this.

X and Y theory of management

The X and Y theory of management was founded by Douglas Mcgregor. It was after the second world war that several studies conducted revealed how assumption concerning employee attitudes and their behavior affected the behaviors of managers. Mcgregor developed this influential approach by proposing that two different sets of assumptions about workers behavior and attitudes influence how managers think and behave in an organization. Theory X assumes that the average employee is lazy and does not like putting an effort in the tasks they have been given. This pushes the managers to monitor these employees much closely so as to improve their performance. The managers also control the behaviors of these employees by issuing punishments or rewards. The assumption of theory Y is that employees are not generally lazy and if given the chance, they will do what is best for the organization. The Work setting, according to theory Y, determines whether employees will work hard or not and so managers do not have to keep an eye on them to control their behavior because employees will be self-driven to commit to the organizational goal. Therefore, managers strive hard to create a work setting that is favorable to the employees. The highlight of the X and theory is that organizations were able to monitor the performance of their employees, leading to high standards of performance. The limitations of this management theory is that does not encourage innovation among employees as the majority of them become reluctant to organizational change.

Conclusion

These management theories and principles elaborated how the external environment affected the ways in which organizations and managers operated. It is seen that these theories and principles served as a guideline for management actions and even decision making. Many modern-day organizations still apply these theories and principles in governing their employees creating room to increase employee performance(Geisler,& Wickramasinghe,2015). The works of these theorists have continued to impact organizations in a great way.

References

Anheier, H. K. (2014). Nonprofit organizations: Theory, management, policy. Routledge.

Geisler, E., &Wickramasinghe, N. (2015). Principles of Knowledge Management: Theory, Practice, and Cases: Theory, Practice, and Cases. Routledge.

Morden, T. (2017). Principles of management. Routledge.

Rose, S., Spinks, N., &Canhoto, A. I. (2014). Management research: Applying the principles. Routledge.