Essay on Evolution of Management

Many people have their fingerprints on what is known as management today. Just as everything else it started from ground zero with a lot of trial and error. Over the years brilliant people such as Adam Smith and countless others have etched into history that best way to “manage,” whether on a small or large scale. The wake of these people is still being seen today in upcoming companies such as Zappos, who brings fresh and new twists to management as a whole. Management has evolved over the years and will continue to as people and procedures do as well.

Management is a leadership role of someone who works with resources and people to set and achieve goals to make an organization successful. There are many different approaches to management that a manager might use to help discover any problems and make proper decisions to solve anything that might go wrong. When it comes to contemporary methods there are four ways that a manager might utilize working with people, technology, resources, and the internal and external environments. These include sociotechnical theory, quantitative management, organizational behavior, and systems theory. Also, there are parts of an organizations internal and external environments that may alter the effectiveness of these four contemporary approaches and how a manager might makes decisions.

There are four contemporary approaches to management: sociotechnical systems theory, quantitative management, organizational behavior, and systems theory.

Successful management requires an understanding of the fundamental concepts of effective management techniques and principles. In order to gain such insight, and manage effectively and efficiently, managers must develop an awareness of past management principles, models and theories. From the turn of the 20th Century, the

Managers have always encountered obstacles, however, the challenges they have today are quite unique. Management is always evolving and there are many things that need to be considered that are quite new to managers and employees alike. Our world is becoming more culturally diverse and we are entering a technology era that not only has internet, but has social media, web-conferencing and media sharing. These challenges coupled with a fast paced society can make it difficult it for managers to achieve result from their employees.

The purpose of management is to utilize personnel, assets, and resources to complete a set of tasks in an effective and efficient manner. Managers have their own styles when managing projects and personnel, and many theories have been made since the nineteenth century to determine the best practices. In the nineteenth century during the Industrial Revolution, as employment in businesses grew, the need for management increased. Large business owners found a need for theory management in the workplace in order to effectively and efficiently produce results. Management became a profession as these theories became common-place in the workforce (Goddard, 2009).

Administrative management by Henry Fayol, scientific management by Frederick Taylor and bureaucratic management by Max Weber were all developed long time ago in the management development history. However, they still have significant influences over the management today and managers today could still apply these ideas to their workplace. This essay is to discuss what these theories are and how they are applied to the management practice today.

We will specifically look at the classical management theories especially Taylor’s principle of scientific management, as well as taking into account Weber’s ideal bureaucracy.

With the progress of history, the definition, content, method and characteristic of management is in constant development. The history of management theory and idea is evolving. Between the twentieth century and twenty first century, the environment of management has been changed from stable and predictable to unending changeable. According to Kiechel’s (2012) theory, with the definite law, principle and regulation, management belong to a real science system. In this essay, two topics will be discussed. The first one is management theories and ideas have changed over time with two factors which are the transformation of labor were treated from machine to human and the connection between organization and external

A number of different major schools of management thoughts have been emerged since 100 years ago. Various views of management have been arisen and affected the managerial skills both in the past and the present.

According to Modern Management Concepts & Skills, Classical Approach defined as management approach that emphasizes organizational efficiency to increase organizational success (Certo, P. 509). The approach broken into two areas: The Lower Management Analysis focused on “One Best Way” of do a job. The second area, Comprehensive Analysis of the management concern focused on a universal process including principal of management. Classical management approach theory developed around nineteenth century. Given the period “The Rise of Industrial America”, “the relatively high wages for skilled workers led employers to seek ways to replace skilled with unskilled or semi-skilled workers”. (White, Richard) The theory originally designed to fix the inefficiency of the factories during that time. As a result, the classical approach theory gravitated toward economic and physical efficiently rather than human factors.

It is fortunately for this generation manager because they have more than century's management theory and thought to retrospect. Although modern management theory dates primarily from the early twentieth century, there was serious thinking and theorizing about managing many years before. Throughout many different contributions of writers and practitioners have resulted different approaches to management, resulting in a kind of management theory jungle and help them to face the challenge of the future.

There have been many different approaches to management over the past few centuries; autocratic, which causes dissatisfaction for employees due to authority being in the hands of one person; paternalistic, in which the authoritative leader cares for his employees more than his profits; democratic, in which the management allows the employees to voice their opinions and laissez faire in which the management stays, for the majority, out of its employees business. These approaches are ever changing due to developments in modern day society. (Khilawala, 2002).

Historical Foundations of management have been around for years and were first introduced by Fayol around the turn of the century . This essay will discuss three main points and questions around management, the first question will cover how modern management practices have evolved from the “classical approaches to management”. The second question will cover the challenges contemporary managers face in 2013 compared to managers in the era of the classical approaches and the third question will be around comparing and contrasting bureaucratic management to a style of management I have been faced with. This discussion will pay particular attention to Frederick Taylor’s scientific approach to management.

Since its early days, management has been studied by various theorists and has provided scholars with much to study and discuss. Early principles were developed and expounded upon. Research and studies allowed the field to grow and evolve as improvements and new discoveries were made. Theorists soon discovered the complexity of management and that there was no single way to manage all people or circumstances. This observation led theorists to research various methods to bring a level of flexibility into management.