preview

Approaches to Management

Better Essays

Management

“Management is a set of activities directed at an organisation’s resources, with the aim of achieving organisational goals efficiently and effectively.”(Davidson, Simon, Gottschalk, Hunt, Wood & Griffin (2006) p.5). Management has been practiced for thousands of years by many different civilisations. As a result there are many different approaches to management, two of which are, the behavioural and contemporary management perspectives. The behavioural perspective recognises the importance of behavioural process in the workplace and emphasises individual attitudes and behaviours, and group processes. The Hawthorne studies are famously associated with this perspective and along with studies on technology and social systems …show more content…

The human relation movement pioneered the evolution of management and lead to the development of Organisational behaviour.
Organisational behaviour (OB) is the field of study concerned with human behaviour in organisations. The human relation movement forged many imperative concepts, however many of its assertions were seen as simplistic and although theoretically correct, failed to hold in real working environments. As a result OB was formed to supplement the assumptions made in the human relations movement. OB took a holistic view of behaviour and addresses individuals impact on the organisation as well as the organisation’s impact on the individual. An example of this is the movement’s assumption that “worker satisfaction leads to improved performance.” (Davidson, Simon, Gottschalk, Hunt, Wood & Griffin (2006) p.24). If anything OB suggest otherwise, that is improved productivity leads to satisfaction not the other way. The emergence of OB further established the importance of behavioural processes in the organisation and contributed to changing managerial thinking, by constructing employees as valuable inputs to their system.

An organisational system consists of: inputs from the environment, transformational processes, outputs into the environment and a feedback loop(as illustrated below), all of which are interrelated and the

Get Access