Evolution of Management free essay sample

As long as there have been human endeavors, there have been people willing to take charge—people willing to plan, organize, staff, and control the work. One might say that nature abhors a vacuum and thus someone will always step forward to fill a leadership void. Probably the natural emergence of leadership grew out of our instinct for survival. In the hostile world of early humankind, food, shelter, and safety needs usually required cooperative efforts, and cooperative efforts required some form of leadership. Certainly leadership was vested in the heads of early families via the patriarchal system. The oldest member of the family was the most experienced and was presumed to be the wisest member of the family and thus was the natural leader. As families grew into tribes and tribes evolved into nations, more complex forms of leadership were required and did evolve. Division of labor and supervision practices is recorded on the earliest written record, the clay tablets of the Sumerians. Their ideas have created an awareness about existing managerial problems at that time. Classical Management Era (1880-1930) At the turn of the new century, efficiency and productivity became a critical concern of the managers. Among the major characteristics of the Classical Management Theory are rational economic view which assumes that people are motivated by economic gains, scientific management which emphasizes on internal operations as managers are concerned with meeting the demand, administrative principles which requires both the job and people to form an efficient organization and lastly, bureaucratic organization which finds ways to eliminate managerial inconsistencies brought about by abuse of power leading to ineffectiveness. This era of industrial revolution that took place in Europe and North America had manual labor replaced by machines especially in the garments and automobile sectors. The rapid occurrence and the need to increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness have guided the evolution of management because even then, managers have searched for ways on how to make the most of the vast resources to their maximum usage. Neo Classical Era – Human Relations (1930-1950) The Neo Classical Era paved the way to the emergence of behavioral or the human relations management in the 1920’s. A group of researchers including Elton Mayo conducted the first studies of human relations in the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company located in Illinois, USA. Their finding which is more popularly called as the Hawthorne Effect is used as a basis for managing human relations: 1. The aptitudes of individuals are imperfect predictors of job performance. 2. Informal organization affects productivity. 3. Work-group norms affet productivity. 4. The work place is a social system. Chester Bernard followed Hawthorne Effect’s principles and developed a framework that dealt with the executive functions. According to his Acceptance Theory of Authority, supervisors in a company only have much authority as their subordinates allow them to have. Among the functions of a manager include: 1. Establish and maintain an effective communication system. 2. Hire and retain effective personnel. 3. Motivate those personnel. Modern Management Era (1950 up to present) The rise of labor unions and government regulations brought by unfair labor practices during the Great Depression gave way to the modern management we know today. Companies now sought after potential in an employee as well exceptional capabilities. Organizations began seeing the upside of employee development and the dependency of individual success on organization success. Many experts analyze past management theories in order to develop new improved models that will result to a more effective supervision. Modern management thinkers like Robert Schlaifer and Herbert Simon defines organization as a complex system that underlies contingency approach and use of modern techniques to solve organizational and human problems.