Management An Introduction: Chapter 2 - Models of Management

Daniel Schenk Maastricht University 10th October 2015
Management an Introduction
Chapter 2 – Models of Management
Why study models of management?

A model or theory represents complex phenomenon by identifying main elements and
relationships. Managers act in accordance with their model of the task. Models help to identify
the variables in a situation and their relationship to confidently and save time and effort.
Pfeffer and Sutton

Why managers ignore evidence:
 Trust personal experience more than research
 Prefer methods which worked previously
 Susceptible to vigorous consultants
 Rely on dogma and myth
 Copy practices that have worked well for famous companies
Alan Fox
Manager’s frame of reference:
 Unitary perspective believe that organisations develop rational ways of achieving
common interests
 Pluralist perspective believe that the division of labour leads to groups with different
interests
 Radical perspective believe that horizontal and vertical division unequal the social
relations within capitalist society.
Gareth Morgan
Image of organisation uses metaphors to represent an organisation.
 Machines – Mechanical thinking and bureaucracies
 Organisms – Recognising how the environment affects health
 Brains – Information processing, learning perspective
 Cultures – Focus on beliefs and values
 Political systems – View on conflicts and power
 Psychic prisons – People become trapped by habitual thinking
 Flux and transformation – Focus on change and renewal
 Instruments of domination – Over members, nations and environments
1
Quinn
...believe that successive models of management complement, rather than contradict, each
other.
Vertical axis represents

tension between flexibility
and control.
Horizontal axis
distinguishes internal from
external focus.
Rational goal models

Frederick Taylor
Scientific management – attempted to create a science of factory production. Wanted to
secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, which was supposed to be coupled with
maximum prosperity for the employee. The way to achieve this was to ensure that workers
reached their state of maximum efficiency.
Five principles:
 Determine the one best way of doing task
 Select the best person to do the job
 Train, teach and develop workers
 Provide financial incentives
 Centralise the responsibility to manager
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

Implementing scientific management
 How to reduce unnecessary action and fatigue
 Specified what employers should provide
 Scientific management properly applied enables individuals to reach their potential
Operational research
…is a scientific method of providing a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the
operations under control.
Internal process models

Max Weber
Bureaucratic management
…is a system in which people are expected to follow precisely defined rules and procedures
rather than using personal judgement. Bureaucracy brings routine to office operations just as
machines do to production.
Characteristics:
 Rules and regulations: Guidelines to define and control behaviour of employees
 Impersonality: Fairness through objectively rather than subjectively evaluating
personal considerations
 Divisions of labour: Work on specialised tasks
 Hierarchy: Ranking jobs by the amount of authority to make decisions
 Authority: The right to make decision of varying importance at different levels
 Rationality: Using the most efficient means. Running an organisation logically and
‘scientifically’
Bureaucratic structures and scientific techniques complemented each other and helped to
control production and impose discipline on factory work.
Henri Fayol
Administrative management
...use of institutions and order rather than relying on personal qualities to get things done.
Principles:
 Division of work: Specialisation improves skill and accuracy, which increases output
 Authority and responsibility: Wherever authority is exercised, responsibility arises
 Discipline: Essential for the smooth running of business
 Unity of command: Employee receives order from one superior
 Unity of direction: Same objectives
 Subordination and individual interest to general interest
 Remuneration of personnel: Should be fair and afford satisfaction for personnel and
firm
 Centralisation: Question of proportion. Varies according to different cases
 Scalar chain: Chain of superiors from ultimate authority to lowest rank
 Order
 Equity
 Stability of tenure of personnel: High employee turnover is not efficient
 Initiative: Sacrifice personal vanity to grant this satisfaction to subordinates
 Esprit de corps: Harmony to avoid unnecessary conflicts
Human relations models

Mary Parker Follett
“…group as an intermediate institution between solitary individual and the abstract society”
 Replacing bureaucratic institutions by netwokrs
 Enable individuals to work in groups
 Self-governing principle to support growth of individuals
 Create integrative unity of members
 Thought labour devalued human creativity
 Human and mechanical side should not be separated
Elton Mayo
Tested the effect on output of changing the physical environment. Came to the conclusion
that rather the social situation than the physical environment can be related to an increase in
output. Response showed close links between work and domestic life.
Human relationship approach emphasises the importance of social processes at work.

Advocates believe that employees will work better if managers are interested in their well-
being and supervise them humanely.
Peters and Waterman

‘Search of excellence’ managed US companies. They had a distinctive set of philosophies
about human nature and the way people act in organisations. Regarded people as emotional,
intuitive and creative social beings who value self-control, but also need security and meaning
of achieving goals.
Open system models

Organisation as an open system: A system that interacts with its environment. There are
links between the internal and external parts. Organisations depend on their environment for
resources. To ensure this, the environment needs to be satisfied.
System boundary separates system from its environment.
Feedback – provision of information about effects of an activity.
Subsystems are separate but related parts that make up the system.
Socio-technical system – outcome depends on interaction between technical and social

subsystems. Seeing a work system as combining material technology and social organisation.
(Trist and Bamforth)
Contingency management – adapt structure of organisation to match external conditions.
Approach based on idea that performance of an organisation depends on having a structure
that is appropriate to its environment. (Woordward, Burns, Staler, Lawrence, Lorsch)
Complexity theory – Complex systems can arrange and organise themselves
spontaneously. Systems learn and adapt from their internal experiences and from their
interactions with similar systems. Complexity arises from feedback between the parts of
linked systems.
E.g.: Individual organisation discovers and responds/acts to things happening in the
environment. Organisation’s action has consequences for the environment that
responds to organisation’s action. This has consequences for the organisation that
responds to the environment’s action. – Process continues infinite.
Complexity
Linear systems – actions lead to a predictable outcome
Non-linear systems – actions lead to less predictable/unpredictable outcomes

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Daniel Schenk Maastricht University 10th October 2015

Why study models of management?

Pfeffer and Sutton

Vertical axis represents

Rational goal models

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

Internal process models

Human relations models

Human relationship approach emphasises the importance of social processes at work.

Peters and Waterman

Open system models

Socio-technical system – outcome depends on interaction between technical and social

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