Management approaches:-Social System, Decision Theory and Mathematical/ Quantitative
Human Behaviour Approach
The human behaviour approach emphasised that since management involves getting things done through people, its study should be centred around workers and their interpersonal relations. It has also been called as “Human relations approach” or “Leadership approach”. This school concentrates on human aspects of management. This led to the application of methods and findings of psychology. Social psychology, sociology and anthropology to deal with the human problems involved in management. The origin of this school may be traced to 1879. When Wilhelm Windt established at Leipzig a laboratory for the study of human behaviour.
Many management thinkers, philosophers and practitioners contributed to this school of thought. Chief among them are: Mary Parker Follet, Oliver Sheldon, Henry Dennison, Mooney and Railey, Chester I. Bernard, Alvin Brown and Lyndall Urwick.
Mary Parker Follet (1868-1933), a social worker, contributed a lot to this school. She gave two new terms, “togetherness” and “group thinking”. She emphasised that a manager’s job was to harmonize and coordinate group efforts-not to force and drive. She recognized the need for a manager’s understanding the group concept principles. She emphasised that “men are first” and helped to bridge the gap between the machanistic approach of Taylor and the human behaviour approaches of others.
Oliver Sheldon, author of Philosophy of Management, emphasised that the primary responsibility of management is social and communal. He made it clear that the mechanics of production were secondary to the human element. He conceptualized the various ideas of management and helped in promoting it to a higher theoretical level. Chester I. Bernard, the author of The Functions of the Executive (1938), introduced the social concepts into the analysis of managerial functions and processes.
“He started with the individual, moved to cooperative organised endeavour, and ended with executive functions.” He analysed the organisation structure logically and stated about the application of sociological concepts to management. He viewed the organisation as a system of consciously coordinated activities. Similarly, Henry Dennison developed concepts of motivation, leadership, teamwork etc. and Mooney and Railey put forth their ideas about organisation and stated nine principles in this respect.
The human behaviour approach rightly laid emphasis upon the human behaviour and interaction. However, it would not be proper to assert that field of human behaviour is equivalent to the field of management. There are other aspects of management which cannot be ignored altogether.
Social System Approach
This approach is closely linked and related with the human behaviour approach and is often confused or intertwined with it. It looks upon management as a social system, i.e., a system of cultural interrelationships. It describes the cultural relationships of various social groups and attempts to integrate them into a system. This school has also contributed a lot to the stream of thought about management. “The recognition of organised enterprise as a social organism, subject to all the pressures and conflicts of the cultural environment, has been helpful to both theorist and practising manager. Among other helpful aspects are the awareness of the institutional foundations of organisation authority, the influence of informal organisation, and such social factors as those called the bonds of organisation.”
The Decision Theory Approach
This theory lays epiphysis upon the rational decision in area of management. The decision theorists deal with the decision itself, the persons who make decisions and the process of decision-making. “Some limit themselves essentially to the economic rationale of the decision, others regard anything that happens in an enterprise as a subject for analysis; and still others expand decision theory to cover the psychological and sociological aspects and environment of decisions and decision-makers.” The major contributors to this school of thought have been economic theorists and they laid emphasis upon the model construction and mathematics..
The Quantitative Approach
Since World War II, there has been a rapid development in the quantitative school of thought and it includes those theorists who see management as a system of mathematical models and processes. They believe that managerial problems, including managerial organising. decision making and planning, can be expressed in quantitative terms and with exacting analysis decisions can be made with accuracy. It is closely linked with the decisions theory approach but its greater emphasis upon mathematics differentiates it from the latter. The belief of this group is that if management or organising or planning or decision making is a logical process, ot can be expressed in mathematical symbols and relationships. The focus of this school is the model, for through this device the problem is expressed in its basic relationships and in terms of selected goals”. Its methodology is highly logical and helps in bringing about greater accuracy in arriving at a solution to the complicated problems of management. It may instil in the management a confidence in dealing with various problems. It has been rightly stated by Koontz and O’Donnell that “By bringing to the important and complex field of management the techinques of the physical sciences, mathematics have already made an immense contribution to orderly thinking. They have forced on people in management the means and desirability of seeing many problems more clearly; they have pressed on the both students and managers the need for establishing goals and ways of measuring effectiveness; They have been extremely helpful in promoting the concept of management as a logical system of relationships; and they have caused people in management to review and occasionally reorganize information sources and systems so that mathematics can be given sensible quantitative meaning.”
The number of techniques which have been evolved by this school is growing rapidly. The various important techniques evolved are: Decision Theory, Experimental Design, Game Theory, Information Theory, Inventory Control, Linear Programming, Probability Theory, Queuing Theory, Replacement Theory, Sampling Theory, Simulation Theory (including Monte Carlo Methods), Theory, Simulation Theory (including Monte Carlo Methods), Statistical Decision Theory, and Symbolic Logic etc.
