2.1 Evolving Viewpoints: How We Got to Today's Management Outlook

• Management is an art, but it is also a science. In this chapter we describe two overarching theoretical perspectives on management: (1) The historical perspective includes three viewpoints—classical, behavioral, and quantitative. (2) The contemporary perspective also includes three viewpoints—systems, contingency, and quality-management.
• There are four good reasons for studying theoretical perspectives. They provide (1) a guide to action, (2) a source of new ideas, (3) clues to the meaning of your managers' decisions, and (4) clues to the meaning of outside ideas.

2.2 Classical Viewpoint: Scientific & Administrative Management

• The first of the historical perspectives includes the classical viewpoints, which emphasized finding ways to manage work more efficiently. It had two branches, scientific and administrative.
• Scientific management emphasized the scientific study of work methods to improve productivity of individual workers. It was pioneered by Frederick W. Taylor, who offered four principles of science that could be applied to management, and by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, who refined motion studies that broke job tasks into physical motions.
• Administrative management was concerned with managing the total organization. Among its pioneers were Henry Fayol, who identified the major functions of management (planning, organizing, leading, and controlling), and Max Weber, who identified five positive bureaucratic features in a well-performing organization.
• The problem with the classical viewpoint is that it is too mechanistic, viewing humans as cogs in a machine.

2.3 Behavioral Viewpoint: Behaviorism, Human Relations, & Behavioral Science

• The second of the historical perspectives, the behavioral viewpoint emphasized the importance of understanding human behavior and of motivating employees toward achievement. It developed over three phases.
• The first phase, early behaviorism, had three pioneers. Hugo Munsterberg suggested that psychologists could contribute to industry by studying jobs, identifying the psychological conditions for employees to do their best work, and devising strategies to influence employees to follow management's interests.
• Mary Parker Follett thought organizations should be democratic, with employees and managers working together.
• Elton Mayo hypothesized a so-called Hawthorne effect, suggesting that employees worked harder if they received added attention from managers.
• The second phase was the human relations movement, which suggested that better human relations could increase worker productivity. It was pioneered by Abraham Maslow, who proposed a hierarchy of human needs (physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization). Another pioneer was Douglas McGregor, who proposed a Theory X (managers have pessimistic, negative view of workers) versus Theory Y (managers have optimistic, positive view of workers) and suggested that managers could avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy of expecting workers to behave a certain way and then being unsurprised when they acted that way.
• The third phase was the behavioral science approach, which relies on scientific research for developing theories about human behavior that can be used to provide practical tools for managers.

2.4 Quantitative Viewpoints: Management Science & Operations Research

• The third of the historical perspectives consists of quantitative viewpoints, which emphasized the application to management of quantitative techniques. Two approaches of quantitative management are management science and operations management.
• Management science focuses on using mathematics to aid in problem solving and decision making.
• Operations management focuses on managing the production and delivery of an organization's products or services more effectively.

2.5 Systems Viewpoint

• We turn from study of the historical management perspectives to the contemporary management perspectives, which includes three viewpoints: (1) systems, (2) contingency, and (3) quality-management.
• The systems viewpoint regards the organization as a system of interrelated parts or collection of subsystems that operate together to achieve a common purpose. A system has four parts: inputs, outputs, transformation processes, and feedback. A system can be open, continually interacting with its environment, or closed, having little such interaction.

2.6 Contingency Viewpoint

• The second viewpoint in the contemporary perspective is the contingency viewpoint, which emphasizes that a manager's approach should vary according to the individual and the environmental situation.

2.7 Quality-Management Viewpoint

• The third category in the contemporary perspective is the quality-management viewpoint, which includes (1) quality control, (2) quality assurance, and (3) total quality management.
• Quality refers to the total ability of a product or service to meet customer needs. Two traditional strategies for ensuring quality are quality control and quality assurance. Quality control is defined as the strategy for minimizing errors by managing each stage of production. Quality assurance focuses on the performance of workers, urging employees to strive for "zero defects."
• Total quality management (TQM) is a comprehensive approach—led by top management and supported throughout the organization—dedicated to continuous quality improvement, training, and customer satisfaction. The four components of TQM are (1) make continuous improvement a priority, (2) get every employee involved, (3) listen to and learn from customers and employees, and (4) use accurate standards to identify and eliminate problems.

2.8 The Learning Organization

• A learning organization is an organization that actively creates, acquires, and transfers knowledge within itself and is able to modify its behavior to reflect new knowledge.
• Three roles that managers must perform to build a learning organization are (1) build a commitment to learning, (2) work to generate ideas with impact, and (3) work to generalize ideas with impact.