Chapter 2

The Evolution of Management Thought

1. Management is an interdisciplinary and international field that has evolved in bits and pieces
over the years. Five approaches to management theory are (1) the universal process approach, (2)
the operational approach, (3) the behavioral approach, (4) the systems approach, and (5) the
contingency approach. Useful lessons have been learned from each.
Henry Fayols universal process approach assumes that all organizations, regardless of
purpose or size, require the same management process. Furthermore, it assumes that this rational
process can be reduced to separate functions and principles of management. The universal
approach, the oldest of the various approaches, is still popular today.
2. Dedicated to promoting production efficiency and reducing waste, the operational approach
has evolved from scientific management to operations management. Frederick W. Taylor, the
father of scientific management, and his followers revolutionized industrial management through
the use of standardization, time-and-motion study, selection and training, and pay incentives.
3. The quality advocates taught managers about the strategic importance of high-quality goods
and services. Shewhart pioneered the use of statistics for quality control. Japans Ishikawa
emphasized prevention of defects in quality and drew managements attention to internal as well
as external customers. Deming sparked the Japanese quality revolution with calls for continuous
improvement of the entire production process. Juran trained many U.S. managers to improve
quality through teamwork, partnerships with suppliers, and Pareto analysis (the 80/20 rule).
Feigenbaum developed the concept of total quality control, thus involving all business functions

in the quest for quality. He believed that the customer determined quality. Crosby, a champion of
zero defects, emphasized how costly poor-quality products could be.
4. Management has turned to the human factor in the human relations movement and
organizational behavior approach. Emerging from such influences as unionization, the
Hawthorne studies, and the philosophy of industrial humanism, the human relations movement
began as a concerted effort to make employees needs a high management priority. Today,
organizational behavior theorists try to identify the multiple determinants of job performance.
5. Advocates of the systems approach recommend that modern organizations be viewed as open
systems. Open systems depend on the outside environment for survival, whereas closed systems
do not. Chester I. Barnard stirred early interest in systems thinking in 1938 by suggesting that
organizations are cooperative systems energized by communication. General systems theory, an
interdisciplinary field based on the assumption that everything is systematically related, has
identified a hierarchy of systems and has differentiated between closed and open systems. New
directions in systems thinking are organizational learning and chaos theory.
6. A comparatively new approach to management thought is the contingency approach, which
stresses situational appropriateness rather than universal principles. The contingency approach is
characterized by an open-system perspective, a practical research orientation, and a multivariate
approach to research. Contingency thinking is a practical extension of more abstract systems
thinking.
7. Management by best seller occurs when managers read a popular book by a management
guru and hastily try to implement its ideas and one-size-fits-all recommendations without proper
regard for their organizations unique problems and needs. The quick-fix mentality that fosters

this problem can be avoided by staying current with high-quality management literature,
requiring rigorous support for claims, engaging in critical thinking, and running pilot studies.