History of Management - Knowledge Management & Dynamic Knowledge

Why is knowledge management such a critical component of today’s organizations? Why is Google a good example of a dynamic knowledge management company?

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Our technology-driven world is both rich with information and demanding in the pace and uncertainty of change. And although this is a setting in which knowledge workers excel, Peter Drucker has warned that “knowledge constantly makes itself obsolete.” His message is worth hearing. It suggests that neither people nor organizations can afford to rest on past laurels; future success will be earned only by those who continually build and use knowledge to the fullest extent possible.

The term knowledge management describes the processes through which organizations use information technology to develop, organize, and share knowledge to achieve performance success. You can spot the significance of knowledge management with the presence of an executive job title—chief knowledge officer. The “CKO” is responsible for energizing learning processes and making sure that an organization’s portfolio of intellectual assets is well managed and continually enhanced. These assets include such things as patents, intellectual property rights, trade secrets, and special processes and methods, as well as the accumulated knowledge and understanding of the entire workforce.

Google can be considered a knowledge management company. It not only runs a business model based on information searches; it operates as an organization with an information-rich culture driven by creativity and knowledge. Google morphs and grows and excels, in part, because the firm is organized and operates in ways that continually tap the developing knowledge of its members. Its information technologies and management philosophies help and encourage employees located around the world to share information and collaborate to solve problems and explore opportunities. The net result is a firm that seems to keep competitors and the business community at large always guessing what its next steps might be.

Source: Management, 11th Edition - John R. Schermerhorn

History of Management - Motivation & Classical Approach to Management

Assume you are a manager working in one of today’s Fortune 500 Companies. Discuss how you would attempt to influence the motivation of your workforce using the classical approach to management. How would you Attempt to influence the motivation of your workforce using the behavioral management approach to management?

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The students should draw on the material in their answers to the preceding two questions to address the applied issue in this question. The students should identify both the ideas they are using and how they are using them. The emphasis should be on the practical application of these ideas.

Source: Management, 11th Edition - John R. Schermerhorn

History of Management - Systems Thinking & Contingency Thinking

What is systems thinking? What is contingency thinking? Why are both types of thinking useful for managers in contemporary organizations?

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Systems thinking views organizations as open systems that interact with their environment in a continual process of transforming resource inputs into product outputs. Systems thinking also views the organization as a collection of interrelated parts or subsystems that must function together to achieve a common purpose. Each subsystem needs to perform its tasks well and to work well with the other subsystems.

Contingency thinking tries to match managerial responses with the problems and opportunities unique to different situations, particularly those posed by individual and environmental differences. Contingency approaches to management assert that there is no one best way to manage. Instead, managers should understand individual and situational differences and respond to them in appropriate ways.

Systems thinking and contingency thinking recognize the realities of complex modern organizations and their interplay with dynamic and competitive global environments. Failure to embrace either systems thinking or contingency thinking undermines the effective management and leadership of organizations.

Source: Management, 11th Edition - John R. Schermerhorn

History of Management - Behavioral Approaches & Management Thinking

What did the behavioral management approaches contribute to management thinking? 

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The basic assumption of the behavioral management approaches is that people are social and self-actualizing. These approaches include the Hawthorne studies, Maslow’s theory of human needs, McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, and Argyris’s theory of adult personality. The key contribution of the Hawthorne studies is that people’s feelings, attitudes, and relationships with co-workers influence their performance. Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs suggests that managers who can help people satisfy their important needs at work will achieve productivity. Douglas McGregor, the developer of Theory X and Theory Y, argued that managers should devote more attention to people’s social and self-actualizing needs at work. McGregor asserted that managers must shift their perspective from Theory X  a set of negative assumptions about human behavior  to Theory Y  a set of positive assumptions about human behavior. McGregor believed that managers who hold either set of assumptions can create self-fulfilling prophecies — that is, through their behavior they can create situations where subordinates act to confirm the managers’ original expectations. Theory Y assumptions are central to contemporary ideas about employee participation, involvement, empowerment, and self-management. Argyris argued that organizations were too often structured and operated in ways that were incongruous with the needs and characteristics of the adult personality. He maintained that implementation of classical management ideas such as the bureaucratic organization and Fayol’s administrative principles would create conditions for psychological failure among the workers, create dependent and passive workers, cause workers to have little sense of control over their work environments, and undermine worker performance. To have high individual and organizational performance, Argyris advocated transforming organizations so they would be compatible with the capacities and characteristics of the adult personality.

Source: Management, 11th Edition - John R. Schermerhorn

History of Management - Classical Management Thinking

What can be learned from classical management thinking?

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The classical management approaches encompass scientific management, administrative principles, and bureaucratic organization. The basic assumption of the classical management approaches is that people are rational and are primarily driven by economic concerns.

The useful lessons from scientific management, as espoused by Frederick Taylor, are: make results-based compensation a performance incentive; carefully design jobs with efficient work methods; carefully select workers with the abilities to do these jobs; train workers to perform the jobs to the best of their abilities; and train supervisors to support workers so they can perform the jobs to the best of their abilities. In addition, the work of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, also done within the scientific management tradition, provided a foundation for later advances in job simplification, work standards, and incentive wage plans.

The contributions of the administrative principles branch of the classical management approach are exemplified by the work of Henri Fayol and Mary Parker Follett. Henri Fayol developed rules and principles of management that served as guides to management practice. His rules of managerial foresight, organization, command, coordination, and control are similar to the modern planning, organizing, leading, and controlling functions of management. Fayol’s scalar chain, unity of command, and unity of direction principles also served to guide management practice. Follett brought an understanding of groups and a deep commitment to human cooperation to her writings about businesses and other organizations. Her insights about groups and human cooperation include the following: groups are mechanisms through which individuals could combine their talents for a greater good; organizations should be viewed as communities in which managers and workers work in harmony; and the manager’s job is to help organization members cooperate with one another and achieve an integration of interests. Follett’s work also anticipated many modern management concepts and practices, including employee ownership, profit sharing, gain-sharing, systems concepts, managerial ethics, and corporate social responsibility.

Max Weber viewed bureaucracy as an ideal, intentionally rational, and very efficient form of organization founded on principles of logic, order, and legitimate authority. The characteristics of bureaucratic organizations include the following: a clear division of labor, a clear hierarchy of authority, formal rules and procedures, impersonality, and careers based on merit. Weber believed that by designing and operating organizations as bureaucracies, productivity could be optimized.

Source: Management, 11th Edition - John R. Schermerhorn