Basic management models and theories

Management and Change: Basic management models and theories associated with motivation and leadership

Classical Management Theory

Here we focus on three well-known early writers on management:
Henri Fayol
FW Taylor
Max Weber
Definition of management: Management takes place within a structured organisational setting with prescribed roles. It is directed towards the achievement of aims and objectives through influencing the efforts of others.
Classical management theory

• Emphasis on structure
  
• Prescriptive about 'what is good for the firm'
  
• Practical manager (except Weber, sociologist)
  
  Advantages
  
• Fayol was the first person to actually give a definition of management which is generally familiar today namely 'forecast and plan, to organise, to command, to co-ordinate and to control'.
  
• Fayol also gave much of the basic terminology and concepts, which would be elaborated upon by future researchers, such as division of labour, scalar chain, unity of command and centralization.
  

Disadvantages

• Fayol was describing the structure of formal organizations.
  
• Absence of attention to issues such as individual versus general interest, remuneration and equity suggest that Fayol saw the employer as paternalistic and by definition working in the employee's interest.
  
• Fayol does mention the issues relating to the sensitivity of a patients needs, such as initiative and 'esprit de corps', he saw them as issues in the context of rational organisational structure and not in terms of adapting structures and changing people's behaviour to achieve the best fit between the organisation and its customers.
  Max Weber (1864 - 1924), Germany
  Bureaucracy in this context is the organisational form of certain dominant characteristics such as a hierarchy of authority and a system of rules.
  Bureaucracy in a sense of red tape or officialdom should not be used as these meanings are value-ridden and only emphasize very negative aspects of the original Max Weber model.
  Through analyses of organisations Weber identified three basic types of legitimate authority: Traditional, Charismatic, Rational-Legal.read more..