Management may be one of the most misunderstood areas in environmental and occupational health. To many, management simply refers to the stifling bureaucracy the blocks creative thinking. To others, management is simply about money. While there's no denying these aspects in some areas of management, we nevertheless need a better definition. The following definition comes from Koontz and O'Donnel:
1. Management:
"designing and maintaining an environment in which individuals, working in groups, can accomplish preselected missions and objectives."
Without denying the need for the individual, management is all about groups working together. Hopefully, the environment is a motivating one, and the work should be directed towards objectives. We'll have much more to say about these issues later on.
A fundamental reason why there can be so much disagreement about management is that the perspectives can be so dramatically different. The next 3 definitions illustrate very different perspectives to management:
2. Descriptive Approach:
A factual account of management processes that focuses on how decisions are made (closely associated with political science).
3. Normative approach:
A rational analysis of management processes that focuses on how decisions should be made (closely associated with economics). The normative approach emphasizes economics for selecting the "right" decision.
4. Prescriptive approach:
Analytic aids to management processes that focuses on how decisions could be made (closely associated with policy analysis).
Which approach is the best one? It really depends on the problem you're trying to solve. Moreover, it is essential that managers be aware of all three perspectives. For example, if you're thinking descriptive and I'm thinking normative, we could end up talking past each other about the issues, and not really communicating very effectively. All are important.
In much the same way, there are two approaches to management reflected in the next two definitions. Both of them address the question of "how can we change the system?"
5. Systems approach:
a holistic, comprehensive approach to management that emphasizes inputs, processes, and outputs and seeks change that is optimal and long range.
6. Incrementalism:
an alternate approach to management that emphasizes feasible solutions and seeks change that is marginal and short-term.
In the systems approach, change is sought that is comprehensive. The incrementalist approach is more of a descriptive approach in that it seeks feasible changes that may not be comprehensive. Depending on the organization, both approaches may be legitimate.
For this course, we will adopt concepts of management that go back to the time of Fayol. The following 5 terms represent major functions within the operational approach to management, and we will use them as major divisions for the course.
7. Planning:
decision making in advance: selecting missions and objectives, with strategies, policies, procedures, and rules, and arranging them into programs and budgets.
8. Organizing:
developing an intentional structure of roles in an organization.
9. Staffing:
defining, recruiting, filling, and keeping filled, the positions in an organization.
10. Directing:
the art of influencing individuals to strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the accomplishment of group goals.
11. Control:
the process of conforming to plans: establishing standards, measuring performance, and correcting undesirable deviations.
Methods: How can we study management?1. case approach:
This approach is quite popular at law schools and business schools across the country. The typical procedure of a case approach is to define a problem, assign positions to students within this problem, and to debate the issue in class. In other words, it studies management by simulating an actual experience (which we call cases). The strength of the approach is that we can learn from the successes and mistakes of others. The weakness of this approach is that without basic principles being given beforehand, we may be expending a lot of time and energy just to "rediscover the wheel." Moreover, cases approaches are not always successful in predicting the outcome of future events.
2. interpersonal behavior approach:
This approach studies management as a human relations problem, and is based heavily on psychology. Its strength is that quite often, the real problem in management is people, and our ability to communicate effectively. The weakness of this approach is that psychology cannot tell us such things as how to allocate resources, set objectives, or enforce laws. In other words, there are management problems that go beyond interpersonal behaviors.
3. group behavior approach:
This approach studies management as a problem of group behavior, and is based on social psychology. Its strength is that is is good for analyzing leadership and motivation. As with the previous approch, its weakness is that it will not address a number of management tasks.
4. cooperative social systems approach:
This approach studies management as a system whose purpose is cooperation (also known as organizational theory). Its strength is that it can tell us much about negotiation, which is an essential aspect of management. It weakness, once again, is that it really doesn't tell us what our objectives should be, how to allocate resources, and so on.
5. sociotechnical systems approach:
This approach studies management as an interaction of systems and technology that influence people's attitudes and behavior. The strength of this approach is that it addresses the influence of technology which hs become so prevalent in organizations today. The disadvantage, in addition to issues mentioned earlier, is that it tends to focus on lower level office employees and therefore may be less relevant to EOH professionals.
6. decision theory approach:
This approach studies management as a decision problem. Its strength is that it focuses on one of most important aspects of planning -- often, the root of many management problems is poor decisions. Its weakness is that managers spend surprising little of their time making decisions and much more of it trying to implement those decisions.
7. systems approach:
Already mentioned earlier, this approach studies the interdependency of an organization by examining inputs, processes, and outputs. Undoutedly we will use the systems approach throughout this course, but by itself it does not tell us how to organize the various elements of management.
8. management science approach:
This approach studies management as a math problem. If you love math, you'll love this approach! To be sure there are a number of allocation and organizational problems that lend themselves to math models, but at the same time there are some management problems that are extremely difficult to model. Also, the best appraoch often comes down to the underlying objectives of the organization -- without that knowledge, a mathematical analysis may be inconclusive.
9. contingency approach:
This approach can be summed up in two words: it depends. It says that effective management depends on the circumstances -- different scenarios require different approaches. It strength is that it reminds us to be skeptical of global statement about management that may not hold up for a particular organization. Its weakness is that it doesn't leave us with enough principles to address the broad range of management issues.
10. managerial roles approach
This approach studies managers in 3 major roles: interpersonal, informational, and decision making roles. The strength of this approach is that it recognizes the multi-dimensional role of managers. Its weakness is that it still doesn't capture all the roles that managers play.
11. operational approach:
Also known as the classical or traditional school, this approach studies what managers DO: planning, organizating, staffing, directing, and controlling. As such, it is very descriptive in nature, but also has occasion to take on a presecriptive and normative role. Its strength is that it is one of the most widely accepted approaches to management, and has a broader focus than the previous models. Its weakness is that it cannot guarantee success.
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