Contemporary Management Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Contemporary Management Practice - Essay Example Various theories have been created in the past about management and researchers continue to use old theories and come up with new ones. Over this time period, great approaches to management have been identified. This paper will cover various management approaches and how these approaches are used by managers and those who are studying management. Body Empirical or case approach is one of the various management approaches that have been studied and often used in organizations. It is based on the assumption, that current managers can solve their problems through the experience of previous managers and what those managers did to solve issues faced by management (KOONTZ, 2004, p.16). This study states that people new to the management positions in the organizations can learn from the successful and the unsuccessful experiences that other managers have already been through. This approach is used in management educational centres for the help upcoming managers. This kind of management appr oach does not provide any practical aid until it is applied to practical problems. The downside of this approach is that this approach is based on generalization. This means that managers who follow this approach end up applying same problem solving methods to new scenarios although new scenarios may be different from older ones. Human behaviour approach is yet another approach that scientists came up with to explain what managers have to do to operate an organization successfully. The behavioural approach of management suggests that managers can operate in a better fashion if they learn about individual as well as group behaviour and they can use this knowledge to make people to work for the interest of the organization (DAFT, 2011, p.33). The theorists of this approach suggest that satisfied workers work harder and their levels of productivity are high. Behavioural studies only pay emphasis to the human part of the organization and exclude the remaining parts with which managers h ave to deal. Vilfred Pareto and Chest Bernard came up with the social systems approach, according to this approach an organization consists of various individual who work together to achieve organization’s aims and objectives (JACKSON, 2000, p.100). This approach states that managers need work in cooperation with workers by understanding the behaviour of individuals working in an organization to achieve organizational goals. Socio technical systems approach is a management approach that suggests that managers should not only pay emphasis to the social system of the organization, they even have to give importance to the technical system (CHASE, 2006, p.195). The approach further suggests that if an organization has to run successfully, then both the technical system and the social system of the organization should work together. This approach of management does not only focus on the human part of the organization, it even pay emphasis to the technological part of the organizat ion that managers have to deal with to bring in change and keep the organization updated. Every manager’s main duty is to make decisions to help solve organization’s problems. One management approach that only pays emphasis to the decision making side of a manager is known as decision theory approach (FLOMBERG, 2008, p.60). The theory suggests that all managers have to make decisions each day and the main task of all managers is to make rational decisions. They have to ensure that the decision they are making is in the best interest of the organization and the people they are representing. The downside of this approach is that this approach ignores other elements of management and only emphasises on the decision maki