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Scientific Management

Decent Essays

THE EVOLUTION OF MANAGEMENT For thousands of years, managers faced the same issues and problems confronting executives today. Around 1100 B.C., the Chinese practiced the four management functions—planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Between 400 B.C. and 350 B.C., the Greeks recognized management as a separate art and advocated a scientific approach to work. The Romans decentralized the management of their vast empire before the birth of Christ. During the Medieval Period, the Venetians standardized production through building warehouses and using an inventory system to monitor the contents. But throughout history, most managers operated strictly on a trial-and-error basis. Communication and transportation constraints hindered …show more content…

3. ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT APPROACH
This approach focused on how a business should be organized and the practices an effective manager should follow. It emphasized the perspective of senior managers within the organization, and argued that management was a profession and could be taught.
While pioneers of scientific management tried to determine the best way to perform a job, those in the administrative management explored the possibilities of an ideal way (rule of thumb) to put all jobs together and operate an organization. Thus the main focus of administrative school or general management theory is on finding "the best way" to run organizations. Administrative management school is also called "traditional principles of management.
Henry Fayol, a French industrialist, is the chief architect and the father of the administrative management theory. He believed that techniques of effective management could be defined and taught and that managerial organization hold as much importance as management as workers organization. He was the first to identify functions of management. According to Fayol, the five functions of managers were:
• Plan
• Organize
• Command
• Coordinate
• Control
Fayol identified 14 principles of management which he wanted to be applied flexibly. Here are Fayol’s 14

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