Contemporary Management Approaches and Business Environments
The human race has always striven to figure out the best way to manage certain aspects of life; whether it be in the home, in recreation or in work. The last few decades people have been systematically researching on how to best improve management in the workplace. They want to make businesses run faster, produce more, and produce better quality products. Business owners and managers have finally developed four contemporary approaches to management; the sociotechnical systems theory, quantitative management, organizational behavior, and the systems theory, and they all differ. These four approaches to management are also relevant in the three environments that a business contains which are the macroenvironment, the competitive environment and the internal environment. As mentioned previously there are four contemporary approaches to management. The first being sociotechnical systems theory which is a combination of several classical approaches. This theory suggests that organizations are effective when their employees (the social system) have the right tools, training and knowledge (the technical system) to make products and services that are valued by their customer (Bateman 35). The second approach is quantitative management. This approach was developed after Word War II and emphasizes the application of quantitative analysis to management decisions and problems. It helps a manager make a decision by developing formal mathematical models of the problem (35). The third approach is organizational behavior which studies and identifies management activities that promote employee effectiveness through an understanding of the complex nature of individual group and organizational processes (36). The fourth and final contemporary approach is the systems theory;which believes that, organizations are open systems, dependent on inputs from the outside world, such as raw materials, human resources, and capital. They transform these inputs into outputs that (ideally) meet the market's needs for goods and services. It also emphasizes that an organization is one system in a series of subsystems which are in turn a component of the whole and is independent with other subsystems (36). The four contemporary approaches are quite different in how they manage the work place. The sociotechnical systems theory tries to make the worker as well equipped as possible as gives them the most control and input in day to day productions. It encourages managers to empower the employees to create semi-autonomous work groups. Whereas, the quantitative management approach relies almost solely on data from equations implemented by managers. This allows for less employee control and puts the power in the hands of management. Even if the workers are used to “method y” and a calculation computes “method x” as the better option then the manager will enforce the standards set by the calculation. Organizational behavior seems closely related to sociotechnical systems theory however it dives deeper into what makes the worker act one way or another. It tries to examine how humans interact with themselves and with each other to try and create a smooth flowing business process. Systems theory is the most open management process in the way a business could be run. It looks as the business as an open system which can be affected by more than just the way the employer manages his or her workers. They constantly change their processes as the outputs from the business get reactions from the customer. Businesses now, more than ever, are operating as an open system-- that is they are affected by and in turn affect their external environments (42). By being an open system, businesses have several environments that influence and control how well the company runs. These environments are the macroenvironment, the competitive
