ASSESSMENT POINT 1

With reference to appropriate literature and cases, critically

evaluate the influence of classical and human relations
approaches in management today.

Amos Tonny Ditsela

R2105D12174272
Theories of Management (28553)
UU-Msc-IND-M-100-ZM
03/10/2021

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INTRODUCTION
Management is defined by Follett (1940) as "the art of getting things done via people." Human
resource management, according to (Schaper, 2004), is largely concerned with the functional
management of people in organizations. The fundamental issue for classical and human relations
management, according to Aubyn, Pina, Garcia, and Pais (2009), is developing economic
competencies through staff efficiency and effective resource usage to increase value. Yacoub
(2016) and Cole and Kelly (2016) stated that early management theories on human relations
theories were more concerned with the human component at work, with an emphasis on individual
satisfaction and motivation as much as effective resource utilization that led to operational
performance.

A significant influence on today’s management approaches can by classical and human relations
approaches can be seen, this essay aims to critically evaluate that impact on today's management
practices and policies in organizations. The essay also includes case studies in which we evaluate
important practices, policies, and approaches in various industry sectors, as well as how classical
and human-relations approaches influence management in contemporary organizations.

REVIEW OF CLASSICAL THEORIES

The late 1800s saw the emergence of classical management theory. Due to the evolution of work
from individual activities to more coordinated work in the first half of the twentieth century, it was
required to ensure efficient and effective use of conventional factors of production (Safferstone,
2005). While new management ideas have emerged since then, many business owners continue to
develop and flourish using traditional management approaches.

The classical management theory has three approaches that share a common theme. The scientific
management approach, administrative principles, and bureaucratic organization approach all
contribute to the development of a science for each job. While scientific management focuses on
individual productivity, traditional administration focuses on the entire organization. The
traditional administrative approach is concerned with improving managerial principles rather than
work methods (Classical Schools of Management, 2021).

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Henry Fayol, Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Gilbreths, Henry Gantt, Lyndal Urwick, Brech, Max
Weber, and Alvin Gouldner, known as Classical Theorists, were among the early writers
mentioned by Mahmood (Safferstone, 2005). He goes on to say that while Fayol and Taylor are
credited as the movement's founders, Weber was around at the same time and was more concerned
with efficiency in terms of the type of power structure an organization had than with how work
was to be done. Max Weber is credited with inventing the bureaucracy theory of organization
(Safferstone, 2005).

This thesis under classical approaches will cover only those considered as the founders; Taylor
and Henry, since the majority of the other writers were mostly modifying what the core founders
established.

Scientific Management Theory by Frederick Taylor

Taylor was the first to offer a modern management paradigm between the nineteenth and twentieth
century, according to Taylor (2004). According to Grachev and Rakitsky (2012), management
delegated work methods to employees' initiative during Taylor's period, a process Taylor labeled
"rule-of-thumb." Taylor proposed that, in order to achieve maximum efficient performance,
employers should take up the responsibility of designing processes from employees. Taylor's
theory was developed from his own experience with inefficiencies in the workplace (Yacoub,
2016). Taylor's analysis, according to the CliffsNotes Website (2021);

"Taylor calculated how much iron from rail cars Bethlehem Steel plant workers could be
unloading if they were using the correct movements, tools, and steps. The result was an amazing
47.5 tons per day instead of the mere 12.5 tons each worker had been averaging. In addition, by
redesigning the shovels the workers used, Taylor was able to increase the length of work time and
therefore decrease the number of people shoveling from 500 to 140." (CliffsNotes, 2021).

Taylor identified some guiding management principles, according to Cole and Kelly (2016), he
introduced specialization in the workplace which allowed for workers to perform one simple tasks
effectively due to continual repetition. Those employees who showed potential were delegated
tasks which matched their skills and abilities and they were also supported with professional
training in order to get the best out of them.

Taylor's principles can be described as follows, according to Taylor (1911):

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i. Replace the "rule of thumb" with laws and scientific principles for labor duties.

ii. Scientifically select personnel and train, teach, and develop them throughout time in order to
achieve maximum efficiency and prosperity in the essential jobs.

iii. Aligning skill levels with specific job responsibilities.

iv. Work and responsibility are divided equally between employee and worker, with management
in charge of planning and control.

v. Fostering a collaborative attitude among employees and management in order to ensure that
work is accomplished in accordance with established procedures.

vi. Recognize and reward employees who meet the minimum requirements.

Notes from Taylor's theory

Taylor believed that by using his scientific approach to establish a standard to do every part of
every task, productivity would increase thereby resulting in prosperity for both the employer and
employee. By following the standardized tasks approach, employers are guaranteed maximum
efficiency from each task performed. Also, he wanted a clear distinction between managers and
workers, just like robots he believed that workers should accept that management controls them
since their actions are based on the proven scientific study of tasks. Taylor's theory worked in this
regard when put into practice; employee errors were reduced (as management took ownership of
designing tasks), companies doubled their productivity. To keep the high productivity, Taylor
emphasized the need to reward high-performing employees to retain them. Poorly performing
employees were fired. By doing so, employers are left with the best of the very best thereby
maximizing outputs and revenues. Besides rewards, Taylor deemed it important to select and train
those high-performing employees to match them to a job that is best suited to them. This allowed
for continual improvement in organizations as employee skills are sharpened and matched to new
higher standards. The Taylorism theory in summary resulted in more work accomplished with
fewer people and thereby an increase in profits. His theory also resulted in more consistent
products of arguably higher quality.

On the contrary, some critics may claim that Taylor's approach does not inspire workers that they
could perhaps be managers one day. Restricting workers to just doing simplified tasks does not

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offer them a chance to be innovative and learn to design processes. Also, doing the simpler tasks
repetitively can lead to job dissatisfaction and deskilling as workers are not learning anything new
from their repetitive tasks. Taylor claims that maintains that repetitive tasks are key towards task
efficiency and overall productivity. Others may also claim that Taylor was not concerned about
the damage his theory could do to the level of trust and cooperation between managers and
workers. Employees could interpret rewards and bonuses as a way by management to establishing
higher and impossible expectations that could be toxic for a worker's mental being. Workers will
stretch themselves in the name of rewards and bonuses.

Administrative Management Approach by Henri Fayol

Henri Fayol (1841–1925), a French management thinker, founded Fayolism circa 1900 as a
philosophy of management emphasized the role of management in organizations, according to
Mildred & Taneja (2010). Fayol's contribution to organizational management theory and practice
was most significant through his work as a philosopher of administration (Breeze, 1985).
According to Breeze, Fayol felt that managing greatness was a technological skill that could be
learnt. Fayol's opinions are based on his managerial experiences and analysis of which ones
functioned best. After his retirement, he spent his time laying foundations to his administrative
theories and founded the Centre of Administrative Studies (Urwick, 1949). Fayol's administrative
philosophy emphasizes the overall performance of the organization rather than individual task
performance (Abdulrahaman, 2013).

From the works of Yacoub (2016), Fayol's contribution to management can be identified in three
main themes as indicated below;

Elements or Functions of Management

According to Mildred and Taneja (2010), Fayol looked at these factors from the perspective of
management and discovered that they are grouped into six categories: technical, commercial,
financial, security, accounting, and managerial. These aspects, according to Fayol, are the various
parts that make up an organization (Mildred, 2010)

Definition of Management activities

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The five functions of management namely; planning, organizing, coordinating, command, and
control are some of the work that Fayol is recognized for Fayol (1949); Breeze (1985). Urwick
(1949) has added to this functions staffing, directing, and budgeting on what Fayol's theory
covered.

Fourteen Management Principles

To assist successful managers, Fayol devised 14 management principles. Breeze (1949); Fayol
(1985). Fayol's 14 management principles include division of labor, authority, discipline, unity of
command, unity of direction, subordination of individual interests to the general interests,
remuneration, centralization, scalar chain, order, equity, personnel tenure stability, initiative, and
esprit de corps (Abdulrahaman, 2013).

Notes from Fayol's theory

Growth and effective output increment: The performance of various functional units may easily
be determined to identify their field of strength, allowing all essential resources to be channeled
into the strength of the team. This method allows management to swiftly identify a team's flaws
and direct the team to concentrate on their strengths in order to increase production.

Improves internal and external customer satisfaction: This medium supports high-quality work
while while being mindful of time limits. As a result, clients' needs are satisfied, and strong
customer relationships and loyalty are established. Workers are happy because they have used all
of the resources allotted to them as specified by management.

Comparing Taylor and Fayol's Principles

Similarities

From Mildred and Taneja (2010), they summarized the similarities between Henri Fayol and
Fredrick Taylor into the following four points;

i. Fayol and Taylor were both staunch supporters of scientific methodology, order, and efficiency,
with a focus on formal logic.

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ii.They were committed to the growth of the organization's entire concept (Fayol emphasized clear
lines of authority into a conceptual and functional unity, and similarly Taylor also emphasized
formalization of work processes into a total organization).

iii.Their beliefs promote hierarchical labor division, work processes, and organizational structures.

iv.A manager's job, according to both ideas, is to collaborate with and motivate their people.
Managers, according to Taylor (1911), should work alongside employees, aiding, encouraging,
and easing their journey. However, in order to improve operational efficiency, he attempted to
influence their minds and actions using scientific notions. Fayol (1949) stressed the need of
determining their employees' skills, motivating and training them, and rewarding enthusiasm,
initiative, and success in a similar manner.

Differences

From the works of Safferstone (2005), Taylor's theory is hugely based on tasks time, and
improvement of worker efficiency, while Fayol's theory emphasized human and behavioral factors
in management.

The other major difference that was noted by Safferstone (2005), was that in terms of management
approaches, Taylor believed management improvements were best made from the bottom up i.e.
starting from simpler units of a task to improve the efficiency of individual workers. On the
contrary, Fayol was more concerned with the top-down management structure; the focus should
be on developing managers on improving processes first before moving down to developing
workers. He believed that by doing this, organizational misunderstandings and inefficiencies could
be reduced.

Lastly, Sonia and Mildred (2010) also argued that, unlike Taylor, Fayol had a little more respect
and concern for the average worker. Fayol (1949) claims that he believed that workers could be
motivated by more than just money, their development and health mattered in this regard. He
emphasized the importance of equal treatment of workers. Taylor on the other hand believed that
paying workers more was enough to make them stay.

CASE STUDIES OF CLASSICAL APPROACHES ON CONTEMPORARY

ORGANIZATIONS

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CASE STUDY 1: MC DONALDS

McDonald's began as a cafeteria in 1940, and by 1955, it had grown into fast food restaurants.
McDonald's (McDonald's, 2017-2021). Dick and Mac McDonald moved to California in pursuit
of opportunities they didn't see in New England. They achieved success in operating drive-in
restaurants after failing in the movie industry. When they streamlined their operations and created
the Speedee Service System in 1948, they took a risk. The concept was built on speed, reduced
pricing, and volume. Fayol's administrative administration method is a source of inspiration for
the Speedee Service System.

According to Forbes, McDonald's CEO noted that the company's productivity was mostly focused
on increasing supply in response to demand. Henri Fayol coined the terms'specialization of labor,'
'unity of command,' and 'unity of direction,' among others, to denote that each worker is allocated
to a single task or job, and managers exercise authority to ensure that each worker is capable of
reaching the company's specified goals. "Our success is reliant on each of us accepting personal
responsibility for doing the right thing," says McDonald's unique selling proposition (McDonald,
2017-2019).

Based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory, McDonald's develops enabling conditions for its
employees as a motivational element to cater to their self- and security needs. McDonald's has a
multitude of real instances proving the application of scientific management theory within the
traditional strategy, according to a study. For example, using a scientific knowledge base system
to encourage workers to follow a specified methodology for accomplishing given tasks and using
prizes to motivate staff to meet the organization's established goals. On the restaurant personnel,
there is one supervisor (McDonald's, 2017-2019).

CASE STUDY 2: VOLKSWAGEN

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Volkswagen is a German business established in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, with a
global reputation as one of the most successful brands in the automobile industry. According to a
study, Volkswagen's profits in 2012 positioned the corporation as one of the world's biggest
vehicle businesses, with £161.10 billion in revenue (VW, 2021)

According to Thaxis (2010), Volkswagen is applying Frederick W. Taylor's Scientific

Management approach in its organizational structure and production plant. They separate roles and
tasks among employees and the management is responsible for designing those tasks/processes
(Thaxis, 2010).

Their model is based on the following concepts, according to Shafritz, Ott, and Jang ( 2005):

i. Business institutions are founded to engage in productivity with the goal of profit.

ii. An organization must employ methodical and scientific approaches to boost productivity and
resource utilization efficiency.

iii. Specialization and division of labor can help an organization maximize its operational activity
to achieve its economic goals.

iv. Labor is viewed as a viable alternative to industrial machines.

vi. Volkswagen (2012) claimed that a managerial board impacts Volkswagen's operational
operations, meaning that all coordinating, supervisions, and other activities are a practical
application of classical management theory with a scientific management approach (Volkswagen,
2012).

REVIEW OF HUMAN RELATIONS THEORIES

From the works of Safferstone (2003), after World War I, Elton Mayo, an English biologist who
served on Harvard University's Committee on Industrial Physiology, embarked on a study to better
understand why scientific management had failed to deliver on its promises and to identify the
factors that influenced worker morale and productivity. According to Safferstone (2005), human-
relation theorists realized that there were inadequacies in classical techniques, such as the disregard
for employee well-being and other motivators in addition to financial compensation, which

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sparked a dispute among another group of theorists. Human-relations theorists began looking into
the reasons why worker productivity was still an issue and the possible environments that could
motivate employees, eventually discovering the significance of human and social aspects
(Safferstone, 2005).

Mary Parker Follett's (1868-1933)

According to Follet (1940), she was determined to find the connection between human interactions
and operational success, the role of conflict, the roles of the leader, the necessity for visionary
leadership, and leadership development. She compared an organization to a community. She first
introduced the idea of social work. She recognized that working in a group is essential and
preferable to working alone (Safferstone, 2005).

Expectancy Theory- Victor Vroom

Vroom (1964) explains that he was mostly known for his management decision-making research;
his 1964 book on Work and Motivation, which he began writing in the late 1950s, examines
individual work behaviors, occupational choice, job happiness, and job performance through the
lens of individual motivation. Vroom further provides an extensive examination of the research on
the links between worker performance and supervision, the workgroup, job content, remuneration,
and promotional opportunities, in addition to addressing the psychological elements that influence
motivation and performance. He believes that no single theory can account for all work-related
motivational elements, and he emphasizes the significant and positive relationship between several
factors, particularly the relationship between an individual's need for achievement, participation in
the decision-making process, and effective job performance (Vroom, 1964).

Goal Setting Theory by Edwin Locke

Although prior ideas linked human perception to the driving force, this theory emphasizes on
establishing organizational goals to improve overall organization performance (Cole, 2016).

Equity Theory by John Stacey

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This theory emphasizes that workers are not just interested in rewards, but their opinions on the
overall business process matter. Employees' "sense of equity (i.e. fairness) is applied to their
subjective view of conditions rather than the objective situation," according to this theory, and
"part of the attractiveness (valence) of rewards in a work context is the extent to which they are
seen as comparable with those available to the peer group" (Cole, 2016).

CASE STUDIES ON HUMAN RELATIONS APPROACHES

CASE STUDY 3: DHL BOTSWANA

According to the DHL (2017) corporate responsibility report;

We can see that they are always developing their structure and policies, which reflect Max Weber's
formal rules and processes approach, as a result of their commitment to high-quality standards.

DHL promotes and employs individuals based on their talents and qualifications, which is obvious.
Both the Max Weber principle of staff appraisal and recruitment, as well as Frederick Taylor's
concept of employing the right people for the task, may be observed here.

Employees: We can tell they believe in the human relation approach idea because they promote
transparency, trust, and mutual respect at work.

Working together is our standard. DHL appears to be committed to keeping employees well and
safe on a psychological and physical level, which is consistent with management's human relations
strategy.

CONCLUSION

Although classical and human relations approaches were developed decades ago, their application
in modern organizations is still visible. They continue to make significant contributions to today's
management approaches, as evidenced by the case studies in this essay. Even though modern
organizations face newer challenges than in the past, we see innovative ideas and creativity from
modern managers as they use a combination of classical approaches, human relations, and newer
approaches to guide their organizations to success. We can conclude that evaluation of the

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influence of classical and human relations theory on today's management has proven that they are
still relied on in guiding modern management styles.

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