REGENTROPFEN COLLEGE OF APPLIED

SCIENCES
BUSINESS ADMINSTRATION DEPARTMENT

NAME : CHUKWUCHEBEM FRANCIS

ID NUMBER: Re230294BBA
COURSE TITLE: PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT
COURSE CODE: R-198: L-JT
QUESTION: WRITE A REPORT ON THE HISTORY PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT AND
CURRENT MANAGEMENT AND COMPARE THE TWO AND WHY YOU THINK THE HISTORY
MANAGEMENT IS BETTER THAN THE CURRENT MANAGEMENT
INTRODUCTION
Management is the fundamental aspect of any organization’s success. Over time, management
principles have evolved, adapting to change in business environments. This report aims to
compare the traditional principles of management practices and argue why principles of
management are still relevant and perhaps even superior in certain aspects.
PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT

While you may think that management is a relatively new field, it actually has its roots in the
ancient world. In fact, whenever and wherever there has been commerce, there has been
management and those thinking about how to do it better. For example, the Seven Wonders of
the Ancient World, including the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the
Great Pyramid, could only have been constructed through the work of a great many people. The
size and complexity of these structures suggest that there must have been people (managers) who
coordinated the labor and resources needed to execute the construction plans. Similarly, the
Romans and the ancient Chinese could not have managed their vast empires without
management, nor could the Phoenicians and the Greeks have dominated oceangoing trade
without management.

Because management has been around for a while, it makes sense that the study of management
is old. This idea is supported by the many managerial insights we can find in political,
diplomatic, and military history and in philosophy, poetry, economics, and literature. Anyone
familiar with Shakespeare’s King Lear would recognize the present-day management problem of
succession planning! Modern managers have been influenced by the works of Chinese military
strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu, Roman general and politician Julius Caesar, and even
Genghis Kahn, Mongolian conqueror and ruler of what became the largest land empire in all of
history.1 Mark Zuckerberg2 of Facebook is a modern admirer of the Caesars and has said that he
bases some of his management style on his classical education.

Despite its ancient roots, modern management is less than 150 years old. In fact, a comparison of
management before and after the Industrial Revolution shows that the former is only a shadowy
comparison to the latter. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, work was performed, with
exceptions, mostly in home and on farms by forced labor (slaves or indentured servants) or
family members, and the output they produced was often for employers’, local, or family
consumption. Over the centuries, economics and morality shifted, and laborers could choose
where and for whom to work. These changes, in turn, would bring about many changes in how
labor and other resources were employed in production.

The two developments that transformed management were the revolutions in how and where
goods were sold and the Industrial Revolution. The events combined led to the selling of a wider
variety of goods to a wider variety of customers in more distant locations. These events also led
to the establishment of vast companies. Competition required the development of economies of
scale (i.e., increased production lowering costs) and required coordination and specialization in
the use of resources. The combination of coordination and specialization problems encouraged
the development of management study as a distinct field.
In this chapter, we trace the evaluation of management from its origins in the ancient world to its
form as a modern profession. Understanding how management came to be helps us to understand
its principles in a richer, more thorough context and to understand how each concept we discuss
is based on evidence produced by a wide range of scholars over many years in the fields of
engineering, economics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology.

CURRENT MANAGEMENT

In the twenty-first century, organizations face many new challenges. Some people would argue
that society and the economy have changed so radically that the last century’s management
practices and theories are no longer relevant. The truth is management has become more
important than ever. Almost everything we do today as individuals or organizations requires us
to interact with large-scale institutions, such as government agencies, banks, health-care
providers, insurance companies, school systems, universities, online retailers, and technology
service providers. How has management theory and practice evolved to manage this new
organizational and business environment? Interestingly, it has become both more specific and
more general.

Forces Shaping Management

Several forces are significantly shaping management practices today, including the pace of
change, technology, globalization, diversity, and social expectations. Let’s look at each of these
in more detail.

AT&T vs. Google

1964 American Telegraph and Telephone (AT&T) $267 billion

2015 Google $370 billion

The Pace of Change

Managers must understand that society, politics, the economy, and technology are changing at an
unprecedented rate. In 2001, Ray Kurzweil proposed that in the twenty-first century our rate of
progress would double every decade.[1] This means that over the next one hundred years, we will
experience changes that would have taken twenty thousand years in the past. This presents a
vexing problem for management. On one hand, managers need predictability and stability to
develop and implement plans effectively. On the other hand, they need adaptability and
flexibility to respond to opportunities. How does management provide both stability and
flexibility?

Technology
The primary factor driving change is the development of computer and information technology.
Fifty years ago, almost no one knew about computers except from science fiction books and
movies. Today nearly everyone uses a smartphone with more power than the computers that
guided rockets to the moon in 1969. Many of the routine jobs analyzed by Frederick Taylor and
the Gilbreths are now automated, done by computers and robots. It has been estimated that
robots will perform 50 percent of current jobs within twenty years.

Globalization

Globalization refers to the increasing ease of flow between countries. It includes economic,
political, social, and cultural interactions. In particular, economic globalization is creating one
global marketplace, making it easier to conduct business across borders. Globalization has
allowed companies to perform many manufacturing jobs in low labor-cost countries. As a result,
the United States has shifted from a manufacturing economy to a service and information
economy. Consider the following comparison:

This table shows that technology workers today produce nearly twenty times more value for a
company than manufacturing workers did in the past.

Diversity

Since the turn of the century, the U.S. workforce has become more diverse in almost all
dimensions, including race, gender, ethnicity, and age. In 1950, women made up about 30
percent of the workforce; in 2015 women made up about 47 percent of the workforce. By 2024,
ethnic and racial minorities are expected to comprise 40 percent of the workforce. And for the
first time, there are now five generations of workers in the workforce, from veterans born
between 1928 and 1946 to iGens born after 1994. This diversity provides a tremendous resource
to organizations. People from different backgrounds have unique perceptions, experiences, and
strengths. This can promote creativity and innovation that stimulates unique problem solving.
But it also brings different expectations and norms about behavior and attitudes.

COMPARISON

Early last century, for industrially-developing economies, Fayol offered 14 principles of

management aimed to help managers ascertain what to do to manage more effectively. Currently,
service-based and high-tech industries are becoming dominant in some economies, such as the
United States. Many organizations in these industries interpret the principles quite differently
from the way they were interpreted in Fayol’s time. The differences and the cultural challenges
managers face in implementing this new framework are presented.

Adaptability: Principles of management often lack flexibility, whereas current practices like Agile allow to
adapt quickly to changing circumstances

Customer – centricity: Modern management place a strong emphasis on meeting customer needs

Employment involvement: Contemporary practices, including TQM and leadership development, prioritize
engagement and empowerment
REFRENCES

 Bedeian, Arthur G and Wren, Daniel A. (Winter 2001). "Most Influential Management Books of
the 20th Century" (PDF). Organizational Dynamics. 29 (3): 221–225; Kiechel, Walter (2010).
The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World. Harvard
Business Review Press; Magretta, Joan (2011). Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential
Guide to Competition and Strategy. Harvard Business Review Press; and Mathews, J(2013-02-
01). The Competitive Advantage of Michael Porter. In The Oxford Handbook of Management
Theorists: Oxford University Press.

 Hannaway, J. (1989). Managers Managing: The Workings of an Administrative System. New

York: Oxford University Press, P. 39; and Kotter, J. P. (1982). The General Managers. New
York: The Free Press.