The idea of management is not new; managing is an inbuilt character of human beings. Early forms of management concepts have been applied throughout history in order to progress as a society. We see beautiful creation from Stone Age to civilization – could those creations such as monuments and cities be in place without management?  Management activities were always needed in order to complete massive projects.

The Industrial Revolution as well as the growth of factories and mass production created a need for strong management processes. Better and more efficient ways of manufacturing goods were needed in order to maximize productivity, bring down costs, and increase profitability. As a result, since the late 1800’s, theorists have developed a wide range of methods for improving management practices.

Scientific Theory by Frederick W. Taylor: (1890-1940): At the turn of the century, the most prominent and large organizations realized that besides routinely producing goods they require to go into depth of business processes. In the West the organizations give a lot of importance to scientific and technical matters, including careful measurement and specification of activities and results. Frederick Taylor developed the scientific management theory in 1911 which advocated efficiency by systematically improving the productivity of task completion by utilizing scientific, engineering, and mathematical analysis. The goal of scientific theory was to decrease waste, increase the process and methods of production, and create a just distribution of goods. The goal was to serve the common interests of employers, employees, and society. Taylor standardized the tasks as much as possible. Workers either got rewarded or punished as per their output. This approach appeared to work well for organizations with assembly lines and other mechanistic, routinized activities.

Frederick Winslow Taylor’s scientific management theory was devised form the point of view of industrial engineering that established the organization of work as in Ford’s assembly line.  A time-study department at Ford Motor Company had efficiency experts with stop watches working for studying the work process and eliminate wasteful motion. This study made some advances. But, then Ford managers came up with a revolutionary idea that represented the archetypal expression of scientific management. Instead of taking workers to the work, teams of workers going to work spots and building a car sequentially, this new model brought the work to the workers. In addition, this new paradigm broke the work process down into its smallest constituent parts. The assembly line, was inaugurated in 1913. It was a conveyor belt that steadily moved along a piece of the automobile while stationary workers repeatedly did one task adding an element to it. Tremendous gains in efficient labor were achieved. By regularizing and rationalizing the work process, and its minute division of labor, the production of an automobile, which before used to take some 12 hours per vehicle, now took only a bit over 90 minutes to completion. This discipline, along with the industrial psychology established by others at the Hawthorne Works of Western Electic in the 1920s, moved management theory from early time-and-motion studies to the latest total quality control ideas.

Taylor’s ideas, clearly articulated in his writings, were widely misinterpreted. Employers used time and motion studies simply to extract more work from employees at less pay. Unions condemned speedups and the lack of voice in their work that “Taylorism” gave them. Quality and productivity declined when his principles were simplistically instituted.

Administrative Theory by Henri Fayol (1841-1925) Henry Fayol was a French mining engineer who was also the director of mines. He developed a general theory of business administration that is often called Fayolism. He and his colleagues developed this theory.  Fayol is widely acknowledged as a founder of modern management methods. He coined fourteen principals of management as follows:

1. Division of work – The division of work is the course of tasks assigned to, and completed by, a group of workers in order to increase efficiency. Division of work, which is also known as division of labour, is the breaking down of a job so as to have a number of different tasks that make up the whole. This means that for every one job, there can be any number of processes that must occur for the job to be complete.
2. Authority and Responsibility – Authority is the right to give orders and obtain obedience, and responsibility is the consequence of authority. One cannot enjoy authority without being responsible for actions.
3. Discipline – Employees must obey and respect the rules that govern the organization. Good discipline is the result of effective leadership.
4. Unity of command – Every employee should receive orders from only one superior or behalf of the superior.
5. Unity of direction – Each group of organizational activities that have the same objective should be directed by one manager using one plan for achievement of one common goal.
6. Subordination – The interests of any one employee or group of employees should not take precedence over the interests of the organization as a whole.
7. Remuneration – All Workers must be paid a fair wage for their services.
8. Centralization – Centralization refers to the degree to which subordinates are involved in decision making.
9. Scalar chain – The line of authority from top management to the lowest ranks represents the scalar chain. Communications should follow this chain.
10. Order – This principle is concerned with systematic arrangement of men, machine, material etc. there should be a specific place for every employee in an organization.
11. Equity – Managers should be kind and fair to their subordinates.
12. Stability of tenure of personnel – High employee turnover is inefficient. Management should provide orderly personnel planning and ensure that replacements are available to fill vacancies in the organization.
13. Initiative – Employees who are allowed to originate and carry out plans will exert high levels of effort.
14. Esprit de corps – Promoting team spirit will build harmony and unity within the organization.

Bureaucratic Theory by Max Weber (1930-1950): Max Weber elaborated the scientific management theory further by adding flavor of his bureaucratic theory. Weber focused on dividing organizations into hierarchies, establishing strong lines of authority and control. His notion was that organizations must develop comprehensive and detailed standard operating procedures for all routinized tasks. In the late 1800s, Max Weber criticized organizations for running their businesses with their family members. Weber believed this informal organization of supervisors and employees inhibited the potential success of a company because power was misplaced in hands of those few who dint have the requisite experience. He felt that employees were loyal to their bosses and not to the organization. Weber believed in a more formalized, rigid structure of organization known as a bureaucracy. This non-personal view of organizations followed a formal structure where rules, formal legitimate authority and competence were characteristics of appropriate management practices. He believed that a supervisor’s power should be based on an individual’s position within the organization, his or her level of professional competence and the supervisor’s adherence to explicit rules and regulations.  Bureaucracy can best be defined as formal hierarchy and chain of command which distinguishes the level of authority within an organization.

Human Relations Theory by Elton Mayo: The Western Electric’s Hawthorne plant was located in Chicago. It had some 29,000 employees and it manufactured telephones and telephone equipment mainly for AT & T. The company was known for its advanced personnel policies. The company kept updating its policies at regular intervals and once welcomed a research study by the National Research Council to check the relationship between friendly work-place atmosphere and individual efficiency. The study began by Pennock and Clair Turner, in 1929 Turner invited Elton Mayo for his inputs on the study. Mayo indicated that the Test Room Workers had turned into a social unit, enjoyed all the attention they were getting, and had developed a sense of participation in the project.

In order to establish his premise Mayo instituted a series of interviews. These provided the workers with an opportunity to express their views and let off steam. It emerged that when people are distressed in a given situation and are given a chance to discuss, they feel better even if the situation does not change. The experiment also found that some complaints of workers had little or no basis, and they were stressed in their personal lives which was causing distress. By focusing on more informal and open conversation with workers and by empathetically listening to them Mayo had struck a key which linked the style of supervision and the level of morale to heightened levels of productivity.

Mayo was acclaimed by his followers as the Founder of the Human Relations (HR) as a branch of Management Studies,    while he was criticized by sociologists for not going far enough in his analysis. Do you know that the Hawthorne case stimulated ‘Organizational Behavior’ as subject?  And also gave birth to McGregor’s ‘Theory X and Theory Y’ and theory “Z” with its wider implications for leadership in organizations.

Systems Theory by Ludwig con Bertalanffy: Systems theory studies the structure and properties of systems in terms of relationships. It was established as a science by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Anatol Rapoport, Kenneth E. Boulding, William Ross Ashby, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and others in the 1950’s. Systems theory can be called a transdisciplinary study. It brings together theoretical principles and concepts from ontology, philosophy of science, physics, biology and engineering. Its applications are found in numerous other fields including geography, sociology, political science, organizational theory, management, psychotherapy and economics amongst others.

Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy who was a Viennese professor of biology, worked very hard to identify structural, behavioral and developmental features common to particular classes of living organisms. One approach was to look over the empirical universe and pick out certain general phenomena which are found in many different disciplines, and to seek to build up general theoretical models relevant to these phenomena, e.g., growth, homeostasis, evolution. Another approach was to arrange the empirical fields in a hierarchy of complexity of organization of their basic ‘individuality’ or units of behavior, and to try to develop a level of abstraction appropriate to each. Examples are generalizations on the levels of cells, simple organs, open self-maintaining organisms, small groups of organisms, society and the universe. The latter approach implies a hierarchical “systems of systems” view of the world.

Bertalanffy’s ideas were developed into a General Systems Theory. He defined a general system as any theoretical system of interest to more than one discipline. This new vision of reality is based on awareness of the essential interrelatedness and inter-dependence of all phenomena – physical, biological, psychological, social and cultural. It transcends orthodox disciplinary and conceptual boundaries.

The systems view looks at the world in terms of relationships and integration. Systems are integrated whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller units. Instead of concentrating on basic building blocks or substances, the systems approach emphasizes the principles of organization. Every organism, from the smallest bacterium through the range of plant, animals and human beings – plus the family, society and the planet as whole – is an integrated whole and thus a living system.

In Bertalanffy’s view human survival is the paramount purpose for cultivating the uncommon sense of General Systems Theory. Our civilization is experiencing enormous difficulties due to lack of ethical, ethological and ecological criteria in the manifestation of human affairs, which are currently only concerned with the management of larger profits for a small minority of privileged humans. Bertalanffy believed that the need for a general systems consciousness was a matter of life and death, not just for ourselves but also for all future generations on our planet. He advocated a new global morality, an ethos which does not center on individual values alone, but on the adaptation of Mankind, as a global system, to its new environment. System’s theory brought in a paradigm shift in management thinking. Organizations don’t exist in vacuums, they have to be aware of their surrounding for their own existence.

X&Y Theory by Douglas McGregor: Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation created and developed by social psychologist Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s that have been used in human resource management, organization behavior, organizational communication and organizational development. They describe two contrasting thinking of workforce motivation. Theory X and Theory Y represent the perceptions managers hold about their employees. It is not about their general behavior outside the work place, it pertains on their job, while working in the organization.

The ‘Theory X’ management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work. As a result of this, management believes that workers need to be closely supervised and all-inclusive systems of controls be developed. It requires a hierarchical structure with narrow span of control at each and every level. According to this theory, employees will show little ambition without a tempting incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can.

Theory Y is a participative style of management which assumes that people will exercise self-direction and self-control in achieving the organizational goals and objectives. It assumes that employees are committed to organization’s objectives. It is management’s main task in such a system to mold the employees and maximize their commitment.

This theory is useful in the Human Relations movement and training programs. It helps in understanding supervisory skills, delegating, career development, motivating, coaching, mentoring, etc.

Contingency Theory: A contingency theory is an organizational theory that claims that there is no best way to organize a corporation, to lead a company, or to make decisions. Instead, the optimal course of action is contingent (dependent) upon the internal and external situation. A contingent leader effectively applies his own style of leadership in the given situation. Basically, contingency theory asserts that when managers make a decision, they must take into account all aspects of the current situation and act on those aspects that are key to the situation at hand. Basically, it’s the approach that all factors are interdependent. For example, the continuing effort to identify the best leadership or management style might now conclude that the best style depends on the situation. Leadership style changes according to the institution; for example leadership in leading army troops is different than leadership in an educational institution, or leadership in a hospital than a leadership in a business organization. Some important factors for companies to decide contingencies are as below:

• Technology
• Suppliers and distributors
• Consumer interest groups
• Customers and competitors
• Government
• Unions

Sociology is the study of human social behavior, human development, organizations, and institutions. To understand how societies have developed with different key features, we have to understand what Power is. It is a key sociological concept with several different meanings agreements and disagreement surrounding its connotation and degree. The most common definition of the world power comes from the German Sociologist Max Weber. He defined it as the ability to control others, events, resources, organizations and money. Weber said the rulers call the shorts in spite of impediments, resistance, or opposition. Power goes to head easily. From the beginning mankind and animals have fought for power as it is seized, coveted, detained, taken away, or stolen, and it is used to rule over the opponents and alleys. Power has always created conflicts between those in power and those without it.

Weber was interested in studying the nature of power and authority and its effects on the modern trends of rationalization. Weber went on to study the operational styles of modern large-scale organizations in the political, administrative, and economic realm. He insisted that bureaucratic coordination of activities is the unique mark of the modern era. Bureaucracies are organized according to rational principles.

In contrast, Karl Marx – the German Philosopher, Economist and Sociologist used the concept of power in relation to social classes and social systems rather than individuals. He argued that power rests with a social class as per its position – how much they produce and how much wealth is accumulated by them. Power does not lie in the relationship between individuals, but in domination and subordination of social classes based on the relations of production.

A third definition comes from Talcott Parsons who argued that power is not a matter of social compulsion and command, but instead flows from a social system’s potential to coordinate human activity and resources in order to accomplish goals.

In order to understand those institutions and how humans are organized, it is important to understand how societies are governed.

OLIGARCHY: 

In oligarchy a society is ruled by a small, powerful minority. These are not necessarily the most capable leaders in a society; sometimes oligarchy is passed down by royalty, wealth, family, military, or religious supremacy. Oligarchies are often controlled by politically powerful families whose children are heavily conditioned and mentored to be heirs of the power of the oligarchy. These types of states have been oppressive throughout history, relying on public helplessness and smugness in order to exist. Oligarchies are not at all similar to democracies, but they are also very different from governments ruled by a single dictator. Oligarchies can have both positive and negative effects on the societies they rule.

Although traditional oligarchies were ruled by families that passed down power through generations, most contemporary oligarchies are classified as such based on heavy corporate influence and a large imbalance of wealth that facilitates unbridled corporate lobbying. In India, we see some glaring oligarchies in the corporate world.

As of 2014, two of the top existing examples of oligarchies are China and Russia. Russia has been ruled by corporations that control the majority of the nation’s wealth since the disbandment of the Soviet Union. Many experts call Russia a modern oligarchy. China, on the other hand, is cited as a nation that has converted into an oligarchy as the result of becoming a world financial power that now relies on business. Some experts even argue that the power of corporations and the wealth disparity in the United States make it a nation that much more closely resembles an oligarchy than a democracy; no wonder it ranks at number 17 as per world democracy index.

MONARCHY:

A monarchy is a form of government in which sovereignty is placed in hands of a single individual i.e the Monarch. The forms of monarchy vary widely according to the level of legal autonomy the monarchs hold. The forms differ as in case of governance, the method of selection of the monarch, and encoded limits on the length of their tenure. When the monarch has no or few legal restraints in state and political matters, it is called an absolute monarchy and is a form of autocracy. Cases in which the monarch’s diplomacy is formally limited which is most commonly seen today are called constitutional monarchies. In hereditary monarchies the crown is passed through inheritance within the family, whereas in elective monarchies voting system is used.

Monarchy was the most common form of government until the 19th century, but it is no longer customary. Where it exists, it is now usually a constitutional monarchy form, in which the monarch retains a unique legal and ceremonial role, but exercises limited or no political power under the written or unwritten constitution, others have governing authority.

Do you know that at present 44 sovereign nations in the world have monarchs acting as heads of state? And 16 of which are Commonwealth realms that recognize Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. All European monarchies are constitutional ones. The Vatican City is an exception. It is the smallest state in the world and with absolute monarchy existing. The Pope is its head and it is the only state completely enclosed by a city. The monarchs in the smaller states exercise greater political influence than in the larger. The monarchs of Cambodia, Japan, and Malaysia “reign, but do not rule” although there is substantial dissimilarity in the degree of authority they exert. Whereas, in Brunei, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland  the monarchs continue to exercise more political influence than any other single source of authority in their nations, either by constitutional mandate or by tradition.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC: 

A democratic republic is a country that is both a republic in which power resides in the hands of public and democracy. It is one where ultimate authority and power is derived from the citizens, and the government itself is run through elected officials. However, in recent times it is seen that countries which described themselves as democratic republics have not always held free or fair elections. Two examples of this are the German Democratic Republic and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam; in both examples East Germany and North Vietnam are communist states. In another example Democratic Republic of the Congo is not a free country. Ironically it is seen that a “democratic republic” is not democratic and is not a republic. A government when called by this tag usually practices dictatorship. Communist dictatorships have been especially prone to use this term. For example, the official name of North Vietnam was “The Democratic Republic of Vietnam.” China uses an alternative, “The People’s Republic of China.”

DICTATORSHIP:

Dictatorship is a form of government where political authority is controlled by a single person or political entity, and exercised through various domineering mechanisms. It is a type of authoritarianism which is contrast of democracy. Dictatorships and totalitarianism generally employ political half truths and half baked accounts to suppress proponents of alternative governing systems. We have very glaring examples of dictators in world such as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Omar Bashir of Sudan, Kim Jong – II of North Korea, Than Shwe of Burma and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia all of these are very oppressive in their conduct. And,how can we forget Hitler, Fidel Castro, Mao Tse-tung, and Angusto Pinochet?  As I have mentioned in earlier paragraphs, power goes to head easily and people can go to any extent to retain it. Dictators are usually power obsessive people.

DEMOCRACY:

Churchill said “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” In my opinion, this form of government however rosily defined has many flaws and problems but all the others have more problems. Democratic states always have freer people than autocratic states. They obviously have the right to vote for their government so by extension deciding the policy of their nation and what their nation should be like. They have more freedom of speech and expression than in autocracies. In particular they are free to criticize their own government. Democracy as per definition has to practice transparency of decision-making as it is about elections and the general public throwing governments out of power. In a democracy the parliament, the media and sometimes the judiciary all keep an eye on the executives and what is being done with the people’s money. They are therefore able to see if the executive is doing things that are detrimental to the country, whether the executive is immoral, or even illegal. Norway tops the list of democracies of the world, Netherland at number 10, US at number 17, France at number 31 and India at number 40.

MILITARY JUNTA: 

This is a form of government led by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish word junta, which means committee or meeting; which is like a board of directors. At times it becomes military dictatorship. In 2014 on 22^nd May, Thailand’s military scrapped the old constitution after army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power from Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra who is the sister of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was also ousted in a military coup in 2006 and has been living in self-imposed exile since then.

The junta in Thailand assigned a newly-formed reform council with the task of drafting a constitution for the nation that has been plagued with political unrest since the past few years. The new body, called the National Reform Council will work alongside the National Legislative Assembly. The new reform council consists of 250 members, 38 of which have served in the military.

Its candidates were chosen through applications from districts and nominations from the public. Military heads gave the final say for who would make up the council. Thailand’s military rulers say that the drafting of the new constitution andits implementation will take place by July next year which will lead to elections. Another example of Military Junta was in Greek from 1967 to 1974.

COMMUNISM:

It is a system of government where the government plans and controls the economy. Also all citizens are considered equal. A communist state is a sovereign state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed adherence to communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state.

In a true communist state you give what you can to the state for distribution, keeping only that required to satisfy your needs. It isa system of social organization in which all economic and social activities are controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.

In a Communist state, the Communist party is the nucleus of society. Other parities may function alongside the Communist party occasionally, but parties advocating the restoration of capitalism are typically prohibited. The Communist party governs according to what the society’s historical and national characteristics demand in order to unleash the productive forces and further advance towards communism. For example, in Russia and the Soviet Union in the 1920s, a regulated market economy was initially implemented due to the country’s lack of infrastructural development and to overcome the devastation of civil war. But in the 1930s, the economy of the Soviet Union was characterized by heavy industrialization. Similarly, the People’s Republic of China operated almost on the lines of communism until the 1980s when it opened its economy to foreign investment, allowing for market development alongside it planned development. Reliance on markets and planning have varied in different Communist states, but most such states are characterized by state monopoly over land ownership, full union representation in the workforce, and social security systems to provide for those unable to work.

REPUBLIC: 

Is a form of government in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. East Timor, Samoa, Nepal, Republic of Kosovo and South Sudan are states which have opted for Republic Form of Government in the 21^st century.

ANARCHY: 

Anarchy is a state of confusion and turmoil due to absence of recognized authority. The Anarchists are self engrossed and self-absorbed leaders. They are over obsessed with their own growth and sustainability. Anarchism is usually short-lived in world. In modern times, in any country by chance, if anarchism prevails it is quickly intruded from outside forces to prevent the problem from spreading further. We often see anarchism when countries go through intense revolutions or civil wars. In fighting among various governing bodies which often destroy law and order in a country usually witnesses anarchism.

The ancient Greeks stated: “Without law, there can be no freedom,” and the Founding Fathers agreed, knowing that some laws would be necessary to protect a civilized society.  To sight an example of recent times of Anarchy, I site the example of Somalia in which due to the fall of government of Siad Barre the country has been experiencing state of anarchy from 1991. Somalia has not settled till date. The fundamentalist Islamic militants are about to take over and perhaps this might trigger a regional war in the process. The country is becoming a breeding ground for terrorists.

Conclusion: Research conducted by neuroscientists has proved it time and again that feeling powerful, dampens a part of the brain which stimulates empathy. It appears that power fundamentally changes how the brain operates. Some more research on the same topic proved that when people feel powerful, they have more trouble in understanding other people’s emotions and sentiments. It appears that when people are in power it becomes increasingly difficult for them to realize other’s problem which is really ironic; power leads to greed, self-indulgence and grabbing therefore the state leaders cannot empathize with the problems of masses. In alert leadership “compassion” is very important. To be compassionate is to be able to value what the other person is going through, in essence, to walk in their shoes.