专业英语第四章

Chapter 4 The Evolution of Management Thought

[本章学时]：2学时

[本章内容概要]：4.1 Classical management perspective

4.2 Behavioral Management Perspective

4.3 Quantitative Management Perspective

[本章教学目的与要求]： describe the background of managerial theory; know something about of Taylor; define scientific management and administrative management; discuss the open system and closed system; master the contingency approach.

[本章重点与难点]：the definition of scientific management, contingency approach; background of management theory.

4.1 Classical management perspective

1 Precursors of Management Theory

The practice of management can be traced back thousands of years, such as pyramids in Egypt, the Great Wall in China, and floating warship assembly lines in Venice.

Adam Smith—“The Wealth of Nations” advocated the division of

labor to increase the productivity of workers.

Industrial Revolution—large organizations were created in need of

management and machine power was substituted for human labor.

2 The definition

(1) Scientific Management

Scientific management concerned with improving the performance of individual workers and grew out of the industrial revaluation’s labor shortage at the beginning of the twentieth century.

(2) Administration Management

Administrative management theory focuses on managing the total organization.

3 Fredrick Winslow Taylor

Fredrick Winslow Taylor who published principle of scientific management in 1911,and was considered the father of scientific management, who replaced old rule-of-thumb methods of how to do work with scientifically-based work methods.

4 Important views

How do today’s managers use scientific management? They use time

and motion studies to increase productivity. Hire the best qualified

employees, and design incentive systems based on output.

Administrative management theory focus on managing the whole

organization rather than individuals.

4.2 Behavioral Management Perspective

1 what is behavioral management

Behavioral management theory emphasized individual attitudes and behaviors, group processes, and recognized the importance of behavioral processes in the workplace. It was stimulated by a number of writers and theoretical movement.

2 Organizational behaviors

Organizational behavior is the study of the actions of people at work, and people are most important asset of an organization. It is a contemporary field,

which draws on psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and medicine, focus on behavioral perspectives on management.

4.3 Quantitative Management Perspective

1 Quantitative Management

Quantitative management, also called operations research or management science, focus on improving managerial decision making by applying statistics, optimization models, information models, and computer stimulations.

2 Operations Management

Operation management is the practical application of management science to efficiently manage the production and distribution of products and services.

3 Systems Perspective

A system is an interrelated and interdependent set of elements functioning as a whole.

There are two basic types of systems

Open systems are organizations that dynamically interacts with their

external environment by taking in inputs and transforming them into

outputs that are distributed into their environment.

Closed system are organizations that are not influenced by and do

not interact their environment (all system input and output in

internal).

4 Synergy and Entropy

(1) Synergy is the notion that the whole system (subsystem working together