Contributions and limitations of Behavioral management perspective

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 951.

The behavioral school of management emphasized what the classical theorists ignored – the human element. While classical theorists viewed the organization from a production point of view, the behavioral theorists viewed it from the individual's point of view. The behavioral approach to management emphasized individual attitudes and behaviors and group processes, and recognized the significance of behavioral processes in the workplace.

Contributions of the behavioral viewpoint:

1. Spotlight the managerial importance of such factors as communication, group dynamics, motivation, and leaders.

2. Articulates practical applications of behavioral studies.

3. Draws on the findings of a number of disciplines such as management, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and economics.

4. Highlights the importance of an organization's members as active human resources rather than passive tools.

Ignorance of Genetics Behavioral theories completely reject the idea of genetics having an influence on human behavior. Psychology in its modern form, on the other hand, accepts genetic influence on human behavior as a fact. One of the most prominent social psychologists, Kurt Lewin, tried to resolve the limitation of behavioral theories by giving his famous equation: behavior is a function of the person (genetic nature) and the environment. Behavioral theories lack one of the vital factors in Lewin's equation, and cannot completely describe human behavior.

Generalization Psychologists that developed behavioral theories backed these theories on experiments containing stimuli that are not easily relatable. In these experiments artificial environments are constructed to condition subjects to associating these normally unrelatable stimuli, such as food and electric shock. The psychologists then generalized their results to all sets of stimuli, no matter how easily the relationships between these stimuli are made. The limitation in this case is that such a generalization cannot scientifically follow such experiments. In short, this generalization by behavioral theories is flawed.