HUMAN RELATIONS

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 416.

BEHAVIORAL SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

GENERAL MANAGEMENT THEORY

Henri Fayol and C. I. Barnard attempted to develop a broader theory concerned with general management. Fayol's thesis was that the fundamental functions of any manager consist of planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. He attempted to develop a number of general principles designed to improve the practice of general management. Barnard believed that the most important function of a manager is to promote cooperative effort toward goals of the organization.

In the 1920s and 1930s some observers of became convinced that scientific management was shortsighted and incomplete. TheBehavioral school of management is the approach to management thought that is primarily concerned with human psychology, motivation, and leadership as distinct from simple mechanical efficiency. The behavioral school of management thought includes what has come to be called the human relations movement, as well as modern behaviorism.

Elton Mayo was recognized as the Father of the Human Relations Movement. The human relations movement is the name given in the trend that began inthe1920s and that reached is apogee in the 1940s and 1950s toward treating satisfaction of psychological needs as the primary management concern. In the experiments conducted in the Chicago Western Electric plant between 1927 and 1932 researchers attempted to prove the validity of certain accepted management ideas. Several of the experiments attempted to determine the relationship between working conditions and productivity.

Much behavioral research supports the thesis that reasonable satisfaction of the needs and desires of employees will lead to greater output. This suggests that any management approach that ignores or deemphasizes the human element may result in only partly accomplished objectives.