Business // Role of The Manager and The Impact of Organizational Theories on Managers
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Role of The Manager and The Impact of Organizational Theories on Managers
Introduction
Galaxy Toys Inc. is the largest privately owned toy company in the United States. Started from the idea of Rusty Jepson, who was inspired to travel to the moon, his parents –George and Nan Jepson founded the company in 1956. The couple’s experience in manufacturing, selling, and advertising from their previous jobs and companies was consumed in running the company. At first, it was only a side business until the business grew and they persuaded partnership with Jack Mercury. The first blast of toys released were push-pull space toys for very young children. It was then succeeded with Galaxy collectible toys and Space Rocket. After years of productive growth of the company, George, Nan, and Jack were substituted by Jepson and Mercury children, who continue the legacy of their predecessors. Under the new management, the company considered the two ideas: sustainability and innovation, in able for the company to develop new product line and drive the current business to warranty of success. In addition, the new management acknowledged the importance of technology and employee engagement in taking actions for the development of the entire organization.
This paper discusses the following areas: (a) the school of thought that best describe Bart’s management style when he joined Galaxy Toys Inc., (b) the significant contribution of the theorist who postulated this school of thought, (c) the school of thought that best describe Bart’s management style when necessary changes occurred in the company in 1980’s, and (d) the significant contribution of the theorist that hypothesized this school of thought. This is followed by comparing and contrasting the two school thought that best describe Bart’s management style and last is, the new management concepts as approach to understand the role of manager in the 21st century.
Management provides guiding principles in administering the major operations of the organization, such as planning, organizing and controlling, which through efficiency and collaboration the objectives of organization and employees can be achieved.
Scientific Management
“Under scientific management the “initiative” of the workmen (that is, their hard work, their good will, and their ingenuity) is obtained with absolute uniformity and to a greater extent than is possible under the old system; and in addition to this improvement on the part of the men, the managers assume new burdens, new duties, and responsibilities never dreamed of in the past” (Taylor, 2004, p.1). Under scientific management, the best method to accomplish each task is through scientific method. The scientific management should be scientifically selecting employees based on their qualifications and trainings. The hired employees are expected to collaborate with coworkers and management according to their vested self-interest. Third, scientific management advocates genuine cooperation between workers and management based on mutual self-interest. Lastly, scientific management takes full responsibility in planning for the worker’s day-to-day tasks ahead of time and workers in turn should implement management plans.
This management school of thought clearly explains Bart’s management style towards employees. Bart was often heard of saying “It’s my way or the highway” or “Just do your individual task the way you were trained and don’t worry about what others are doing,” in which case, employees felt that they were like robots. They have to do things they are instructed to do, no need to think they just need to follow. This is what scientific management called as the “initiative” of the workmen. The hard labor of employees has to be consistent under the control of management. On one hand, the management has all the burden in the detailed tasks of employees which Bart is apparently doing every day.
Scientific Management by Taylor
According to Frederick W. Taylor, “the worker opportunism and managerial opportunism instigated dilemmatic interest conflicts – specifically, “antagonism” in organizational behavior (Wagner-Tsukamoto, 2007, p. 106).” The potential dilemmas in an organization threatened its cooperation and growth at large. Taylor saw that the scientific management caused conflicts between management and workers. With Taylor’s critical analysis of the dilemmatic condition, there created a mental revolution in the workplace. As there were workers who exerted efforts more, there are also people who exerted less yet both of them are receiving the same wages. Taylor, as institutional economist, equilibrated individual interests on organization’s interests through incentive management.
Learning Organization
Learning organization explains that the emerging trend nowadays stress on exploring and adventuring different techniques and interactive strategies that would create a real-time connection with the market. Competition and opportunities are just anywhere. However, what is essential is that company has weapons and armor to protect itself from unanticipated situation that may spoil the growth of the company. In like manner, the company must, above all, develop system of competitive leadership strategy, balance and continuity despite the risks and consequences that may occur. In turn, learning organization lead company and management to continually increase its ability to learn, grow, and achieve its purpose. In the instant case, Galaxy Toys management learned that to go beyond organizational challenges, they need to collaborate with their employees’ interactive behaviors, ability, and experience to solve problems within their boundaries.
Learning Organization by Deming
Learning organization was created by W. Edwards Deming. He argued that “an organization’s major emphasis must be on the future and providing continuous value for external customers and stakeholders (Lakos & Phipps, 2004, p. 347).” Agile learning experiences of management means of advancement of organization in dealing with hands-on practice, leading workforce to be involve in the ways and means in which management is up to. Deming emphasized that management should kept on discovering innovative learning activities for the most benefit of the company. That systems of thinking should not just based on management but should also come from employees because they are front-lines in the company, they are the most important factors that influence customers’ satisfaction and loyalty in business.
Scientific Management vs. Learning Organization
Scientific management and learning organization both aimed for the efficiency of the organization. However, scientific management is a type of classical school of management thought that concerns more of management decisions as arbitrary and workers tend to work in slow pace. On the other hand, learning organization concerns more of the collaboration between management and employees to work hand in hand in achieving the goals of organization.
21st century management
In the new management of Joyce as the new manager of Galaxy Toys Inc., it is expected that management will be actively approaching employees to participate on the new development of the company. McCrimmon defined modern management as “a way of achieving goals that add the most value. It is about being sufficiently organized to identify the right goals and the best means for achieving them (2010, par 8).” The advent of dynamic interaction between viable strategy and sufficient resources constantly aligns and re-aligns the long-term fit of external factors that develops growth and diversification of corporate ‘virtual circle’. As major strength of an industry is the existence of balance skilled workforce and developed technology that boosts productivity as well as profitability, these resources sustain the internal factors of company to build its portfolio of business in market. In this regard, Lyddon (2011) mentioned that with the emergence of global markets, operational excellence with technology and workforce efficiency make strategic opportunities to interrelate the goals of company to its marketing approaches. Porter categorized strategic alternative in four-fold classification of competitive strategy. Joyce’s modern management practices in Galaxy Toys Inc. will make the processes and performance of organization to achieve distinction or competitive edge among other toy companies.
Spanjol and Tam argued that “successful innovation depends critically on the ability of organizations to implement change” (2010, p. 346). As such, the interdependent relations between innovation and change is indispensable to explore the sets of roles on the given domains of performing organization and define the functional equivalents of transforming visions into constructive plans and actions. The implementation of innovation works to process the achievement of change as targeted by employees’ commitment to become the best out of the best within organization. Joyce definitely know that failure to make change is losing the opportunity to innovate that necessarily reflects the organizational failure itself to achieve the adopting competitive change and be recognized in the sphere of business nomenclature. As innovation requires not only the shifting of traditional view to modern view, as of the incorporation of technological advances, it also indicates and identifies the successful transformation of multi-determined and multi-level phenomenon in other resources such as workforces and finances.
Conclusion
This paper concluded that management theories had continually evolved through time, basing it to the needs of the people and factors surrounding the operations of the company. Thus, the changes filled the gaps and weaknesses of the previous management theory, fitting it to the current needs of the organization. The managers should be able to provide the best theories which will be applicable for the organization that they operate. This can be done by looking on the history of management and understanding the reason of changes that happened in years’ way back.
References
Taylor, F. W. (2004). Scientific management. Routledge.
Wagner-Tsukamoto, S. (2007). An institutional economic reconstruction of Scientific Management: On the lost theoretical logic of Taylorism. Academy of Management Review, 32(1), 105-117.
Lakos, A., & Phipps, S. E. (2004). Creating a culture of assessment: a catalyst for organizational change. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 4(3), 345-361.
McCrimmon, M. (2010). A new role for management in today’s post-industrial organization. Ivey Business Journal.
Lamond, D. (2005). “On the Value of management History: Absorbing the Past to understand the present and inform the future”, Management Division. 43:1273-1281.
Lyddon, B. (2011). Challenges to achieving operational excellence, particularly in Europe. Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems, 5 (1): 83-94.
Spanjol, J., & Tam, L. (2010). To Change or Not to Change: How Regulatory Focus Affects Change in Dyadic Decision-Making Creativity and Innovation Management Regulatory Focus and Change in Dyadic Decision-Making. Creativity & Innovation Management, 19 (4): 346-363.
2017/5053
