Expansion of Management Knowledge

Management is an applied technique and a closely to many allied fields e.g. economics. Disciplines devoted to studying people, e.g. psychology, sociology and political science, have grown and generated an expansion of management knowledge.

The development of management thought can, for convenience, by considered to comprise four main periods – early influence, the scientific management movement, the human relations movement, and modern influences, e.g. the revisionist movement.

Early influences

Ancient records in China and Greece indicate the importance of organization and administration, but do not much insight into the principles of management. Outstanding scholars have referred to management activities in the running of city states and empires.

The Administration of the Roman Empire was a complex job. The Romans effectively used many basic management ideas, e.g. scalar principles and delegation of authority.

Scientific management

In the years after 1900, conventional management practices were found to be inadequate to meet demands from the changing economic, social and technological environment. A few pioneers examined causes of inefficiency and experimented to try to find more efficient methods and procedures for control. From these basic experiments a system of management thought developed which come to be known as scientific management.

The method was to investigate every operating problem and try to determine the “best way” to solve the problems, using scientific methods of research. The concept involved a way of thinking about management.

Administrative management

The role of administrative management and concluded that all activities that occur in business organization could be divided in to six groups, i.e.:

• Technical (production, manufacturing)
• Commercial (buying, selling, exchange)
• Financial (obtaining and using capital)
• Security (protection of property and persons)
• Accounting (balance sheet, stocktaking, statistic, costing)
• Managerial (planning, organizing, commanding, co-coordinating, controlling)

 The six groups of activities above are interdependent and that it is the role of management to ensure all six activities work smoothly to achieve the goals of an enterprise.

Human relations movement and behavioural science

Industrial psychology emerged a specific field about 1913, it was concerned with problems of fatigue and monotony and efficiency in work, as well as in the design of equipment, lighting and other working conditions. It later dealt with problems of selecting and training employees and developed techniques of psychological testing and measurement. Industrial psychology emphasized the study of large and small groups in industry. The basis of the human relations movement was the integration of various disciplines, i.e. industrial psychology and sociology, applied anthropology and social psychology, and was concerned with the human problems which management encountered.