Page 54 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

Contemporary Approaches History Module 53
Most of the early approaches to management focused on managers’
concerns inside the organization. Starting in the 1960s, management
researchers began to look at what was happening in the external
environment outside the organization.

3000 BCE–1776 1911–1947 Late 1700s–1950s 1940s–1950s • 1960s–present
Early Management Classical Approaches Behavioral Approach Quantitative Approach Contemporary Approaches

1960s
Although Chester Barnard, a telephone company executive,
wrote in his 1938 book The Functions of the Executive that an
organization functioned as a cooperative system, it wasn’t until
the 1960s that management researchers began to look more care-
10
fully at systems theory and how it related to organizations. The
idea of a system is a basic concept in the physical sciences. As
related to organizations, the systems approach views systems
as a set of interrelated and interdependent parts arranged in a
manner that produces a unified whole. Organizations function as
open systems, which means they are influenced by and interact
with their environment. Exhibit HM–2 illustrates an organization
Frederic J. Brown/Newscom manage all parts of the system in order to achieve established
as an open system. A manager has to efficiently and effectively
goals. See Chapter 2 for additional information on the external
and internal factors that affect how organizations are managed.

Exhibit HM–2 Organization as an Open System

Environment

Organization
Transformation
Inputs Process Outputs

Raw Materials Employees’ Work Products and Services
Human Resources Activities Financial Results
Capital Management Activities Information
Technology Technology and Human Results
Information Operations Methods
Feedback

Environment