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Summarize the development of western management science and briefly evaluate the main theories in each stage.
The Historical Development of Western Management Science

Management activities have existed since ancient times. As early as 5000 BC, Sumerians living in the Euphrates River basin began the earliest and most primitive management activities in human history. However, the systematic study of management is a recent one or two hundred years. What stages have the development of management science gone through and what management ideas are there? Today we will walk into the world of management together.

The Pioneer and Germination of Management Thought

After the western industrial revolution, with the development of capitalism and the formation of factory system, business and management have been paid more and more attention by society, and more and more people have begun to study economic and management issues in social practice. Among them, Adam, a British economist, was the first scholar to systematically discuss economic management thoughts. Smith.

Adam. Smith's masterpiece is "Research on the Nature and Causes of National Wealth" published by 1776, which systematically expounds the theory of labor value and division of labor. Smith believes that labor is the source of national wealth. When analyzing the factors of improving "labor productivity", he particularly emphasized the role of division of labor and proved that division of labor can improve labor productivity. When studying economic phenomena, Smith put forward an important argument: economic phenomena are based on the activities of people with selfish purposes. He believes that in economic behavior, people are completely pursuing private interests. However, everyone's interests are limited by the interests of others. This forces everyone to take care of the interests of others. This leads to mutual common interests, and then produces and develops social interests. Social interests are based on personal interests.

After Smith, another Englishman, Charlie? Babbage developed Smith's argument and raised many enlightening questions about production organization and economics. Babbage's masterpiece is On the Economy of Machine and Manufacturing Industry published in 1832. He agrees with Smith's argument that division of labor can improve labor productivity, but thinks that Smith ignores the benefits that division of labor can reduce payment. Later, Babbage put forward the principle of "marginal proficiency", that is, setting a boundary between skill level and labor intensity as the basis of remuneration. Babbage's management thought centered on efficiency and cost accounting is the bud of management technology research.

Besides Smith and Babbage, there is Robert? Owen is a famous utopian socialist in Europe. He challenged the whole capitalist production management mode at that time. He advocated humanized factory management, thought that punitive management could not be adopted in management, and tried to create a new type of industrial ethics. Owen also pointed out that capitalists should pay attention to the investment in human resources, rather than just care about machinery and equipment, emphasizing that "people are the product of the environment." Owen's people-oriented management thought is the bud of social management research.

The Formation and Development of Classical Management

At the beginning of the 20th century, capitalist production and economy developed from free competition to monopoly, and classical management represented by scientific management appeared.

Taylor and Frederick, the scientific management movement? Taylor is a famous American engineer and management scientist, and the founder of scientific management theory. For the first time, he systematically introduced scientific methods into management practice, collected the achievements of previous management thoughts and practical experience, founded scientific management, pioneered the study of western management theory, and made management truly become a science and develop. Taylor is therefore known as the "father of scientific management" and is respected by the world. Taylor's main works are Principles of Scientific Management (19 1 1) and Scientific Management (19 12). The basic idea of scientific management is: management can and can use science, and can't be managed only by experience and wisdom; There are universal principles in management, and we can't just rely on talent and personal style; The purpose of management is to improve labor productivity and realize labor-capital cooperation, and we can't win benefits only by struggle. In a word, scientific management is an ideological revolution, and its essence lies in two aspects: replacing experience with science and class confrontation with class cooperation. In addition to Taylor, there are management scientists who have made outstanding contributions to scientific management, such as Gunter, Bath, Emerson, Cook, Gilbreth and others.

Fa Yueer and his management theory Henry? Fa Yueer 184 1 was born in a French bourgeois family. The masterpiece Industrial Management and General Management, published in 19 16, is a summary of his life management experience and thoughts. He believes that although his management theory is based on large enterprises, it is not only applicable to industrial and commercial enterprises, but also to the government, churches, charitable organizations, military organizations and other undertakings. Therefore, it is generally believed that Fa Yueer was the first management scientist who summarized and expounded the general management theory. His theory generally includes the following contents: (1) Extracting management activities from business activities. (2) Advocating management education. Fa Yueer believes that management ability can be acquired through education. (3) Five management functions are put forward, that is, management activities are divided into five management functions: planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling. (4) Put forward fourteen management principles, namely: division of labor, power and responsibility, discipline, unified command, unified leadership, individual interests subordinate to the overall interests, personnel remuneration, hierarchical system, centralization, order, fairness, personnel stability, initiative and team spirit.

Max Weber's organizational research? Weber is one of the greatest German scholars in the early 20th century, and his masterpiece is Economic Organization and Social Organization. He put forward the theory of bureaucratic organization, and founded a systematic organization theory on this basis. Weber believes that authority has three historical forms: traditional authority, superman authority and legal authority. Traditional authority: from customs, practices, experience and ancestral training, the most important form of expression is patriarchal society, that is, paternalism. Superman authority: also known as charismatic authority or sacred authority. This kind of authority comes from the personal worship of the superman leader, and the organization under the authority of superman relies on faith, not coercion. Jurisprudence authority: also known as legal authority, legal authority comes from people's rational belief in the legal system, rather than using the legal system as a tool. Weber also believes that the ideal bureaucratic organization is composed of the following factors: (1) organizational division of labor, (2) post setting, (3) member selection, (4) member management, (5) separation of owners and operators, (6) the operation of the organization depends on fixed activity rules and working procedures that are not dominated by personal feelings, (7) the relationship between members of the organization and the relationship between organizational departments. Weber's theory of bureaucratic organization, from its form and structure, advocates a legal organization; Judging from its essence and operating mechanism, what he advocates is a rational organization. Weber's theory had a great influence in the 1930s. Because of his pioneering research on bureaucratic organizations, people call him "the father of organizational theory". Weber's paradigm is still the basic paradigm to study organizational problems.

Management psychology and Hawthorne experiment first put forward the concept of industrial psychology is Hugo? Munster Berg's masterpiece, Psychology and Work Efficiency, consists of three parts: one is to study the different psychological quality requirements of different jobs, the other is to seek the maximum output from everyone under what psychological conditions, and the third is to study the necessity of influencing people's needs in line with industrial interests. Mary? Puckle. Follette initiated group psychology, paying attention to how companies can better serve the society. She believes that group conflicts can be resolved in four ways: first, one party voluntarily makes concessions; Second, the two sides struggled, and one side defeated the other; Third, the two sides compromise; The fourth is the combination of the two sides. The really significant psychological research on management began with Elton? Hawthorne experiment presided by Mayo opened up a new field of management research and put forward a new social philosophy about industrial civilization. Hawthorne experiment shows that workers' psychological feelings and social needs will seriously affect work efficiency. The essence of Hawthorne's experiment is consistent with Taylor's industrial ethics theory.

Gulick and Ulfvik's summary of classical management 1937, Gulick and Ulfvik mainly took Fa Yueer's thought as the core, absorbed Taylor's and Mei Yao's management theories, eliminated the prejudice that the early efficiency movement of classical management only paid attention to technical and operational issues, systematically summarized the management of the previous stage, and edited the Management Essays. The summary of Gulick and urwick is a watershed of an era. Since then, the focus of management research has shifted from the previous focus on specific management techniques to the future research on organization and behavior.

The emergence and development of modern management science

1929 ~ 1933 the economic crisis and the outbreak of the second world war in the late 1930s had a great impact on management. During this period, the depth and breadth of management research greatly exceeded the previous two stages, which made management science enter a brand-new development stage.

Barnard in modern management field, Chester, USA? Barnard can be said to be the first master. His contribution to modern management is just like that of Fa Yueer and Taylor to classical management. 1938, the book "The Functions of Managers" was published, which won him a great reputation, made him the founder and the first head of the school of social systems, and was honored as "the father of modern management theory" by the world. Barnard's theoretical contribution is that he started with the simplest human cooperation and revealed the essence of the organization and its most universal laws. On this basis, Barnard defined an organization as "a system in which two or more people consciously coordinate various activities and forces", and then demonstrated the three elements of the existence of an organization, namely, willingness to cooperate, common goals and information exchange. Finally, he solved the essence of an organization on the information issue, which is a pioneering work of an era. At the same time, Barnard also put forward the theory of organizational balance and the theory of authority acceptance, which initiated the study of organizational behavior.

Simon Herbert? Simon is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He fully accepted and further developed Barnard's theory and founded the decision-making theory. His main works are: management behavior (1945), histology (1958), new science of management decision (1960), etc. Simon believes that decision-making runs through all levels of the whole organization, and "management is decision-making". Decision-making premise can be divided into two categories, one is fact premise and the other is value premise. At the same time, Simon puts forward the concepts of bounded rationality and satisfactory decision-making, which divides human behavior patterns into two categories: stimulus-response habit pattern and hesitation-choice logic pattern, and divides decision-making activities into four stages: intellectual activities, design activities, selection activities and review activities.

Drucker's target management Drucker is a master of management practice and is known as "the father of modern management". The representative work is Management Practice published by 1954. He believes that society and economy are in a state of constant creation, growth, stagnation and recession. He stressed that when setting the objectives and evaluating the results, eight key areas need to be clearly defined: market position, innovation, productivity, material and financial resources, profitability, performance and development of managers, performance and attitude of employees and public responsibility. His contributions are mainly management art and culture, especially his insight into management practice.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory Maslow believes that people's behavior motivation comes from the satisfaction of people's needs, and there are different levels of needs, which are survival needs, security needs, social needs, self-esteem needs and self-realization needs in turn. The highest level of demand is human self-realization. There must be a dominant demand in a certain period of time, and this demand can be replaced. Management activities are actually dealing with the relationship of "motivation-need-behavior".

Argyris's Personality and Organization Research argyris believes that individual personality has a continuous development trend from immaturity to maturity, while various formal organizations keep individuals immature and hinder people's self-realization. Argyris tries to coordinate personality and organization through organizational design. The specific methods are: expanding the scope of work of employees; Take a participatory, employee-centered leadership style; Expand the technical field and knowledge of employees by engaging in various jobs; Increase employees' sense of responsibility and stimulate their sense of responsibility and creativity; Rely more on self-control and self-control

McGregor's xy Theory McGregor summarized the previous management theories into two major theories, namely X Theory and Y Theory. The views of theory X and theory Y are diametrically opposed. Generally speaking, theory X is close to the theory of management techniques and methods in classical management, and theory Y is close to the theory of behavioral science in modern management.

Lei Wen's group mechanics studies the behavior of people and organizations from a physical point of view. He believes that group mechanics is to study the interaction of various forces in an organization. Group behavior in an organization not only affects the group structure, but also corrects individual behavior.

Herzberg's incentive-health care theory Herzberg believes that there are two kinds of incentive factors: one is the incentive factor, which really plays an incentive role; The other is the medical care factor, which has no incentive effect, but without it, there will be dissatisfaction. Managers should distinguish between incentive factors and health care factors, so as to give full play to their respective roles.

Fidler's leadership environment theory Fidler puts forward a contingency leadership model according to different leadership environments. He believes that the leadership environment has three variables, namely, the relationship between leaders and members, work structure and rules and regulations, and the status and power of leaders. Different combinations of these three variables determine different leadership styles.

William? Ouchi's Z Theory He compared the management differences between the United States and Japan in detail, synthesized the X theory and Y theory put forward by McGregor, and founded Z theory. He believes that Japan's successful experience lies in the integration of X theory and Y theory, forming a Z-type management method.

Operational research and management science theory Operational research is a new management technology and method that emerged in the Second World War. The theoretical research of operational research is called "management science" by Americans. In the 1960s, operational research was also widely used in government. Operations research and management are based on computer technology and mathematical logic. It uses calculus, algebra, probability theory, mathematical statistics, matrix and network diagram to form a series of technical management theories, such as planning theory, game theory, queuing theory, inventory theory, network technology, input-output analysis and so on.

The establishment of macro-management system Harold, the third generation of management process school? Cüneyt further summarized and perfected the management process theory founded by Fa Yueer, especially the book Management by Cüneyt. With the management process theory as the core, he absorbed the theories, viewpoints and methods of many other management scientists, and established a macroscopic and all-encompassing theoretical system from the aspects of planning, organization, personnel, command and control.

Exploration and deepening of contemporary management science

Since the 1960s, many new theories have emerged in the field of management. Generally speaking, the representative theoretical exploration has the following aspects:

People have had the concept of system theory school for a long time, but general system theory, as a philosophical methodology system, was first put forward by Berta Langfei, a biologist at the University of Chicago, in 1937. Kaster and Rosenczveig, professors of Washington University, are the most famous for their research on system theory. Their representative works are Organization and Management-Systematic Approach and Contingency Approach published by 1970. Starting from the integrity of the system, they use the analysis mode of "input-transformation-output" to analyze the relationship between the system and the environment and organize management activities. They believe that all kinds of organizations are composed of five parts: goal and value subsystem, technology subsystem, social psychology subsystem, structure subsystem and management subsystem. The five subsystems interact, and the whole organization is within the environmental supersystem, which is an open system.

The most famous school of contingency theory is the study of contingency theory. Professor Lusans of the University of Nebraska in the United States is the representative work of Contingency Management Theory: Out of the Jungle published by 1973 and Introduction to Management: A Contingency Theory published by 1976. He believes that the key of contingency theory is to find the functional relationship between various variables that may affect management. All variables that affect management can be divided into two categories: one is environmental variables that are not restricted by management means, that is, independent variables in management; The other is the different management methods adopted by managers, which are called management variables, that is, the dependent variables in management. Contingency theory is to find the functional relationship between two variables and provide a unified solution for managing complexity.

The representatives of the empiricism school are Dale and Drucker, who believe that the principle that has been proved by practice is the most reliable principle only by proceeding from reality.

Super-Y theory is behind X and Y theory, Joey of America? Roche and John? Morse put forward the super y theory. They believe that the management style is mainly determined by the nature of work and the quality of members. The main point is that different people have different requirements for management methods.

The deepening of decision theory Simon, the most important representative of decision theory, believes that the role of management organization is to provide an organization that is conducive to making reasonable decisions. Management organization is not only the gathering and extension of rational people, but also the organization can make rational choices and behaviors.

Main references:

[ 1] Merren。 The evolution of management thought [M]. Trans. Zhao Rui et al. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2000.

[2] Liu Wenrui. Management lecture [M]. Xi 'an: Northwest University Press, 2005.

[3] Wednesday Management-Principles and Methods, 4th Edition [M]. Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2004.