ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the principal models that still appear to govern much management activity. The formal study of management has only emerged as a discipline in its own right over the last hundred or so years – indeed it is still considered bymany (particularly practising managers) as being at least as much ‘black art’ as science. Theoretical and practical development of the discipline have more or less paralleled the emergence of the major corporations – though it is evident that many are still managed according to a TayloristWeberian model, i.e. scientistic and bureaucratic. Prior to the emergence of the joint-stock company and the industrial revolution, permanent large scale organisations (other than states, which were often extremely volatile) were limited to the various churches and the standing armies and navies of the wealthier nations. The majority of the workforce were either agricultural labourers living at not much better than a subsistence standard of living, land-owning farmers, tradesmen and craftsmen or professionals such as doctors and lawyers. Following the industrial revolution, agricultural workers were drawn from the country to
the towns and cities to improve their standardof living, often becoming factoryworkers. The increasing size of such organisations (and the increasing wealth and desire to pursue other interests of the factory owners) created the opportunity for the emergence of the professional manager – thosewhose job it is to oversee and supervise the activities of theworkers on behalf of owners. The need to manage these large scale organisations and the drive for additional profitability can be interpreted as having given impetus to the study of management. The development of early management theories is the topic of the next sections. The principal early models in organisation (or management) theory are the ‘Classical’, also
known as the Traditional or Rational, and the ‘Human Relations’. These two approaches have their ownparticular strengths andweaknesses, and thesewill be explored.These theories are considered to some extent as the causes of many quality problems and as being reflected in the dominant quality models which will be considered in the next part of the book.
