Classical and Human Relation Theories of Management

Running head: ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Organisational Behaviour
Name of the student
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Author note

ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR1
Introduction
Management practices in the modern era are quite similar to the management
practices in the past decades. However, the change in the macro and micro
environment along with the advent of globalisation and technological advancement
has led to the change in organisational structure. These phenomenon has forced the
management of different organisations to change their approaches of management
and use a broader approaches of management. The approaches dominating the
past decades are not sufficient to manage the complexities in the modern business
environment (Vittikh, 2015). These factors have inspired evaluation of the different
classical and human relation theories to management. The analysis of the past
literature shows that the past approaches and the modern and post-modern theories
have similarities in mainly three faces. These factors are control, development of
business and leadership. Efthymiou and Yacoub, (2016) states that these facets are
focused on improving the performance of the organisation which every manager
aims to achieve in modern organisational setting. Ihuah, (2014) evaluated the value
chain theory created by Michael Porter to state that the purpose of every
organisation is generate a higher value than the actual cost of generating that value.
Nhema, (2015) stated that the classical approaches to management mainly
focused on the activities and structure of an official organisation. This implies that the
efficiency of the processes were the main concerns of the organisations. On the
contrary, in case of the human relation theories, the approaches were focused on the
human factor at work. Individual motivation and satisfaction was the focus of these
theories where efficient resource usage leads to effective operations.
Classical theories
The summary of the early ages in management theories highlights the need
for effective and efficient utilisation of traditional product factor which was moving
from being independent activities to coordinated ones. These theories were labelled
into scientific management theories and classical theories. The classical
approaches to management were promoted by the theories and they are Taylor’s
theory of scientific management, Fayol’s Administrative theory and Weber’s theory of
bureaucracy.

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Fayol’s Administrative theory
Henri Fayol, a French engineer became the CEO of a mining company during
its time of reaching bankruptcy (Khorasani & Almasifard, 2017). Fayol focused on the
principles of effective management of resources and activities within a company. The
major themes explaining the classical themes are management functions,
management activities and general principles of management. As per the theory,
business and organisational life was the combination of diverse six activities. These
activities can be classified as commercial, security, managerial, accounting, financial
and technical. The management activities were divided into five functions. These
functions included activities such as organising, coordination, control, command,
planning and forecasting. Fourteen principles were advocated by Fayol which guided
the managerial functional performance. Khorasani and Almasifard, (2017) also
clearly listed and defined these principles and they are Discipline, Authority, Unity of
direction , Remuneration , Division of work, Subservience of individual benefits to
general interest, Unity of command, Centralization, Stability of tenure of personnel,
Initiative , Equity, Scalar chain , Order, Esprit de corps.
Ferdous, (2016) performed an analysis on all these principles mentioned by
Fayol to highlight that Fayol was the first to differentiate between managerial and
technical skills. The author claimed that particular labour is required to help other
reach their fullest potential. There was a clear differentiation between responsibility
and authority. The author described authority as the facility to give instructions while
on the other hand, authority is the result of the previous action. Bishop, (2015)
states that initiative principle tries to guide organisations on rewarding and
encouraging employees that had the ability to generate new innovative idea and
initiate the process of implementation. The organisation was viewed as top down in
this theory.
Bishop, (2015) states that modern concerns regarding fairness and conflict
of interest can be related to the theory by highlighting the concept of general interest
versus individual interest. Esprit de corps and initiative indicates the sensitivity of
Fayol towards the needs of people as groups and individuals. It also highlights the
present need of avoiding the mechanistic approach towards the modern workforce.
The principles were seen from the perspective of a rational model instead of trying to
adapt different structures and changing the behaviour of the people. This helped in

ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR3
identifying the best fit for establishing an effective relationship between the
consumers and organisation. Khorasani and Almasifard, (2017) criticised the
approach made by Fayol as it lacked the ability and effectiveness to cope up with
various modern conditions such as flatter structures, increased involvement of the
employees in the process of decision-making and rapid changes in the environment.
Taylor’s theory of scientific management
Frederick Winslow Taylor was also a theorist and manager and rule-of-thumb
was used by the management to leave the method of working to the employee
initiatives (Hu, 2013). As per the suggestion from Taylor, management needed to
take this role away from the employees for promoting efficient performance. The
theory was developed based on the work experience of Taylor as a manager of a
steel company and shop-floor worker (Taylor, 2014). The author was able to identify
the key reasons for inefficient practices at work and these factors were related to the
concept of “rule-of-thumb” and “soldiering”. This problems were solved scientifically
by calculating the most effective way of performing each based on the skill level of
the employees. (Taylor, 2014) states that these approach led to the division of
activities into smaller tasks. Taylor studied and analysed the operating time and skills
of highly skilled workers to eliminate all unnecessary movements and identify the
best possible way to do a job. These skills were put as standards for performing
these jobs.
As stated by Hu, (2013), Taylor proposed that average employees prefer
tasks that are well defined along with standards. The scientific approach would
facilitate in improving prosperity of both employer and employee. The optimisation of
task standards would improve the efficiency of the work done by the employees.
However, this theory was heavily criticised for taking the relationship between
employees and employer as granted (Khorasani & Almasifard, 2017). This negatively
affected the financial incentive scheme due to the lack of trust between the
employees and the workers (Efthymiou & Yacoub, 2016). His theory turned the
lower level of workers into automatons where there were no scope of innovation
resulting in frustrating and dissatisfaction among these employees.