UMCDMX-15-1: People-Centric Structures in Contemporary Management

This report examines the classical and contemporary approaches to management, highlighting the shift towards people-centric structures. It contrasts the traditional, production-focused classical approach with the contemporary emphasis on human relations, motivation, and employee well-being. The report discusses the benefits and drawbacks of each approach, referencing theories from economists and scholars to support its analysis. It concludes that the contemporary approach builds upon the classical approach by addressing its weaknesses and incorporating a greater focus on employee needs and satisfaction to improve overall organizational effectiveness. This document is a student contribution, and Desklib offers a range of AI-powered tools and resources for students.

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INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING
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Executive Summary
The project aims to study in detail about the classical and contemporary approach to
management. The projects take examples of theories of different economists and scholars to
support the study and give clarification to the arguments raised in the project. It also helps to
study how human relations are considered in the different approaches of the management. The
project concludes that the contemporary approach of management is the expansion of the
classical approach by removing its weaknesses and utilizing its strengths to develop the modern
theory of management.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
How organization has benefitted by classical approach management which focusses making
the organization more people centric?.........................................................................................4
What are the positive aspects of the contemporary approach and why it has been developed?..4
Structure of management and challenges in a classical and contemporary approach.................5
How contemporary approach outdated classical approach by focusing on human relationships?
.....................................................................................................................................................6
Justification with appropriate example........................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The Contemporary approach of management completely does away with the classical
approach in favour of more people-centric structures. The contemporary approach is widely
accepted because of its sides away from the bureaucratic approach and focusses on human
relations. A classical business approach is a traditional approach the businesses are following.
The elements of the approach are the existence of a different level of department consisting of
employees. The focus of the classical approach is basically on increasing the production of the
business.
In contrast, the contemporary business approach is the human relation developing
approach. Its main aim is to develop an organizational atmosphere that can create a healthy and
motivational work environment for the workers. The different organizational approaches are
always in conflict with their different focus for contributing to the development of business. One
theory may give more attention to the people of the organization while the other may focus on
the productivity of the people. However, this theory aims to achieve the ultimate goal of the
business. The paper will try to highlight which approach is successful in achieving the ultimate
goal of the business. The paper will try to prove that contemporary businesses should completely
do away with the outdated classical approach in favour of more people-centric structures. It is
outlined by human relations and will show the post-bureaucratic perspectives that led to the
development of behavioural management approach within an organization (Mawer 2016).

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Discussion
How organization has benefitted by classical approach management which focusses making
the organization more people centric.
Classical management theory has some few advantages like it helps the managers in
designing the detailed procedure in an organization under which employees can complete their
work efficiently and as per the detailed guidelines. The managers do not focus on the employee's
problems; instead, they just focus on productivity. The employees keep personal issues outside
the professional boundary. The classical approach management has a people-centric approach.
The works are assigned to each level of employees following the structure of the organization. If
employees at the lower level get successful in achieving their target, top managers also get
success as they are successful in getting the goal achieved. The approach was successful in those
organizations where the optimum level of the target was provided to workers at a lower level.
The delegation of assigning the target was from a higher level to the lower level of employees.
The main demerit of this approach was that it does give importance to employee's emotions
and opinions. The employees may not see growth in the job as they are not motivated by their
employers with incentives or promotions. The level of employee turnover is very large in case of
the classical approach of management as compared to the modern approach of management
(Yazdani and Abbas 2019).
What are the positive aspects of the contemporary approach and why it has been
developed?
The Contemporary approach of management was developed in the mid of 20th century.
The management approach focusses on the improvement of the classical and traditional approach

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to management. The contemporary approach of management uses different approaches such as
system approaches, contingency approaches, quantitative approaches etc. (Betts, Laud and
Kretinin 2018).
Post bureaucratic perspective of a modern and contemporary organisation is the
expansion of the traditional organisation by different methods of departmentalization methods
such as matrix and team-based structures. Today's world has seen the importance of these
methods (Lee and Edmondson 2017). Matrix structure helps to interrelate and bring people
together of the different departments and functional areas to work for a single task. Similarly, the
contemporary structure makes an organization flexible and delegates project responsibility to a
group rather than individuals which was rarely seen in the traditional approach of the
organization (Somov 2018).
Structure of management and challenges in a classical and contemporary approach.
Management follows proper planning in contemporary organizations. The management
involves adopting different theories such as quantitative, IT and system approaches. The IT
approach involves adopting technology in every aspect of the organizational environment,
whether it concerns internal or external environment (Roth 2019). The system approach
considers each department as a sub-category of the entire system. It focuses on conducting
different functions such as planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling through the
management. The quantitative method of modern management helps to convert the
organizational problems into mathematical or quantitative problems so that they can be
addressed. It helps the management to define the objective to be achieved for solving the
problems which were not seen in the classical approach of the management (Irfan, Hassan and
Hassan 2019).

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How contemporary approach outdated classical approach by focusing on human
relationships?
In the classical theory of management, managers mainly focus on giving instruction to
workers. The perspective of the managers was that the workers should follow their instruction
and complete their job as per the instruction satisfactorily. Marry Parker Follet discusses in one
of her paper that the task may be completed as per the instructions, but the employees may not
give their best or do the task satisfactorily because the task was ordered and ordering things are
not a positive approach of giving instructions. She explained in her study how the attitude of the
employer and the employee could be changed. The modern or contemporary approach focusses
on human relations and does not side away from human emotions, which is a key factor in
completing any work (Dhaheri, Ghazali and Baroto 2016).
The major weakness of the classical management theory is that it creates a tough and
strict structure. The main motive of this structure is to increase the organization's productivity
and to enhance the efficiency. The structure suppress the need of creating positive relations with
the employees and enhancing creativity among them. The management adopts methods of
division of work and assembly line for increasing the productivity. The classical approach of
management was criticized by the modern management theories because it does not focus on the
behavioral attributes of management. This approach compel the workers for completing their
targets while the behavioral approach tries to motivate the employees so that they become
interested in doing their target themselves (Celik and Ozsoy 2016). This approach was output
centric approach and was not people-centric. Henry Fayol, one of the prominent leader in the
classical organization approach, but he also focusses on increasing the efficiency of the
management and ignored every individual's development.

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Justification with appropriate example
Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory is very helpful in understanding the different
approaches of business. It gives a clarification that how the human needs and humans emotions
when attained appropriately can motivate the employees of the organization. The third level of
Maslow's Hierarchy theory explains that when the basic and psychological needs of the
employees are fulfilled, then they want love and belongingness in the organization. If they
achieve these satisfactions in the work field, then it may help in the retention of the employees as
well as in gaining their loyalty towards the employer (Bishop 2016).
Similarly, Mc Gregor described two levels of theory. One of his theory is known as
theory X, and the other theory is known as Theory Y. Both theories help to understands the
different human motivations. MC Gregor helped people to understand that there is the human
side of organizational culture and implementation of programmes and taking initiatives for
considering the social and personal needs is a must for organizational management (Daneshfard
and Rad 2019). The theory X focusses on the management role of how they make their
employees engage in achieving the optimum production while the theory Y builds the framework
of modern management theory. It involves the use of decentralization, job satisfaction by
promotion and incentives, the delegation of work etc. with the help of theory Y, and he proved
that the success of an organization depends on the healthy participation of its employees. The
participation of its employees depends on the fulfilment of their psychological and self-esteemed
needs. The focus should not only the basic needs such as wages etc. (Aithal and Kumar 2016).
Both of the theories explained above gives a clear description of how an organization can
attain success and flourish by developing a healthy human relationship with its employees and by
attaining their different social and personal requirements.

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Conclusion
The classical approach aims at increasing the volume of production by following a
rationale approach while the contemporary approach of management focusses on generating
ideas and ways for increasing the efficiency as well as effectiveness of the employees by
incorporating the better human relations with the employees and effecting their psychology in
such a way that they get motivated for working efficiently for their organization. It is concluded
that the employees of the contemporary approach develop a feeling of belongingness with their
organization as an organization also consider their humanistic needs. The paper concludes that
the modern approach is better than the classical theory as it helps in the retention of the
employees and helps in reducing the employees' turnover. The weaknesses of the classical
approach led to the development of the contemporary approach and increase the responsibility of
management more than it was in the classical approach.

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References
Aithal, P.S. and Kumar, P.M., 2016. Comparative analysis of theory X, theory Y, theory Z, and
Theory A for managing people and performance. International Journal of Scientific Research
and modern education (ijsrme), issn (Online), pp.2455-5630.
Al Dhaheri, A.A.Y., Ghazali, M.Z.B.M. and Baroto, M.B., 2016. Applicability of classical
decision-making styles in modern societies: five leaders theory from perspective. International
Journal of Management (IJM), 7(3).
Betts, S.C., Laud, R. and Kretinin, A., 2018. Social entrepreneurship: a contemporary approach
to solving social problems. Global Journal of Entrepreneurship Volume, 2(1).
Bishop, J., 2016. An analysis of the implications of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for networked
learning design and delivery. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and
Knowledge Engineering (IKE) (p. 49). The Steering Committee of The World Congress in
Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing (WorldComp).
Celik, A. and Ozsoy, N., 2016. Organizational change: Where have we come from and where are
we going. International journal of academic research in accounting, finance and management
sciences, 6(1), pp.134-141.
Daneshfard, K. and Rad, S.S., 2019. Philosophical analysis of theory x and y. Journal of
management and accounting studies, 7(02), pp.44-48.
Irfan, M., Hassan, M. and Hassan, N., 2019. The effect of project management capabilities on
project success in pakistan: An empirical investigation., 7, pp.39417-39431.

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Lee, M.Y. and Edmondson, A.C., 2017. Self-managing organizations: Exploring the limits of
less-hierarchical organizing. Research in organizational behavior, 37, pp.35-58.
Mawer, S.J., 2016. Corporate to management social responsibility: extending CSR to MSR
guided by Mary Parker Follett (Doctoral dissertation, University of Salford).
Roth, S., 2019. Digital transformation of management and organisation theory. A systems-
theoretical proposal. Borders without borders: Systemic frameworks and their applications, p.8.
Somov, D., 2018. The functional approach to strategic management. Економічний часопис-ХХІ,
171(5-6), pp.19-22.
Yazdani, N. and Abbas, Z., 2019. Civilization as a Theoretical Framework to Study and Analyze
Organization Theory with Islamic Way Forward. Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization,
9(1), pp.1-18.

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