Magament

Contemporary Approaches to Management

By Shannon Linnehan

Kaplan University

The contemporary approaches to management include: sociotechnical theory, quantitative management, organizational behavior, and systems theory.

As defined in our text book, (retrieved from: https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/0077530667/pages/116411950) sociotechnical systems theory an approach to job design that attempts to redesign tasks to optimize operation of a new technology while preserving employees’ interpersonal relationships and other human aspects of the work. This idea developed in the 1950’s at London’s Tavistock Institute of Human Relations simply put means that happy employees equal productive employees.

Quantitative management is a contemporary management approach that emphasizes the application of quantitative analysis to managerial decisions and problems (retrieved from: https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/0077530667/pages/116411950). Although this could be a useful approach, most managers do not implement it due to lack of understanding of the formulas required or because some of the everyday issues they deal with, cannot be put into a mathematical equation. However, it has proven to be a useful strategy in military operations and organization’s strategic planning.

Our text defines organization behavior (retrieved from: https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/0077530667/pages/116411951 ) as a contemporary management approach that studies and identifies management activities that promote employee effectiveness by examining the complex and dynamic nature of individual, group, and organizational processes. Similar to the sociotechnical systems theory, this idea also emphasizes that the employee’s needs and well being can effect productivity.

And the last of the approaches is systems theory defined as a theory stating that an organization is a managed system that changes inputs into outputs. (retrieved from :...