Management as art and science

Management as a science:

Management is a science because:

1. As a discipline it is having a systematic collection( or body ) of knowledge, facts, information, theories, principles
2. It uses advance scientific analysis and synthesis of information for forecasting and understanding the situations and problems.
3. It is dependent on systematic scientific inquiry.
4. Like other sciences it also tries to explain, predict and control the behavior of people teams and structure- The organisational behavior , thus it is not only science but applied science
5.  it is based on systematic planning( thinking ) and then execution( doing) rather than doing things with trial and error, in unplanned manner with intuition.

Management is an Art because:

1.  some times managers use intuition, personal mastery and subjective judgments to solve the problems in organisations
2. Managers don't do all the work with prior planning and then doing, rather than they also involve most often in the unplanned work and problems which require their personal experience and use of subjective judgments
3. Managers deal with human being and thus have to understand the emotions, relations with their subordinate employees and team. Dealing with the team and human relations is an based on personal understanding and empathy rather than use of science and laboratory methods. It is totally art of a manager that how to manage the emotions and keep up the team spirit.
4. Getting things done by others: this is what some time called getting results either hook or by crook. This is not the science but art of the manager to achieve the target in anyway.

Management is art as well science:

Above discussed points reveal that management is science as well as art because managers use both methods: 

Managers work in systematic, planned and scientific manner, use the theories of management to get the solution of the problems: so it is a science.

Managers also face situations and problems out of the scope of their plan and then they use their personal skill, mastery and intuition to solve the problem and get the results.

Both the things are practiced by managers and are complementary to each other. Management as science gives managers a scientific orientation and art focus on human aspects and result orientation. Thus management is science as well art both., 

Management Vs. Administration

Management and administration are the terms used as synonymous in the business.Few people use them interchangeably and few use them as different terms.

Every word has its meaning in its context- American scholars and European scholars have different thinking on Management and Administration.

American scholars like  Oliver Sheldon, Schultz, are having of this view that Administration and Management are two different concepts and have different use in business world. According to these American scholars, Administration is superior than Management because,  it involves thinking,decision making,high level planning, policy and strategy formulation. Management is subordinate or inferior to administration because it is doing or, executing or,and implementing function. Management is responsible for the implementation of the policies and major plans  , strategies laid down by Administration.
Thus according to American view, Administration and management are different, administration is superior than management because management has to follow the policies, plans, strategies, decisions laid down by administration. Administration is concerned with the function of top level managers but management is concerned with middle and lower level.

European scholars like Breach are opposite the American viewpoint. According to them Management is broader and superior than administration because it is responsible for formulation of strategies, policies, plans and higher level decision making and is function of top level managers in the organisation. Administration is inferior to management because it is responsible for implementation of these plans,strategies, policies and installation of systems to execute the decisions of Management( top level managers). Thus management is determinative function and administration is implementing function( Management is thinking and administration is doing).

Management and administration are same: Many writers like Henri Fayol, William Newman, Chester Barnard, George Terry, Louis. A. Allen, Koontz and O’ Donnell make no distinction between management and administration.
According to these scholars, Management and administration both are made on similar set of principles( like henry fayol's 14 principles) and have to perform overall managerial functions(planning, directing, commanding, controlling, coordinating etc.) Management can be classified in to two parts-
1. Administrative Management- Thinking, Planning
2. Operative Management- Implementing
and every manager at each level has to do perform these two functions. So there is no any practical difference between Administration and management.

Nature of Management

Nature means the essential characteristics or qualities by which something is recognized. Nature of management simply can be described as a goal oriented continuous and universal social process. Management is viewed as an integrative force to bring together the factors of production and get the result done. Management is some times viewed as an Art as well Science to.

The nature of Management could be described as following points:-

1). Management is a process:- Management involves happening of a series of interrelated managerial functions/activities that simply means that it is a process.

2). Management is a continuous process:- Management is a continuous process since it exists every time during the life of the organization- Organizational Life Cycle. Continuous existence of this process is necessary for the survival of the organization and fulfillment of its objectives. Actually this is the management process which brings new energy into organization, and prevents the organization from natural process of decline- Entropy.

3). Management is a social process:- Organizations are social units and use group effort to achieve some goals. Management is a social process because some how it is related with the relationship of employees, teams. Most of the time a manager deals with the emotional aspects and team building aspects of a team to get the desired results and thus management today is no more mechanical process and employees are no more treated as machines in modern organizations.

4).Management is goal oriented:-  Management is a goal oriented process/activity because it is aimed at the accomplishment of organizational goals. Organizational goals( Providing any service or Product to the society or economy) are the reason for which an organisation and its management exist. So management is a goal oriented process

5).Management is an integrative force: Management is the force who bring together all factors of production, resources and makes it possible to accomplishment of organizational goals. Organization is a social unit in which  people from different background, culture and having different personalities, motivation,interest and career objective work together. Management also integrates individual goals and organizational goals that means it creates a balance and reconciliation of individual employee's inspiration and organisational intent/purpose.

6). Management is multidisciplinary :- Management as an area of study and subject makes use of concepts and theories from other subjects or disciplines. It uses psychology to understand the employees behavior, makes use of sociology to understand group processes, uses anthropology to describe and change  the culture of organization, applies mathematical models to predict the future

7). Management is an applied discipline:- Management as a discipline and area of study provides solutions to the fulfillment of increasing needs of society within the limited resources. In this sense it is applied in nature

8). Management is an Art as well as science:-Management is an art because it makes use of personal skills, experience, creativity,mastery in getting any thing done in varying situations. It may not involve systematic thinking and planning and then doing any work because most  often situations before managers are unpredictable, challenging and they need to use their own insight, experience, creativity and skill to get the thing done. Some scholars say management an art because it is related with doing or practicing.
Management is a science in the sense it involves systematic planning and doing, based on logical and rational exercises. Management as a science makes use of principles, theories,scientific method to understand and solve the problem. Management as an art and science are complementary to each other.

Concept of Management

Concept of Management

Management is a set of activities (Planning, Organizing, Directing,Leading, Staffing, Coordinating, Controlling, Budgeting, Monitoring and Evaluating), directed at Organisational resources to attain the organisational goals in effective and efficient manner.

Management as an Activity

This definition defines management as a set of activities, It means management may be considered as an activity.  Activity simply means some action to achieve a defined result,output or outcome. Management is some time viewed as an action/activity to accomplish organizational goals. Such it is described as effort to achieve some thing.

Few scholars define Management as 'getting things done' by others. In this sense management is a group activity which involves use of people in doing and completing the task/things/results/outputs/goals.

Management as a Process

A process is made of so many related activities which are in sequence.

 Management as a process simply means that it consists so many activities and functions in getting the results. These activities and functions (Planning, Organizing, Directing,Leading, Staffing, Coordinating, Controlling, Budgeting, Monitoring and Evaluating) are related with each other and are not opposite and totally different from each other.

Planning can't be separated from other functions because it is related and keeps in view all other activities.It comes in the beginning, then come organizing, staffing, Coordinating, Leading, directing, Monitoring and control.  

These functions are performed in sequence to achieve the goals and are related with each other, so management is a process.

Management can also be defined as a process in the sense that it starts with the inception of organization and continues till the decline of the organisation.It is very difficult to imagine an organization without management process. Processes are continuous in the sense that they are enduring in time aspect and as explained management is a long ending related sequential set of activities.

Management as a body of people

Some times few people who are taking care and control  of things in any organisation are referred to be managers and called the 'management of the company/organization'.

In this sense management refers to 'those people- CEO,Director,Mangers etc.) who are performing managerial functions(PODSCORB). Simply management is referred here as a third person.

Management as an Economic Resource or Factor of Production

Is it possible to accomplish organizational goals, or produce some thing without a manager or person who is performing managerial functions?

Management is identified as an important factor without which it would be difficult to produce some thing.

It is not possible to get the results without management this is why management can be considered as an important function of production.

Managers are now considered as Entrepreneurs who come up with new ideas of production and innovation - bring together new factors of production and thus contribute into the growth of company/enterprise/organisation and ultimately to the economy

Management as an academic discipline

Management is a separate field or area  of study. It has its organized body of knowledge, facts, principles and theories. It is taught in almost all countries in universities and college level.

Management is also an area of research and you can find libraries and journals exclusively about this area of study.

In management there are so many theories, facts, information and issues being studied and researched. This discipline has become vast and now there are sub-disciplines within this discipline- Marketing Management, Strategic Management, Human resource management etc.

Bureaucracy

Weber was a German scholar. He provided a model of ideal organisation and said that an ideal organisation would be bureaucratic organisation.
According to Weber, to improve the productivity and achieve  efficiency it is necessary to structure organisation on bureaucratic model. Bureaucratic organisation is the best and efficient organization. It is based on formal and legitimated system of authority. Authority can be defined as legitimated power given to a person in organisation.

Weber didn't provide any definition of bureaucracy but he deduced that as an organisation grow in its size, number of staff increase , conflict and complexity will increase and then a formal system of authority, rule, specialization and impersonal judgement will be needed to manage the organisation.

He founded five basic characteristics of an bureaucratic organisation
1. The organization should establish a hierarchy of positions or offices that creates a chain of command from the top of the organization to the bottom.- Hierarchy of positions means there should be a distribution of power and responsibility among officials.

Hierarchy of authority makes for a sharp distinction between administrators and the administered, or between management and workers. Within the management ranks there are clearly defined levels of authority. This detailed and precise stratification is particularly marked in the armed forces and in the civil service.

2.The organization should adopt a distinct division of labor, specialization and each position should be filled by an expert.- Bureaucracy is managed by experts. Experts of Marketing will head marketing department. for example only a person having specialization in Marketing can be the head of marketing operations. An engineer having qualification and technical knowledge of Production can be the head of production. An finance person can be the head of finance department. Thus the similar jobs are grouped together and performed by specialists.

3. The organization should develop a consistent set of rules to ensure that task performance is uniform.
Each work will be done on the basis of predetermined set of rules, and if any problem arises it will be dealt with according to the rules and policies which are made in advance. System of rules aims to provide for an efficient and impersonal operation. The system of rules is generally stable, although some rules may be changed or modified with time. Knowledge of the rules is a requisite of holding a job in a bureaucracy




4. Managers should conduct business in an impersonal way and maintain an appropriate social distance between themselves and their subordinate-

means that allocation of privileges and the exercise of authority should not be arbitrary, but in accordance with the laid-down system of rules. In more highly developed bureaucracies there tend to be carefully defined procedures for appealing against certain types of decisions



5. Employment and advancement in the organization should be based on technical expertise, and employees should be protected from arbitrary dismissal.




Criticism of Bureaucracy:

Weber’s concept of bureaucracy has a number of disadvantages and has been subject tosevere criticism.
■ The over-emphasis on rules and procedures, record keeping and paperwork may become more important in its own right than as a means to an end.
■ Officials may develop a dependence upon bureaucratic status, symbols and rules.
■ Initiative may be stifled and when a situation is not covered by a complete set of rules or procedures there may be a lack of flexibility or adaptation to changing circumstances.
■ Position and responsibilities in the organisation can lead to officious bureaucratic behaviour. There may also be a tendency to conceal administrative procedures from outsiders.
■ Impersonal relations can lead to stereotyped behaviour and a lack of responsiveness to individual incidents or problems.