this is my article, written by Dickson Chingapsye about management

1. WAYS THROUGH WHICH SCHOLARLY CONTRIBUTES TO THE MANAGEMENT
THEORIES
The systematic study of the management started at the age of industrial revolution which ushered
in a new era of serious thinking and theorizing of the management. The first management theory
to evolve was the scientific management theory by Frederick Taylor and more new theories
emerged after him. These theories work as the guiding routes for the managers towards
organization goals. For a scholar to come up with new idea(s), it may take hi or her several days
to visit the theories that already exist and come up with a tangible idea. It is obvious that
management cannot be the same from past to now days because things have changed on how we
run our affaires. Therefore, this essay aims at discussing the ways how scholars can make
contributions to management theory. The essay will in the first place explain an overview of
modern management in relation with the past management, nature of the organization, and finally,
how these scholars have made their contributions to the management theories.
Then, scholars must be aware that the nature of the organizations makes organizations to differ,
others aim at maximizing profit and they use theories which are productive to them like scientific
management theory Fredrick Taylor, System theory and many more. On other hand, other
organization do not aim at profit making like university of Malawi but it just makes sure that it
offers quality services at large. It is essential that scholars must consider above facts that not every
theory can work effectively in these two scenarios. So before criticizing a theory, they must
consider that and they must consider time when the theory was proposed. For example, if the
theory was proposed during the World War era, it could emphasise much on health protection of
workers. In such situation Maslow’s hierarchy of needs could be important more especially on the
safety needs which include security on the workers healthy. Therefore, things vary as time goes.
Having taken a close look at the nature of an organization, the note has to be taken of that this
essay is now going to focus much on the ways how scholarly has contributed to the development
of a theory. The first theory to be looked upon is the scientific management theory. This was
developed by Fredrick Taylor. It is regarded as the first management theory. But with time, some
other theories had to come into existence. First way through which scholars came up with new
ideas after him is the fact that they had to take a look at his weaknesses. His weaknesses were that
he considered human beings as rather being the economic animals than rational. His main aim

2. towards hos theory was to improve the production in the steel company where he worked but he
ignored the factor that human beings can not only be motivated by money but they are motivated
by different social needs. So, other scholars had to find other ways of motivating the people apart
from money and in so doing, other theory was developed which dealt with other peoples needs
apart from money only.
Another way through which the scholarly contributed to the development of a theory is the fact
that other scholars came up with their contribution based on hierarchy of the organization. On this
one, there is Max Weber who proposed the Bureaucracy theory. With the expansion of
organizations, the operations became further complex which consequently led to the authoritarian-
paternalistic pattern way that enhances functional specialization within the distinctive layers of
management to have smooth operations (Sridhar, 2017). He proposed this of the theory
bureaucracy for organizational efficiency based of organizational systems functioning on set of
rules, policies and hierarchy of authority. Good thing with this approach is that it excludes the
conflict or overlapping duties, which offers clear direction so that organizational operations gain
efficiency in productivity. The approach offers consistency in patterns to ensure higher precision
in tasks to avoid waste of resources (Sridhar, 2017). This is effectively the theme of modern-day
organizations too to have structural and patronized functions in order to avoid wastage of resources
and enhance operational efficiency (Brown, 2014).
Secondly, the use of psychological tests. A good number of tests were conducted by the scholars
on the importance of social needs in an organization. The human relations school of thought is one
of those schools of theories designed to put consideration on workers as being social. Hawthon
experiment showed that an organization is a social institution where various formal groups are
formed.
Another way through which scholarly made contribution to the management is by looking at the
needs of workers that led to job satisfaction, for example Maslow’s hierarchy of needs by Abraham
Maslow. Abraham Maslow prioritized the five types of employee needs. The pyramid of needs
had the most basic needs at the bottom and term them as physiological needs such as, sleep, eat,
water, sex, breathing and other physical needs (McLeod, 2018). With the attainment of these needs,
second needs are safety needs, these needs include; protection, stability and no fear remain the
concerns of the individual. On the other hand, Robbins and Coulter (2012) argued that these needs

3. also include the protection for physical as well as emotional harms that arise physiological needs
are met. “Belonging and love needs or social needs” develops after the physical and safety needs,
these needs include; social support and acceptance, love, and friendship in the society. The internal
esteem attributes including, autonomy, self-respect and achievement needs external esteem like
attention, recognition, and status work as motivators for the individuals under esteem needs. He
claimed that if all these needs are accomplished, the worker got satisfied.
Other contribution is based on the fact that an organization interacts with the environment. This
then led to the emergence of the system theory. The prominent authors of this theme include;
Chester Barnard and Herbert Simon (Sridhar, 2017). In fact, organization is viewed as a human
body where all parts function together to function properly. In addition, interdependent parts are
very significant and indicates that the emphasis of the managers or supervisors shall not be limited
to one specific single cause but consider the holistic view as different factors combine cause
problem (Sridhar, 2017). Open and closed are two types of systems. According to Sridhar (2017),
an open system interacts with its environment such includes; all biological, human and social
systems while closed system is an opposite of the open system. In other words, “an organization
is an open system that interacts regularly with external forces namely, government agencies,
suppliers and customers. These different stakeholders affect the practices of the organizations. As
a system it involves converting inputs (raw material) which undergo different processes to outputs
(products or services).
For example, the University does receive students who come from different secondary schools.
These students are regarded as the raw materials and it is the duty of an university to turn these
raw materials into products like teachers and managers. For it to convert these students to be
professionals, they use different processes such as teaching, group discussion, research projects
and many more processes. If there is strong relationship between different parts of system, it is
easy to achieve the organizations goals (Mele and Colurcio, 2006). But the downfall of this theory
is that if one part fails, the whole system fails because there is always an interdependence between
different parts. For example, if the students are not enrolled into the university, the university will
not be able to turn them into useful products.

4. Lastly, other scholars contributed to this also by opposing to some ideas of their friends. They
claimed that there is no best way of managing the work. This opposition led to the development
of a contingency theory. This theory says that there is no best way of solving the problem than
dealing with the issue at hand. In this case, effectiveness is contingent in nature because it depends
on the interplay between managerial applications and behaviors and particular situation (Fielder,
1970). Organizational behavior is studied through contingency theory approach by taking a close
look at the contingent factors namely, culture, technology and external environment affecting the
functionality and design of the organization (Islam & Hu, 2012). Sridhar (2017) argued that
modern-day organizations are more complex and therefore one specific managerial strategy could
not be applied to all types of situations. Hence, the emphasis of contingency approach is on the
adaption of managerial strategies as per the need of situation. In other words, each situation should
be viewed separately, and the plans should be made while taking into consideration a wide range
of internal and external factors to administer the context, connectedness and complexities of the
dynamic environment.
To conclude, the essay discusses ways through which scholarly have made contribution to the
management theories. Reaching this point, it is clear that different scholars have come up with
new ideas in management theory but they are all rooted from the past in scientific management
theory by Taylor. It should also be made clear that all theories do evolve from already existing
theories. It has been seen indeed according to this essay that scholarly does contribute to the
management theories because as the scholars criticize other theories, other theories also develop
in the process of criticizing others.

5. REFERENCES
McLeod, S. (2018). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mele, C., & Colurcio, M. (2006). The evolving path of TQM: towards business excellence and
stakeholder value. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management.
Robbins, S. P. & Coulter, M (2012). Management (11th
Ed). New York: Prentice Hall.
Robbins, S. P. & Barnwell, N. (2002). Organization Theory, Concepts and Cases. Australia:
Pearson Education.
Sridhar, M. S. (2017). Schools of Management Thoughts. London: SAGE Publication Inc.
Wilson, J. F., and Thomson, A. (2006). Management in Historical Perspective: Stages and
Paradigms. New York: Prentice Hall.