Brief Evolution of Organizational Theories and Management (EN)

Shaping the world and having a voice in future are only possible with a good management system, less prime cost and more quality. Only qualified people, quality work and institutions can shine a light on the future. Management is making people do something on purpose. Everybody can be a manager who fulfils the conditions of organization but not everybody can be a good manager. Being a good manager is possible only through providing good leadership directions. By this means, managers face with workers, lead them and try to reach the .

   Organizational theory is a scientific study field which tells us how organizations survive, how they react against to problems and how they end. Organizations are all around us, from cradle to the grave. The main feature of organizations is existing at the same place, at the same time. Especially, after the Industrial Revolution, organizations have spread all over the world and been an organ of social order. Organizations make our lives easier but some says they take something from us. There is a type of organization which has spread all over the world incomprehensibly. It is fast-food organizations where everything is easy, digitized as much as possible and the motions are standardised. This business logic getting popular and prevailed in any organization. At first it was a rationalist idea but then has been irrational. As an example side effects of fast foods or more medicating instead of healing or giving more testing and slippery lectures instead of teaching how to understand. (G.Ritzer (1993) The Mcdonaldization of Society, 2nd Edition, SAGE, UK.)
   It is possible to say that, management is the body of obligatory rules to manage a company successfully. To manage a company successfully, it is not enough to specify duties and responsibilities of company’s directors and board of managers. Further to that, to take the right steps in management; change management, management by objectives, total quality management, personnel management, management principles, management techniques and etc. have to be performed in the company vigorously. Management involves some rules which are related to company owner and shareholders. In traditional management, company owner means main founder investor and that’s why decisions and practices are based on executive and arbitrary decisions of company owner. Companies should realize the difference between rules and appreciation. The problem of traditional company management is being arbitrary decisions based management, instead of rule based management. As it seen in traditional company management, company owners, investors and board of managers ignore or do not care about the rights of shareholders and other sharers because the ownership and control functions are not separated. They undertake the management with their executive and arbitrary decisions. So it is possible that abuse, injustice, corruption and irregularity are occurred in this type of management. Sharers’ rights should be protected, stakeholders should be subjected to fair and equal treatment, disclosure the corporate actions and financial position, the responsibilities of board of managers must be specified. So it is beneficial for all shareholders who are in a relation with company directly or indirectly. It has occurred how those worldwide big companies are managed ridiculously. The reason of it is there is neither institution nor individual to control their management. Family companies should not hand over the control to family members who are inexperienced as long as they want to carry on the activities for years. Instead of that, experienced and capable professionals shall be hired. (E. Beinat (1997) Value Functions for Environmental Management, First Edition, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Netherlands)

Classical Organizational Theory
   Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915) put his stamp on the history with his contributions to management science in 19th century. For Taylor, management is an exact science which is based on laws, rules and principles. According to him, all works and equipment and methods must be standardized. Employees must be chosen and trained with scientific ways. They should be encouraged and get piece-work payment. These principles increase production efficiency. Frank Gilbreth was another scientific manager of that era. He aimed to simplify the work by not doing unnecessary moves with time and motion study. He aimed to decrease fatigue and finish the work in a shorter time. At the same period Max Weber (1864-1920) offered bureaucracy as a type of organization. According to Weber, specialisation, strict hierarchical structure, scientific principle and rules based management, attach importance to merit on hiring someone etc. increase the effectiveness. Between the years of 1924 and 1933 Elton Mayo contributed to the zone of management behaviour with his Hawthorne experiments. The most important finding of those experiments was it is not possible to bring under control the productivity even physical working conditions get better.
   The basic concepts of neoclassical approach; people are not just physical but also social beings, there is a reason of every behaviour, people and organizations have mutual dependence, each management organization is a social system. On the other hand, neoclassical approach defends that people’s psychosocial requirements must be fulfilled, it also cares about the informal groups inside of organization while objecting excessive division of labour and centralized authority. In classical organizational theory, physical and tangible capital are important and they are primary sources. Production centre is factory constitutively. Works are identified and reached. There is a marked difference between blue-collar workers and white-collar officials. Representative democracy is valid. (C.S. George (1972) The History of Management Thought, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall Publisher, the U.S.A.)

Modern Organizational Theory
   When it comes to 1950’s, organizations had grown and number of employees had increased. With technological developments, production methods had changed and qualified personnel was needed. With awareness of consumers, needs and expectations about goods and products was changed. In addition to these, with the development of international relationship the competition has been increased. Organizations are human made social systems so to keep going they have to respond to environmental changes, have got to make technical development to compete. There are three levels in business systems of organizations; technique, corporate and organizational. Technique level is related to making goods and services. Corporate level is about activities for environmental effects of organization. Organizational level combines corporate and technique levels. There are different benefits of them but they should combine their abilities and energy. Another thing is contingency approach. In 1970’s management scientists’ contingency approach had been developed with research works of organization and technology relation and organization and environment relation. To be successful in management, different types of situations and conditions require techniques and behaviours to accord them. (D. A. Rondinelli, J. Middleton, A. Verspoor (1990). Planning Education Reforms in Developing Countries: The Contigency Approach. First Edition, Duke Press. The U.S.A.)

Today's Organizational Theory
   Everything is different from the past. The main reason is globalization. It means circulation of people, products, information and money on the earth. In this globalization process, only those societies can survive which adapt themselves to new economy and some of them cannot survive which cannot adapt. In global competition, it is necessary to be innovative, creative and flexible in organizational structures. Technological developments have made changes on private and business life. Locations do not matter anymore with the role of computers, networks and the internet. With technology and methods, online markets online organizations provide service for all over the world everyday anytime. Nowadays some organizations have more competitive advantage which have and produces knowledge, so organizations procure knowledge and make an effort and be aware towards make goods and services valuable. Team and project work based structures have taken places of traditional, hierarchical organizations’ structures. Managers act like team captain instead of act peremptory. Manufacturing runs with consumer oriented system and sense of quality. Employees were excessively obedient and toe the mark without questioning and only work for the money. But now; employees are educated, attender, creative, improver, not tied blindly, have core competencies, take initiative and make an effort for their career development. Most of the companies are not male-dominant anymore, females have proved themselves as they are good as much as males in various areas of profession. Workers do not work individual because individual work brings individual success but team works bring work success which means organizational success. In today’s organizational theory, knowledge capital is determinant, knowledge workers who intellectual property have taken place of white-collar officials, level of development is measured by individual knowledge generation, information networks and databases are important, human capital is more important than tangible capital, time is an invaluable resource. Flexibility, innovation and creativity are goals, team work and synergy are considered important. (A. Venneri (2005) Balls!: 6 Rules for Winning Today's Business Game. First edition, Wiley Publisher, the U.S.A.)

Managers' Managerial Skills  
   Technique Skills: What raises managers’ efficiency is that they have technique knowledge about what they do. But it is not enough for executive success. Supervisors may have not enough time to take care of what workers have done and manufacture. The important thing for them is determine a policy for company and make plans.
   Human Relations Skills: Another thing for efficient management is to convince people with willing and corporate to gain aims as a group.
   Conceptual Skills: Banding together the important informations to make new plans for company and determining policies are the features of a successful manager. But none of these skills is not enough by itself. If a manager have one of them, then they cannot be a good manager unless they develop the other skills too.(C. Hannaway, G. J. Hunt (1995) The Management Skills Book. First edition, Gower Publishing, UK.)

   Whatever they do in business life or normal life, people always try to be successful. For some people, success is more important than money or any awards in this life. Is there any way to be successful? Is it even possible to say “If you follow this five ways you will get successful”? The answer is “No” for sure. If it was this much easy, everybody would be successful. Be sure that there is no book of it as well. If they say they wrote it, that’s doubtful. In other words, there is no formula to make somebody successful in 5 minutes. The reason of it is people are different from each other in personality they all have their own characteristic features. So it brings distinctness. A good manager should listen to people who has something to say and he should make everybody know “what is personal value approach and business ethics” in the company whether blue or white collar workers. A good manager should not be opinionated or assailant instead should strengthen the team spirit. They should be open to learn new things and develop themselves. “How can I be successful?” It is a question that only the questioner can answer. Think about a primary school student who likes painting and makes nice drawing. That student may fail in high school may not like mathematics and physics at all. In this case, can we blame him for being lazy or being not smart?
   1. Option: Yes. Blame him. Send him to a high school so he cannot be successful and cannot go to university and he will spend his life as an unsuccessful person.
   2. Option: A teacher realizes his drawing ability and tells his family to send him to school of art. He learns fine arts and becomes a successful designer and influences people with his designs.
   So being successful requires to make the right move in the right place. There may some people who think they are not successful but indeed they could be successful. If they have lost the way of success, how can they find it again? People give up easily, they do not struggle. They are smart, but lazy too. They have ideas, but do not have self-confidence to say it. When someone tries to succeed, people love to hinder them. We are perfect to kill our time yet beginner to use it. If there is a rule, it must be “for success, never give up trying.”