Introduction
Management theory is the foundation of a successful business. Leaders and managers of any type of organization may learn from the tested and tried management concepts. There are four major areas involved in the management theories: the Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Works experiment and human relations, Fredrick Taylor’s Scientific Management, Henry Fayol’s views on the administration and Max Weber’s idea of bureaucracy.
This literature review is about the management theory. It aims at discussing Follett’s concepts and ideas. The paper will discuss these concepts and perform an evaluation of the relevance of the values and the performance of managers in the 21st century. It will also present the observations about the environment where the theories can be applied and the success that can be achieved as a result (Jones, 2011).
Mary Parker Follett, a prophet of management, argues in her theory of management that she is actually a “bridge of the troubled management waters”. She asserts that whether management is viewed from the governmental policy concept or just from the corporate American concept, it is still in disarray. The concepts, principles and theories as well as the research driven by the practitioners and the empirical researchers have settled in a new impasse.
Other theorists concur with Follett in admitting that management has been of assistance in the process of nurturing questionable concepts, dysfunctional theories and the challenging real world practices in business. Follett suggests that the art of management cannot be examined empirically.
The art of administration and the art of leadership were genuinely understood by Mary Follett. This is from the fact that she avoided the relentless empiricism that is continually unfolding today and at the same time approached her studies with a scientific eye (Ghoshal, 2005).
Follett in her management theory seems very right as an administrative and organizational scholar who has the idea of the limits in conveying the endless amount of existing data. Follett asserts that even if the amount of data collected is as much as possible and analyzed as well as possible, still most of the phenomena she comprehends would still remain scarcely illuminated and revealed.
However, even in the current troubled public policies, Follett still seem to have insight and advice for the government and the concerned parties in the management. Follett advocates for human relations and put equal emphasis on the operational and mechanical emphasis in the management concept.
Her work somehow contrasted with that of Fredrick Taylor, Scientific management. In her management concept, she stressed on the interactions and relationships that exists between the managers and the workers. She has a holistic look at the concept of leadership and management and presages the modern systems of approaches.
Follett identifies a leader as that person who is able to see a whole rather than a particular. Today she still remains one of the first few theorists who integrated the organizational conflict idea and concept into a management theory (Follett, 1925). Hence she is considered the “mother of conflict resolution”
In the 21st Century, managers are very relevant and valuable in any organization. They determine what goes around the organization and the activities within the environment. Whether an organization ends up making profits or losses, it is the responsibility of the manager and he or she is usually held accountable.
The evidence of the relevance of managers is in the conflict that arises from the internal monitoring of the organizational events that may lead to either a positive abnormal returns or negative abnormal returns. The hypotheses that arises from this are that either a positive real effect resulting from anticipated resignation of a poorly performing manager or a negative effect of the information in case the change alerts worse management performance than what was initially anticipated.
The role of manager is not just to exercise power. According to Follett, she coined power into two; power over and power with. She did this to differentiate participative decision making from the coercive power. Power with has greater returns that power over. She continues and says that genuine power is that which will always inheres in any given situation (Follett, 1924).
Conclusion
In summary, this literature review was about the management theory specifically the concepts of Mary Follett. The paper has described the background of the management theory and stated the theorists that originally came up with the ideas about management. Follett as a management theorist has been focused on and her concepts elaborated in this paper. The paper has also discussed the relevance of the values and the performance of managers in the 21st century.
It is evident from the paper that management is not just exercising power over the workers but inclusive and participatory decision making (Pfeffer, 2005). From the literature review, we learn that Mary Follett made an assertion that even if management is looked at from the governmental policy concept or just from the corporate American concept, it still remains in disarray.
The concepts, principles and theories as well as the research driven by the practitioners and the empirical researches have settled in a new impasse. Hence Follett is the mother of conflict “resolution.”
Bibliography
Follett, M. 1924. Creative Experience. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.
Follett, M. P. 1945. Dynamic Administration. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.
Ghoshal, S. 2005.Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management: Practices. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4, 75–91.
Jones, W. 2011. Contemporary Management. London: Prentice Hall
Pfeffer, J. 2005. Why Do Bad Management Theories Persist: A Comment on Ghoshal. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4, 96–100.