Introduction
Management is important in the modern world and it is impossible to imagine modern business life without management. However, accepting management as an essential and inevitable part of the modern business world, many people are sure that it is important to study management in a critical, questioning way.
I definitely agree with this statement and I am going to prove that management is a discipline which is to be learnt only in a critical way as only in this case it is possible to understand the real value of the issues.
Trying to prove this view point, I will use the ideas scholars who tried to understand the nature of management. In the first section, I will dwell upon the absence of the general strategies (Mintzberg 1971) which can fit all the situations, therefore, critical and questionable consideration of the issue is obligatory.
The second section will be devoted to the pressure of management on cultural peculiarities and the negative effect of it (Klein 2001). In this case the absence of the questionable approach to management ay lead to the contradiction of the most important aspects to the cultural peculiarities and the conflicts are inevitable.
Finally, the third section of this essay is going to be devoted to the problems of moral vision of different people and the critic approach to management as the only way to make sure that the mission and vision of the company correspond to the employees’ moral qualities (Jackall 1988).
Therefore, the main idea of this essay is to show that the absence of the general rules in management which are beneficial for all companies, cultural barriers and moral issues are the main reasons why management should be studies in a critical, questioning way.
No general rules useful for all
Mintzberg (1971) points to the fact that management is a universal discipline however, this universality is seen only when general principles are discussed. Management is an art aimed at creating supportive relationships between people and making those work.
It is impossible to create the healthy environment in the organization without paying attention to the company specifics. There are a lot of different principles of management and each scholar who has developed personal approaches tries to prove that his/her vision of the contemporary management is the only correct.
Such vision of the situation creates the conditions for making the management studying critical and questionable.
When students question each theory, they begin to understand that there are no specific rules which may be used, they see that each situation requires creative thinking and people need to be treated depending on their personal qualities.
Students should understand that putting under the question each theory they are going to apply to their own business, they will have an opportunity to understand how good this theory fits the business principles, how the employees are ready to work in the new conditions, and how each of the employees is ready to perform the tasks guaranteed by the new guidelines.
Individual approach to each of the employees is essential. When dealing with the main principles of management, the leaders are to dwell upon the most essential parts with the employees trying to understand their reaction.
Students should understand that a good leader considers personal qualities of each employee and does all possible to make sure that the management principles of the company suit him/her.
Human resource management is an important issue in management as a discipline and absence of the critical vision of the problems prevents from creating the conditions for personal employees development.
I am sure that successful organization of the work in the company is possible when each of the employees understand his/her place in organization.
And it is impossible to achieve any of these results without criticizing the general management rules based on unknown conditions. Thompson and McHugh (2003) agree with the issue.
Finally, if management is studied in a questionable manner, people are encouraged to search for new ways of coping with the problems.
Therefore, the general principles are modified, innovated and changed. Modern world is changing, the principles of work are changing too.
Therefore, if the employees critically consider the management principles, if they try to apply the positions discussed in the book to the company specific conditions, such people will be great contributors to the company development (Edwards, P. and 2005).
While studying management, students should understand this and it is the responsibilities of a teacher to make sure that students are inspired to changing the general rules of management trying to make those effective under peculiar conditions.
Creativity is an important issue in management and students should understand that only putting under the question the effectiveness of each of the principles, of each of the recommendations given by the teachers helps create the strong developmental plan of management functioning and each of students who takes this plan for consideration should question it to reach the ideal planning for specific conditions.
Cultural Issues
Bakan (2004) in his The Corporation tries to show that management, when put is specific measures, is really harmful. Those people who blindly follow the principles of management cannot understand what they really need and in makes those aggressive, ineffective and legging behind.
Students should get to know the most important practical principles of management to make sure that the ideas presented by this or that scholar do not contradict the cultural perspectives.
Studying management, each of the students is going to question him/herself unconsciously about the fitting of the management issues to their personal beliefs. Many people are not ready to work contrary to their personal considerations.
This is exactly what Klein (2001) talked about. Management has become the discipline which tries to stress personal cultural consideration. Trying to make people follow one specific guideline, scholars make people to correspond to the personal beliefs of those who have created these issues.
Only applying to critical studying of management and trying to ask constantly about the correspondence of each of the management principles to personal beliefs helps avoid the problem of pressure of management on human culture.
Klein’s (2001) belief is based on the fact that those who develop management ideas to not think about the peculiarities of the country, they try to make all the companies similar by means of following the same rules.
This is not correct. Only questionable and critical consideration of each of the models applied to the company may help avoid pressure.
Following blindly the principles of management of another model offered for improving the company organization leads to subjection to the principles of one particular country (Waddell, Jones, and George 2011).
In this case critical perception of management helps to understand what the problem is, why it should be considered by this particular model and what should be done to make sure that the model is going to work.
Returning to the main idea of management and trying to understand the importance to reconsider critically the models applied to the organization, it is crucial to remember the human resource management. No matter what principles are used, they are directed at people.
If human cultural principles are pressed, if people appear in the conditions when they are to decide whether to continue working in a strange environment with foreign principles or to quit, many people would choose to leave the position.
Only critical consideration of the applied models may help conserve the traditional and cultural values of employees.
The measure is really important for Eastern countries where cultural significance is too high and top managers cannot betray their culture.
Moral Rules
Morgan (2006) is sure that moral and ethical conflicts at the organization is not a surprise and having considered the tendencies of the previous years, this problem becomes a norm even though the company managers try to avoid it.
If management theories are not considered critically before applying those to the company they will suffer from “the ethical, moral and other conflicts that people can experience in maintaining authenticity and integrity in the modern workplace, including the suffering experienced by whistleblowers and the corrosion of characters by those forced to confront” (Morgan 2006, p. 401).
Therefore, in case moral issues the management tries to apply on people in the company do not correspond to the specifics of the moral considerations of people, the conflicts are inevitable with the reduction of the company prosperity and growth.
Many conflicts have appeared with the spread of the management from the Western countries with the stress on the moral peculiarities of those nations.
Clegg, Kornberger, and Carter (2006) also stress the idea of the moral discrepancy of many management models to the moral vision of many people. When dealing with the management model, it must be questioned from the point of view of the company ethical norms.
Following Jackall’s (1988) vision of management and its correspondence to the moral issues, each time the new approach is used it should be modified in accordance to the moral values of those who are going to work with this model.
Moral correspondence of the model is important as living in a free and democratic world, people are guaranteed to have the freedom of personal considerations. When the employer tries to make employees to work contradicting personal intentions, the law is violated.
It is important to pay attention to the specifics of the moral values of the employees before applying the management ideas into action, and the only way to do it is to critically assess management issues.
Morality is a complicated notion which cannot be conserved one for all. All people even within one and the same country may have various considerations of morality.
Management presupposes the restriction of human ideas in some content as people are to submit to one specific line of action. However, it should not violate moral principles of people.
Critical assessment of the management ideas and appropriate analysis of their application to a specific company’s norms may help avoid conflicts on the moral theme.
When management approaches are questioned, people are able to see the wrong aspects and apply the issues to the situation
Conclusion
Therefore, it may be concluded that management should be considered from the critical way as only in this case it is going to be successfully applied to the particular situation in the specific company.
This conclusion was achieved by means of considering management issues from the point of view of the absence of the generally prosperous models, of the difficulties in the cultural sphere and moral vision.
The firs section of the essay was devoted to the absence of the general perspectives on management and the critical view of the management models were considered as an opportunity to subject the model to the company strategy, pay attention to the individual characteristics of the employees and to encourage creativity as one of the main issues of success.
The second section was devoted to different cultures and the necessity to reconsider the management approach before applying it is another country different from the model author’s native one.
Finally, the last section was considered to moral values and the important to question the morality of the management theories before applying those in the company.
The questionable and critical ways of considering management models help make those work successfully on the maximum. Criticizing the issues, managers are able to find faults, if they are, and to improve the model having made it corresponding to the company needs.
Reference List
Bakan, J 2004, The Corporation, Constable, London.
Clegg, S, Kornberger, M, & Carter, C 2006, ‘For Management’, Management Learning, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 7-27.
Edwards, P & Wajcman, J 2005, The Politics of Working Life, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Jackall, R 1988, Moral mazes: the world of corporate managers, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Klein, N 2001, No Logo, Harper Collins, London.
Mintzberg, H 1971, ‘Managerial Work: Analysis from Observation’, Management Science, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. B97-B110.
Morgan, G 2006, Images of Organization, Sage, London.
Parker, M 2002, Against Management, Polity, Oxford.
Thompson, P & McHugh, P 2003, Work Organizations: A Critical Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and London.
Waddell, D, Jones, G and George, J 2011, Contemporary Management, McGraw-Hill, Australia.