Analysing Management As An Art And A Science Philosophy Essay

Discuss this statement in relation to whether management could be described as a profession. Is management characterized as an art ,as a science or both? In order to investigate the nature of Management, it would be useful firstly to define it. According to Drucker ” Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant. This is what organization is all about, and this is the reason why management is the critical, determining factor” (Drucker,2001, pp.10). Nowadays, practically everyone works for a managed institution, large or not, business or not. Our living actually depends on management. The ability we have to contribute to society, depends firstly on the way, the institute we work for, is managed and furthermore on our own abilities, devotion and effort. For years now, there has been a great debate on whether management can be characterized as a science or as an art. Some of the most important authors that tried to examine if management is an art or a science are Lester et al. (1998), Watkins (1993),Bohn (1994), Calkins (1959), Schiemann and Lingle (1997), and Weick (1996). This essay focuses on the studies that have been conducted on the nature of management, and its purpose is to reveal if management is an art, a science, or a combination of them, in relation to whether management could be described as a profession. We will try to answer that, by discussing the insufficiency of the technical approach to professional knowledge for dealing with real-world situations, but before that it would be interesting to examine the evolution of managerial discourse since 1870.

According to Barley and Kunda ( 1992) even though serious theoretical and political differences existed, scholars have merged on a common theory of how American managerial notion has evolved. During the first stage, which terminated in the late 1800s, managerial discourse sought to legitimate coercive shopfloor practices ( Nelson, 1975). This phase was characterized by abusive control and threats of violence. By the turn of the century, early forms of mass production and a flourish of corporate merging had prepared the ground for a second phase, during which utilitarian rhetorics became increasingly popular (Wren, 1972). Accomplishing the work of Frederick Taylor, rational theories of management conquered managerial discourse by World War I(Bendix, 1956). The manpower was now supposed to be more effectively controlled by contouring production processes and by attracting the worker’s self-interest. According to Bendix (1956) the Depression is widely held to mark the beginning of the third phase. “As the white-collar labor force was gaining more power, managerial discourse began to emphasize normative control : the idea that managers could more effectively regulate workers by attending not only to their behavior but to their thoughts and emotions.” (Barley ,Kunda, 1992,pp.364 ) They believed that by approaching both the mind and the heart of the workers , management could reach the most subtle type of control: moral authority.