Ex. 4. Put 5-7 questions on the text so that they cover its content. Text 5. Approaches to management

1. ______ It has been clear from the emergence¹ of modern business that effective management will produce higher profits. Accordingly, managers have been highly motivated to understand the nature of their job and to improve their performance. From the last half of the nineteenth century to the present, three theories of management have achieved popularity. These are the classical, the behavioural², and the quantitative³ approaches to management. Today, management combines features of all of these in a balanced approach.

2. ______ The central belief of the classical school of management is that by applying rational analysis to the production and management functions of a business, worker and equipment productivity can be increased, resulting in higher profits. This idea was first introduced around the turn of the century by Frederick W. Taylor and Henry Fayol. They put forth the view that a logical study of procedures was required in order to improve the efficiency⁴ of the increasingly complex businesses that had begun to spring up in their time. Fayol divided the manager's job into specific functions in the belief that this systematic breakdown of responsibilities⁵ would promote effectiveness.

3. ______ The classical, rational approach to management tended to ignore the human⁶ element. In the 1930s, there arose a new approach to management stressing the human factors in business. This approach became known as the behavioural, or human relations, school. Its adherents believed that an organisation's goals could be met only by first understanding and then consciously dealing with human needs and interactions. Great emphasis was placed on human motivations and on group dynamics.

4. ______ In the 1960s, another emphasis in the study of management began to emerge. A quantitative approach stressing the use of numbers and derived largely from systems theory⁷ began to be applied to business management and its associated activities. Systems theory is a group of verbal and mathematical principles that describes how the related parts of a system may be organised. Such an arrangement permits management to predict how changes in one part will affect the other parts. Mathematical models are often constructed to predict the results of alternative management actions. The difference between this kind of analysis and the classical approach is that the quantitative method emphasizes (a) the overall system in which work is being, done and (b) the statistical study of groups of operations rather than a close analysis of a particular worker or job.

5. ______ The main effort among managers today is to take the best of these approaches and use each where it will do the most good. Some call this the situational approach. The functional analysis of the classical school is still useful in improving efficiency and in organising management tasks. The human relations school is influential in many personnel decisions and contributes greatly to the understanding of leadership, motivation, and other human characteristics. The quantitative tools of systems theory and operations research are only now beginning to be used confidently by large numbers of managers to improve decision making. These various approaches to management, combined with intuitive ability and with common sense and experience, help to make modern business management increasingly effective, humane, and flexible.

Notes: 1) появление; 2) поведенческий; 3) количественный; 4) эффективность, производительность; 5) распределение обязанностей; 6) человеческий; 7) теория систем.

COMPREHENSION CHECK

Ex. 1. Read the text. Provide each paragraph with an appropriate heading (choose among the proposed variants below):

1. Numbers Predict the Future.

2. Effective Manager is the One who can Correctly Define the Situation.

3. 'People First'.

4. Management and History.

5. Distribution of Functions as a Key for Effective Management.

Ex. 2. Translate paragraph 5 in writing.

Ex. 3. Read the text again and choose the correct alternative for each of the following questions:

1. What is the main idea of the classical approach?

1. Systems theory analysis should be applied to the production and management functions.

2. Rational analysis should be applied to the production and management functions.

3. Intuitive analysis should be applied to the production and management functions.

2. According to which approach would motivation help to increase profits?

1. Classical approach.

2. Quantitative approach.

3. Situational approach.

3. What is the main contribution of the quantitative approach into effective management?

1. It helps to distribute the responsibilities.

2. It helps to count profits.

3. It helps to predict the results of management actions.

4. How does the quantitative approach differ from the classical one?

1. The quantitative approach deals with the total system and its analysis.

2. The quantitative approach deals with the logical study of each procedure of management.

3. The quantitative approach deals with human needs and group dynamics.

5. How does the behavioural approach differ from the classical and quantitative ones?

1. The behavioural approach deals with the total system and its analysis.

2. The behavioural approach deals with the logical study of each procedure of management.

3. The behavioural approach deals with human needs and group dynamics.

6. Which approach is absolutely useless with the today's situational approach?

1. Classical approach.

2. Behavioural approach.

3. Quantitative approach.

4. None of them.

Ex. 4. Put 8-10 questions on the text so that they cover its content.