Role and Impact of Organizational Theories on Managers

Management is a complex topic because of its human condition. It is mainly a question of managing individuals in order to meet the objectives of the organization. As a result, a number of theorists have analyzed the matter over the years and have developed a timeline focused on developments in the market world over the years. In the changing market world, the need for managers to reconsider their management strategy has arisen to allow them to achieve higher staff efficiency and business results. Any of the reforms included decentralizing decision-making to motivate staff. However, as the diversity of the workplace grows, the business should plan for the 21st. The following sections of this paper examine the management of Galaxy incorporated to provide the schools of thought and theories that have guided it in the past and those that can guide the organization in the 21st Century to realize better performance.Background on the Galaxy Incorporated ScenarioGalaxy Inc. is a company that makes space-related toys for young children to inspire them to explore outer space. The company started in the mid-1950s, when management practices were highly centralized. Although the management changed in the 1970s, the management procedures remained the same, and the company altered various elements of the company despite the fact that the management approaches remain constant. For example, the business moved from using wood for the toys to plastic. Similarly, the managers have adopted new technologies such as 3D printing.Recently, the managers have noticed the need to alter their practices because market dynamics drive the need to empower workers. The primary reason is to grow the company’s innovativeness. Increasing competition has forced the company's managers to rethink ways to remain on the cutting edge of designing and building space-related toys. Furthermore, it requires methods for reducing material and labor expenses to attain a competitive advantage. To achieve these aims, the organization began to focus on a collaborative culture and decentralizing decision-making.Part OneThe school of thought that describes Bart’s management style is the classical organizational theory. According to Lumen Learning (n.d), the classical management approach focuses on enhancing the productivity, efficiency, and output of workers and an organization as a whole. Bart displays the same concern in his leadership style. His primary care is on the processes and production rather than the employees' welfare. For example, he spends time gathering information on the way they perform their duties and stresses that each person should be concerned with their responsibilities rather than those of other workers in the company. Moreover, he gave the personnel little choice since they had to follow what he dictated or leave when he joined the company. Bart’s actions display a classical organizational theory approach, which is associated with the focus on achieving efficiency and greater output disregarding workers’ issues.The theorist that inspires Bart in his management style is Henry Fayol, who created the first general theory of management. It emphasized the idea of business administration and proposed the five functions of management: planning, organizing, coordinating, controlling, and staffing. Bart management approach focus on these aspects of the business. He hires employees and advocates for training to equip them with the needed skills, placing them where their proficiency will be valuable. As a result, he portrays elements of planning and staffing. He urges the workers to focus on their duties as he examines their work processes, hence handling the organizing function. Furthermore, Bart attempts to find ways to increase the productivity of workers within their roles, addressing the controlling aim. Therefore, Bart follows Fayol’s theory of management in his responsibilities at Galaxy Incorporated. Fayol’s management theory contributed to increased efficiency as it focused on the processes and the best way to achieve organizational goals.After some time in the company and due to the changing business environment, Bart had to shift his management approach. The school of thought that best describes the management style adopted by Bart after the change is the human resource theory. The school of thought concerns itself mainly with the behavior of individuals in organizations. It believes that human capital is essential in realizing organizational aims because the flexibility, creativity, and prosperity of a business emanate from the growth and development of employees. The reason that this school of thought guides Bart’s new management style is that the new approach puts greater focus on the workers. The managers become more willing to hear the ideas of workers and embrace diversity, hence creating a people focus within the learning environment. Bart adopts a new management approach that puts greater emphasis on the personnel and becomes more willing to listen to the workers.Elton Mayo inspires Bart’s new management style. Mayo created the concept of the human relations movement and conducted the Hawthorne experiments, in which he observed the productivity levels of personnel under different working environment conditions. He concluded that workers with high norms decentralized decision-making, while high levels of cohesiveness displayed the most significant productivity compared to those who have low levels of either or both of these aspects. The principles in Mayo’s theory support affect the new approach to management by Bart and the other managers by placing more attention on creating the right environment for workers as a way to raise their productivity. The theorist proposes that managers should develop an environment that encourages workers to exercise their creativity and work as a team to achieve set aims. Galaxy Inc. needs to grow its levels of innovativeness and collaboration. Mayo's view supports the organization's innovation by raising the ability of the managers to facilitate innovation. Contemporary managers promote and build cultures by bringing together the right individuals and other resources (McCrimmon, 2010). Mayo's theory fosters this ability as it allows the managers to focus on the processes, leaving actual implementation to the workers who work as a team. Thus, the approach is suitable for enhancing the ability of the organization to realize the innovation and collaborative effort required in the business environment. Part TwoAs a 21st Century manager, Joyce understands the role of a manager differently from the perspective of Bart, whose view emphasizes creating an environment to realize a collaborative spirit and foster innovation, while Joyce's viewpoint stresses the role that leadership plays in enhancing employee's productivity and business performance. People have differing values, beliefs, and attitudes towards various issues. In this regard, organizations encounter difficulties satisfying the needs of employees. Leaders who understand what their workers want and strive to establish an organizational culture that incorporates each of the various outlooks that the personnel of an organization holds increase the potential for satisfying the workers. Creating such kind of culture depends on the way managers control an enterprise. Developing appropriate leadership qualities based to address the needs of the workers improves the ability to satisfy the employees.The school of thought that should guide Joyce in achieving this intention is the contemporary school of management thought, which emphasizes the need for managers to alter the way they think about their work and the manner in which they treat and use workers to achieve the goals of their organization. As it was mentioned above, employees have their values, beliefs, and attitudes. Rather than viewing these aspects of their workers as extraneous factors that have little or no effect on the organization, managers should appreciate them and strive to fulfill them to enhance the relationships with the personnel. In this way, managers would create a connection with employees so as to enable them to impact the productivity of the staff and the enterprise as a whole.Tom Peter’s theory of management works best for Joyce as a 21st-century manager. In 1982, Peters wrote his book, In Search of Excellence, in which he analyzed 43 companies that exemplified excellence. In his work, the author observes that good leaders achieve more exceptional performance and productivity through people. Through effective leadership, organizations can realize better performance and improve the output of the workers. According to Madsen (2017), managers in the 21st century need leadership qualities that allow them to comprehend what their workers need from a job, how to engage workers, how to motivate and get the best from them, and how to retain the employees. Future management will be based on leading people rather than supervising them. Tom Peter’s theory embodies this belief. It focuses on integrating the values of workers into an organization’s culture to enhance the connection between the enterprise and its employees. Leadership plays a vital role in achieving this aim. Joyce should employ this approach in her management responsibilities to foster such an environment. Establishing a vision for the organization that includes the concerns of workers is one of the ways to achieve this intention.Joyce’s vision of the role of a manager should manifest itself in the way she runs the shipping department of the Galaxy Company. For example, her vision should affect the way she allocates jobs to the employees in the division. In case Joyce's idea is to create a collaborative approach to tasks in the unit, she would need to identify change influencers within the departments. Change influencers are the people who can affect the views and reasoning of workers within the unit. As a result, she would have to identify the people who can drive that agenda within the department. Joyce would have to place these people in roles that exemplify and inspire other employees in the unit to strive to achieve the same level of performance as the change leaders. In this way, the workers can act as a reflection of what the department needs to accomplish its mandate. Additionally, Joyce will have to trust the ability of the workers to deliver quality. Allowing them autonomy over certain decisions and employing minimal supervision are some of the ways to achieve this goal. Thus, Joyce will be able to build strong relationships with the workers in the department and act as a leader rather than a manager. ReferencesLumen Learning (n.d). Classical perspectives. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-management/chapter/classical-perspectives/Madsen, T. B. (2017). Good leadership: The changing role of management. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-buus-madsen/good-leadership-the-changing-role-of-management_b_9241480.htmlMcCrimmon, M. (2010). A new role for management in today’s post-industrial organization. Retrieved from https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/a-new-role-for-management-in-todays-post-industrial-organization/