The Nature and Scope of Management

What Is Management? The word management refers to all the tasks and activities undertaken by the people in an organization for the successful achievement of goals and targets. It involves continuous activities such as planning, organizing, leading and monitoring physical, financial and information resources. Any organization’s success depends on the strength of those in

What are Management theories?

What are management theories? Management theories are a collection of ideas that recommend general rules for how to manage an organization or business. They address how supervisors implement strategies to accomplish organizational goals and how they motivate employees to perform at their highest ability. Typically, leaders apply concepts from different management theories that best

Theory of the firm

Theory of the firm is an analysis of the behavior of companies that examine inputs, production methods, output and prices. This is a microeconomic concept that states that a firm exists and make decisions to maximize profits by creating a gap between revenue and costs. The first elementary examination of companies was made by French economist Antoine

5 Comments

Agency Theory

Agency theory is a principle that is used to explain and resolve issues in the relationship between business principals and their agents. Most commonly, that relationship is the one between shareholders, as principals, and company executives, as agents. An agency, in broad terms, is any relationship between two parties in which one, the agent, represents

Behavioral theory of the firm

The behavioral theory of the firm first appeared in the 1963 book A Behavioral Theory of the Firm by Richard M. Cyert and James G. March. The work on the behavioral theory started in 1952 when March, a political scientist, joined Carnegie Mellon University, where Cyert was an economist. A behavioral model of rational choice by Herbert A. Simon paved the

Theory of Competitive Advantage

Michael Porter proposed the theory of competitive advantage in 1985. The competitive advantage theory suggests that states and businesses should pursue policies that create high-quality goods to sell at high prices in the market. Porter emphasizes productivity growth as the focus of national strategies. This theory rests on the notion that cheap labor is

Contingency Theory

A contingency theory is a theory of the firm that claims that there is no best way to organize a corporation, to lead a company, or to make decisions. Instead, the optimal course of action is contingent (dependent) upon the internal and external situation. Contingent leaders are flexible in choosing and adapting to succinct strategies

Decision Theory

Decision theory (or the theory of choice not to be confused with choice theory) is the study of an agent’s choices. Decision theory can be broken into two branches: normative one, which analyzes the outcomes of decisions or determines the optimal decisions given constraints and assumptions, and descriptive one, which analyzes how agents actually make the decisions they do. Normative decision theory

Evolutionary Theory of the Firm

Nelson and Winter argue that an evolutionary theory of organization is a superior description of firm behavior than orthodox views around optimization and that routines act as the genes of the firms in their model. The evolutionary theory defines the firm as a set of essential skills, gained from its learning ability. The theoretical

Hypercompetition theory

The hypercompetition theory analyzes the rapid and dynamic competition characterized by unsustainable advantage. It is the condition of rapid escalation of competition based on price-quality positioning, competition to protect or invade established product or geographic markets and competition based on deep pockets (financial capital) and the creation of even deeper pocketed alliances. Often a

Institutional Theory

According to Scott (2008), institutional theory is “a widely accepted theoretical posture that emphasizes rational myths, isomorphism, and legitimacy.” Researchers building on this perspective emphasize that a key insight of institutional theory is imitation: rather than necessarily optimizing their decisions, practices, and structures, organizations look to their peers for cues to appropriate behavior. In defining institutions,

The Invisible hand theory of Adam Smith

The invisible hand theory describes the unintended social benefits of an individual’s self-interested actions, a concept that was first introduced by Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, written in 1759, invoking it in reference to income distribution. By the time he wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, Smith had studied the economic models of the French Physiocrats for

Theory of Organizational Ecology

Organizational ecology theory examines how organizational populations change and develop over time through stages of founding, growth, transformation, decline, and death (Hannan & Freeman, 1977, 1989). The theory addresses the forces of social, political, and economic systems that (1) increase organizational diversity, for example, creating new organizational forms, and (2) decrease organizational diversity, for

Organizational learning theory

Organizational learning theory states that, in order to be competitive in a changing environment, organizations must change their goals and actions to reach those goals. In order for learning to occur, however, the firm must make a conscious decision to change actions in response to a change in circumstances, must consciously link action to

Theory of Organizational Power

Max Weber (1947) in his classical organization theory exemplified power in an organization through the process of control. Weber related authority to legitimacy, implying that managers enjoy it by virtue of their position in the organizational hierarchy. Although legitimate authority itself is a power, an individual member of an organization without authority can also

Theory of Organizational structure

An organizational structure defines how activities such as task allocation, coordination, and supervision are directed toward the achievement of organizational aims. According to the Theory of Organizational structure, organizational structure affects organizational action and provides the foundation on which standard operating procedures and routines rest. It determines which individuals get to participate in which decision-making processes, and thus

Property Rights Theory

In the property rights theory, property rights are basic human rights, grounded in current Human Rights law as found in article 17 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and theoretical constructs in economics for determining how a resource or economic good is used and owned. This idea of ownership must be constrained from the views of absolute

Resource dependence theory

Resource dependence theory (RDT) is the study of how the external resources of organizations affect the behavior of the organization. The procurement of external resources is an important tenet of both the strategic and tactical management of any company. The basic argument of resource dependence theory can be summarized as follows: Organizations depend on resources.

Resource-based theory

According to resource-based theory, organizations that own “strategic resources” have important competitive advantages over organizations that do not. Some resources, such as cash and trucks, are not considered to be strategic resources because an organization’s competitors can readily acquire them. Instead, a resource is strategic to the extent that it is valuable, rare, difficult

Systems Theory

Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems. A system is a cohesive group of interrelated and interdependent parts which can be natural or human-made. Every system is bounded by space and time, influenced by its environment, defined by its structure and purpose, and expressed through its functioning. A system may be more than the sum of its parts if it