Is Management an Art, a Science or Neither - Essay Example

MANAGEMENT By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Is Management An Art, A Science Or Neither? Introduction Art is the use of skill and knowledge to achieve the desired results. On the other hand, science can be defined as a systematic body of knowledge with reference to a certain field of study, which involves the general facts that expounds a phenomenon. Therefore, science inaugurates an interconnection relationship between variables and highlights the principles that govern the relationship. Many scholars as cited in this paper believe that management is both an art as well as a science. Management is an art because it encompasses achieving desirable results by practically applying knowledge and skills. On the other hand, it is a science because it includes a structured body of knowledge, which involves principles and theories. Therefore, the science of management offers wide-ranging principles for the management of different aspects of business; however, their use relies on the managers’ competence, skills and experience. While science teaches managers about new things, the art teaches them how those things are practically performed. Management approaches and theories are as crucial to practitioners as well as managers as the knowledge and theories of colour and light are to artists. Still, approaches and theories singlehandedly does not make a manager successful. Managers are like artists, while the latter require their unique skills/ability so as to generate recognisable work of art, the former need special intangible ability as well as skill in order to be marketable. Therefore, approaches together with theories and features of science while the skills and ability to put those approaches and theories into practice are the work of art. This paper seeks to demonstrate that management is both an art and a science. Discussion Basically, management knowledge demonstrates features of both science and art since both are mutually supplementary. Management is considered to be an art because management knowledge similar to other arts is applied practical. In almost all situations, manager always try to efficiently solve the existing problems or make quality and superior decisions in order to achieve objectives with minimum resources or efforts. While applying the management knowledge continuously, the managers normally gains experience, which eventually becomes their personal possession that cannot be transferred. Furthermore, when manager have greater experience in applying the management principles, they become successfully develop more abilities and skills for deciphering management knowledge into practice. More importantly, management knowledge needs innovativeness. As a science, management bears has numerous characteristics: It is a systematic body of knowledge that involves concepts, approaches and principles of generalisations that can be utilised in practical situations. Besides that, the principles and knowledge of management knowledge are systematised ad codified; thus, they can be taught and transferred from one manager to another. According to Peroff (1999, p.96), when management is regarded as an art, it is a natural, but extraordinary, manifestation of human behaviour. That is to say, it is flexible, creative, and intuitive. Peroff (1999, p.96) sees managers as artists and leaders capable of developing inimitable alternatives and innovative concepts with regard to the needs of their organisations. Management artistry is neither precise nor exact because artists interpret and express experience in a way that could be comprehended, felt, and treasured by others. Art facilitates ambiguity, subtlety, and emotion; therefore, artistic managers enable employees to see beyond as well as enhance their collective performance. Management as a science arguments are normally grounded on the scientific rules and principles like Max Weber’s ‘Theory of Social and Economic Organisation’ and Taylorism, which may be utilised to improve the efficiency as well as productivity of all organisations (Gao, 2008, p.125). Other arguments for management as a science comes are sourced from the systems science such as Russell L. Ackoff’s social systems science as well as C. West Churchman’s social systems design, which argue that management is a science and an art. Those arguing for management as an art believe that management approach or theory can successfully ensure practical action of an economic or social organisation, but still they have advocated personal intuition in management and decision-making. In actuality, management protagonists, such as General Electric’s Jack Welch and Microsoft’s Bill Gates have espoused this concept (Gao, 2008, p.126). According to Flyvbjerg (2001, p.17), intuitive decision-making when contrasted to rational decision-making has been abandoned as a tool for study, possibly for the reason that analytical rationality is utilised as a tool of science. Social sciences emergence in the 19th and 20th centuries in addition to the widespread scientific rationality adoption in the advanced industrial societies proves that management practice can improve exceedingly if it based more on scientific knowledge and less on experience as well as intuition. Management practice as mentioned by Thomas (1993, p.75) is not amenable to codification in terms of principles, procedures and rules of a kind that may be derived from an extremely thorough experimental research and theorisation. In his book, Koestler (1970) tries to develop a general human creativity theory that covers both the differences as well as similarities between creativity in the arts, science, and humour. According to Koestler, the importance of creativity depends on ‘bisociation’, which is the ability to perceive an idea or situation in two frames of reference that are habitually incompatible, but self-consistent. Besides that, Koestler utilises the phrase ‘matrices of thought’ with the goal of defining all activities patterns governed by its code, a set of rules. This act can be evidenced by numerous examples given in humorous, artistic and scientific creativity. With view to Archimedes’ discovery of Eureka, Koestler (1970, p.105) believes that the artistic experience is triggered by the bisociation of two matrices. Participatory emotions together with the weeping which offers a surplus reflex for them arise from these bisociation and result in cathartic and passive states. Such emotions according to Koestler differ in various dimensions: the level to which they underline the part and the whole; their complexity; in addition to the inclination that accompanies them. On the other hand, Taylor’s Scientific Management provides evidence that management is a science. According to Taylor, workers are lazy, less productive, do not care about the enterprise progression are demotivated and lack clear vision and mission (Çelik & Doğan, 2011, p.66). Taylor believes that the unproductive nature of workers and could result in enormous damages at a level that could lead to losses and negatively influence the national economy. For these reasons, he proposes that radical decisions have to be taken to turn these factors bringing about unproductivity and inefficiency into neutral, and this can be achieved by using the ‘Principles of Scientific Management’. These principles suggest that when performing organisational activities, managers together with workers have to work in line with the scientific principles instead of working haphazardly. Taylor further suggested that the organisational activities have to be carried out in a consistent and coordinated manner and that specialisation in all parts of a defined labour should be offered. Without a doubt, there is a systematic body of knowledge in management, but cannot be compared as that of other physical sciences such chemistry, physics, biology, and so forth. The inexactness of management science is attributed to the fact that it focuses on managing human beings; therefore, it is very challenging to accurately envisage their behaviour. Given that management is a social process, it definitely falls in the region of social sciences. As a flexible science, management’s principles and theories could generate different outcomes at different occasions; therefore, it is considered to be a behaviour science while others consider it a soft science. Scores of early researchers in management as mentioned by Huczynski (1996, p.220) subscribed to the idea that management is a science; therefore, managers are scientists. As mentioned earlier, this was mainly steered by Taylor’s scientific management as well as other academics that sought to determine the best way to perform a work. In this regard they utilised scientific processes with the objective of organising and evaluating work in order to make it more effective and efficient. The emphasis of scientific management is to reduce inefficiencies. Social movement have been carrying the concept of management as a science as well as the corresponding concept of manager as a technician through which it has disseminated from the U.S to involve the entire industrialised world. This movement’s origins cannot be identified easily, but the work of Taylor was a very crucial milestone in its development, wherein management is regarded as a human engineering rooted in the knowledge of work. Although these ideas were not initially invented by Taylor, the ideas were first embodied into industrial management practice by him. The principles of management are anchored in the scientific observation and enquiry and not just the opinion of Taylor or Henry Fayol. These principles were developed through practical experiences and experiments of many managers. In the experiments, it was established that renumerating employees’ fairy helps to create a workforce that is more satisfied. There is a cause and effect relationship in both science and management. For instance, lack balance between responsibility and authority could result in ineffectiveness. In this case, the cause is lack of balance while ineffectiveness is the effect. Furthermore, when employees are offered incentives as observed by Taylor, the will work hard. Work, according to Taylor, is a machine/man process that can be disintegrated into units of activity that are measurable. Therefore, tools designing, employees’ bodily movements, as well as production steps sequencing can be integrated into an optimum configuration. An industrial manager was considered by Taylor to be a work designer, a performance monitor and controller, and the provider of punishments and rewards cautiously chosen and used with the objective of yielding production that is optimally efficient. Advocates of management as an art such as Henry Mintzberg sought to prove the artistic nature of management by examining the actual day-to-day tasks of managers (Helms, 2009, p.11). By observing the actual managers while working, Mintzberg established that managers engaged in work that are extremely fragmented, with endless disturbances as well as rare chances to silently reflect on the managerial issues. For this reason, Mintzberg challenged the earlier conception that managers behaved methodically as well as rationally. Mintzberg work proves that management is an art since managers do not have routine behaviours all through their working days, but rather, they utilised their political and social skills in order to handle problems that cropped up at work. Mintzberg arguments were supported by David E. Lilienthal, who argued that management needs not just a mastery of skills and techniques; rather, managers should ensure that they understand individuals along with their motivations and assist them to realise their goals (Helms, 2009, p.11). Furthermore, Lilienthal argued that integrating leadership into practice, and not doing work with the objective of finishing it, but instead understanding the actual meaning of work is the most effective managerial behaviour. Therefore, he sees managers as facilitators and motivators of others, and as an artist, managers are inclined to respond differently to every situation and employee, instead of utilising a given set of responses laid down by a set of identified procedures. Management as art has also been advocated by Peter Drucker, who developed ideas associated with total quality management. Management according to Drucker is a liberal art because it manages the fundamentals of leadership, wisdom, and knowledge, and it is also related to application and practice. The management science tries to generate a model for managers, wherein facts can be established while omissions to such facts are disregarded as inconsistencies (Helms, 2009, p.12). The arguments for management as an art or science are palpable in modern-day work organisations and educational institutions. As a science, management was mainly influenced by academics that focussed on scientific management like Taylor while management as an art has been studied extensively by Peter Drucker as well as Henry Mintzberg. The arguments presented prove that management is both an art and science. Therefore, both science and art can be integrated more effectively so as to nurture managerial talent. Conclusion In conclusion, this paper has provided evidence that proves management is both a science and an art. In view of the discussed points, it is evident that management integrates the characteristics of both art and science. Management is considered to be a science by early academics such as Taylor and Fayol because it is an organised body of knowledge that entails a particular universal truth. On the other hand, Drucker together with Mintzberg believe that management is an art because managers need certain skills that they personally possess. Therefore, while art is concerned with applying knowledge and skills, science offers the knowledge. In order to become successful in management, a manager should have the science knowledge as well as the art of applying this knowledge. For this reason, management can be considered as an integration of both art and science. As a science, management should involve utilisation of specific body of facts as well as information in order to ensure that the behaviours of the managers are guided while an art it does not need a specific body of knowledge, but only skill. To sum up, management can be described as a science and art of directing, organising and preparing the efforts made by people to manage the forces as well as apply the nature material so as to benefit the workers. The science of management offers across-the-board principles for managing different aspects of business, but still, their use relies on the managers’ competence, skills and experience. References Çelik, M. & Doğan, E., 2011. Theoretical Approach to the Science of Management. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, vol. 1, no. 3, pp.65-69. Flyvbjerg, B., 2001. Rationality, body and intuition in human learning. In Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How it Can Succeed Again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.9-24. Gao, F., 2008. Is Management Science or Art? Systems Research and Behavioral Science, vol. 25, pp.125-36. Helms, D.M.M., 2009. Encyclopedia of Management. Farmington, CT: Gale. Huczynski, A., 1996. Requirements of managers. In Management Gurus: What makes them and how to become one. London: International Thompson Business Press. pp.198-240. Koestler, A., 1970. The Act of Creation, Pan Books, London. London: Pan Books. Peroff, N.C., 1999. Is Management an Art or a Science? A Clue in Consilience. Emergence, vol. 1, no. 1, pp.92-109. Thomas, A.B., 1993. The social sciences: can they help managers? In Controversies in Management: Issues, Debates, Answers. London: Routledge. pp.74-96. Read More