Management: expanding diversity
The history of the administration comprises a large number of ideas emanating from eastern and western cultures and is closely linked to the level of development reached by man in each of the social systems through which he has traveled. The secrets hidden in antiquity constantly come to light and new fragments of facts and history appear.
Although it is difficult to follow exactly the step-by-step development of administrative practice from the ages lost in the past to the present, it is clear that, in essence, the history of the development of administration can be found in the history of human development..
As soon as men began to congregate in large groups to undertake tasks beyond their individual strengths, the need for an orderly way to solve their problems was recognized, as vital then as it is today.
All this process of thousands of years brought with it the increase in knowledge of reality, its systematization and constant enrichment, its transmission from generation to generation, with which scientific knowledge emerged, as a systematized reflection of the laws and principles that govern reality. objective.
Organizational development processes were not exempt from this evolution, which with the appearance of increasingly complex organizations over time, needed to employ different methods characterized by the time in question, and which turned the Administration into a field of action. Defined, not encompassed by any existing discipline or science: organizations with their internal processes and relationships between people, internal structure and the resources it needs for its operation within the framework of production and service delivery processes.
However, it is necessary to recognize that the Administration is not self-sufficient and needs the help of other sciences in order to carry out its mission, as well as making people interact with each other in an efficient and effective way to achieve a given purpose by existing. in society at all levels of group of people and in all spheres and activities.
The theoretical roots of contemporary administration arise at the end of the 19th century, where the interests of capitalist owners turned to the search for methods of administration that responded to the needs of the time. The transformation of pre-monopoly capitalism into monopoly capitalism led to the growth of the role of the administration as well as the interest in the study of these problems, both practical and theoretical.
The development process of organizations, nuanced by changes in their environment, has necessarily evolved over the years since the Industrial Revolution. These changes have had an obvious impact on the way organizations are managed. Management, in its capacity as leader of organizational efforts, has always responded to the improvement of the relationship between the organization and its environment, guiding itself, in a pertinent way, towards the obvious goal to resolve the contradiction between an external situation and the capacity to adapt to it and change it for the sake of gradual and continuous growth. There are many classifications that the various theories and administrative approaches present,It could almost be said that each one of the authors who address the subject adopt their own classificatory criteria (Robbins, 1996; Hernández and Rodríguez, Sergio, 1994; Chiavenato, Idalberto, 1986; Stoner, James A. 1996; Koontz, H. 1994; Dávila, Carlos, 1992; Claude S. George, 1974; Ríos Szalay, Adalberto, 1977; Duncan, WJ, 1991; Galván, E. José, 1980, Hickman, Craig and Michael A. Silva, 1992; Huerta, M. Guadalupe, 1994, Medina, S. César, 1988; Merril, Harwood F., 1985; Palomo, Francisco J., 1989; Sisk, Henry and M. Sverdlik, 1982; Viedma, José Ma., 1992; Domínguez Machuca, JA, 1989).1992; Huerta, M. Guadalupe, 1994, Medina, S. César, 1988; Merril, Harwood F., 1985; Palomo, Francisco J., 1989; Sisk, Henry and M. Sverdlik, 1982; Viedma, José Ma., 1992; Domínguez Machuca, JA, 1989).1992; Huerta, M. Guadalupe, 1994, Medina, S. César, 1988; Merril, Harwood F., 1985; Palomo, Francisco J., 1989; Sisk, Henry and M. Sverdlik, 1982; Viedma, José Ma., 1992; Domínguez Machuca, JA, 1989).
It is true that, on occasions, the administration's scholars, thinking about how to face the environment, have forgotten about it due to the favorable conditions that allowed, without great risks, to direct the effort towards the interior of the organization rather than towards it. Exterior. However, with the change from the Age of Stability to the Age of Turbulence, others have been the courses of business performance and administrative thought that has continued to respond, depending on the specific situation, to the needs of organizations.
Until the end of the 1950s (the Stability Era), the evolution of administrative thinking had been built around the concept of administration as a social activity, especially due to the relatively static characteristics of the technology used in processes. of production and the absence of defined market strategies. The "mass" production model, with few changes in its technological base, was mainly aimed at achieving economies of scale: the greater the quantity of products produced, the greater the economic benefits for the company. The product was uniform in its characteristics and the market was assured for any production volume. At the beginning of the sixties,a worldwide process of technological transformation originates, which gradually leads companies to change the technical base of production and, consequently, to replace the Taylorist model of organization with another system, flexible and capable of adapting to new technological conditions and market. It gradually moves from an economy dominated by supply (Age of Turbulence), to a system that focuses on demand, where the customer becomes the point of attention, and the continuous changes in their preferences reduce the cycles of life of the products, which requires constant changes and innovation, to timely meet the needs, anticipate them and, in some cases, to stimulate them.consequently, the Taylorist model of organization by another system, flexible and capable of adapting to new technological and market conditions. It gradually moves from an economy dominated by supply (Age of Turbulence), to a system that focuses on demand, where the customer becomes the point of attention, and the continuous changes in their preferences reduce the cycles of life of the products, which requires constant changes and innovation, to timely meet the needs, anticipate them and, in some cases, to stimulate them.consequently, the Taylorist model of organization by another system, flexible and capable of adapting to new technological and market conditions. It gradually moves from an economy dominated by supply (Age of Turbulence), to a system that focuses on demand, where the customer becomes the point of attention, and the continuous changes in their preferences reduce the cycles of life of the products, which requires constant changes and innovation, to timely meet the needs, anticipate them and, in some cases, to stimulate them.where the customer becomes the point of attention, and the continuous changes in their preferences reduce the life cycles of the products, which is why constant changes and innovation are required, to meet the needs, anticipate them and, in some cases, to stimulate them.where the customer becomes the point of attention, and the continuous changes in their preferences reduce the life cycles of the products, which is why constant changes and innovation are required, to meet the needs, anticipate them and, in some cases, to stimulate them.
If the administrative theory of the first half of the last century (classical approach, theory of administrative process and human relations) conceived the organization as a closed system, the change in the technical basis of production led to the development of the concept of open organization, that is, a system in continuous exchange of energy, information and resources with the environment that surrounds it. The new technology, together with the globalization of the economy, required not only the introduction of new systems of organization of production and work, but also new approaches to administration and marketing.
Among the new trends that characterize management theory in the last decades of the last century are Total Quality and Continuous Improvement Programs; "Just in Time" production and delivery systems associated with "Zero Inventory" schemes; Process reengineering; Strategic Alliances between companies of different sizes and lines of activity; Benchmarking, Theory of Constraints; Outsourcing and, the Intelligent Organization, that is, the organization that continually innovates and learns to adapt to contingencies.
For administration scholars as important as P. Drucker, more than trends, the former are only passing fads: “We've been caught in a period of very rapid change; the feeling is that there must be a right answer. But also, thinking is very hard work. And management fashions are a wonderful substitute for thinking… Each evangelist is quite sure that his own patent medicine cures everything… There is no universal medicine… The search for the one quick fix is a universal human failing ”(Davenport, 1997). However, there is no doubt that these are the approaches that currently dominate administrative thinking and practice.
At present, currents have begun to emerge that, based on the analysis of these changes, propose the development of a renewed administration, which allows identifying the topics that need to be revised from traditional theories and practices, as well as systematizing the main learning from the current organizational models and to build a new synthesis that includes as an object of study of the administration both the organization in its processes, structure and operation, as well as the analysis and development of the cooperative work of people within a perspective that highlights the complex dimension of the administration. F. Varela (1985), G. Norgan (1990), A. Limone (1998), S. Kauffman (1999).
Starting from the order of things mentioned above, the author classifies the different approaches of how to manage an organization, showing in Annex 1, the state of the art of administration according to the real conditions that the organization and its environment have gone through..
As it is noticeable almost everything that is known about administration is articulated, according to theory, school or approach, around specialized areas trying, from their vision of the problem, to promote the achievement of the stated goal of the organization, generally lacking, of a confrontation of the administrative problem in a systemic way.
The author wants to emphasize that when using the term theories, before and after, it is done for customary reasons and not because all of them meet the epistemological criteria of theoricity, legality, explanation, this is scientificity; In administration, we do not find any systematic unit of knowledge that houses this mass of administrative concepts or theories, nor does the administrative process achieve this.
Most schools of business thinking have been based on a partial approach, which brings with it the need to isolate an element to understand it independently of other simultaneous and, indisputably, related events. Experts have taken advantage of sectoral approaches instead of using the advantages of the systemic approach, in the end, paying dearly for their position. The limitations of atomism and holism mean that the author does not hesitate to adopt a systemic approach in the proposal that will be presented in this research.
The insistence of many administration "evangelists" to demonstrate that they have the correct answer has fashioned such biased approaches that have had supporters and enthusiasts who seek to make them the only answer to administration-related problems. This explains why the state of the art in administration has evolved at the pace of gurus who, at the head of their administrative faction, supported with enough money to make their proposal a "magic recipe", try to make it salable to the organizational world. This makes it difficult for administrators to adopt an administrative philosophy that adjusts to the specific conditions of their organization; reality has shown that generallyit has been changing from "recipe" in view of its appearance in the "market of administrative approaches".
Given the increasing complexity of organizations and the environment in which they operate, the use of recipes acting on a single organizational element seems futile. All organizations seem to be affected by the imperious search for new ways of managing, but it no longer seems possible to reason in terms of management tools and techniques that are always and everywhere applicable, but to approach the organizational phenomenon with a global philosophy that allows the use of tools and techniques as usable means at certain times and not as ends in themselves.
The «administrative jungle» - a term coined by H. Koontz to refer to the proliferation of administrative proposals - made reality brings us face to face with a diversity of criteria, which make it almost impossible to be governed by a single approach in order to be able to manage because of being characterized, each of they, for the elements indicated above, which makes clear the absence of generalities in an activity, declared more than once as a science, but which still lacks the theoretical elements that can endorse said criterion.
Due to this lack, there is not seldom a reductionist vision of the organization, which must be approached from a systemic perspective, considering as a priority the value that constitutes the ability to glimpse the organizations as a whole, in which the functioning of its isolated elements, but its entirety.
Following the logic of these approaches, and analyzing 33 administration models presented by the different views of administration scholars in order to understand and administer the organizational phenomenon, it must be said that these models logically follow the trends of thought of each one of the schools that support them seeking to align themselves with the economic situation that characterized the environment in which the organizations and the scholars who tried to understand and explain them developed.
The models associated with the schools of the Stability Age, from the late nineteenth century to the sixties of the last century, it is possible to recognize the orientation towards increased productivity, the organization of work, the improvement of working methods, establishments of hierarchy of internal priorities for achieving organizational efficiency, all under a closed system vision. The characteristic of all these models is the Internal Focus.
The models of this stage are characterized by:
- Focus on one or more aspects of business reality, but none of them covers the complex entirety of it. Internal functioning rules. Neglect of dependency between the organization and the environment. Little concern for continuous adaptation.
The models of the Age of Turbulence, which began to be drawn in the late eighties of the last century, denote the paradigmatic change favoring, in terms of attention, the impact of the environment on the organization, turning towards efficiency Organizational emphasizing quality, analysis of competition, improvement processes, determination of strategies that allow competitive advantages, emergence of a customer vision, since it emphasizes the satisfaction of needs given the increasing importance of decisions of the clients in the final results of the organizations, all this under an open system vision. The characteristic of all these models is the External Focus.
The main characteristics at this stage are:
- Show the proliferation of ways of managing an organization. Despite conceptually recognizing the organization as a system, its performance generally tends to be fragmented. Global focus of the organization with a tendency to respond to all problems from its paradigms.
This qualitative and quantitative leap in management models was produced by the existence of a Transition Stage in charge of enhancing the systemic approach of organizations. This stage was characterized by:
- To show that the previous theories and approaches are not enough to solve the organized complexity of an organization. They come to unite the plots of business knowledge.
If we understand by model the set of related variables that researchers use to describe reality and accept that information is the fundamental fluid of the Administration, an analysis of the models could be made from this perspective. There is no doubt that the models from the beginning of the last century were simple models with information systems that were also quite simple. As the study of administration developed, combinations of these variables began to be developed until today, where complex models are required. and complex information systems.
| Management models | ||
| Information systems | Simple | Complexes |
| Simple | Past | Anguish for inability to know |
| Complexes | Confusion due to excess information | Present |
It is necessary to make clear that the simple and complex terms depend on the variables and parts included by the researchers, on the level of detail at which the organization is describing, on the assumptions to explain the organizational reality. In the author's opinion, reality shows us that there is a separation between the model and the information system; any proposal for a theoretical administration model that is presented must achieve an approach in order to achieve the desired correspondence.
In the spirit of leaving controversy
The administrative process is becoming increasingly complex so there is an urgent need for better ways to deal with it. When trying to grasp such problems, there is a tendency to break them down into more manageable parts. That is a useful practice, but it has serious limitations. In dealing with any system, especially a complex one such as an organization, it is not enough to think of the system in terms of parts or separate aspects to describe the entire system. Such an approach is not, by itself, a successful way of understanding the behavior of the system. Unfortunately in the academy the tendency increases to study some aspect of the organizational problem and to erect a model of it, while the discussion of the totality is relegated to more mature states of "administration science".
It is of crucial importance that we learn to complement these specialized studies with an eye to the whole not only for academics but for practitioners who find it difficult to take a raw look at the whole if the models they have to manage are only concerned From a partial view, it is necessary to highlight this scientific setback after the advances achieved with the Systems Theory, Socio-Technical Approach and the Theory of Contingency, except for the Theory of Constraints that analyzes the organization as a whole system. Currently, a model capable of making us understand the complex totality of organizations characterized by the more general regularities on which the administration is based is necessary.In the author's opinion, this is one of the problems to be solved by scholars of the Administration.
Annex 1. State of the art of the administration
Bibliography
1. Robbins, Stephen P. (1996) Administration. Editorial Prentice Hall. Fifth edition. Mexico.
2. Hernández and Rodríguez, Sergio (1994). Introduction to Management: A Practical Theoretical Approach, McGraw-Hill Editorial. Mexico.
3. Chiavenato, Idalberto. (1986) Introduction to the General Theory of Administration. Mc. Graw Hill. Mexico.
4. Stoner, James A. (1996) Administration. Sixth edition. Editorial Prentice Hall. Mexico.
5. Koontz H and Weirhrich. (1994) Administration. A global perspective. Tenth Edition. McGraw-Hill. Mexico.
6. Davila, Carlos. (1992). Organizational Theories and Administration. Critical approach. Second Revised Edition. McGraw-Hill Publishing. Mexico.
7. Claude S. George, (1972) History of administrative thought. Prentice Hall. Mexico.
8. Ríos Szlay, Adalberto (1977). Origins and perspectives of the administration. Editorial Trillas. Mexico. 214 p.
9. Duncan, WJ (1991). Great ideas in business management. Díaz de Santos editions. Madrid. Spain.
10. Galván, E. José. (1980) General Administration Treaty. INAP. Mexico.
11. Davenport, Tom (1997) Meeting of Minds.
12. Maturana, H.; Varela, F. (1985) The tree of knowledge, Editorial Universitaria, Chile.
13. Limone, A.; Cademártori, D. (1998) The company: a network of transformations. Editora Jurídica ConoSur Ltda. Chile.
14. Kauffman, S. (1999) Applying biology to business, "El Mercurio", Wednesday November 17, 1999.
