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History and evolution of the administration

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Anonim

Administration is an activity that we carry out on a daily basis, most of us carry out this activity without realizing it, when we manage time, our resources, work and even our efforts. But when was the first time it was administered? The first men that existed on the planet had the need to make better use of their resources and efficiently carry out most of their tasks, it was there that the administration was born, although in an individual and informal.

Later when human beings began to group together, they also began to organize by putting a leader who was in charge of planning, organizing, directing and controlling the tasks; as well as dividing the tasks of agriculture, hunting, fishing, livestock, among others. Some other examples of administration in history are the pyramids of Egypt, the Chinese wall, and all the large constructions built in ancient times, each of which needed thousands of workers, tons of material, and hundreds of people. to run everything.

In the fifteenth century there was a relevant trading center in the city of Venice Italy, this represents another example of the administration's history since a private company initiative was installed there, some locals installed a shipyard that supplied warships for means of consecutive stops on the channels. They had an organization similar to today's production lines where tasks are defined and divided by workstations. (Robbins, 2005)

What is administration?

Currently there are many definitions to explain the meaning of administration and everything that this term entails, among the most common are:

  • Idalberto Chiavenato (2004) defines administration as the process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling all the resources an organization has with the sole purpose of reaching a goal. According to Henri Fayol (1916) to administer is to anticipate, organize, command, coordinate and control. For Edward Brech (1998) it is the social process that involves planning and directing the activities of an organization in order to fulfill a previously established goal. James Mooney (1998) defines administration as the art or technique of leading and inspiring others based on extensive knowledge of the nature of the human being.

Formalization of the administration

It was until 1776 when administration began to be taken seriously with the publication "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, where an emphasis is placed on the substantial advantages that were acquired by dividing work, that is, by distributing the processes in specific tasks, which would reduce costs and increase production efficiency. Smith said doing this streamlines tasks by practice and saves the time spent by employees changing tasks. (Robbins, 2005)

The industrial revolution was a great influence for the administration before the 20th century, it occurred in Great Britain in 1760 thanks to the liberal monarchy that existed at that time, coupled with the invention of the steam engine that brought important inventions in 1800 Alessandro Volta created the electric battery, in 1814

Stephenson designs the first steam locomotive, by 1834 Richard Roberts invents the loom, and by 1837 Samuel Morse creates the telegraph, all these events made production in factories cheaper by substituting machines for labor, boosting the industries of the time.

But they represented a greater challenge for the managers, they had to run the factories, supply enough raw materials, organize the personnel, which causes the need to create a formal theory of management that will guide managers to run these large companies, without However, this did not happen until the 20th century. (OnHistory, 2015)

Management theories

As the industrial revolution and industrialization passed, theories about administration were presented, in which different characters participated in each one, the theories are: scientific administration, general theories of administration, quantitative method, organizational behavior, systemic approach, approach Of the contingencies, which are illustrated in Figure 1, all of these will be addressed below. (Robbins, 2005)

Management Theories (Robbins 2005)

Scientific Administration

In 1911 "The Principles of Scientific Management" was published by Frederick Taylor, in this document the theory of scientific management was explained and the application of the scientific method to know the most efficient way of carrying out a work was explained. It was then that this theory. The main drivers of the theory were, Taylor, Frank, and his wife Lillian Gilbreth.

Taylor and the Gilbreths developed scientific management based on four fundamental principles.

  • Work organization

The person in charge of the group or work area plays a very important role since it is he who must analyze the work methods and in case of identifying any inefficient one, he must modify or eliminate it to improve the performance of the collaborator.

  • Selection and entertainment of the worker

This principle demands a thorough inspection of work, in order to define the characteristics and minimum capacities that the person carrying out this work must have.

  • Cooperation and remuneration for individual performance

Taylor proposes aligning the objectives of employees with those of the organization, through incentives that eliminate work simulation and establish that people with the best performance will earn more. These incentives can be remuneration per work unit, a structure of collaborators who coordinate the work of their subordinates, and collaborate to eliminate the work simulation.

  • Responsibility and specialization of managers in work planning

It is very important to train managers to organize and divide work fairly and according to the capabilities of each worker in order to increase their efficiency. (Jáuregui, 2001)

General theories of administration

There were other writers who were also interested in administration, but they studied it as a whole, to later develop theories of general administration, from which arises financial administration, sales administration, marketing administration, operations administration among others and still others that help the management of public, governmental and non-profit institutions. (Torres, 2014)

One of the main drivers of these theories was Henri Fayol, he focused on looking at managerial activities from a general perspective, he believed that there were fourteen management principles that should be taught to managers and all the people they manage. The principles are:

Division of labour

Specific tasks increase the efficiency of workers when performing tasks.

Authority

Managers must be able to handle their subordinates appropriately.

Discipline

There must be a discipline of the workers towards the manager for proper operation.

Control unit

There must be a clear chain of command in the organization that goes hand in hand with the hierarchy of positions.

Address unit

The goals of the organization must be clear, and managers must have the ability to share them with all collaborators.

Subordination of the interests of individuals to the general interest

The interests of individuals or small groups of companies must be aligned to its purposes.

Remuneration

Fair payment must be given for the work performed by workers.

Centralization

Subordinate participation in decision-making in the company.

Ladder chain

It is the line of authority that goes from the management to the operational positions.

Order

All of the organization's resources must be in the right place at the right time.

Equity

Managers must be courteous and fair to their employees.

Stability of staff seniority

Everything must be done to ensure that vacancies are filled.

Initiative

Workers who have the freedom to plan and direct their work perform better than those who do not.

Group spirit

The manager must promote unity and harmony in the organization.

Another great promoter of this theory was the German Max Weber, who wrote a theory about authority relations and their structures, he designed an ideal organization structure called bureaucracy where there was a correct distribution of work, a fair hierarchization, and clear rules. This ideal bureaucracy had certain specific characteristics that are:

  • Personal orientation Impersonality Clear rules and regulations Formal selection Hierarchy of authority Division of labor

Weber's bureaucracy was very popular in the 20th century, where organizations rely on their characteristics to design their structure, today these concepts turn out to be obvious in large companies. (Robbins, 2005)

M

The principle of this method is to carry out quantitative techniques to make better decisions, it is also known as management science, it arises from the mathematical development and statistical research that was carried out in the Second World War, however at the end of it it was taken to the sector private in the 1940s.

The precursors were Robert McNamara, who was secretary of defense and president of the World Bank, and Charles Tex Thornton, founder of Litton Industries; They were hired by Ford Motor Company at the end of World War II to use statistical and mathematical methods in the company's decision-making, which later resulted in the quantitative method, where linear programming is used to improve allocations. of resources, economic model of order quantity to improve inventory levels among others that support management decision making. (Robbins, 2005)

Organizational behavior

Some writers have chosen to focus on administration from the point of view of human resources, since all managers are in constant contact with many people, this field of study is called organizational behavior, this study gave rise to the research of topics such as leadership, trust, teamwork, and conflict management to support conflict resolution in organizations.

The first researchers who focused on organizational behavior believed that the main resource that companies were their human capital and if they were taken into account and took advantage of their capabilities, advantages in the market could be generated, some of the main exponents were:

  • Robert Owen, had his participation in the late twentieth century and focused on improving working conditions by proposing improvements in the design of jobs, introduced the idea that the money spent on staff represents an investment and not a loss. Munsterberg, who had his participation at the beginning of the 20th century and was the creator of industrial psychology, was also the first scientist to perform psychological tests for selection, training and motivation processes. Mary Parker Follett, participated in the beginnings of the 20th century, he was the one who proposed to analyze individual and small group behaviors in organizations. She also believed that companies should be governed by a group ethic. Chester Barnard, made her contributions in the 1930s,.He saw organizations as social systems that must cooperate, and also said that the manager must encourage employees to give their best effort.

Another great driver of organizational behavior was Hawthorne, who in 1924 conducted studies to see production in different working conditions that had to do with lighting, noise, design of work areas at Western Electric Company. (Amorós, 2000)

Systemic approach

From 1960 on, scientists began to study organizations as systems, there may be closed systems that are not influenced and do not interact with the environment, and open systems that do interact dynamically with the environment. Today organizations are considered as open systems that share materials, products, information among other things with their environment, in illustration two you can see the representation of the company as an open system.

Representation of a company as an open system (Robbins, 2005)

The systemic approach tells us that the managers of any organization must coordinate the work activities of each process of the system in order to ensure that all personnel participate in the system and I seek the same objective. (Robbins, 2005)

Contingency approach

This method of contingencies is about common sense, because all organizations are different, in size, staff, business, economic situation, goals, etc. The important thing here is to know which variables affect the situation of organizations, a hundred situation variables have been proposed that are believed to directly influence. Some of the most significant variables are:

  • Organization size

As a company is larger, there are greater coordination problems.

  • Routine Task Technology

The platforms and systems that are used daily in the company require structure, leadership and a control structure.

  • Environmental uncertainty

The level of uncertainty produced by changes in the context of the organization influences administrative processes.

  • Individual differences

Human beings differ in their aspirations, desire to grow, tolerance, productivity, values ​​and ideals. However, all this must be taken into account so that the manager can manage them correctly and take advantage of their potential in a better way. (Robbins, 2005)

TO

Once the theories of administration were defined, there was a quality revolution in 1990 that influenced the private and public sectors of that time, this movement was known as total quality management and was promoted by W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran who did not have much impact in the United States but their ideas transcended in Japan to later become the basis of current quality management. (Guajardo, 2003)

This philosophy is based on continuous improvement that meets the demands and expectations of customers, some of the most important bases of this philosophy are:

  • Intense focus on the customer Emphasis on continuous improvement Focus on processes Quality improvement of all processes Accurate measurements Empowerment of employees

This philosophy is opposed to the idea of ​​reducing costs to increase productivity, because many times, lowering costs can damage the quality of the product or even its functionality, resulting in a bad reputation and loss of customers. (Robbins, 2005)

conclusion

The administration has undergone some changes of approach as time has passed, since the ways of thinking of managers and administrators are different as well as their contexts, however their needs are the same, since antiquity the fundamentals that they were modified to obtain the knowledge, theories and management concepts of today. Thanks to that today we have a broader administration that ranges from cost reduction, productivity improvement, good personnel management, and the search for continuous improvement.

Bibliography

Amorós, E. (2000). Organizational behavior. Madrid: Pearson.

Chiavenato, I. (2004). Introduction to the General Theory of Administration. Mexico: Mcgraw Hill.

Guajardo, E. (2003). Total Quality Management. Mexico: Pax Mexico.

Jáuregui, A. (January 11, 2001). Gestiopolis. Obtained from Principles of Scientific Administration: http://www.gestiopolis.com/principios-de-la-administracion-cientifica-taylor-y- ford /

Ponce, A. (1998). Business Administration. Mexico: Limusa. Robbins, S. (2005). Administration. San Diego: PEARSON.

About history. (May 8, 2015). ABOUTHISTORY.COM. Obtained from Industrial Revolution:

sobrehistoria.com/todo-sobre-la-revolucion-industrial/ Torres, Z. (2014). General theory of administration. Mexico: Homeland.

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History and evolution of the administration