This paper presents an overview of the various management theories, styles and methods that have been in existence, including a brief historical overview, as well as an assessment of the current state of management, and a brief summary.
The concentrated study of management as a separate and distinct field of endeavor is a product of the last century. Most writers agree that the origin of this young discipline was the work performed by Frederick W. Taylor (1911) and Frank Gilbreth (1912) during the scientific movement that developed just after 1900. The essence of scientific management was in four general areas (Massie, 1979):
1. The discovery, through use of the scientific method, of basic elements of man's work to replace rules of thumb.
2. The identification of management's function of planning work, instead of allowing workmen to choose their own methods.
3. The selection and training of workers and the development of cooperation, instead of encouraging individualistic efforts by employees.
4. The division of work between management and workers so that each would perform those duties for which he was best fitted, with the resultant increase in efficiency (p. 16).
By 1924, when the first International Management Congress was held in Prague, scientific management had become international in scope. Henri Fayol (1949) had previously led a French movement in the improvement of work at the administrative level of organization, and was the first to propose a general theory of management. He defined theory as "a collection of principles, rules, methods, and procedures tried and checked by general experience" (p. 15). Fayol's theory consisted of two parts: (1) the elements, which described what managers did--plan, organize, command, coordinate, and control; and (2) the principles, which were guides on how to manage.
During the 1920s and 1930s, scientific management fell into the hands of "efficiency ...