PLEASE ALSO CHECK THE LINK AND THE PICTURES RIGHT BELOW. THANK YOU!

Week 1 Discussion Question 1

Should Management be viewed as a Science?

Management Theory has evolved quickly over the past 100 years. A basic question that is still asked...is management a science. Below are links to two articles, one from 1978, forty years ago, and another from 2017. After forty years, the question remains.

After reading the articles, you may wish to do some research of your own. Reflect on the question. What has changed in the last forty years, and is the question still valid? Make sure you support your statements.

Post and statements must be supported with References and in-text citations.

PLEASE ALSO CHECK THE LINK RIGHT BELOW. THANK YOU!

https://hbr.org/2017/09/management-is-much-more-than-a-science

Conceptual Notes Is Management a Science? RONALD E. GRIBBINS Washington University SHELBY D. HUNT University of Wisconsin-Madison Within perhaps five years-certainly not more also spurred the development of this note. For than ten years hence-a general theory of those who purport to both study and teach man- management will be evolved, stated, and gen- erally accepted in management circles. agement: if management is not a science, what - William Frederick, 1963 then is the nature and purpose of research in the area and what is the nature of the material being The rapid development of management conveyed in the classroom? If management is not thought over the past 70 years has produced a a science, it may be that future managers should fundamental question that remains unresolved: learn in the "school of hard knocks" or at least is management a science? (4, 11, 15, 16, 31, 34, 35). take an apprenticeship under someone who has That fact that (a) the question receives signif- a proven ability to manage in the real world. The icant attention in the literature and (b) reason- issue of whether management is a science has able people continue to disagree on many di- substantial consequences for the discipline and mensions of the issue makes the proposed reso- practice of management as well as the training of lution worthy of consideration on scholarly managers. grounds alone. Other practical implications have s management a science? There are numer- Ronald E. Gribbins (Ph.D. - University of Wisconsin-Madi- ous strongly held perspectives. Drucker sug son) is Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Wash- gests: ington University, St. Louis, Missouri. . . management, in other words, is a practice Shelby D. Hunt (Ph.D. - Michigan State University) is Profes- rather than a science or profession, though sor of Business at University of Wisconsin-Madison. containing elements of both. No greater dam- age could be done to our economy or to our Received 9/20/76; Revised 12/29/76; Accepted 3/1/77; society than to attempt to "professionalize" Revised 4/8/77. management by "licensing" managers for in- 139140 stance, or by limiting access to management to people with a special academic degree (11). The question elicits equally strong opinion from those who argue that management is def- initely a science. Gulick believes: Where a field of knowledge has been defined, made \"public,\" pursued for some time, organ- ized into an elaborate system of explicit pri- mary and secondary theories, which have been or are being tested by logic and the real- ities of the universe, so that past and current changes in the system can be explained and future changes predicted or produced, we call that ball of knowledge (management, in this case) a science (15). Others advocate a middle position and sug- gest that while we may proceed to expand our knowledge of management through scientific procedures, management still remains an art (16, 31). To attempt to resolve the issue, we must turn our attention to the nature of science. The Nature of Science Science is a concept having a systematic am- biguity often referred to by philosophers of language as the process-product ambiguity (29, p. 7). Like the terms \"harvest'\" and \"vote\Academy of Management Review - January 1978 discipline by first reaching a consensus on its scope. Perhaps the same process would succeed in management. Laufer further suggests that management theory is amenable to rigorous classification, al- though the results are likely to be a polythetic arrangement (32). With polythetic classifications, the phenomena in any given class will share many characteristics in common; but no individual phenomenon need possess all characteristics of the class. Laufer's own taxonomical effort util- izes the pattern followed in the Periodic Table with the functions of management (planning, organization, directing, staffing, control) as a ba- sis. The result is a first step, open to further elab- oration and refinement. While the actual taxon- omy proposed may be questionable, the pro- posed procedure remains reasonable and we are well advised to heed his final point: \"Cine pur- pose of a science is to synthesize the parts . . . in- to an organized conception of its field of study"' (23). Granting that the pursuit of empirically test- able laws and theories constitutes scientific ac- tivity, three other observations should help clar- ify the nature of science. First, for a discipline to be characterized as a science in its own right, separate from other sciences, it must have a dis- tinct subject matter drawn from the real world serving as the focal point of investigation. \"Dis- tinct\" does not imply that other disciplines have no interest in the subject matter. Rather, each science has its own point of focus. For example, the science of chemistry focuses on substances and attempts to understand and predict phe- nomena related to them. Physics is also inter- ested in substances but does not focus on them. Hence chemistry and physics (though related) are appropriately referred to as separate sci- ences. Consider the following recent definitions of management. Management is: the process by which the elements of a group are integrated, coordinated, and/or utilized so as to effectively and efficiently achieve or- ganizational objectives (9). 141 a process or form of work that involves the guidance or direction of a group of people toward organizational goals or objectives (30). the work of creating and maintaining environ- ments in which people can accomplish goals efficiently and effectively (1). Distilling these definitions, one finds the primary subject matter to be coordination for goal ac- complishment. Some may limit management to coordination within a distinct organization while others may expand the domain to include coor- dination activities across organizations and/or cultures, but all recognize coordinaticn of the interdependent parts of organizationai systems as essential to management. Other disciplines will overlap with the subject matter of manage- ment, for example psychology,social psychology, organizational behavior and sociology. But only in management is coordination the focal point. The first distinguishing characteristic of a sci- ence is that it has its own subject matter (some more distinct than others). With coordination ac- tivity as its primary focus, management would seem to fulfill this requirement. The second characteristic of science rests in the attempt to develop \"general laws"\" which govern the behavior of empirical events. A ma- jor assumption of any scientific endeavor is that there are underlying uniformities or regularities interrelating the subject matter. These regular- ities may not be initially evident, but their even- tual discovery produces empirical regularities, lawlike generalizations, and laws. The underlying regularities are necessary because (a) the primary goal of science is to find general explanations of empirical events, and (b) regularities are a neces- sary component for theory development since \"theories are systematically related sets of state- ments, including some lawlike generalizations, that are empirically testable' (29, p. 10). The question becomes: are there underlying uniformities or regularities interrelating the phe- nomena comprising the subject matter of man- agement? The answer can be affirmatively based on the following arguments. First, the coordina- tion of activities is one small part of human be- 142 havior. Since numerous uniformities and regu- larities have been observed in other sciences in- volving human behavior (3), there is no a priori reason to believe the same will not be found in behavior focusing on coordination for the pur- pose of goal accomplishment. The second argu- ment rests in a review of any journal reporting scholarly research in management. While the lit- erature makes one aware of how much has yet to be done, progress has been made in identifying some uniformities. Leadership, motivation and organizational design are but three of the areas in which significant progress has been made in the last decade. The final characterisitc of science is its meth- od. Management may have a distinct subject mat- ter and there may exist underlying regularities, but we still must decide if the scientific method (the activities and process of science) is applica- ble to management, for as Bunge (somewhat tautologically) suggests, \"\"No scientific method, no science\" (7, p. 12). Detailed explication of the scientific method is beyond the scope of this note (18), but the cornerstone requirement of the method of sci- ence must be mentioned. The word science has its origins in the Latin verb scire, meaning \"to know"\". There are many ways to know things. The methods of tenacity, authority, faith, intuition and science are often cited (10, p. 183). The char- acteristic which separates scientific knowledge from other ways to \"know\" things is the notion of intersubjective certification. Scientific knowledge, in which theories, laws, and explanations are primal, must be ob- jective in the sense that its truth content must be empirically testable. This ensures that its theo- ries, laws, and explanations will be intersubjec- tively certifiable since different (but competent) investigators with differing attitudes, opinions, and beliefs will be able to make observations and conduct experiments to ascertain their truth con- tent. As Pierce notes: To satisfy our doubts, . . . therefore, it is nec- essary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by noth- Conceptual Notes ing human, but by some external permanency by something upon which our thinking has no effect . . . The method must be such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same. Such is the method of science (6, p. 18). Berelson and Steiner (3) have also discussed the scientific method. They propose six distin- guishing characteristics: The procedures are public, The definitions are precise, The data-collecting is objective, The findings must be replicable, The approach is systematic and cumula- tive, The purposes are explanation, under- standing, and prediction. N o, The first five of their characteristics are all sub- sumable under the intersubjectively certifiable criterion. Can the scientific method be applied to management phenomena? One approach is to suggest that there is no reason to presume that it cannot. Another approach is to recognize that the practice of management is embedded in ob- servable behavior, that this behavior is measura- ble through public and replicable procedures, and that one can proceed in a systematic fashion for the purpose of understanding and predicting managerial behavior. This is not to say that in every instance the method is appropriately ap- plied. The quality of application depends on the research scholars applying the method. While difficulties abound (measurement being a prime example), it is heartening to note the scientific quality of much recent scholarship in the area. One further point deserves consideration. We are not suggesting that science lacks any ar- tistic characteristics. Kuhn (21) speaks of the de- velopment of scientific knowledge through revo- lution. While a vast amount of scientific endeav- or is considered '\"normal science\Academy of Management Review - January 1978 143 new insight may have substantial artistic content. lisle (9) asserts that for a discipline to be a science, But the testing of whether or not an insight is it must have a systematized body of knowledge correct remains in the realm of "science". and that management presently lacks a generally To summarize, each science: (a) has a dis- accepted knowledge base. Without this, man- tinct subject matter drawn from the real world; agement remains an art and experience contin- (b) presumes underlying uniformities or regular- ues to be the best teacher. Implicit in this argu- ities that specify relationships among the phe- ment is the process-product ambiguity noted nomena studied; and (c) applies inter-subjective- earlier. Carlisle assumes a narrow definition of y certifiable methods to the study of the subject science while we argue for a broader view that matter. This perspective can be described as a includes process activities. consensus summation of views on science. For Having analyzed three other dimensions of example, Wartofsky suggests that a science is: science (existence of a distinct subject matter, . . . an organized or systematic body of knowl- presumption of underlying regularities, and ap- edge, using general laws or principles, that it plication of the scientific method), in each in- is knowledge about the world; and that it is that kind of knowledge concerning which stance we conclude that the discipline of man- universal agreement can be reached by scien- agement satisfies these criteria and can therefore tists sharing a common language (or lang- appropriately be labeled a science. If disagree- uages) and common criteria for the justifica- ment is to continue, this paper provides criteria tion of knowledge claims and beliefs (36, p. for focusing the debate. These dimensions will 23). lead to more effective discussion and resolu- Conclusion tion of the issue. It is our conclusion that management is a science. Some may disagree. For example, Car- REFERENCES 1. Albanese, Robert. Management: Toward Accountability 10. Cohen, Morris R., and Ernest Nagel. Logic and the Scien- for Performance (Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, tific Method (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1975). 1934). 2. Behling, Orlando. "Unification of Management Theory: 11. Drucker, Peter. The Practice of Management (New York: A Pessimistic View," Business Perspectives, Vol. 3, No. 4 Harper & Row, 1954). (Summer 1967), 4-9. 3. Berelson, Bernard, and Gary A. Steiner. Human Behave 12. Dubin, Robert. Theory Building (New York: Free Press, 1969). for: An Inventory of Scientific Findings (New York: Har- court, Brace and World, 1964), 16-18. 13. Frederick, William C. "The Next Development for Man- 4. Boettinger, Henry. "is Management Really an Art"? Har- agement Science: A General Theory," Journal of the vard Business Review (January-February 1975), 54-64. Academy of Management, Vol. 6, No. 3 (September 5. Braithwaite, R. Scientific Explanation (Cambridge: Cam- 1963), 212-219. bridge University Press, 1955), 1. 14. Greenwood, William T. "Future Management Theory: A 6. Buchler, J. (Ed.). Philosophical Writings of Pierce (New Comparative Evolution to a General Theory," Academy York: Dover, 1955) of Management Journal, Vol. 17, No. 3 (September 1974), 7. Bunge, Mario. Scientific Research I: The Search for Sys- 503-513. tem (New York: Springer-Berlag, 1967). 15. Gulick, Luther. "Management Is a Science," Academy of 8. Buzzell, Robert. "Is Marketing a Science," Harvard Busi- Management Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1 (March 1965), 7-13. ness Review, Vol. 41 (January-February 1963), 32 +. 16. Haimann, Theo, and William G. Scott. Management in the 9. Carlisle, Howard M. Management: Concepts and Situa- Modern Organization, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mif tions (Chicago: Science Research Associates, 1976). flin, 1974). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission