There is no one universal school of management thought. The scientific management approach attempts to find the most efficient or “one best way.”

In this approach, the manager’s primary function is to plan the work. Time and motion study and other industrial engineering principles are used to analyze the work to be done. The functional approach assumes that there are essential functions that all managers should perform. The human relations movement/behavioral science approach emphasizes that managers must understand what causes employees to behave the way they do. This approach began with the Hawthorne studies at Western Electric Company. The quantitative/systems approaches apply mathematical models to help solve organizational problems. An understanding of the various schools of management thought gives supervisors a foundation on which to build their own supervisory philosophies. P-987