Q25 Pmc Exam Question

People, Change and Management Past Year Exam Questions By Chew Yang Questions 25 Is it fair to say that management theory is primary concerned with the manipulation and exploitation of employees for profits ? Approach to answer this question - Give a brief explanation on what are various the management theories - Analyst how the theories are developed and what’s their primary aim. - Give my view on whether I support the above statement. - Give my arguments on why I support/not support this statement with examples. - Conclusion Answer Management Theories Taylorism and Fordism (Scientific Management) - Assembly line work flow - Work organization is based on large, mainly volumes - Standardized product is built in massive volume - Specific measure for monitoring worker productivity based on scientific calculation - Tight control of the labour process is provided by systems of work measurement. - Objective is to streamline production process and emphasis on Efficiency of production, paid for in terms of high degree of rigidity in production. - Deskilling of workers and lost of control for workers. All Capitalist care for is the output and disregard of the welfare of workers. Bureaucracy - A structured way of organization. - Strict rules to government work flow. - Top down management. - A division of labour which assigns specific tasks to sub-tasks to sub-units and individuals. Departmental boundaries and individual jobs are closely specified and duties and responsibilities carefully set up. - Hierarchy, provide clear lines of command. Many levels providing a highly differentiated structure of authority. - Objective is to established a clearly defined reporting structure, formal and sometimes complex, free from any personal feelings type of organization for ‘faultless’ control of the business.

Human Resource Management - Global competition turned people into the most important assets in the company. - HRM helps companies to plan for the present challenges and future. - Support managers in dealing with staff relations - Acting as the corporate executioner In my view, capitalist’s main motive is to get as much profit they can from the sales of the product (Commodity) they produce. The revenue they received must be higher than the cost of production (material and labor cost, etc). Management theories as mentioned above are mainly to stream line the management process and to better manage the ‘workers’ or the labour. In a way, this is manipulation of the employees to gain more profits. Examples, management will implement company policies to maximize the production time of workers and to increase their productivities. This in term is to cut down production cost and to produce more and faster so as to increase their profits. Conclusion The primary aim of capitalist is to make profits from the product they produce. The development of management theories are to help the capitalist better manage their resources of production, including labour and workers to get the ‘best’ out from them. In a way, this is manipulation and exploiting employees to an extent to maximize their profits. The evolution of the management theories from the classical (Bureaucracy, Taylorism, Fordism) to the more modern theories (TQM, BPR, Human Relation, etc) are due to the changing needs of the environment. The introduction of TQM, BPR, Human Relation have an element of Human feeling. It take care of the sociology and psychology aspect of the workers more instead of just the economic part. However, their primary objective is still to maximize their profit. -