Introduction to Management
Professor Ming Sun
School of the Built Environment
Heriot-Watt University
WHAT IS MANAGEMENT?
Definitions of Management
 "Management is an art of knowing what is to be done
and seeing that it is done in the best possible
manner." (F.W. Taylor)
 "Management is to forecast and plan, to organize, to
command, to coordinate, and to control." (Henri
Fayol)
 “Management is defined as the process by which a
co-operative group directs action towards common
goals” (Joseph Massie)
More Definitions
 "Management is the coordination of all resources
through the process of planning, organising, directing
and controlling in order to attain stated goals." (Henry
Sisk)
 "Management is a process of working with and
through others to achieve organizational objectives in
a changing environment, central to this purpose is the
effective and efficient use of limited resources."
(Rovert Kreitner)
Essential Elements of Management
 Goals
 Process
 Resources
 Discuss the relationship between these
elements
PROCESS OF MANAGEMENT
Management
Process
Activities
Management process:
planning, organizing,
leading, and controlling
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Prentice Hall, Inc.
Planning
 Setting objectives and how to achieve them
 About the future.
 Different timeframe (long-term, medium-term,
short-term).
 Different levels (strategic, tactical, operational).
 Uncertainties are inevitable.
 Plan needs to be reviewed.
ABCD Planning Methods
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A = Awareness and Visioning
B = Baseline Mapping
C = Creative Solutions
D = Decide on Priorities
Organising
 Organising resources to achieve business
goals
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Setting up organisation structure
Deciding the flow of tasks
Allocating human and capital resources
Deciding line of command
Leading
 Influencing people to work towards achieving
set objectives
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Directing staff
Communicating with staff
Negotiating with staff
Motivating staff
Controlling
 Monitoring activities and taking corrective
actions if necessary
 Establishing performance standards or
benchmarks
 Determining methods of measuring performance
 Measuring actual performance
 Comparing performance to established standards
 Taking corrective action when necessary and
regularly reviewing performance
Different Levels of Management
Distribution of Time per Activity by
Managers of Different Level
Source: Adapted from T. A. Mahoney, T. H. Jerdee, and S. J. Carroll,
“The Job(s) of Management,” Industrial Relations 4, No.2 (1965), p.103.
EVOLUTION OF
MANAGEMENT THEORY
The Pre-modern Era
 Ancient massive construction projects
 Egyptian pyramids
 Great Wall of China
 Stonehenge in the UK
 Management was a reality, but not
considered as a separate discipline.
1–17
Adam Smith’s Contribution To The
Field Of Management
 Wrote the Wealth of Nations (1776)
 Advocated the economic advantages that
organizations and society would reap from the
division of labor:
 Increased productivity by increasing each worker’s skill and
ability.
 Time saved that is commonly lost in changing tasks.
 The creation of labor-saving inventions and machinery.
Copyright © 2004
Prentice Hall, Inc.
The Industrial Revolution’s Influence
On Management Practices
 Industrial revolution
 Machine power began to substitute for human power
 Lead to mass production of economical goods
 Improved and less costly transportation systems
became available
 Created larger markets for goods.
 Larger organizations developed to serve larger
markets
 Created the need for formalized management practices.
Copyright © 2004
Prentice Hall, Inc.
Main Management Theories
Fryer et al (2004) The practice of construction management
Classical Approach to
Management
 Including scientific management and bureaucracy
 Emphasis on purpose, formal structure, hierarchy of
management, technical requirements, and common
principles
 The belief is:
 There is a best machine for each job, so there is a best
working method by which people should undertake their jobs
 All job processes should be analysed into discrete tasks &
via this management find the ‘one best’ way to perform each
task
Scientific Management
(Taylorism or Fordism)
 Emphasises organisational efficiency to increase
organizational success.
 Analyses each person’s work in a scientific way
 Scientific selection, training and development of the
workers
 Defines ways of co-operation between workers
 Clear division of work and responsibility
Criticism of Scientific Approach
 The main criticism of this approach is that each
worker only perform a single task, which can be very
repetitive and boring.
Bureaucracy – the Main Features
 Specialisation: every employee should perform a
single function
 Hierarchy of authority: Duties and responsibilities of
each job and its relationship to other jobs should be
clearly defined.
 System of rules: Operations and processes are
defined as rules.
 Impersonality: Little consideration for people who
perform the jobs.
Criticisms of Bureaucracy
 Over-emphasis on rules and procedures
 Initiatives may be stifled by inflexible rules
 Leads to typical inefficient bureaucratic
behaviour
 Impersonal relations
Criticisms of the classical
approach
 Insufficient account taken of personality
factors
 Creates organisational structures where
people can exercise only limited control over
their work environment
Human Relations Approach to
Management
 The behavioural approach to management is a
management approach that emphasises increasing
organizational success by focusing on human
variables within the organization.
Human Relations Approach
 Is based on the consideration of the social factors at
work and the behaviour of employees within an
organisation
 Particular importance is paid to the informal
organisation and the satisfaction of individuals’ needs
through groups at work
 Hawthorne experiments acted as a turning point in
the development of the Human Relations movement
The Hawthorne Experiments
Assembly of telephone equipment (late 20’s/early 30’s)
 Experiments (Industrial psychologists - positivists) to relate
illumination with output
 Picked out a team of girls and placed them in a very well lit
separate environment
 No matter what the brightness, productivity went up or did not fall
 Subsequent changes of other variables only showed increase in
productivity
See Mullins and Christy (2010), pp53-55 for a more detailed
discussion on the Hawthorne experiments
The Hawthorne Effect
 Illumination experiments did not shed light on relation
between illumination and output
 Girls felt special – they were picked and then observed
 Teams understood to be important (social dynamics) as
well as psychological factors and behaviour (managers
and employees)
 THE HAWTHORNE EFFECT was born!
 Explanations concerning the relationship between
employees, productivity and quality of work were to be
found by exploring social relations and dynamics in the
workplace
Human Relations Approach – the
Criticisms
 The positivists assumptions were exposed, however, by modern
standards of social research the human relations approach at
the time was viewed to be methodologically questionable.
 In particular, it failed to take sufficient account of wider
environmental factors - context
 Insufficiently scientific!!!
 The Hawthorne experiments were, and still are, argued to lack
rigor
 For some, this approach was still overly pro-management and
output driven rather than a real emphasis on people and human
development – see humanists!
The Systems Approach
 Attempts to reconcile the classical (organisations without
people) and human relations approaches (people without
organisations)
 Balances the technical demands of a company alongside the
psychological and social needs of its employees
 Attention is focused on:
 the total work of the organisation
 the inter-relationships of structures & behaviour
 the range of variables within the organisation
 The organisation is viewed within its total environment and the
importance of multiple channels in interaction is emphasised
 However, draws upon reductionism and thus criticised for being
overly scientific and positivist
The Contingency Approach
 Views the structure of an organisation and its
success as dependent on:
 the nature of tasks that are undertaken
 the nature of environmental influences
 There is no one best way to structure or
manage organisations - it is dependent on the
contingencies of the situation
Caveats
 The various approaches represent a progression of
ideas and a pattern of complementary studies
 Not all writers can be neatly categorised
 Whilst there may be acceptance of the need for a
framework there is no agreement on its shape
 The distinction between certain ‘schools’ of thought
are not clear cut
Modern Approaches
 Management thinking is continuously evolving
 New business practices pose challenges to the
established management theories
 The emphasis for management today is to manage
continuous change against the background of a
dynamic environment
CONSTRUCTION
MANAGEMENT
What is Construction
Management?
 =construction project management?
 =construction site management?
 =form of project delivery?
 There is still no consensus!
CIOB: Definition of
Construction Management
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Management of the development, conservation and improvement of the
built environment;
Exercised at a variety of levels from the site and project, through the
corporate organisations of the industry and its clients, to society as a
whole;
Embracing the entire construction value stream from inception to
recycling, and focussing upon a commitment to sustainable
construction;
Incorporating a wide range of specialist services; guided by a system of
values demonstrating responsibility to humanity and to the future of our
planet;
and informed, supported and challenged by an independent academic
discipline.
CIOB’S Professionalism: an inclusive definition of Construction
Management 2010