Before and after the Second Family War, especially from the 1950s to the 1970s, the economic and political situation in the world changed dramatically. It is mainly manifested in the rapid development of science and technology, the continuous emergence of emerging industries, the acceleration of technological updates, the improvement of mechanization and automation of the production process, and the refinement of management work to increase the proportion of technical personnel and management personnel among employees. The size of the enterprise has also expanded rapidly in the fierce competition. In this context, many management scientists and entrepreneurs have studied all aspects of management from different aspects, and there have been many schools of management.
Quantitative management theory arose during World War II. It uses the achievements of modern natural science and technical science (such as advanced mathematical methods, electronic computer technology, systems theory, information theory and cybernetics, etc.) as a means to use mathematical models to conduct systematic quantitative analysis of people, money, materials and information resources in the field of management, and to make optimal planning and decision-making. The content of quantitative management theory mainly includes operations research, systematic analysis and scientific decision-making.
(1) Operations research
Operations research is the foundation of quantity management theory. In terms of its content, operations research is an analytical, experimental and quantitative method that specializes in the most economical and effective use of human, financial and material resources under established material conditions in order to achieve certain purposes. Operations research was later applied to the field of management.
(2) System analysis
The concept of "systems analysis" was proposed by the RAND Corporation of the United States in 1949. It is characterized by the analysis and research of the overall situation to solve management problems in order to make correct decisions. System analysis typically includes the following steps.
(1) Determine the ultimate goal of the system, while clarifying the goals and tasks of each specific stage.
(2) The object of study must be regarded as a whole, a unified system, and then the tasks to be solved by each part must be determined, and the interrelationship and mutual influence between them and between them and the overall goal must be studied.
(3) Seek alternative solutions to complete the overall goal and various local tasks.
(4) Analyze and compare the alternative schemes to select the optimal schemes.
(5) Implement the program selected by the organization.
(3) Scientific decision-making
Scientific decision-making means that decision-making should be based on sufficient facts, analyze and calculate a large number of data and data according to the internal relationship of things, follow scientific procedures, and carry out rigorous logical reasoning to make correct decisions. The application of electronic computers, management information systems, dss (decision support systems), erp (enterprise resource planning), etc. provides the possibility of scientific decision-making.
System management theory refers to the theory of using the categories and principles in system theory to analyze the management activities and management processes in the organization, especially the organizational structure and mode. The main points of this theory are as follows:
First, an organization is a system made up of interrelated, interdependent elements. As needed, the system can be decomposed into subsystems, and the subsystems can be decomposed again. For example, in order to study the composition of a system, the system can be decomposed into various structural subsystems; in order to study the function of a system, the system can be decomposed into various functional subsystems. In this way, the study of systems can start from studying the relationship between subsystems and subsystems.
Second, the system survives in a certain environment and exchanges matter, energy and information with the environment. The system inputs resources from the environment and converts the resources into outputs, some of which are consumed by the system itself and the rest of which are exported to the environment. The system constantly adjusts itself in the process of input-to-output to achieve its own development.
Third, the use of a systematic point of view to examine the basic functions of management can improve the overall efficiency of the organization, so that managers do not only pay attention to some special functions related to themselves and ignore the big goals, nor do they ignore their position and role in the organization.
The theory of contingency management is a management theory formed in the United States in the 1970s. At the heart of this theory is an attempt to study the relationship between organizations and the environment and to determine the types of relationships and structures of various variables. It emphasizes that management should be adapted to the environment in which the organization is located, and seek corresponding management models for different environments.
Variable management theory focuses on the relationship between relevant environmental variables and various management methods. Typically, the environment is an explanatory variable, and the management is managed by an explanatory variable. This means that the environment in which the organization is located determines which management style is more appropriate for the organization. For example, in times of recession, a centralized organizational structure may be more appropriate because the market environment faced by firms is oversupplied;
In the 1980s and 1990s, Western businesses and public administrations revolutionized quality management. Deming and Chu Lan are the "fathers of quality management." ”
Deming (w. edwards． Dr. Deming) is a world-renowned quality management expert who is known worldwide for his outstanding contributions to the development of quality management in the world. The Deming Quality Award, named after Deming, is still the highest honor for quality management in Japan. As a pioneer of quality management, Deming Theory has always had an extremely important impact on international quality management theories and methods. He believes that "quality is the most economical means to produce the most useful product on the market." Once product quality is improved, productivity increases automatically. "Joseph Mossy Chulan
(josephm.juran), an expert in quality management. Chu Lan's book Planning for Quality may be a clear guide to his thinking and the composition of quality planning for the company as a whole. Juran's quality planning is the first step in the three-step process of implementing a quality management approach within the company. In addition, there is quality control, which evaluates quality performance by comparing performance with established goals and bridging the gap between actual performance and setting goals. Chu Lan regards the third step of quality improvement as a process of continuous development, which includes the establishment of the necessary organizational infrastructure to form a quality improvement cycle. He recommends using teamwork and project-by-project operations to try to maintain both continuous improvement and breakthrough improvement.
The essence of total quality management is the management concept of continuous improvement driven by customer needs and expectations. It includes the following points.
1. Focus on customers
Customers include not only external customers who purchase the organization's products or services, but also interconnected internal customers within the organization (such as employees between upstream and downstream value activities).
2. Focus on continuous improvement
"Very good" is not the end, quality can always be improved and improved.
3. Focus on the process
Total Quality Management views work processes as the focus of continuous improvement in product or service quality, not just the product and service itself.
4. Accurate measurement
Total quality management uses statistical methods to measure each key process or work in the organization's workflow, compares the measured results with standards or benchmarks, identifies problems, deeply investigates the root causes of problems, and eliminates the causes of problems.
5. Authorization to employees
Quality management is the responsibility and task of all employees, not just managers or quality inspectors. Total quality management is related to all employees in the organization, and the quality management team and work team will widely apply total quality management to work.
Since the 1990s, some management theories that reflect the characteristics of the times have emerged, mainly including learning organization, lean thinking, business process reengineering and core capability theory.
(1) Learning organizations
The so-called learning organization refers to the organization with the ability to continuously learn, adapt and change. Learning organizations differ from traditional organizations in the following clear ways.
(1) In the attitude towards change, traditional organizations believe that as long as it works, do not change it; learning organizations believe that if it does not change, it will not work.
(2) In its approach to new ideas, traditional organizations believe that if they do not arise from the here and now, they reject it; learning organizations believe that if they arise from the here and now, reject it.
(3) In terms of who is responsible for innovation, traditional organizations believe that innovation is the business of the R&D department; learning organizations believe that innovation is the business of every member of the organization.
(4) The main concern of traditional organizations is to make mistakes, while the main concern of learning organizations is not to learn and not adapt.
(5) Traditional organizations believe that products and services are the competitive advantage of the organization, while learning organizations believe that learning ability, knowledge and expertise are the competitive advantages of the organization.
(6) In terms of the responsibilities of managers, traditional organizations believe that the responsibility of managers is to control others; while learning organizations believe that the responsibility of managers is to mobilize others and authorize others.
Peter. Shengji pointed out in "The Fifth Cultivation: The Art and Practice of Learning Organizations" that enterprises should become a learning organization, and put forward four criteria for establishing a learning organization: one is whether people can constantly test their own experience; second, whether people have produced knowledge; third, whether everyone can share the knowledge in the organization; and fourth, whether the learning in the organization is closely related to the goals of the organization. And he proposes skills for building learning organizations, namely the five disciplines: self-transcendence, improving mental models, building a shared vision, group learning, and systems thinking.
(2) Lean thinking
"Lean production" means that enterprises integrate customers, sales agents, suppliers, and collaborating units into the production system, and establish a partnership with them to share benefits, and then form an enterprise supply chain. Eliminating muda is the essence of lean production. The so-called lean thinking is to define the production value of the enterprise according to the needs of users, organize all production activities according to the value stream, so that the various activities to be retained and create value flow up, so that the user's needs pull product production, rather than pushing the product hard to the user, exposing the muda hidden in the value stream, constantly improving, and achieving perfection.
(3) Business reengineering process
Traditional organizational structures are based on functions and hierarchies. Although this model has served enterprises well in the past, its response has become slow and clumsy in the face of the competitive environment of the knowledge economy era. Business process reengineering challenges many traditional organizational principles, pushing processes to the forefront of the management calendar. By redesigning the process, a leap can be made in the improvement of process performance, stimulating and enhancing the competitiveness of enterprises. In their 1993 book Reinvention Corporation, Michael Hammer and James Champpi advocated these approaches to managing change and efforts to improve the quality of products and operations. They define reengineering as "a thorough rethinking and redesign of business processes in order to achieve significant breakthroughs in performance measures such as cost, quality, service and speed." Companies that take a reinvention approach quickly learn to question what they do and why they do it. "'Reengineering' first determines what the company must do, and then determines how it does it." 'Reconstruction' does not take anything for granted, it ignores 'what' and attaches great importance to 'what it should be''. The most critical part of reengineering is to determine what a company should do on the basis of its core competencies and experience, that is, to determine what it can do best. It was then determined whether what needed to be done was best done by the Organization or by other organizations. The result of the reinvention approach has been a reduction in the size of the company and an increase in outsourcing.
(4) Core competency theory
The core competency theory was developed from the resource-based theory in the 1980s. It refers to valuable, scarce, incomplete imitation and incomplete substitution of resources, which is the source of the sustainable competitive advantage of enterprises.
As defined by Praharad and Hamel, core competencies are collective knowledge and collective learning within an organization, in particular the ability to coordinate different production techniques and integrate diverse technological flows. A competency can be defined as the core competency of an enterprise, which must meet the following five conditions:
(1) Not a single technology or skill, but an integration of a cluster of related technologies and skills.
(2) Not a physical asset.
(3) It must be able to create key value that customers value.
(4) Compared with opponents, the competition is unique.
(5) Go beyond the scope of specific products or departments, so as to provide enterprises with access to new markets.
