Classical and Modern Management Theories - Can they co-exist?

Management can be defined as the process of designing and maintaining an environment in which individuals, working together in groups, efficiently accomplish selected aims (Koontz and Weihrich 1990). This week we learnt about the many different classical approaches to management. 

One of the approaches to management that we learnt is the scientific approach, which is Taylor’s theory of management. His management is based on four principles. 

1. Instead of forming habits or using the common sense of workers to complete work, use the scientific method of analysing the work to determine the most efficient way of completing the job. 
2. Instead of randomly assigning workers to a certain task, study work pattern and find the most efficient way to do a specific job. 
3. Supervise the performance of the workers and then provide instructions and give feedback to them to ensure that they maximize their efficiency. 
4. Allocate work between managers and workers to ensure that managers have time to plan and train workers, ensuring workers perform their tasks efficiently. 

His approach to management would work on organizations that follow a systematic approach in production, typically for lower-skilled workers ie. a beer brewing company. However, in a organization with high-skilled workers, the workers may feel disempowered if they are not given any autonomy in the work they do. Additionally, this approach would probably not work in industries or organizations that require innovation and creativity, as the lack of autonomy would probably limit one’s creativity. Thus, Taylor’s approach to management is, in my opinion, still applicable to modern businesses, but this does not mean that it is applicable to ALL moden businesses. 

Other than the classical theories, I found another modern theory which is the contingency theory. The contingency theory is the assumption that no one theory or method for business management can apply to all businesses or to all circumstances. 

From what I understand, the approach indicates that the issues that the organization faces needs to be analyzed and dissected, and then only can we address those issues while considering the environment and context in which the issue is happening. 

I think that the contingency theory is very effective as different companies face different issues or problems in their management and there is no one method that would work for all businesses. Google has a very successful management approach, but this does not mean that it would work for another organization.