The Different Management Theory's used Within Bodyshop and McDonalds.

James Pitcher 10/05/2007

The Different Management Theory’s used

Within Bodyshop and McDonalds.

Introduction

The aim of this report is to show the different types of management theory’s and how they are now used in Bodyshop’s and McDonald’s business to day.

The different management approaches

In this section I will list the different approaches to management and explain what they mean. Also I will state the advantages and disadvantages for each approach.

Scientific management is the most influential theory in production line businesses during the first two decades of the twentieth century and is still widely used to day. Scientific management was thought up by an American called Fredric Winslow Taylor (1856-1915). His theory consisted of 5 principles. These were:

An understandable dissection of tasks and responsibilities between management and the workforce.
Use of scientific methods to establish the best way of undertaking a job.
Scientific selection of the employee to execute the newly designed job in the way specified.
The training of the selected employee to perform the job in the way specified.
Enthusiastic co-operation with the workers to ensure that the work was performed in accordance with scientific management. This was helped by the use of economic incentives.

One of the most famous people to use Taylor’s idea was Henry Ford, as by using scientific management he was able to construct one of the first, efficient, mass production factories for his cars. The idea was that each worker would be given one job and when they had done theirs the car would move along the conveyer to the next employee to complete their job. By doing this they were able to produce more cars each day.

Taylor’s scientific management has had some critics who have said that his theory, in some cases, contradicts itself and that it has been found to have fairly limited applications.

To day Taylor’s theory is still widely used in fast food restaurants and car factories to name a few.

Fayol’s Classical management theory was, in principle, like Taylor’s as Fayol also believed that the work a manager does could be looked at objectively, analysed and treated as a process. This was subject to certain principles, which could be taught.

His Theory was for a manager to use their resources to the best of their ability. To do this he stated that it would require the smooth running of these six key managerial areas:

Planning
Organising
Commanding
Co-ordinating
Forecasting
Controlling

The advantages of this type of management is that it shows the manager their key areas of management and help them plan they way they manage their workforce. The problem with the Classical management theory is that it assumes that employees will work harder to earn more, which is seen to day only in the form of a sales rep who will receive commission for every customer they sign up to the product/service they are selling.

Mayo discovered the power of communication between employees and their managers/employers. As by having ...

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Planning
Organising
Commanding
Co-ordinating
Forecasting
Controlling

Mayo discovered the power of communication between employees and their managers/employers. As by having good communication between the two he found that it helped minimise the negative ness of the workforce to words their employers. He also saw the importance of self esteem, group and individual work and how by using these principles businesses would be able to reach their objectives.

To day this is used in most big businesses in the form of employee appraisals, which are supposed to show the employee their achievements and that they are valued within the company.

McGregor noticed that not all employees worked the same. He found that some were reliable and would get on with the task they had been given and in some cases finish the task early. Where as other employees would regularly not work.

From this McGregor split the workforce into two groups. The groups were called:

Theory X – In this group he put all of the workers who didn’t work.
Theory Y – This group held all of the keen workers who would complete the tasks handed to them.

After the workforce was split he stated how to use each group to the best of its ability:

Theory X – To get these employees working the employee would have to assign a manager to them so they could watch over them to make sure that they were getting on with their work.
Theory Y – As this group held more trusted employees McGregor stated that they could be given more challenging tasks that would affect the business in a bigger way.

Rensis Likert identified four different types of management styles. These were:

Exploitative authoritarian – This is where the manager has no confidence or trust for their employees. They always enforce what and how the employees will work and will not delegate with employees. Along with this the manager also motivates their employees by using threats.

Benevolent autocracy – This type of manager has condescending respect and trust for their employees to get on with the job, but still will not delegate and imposes what each employee will do. An advantage is that this manager will, sometimes, allow small teams work on a problem and motivates by reward.

Consultative – the trust and respect between manager and employee is imperfect. The manager allows employees to take part in diction making though the manager has the last say, but uses the ideas put forward be the employees constructively. Motivation is achieved by incentive and involvement in team ideas.

Participative – the manager has total respect and trust for their employees. They allow the employees to work by themselves or in groups with minimal interference from the manager. Motivated employees are rewarded when they have achieved a goal set by participation. The manager helps their employees with their ideas and opinions.

A good and affective manager would have the best aspects from the consultative and participative styles. This is so they can deal with different employees needs in more of a constructive way as well as play a more supportive role when their employees are working on a problem.

Argyris, along with Donald Schon, produced a theory that managers fell into two different models

Model 1 – this manager does not like giving their employees the chance to put their ideas across and feels that they have to impose themselves on others to get their point across. The manager will only teach their employees how to conform, which is called single loop learning.

Model 2 – this manager is the exact opposite to a model 1 manager in the way they will allow and encourage employees to have their own ideas. Because of this they can adopt the double loop learning concept, which allows them to adapt or change in order to better help their employees and the business.

The systems approach is where a manager will view the company they work for as a whole as well as a part of a larger structure. The theory is that one organisation activity will affect all other aspects of the organisation directly or indirectly. This is why managers will bring together different aspects of the classical and human relations theorists in order to achieve the best result with their employees and for the organisation depending on the activity that they are working on.

The advantage to this type of manager is that they can adapt to any type of business environment quite easily thus they are an excellent example of an open systems process as they have to react to their environment in order to survive.

Contingency theory relates to the overall structure of the company and believes that one structure will fit each company. This is a theory that will not work as, even two companies about the same size and in the same market segment will not have the same structure. Some areas will be the same, like the structure of their customer service team, but the way in which customer’s queries or complaints are handled could be different.

Some companies could even have more than one structure in the form of, one as an overview of the whole company and a different structure for different departments.

McDonalds and Bodyshop

Here I will look at the management theorists that McDonalds and Bodyshop started with and whether they have changed over time.

McDonalds

The idea that McDonalds had was to provide quality fast food at a cheep price. At the start McDonalds was a complete success as demand for their product was enormous. The management used the scientific management theory by giving each member of staff a different job like a production line (e.g. One employee cooks the burgers and another puts the burgers in a bun).

At this time McDonalds didn’t give much respect to their work force as they used more of an exploitative authoritarian, management. This meant they didn’t trust their staff and gave them no chance to have an opinion of how McDonalds could improve its employee relations. As the businesses to the customer relations were going well the employee to McDonalds relations were not being looked at by management. As a result of this employee’s were leaving not long after they arrived.

To day McDonalds still use scientific management theory, but they use a more adapted version. This means that employees still are given small jobs that are repetitive, but they are trained to be able to do more than one. The reason for this is to increase the job satisfaction between employees as well as provide cover if an employee is ill. Also managers have adapted more of a Consultative approach to their employees as this allows them to have more interaction with employees as well as listen to their suggestions.

From what I have seen McDonalds are on the right track with the treatment it is now giving its staff and the only improvement I can see that may well help would be to bring in routine employee appraisals. This should help boost employee moral especially if there is an incentive for them to perform well and that they feel that any suggestions they put forward are listened to. The down side that McDonalds had is its employment history. As many people still think that it is a boring job, which is too repetitive and had no chance of promotion.

Bodyshop

The Bodyshop was started by Anita Roddick and her business idea was to sell non animal tested cosmetics on the high street. In the beginning Anita liked to go to the store and meet the employees in person to gain their respect as well as listen to their ideas. Anita did this as she felt that the individual employee was as important to the business as a top manager was.

When Bodyshop started opening up across the UK and Europe Anita had a problem in keeping up with visiting each new store. To combat this problem she decided to send out videos of her pep talk to each store. The down side to this was that she was unable to speak to the new employees face to face and gain each others trust and respect or find out their ideas for improvement.

To day Bodyshop has lost its employee friendly look and is more stakeholder driven. This means it Look’s more at making a profit than how to keep staff happy and in the diction making loop of the business.

For Bodyshop to improve it needs to go back to its employees and get them more involved in dictions at their store. Also it could give staff free samples of new products that they are bringing out, as when a customer comes in and enquires about it they can pass on the own experience of the product.

Conclusion

From this report I have seen that both Bodyshop and McDonalds have changed there management styles around. In McDonald’s cases they started off being customer orientated and didn’t look at their staff needs, but now have a more balanced approach. Whereas Bodyshop, who had a very good relationship with its employees, changed to become more interested in its profits.

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