Executive Summary
Management plays a vital role in business organizations towards realizing their set objectives. While project management methodologies are gaining popularity and significance inside businesses, they are a difficult job. Implementing an efficient project management technique may boost your company’s value, profit generation, and management operations efficiency. Appropriate project management techniques are critical to ensuring a project’s effectiveness. This paper will explain the management literature review and how it relates to engineering management. The Koontz management jungle theory Koontz defines management as the process of accomplishing things through and with the cooperation of persons working in technically defined groups and provides new insight into management. Koontz explains that administration creates an environment through structured movement where people can act autonomously while cooperating to attain company goals.
Koontz’s management jungle hypothesis has several implications for engineering management. Given the mental strain that contributed to the management jungle, it is advisable to evaluate these entanglements to mitigate future adverse effects on engineering management principles. There is no unanimity on the definitions of administration, organization, governance, interaction, and interpersonal interactions in the linguistics jungle. The absence of an accurate description of the term management by various engineering scholars may create uncertainty about engineering management. As a result, the tasks of an engineer manager may be unclear, resulting in inefficient project management by managers. The project’s description must be broken into a comprehensive description accompanied by complete task deliverables. Operating security and ecological sustainability must be appropriately integrated into the engineering framework, which is challenging without a specific concept of engineering management. For example, the operations manager, project coordinator, and entrepreneur must painstakingly document, assess, and approve each project bundle.
Introduction
Management serves a societal purpose. Its objective is to guarantee that corporations achieve their objectives and function well. However, other organizations carry out this duty in their unique way. Business organizations are confident that effectiveness requires cost management, internal environment, or accomplishment by applying previously successful concepts and activities and strategic conservatism (Tereso et al., 2019). While project management approaches are rising in prominence and significance within enterprises, they constitute a challenging activity. According to Tereso et al. (2019), applying excellent project management methodology results in increased corporate value, increased profit generation, and more effective management operations. To guarantee the effectiveness of a project, appropriate project management methods are essential (Tereso et al., 2019). Numerous studies have been undertaken to illustrate project management’s benefits, and this research is not different as it endeavors to provide a deeper understanding of how management relates to engineering project management. This paper aims to review the literature surrounding management and creating a relationship between leadership, Harold Koontz’s management theory jungle, and engineering management.
Literature Review
Different authors and studies have given various descriptions of the term management. The term ‘management’ has had a variety of connotations. At times, it relates to the procedure of budgeting, administering, hiring, supervising, regulating, and monitoring. In other scenarios, it is used to describe the function of human resource management. Some define managing as a style of leadership and judgment, while others view it as an economic resource, a determinant of success, or an authoritative system. Griffin (2021) describes management as a collection of actions that include strategizing and decision-making, and coordinating aimed at a company’s resources, including personnel, fiscal, material, and information resources, to attain organizational goals, aims, and objectives. Follett describes management as the technique of accomplishing goals via the efforts of others (Damart & Adam-Ledunois, 2017). Damart and Adam-Ledunois (2017) further enumerate that Follett defines management as the art of coordinating the activity of other people to accomplish organizational goals. It implies that a manager performs just a directing duty. However, Damart and Adam-Ledunois (2017) insinuate that contemporary scholars do not consider coordination distinct managerial roles.
Managing entails forecasting and planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. Management, according to Fayol, is a mechanism comprised of five operations: designing, structuring, regulating, integrating, and monitoring (Poperwi, 2018). According to Barry M. Richman, management includes synchronizing physical and human resources to achieve corporation goals and administrating the productive processes necessary to accomplish declared or accepted macroeconomic aims (Opeyemi & Ajeh, 2020). The administration’s role is to effectively integrate the institution’s varied components to achieve business objectives. The above descriptions imply that the convergence of numerous production factors is crucial for a firm’s effective operation, and the administration is responsible for this duty (Opeyemi & Ajeh, 2020). F.W Taylor defines management as the skill of determining how to accomplish predetermined goals most efficiently and cost-effectively as possible (Armstrong, 2018). Furthermore, Armstrong (2018) enumerates that Taylor defines administration as the technique of maximizing output at the lowest possible cost to benefit companies, personnel, and the broader population. As a collaborator in business, the public should profit from the success of the enterprise.
Management is the practice of accomplishing goals by and with the cooperation of members of formally constituted groups. Koontz has stressed that administration is about performing tasks with the participation of the entire workforce (Gustiawan, 2018). Concerning the professional’s basis of comparison, Koontz describes management as the process of completing tasks through and with individuals in technically established groups (Gustiawan, 2018). Additionally, Gustiawan (2018) enumerates that Koontz explains that administration builds an atmosphere with an organized movement where employees can act independently while cooperating to accomplish organizational objectives. Koontz introduced a new concept in management as described in his management jungle theory (Gustiawan, 2018). Koontz was concerned with the growth of more great schools of administration theory and the inclination for these schools to devalue prior contributions to assert the uniqueness of their current or differentiated methodology. The management jungle theory highlighted the difference in thought and ideologies that the various schools of management had.
Koontz classified management theory’s fundamental schools into six broad categories. First, the management process school considered management a technique of completing tasks through structured groupings of individuals. This school, founded by Henri Fayol, felt the management approach to integrate experience for the sake of performance, investigation, and education (Koontz, 1961). Second, the empirical school established management as a reflection of reality. Koontz cites Ernest Dale’s analytical technique to illustrate a methodology that entails case research and analysis (Koontz, 1961). The underlying concept is that conclusions can be made from specific instances and used as guidelines in comparable situations (Koontz, 1961). Third, the human behavior school had a core that, because management entails completing tasks with other individuals, the management framework must be oriented on interpersonal connections (Koontz, 1961). Their idea is centered on the person’s motivations as a socio-psychological entity. The method is often known as human interactions, management, or cognitive science (Koontz, 1961). This school lays a premium on examining interpersonal and intrapersonal occurrences, ranging from the movements of individual personalities to the relationships between civilizations.
Fourth, proponents of management hypotheses social system philosophy consider administration as a social structure. The social model school examines the characteristics of diverse social organizations’ cultural links and how they are connected and interconnected. Their task involved a theory of collaboration that serves as the foundation for researching numerous others in this movement (Koontz, 1961). Fifth, the decision theory school of administration focuses on a scientific method of decision-making through the analysis of different alternatives or action plans (Koontz, 1961). It evolved from economic methodological approaches such as value maximization, indifference distributions, marginal benefits, and threat and uncertainty-averse economic behavior as the primary concern (Koontz, 1961). Lastly, management is viewed mathematically in the statistical school of management as a set of mathematical concepts and procedures (Koontz, 1961). This category comprises operations and administration scientists; however, Koontz emphasizes that arithmetic is a technique, not an institution.
Koontz further describes the primary data of mental tension that contribute to the jungle of management theory. First, considering the linguistics jungle, there is no consensus on the definitions of administration, structure, governance, interaction, and interpersonal relationships (Koontz, 1961). Second, there are variances in how the administration is defined as a base of information. What does administration entail? What is the definition of a manager? If leadership is everything and everyone is a manager, how can the management framework be considered relevant or experimental? (Koontz, 1961). Third, the preconceived claim excluded other schools by dismissing the ideas of Fayol, Urwick, Mooney, and Gulick on the basis that they were medieval theologians. Fourth, a lack of grasp of fundamental rules, such as uncertainty about the credibility of concepts such as command structure and breadth of authority. Finally, management scientists’ incapacity or reluctance to communicate with one another.
Engineering management is a specific type of management necessary to lead architecture effectively or engineering teams and initiatives. Engineering managers leverage their education and expertise to coach, advice, and drive technical staff (Uribe et al., 2018). The administration of information, expertise, instruments, and procedures to project efforts to attain the project’s objectives is project management. Due to the enormous increment in the number of projects conducted by enterprises, project administration has become a useful technique for most businesses (Uribe et al., 2018). Project management operates independently of other disciplines, with its information base, principles, structures, approaches, and schools of thought (Uribe et al., 2018). Some organizations facilitate the development and adoption of organizational structures. Producers’, scientists’, experts, institutions, and public-sector organizations’ connections serve as intermediaries for extrapolating and profiting from these concepts (Uribe et al., 2018). Additionally, the presence of project participants aids in the standardization of project management.
Koontz’s management jungle theory could affect engineering management in a variety of ways. Considering the mental tension that contributed to the management jungle, it is prudent to consider these entanglements to reduce future impacts on engineering management concepts. The following are some of how Koontz’s management jungle theory could impact engineering management concepts. First, considering the linguistics jungle, there is no consensus on the definitions of administration, structure, governance, interaction, and interpersonal relationships. The lack of an accurate description of the term management by different scholars in engineering could stir up confusion on what engineering management is.
As such, the roles of an engineer manager may not be clearly defined, leading to the ineffectiveness of project management carried out by managers. Describing the project’s description must be decomposed into a facility project scope statement, which detailed task deliverables must accompany. Operating security and environmental protection must be adequately incorporated within the engineering framework, which would be difficult without a precise definition of engineering management. For instance, each project package must be meticulously documented, evaluated, and authorized by the operations manager, project coordinator, and entrepreneur. This context description package serves as the foundation for calculating the project’s final cost. Without a clear semantic jungle, the engineering management concept would lack meaning and derail engineering management projects.
Second, the distinctions in how management is defined as a body of knowledge significantly differ among management theorists. According to Koontz (1961), the first step is determining the management domain. Koontz (1961) designated management in terms of the professional’s conceptual framework as the craftsmanship of completing tasks through and with participants in expressly established groups in which people can operate independently to achieve organizational aims. Theorists must avoid conflating tools and content while constructing the body of knowledge of administration theory Koontz (1961). Engineering management is a broad concept and includes project management tools such as diagrams of networks, critical chain methodology, approach for project monitoring and analysis, responsibility matrix, and design specifications Koontz (1961). However, these engineering management tools are often confused with content or the body of knowledge of engineering management. Therefore, how and what makes the body of knowledge of engineering management would limit the prospective management engineers on what they should comprehend and understand.
Third, Koontz’s management jungle theory stipulates that the management scholars’ incapability or absolute refusal to communicate with one another regarding the management theory has derailed developments in the field of management. However, most engineering management theorists have developed engineering management theories that help transform theoretical notions into practical implementations that meet human requirements (Sheng & Lin, 2018). Engineering may be defined as an organizational technique for planning, designing, developing, producing, maintaining, and using complex artifacts methodically, economically, and effectively.
Thus, engineering management is defined as an organizational system that enables productive teamwork. For example, many engineering theories and models have had homogeneous expectations of engineering and have not developed a cohesive idea over time. According to the coordinative labor institutional theory for engineering management, to adequately comprehend fundamental engineering management challenges, the principles of group cooperation must be thoroughly researched (Russell et al., 2017). On the other hand, the quality assurance concept in engineering management delves into human mistakes and the collective procedures that contribute to client satisfaction in engineering management (Wilson & Campbell, 2020). Thus, human resources are a continuous limitation in nearly all branches of science and engineering and the most agile and responsive aspects to consider while optimizing projects.
Conclusion
In conclusion, different arguments and methodologies have been offered in management to address human and organizational difficulties. Despite the restrictions that have resulted in the proliferation of ideas, notable accomplishments have been documented, and other hypotheses are predicted to develop. The emergence of hypotheses reflects the alterations associated with the natural environment, which risks management concepts’ effectiveness. Koontz’s attempt to combine administration with other fields is not suited to tackling organizational challenges as a distinct and self-contained research subject. As such, the engineering project management concepts are impacted to the point of derailing engineering projects.
References
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