Need a perfect paper? Place your first order and save 5% with this code:   SAVE5NOW

Solutions to Bad Management Theories in Business Organizations

Abstract

This paper discusses how ideology-based gloomy vision and pretense of knowledge have misled businesses in their quest for success and interventions that can reverse the trend. Bad management theories are ruining good management practices mainly because of partial analysis and unbalanced assumptions in research and business organizations. The methodology integrates argumentation theory which entails the use of the interdisciplinary study to reach findings from premises using logical reasoning and research. The finding and discussion section expound on the interventions: intuitive mindset, ethical and delightful organization, and reshaping business schools. The conclusion section finally emphasizes that interventions aimed to cure bad management theories must be carried out in business learning institutions and business organizations.

CHAPTER ONE: Introduction

This paper explores the deleterious implications of the ideology-based gloomy and pretense of knowledge concepts when integrated into daily business norms and operations and explicate various solutions that would cure flawed management theories that arise from such concepts. Lousy management theories have for decades posed detrimental effects on business cultures worldwide. Despite regulatory laws, protocols, and management theories, business governance is still marred by discrepancies resulting from ineffective theories that encourage insider trading, fraudulent activities, and misconduct by senior management, officers, line managers, and clerical staff(Ghoshal & education, 2005). Ghoshal criticizes academic business researchers for focusing on the “lack of impact of management research on management practice and the lack of effectiveness of management education for the business performance of students on economics and marketing as having a significant negative influence on management practices. (Ghoshal & education, 2005, p. 76).” He asserts that researchers often lose less upon implementing management theories than the organizations designed to consume these and may not be much concerned or aware of the detrimental implications the concept may have in an organization. They erroneously adopt a scientific approach (pretense of knowledge), and various pessimistic assumptions (ideology-based gloomy vision) further worsen the status of bad management practices.

The pretense of knowledge entails a scientific approach to discover laws and patterns that have supplanted all conception of human motives with a firm conviction that past events can explain all elements of business performance(Von Hayek, 1989). In other words, the theory posits that business is a science governed by psychological, social, and economic laws that frame people’s actions. According to Ghoshal, the concept eliminates any moral or ethical discourse that may emerge in an instance that a debate is required. For instance, private owners are often forced to make decisions solely to satisfy the shareholders and are unconcerned about the predicament of the other stakeholders in a firm. Goshal subsequently asserts that business should not be considered a science(Ghoshal & education, 2005, p. 77). He proposes that firms should use common sense regularly to gain an understanding of elements that define effective corporate governance and decision-making denotes by combining the information on “what is” with imagination on “what ought to be.”

The ideology-based gloomy vision concept is based on the idea that there is a pessimistic view of human nature, corporate adaptation, change processes, and corporate roles in society(Davies, 2010). These negative assumptions are ingrained in various influential business and management theories, and they frequently inhibit managers from playing a more hopeful role in society. Ghoshal believes that this pessimism has directly resulted in harmful management implications. In order to reverse the two concepts, Ghoshal posits that collegiate leaders should lead the operation and that some research ideologies of business in school settings should be retooled to concentrate more on the business management practices in their entirety alongside the ethics that underpin it(Ghoshal & education, 2005).

Problem Statement

The coexistence of pretense of knowledge and knowledge-based gloomy vision in organizations has led management research to make excessive truth claims premised on unbalanced assumptions and partial analysis. Because theories impact practice and managers adopt the theorists’ worldview, negative assumptions were gradually integrated into the management research and theories through the double hermeneutics process(Styhre, 2014). Consequently, the double hermeneutics has resulted in various viewpoints of management theories in practice and varying understandings of the authenticity of theoretical underpinnings in scientific management within academic circles(Ullah, Hassan, & Sabri, 2020). Driven by positive motives and deep-seated pretense-of-knowledge ideology, the leading management schools have initiated the scholarship of discovery, diminishing the significance of other types of scholarships (scholarship of integration (synthesis), scholarship of practice, and teaching pedagogy). In a dramatic turn of events, most other schools that happen to be followers, particularly in economies that lack managerial education tradition, have ended up interpreting the proposed paradigms wrongly.

Again, obsession with self-interest and skepticism for all management theories has made most managers puppets of intellectual slavery of “practical men”(Ghoshal & education, 2005). The cause-and-effect knowledge, mainly paradigmatic and not profoundly analytic, has occasionally given “practical managers” a stance when searching for effective approaches or, on the contrary, attempting to justify failures. Therefore, research intellectuals are left with nothing but a “cryptic puzzle” while evaluating whether the disastrous results in practice ought to be blamed on managers. If so, the concept raises other questions: Can a manager who is entrenched in old wrongful management practices that, according to him, have proven to be effective readily accept to trade them for new good theories? Should the practices be taught to other self-proclaimed managers with inadequate academic management backgrounds? Or should the practices be taught to students instead, focusing on their future effectiveness only? The last question creates a future predictable challenge when one considers that students ingrained with revised management theories may find themselves working under the self-centered manager in question, thereby being deprived of an opportunity to exercise the theories and consecutively leading to disagreement in the organization. Nevertheless, what the paper coins as a “cryptic puzzle” for theorists may turn out to be the easiest paradigm to solve because the hierarchical characteristics of management and the collective lack of transparent borders among levels, from tactical, operational, and strategic to governance, exposes ineffective leaders, including those with inadequate academic management backgrounds. The problems that cause bad management practices stem from two paradigms: Partial analysis and unbalanced assumptions.

Partial Analysis

Some management practices are acknowledged as true by teachers, author, and business students even before they are evaluated and implemented in business culture. The “Partial Analysis” refers to the lack of detailed empirical study before or after integrating such management theories in the business world(Ghoshal & education, 2005). This issue could be solved by incorporating a prerequisite structure that analyzes management theory from differing viewpoints such as culture diversification and values. This paper, therefore, emphasizes the need to recheck the managerial theories’ effectiveness, based on the proposition mentioned above, before they get integrated into business schools’ curricula and organizations.

Unbalanced Assumptions

These are the biased or unrealistic assumptions established while developing a management theory. It covers all assumptions regardless of whether a theorist defined them intentionally or unintentionally.

CHAPTER TWO: Literature Review

The behavior of business organizations and management has led to some negative significant impacts on management practice and has seen theorists and managers making some wrong moves based on unbalanced assumptions and partial analysis. Pfeffer and Sutton (2016) assert that the best available move should be adopted during the creation and implementation of management practices to ensure balanced assumptions where needed. The authors argue that if any adopted strategy fails to achieve its goals, it should be discarded or replaced. Rakesh Khurana (2010) argued that business learning institutions are to blame for the lack of effectiveness of management theories. According to Ghoshal (2005), the main problem with management theories is the lack of moral and ethical values. He further asserted that the theorist focuses on deleterious problems while overlooking positive ones and as theorists misunderstand such the intent theory development. Douglass (2016) posited that Boards of Directors and CEOs have been creating an economic loss for societies due to their self-interest intentions for the organization. Dumtiru et al. (2015) assert that “there is no policy to control or monitor the managers by the company’s shareholders, which increases the likelihood of a conflict of interest.” On the other hand, the author believed it was impossible to implement broadly accepted management theories in all organizations.

Literature Review Discussion

Pfeffer and Sutton(2016) explored seven integration principles that assist individuals and organizations dedicated to doing whatever it takes to be successful from evidence-based management: recognize the organization as an incomplete prototype; zero egos, just facts; perceiving yourself from form an outsider’s point of view; evidence-based management is for all, not just for senior managers; one needs to market the evidence-based management; if everything fails, slow the dispersion of poor practices; and the critical diagnostic concern: what pops up when people fail(Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006)? Three fundamental precepts can be deduced from the study: significant potential is either old-fashioned, incorrect, or both; successful organizations and leaders are more engaged in what is accurate than what is new; and those that do simplify, self-evident, and even seemingly minor things effectively will, in the end, outperform competitors who seek instant magic. They recommend, in particular, ensuring that one has identified cause and effect relationships when considering previous achievements, considering changing situations, and defining why the concept in question was practical before embracing it. They stress the need to challenge assumptions and define prerequisites for success. In other words, the emphasis is on providing plenty of substantiation for the significance of narrowly testing new ideas before implementing them, particularly in ways similar to the double-blind study used in scientific research.

Rakesh Khurana demonstrates that while university-based business programs were established to train future business managers, they have efficaciously slipped back from that objective, leaving a distended ethical hole at the core of business education and presumably in management itself(Khurana, 2010). Khurana begins evaluating the situation from the late 19th century, when stakeholders of an arising managerial elite, pursuing social status to match their power and wealth, began collaborating with major universities to create graduate business educational programs similar to medicine and law. In addition, making business, a profession necessitated codifying the knowledge relevant to practitioners and constructing properly enforced standards of conduct. According to Khurana, business schools have chiefly surrendered in the fight for competence and have devolved into sole peddlers of a product, the MBA, with students perceived as customers. Moral and professional ideals formerly inherent in business schools have been replaced by the view that managers are solely shareholders’ agents, indebted only to the cause of share profits. As a result, according to Khurana, we must not be astonished by the emergence of corporate fraud. He concludes that the time has come to revitalize our prospective business leaders’ moral and intellectual training.

Goshal contends that academic research on management and business conduct has had significant adverse effects on management practice. These influencing factors have been felt less at the level of theory implementation and more at the integration, within managers’ worldviews, of a system of concepts and unbalanced assumptions prevalent in management research and theories(Ghoshal & education, 2005). By conceptually disseminating influenced morally corrupt theories, business schools have assertively liberated their students from any concept of responsibility. Goshal argues that business school researchers have increasingly embraced the scientific model over the last five decades—a strategy that critic Friedrich A. Von Hayek nicknames “the pretense of science.” This ploy has necessitated surmising based on patriotization of analysis, the exclusion of any position for human intuition or preference, and the application of unbalanced assumptions and logical thinking. Because morality, or ethics, is inextricably linked to human intention, denying any ethical or moral facets in management theories has been an integral prerequisite for making business studies a science.

Dumitru asserts that despite the wide variety of policy initiatives and tools available to shareholders, all frameworks have inherent flaws that limit their potential application(Bosse & Phillips, 2016). From strong boards to the corporate structure, capital structure, managerial compensation packages, and market, all can mitigate the dispute between managers and shareholders to some extent but raise other conundrums regarding appropriateness and effectiveness, entailing further evaluation. There lacks a single solution for every environment, but instead, it is possible to evaluate a specific mix based on the specific environment of each company. So policymakers must consider all of the firm’s character traits before integrating a management theory in the organization.

Douglas proposes a change to one assumption that could have far-reaching consequences. Broadening on the implicit premise of self-interest, the author integrates an empirical evidence-based refinement that social rules of fairness and reciprocity constrain self-interest(Carausu & Law, 2015). According to the logic, fair perceptions mediate the relationships derived from standard agency theory via negative and positively common behavioral patterns. This mediating variable offers a simple new way to explain dramatic results found in other studies discussed in this section. For instance, instead of limiting CEOs’ egoism behavior, a business that adopts these viewpoints enhance social welfare by encouraging positive mutuality and avoiding excessive, welfare-reducing “vengeance” attitudes.

CHAPTER THREE: Methodology

This paper adopts philosophical investigation to find a solution to the research question: How and where to philosophically reverse the bad management practices that have become significantly embedded in business organizations and school institutions. In addition, there are various kinds of philosophical inquiry methodologies used throughout the entire discussion, such as logic, dialect, and argument. The nature of the philosophical inquiry determines the methodology of philosophical inquiry. This research used argumentative methodology. In an Argument methodology, the author provides viewpoints, or a set of arguments, to support the proposed solution. Such arguments can further back up or criticize past research findings.

CHAPTER FOUR: Findings and Discussions

Ghoshal’s unfortunate cycle has many victims. Morality, for example, is jeopardized when managers succumb to competition and market forces rather than adhering to their ethics(Ghoshal & education, 2005). The redefinition of the notion that a manager’s only social responsibility is to maximize profit, for example, may function to justify that a manager is shirking their duty to other stakeholders of the company or the community. The spread of lousy management theories has an overall detrimental effect on one’s common sense and company success. Managers may be aware that employees contribute more to their business (creativity, interrelations, and brand image) and are more challenging to replicate than ordinary stockholders, but they may unwaveringly prioritize stockholder participation and value over employees. Figure 1 (Goshal, 2005, p. 76) depicts how the pretense of knowledge and ideology-based vision destroys good practice in an organization.

Effects of the pretense of knowledge and ideology-based vision

Figure 1: Effects of the pretense of knowledge and ideology-based vision.

Regardless of the effect of lousy theory on managers’ morale and intuition, such theories persist despite contradictory evidence. Ghoshal observes that agency theory, which is notably used to encourage the interrelations of managers (agents) and shareholders (principals), would forecast the widening of boards of directors and the division of responsibilities between many chief officers in order to dilute power, all in the name of enhanced business efficiency(Ghoshal & education, 2005). Even though numerous studies have found no endorsement for the implications of such actions on achievement, agency theory is still widely promoted. Despite a long history of criticism, this unconditional support for institutionalized theories reflects the pervasiveness and power of globally acknowledged theories among business practitioners. Table 1 summarizes discrepancies associated with various management theories discussed and some interesting findings.

Table 1: Discrepancies in Different Management Theories

Discrepancies in Management Theories Findings
Stakeholder Theory
Conflict of interest Unbalanced assumptions regarding manager intentions and a lack of discussion about moral concerns
Transaction Cost Economics Theory
Wrong Assumptions and logic about organization and market. Instead of designing market economy theory, focus on the organizational economy.
Erroneous perception It is also coherent with stakeholder theory and can apply purposeful stakeholder theory.
Agency Theory
CEOs and boards of directors cause societal losses. Self-interest assumptions are constrained by prudent mutuality and equitable norms.
Absence of effective policies for shareholders to control and monitor managers. It is necessary to conduct a proper and person-environment assessment of its environment.

The Cure for Bad Management Theories

Intuitive Mindset

As corporate intellectuals, it is the responsibility of all researchers, senior faculty members and scholars to create an efficient framework that will lead to a practical theory design and development process. The framework should not only focus on organizations and managers but also on shareholders and their interests. This objective can easily be achieved by integrating intuition in business culture. Akinci et al. (2012) defined intuition as an accomplishable vital conceptual framework for the knowledge-based employee rather than a mystical process. Peter Drucker (2017) investigated how theoretical research strategies intersected with business issues about the most recent developments in technology and invention, revealing the aspects of intuition a manager must possess to become an idealistic example of effectual governing in a knowledge-based economy. Because intuitive decision stems from a combination of business intelligence, factual data, and a step-by-step learning process, Business schools can take the initiative to train learners to adopt an intuitive mindset before they land their career jobs. Once done, they can quickly assess future issues and problems with the aid of “intuition” in their careers, contributing to the identification and development of valid assumptions while implementing an effective practices in business management. Once again, the framework is dependent on the researcher’s intellectual capacity about the present and future conundrums of management strategies and practices, therefore the need for intuitive decision making.

The extent to which intuition in analytical thinking is applied or required is the significant difference between a person and the diverse work activities. Unlike scientists, executives do not often have the privilege of establishing decisions based on organized and sedately rational assessments but instead rely heavily on instinctive responses to situations that require emergent decision making and intricate judgments. From Goshal’s perspective, unbalanced and partial assumptions are the integral sources of lack of intuition in business culture(Ghoshal & education, 2005). An in-depth analysis of the intuitive mindset framework unearths even more complex questions: Do the trainers in institutions possess the intuitive decision-making skills to warranty effectiveness of the intuition concept? Do researchers and businesses develop such abilities? Do business schools acknowledge faculty members with efficient and effective intuition abilities?

To be candid, the complete responses to the above questions are not yet available, but researchers react to them in various ways. Sadler-Smith and Shefy (2004) asserted that informed intuition results from a long process and purposeful practice, perception, responses, and assessment. So from the perspective of the research, it improves with increased experience in the industry and, at the same time, knowledge gained during the tenure of developing skills. On the other hand, some experts described alternative methods for developing or recognizing intuition within one’s perspective. Kahneman and Klein (2009) identified the circumstances distinguishing intuitive expertise from indecisive and biased judgments. The notion of introducing the concept to business schools only, unfortunately, creates a closed-loop intuitive issue between intuition conception and intuition existence for managers who are past school training, since they would, initially, be required to have a baseline intuitive thinking to differentiate between intuition and being overly confident due to their self-esteem stance. Therefore, a second approach would be to arrange business conferences spearheaded by skilled business theorists and analysts to train managers and shareholders.

Ethical and Delightful Organization

One of the assertions articulated by Ghoshal was the absence of ethics and moral values in management theories or their exclusion by researchers(Ghoshal & education, 2005). As a result, employees and managers engage in “opportunistic behavior,” which harms the firm’s viability and effectiveness. Morality and ethics must have a predefined blueprint that the researcher should adhere to before or during the theory development stage. As Ghoshal discussed, business schools must keep striving to provide a more moral and ethical foundation for sustainable current and future research. The move may result in the fulfillment of all individuals, such as managers, shareholders, and the organization itself.

Bridging the gap requires that intellectuals go one step further and analyze ethical preconceptions in the subject theory before conveying it to their students. In a contemporary setting, the approach is the most significant and essential necessity for evaluating any theory using an ethical and moral framework(Janoušková, 2021). If the strategy is proven to fit effectively, it should immediately be embedded in business learning materials; otherwise, it should be discarded before it reaches the learning management system. Failure to adopt such a mechanism opens doors for a slow poison for the global economy, a red flag for the global financial crisis. Consequences may result in the economic system’s collapse, an increase in income inequality and unemployment, and the loss of business and investment opportunities. Nevertheless, how do we approach ethics to warrant good management theory?

Evaluating Ethics in Management Theory

Analyzing the ethical integration criteria raises another complex question: How do we determine the most effective ethical evaluation approach? So far, there is no entirely composed ethical assessment system in place to judge the presence or absence of ethical substance in the literature. This paper proposes a consequential and non-consequential as the integral ethical framework that business schools and theorists should use to evaluate the thesis’s ethical preconceived notion. The robust framework defines the rightness or wrongness of specific actions occurring due to that action and is divided into utilitarianism, egoism, and Hedonism(Schwartz, 2007). On the other hand, a no-consequential framework assesses the rightness or wrongness of specific actions based on attributes inherent in the action rather than its implications. Both ethical frameworks’ principles are designed to bring about happiness to the general population rather than individuals and institutions within moral-ethical restrictions. Table 2 further classifies the two ethical models into subcategories as follows:

Table 2: Theorists’ Ethical Requirements

Consequentialism Non-Consequentialism
Utilitarianism Egoism Hedonism Deontology Virtue

Source: (Knights & O’Leary, 2006).

Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is an ethical principle that endorses activities that promote pleasure or happiness while disputing activities that cause discontentment or harm. A utilitarian ideology would focus on the benefit of the adopted ethical strategy to learning institutions or business organizations as a whole. According to utilitarianism, an action is right if it results in the contentment of the most significant amount of people in a society or group(Knights & O’Leary, 2006). For management theories, the implications of utilitarianism are significant in determining the external and internal business environment, which often lead to a global economic downturn. It is, therefore, a necessity of today’s business world to integrate such practices that benefit the majority rather than a sizeable subset. If ethics and utilitarianism co-exist in an organization, the issue of morality and ethics in management is largely settled.

Egoism. Ethical egoism is a prescriptive ethical position that contends moral agents should act in their self-interest(Bowie, 2001). The instant appeal of ethical egoism within business ethics appears to have been that ethical egoism concentrates on what would be best for the company. For instance, companies solely concerned with profit maximization appear to be acting in line with ethical egoism. On the other hand, rational egoism emphasizes that any adopted strategy in an organization must be rational to maximize self-interest. According to management theory, perspectives emphasizing selfishness are more dangerous than proposals that participate in activities that aim to eradicate self-interest. Individualism, rather than pluralism, is the issue in the corporate world. The competitive rivalry has killed several businesses, causing unemployment and other issues. How is it possible for anyone to work without a standard of ethics solely for self-interest to be ethical? The emphasis for businesses is that they must move forward with healthy competition rather than a deleterious egoism approach for the betterment of the business field. In other words, any management based on individualism or self-interest must be avoided.

Hedonism. The theory asserts that pleasure, or the absence of pain, is the most crucial concept in defining the morality of a prospective course of action. In Hedonism, justification for measuring inherent happiness and sadness is absent, which necessitates the critical attention of intellectuals in order to uphold the concept(Tiberius & Hall, 2010). Hedonism in theoretical management approaches is unresolvable because it does not explicate where, for instance, a shareholder will spend his profits; whether they choose to live a rational life and raise their standard of living by increasing their purchasing power, or whether they choose to waste their money in drugs or casinos. On the other hand, it remains a cryptic puzzle on society’s reactions in an instance that the firms’ revenues fall and salaries begin to accrue. Either the society will act constructively or initiate a protest against the government. The incorporation of Hedonism in management theories cannot be addressed until the evaluation of the society’s integral happiness, or sadness is present. Overall, some theoretical ethical approaches fulfill personal satisfaction, whereas other ethical theories stress overall benefit for most people; therefore, the collective benefit character traits of ethical theories should be embedded in management theories. If any theoretical ethical framework loses the characteristics of collective benefits, the self-interest concept will jeopardize quality management practices.

Culture Diversion Effects. Culture shapes how local values influence the aspects of global business ethics. Each professional is affected by the beliefs, experiences, the social programming they were exposed to since childhood. These collaborative factors influence how people comprehend an issue and the resulting Right or wrong behavior. Business management theorists grew up in a specific society during a specific period, and as such, their ideologies are bound to reflect the nature of their surroundings(G. J. A. P. j. o. m. Hofstede, 1984). This leads one to realize that multiple theories are influential in one society but significantly ineffective in another, mainly due to work environment, demographic representation, cultural norms, business structure, and diversification. In other words, management practices are primarily influenced by the country’s economic status and educational system. Therefore, the management theory ought to be multicultural. If not, the practices should be confined to specific regions only. Avoiding such theories that are not culturally diverse and rich is an integral part of influential management theories since managers of multinational companies will constantly be challenged to adopt culturally diversified practices if they come from different regions. Again, all business schools must evaluate theories to determine their scale range in terms of the “culturally rich” concept before allowing them to be used in teaching and dismissing those that fail the diversification test.

Evaluation of Cultural Effects in Management TheoryEvaluating cultural diversion effects necessitates acknowledging culture as a pattern of thoughts and feelings that encompasses mental programming that distinguishes between members of a particular group. Mental programming comprises ideas, and associated values are preserved and passed down through generations. Geert Hofstede asserted five aspects that identify a country’s management and social culture: power distance, masculinity, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and students’ values. He also proved that the first four dimensions presented 49% of the variance, while 51% is unique to particular countries(G. J. O. r. i. p. Hofstede & culture, 2011). Because of these dimensions, management theories are not universally influential, and this is one of the principal reasons for the failure of good management practices around the world. This paper explicates the first four dimensions to assess the cultural impact of management theories; the fifth entails the students’ values, which are a very diverse concept, and by evaluating the rise in acquiring partial qualifications from home country and remaining from abroad, one cannot efficaciously assess their values.

Power Distance. The dimension refers to the extent of disparity – and is accepted – between people in power and those without power. A high PDI score means that people accept unequal, stratified power distribution and understand “their place” in the system. On the other hand, a low PDI score indicates that power is shared and widely spread and that members of society do not acknowledge unequal power distribution. According to the concept, team members in a high-power distance country, such as Malaysia (100), will not implement any action and prefer to be guided and directed to accomplish tasks(Matusitz & Musambira, 2013). If a manager does not take charge, employees may believe that the task is unimportant.

Table 3: Power Distance index

Power Distance Index (PDI) Characteristics Tips
High PDI · Centralized organizations

· Complex hierarchies

· There are significant disparities in authority, compensation, and respect.

· Recognize a leader’s position. One may try to subvert their power as an impartial observer, but one should not expressly oppose them.

· Be informed that one may need to go all the way to the top to find answers.

Low PDI · Flatter organizations

· Employees and supervisors are treated almost equally.

· Delegate as much as one can.

· Involve everyone whom the outcome in the decision-making process will directly impact.

If a management theory has its origins in Europe, for instance, it is the responsibility of the theorists to assess the impact of power distance on that theory. Understanding its applicability and universality would be beneficial. Furthermore, the theory describing different power distance occurrences should include this information.

Individualism vs. Collectiveness. Individualism entails the extent to which a country’s citizens tend to act independently rather than as a group. Individualism may dissuade collectivism in countries where it predominates other dimensions. In some nations, collectivism, rather than individualism, may be the norm(G. J. A. o. M. P. Hofstede, 1993). A high IDV rating reflects a lack of interpersonal relationships among those not belonging to a fundamental “family.” People here take less responsibility for what happened and the results of others. People in a collectivist society, on the other hand, are expected to be responsible to the group in a swap for the group defending their interests. Typically, the group is more extensive, and people assume accountability for one another’s well-being.

Table 4: Individualism vs. Collectiveness

Individual versus Collectiveness (ICV) Characteristics Tips
High ICV · People’s time is highly valued, as is their need for freedom and privacy.

· There is a desire for challenges and the anticipation of intrinsic rewards for hard work.

· Privacy must be respected.

· Recognize individual achievements.

· Do not overburden with work and social activities.

· Encourage people to argue and express their ideas.

Low ICV · The emphasis is on developing skills and being a master of something.

· People work for self-satisfaction.

· Harmony and unity among group members take precedence over the other moral concerns.

· Wisdom is essential.

· Suppress emotions and feelings that could jeopardize harmony.

· Negative criticism should be avoided in public.

· Saying “No” is discouraged unless it is meant to be polite. It is normal to decline an open invite several times.

Theorists should put management concepts to the test to see if they favor individualism or collectivism to determine where specific theories are suitable and where they are not.

Masculine vs. Feminine (MAS). The dimension entails the gender roles assigned to women and men in an organization. In masculine cultures, men’s and women’s roles intertwine less, and men are supposed to be naturally assertive. Demonstrating one’s success necessitates being solid and quick, and those who adopt the notion are equated with positive characteristics. However, and ironically, in feminine cultures, there is considerable overlap in the roles of men and women, and modesty is seen as a virtue. The conclusion, therefore, is that values such as performance, assertiveness, attention, and success are often associated with men’s roles, whereas women are seen to be good in maintaining warm service relationships, services, care, and solidarity. If a management theory emerges in a masculine society, a theorist must assess its impact in a feminine society.

Take the case of Japan and Sweden, for instance. Sweden has the smallest MAS value of five, while Japan has the highest MAS score of 95(Wangwacharakul, Berglund, Harlin, & Gullander, 2014). Accordingly, opening an office in Japan necessitates recognizing that its operation will likely adopt hierarchical and traditionally patriarchal strategies due to the nature of the society. Long working hours are the norm, which is unconducive for female team members due to family obligations. On the other hand, Sweden is notably a feminine society, and as such, people concentrate on managing through debate, compromise, consensus, and negotiation.

Table 5: Masculine and Feminine

Masculine vs. Feminine (MAS) Characteristic Tips
High MAS · Status is associated with solid egos, feelings of importance, and pride.

· Money and success are essential.

· Acknowledge the possibility and implications of gender roles being assigned differently.

· Recognize the risks and opportunities associated with a long working hours culture.

· People are motivated by specific goals and demonstrate that they have met them as a group or as individuals.

Low MAS Relationship-focused/consensual.

A quality life is emphasized.

· Collaboration, negotiation, and contribution from all levels are likely to result in success.

· Avoid the masculine mentality, which may still exist.

· Work-life balance and workplace flexibility may be significant in an organizational environment, job design and culture, and the most acceptable way to implement performance management.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index. The dimension explains people’s ability to cope with anxiety both in a structured and unstructured situation. People in societies with a high Avoidance Of uncertainty score try to make life as controllable and predictable as possible(Matusitz & Musambira, 2013). If they discover that they are unable to control their own lives, they may be tempted to give up and sometimes may tie their fate “in the hands of God.”

Table 6: Uncertainty Avoidance Index

Uncertainty Avoidance Index

(UAI)

Characteristics Tips
High UAI · Conservative, strict, and structured, unless the risk of failure necessitates a more flexible approach.

· There are numerous societal conventions.

· People are expressive, and it is acceptable for them to direct their displeasure or emotions when necessary.

· A highly energetic society makes people feel in control of what happens rather than being overwhelmed by life’s ups and downs.

· Be clear and precise about your goals and expectations, and set well-defined parameters. However, wherever possible, encourage creativity and discussion.

· Acknowledge the need to learn unarticulated rules or social norms.

· Recognize that emotion, rage, and ferocious hand gestures may be unavoidable parts of the conversation.

Low UAI · Open-mindedness to innovation and any slight change, as well as general inclusiveness

· More open to unstructured learning or decision-making.

· The minimal feel of urgency.

· Make sure everyone is focused, but do not impose too much structure.

· Because titles are less important, refrain from “showing off” your experience or knowledge.

· Respect is only accorded to those who can cope in any situation.

Deontology. The dimension entails the test of whether or not a person is coherent in their duties without necessarily evaluating the implications of a specific act required to perform. It describes which decisions are morally forbidden, required, or permitted. In other words, deontology belongs to the category of ethical theories that guide and evaluate our decisions about what we ought to do (deontic theories) instead of those that guide and evaluate the implications of one’s action. For instance, theorists and organizations cannot make specific wrongful decisions even if doing so lowers the amount of those specific kinds of wrongful choices. The conformity of a preference with a moral norm, according to such deontologists, is what makes it suitable. Such standards are to be abided by each moral agent; each agent does not maximize them. Such deontologists assert that the Right takes precedence over the Good in this sense. If an act is not following the Right, it may not be performed, regardless of the Good that it may produce.

Virtue. Aristotle postulates eighteen virtues that allow an individual to perform his purpose efficiently and effectively within an ethical model. If the theorist proposes management theory, they must test the extrinsic and intrinsic virtues within the context. If such virtues are available, the outcomes will undoubtedly be favorable. The virtue ethics explicated by Aristotle should be indispensable in management theory literature for the advancement of management strategies, as it will aid in incorporating the moral and ethical facets with working practices. Furthermore, virtue should be differentiated from deontology because deontology is an “enforceable” job regardless of consequences, whereas virtue is not.

Reshaping Business Schools

The proposed solution to this devastating disease is nothing short of a complete critical rethinking of business school education’s emphasis and tireless practice. Perhaps the most contentious assertion of management theory is that academics, as the primary proponents of flawed theories, are primarily responsible for this self-perpetuating loop. As a result, any meaningful cure will necessitate a fundamental reassessment and modification of the concept and role of corporate governance by analyzing and implementing theories such as stewardship theory with the same rigor and scrutiny as agency theory.

Incorporating content-related changes in academic institutions would necessitate foundational changes in the management of business schools. The methods for training Ph.D. students and the publishing requirements for tenure would need to be rethought. Senior management at academic institutions may have to take the lead in creating a better commitment to appropriate research paths—an effort that may enrage intellectuals within their organization and beyond. Furthermore, peer-reviewed academic journals would have to reconsider their publishing eligibility requirements in order to accommodate new and as-yet unexplored assumptions and viewpoints, as well as a more comprehensive, more generalized spectral range of business institution contributions. Corporate sectors should step into the game to fund business institutions. Adequate funds would encourage further unbiased research on how to reverse the trend of lousy management theories.

CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusion

For decades, theorists, philosophers, and critical analysts have been ingrained with the idea of an effectual process of developing a practical management theory for the whole world. However, there is still a lack of any prevalent method for assessing the proposed management theories. Theorists and Organizations have focused on the negative concerns that they have forgotten to cement the positive virtues, thereby leading to the ineffectiveness of the existing and already implemented management theories.

This paper proposes that an intuitive mindset is one of the integral parts of reversing the trend. It, further emphasizes business learning institution and businesses organizations as integral areas that can integrate effective interventions to reverse the lousy state of management theories. A good theorist must possess the ability to grasp a situation or information without requiring conscious reasoning, especially when facts are inaccessible or decisions are challenging to make, and must be in a position to evaluate the ever-changing economy to forecast gauge mitigate future challenges. The concept is essential in establishing balanced assumptions as opposed to unbalanced assumptions. The integration of intuitive skills will close the loopholes formed by combining “the pretense of knowledge” and “the ideology-based Gloomy Vision.”

On the other hand, business schools need to be retooled to evaluate every management theory from the viewpoints of ethics and culture. The theorists need to evaluate whether any management theory in question integrates ethical norms, such as cultural diversification, that benefit many people rather than individuals. It should be universally acceptable if it has such characteristics that do not distinguish it from other societies; otherwise, it will be implemented in specific societies with different hermeneutics depending on the region.

Upon reshaping business institutions to integrate the discussed elements in management theories, the corporate organizations need to step in to fund business schools to eliminate the issues of ineffective business managers in the future. Such a move enables the Business School to function as an active research organization since there is a pool of funds to spend on researchers to evaluate and readjust any aspects of a “would-be-bad” theory during the initial evaluation stages. This process will allow academicians to prevent the publishing of useless theories because they lack ethical or cultural richness. If they are published in any book, professors and other faculty and staff will teach them using different pedagogy because these theories will have different theories consequences in different situations.

References

Bosse, D. A., & Phillips, R. A. J. A. o. m. r. (2016). Agency theory and bounded self-interest. 41(2), 276-297.

Bowie, N. E. (2001). Challenging the egoistic paradigm. In The Next Phase of Business Ethics: Integrating Psychology and Ethics: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Carausu, N. J. J. o. P. A., Finance, & Law. (2015). Monitor and control in companies: An agency theory approach. (special), 46-60.

Davies, J. J. I. J. o. S. D. S. (2010). Management theory: A systems perspective on understanding management practice and management behavior. 1(3), 33-48.

Ghoshal, S. J. A. o. M. l., & education. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. 4(1), 75-91.

Hofstede, G. J. A. o. M. P. (1993). Cultural constraints in management theories. 7(1), 81-94.

Hofstede, G. J. A. P. j. o. m. (1984). Cultural dimensions in management and planning. 1(2), 81-99.

Hofstede, G. J. O. r. i. p., & culture. (2011). Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. 2(1), 2307-0919.1014.

Janoušková, S. (2021). The scientific thinking and reasoning framework and its applicability to manufacturing and services firms in natural sciences. 1-22.

Khurana, R. (2010). From higher aims to hired hands: Princeton University Press.

Knights, D., & O’Leary, M. J. J. o. B. E. (2006). Leadership, ethics and responsibility to the other. 67(2), 125-137.

Matusitz, J., & Musambira, G. J. J. o. T. i. H. S. (2013). Power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and technology: analyzing Hofstede’s dimensions and human development indicators. 31(1), 42-60.

Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. I. (2006). Hard facts, dangerous half-truths, and total nonsense: Profiting from evidence-based management: Harvard Business Press.

Schwartz, M. J. J. o. M. H. (2007). The “business ethics” of management theory.

Styhre, A. (2014). Management and neoliberalism: Connecting policies and practices: Routledge.

Tiberius, V., & Hall, A. J. T. J. o. P. P. (2010). Normative theory and psychological research: Hedonism, eudaimonism, and why it matters. 5(3), 212-225.

Ullah, M. A., Hassan, M., & Sabri, R. J. D. (2020). Ethics, Intuition and Cultural Richness in Management Theories”. 15(3).

Von Hayek, F. A. J. T. A. E. R. (1989). The pretence of knowledge. 79(6), 3-7.

Wangwacharakul, P., Berglund, M., Harlin, U., & Gullander, P. J. Q. i. p. (2014). Cultural aspects when implementing lean production and lean product development–experiences from a Swedish Perspective. 18(1), 125-140.

Drucker, P. (2017). Concept of the Corporation. Routledge.

Akinci, C., & Sadler‐Smith, E. (2012). Intuition in management research: A historical review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 14(1), 104-122.

Sadler-Smith, E., & Shefy, E. (2004). The intuitive executive: Understanding and applying ‘gut feel’in decision-making. Academy of Management Perspectives, 18(4), 76-91.

Kahneman, D., & Klein, G. (2009). Conditions for intuitive expertise: a failure to disagree. American psychologist, 64(6), 515.

 

Don't have time to write this essay on your own?
Use our essay writing service and save your time. We guarantee high quality, on-time delivery and 100% confidentiality. All our papers are written from scratch according to your instructions and are plagiarism free.
Place an order

Cite This Work

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

APA
MLA
Harvard
Vancouver
Chicago
ASA
IEEE
AMA
Copy to clipboard
Copy to clipboard
Copy to clipboard
Copy to clipboard
Copy to clipboard
Copy to clipboard
Copy to clipboard
Copy to clipboard
Need a plagiarism free essay written by an educator?
Order it today

Popular Essay Topics