Management Is An Art Or Science Essay

The concept of management is universal and very old. That is why different views have been expressed about its nature by different writers from time to time. According to my personal opinion management has element of both art and science. Management as an Art Art refers to the way of doing specific things; it indicates how an object can be achieved. Art is a combination of knowledge and skills. Art keeps changing and basically is the application of theoretical principles by science to get excellent results. Management at times is described as an art that how managerial principles can be applied in real world situations, it consists of the following aspects: Practical knowledge: Managers do have practical knowledge of the domain, also they know how to apply it. they know the pros and cons of any act as they know that only knowledge is not enough, but one should know how to apply it as well. Personal Skills: Peculiar abilities which you own are not held by every other person. E.g. Painters paint the similar things in a different manner. It varies from person to person. Some may paint it effectively while others may not catch attention. Similarly every manager has personal skills as well while applying managerial principles, on the basis of his experience which might fetch better results or fail. Creativity: The act if making something in a efficient way and a different manner, and using it in such a way to manage, is creativity. it is based in creativity and intelligence of a person. Vision is definite and based on the facts, it is one’s destiny. Management is also a collection of human and non human resources by using them in a different manner to achieve desired objectives. Practice: Practice makes man perfect. No one is born a true artist. in the same way, no one learns to manage right out of the womb. they furnish their skills over the time through practice. Goal oriented: Managerial activities are always goal based, directed towards achievement of results. for this very purpose, various resources human and non human resources are blended so the ability of managers of using available resources brings it near to arts. Management as Science Management as a Science: Science may be described as a systematized body of knowledge based on proper findings and exact principles and is capable of verification Science is extraordinary. With the aid of science, we can visualize matter across 37 orders of magnitude, from the largest galactic cluster to the smallest known particle . When science is done correctly, it can advise us in all of our day-to-day decisions and actions. Science is a method of doing things. It is the organized, systematic enterprise that gathers knowledge about the world and condenses the knowledge into testable laws and principles. The origin of a modern science of management can be traced to the work of Frederick Taylor (1911) and Luther Gulick (1937). The science of management and administration has become a principal component of management theory and practice in the recent year. Management known as a science because it focuses on the following Principles: management comprises of universally accepted principles, that is why a many believe that it is a science. E.g. rewarding and employee for good performance. Experimentation and observation: First, managers observe some new techniques then employ them in business to check results, so they can eventually be adopted or avoided. Cause and effect relation: Science is based on cause and effect relationship as it is always based on finding relationships between the variables. E.g. heating a metal. Satisfactory performance of employees in any organization is a result of a positive working condition and the two variables are performance and working conditions. Test of validity and predictability: Validity means soundness. in science soundness of the scientific principles can be verified at any given time and they provide similar results every time and in near future probable events can be predicted by using such principles. In management the validity of principles can be established by applying them in different solutions and matching the outcome with the original result. For example, one of the principles in Management is unity of command. if it is tested in a situation  where an employee has to work under two bosses and in situation where employee has to perform under 1 boss, their performance will be different from each other. Conclusion- Management is an Art and Science Both So, I conclude that management is an art and science both. Management is the art and science of preparing, organizing and directing human efforts to control the forces and utilize the natural resource and time for the benefit of men. Thus, it has now been accepted that management is an art as well as science. It has the elements of both arts and science, but some people think management is indeed a science, because of the scientific principles and rules that exist and that can be applied for improving the productivity and efficiency of organizations, profit or nonprofit. This kind of approach is good but we have to keep in mind that solution to every problem is not specified or given by rules and principles, sometimes we have to go creative think out of the box. So management as an art comes into the picture. Art and science both foster new and creative ways to understand organizations and communicate what we know about them. They both generate and employ metaphors of management that help us form our perceptions, assumptions, and new ideas about organizations. Both inspire our imagination. Research in the art and science of management will continue systematically to gather knowledge about the behavior of people in organizations and try to present that knowledge in new and testable theories, concepts, and hypotheses. But future research also must be pursued with enough flexibility to permit the emergence and investigation of entirely new knowledge about organizations and the way we manage them. In the words Management is a mixture of an art an science – the present ratio is about 80% art and 20% science.