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Every intelligent practicing business manager who seeks improved skills and
abilities should be concerned with the knowledge and application of management
theories. In this paper, l seek to prove that theory and practice are not polar
opposites. For this task, l rely on the astute of Professor Koontz.

 

The general approach to management theory is based on the belief that

management is the process of getting things done by people who operate in
organized groups. By observing the management process closely, it is hoped that
those principles underlying the process can be identified and used as the building
blocks for the development of theories. The art of business management is
improved by the discovery, testing, understanding, and the proper application of
theory by those who know well how to use it.

According to this school, management theories are simply the vehicles through
which the practice of management can be described. This school is based on the
following propositions:

First, the process of management can be described by analyzing what managers, in

fact, do.

Second, given an adequate base of such observations, certain fundamental truths

will become apparent.

Third, such truths thereby become the basis for the developing and testing of
theories.

Fourth, management theory is an art, but just like such sciences, as mathematics
and engineering, it can be improved by reliance on sound principles.

Finally, the theoretical principles of management, like the supporting sciences,

remain true and valid even if exceptions to the rules are required to address special
situations.

Researchers apply management theories, test them, or seek to develop new ones.
Teachers /Lectures communicate these theories, their strengths and weaknesses
and public servants use theories in search of improved management practices. This
implies that management theory and practice have no irrevocable differences.

Few would question the value of science or basic theory in throwing light on the
assumptions underlying practice. However, there is also a need for a theory of
practice to identify incongruities between theory and practice.

Further, we cannot afford to leave the domain of practice exclusively to the busy
practitioner. In a qualitative analysis of managers prior to their enrollment in an
MBA course, Viljoen et al. (1980) found that although the managers had a good
grasp of the necessary skills of management attendant to their respective
organizations, they were unable to develop a cohesive, abstract theory about
management.

Practitioners' explanations to students, then, may be at best speculative and not

informatively reflective. Especially when it comes to the artistry of their actions
during indeterminate situations, they are more likely to say "You'll pick this up as
you gain experience" rather than struggle to recapitulate what they accomplished
using meaningful, albeit abstract, 'categories.

It goes without saying that professors are also not necessarily equipped to explain
their theories of action. Nevertheless, their training, if not their character, should
predispose them to be reflective about the indeterminate characteristics of their
fields (Argyris & Schon 1975).

Let us review for a moment the contribution of basic theory to management

practice. Not only does theory, as we have pointed out, challenge the assumptions
underlying practice, but, according to Thorpe (1988), as a way of illuminating and
describing action, it provides managers with a common language and wide powers
of analysis. With these tools, managers are able to reflect upon and actively
experiment on the outcomes of their meaningful interventions. Theory further
introduces them to principles that can be applied to new and different problems
across different contexts. Therefore, theory is virtually necessary in management
education if students are to develop the capacity to deal with change and with the
future--indeed, if they are to be able to imagine.





To the extent that barriers are established between management theories and
practice or between academicians and business managers, these barriers are likely
to result of an unwillingness to understand one another.
Perhaps such barriers are just walls of ivory towers within which the academician
seeks solitude and protection from the real world. Perhaps these barriers are
constructed by management practioner who professes and perpetuates a natural
distrust of anything a professor might have to say. Whatever the cause, it seems
that such barriers will remain until both parties are willing to understand and
exchange ideas.

Academicians must grow sensitive to the suspicions and needs of practicing

managers. Practitioners must attempt to better understand the psyche of
academicians and grow appreciative of their attempts to improve the practice of
management through the development, teaching, and testing of theories.
 


Fleet, David D. Van and Peterson Tim O. (1994) Contemporary Management

(Houghton Mifflin Company), Third Edition.

Koontz Harold (1961) ³The Management Theory Jungle´, in Journal of the

Academy of Management, December.

Koontz Harold (1962) ³Making Sense of Management Theory´, in Harvard

Business Review, July-August.

Koontz Harold (1980) ³The Management Theory Revisited´, in Academy of

Management Review, April.

Koontz Harold and Weihrich Heinz (1990) Essentials of Management, Fifth

Edition, McGraw-Hill.

Stoner James A. F., Freeman R. Edward, and Gilbert, Jr. Daniel R. (2003)
Management (New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India), Sixth Edition.