Controversies of Management: The Rational and Subjective Process of Management

Controversies of Management: The Rational and Subjective Process of Management

"Knowledge directs practice and practice directs knowledge" author of proverb unknown

Whilst people in this room are practicing CPA's and members of an established professional body, and have followed a clearly defined path of attaining scientific knowledge to operate in our local field of expertise; we are faced within our profession, a field which has been much debated, theorized for decades, and which arguably cannot be simply rationalized in a linear or prescribed fashion using spreadsheets, and data. This is the field of management.

The aim of my speech today is to provide an insight on whether management is a ‘rational' or ‘subjective' process. These terms are used to describe the behaviour (actions) of management in the decision making process, in an attempt to achieve an ‘ends'. It is these actions which differ amongst management and form part of the controversy. By attaining an ‘ends', management actions could be founded upon facts (e.g. scientific knowledge; values (e.g. beliefs and values), and frameworks (Thomas, A. B. 2003)

‘Decision makers are rational to the limits of their own capabilities [i.e. bounded rationalities] (Snyman & Drew, 2003 cited in Elbanna, S 2006)

Rational is an attribute of the ‘means' that managers use to implement a given ‘ends' using scientific knowledge as the foundation.

The archetypal rational manager relies upon hard facts and figures drawn from the past upon which to conduct logical analyses. When the problems faced are simple, operational, short-term and where there are predictable routines, the necessary information is often readily available interpreted and used in a rational manner (Sadler-Smith, E. & Shefy, E. 2004)

Within an organisation a rational process is used as a means of legitimising actions, and where norms and expectations associated with administratively driven cultures, is acceptable. Paradoxically, management is entrepreneurial especially in a diverse society with more complexity, ambiguity and conflict that requires greater improvisation and innovation.

According to (Jones, 1992 cited in Elbanna, S 2006), there are three main obstacles to adopting a rational decision process.

• Lack the physical and monetary resources to search for and analyse the relevant information

• Decision makers may have limited cognitive abilities

• Executives may be apprehensive about upsetting the organisations existing political structures and dealing with the consequences of their decision

Rational processing according to (March 2006, cited in Turner, I 2006 p.35) does