Is Management an Art or a Science?
Per Oxford Dictionary an art can be defined as “a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice”, and a science can be described as “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” One difference between the two is the latter can be taught and the former cannot. Stafford Beer (1967) characterised the field of management as “the business use of operations research”. On the other hand, Ghislain Deslandes (2014) defines it as “a vulnerable force, under pressure to achieve results and endowed with the triple power of constraint, imitation and imagination, operating on subjective, interpersonal, institutional and environmental levels”.
The former statement would suggest that management is a science as this suggests that widely accepted principals and predictability are two key features of management. The latter statement, however, suggests management is an art as it proposes that a good manager must have a high level of personal skill and practical knowledge as well as stating that management is heavily objective-based.
Globalisation, per the Oxford Dictionary, is “the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale.” With globalisation increasing, management in both private firms and in governments must adjust their strategies. One economy that has been heavily affected by increases in globalisation is the export-heavy Zambian economy. When deciding on a new strategy (such as the Zambian government’s current updated sixth national development and their proposed seventh national development plan), managers in the Zambian government must always consider what the objectives of the national development plan are when developing a new strategy. In 2014 exports (approximately 74% of Zambia’s exports were copper that year) made up 46.5% of Zambia’s GDP, showing that changing levels of globalisation could have a massive impact on the Zambian economy.
Globalisation has many aspects affecting whether it will rise or fall. One of the three main aspects of globalisation the level of protectionist policies in different countries. The second vital aspect of globalisation is the transparency of the borders between countries (or the strength of immigration laws). The final aspect of globalisation is the flow of different ideas, money and technologies between countries.
Protectionist policies can be beneficial to a country due to them allowing that countries economy to stay relative safe from external shocks like war or global financial crises. However, they can severely cripple third world economies, such as that of Zambia, by hindering trade between countries. This can cause economies like Zambia’s to crash. This is due to the amount that Zambia relies on its trade partners to keep demanding copper. In addition to this, large restrictions and taxes on imports can also be a problem because it can stop countries like Zambia from utilizing any comparative advantage they had in the production of a good over another economy. As over 40% of the world’s trade is made of goods that are used by a business in the production of goods or services (O’Gorman 2015), when strict protectionist policies are put in place by governments; many countries’ economies will be negatively affected, not just pre-production based economies, but even economies that focus mainly on the production or post-production stages.
Transparent borders can both benefit and harm economics like Zambia’s. If immigration laws are too lenient then third world economies can begin to suffer brain drains as all their skilled labour (for example doctors, which third world economies need) emigrates to first world countries where they will get paid more and have nicer living conditions. High border transparency can also be a problem for first world economics. When immigration laws are too lenient, first world economies often suffer a very large influx of immigrants. This can lead to overcrowding and large levels of unemployment (due to jobs not being created as fast as the population is increasing), overcrowding, ethnic segregation (due to language barriers) and poverty (due to housing shortages and higher unemployment). First world governments can limit these negative aspects of transparent borders with, for example, the construction of affordable housing to help solve the overcrowding and poverty. On the other hand, third world countries have very little ability to stop skilled labour from emigrating to other countries, causing labour shortages in third world countries.
When looking at managing globalisation, using the Zambian government as an example, Beer’s characterisation of management, stated earlier, is more befitting than Deslandes’. Multinational firms investing (with the sole goal of making profits) in the extraction of raw materials from third world countries is not relatively new or unheard of, management in those firms can look at past cases of foreign direct investment by other multinational firms into similar industries in third world countries and use those examples to help develop an effective and efficient strategy; alluding to management being a science (in a sense observing other firms research).
Since other multinational corporations, with the same goal, have employed various strategies in similar situations, the firm can review those previous situations, strategies and outcomes. Hence, it will allow them derive more efficient and effective strategies. While, these two factors suggest that managing globalisation is more of a scientific process than an art form, managing globalisation shares more characteristics with an art than a science. As stated above, management in the firm can look at similar situations in the past to help them in the decision-making process, however, managers that can demonstrate creativity and a good level of practical knowledge (instead of just the ability to observe previous situations) will be more effective and efficient in the decision-making process. This is due to previous scenarios not being the same as the current one, meaning that for a manager to be effective and efficient they must be able to think outside the box (as with any art). As individual managers are thinking outside of the box they may not be following universally accepted principles as closely. Therefore, no two managers are likely to make the same decisions, leading to each manager having more personalised managing techniques. In addition, managers will have a clear goal in mind when making strategic business decisions (in this case that goal will normally be maximising profits for the firm). These three characteristics of managing globalisation show the resemblances between management and art, heavily outweighing the two factors stated in the previous paragraph.
In contrast, the Zambian government must be very careful when allowing multinational profit-maximising firms to gain control over the copper industry, possibly leading to the overmining of copper in Zambia. This would cause the multinational firms to leave Zambia, taking all their liquid assets with them. This would have disastrous consequences on the Zambian economy; their GDP would fall by a very large amount and unemployment would increase substantially, possibly leading to a recession. A simple definition for strategy is that strategy is the craft of collectively rising to a significant challenge and accomplishing more than might be reasonably expected (McIntosh and MacLean, 2015: 3) meaning that if the management of the Zambian government could decide upon an effective and efficient strategy to deal with the situation before their resources dried up then they would possibly manage to come out better than if the multinational firms had never invested in the copper industry.
While globalisation allows for unhindered migration for all people, for cultures to be spread, technology to be shared, and for lower income countries to increase their income and growth, having unregulated trade and markets gives rise to price fixing monopolies and high levels of inequality. Globalisation will not benefit the world in the long-run unless the economic side of it is managed correctly. When trying to manage globalisation, a scientific approach would not work due to a lack of predictability and an inability to research into it without making some irreversible changes. Therefore, the only way for globalisation to be successful is for the managers to take a more artistic approach; demonstrating personal knowledge, skill, creativity and having a clear goal in sight.