Critically evaluate the classical and human relations approaches of management theory.

A central part of the study of organisation and management is the development of management thinking and management theory, applying theory can cause change in actual behaviour and managers reading the work of leading writers may see their ideas, attitudes and conclusions being influenced by management practise. The classical approach towards management theory was developed shortly after scientific management came into widespread use as a complementary set of ideas, as while scientific management initially focused on the micro level issue of job design, classical theory attempted to lay down guiding principles for the design and functioning of the whole organisation. The classical writers thought of the organisation in terms of its purpose and formal structure so emphasis was placed on the planning of work, the technical requirements of the organisation, principles of management and the assumption of rational and logical behaviour. This analysis is associated with the work by writers such as Taylor, Fayol, Mooney and Reiley, which will later be discussed in greater detail. The alternative approach known as human relations was developed during the 1920’s, the years of the great depression when greater attention began to be paid to the social factors at work and to the behaviour of employees within an organisation. The turning point in the development of the human relations movement came with the famous experiments at the Hawthorne plan of the western electric company in Chicago, Elton Mayo was among the people who wrote about these experiments and he often quoted as having being a leader of the researchers, however according to Mullins and Christy (2012) there appears to be some doubt as to the extent to which Mayo was actually involved in conducting the experiments and his exact