Chapter 2 - History and Theories of Management
This chapter explores the nature of theory and its application to management, as well as the history of resource management, and of the American home and family.

I. EARLY YEARS OF MANAGEMENT

• Though records of management can be found even in ancient Western Europe, Greece and Rome, in America, management emerged as a formal subject of study in the 19th century only.
• First book that mentioned household management was by Maria Parloa (1879): “First Principles of household management and Cookery”
• Home Economics founded at the Placid Conferences in New York: 1899 – 1908
• Shifting emphases and terms:
• Management as part of home economics (early 20th century)
• Efficient home management and household production
• Home management houses = experimental kitchens and college residential labs
• Life/Resource management, or just management (Present day)
• Scientific Management and Work Simplification – F.W. Taylor tried to bring about efficient production and some of his principles have influenced our field as well.

Funny that a guy named Taylor would be the proponent of an idea that would produce things that are anything but "taylor-made".  Also known as "efficiency experts" Taylor's ideas spawned a new employment niche, where such an "expert" would be hired by a business to come and observe the workplace process and take notes.  After some analysis, all designed to reduce the number of steps  - REDUCE THE NUMBER OF STEPS - in the normal production of things, reports, stuff - the Expert would make his recommendation.

There were even articles written in women's magazines of the day, explaining in great detail, how to efficiently shave their legs or do the wash, or prepare a chicken for two or three meals and not waste any of it.
Interestingly - while taking a debilitating toll on factory workers, this idea of simplifying work was incorporated into the Domestic Science Movement, which was the earliest beginnings of Home Economics, which has, as we all know has become Family and Consumer Sciences.

As more ... gizmos ... and the capability of adding gizmos to the household (i.e., electricity, indoor plumbing, efficient cooking and laundry equipment) and as the production of new and labor saving devices emerged, simplification was sort of turned on its ear.  The modern home was invented, as the economy needed (and found) more customers for its advanced goods.

• Who would have needed a modem 20 years ago?
• You could find one to buy.   
  10 years ago modems cost $40.
• Today nobody needs a modem - people want high speed internet access at $40 a month!

1. Pre-Modern: 1900s – no indoor plumbing, make own food, clothes, own cleaning; time of major transformations: innovations, factories, automobile.
2. Modern: mid-20th century – electricity in most houses, buying most stuff from stores.
3. Post-Modern: early 21st century – rely heavily on stores, computers, restaurants; an age of ‘ready to use’ things and services; marketing.

1. 1900-1930s: Health, sanitation, hygiene; household production as economic production
2. 1940s-early 1950s: Simplification, standardization and efficiency. the rise of Household Equipment (sold door to door because women were home and not at "work". “This is the Suckomatic 1200 - the most powerful electric sweeper on the market today.”
3. 1950s-1960s: valuing family goals, standards, resources etc. more than work performance at home
4. 1970s-1980s: Development of a systems framework, relating family, home and society

There is a famous quote from a book of insults (yes, there are such books!!): “They call him theory, because he never works!!” While this may bring a smile to most faces, the fact is, by the very nature of our field being an applied social science, we have to rely on research and theory. As Kurt Lewin put it, there may be nothing as practical as a good theory, so lets dwell a little on what theory is.

Theories are the means by which science realizes its goals, which are to classify and organize (describe) events so that they make sense, to explain the past and predict the future, and to offer an "intuitively pleasing sense of understanding why and how events should occur. (Turner, 1974: 2).

The goals of science are to describe, explain and predict events and phenomena regarding the family. In this definition, the three main goals of any theory are present.

• Conceptual principles comprise the descriptive function of theory.
• Hypothetical principles comprise the explanatory function of theory.
• Pragmatic principles form the basis for the predictive function of theory.

Jonathan Turner (1978) terms this the problem of order, which is also known as the Hobbesian Question (How is order possible in a world where everyone competes for scarce resources in order to survive?).

Sociologists tend to agree that order is possible because of each person's dependency, or connectedness, to the social world in which they exist. Think for a moment about any family as it begins its day. The sun is coming up, an alarm clock awakens the designated early riser - for our purposes, let us use a mother. Mom gets out of bed, nudges a snoozing father awake and pushes him toward the shower, shakes sleepy children awake, then goes downstairs to prepare the morning 1-2 meal (the most important meal of the day!). She flips the radio or television on (media dependency) so that the predicted temperature and weather patterns for the day can determine the clothing everyone will use. Sensitive to the absence of movement noises upstairs, and knowing the other members of the family as she does, she stands at the foot of the stairwell and hurls a few threats up the steps - "Don't make me have to come up there!", then waits a beat to gauge the effect. Children start to rustle out of bed, go into the bathroom – one by one.

[This out-of-bed-into-the-bathroom ritual implies the family's adaptation to changing social demands. Only a few decades ago, we, as a culture, washed the day's labor off our bodies at night before supper, especially when we earned a living with our muscles. As we retired, or reallocated, our muscles to tennis and racquetball courts and the running trail, and began to work in less physical occupations in offices, only then we discovered the need to start the day fresh and clean.]

Interestingly, this ritual is played out in thousands of homes every morning during the school year. The extent of such order exists in so many households that rarely is there a serious disagreement. In fact, there is very little talk at all.

• How is order possible with so much potential for conflict or error?
• How are patterns of family organization created, maintained, and changed?

Functions of Theory
Theory has four specific functions for the social scientist:

1. A Descriptive Function
2. A Delimiting Function
3. An Explanatory Function
4. A Predictive Function

• -Theory describes situations and events, as nearly as possible, as they occur in reality. Theoretical statements about some aspect of family life should paint a meaningful and accurate picture of the events in question. When reading scholarly literature about the differences between girls and boys as they develop through adolescence, for example, one should be able to imagine the reality of two typical teenagers as the he or and the she normally mature.
• -Theory delimits the picture of family life it creates by cropping reality to exclude portions of social organization not covered by the theory. Social and psychological theories should specifically state to which groups, to what portions of the population, or to whom the theory applies. This feature allows social scientists to generalize theory in specific ways. Adolescent development will obviously be different for boys versus girls, for Koreans compared to Canadians, and for rich and poor teens. Thus, a theory of adolescent development would necessarily specify appropriate delimiting factors, as well as note the conditions when the rule might apply to all.
• -Theory explains, or provides the "why" of, various aspects of individual experience and social events. For example, theories dealing with teenage pregnancy should explain why so many teens find themselves pregnant even though information about contraception is readily available. A good theory will explain events using "relational" statements (i.e., as self-esteem increases among teenage girls, their risk of premarital pregnancy decreases).
• -Finally, theory predicts behavior or events. Often the prediction is inherent in the explanation. Given the statement about self-esteem and pregnancy, we could theoretically predict outcome (i.e., if parents, teachers, and others increase the number of self-esteem building messages aimed at teenage girls, this will effectively reduce the number of pregnant teenagers over time).

a. Definition

• System: Integrated set of parts that function together for some end purpose or result, processing information and energy.
• Systems Theory: View of things as systems that are interconnected and interdependent in a feedback loop, with certain characteristics that are applicable to almost everything, from biological systems, to stock markets and organizations, and of course, families.
• Morphogenic system: System that’s adaptive and open to change
• Morphostatic system: System that’s resistant to change
• Subsystem: Parts of the larger system

Even when meta-rules fail to resolve threatening or disparate information (crises), the system allows for the incorporation of new rules by which to guide member behavior and insure its survival.  This facility is a description of adaptation or morphogenic change. It occurs as a response to the system's own inadequate structure.  In the case of quite severe crisis, the system's response might be to totally or partially restructure itself.  Reorientation of this type results in new directions for system values, goals, and/or outlooks.

    b. Characteristics
 

1. Cycle: Inputs (eg. Ideas, info) are brought into the system, transformed in the throughput stage, and result in outcomes or outputs, which are somehow translated into further inputs
2. Feedback: this cycle is closed in a feedback loop, since inputs become outputs, which become inputs for another subsystem, and so on. Negative feedback occurs when an imbalance is detected and must be corrected, while positive feedback is a proactive action designed to start a cycle.
3. Negative Entropy: is the goal of systems. It refers to the tendency to keep going to defeat entropy or dissolution or destruction. So long as energy is moving in the cycle, the system is alive. As soon as more energy is expended than is being inputted, it dies, or results in entropy. (Remember, negative entropy is a good thing!)
4. Homeostasis: is the tendency to maintain balance. It’s like a thermostat..the moment an imbalance is detected, the system kicks into action to correct it and maintain homeostasis.
5. Equifinality: refers to the phenomenon in which different circumstances and opportunities lead to similar out comes.
6. Multifinality: refers to the phenomenon in which the same initial circumstances or conditions may lead to different outcomes.

The family may be considered a good example of a system, since it displays the following characteristics:

1. Families are dynamic and ever-changing.
2. Family systems regulate themselves to maintain HOMEOSTATIS (equilibrium or stability) - a state of consistency and resist change.
3. Families operate according to the principle of EQUIFINALITY which means that almost all families arrive at the same point over time.   The beginnings are different but the outcome is the same.
4. All behavior in a family system is functional - every behavior serves a function (not always a positive function).
5. The concept of wholeness means the family is greater than the sum of it's parts (the members of the family)
6. There is no cause-and-effect regarding families. The really have no discernable beginning or ending.

• They establish the pattern of functioning after being challenged and confronted by risk factors – elasticity
• Have the ability to recover quickly from a misfortune, trauma, etc., - buoyancy

The Family Ecosystem:
This subsystem of Human Ecology discusses the interaction between families and their environment. Paolucci, Hall and Axinn (1977) view the family ecosystem as having three elements:

1. Organisms – in this case, family members
2. Environments – this can be divided into micro-environment (the near environment that closely surrounds individuals and families) and macro-environment (surrounds and encompasses the micro-environment, e.g. trees, sky, oceans)
3. Family Organization – this transforms energy (ideas, information) into family decisions, activity and functioning.

Optimization means obtaining the best possible result, given the many restraints and opportunities; i.e. making use of resources to the best satisfaction of those concerned. An important skill needed for optimization is Information Seeking and Decision Making. The theory of optimization may be ‘optimal’ for short-term, straightforward questions or situations. For instance, Gary Becker questions its applicability in a decision like mate selection – is marriage strictly an economic choice? Maybe the makers of “Who wants to marry a millionaire?” would agree, huh?!

Satisficing
This refers to picking the first good alternative that presents itself (Simon, 1959). This strategy again applies when time and choices are limited. However, applying it to certain aspects of resource management like personal consumption may be tricky. As Hanna (1989) mentions, “values other than efficiency are important for many people, including satisfaction derived from the process rather than the end-product, and creation of unique products not available from the market.” He further provides examples of how often organizations and households are definitely NOT efficient, though they can and should be.

Risk Aversion
We try to maximize our satisfaction through avoiding risk.  The basis of many decisions is risk aversion. Risk is the possibility of experiencing harm, suffering, danger, or loss, and there are different types of risk:

• functional (performance) risk - a choice may not turn out as desired.
• financial risk - money may be lost
• physical risk - bungee jumping
• social risk - others may disapprove of one's decision or behavior
• time risk - ability to satisfy wants declines over time.

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