Explain Management As A Science

profession during recent times. Large and medium-sized enterprise in India and elsewhere are managed by professional managers – managers who have little or no share in the ownership of the enterprise and look upon management as a career. The nature of management as a science, as art and as a profession is discussed below :

Management as a Science : Development of management as a science is of recent origin, even though its practice is ages old. Fredrick W. Taylor was the first manager-theorist who made significant contributions to the development of management as a science. He used the scientific methods of analysis, observation and experimentation in the management of production function. A perceptive manager, as he was, he distilled certain
These analyses and study of observed phenomena are used for inferring cause-effect relationships between two or more variables. Generalizations about these relationships result in hypotheses. The hypotheses when tested and found to be true are called principles. These principles when applied to practical situations help the practitioner in describing and analyzing problems, solving problems and predicting the results. Even though management is a science so far as to possess a systematized body of knowledge and uses scientific methods of research, it is not an exact science like natural sciences. This is simply because management is a social science, and deals with the behaviour of people in organization. Behaviour of people is much more complex and variable than the behavior of inanimate things such as light or heat. This makes controlled experiments very difficult. As a result, management principles lack the rigor and exactitude which is found in physics and chemistry. In fact, many natural sciences which deal with living phenomena such as botany and medicine are also not exact. Management is a social science like economics or psychology, and has the same limitations which these and other social sciences have. But this does not in any way diminish the value of management as a knowledge and discipline. It has provided powerful tools of analysis, prediction and
Engineering is a science; its application to the solution of practical problems is an art. Similarly, management as a body of knowledge and a discipline is a science; its application to the solution of organizational problems is an art. The practice of management, like the practice of medicine, is firmly grounded in an identifiable body of concepts, theories and principles. A medical practitioner, who does not base his diagnosis and prescription on the science of medicine, endangers the life of his