Business Studies

1. Contingency
Approach
Dean, Jonathan, Angus and James

2. Definition of topic
-> Contingency approach stresses the need for flexibility and adaptation of management
practices and ideas to suit changing circumstances.
-> Contemporary management approaches represent major innovations in ways of
thinking about management and appropriate management practices. One of the most
important contemporary viewpoints is the contingency approach to management. It
stresses the need for flexibility and the adaption of management practices and ideas to
suit changing circumstances.

3. Explanation of topic
- The stress for management to adapt to changed circumstances to best suit the
business.
- If a problem is faced by the business, the management sector is required to adapt and
change business operations to counteract the possible effect a circumstance may have.
- To adopt this approach managers must sample all the past and present ideas of offer;
some refer this to the ‘smorgasbord approach’.
- Contingency theorists stress that the traditional classical approach to management are
no longer adequate for our needs today.
- They believe that management must adopt a wide range of management approaches

4. Key aspects of topic
- Adapting to changing circumstances – No two situations are absolutely identical,
therefore each situation requires its own unique solution.
- For example, you may have chosen to construct a building a certain way with certain
strategies, but that same approach may not work for different buildings because they
require a completely different approach.
- Advocates of the contingency approach believe that managers need to be adaptable
and flexible in their technique to solving problems.
- No one wants a manager who is dogmatic and inflexible.

5. Activities
1. Watch the ‘BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill 2010’ video, as a manager what managerial approach would you take (classic,
behavioral or contingency) that would be best suited to solve this tragedy, and why?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJNyA4WmJyY
^Open discussion amongst class^

6. Real life business examples
Steve Jobs
“there is no one right way of leading and that a leader must adjust their style depending on the context“

7. Activity
Question:
You are the owner of medium sized marketing company with 50 employees, 10
of your employees spend their entire 8hr shift putting data into a computer and
only leave their desk to have a 30min lunch break, leaving a total of 7.5hrs on a
computer per day. The Government has introduced a new health & safety
legislation, which states that data entry employees can only spend a total of
5hrs on the computer per day, entering data.
Being a manager using contingency management, how would you work with
this new legislation?

8. Summary and comparison of management approaches
Classical Approach Organisation and
allocation of staff
Organisational
Structure
Levels of
Management
- Programmed staff
performing simple,
repetitive tasks
- Division of labour into
functional units
- Appraisal or reward
based on achievement
for production
- Hierarchical pyramid
structure
- Strict channels of
responsibility for all
levels of management
- Considerable
management and
supervisory control at
each level
- Many management
levels with clearly
distinguishable
organisational
positions
- Actions decided by
management
- Bureaucratic
management believed
to be the most effective
means

9. Summary and comparison of management approaches
Behavioral Approach Organisation and
allocation of staff
Organisational
Structure
Levels of
Management
- Recognition that
workers have both
social and economic
needs (social life and
income)
- Teamwork and
informal working
groups are important
for productivity
- Hierarchical pyramid
structure
- More communication
with workers but still no
participative
partnership
- Many management
and supervisory levels
- Development of
peoples management
skills, particularly
communication and
social motivation skills

10. Summary and comparison of management approaches
Contingency
Approach
Organisation and
allocation of staff
Organisational
Structure
Levels of
Management
- Flexibility and
adaption of a variety of
ideas and principles
that are pursued to suit
the business’s
requirements
- May be a pyramid
- The structure
depends on the
business’s
requirements
- Depends on the
business’s
requirements (the
nature of the operation
and abilities of
employees)