The laws for guidance is the solution of specific management

The laws for guidance is the solution of specific management:

Science is a systematized body of knowledge pertaining to an area of study and contains some general truths explaining past events or phenomena. In other words, the management science provides a body of principles or laws for guidance in the solution of specific management problems and in the objective evaluation of results.

The analysis of basic management functions has led to the development of certain principles which can be applied as general guides for solving concrete problems in the future.

On the other hand, the art of management deals with the application of skill and effort for producing desirable results or situations in specific cases. The art of management to be effective must be grounded in the knowledge of principles.

Fundamental principles always react upon the art and shape the way of doing specific things. That is, science and art are interrelated and complementary. With every increase in the knowledge of science, the art is bound to be improved. Management science and management art are thus interwoven and overlapping in nature.

Koontz and O’Donnell viewed that “although this question is often raised, a moment’s reflection will show that is really meaningless. Managing, like all other practices (whether medicine, music composition, engineering, accountancy, or even baseball) is an art.

It is ‘know-how’. It is doing things in the light of the realities of a situation. Managers can work better by using the organized knowledge about management, and it is the knowledge, whether crude or advanced, whether exact or inexact, that to the extent it is well organized, clear, and pertinent, comprises a science.

Thus, managing as practice is art, the organized knowledge underlying it may be referred to as science. Consequently, science and art are not mutually exclusive but are complementary”.

In the ultimate analysis management is both a science and an art. As Sir Frederic Hopper puts it, ‘not that the two are rightly separable; on the contrary, they meet and indeed interlock continually”. “Practice wholly divorced from study”, observed Urwick, “is an likely to be limited in its results as study undisciplined to prove sterile and misleading”.

Daniel A. Wren and Dan Voch have pointed out that, “there are elements of both art and science in management. The art portion appears in the judgment, creativity, experience and individuality of managerial styles in practice. The science portion is apparent in the body of management knowledge, its fundamental principles and what experience and experimentation have shown.

The art fact is difficult to teach; we have been unable so far to teach judgment, common sense and creativity. The science fact is easier to teach because we have an accumulation of knowledge built up from the experiences of mangers and from the research of management scholars.

In some management subjects, we can build models and use mathematics to move our study toward the scientific end of the spectrum, in other subjects, primarily those dealing with human behaviour, management remains more of an art”.

In the words of Leonardo da vinci, “those who arc enamored of practice without science are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder of compass and never any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory”.