Principles of Hotel Management

Basics of Management
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organisation can instantly respond to changes in the environment
and adjust accordingly. The environment influences the
organisation and is influenced by it. The organisation imports
inputs, transforms them and export outputs to the environment.
The adjustments are necessary keeping in view the requirements
of the organisational environment and its various internal parts.
Thus, the best organisational pattern should meet the external
and internal requirements and these requirements are ever-
changing and dynamic.
A major criticism of the classical theory is that the assumption
regarding human behaviour was quite unrealistic. Human
behaviour is complex in nature and not as simple as was
established by the classical theorists. They lack sensibility to the
behavioural dimensions of an organisation and make over-
simplified and mechanistic assumptions for the smooth running
of the organisation, ignoring all complexities of human behaviour
at work. They assumed human beings as inert machines who
performs tasks assigned to them and ignored their social,
psychological and motivational aspects of human behaviour.
This assumption of classical behaviourists led the workers to
frustration, conflict and failure and thus subordinates man to the
organisation.
Human nature under this theory was also wrongly predicted,
Mason Haire observed that “there are implicit assumptions
about man on which classical organisation theory seems to me
to be based. He is lazy, short-sighted, selfish, liable to make
mistakes, has poor judgement and may even be little dishonest.”
The assumption that people at work can be motivated solely
through economic rewards is wrong. Several researches in
human behaviour have contradicted this assumption. Hawthorne
Experiments brought seven facts to light about several other
motivational and maintenance factors that motivate people at
work. Such other factors may be formation of informal groups,
emergence of leaders beyond the chain of commands,

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10
Principles of Hotel Management
improvement in productivity linked with better status and job
enrichment, etc.
The theory was not only criticised for its certain assumptions
that are unrealistic in modern industrial world but its certain
principles formulated by classical theorists were also criticised.
The main criticisms of classical principles are as follows:
Its various concepts and principles are developed by
practitioners in management which are mainly based on personal
experience and limited observation. They (principles) lack
precision and comprehensive framework for analysis. No scientific
method was used. Moreover, it is not clear whether these
principles are action recommendation or simply definitions.
Certain independent specifications are to be made in
understanding the meaning of an organisation. The classicists
have referred to the advantages of various organisational
arrangements, their arguments are one-sided and they offer no
objective criteria for selecting one method over other methods.
March and Siman observed, perhaps the most crucial failure
of the administrative management theory is that it does not
conform to the practice. The theory tends to dissolve when put
into testable form. Thus, not a single principle is applicable to
all organisational situations and sometimes contradicts each
other.
The classical theorists have claimed that these principles
have universal application. This suggests that these principles
can be applied in: (i) different organisations, (ii) different
management levels in the same organisation, and (iii) different
functions of the same organisation. The empirical researchers,
however suggest that none of the principles has such
characteristics. Moreover, there are many principles which are
actually contradictory with other principles. For example, principle
of specialisation is quite in conflict with the principle of unity of
command. The following are certain classical principles which
are invariably questioned:

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