Management viewpoints evolve over time. These include the management of human behavior in organizations, the key goals of organizations, the...

Your questions asks about the four most widely accepted managerial viewpoints. Yet, there are five widely-accepted management viewpoints to date, which include the traditional, behavioral, system, contingency, and quality viewpoints, each with its own strengths, limitations, and contributions. 

• With the traditional or classical viewpoint, the three main branches include bureaucratic, administrative, and scientific management.  These branches emerged from 1890 to 1990 as engineers attempted to create well-oiled businesses.


• Moving to the behavioral viewpoint, after WWI, radical industrial and cultural changes occurred.  Assembly lines flooded goods to market, as standards of living and working conditions improved.  Managers were forced to recognize and accommodate worker rights, needs, and values.  With this recognition also came the awareness that workers want respect, and traditional management practices could not keep pace with the race to produce.  Out of these realizations and awareness, the viewpoint of behavioral management was adopted.


• Regarding the system viewpoint, during WWII, teams formed to analyze and solve complex problems such as routes and speeds of convoys, probable armament locations, etc.  These were not intuitive problems.  To deal with such complexity, the UK and the US developed systems analysis.  This approach first became an accepted tool of the US Department of Defense and space programs.  Then, systems analysis filtered into private industry and management viewpoints.


• About the contingency viewpoint or situational approach, developed in the 1960s, this suggests that management practices should require consistency of the external environment, technology, and the skills of the workers involved.  Put differently, a situational approach depends on the variables of a business problem.  Managers are expected to select and effectively use three or more management viewpoints concurrently based on the complexity and need of a business problem.


• Finally, the quality viewpoint emerges as a response to the global challenges that face industry in the 21st century.  High customer demand for large quantities of quality products and consistent service lend to the develop of management theories such as Total Quality Management (TQM), the EFQM Excellence Model, the Object Oriented Quality Model (OQM), etc.

Adjusting to the cultural and industrial complexities of the time period, management viewpoints change.  From the traditional or classical viewpoint to the behavioral to the systems, contingency, and quality viewpoints, business needs generate new and unique challenges.