Posted by Today will be a bit more scientific, which does not mean at all that it will be difficult to understand my following post. If you want to understand why you can’t yet buy an artificial manager in a store, it’s worth your while to find out the real reasons. Perhaps you think there is a technical problem – programming, electronics or artificial intelligence – no! The reasons lie in the sciences that need to know what a real manager does, namely management science.
There are two main reasons, here is one of them, the methodological problems of these sciences. The methodological problems of the management sciences are the subject of intense discussion and interest of many contemporary representatives of the management sciences [1]. The discussion of the identity of the management sciences and their methodological assumptions dates back to 1961, when H. Koonst stimulated the consciousness of researchers of organizational reality with the notion of the “jungle of management theory [2]”, denoting the disorderly way of doing management science and the growing ontological and epistemological controversies in these sciences.
Although several decades have passed since then, as H. Witczak, “we are still dealing with the jungle of management theory, and it is more extensive and luxuriant than ever.” [3] Some authors emphasize that the current situation of the management sciences represents a crisis of these sciences, especially of their philosophical and methodological foundations.
This crisis is considered systemic and permanent to the point that it even undermines the raison d’être of management sciences as an independent scientific discipline [4]. S. Sulkowski even writes that it has “neither theories, nor laws, nor even a substitute for scientific method” [5] [9].
The problem of eclecticism of management science, raised by the same author [6], seems to reinforce the tendency of scattered efforts to maintain the scientific character of the study of organizational reality. This is in spite of the fact that many organizational reality researchers are uniting around efforts to create a management science methodology of a measurable and optimization nature [7]. An example of an attempt to combine methodological approaches is combining the exchange paradigm and the value paradigm [8] [10] in the economic sciences and, by analogy, combining the resource approach and the process approach in the management sciences.
And so, colloquially speaking, one big methodological in these sciences results in the fact that after more than 100 years of practicing management sciences, we still don’t know what a manager actually does! What’s more, we still don’t really know how to find out.
The solution to this problem, which is the reason for the lag in management automation compared to other fields, is the System of Organizational Terms, described briefly here:
You can also find more details in my other publications, mainly in scientific articles. If you are curious about this project, which is the System of Organizational Terms, please email me.
In the next post, I will present the second reason why we can’t buy ourselves an artificial manager.
[1] M. Lisiński: Analiza metodologii nauk o zarządzaniu. W: Rozwój koncepcji i metod zarządzania. Red. J. Czekaj, M. Lisiński. Kraków, Fundacja Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Krakowie, 2011, 163-172; S. Sudoł: Nauki o zarządzaniu. Węzłowe problemy i kontrowersje. Toruń, Dom Organizatora TNOiK, 2007; W. Czakon: Kryteria oceny rygoru metodologicznego badań w naukach o zarządzaniu. Organizacja i Kierowanie 2014, Nr 1 (161), 51-62.
[2] H. Koontz: The Management Theory Jungle. The Journal of the Academy of Management 1961, Vol. 4 (3), 174-188.
[3] H. Witczak: Wstęp do systemu nauk o zarządzaniu. Contemporary Management Quarterly 2013, Vol. 2, s. 27.
[4] J.R. Sobczyk: Kryzys podstaw metodologicznych nauk o zarządzaniu – kryzysem powinowactwa z naukami społecznymi. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis Folia Oeconomica 2010, Vol. 234, s. 335.
[5] Ł. Sułkowski: Epistemologia w naukach o zarządzaniu. Warszawa, PWE, 2005, s. 55.
[6] Ł. Sułkowski: Między poznaniem a działaniem – eklektyzm metodologiczny w zarządzaniu. Organizacja i Kierowanie 2004, Nr 3, 33-42.
[7] J. Niemczyk: Rozwój nauk o zarządzaniu a paradygmaty nauk ekonomicznych. Organizacja i Kierowanie 2014, Nr 1A, s. 171.
[8] B. Douglass: Economic Methodology and Nobel Laureates: Confirmation of a Methodological Paradigm Shift. American Journal of Economics and Sociology 2012, Vol. 71 (5), 1205-1218.
[9] S. Sudoł: Main Dilemmas of Management Science. Organization and Management 2010, Vol. 1 (139), s. 8-9.
[10] K.D. Miller, E.W.K. Tsang: Testing Management Theories: Critical Realist Philosophy And Research Methods. Strategic Management Journal 2010, Vol. 32, 139-158.