The Human Side of Enterprise. You will write a 750–1,200-word book assessment in current APA format. This assessment will summarize the major contents of “The Human Side of Enterprise”. Half of the paper must be an assessment of the content of the book in light of theological anthropology.
Religion.
Institutional affiliation
Date
The main idea behind the authors of the book is that Industry, which is the economic part of society, has the primal expertise to apply physical science and technology for the tangible gain of humanity. Persons should learn how to use the social sciences for humanitarian organizations to be truly useful (McGregor, 1966). Human nature, in a theological perspective is considered ontologically rather than phenomenologically. Which means humans exist and have values because of who they are necessarily, and not because of what they do while alive. However, this differs from how organizations view persons, with the latter forming the basis of why organizations exist (Balthasar, 2010).
The author views management as having the task of organizing components of a productive enterprise such as finances, equipment, materials, and people in the view of economic ends. This also includes managing people`s efforts, inspiring them, guiding their actions, and modifying their behavior to fit organizational needs. A lack of this leads to people becoming passive or resistant to an organization`s needs (McGregor, 1966).
A theological perspective similarly confusing is the one of Hebrew anthropology, which has no theory of being and does not surrender personal existence to the caprice of time and chance. Others, like the Greeks, for instance, were more concerned with human nature as a substance rather than with a person as a dynamic function of existence. This perception of human nature involved a static, substantial entity rather than the dynamic attributes of personal survival (Balthasar, 2010).
The normal people is by nature, lazy, meaning he does not desire to work as much as it is required. He is void of ambition, does not like responsibility, and prefers someone to guide him. He is ultimately self-centered and indifferent to an organization`s needs. Theologians beg to differ with them having the perception that a person is a self-conscious personality with an interior life that is expressed as thoughts, feelings, and behavior is taken for granted (McGregor, 1966).
Due to this, management tends to develop hard or durable management techniques. The hard or strong technique can, in general, get characterized as deceit and threat that is usually hidden, involves close supervision, and tight controls over behavior. Methods that control behavior include management exhibiting permissiveness, the satisfaction of people`s demand, achieving harmony, whose result becomes them being tractable and accepting direction. Difficulties in the soft management technique include the abdication of management to indifferent performance. Persons usually take advantage of the soft approach. They expect more but often give less (McGregor, 1966).
In the past, persons have been defined as individuals that are subsistence of a rational nature, which creates the perception that a person is an object of thought. Another understanding of human nature includes God being a divine being that can ascertain the reality of a human being (Balthasar, 2010). The author finds that man`s behavior in organizations is not because of his nature but because of the nature of industrial organizations, management philosophy, policy, and practice. The general nature of management can best get explained through motivation. Man is a wanting animal, which means that no one need of his can get fully satisfied. Some philosophers view human nature as an object of knowledge, which further assumes that human nature is the presupposition on which human nature rests (McGregor, 1966).
A satisfied man does not motivate behavior, which echoes the point that once one of his needs is satisfied reasonably, the next level of needs begins to dominate his behavior, and drive him. Among such requirements include physiological needs, security needs, and social needs. McGregor states the philosophy of management using directing and control, whether it being hard or soft, is not enough to inspire due to the human needs on which this approach relies are always changing in how they enhance behavior (McGregor, 1966).
This leads to management requires a new perspective for directing persons based on fair suppositions about human nature and motivation. The author states that there are new dimensions of this new perspective. For instance, management should have responsibility for the organization of elements of a prolific enterprise like finances, materials, people, and equipment in the interest of economic ends (Balthasar, 2010).
The other dimension involves persons by nature, not being passive or resistant to organizational needs, due to the experience they have gained with organizations. The different aspect includes the inspiration, potential for development, capacity for assuming responsibility, the readiness to direct behavior toward organizational goals all being present in people (McGregor, 1966). This gives light to the rational view of the human self-having dualism between nature and grace on the one hand, and between life and experience. This makes it more transparent when one understands a person’s subjective as an autonomous ethical agent or as the ego of a psychological complex or a substance that possesses specific potencies (Balthasar, 2010).
References
McGregor, D. (1966). The human side of enterprise.
Von Balthasar, H. U. (2010). A theological anthropology. Wipf and Stock Publishers.