With the culture of today's organizational environment steady evolving, a contemporary approach to public management has replaced the historic theories once prevalent before. The purpose of management is to accomplish aims and objectives to ensure the coordination of individual efforts. Olum defines theory as a systematic grouping of interdependent concepts and principles that give a framework to, or tie together, a significant area of knowledge. As society continuously relied on group effort, and as many organized groups have become large, the task of managers has been increasing in importance and complexity. Henceforth, managerial theory has become crucial in the way managers manage complex organizations (Olum, 2004).
In public management, organization, decision-making and leadership are controversial when it comes to finding the best approach in contemporary management.Management theories are very beneficial to improving public management and play a huge role in an organization or program's success. The challenge is being able to weed out what theory will best apply to a particular organization. When utilizing management theories, administrators have to realize that a theory is exactly what it is called, a theory.The contingency theory is based on the optimal course of action being dependent on the internal and external situation.This theory asserts that managers make decisions based on the situation at hand rather than a "one size fits all" method.According to McNamara, the contingency theory asserts that when managers make a decision, they must take into account of the current situation and act on those aspects that are key to the situation at hand.
The second contemporary approach to management is the systems theory. The systems theory intertwines the science and understanding of management. The theory addresses the understanding of how an entity operates as well as how it as viewed as a system.Managers who understand systems theory recognize how different systems affect a worker and how a worker affects the systems around them. A system is made up of a variety of parts that work together to achieve a goal. The four aspects of the system theory include having inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes. The effect of systems theory in management is that writers, educator, consultants, etc. are helping managers to look at the organization from a broader perspective (McNamara, 2013). Having a broader perspective helps managers to coordinate programs to work as a collective whole for the overall goal or mission of the organization rather than for isolated departments.
The third and newest contemporary theory of management is chaos theory, which relates to the chaotic and random events that occur in our society today. The chaos theory recognizes that events are indeed rarely controlled and explains why for decades, why managers have acted on the basis that organizational events can always be controlled (McNamara, 2013).Chaos theory recognizes that change is inevitable and is rarely controlled. While organizations grow, complexity and the possibility for susceptible events increase.Some of the most common instances of situational events that reside in chaos include weather patterns, ecosystems, water flows, anatomical functions and organizations. While these systems' chaotic behavior may appear random at first, chaotic systems can be defined by a mathematical formula, and they are not without order or finite boundaries (Reference for Business, 2013).
The best way to achieving successful management of an organization is to learn by trial and error, which provides meaningful guidance through the accumulated knowledge which is theory itself.Management theories are implemented to help increase organizational productivity and service quality. Not many managers use a singular theory or concept when implementing strategies in the workplace: They commonly use a combination of a number of theories, depending on the workplace, purpose and workforce.The contemporary management theories in return, help managers and organizations evolve. Aside from the some of the contemporary theories that were discussed, there are many other theories about management and each contributes to the development of concepts, principles and techniques of managing an organization.