Contemporary theories in management

Carter McNamara explains that contemporary theories of management tend to account for and help interpret the rapidly changing nature of today's organizational environments; as before in management history, these theories are ..... in other sciences as well.

Contingency theory asserts that when managers make a decision, they must take into ..... all aspects of the current situation and act on those aspects that are key to the situation at hand: basically, it's the approach of 'it depends'.

For example, if one is leading troops in the Persian Gulf, an ..... style is probably best, but if one is leading a hospital or university, a more participative and facilitative leadership style is probably preferred.

In systems theory, a system is a collection of parts ..... to accomplish an overall goal; if one part of the system is removed, the nature of the system is changed as well.

For example, a pile of sand is not a system, because if one removes a sand particle, you've still got a pile of sand; on the other hand, a functioning car is a system because if you remove the ....., you've no longer got a working car.

Systems theory has brought about a significant change, or ..... shift, in the way management studies and approaches organizations.

Chaos theory recognizes that events indeed are rarely controlled; theorists suggest that systems naturally go to more complexity, and as they do so, these systems become more ..... (or susceptible to cataclysmic events) and must expend more energy to maintain that complexity.

As they expend more energy, they seek more structure to maintain stability, and this trend continues until the system splits, combines with another complex system or falls ..... entirely.

The main ..... behind this theory is the underlying notion of small occurrences significantly affecting the outcomes of seemingly unrelated events.

Related to financial markets, proponents of chaos theory believe that price is the very last thing to change for a stock, bond, or some other security, and that price changes can be determined through ..... mathematical equations.