knowledge, insight and management

model building is one of the most important characteristics of human beings. according to a classification, there are three kinds of models. the first type are omdels which are unique to every individual person and every body has his own models. another kind of models are those which are general. theories arise from this kind of models. the third kind are modols for model building and deals with the origin,nature and limits of knowledge. logic, scientific approoch and systems theory are concerned with in this category. this category is called epistemology by philosophers. as the essence of science, theories are used differently by different persons. a man who has learned the theory of cybernetics and its application, for controlling a refrigrator has insight in sybernetics limited to the refrigrator. but a scientist with great amount of knowledge about electronics looks at it as a theoretical framework automation of factories, airoplanes, missiles and many other machines. therefore, his insight is very different from the first person's. the field of management, which is interdisciplinary, has its roots in political sciences, economics, sociology, psychology and so on and no one can be a master of all. that is why staff members and consultants should be available to help the manager in decision making. in order to understand the imporance of theoretical knowledge, which enlarges the insight of a manager, we will refer to a sociological theory named manifest and latent, functional and dysfunctional. on the basis of this theory, any new phenomenon has its own different effects. for example, when the car was invented, the main goal was to transport the people and goods rather than using animals. but no one thought of changing the design of cities or creating so many different jobs which exist today. these are latent consequences. when the price of oil decreases and the income of oil producing countries such as iran decreases, there are also many latent consequences both functional and dys funcional. as we see, a manager who knows this theory deeply has insight different from a manager who has no or little knowledge in this regard.