Final answer:
The contingency approach in management rejects the 'one best way' to manage, favoring adaptive strategies that fit specific organizational contexts. Strengths-based management focuses on an individual's strengths for better performance, requiring further research on its effects on organizations. These approaches contrast with rigid command-and-control regulation, advocating for flexibility and context-awareness in management decisions.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question concerns a contingency approach in organizational behavior (OB), which is a theory within the field of management studies. This approach argues against the idea of a 'one best way' to manage. Instead, it suggests that management techniques and organizational structures should be designed to fit the specific circumstances of each organization, considering various internal and external factors.
Strengths-based management, researched by Donald Clifton, is another strategic management style, emphasizing the importance of focusing on an individual's strengths rather than weaknesses. As noted by Buckingham & Clifton, strengths lead to consistent high performance in related tasks. While this approach has gained popularity, its effectiveness on organizational performance requires further study. Kaiser & Overfield pointed out potential pitfalls, such as managers neglecting weaknesses or overusing strengths.
Both the contingency approach and strengths-based management contrast with command-and-control regulation, highlighting the importance of adopting management and policy tools that are sensitive to the context rather than applying a rigid, uniform method across all situations. The question suggests expanding on market-oriented tools as an alternative to command-and-control regulation in the next section, which is an example of the flexibility that a contingency approach would advocate.