Management
To be successful, today’s organization must become a learning organization—one that has developed the capacity to continuously learn, adapt, and change.
Peqarson Education Canada Inc.
Introduction
The 21st century has brought with it a new workplace, one in which everyone must adapt to a rapidly hanging society with constantly shifting demands and opportunities.
The economy has become global and is driven by innovations and technology and organizations have to transform themselves to serve new customer expectations.
Today’s economy presents challenging opportunities as well as dramatic uncertainty.
The new economy has become knowledge based and is performance driven.
The themes in the present context area ‘respect’, participation, empowerment, teamwork and self management.
In the light of the above challenges a new kind of leader is needed to guide business through turbulence.
Managers in organizations do this task.
A manager is someone who coordinates and oversees the work of other people so that organizational goals can be accomplished.
It is not about personal achievement but helping others do their job.
Managers may also have additional work duties not related to coordinating the work of others.
Managers can be classified by their level in the organization, particularly in traditionally structured organizations—those shaped like a pyramid.
- 1) First-line managers (often called supervisors) are located on the lowest level of management.
- 2) Middle managers include all levels of management between the first-line level and the top level of the organization.
- 3) Top managers include managers at or near the top of the organization who are responsible for making organization-wide decisions and establishing plans and goals that affect the entire organization.
The changing nature of organizations and work often requires employees in formerly nonmanagerial jobs to perform managerial activities.
Non managerial jobs are those where one works directly on a job and had no one reporting to him.
Levels in the Management Hierarchy.
Mary Parker Follet
Mary Parker Follet defines management as, “The art of getting things done through people”.
Management involves coordinating and overseeing the work activities of others so that their activities are completed efficiently and effectively.
- 1) Coordinating and overseeing the work of others is what distinguishes a managerial position from a nonmanagerial one.
- 2) Efficiency is getting the most output from the least amount of inputs in order to minimize resource costs.
Efficiency is often referred to as “doing things right”.
Effectiveness is completing activities so that organizational goals are attained and is often described as “doing the right things”.
No two managers’ jobs are exactly alike.
All managers perform certain function, enact certain roles and display a set of skills in their jobs.
Management Functions
According to the functions approach managers perform certain activities to efficiently and effectively coordinate the work of others.
They can be classified as:
- 1) Planning involves defining goals, establishing strategies for achieving those goals, and developing plans to integrate and coordinate activities.
- 2) Organizing involves arranging and structuring work to accomplish the organization’s goals.
- 3) Leading involves working with and through people to accomplish organizational goals.
- 4) Controlling involves monitoring, comparing, and correcting work performance.
Since these four management functions are integrated into the activities of managers throughout the workday, they should be viewed as an ongoing process and they need not the done in the above sequence.
Henry Mintzberg
In the late 1960s, Henry Mintzberg conducted a precise study of managers at work.
He concluded that managers perform 10 different roles, which are highly interrelated.
Management roles refer to specific categories of managerial behavior.
Overall there are ten specific roles performed by managers which are included in the following three categories.
- 1) Interpersonal roles include figurehead, leadership, and liaison activities.
- 2) Informational roles include monitoring, disseminating, and spokesperson activities.
- 3) Decisional roles include entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.
Although the functions approach represents the most useful way to describe the manager’s job, Mintzberg’s roles give additional insight into managers’ work.
Some of the ten roles do not fall clearly into one of the four functions, since all managers do some work that is not purely managerial.
Management Skills
Managers need certain skills to perform the challenging duties and activities associated with being a manager.
Robert L. Bobby Katz
Robert L. Bobby Katz found through his research in the early 1970s that managers need three essential skills.
- 1) Technical skills are job-specific knowledge and techniques needed to proficiently perform specific tasks.
- 2) Human skills are the ability to work well with other people individually and in a group.
- 3) Conceptual skills are the ability to think and to conceptualize about abstract and complex situations.
These skills reflect a broad cross-section of the important managerial activities that are elements of the four management functions.
Significant changes in the internal and external environments have a measurable impact on management.
Security threats, corporate ethics scandals, global economic and political uncertainties, and technological advancements have had a great impact on the manager’s job.
Two significant changes facing today’s managers are importance of customers to the manager’s job and Importance of innovation to the manager’s job.
Organizations need managers.
The importance of studying management in today’s dynamic global environment can be explained by looking at the universality of management, the reality of work, and the rewards and challenges of being a manager.
The Universality of Management
Management is needed in all types and sizes of organizations, at all organizational levels, and in all organizational work areas throughout the world.
The Reality of Work
All employees of an organization either manage or are managed.
Rewards and Challenges of Being a Manager
Challenges
- a) Managers may have difficulty in effectively blending the knowledge, skills, ambitions, and experiences of a diverse group of employees.
- b) A manager’s success typically is dependent on others’ work performance.
Rewards:
- a) Managers have an opportunity to create a work environment in which organizational members can do their work to the best of their ability and help the organization achieve its goals.
- b) Managers often receive recognition and status in the organization and in the larger community; influence organizational outcomes; and receive appropriate compensation.
- c) Knowing that their efforts, skills, and abilities are needed by the organization gives many managers great satisfaction.
The manager of today must integrate management skills with new approaches that emphasize the human touch, enhance flexibility, and involve employees.
Management Yesterday and Today
Organizations and managers have existed for thousands of years.
The Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China were projects of tremendous scope and magnitude, and required good management.
Regardless of the titles given to managers throughout history, someone has always had to plan what needs to be accomplished, organize people and materials, lead and direct workers, and impose controls to ensure that goals were attained as planned.
Adam Smith.
Two historical events significant to the study of management are work of Adam Smith, in his book, ’The Wealth of Nations’, in which he argued brilliantly for the economic advantages of division of labor (the breakdown of jobs into narrow, repetitive tasks).
The Industrial Revolution is second important pre-twentieth-century influence on management.
The introduction of machine powers combined with the division of labor made large, efficient factories possible.
Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling became necessary activities.
There are six major approaches to management. They are explained as follows:
- Scientific Management
- General Administrative Theories
- Quantitative Approach to Management
- Organizational Behavior
- The Systems Approach
- The Contingency Approach.
1 - Scientific Management
Scientific management is defined as the use of the scientific method to determine the “one best way” for a job to be done.
Frederick Winslow Taylor.
The most important contributor in this field was Frederick W. Taylor who is known as the “father” of scientific management.
Using his principles of scientific management, Taylor was able to define the “one best way” for doing each job.
Frank Bunker Gilbreth Sr.
Lillian Evelyn Moller Gilbreth.
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were inspired by Taylor’s work and proceeded to study and develop their own methods of scientific management.
Therbigs.
They devised a classification scheme to label 17 basic hand motions called therbligs in order to eliminate wasteful motions guidelines devised by Taylor and others to improve production efficiency are still used in today’s organizations.
However, current management practice is not restricted to scientific management practices alone.
Elements of scientific management still used include:
- 1. Using time and motion studies؛
- 2. Hiring best qualified workers؛
- 3. Designing incentive systems based on output..
2 - General Administrative Theories
This group of writers, who focused on the entire organization, developed more general theories of what managers do and what constitutes good management practice.
Henri Fayol.
Karl Emil Maximilian “Max” Weber.
Henri Fayol and Max Weber were the two most prominent proponents of the general administrative approach.
Fayol focused on activities common to all managers.
He described the practice of management as distinct from other typical business functions.
He stated 14 principles of management which are as follows:
- 1. Division of Work
- 2. Authority
- 3. Discipline
- 4. Unity of Command
- 5. Unity of Direction
- 6. Subordination of individual interest to group interest
- 7. Remuneration
- 8. Centralization
- 9. Scalar Chain
- 10. Order
- 11. Equity
- 12. Stability
- 13. Initiative
- 14. Espirit de corps
Max Weber was a German sociologist who developed a theory of authority structures and described organizational activity based on authority relations.
He described the ideal form of organization as a bureaucracy marked by division of labor, a clearly defined hierarchy, detailed rules and regulations, and impersonal relationships.
Some current management concepts and theories can be traced to the work of the general administrative theorists.
The functional view of a manager’s job relates to Henri Fayol’s concept of management.
Weber’s bureaucratic characteristics are evident in many of today’s large organizations—even in highly flexible organizations that employ talented professionals.
Some bureaucratic mechanisms are necessary in highly innovative organizations to ensure that resources are used efficiently and effectively.
3 - Quantitative Approach to Management
The quantitative approach to management, sometimes known as operations research or management science, uses quantitative techniques to improve decision making.
This approach includes applications of statistics, optimization models, information models, and computer simulations.
The quantitative approach originated during World War II as mathematical and statistical solutions to military problems were developed for wartime use.
The relevance of quantitative approach today is that it has contributed most directly to managerial decision making, particularly in planning and controlling.
The availability of sophisticated computer software programs has made the use of quantitative techniques more feasible for managers.
4 - Organizational Behavior
The field of study concerned with the actions (behaviors) of people at work is organizational behavior.
Organizational behavior (OB) research has contributed much of what we know about human resources management and contemporary views of motivation, leadership, trust, teamwork, and conflict management.
Robert Owen.
Hugo Munsterberg.
Chester Irving Barnard.
The early advocates of OB approach were Robert Owen, Hugo Munsterberg, Mary Parker Follett, and Chester Barnard.
Their ideas served as the foundation for employee selection procedures, motivation programs, work teams, and organization-environment management techniques.
The Hawthorne Studies were the most important contribution to the development of organizational behavior.
This series of experiments conducted from 1924 to the early 1930s at Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, were initially devised as a scientific management experiment to assess the impact of changes in various physical environment variables on employee productivity.
George Elton Mayo.
After Harvard professor Elton Mayo and his associates joined the study as consultants, other experiments were included to look at redesigning jobs, make changes in workday and workweek length, introduce rest periods, and introduce individual versus group wage plans.
The researchers concluded that social norms or group standards were key determinants of individual work behavior.
Although not without criticism (concerning procedures, analyses of findings, and the conclusions), the Hawthorne Studies stimulated interest in human behavior in organizational settings.
In the present day context behavioral approach assists managers in designing jobs that motivate workers, in working with employee teams, and in facilitating the flow of communication within organizations.
The behavioral approach provides the foundation for current theories of motivation, leadership, and group behavior and development.
5 - The Systems Approach
During the 1960s researchers began to analyze organizations from a systems perspective based on the physical sciences.
A system is a set of interrelated and interdependent parts arranged in a manner that produces a unified whole.
The two basic types of systems are open and closed.
A closed system is not influenced by and does not interact with its environment.
An open system interacts with its environment.
Using the systems approach, managers envision an organization as a body with many interdependent parts, each of which is important to the well-being of the organization as a whole.
Managers coordinate the work activities of the various parts of the organization, realizing that decisions and actions taken in one organizational area will affect other areas.
The systems approach recognizes that organizations are not self-contained;
They rely on and are affected by factors in their external environment.
6 - The Contingency Approach
The contingency approach recognizes that different organizations require different ways of managing.
The contingency approach to management is a view that the organization recognizes and responds to situational variables as they arise.
Current Trends and Issues
The following are the current concepts and practices are changing the way managers do their jobs today.
Globalization
Organizational operations are no longer limited by national borders.
Managers throughout the world must deal with new opportunities and challenges inherent in the globalization of business.
Ethics
Cases of corporate lying, misrepresentations, and financial manipulations have been widespread in recent years.
Managers of firms such as Enron, ImClone, Global Crossing, and Tyco International have placed their own self-interest ahead of other stakeholders’ welfare.
While most managers continue to behave in a highly ethical manner, abuses suggest a need to “upgrade” ethical standards.
Ethics education is increasingly emphasized in college curricula today.
Organizations are taking a more active role in creating and using codes of ethics, ethics training programs, and ethical hiring procedures.
Workforce Diversity
It refers to a workforce that is heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, age, and other characteristics that reflect differences.
Accommodating diverse groups of people by addressing different lifestyles, family needs, and work styles is a major challenge for today’s managers.
Entrepreneurship
It is the process whereby an individual or group of individuals use organized efforts to pursue opportunities to create value and grow by fulfilling wants and needs through innovation and uniqueness, no matter what resources the entrepreneur currently has.
Three important themes stand out in this definition:
- a. The pursuit of opportunities
- b. Innovation
- c. Growth.
Entrepreneurship will continue to be important to societies around the world.
Managing in an E-Business World
E-business (electronic business) is a comprehensive term describing the way an organization does its work by using electronic (Internet-based) linkages with its key constituencies in order to efficiently and effectively achieve its goals.
Knowledge Management and Learning Organizations
Change is occurring at an unprecedented rate.
To be successful, today’s organization must become a learning organization—one that has developed the capacity to continuously learn, adapt, and change.
Knowledge management involves cultivating a learning culture where organizational members systematically gather knowledge and share it with others in the organization so as to achieve better performance.
Quality Management
Quality management is a philosophy of management that is driven by continual improvement and response to customer needs and expectations.
The objective of quality management is to create an organization committed to continuous improvement in work.
Organization Culture and Environment: The Constraints
The components of an organization’s culture are as complex as the different aspects of an individual’s personality.
Today’s managers must understand how the forces of an organization’s internal and external environment influence, and sometimes constrain, its productivity.
Managers must realize that organizational culture and organizational environment have important implications for the way an organization is managed.
Two perspectives concerning the role that managers play in an organization’s success or failure have been proposed.
- The Omnipotent View of Management
- The Symbolic View of Management.
The Omnipotent View of Management
The omnipotent view of management maintains that managers are directly responsible for the success or failure of an organization.
This view of managers as being omnipotent is consistent with the stereotypical picture of the “take-charge” executive who can overcome any obstacle in carrying out the organization’s objectives.
When organizations perform poorly, someone must be held accountable and according to the omnipotent view, that “someone” is management.
The Symbolic View of Management
The symbolic view of management upholds the view that much of an organization’s success or failure is due to external forces outside managers’ control.
The influence that managers do have is seen mainly as a symbolic outcome.
Organizational results are influenced by factors outside of the control of managers, including the economy, market changes, governmental policies, competitors’ actions, the state of the particular industry, the control of proprietary technology, and decisions made by previousmanagers in the organization.
The manager’s role is to create meaning out of randomness, confusion, and ambiguity.
According to the symbolic view, the actual part that management plays in the success or failure of an organization is minimal.
Reality suggests a synthesis; managers are neither helpless nor all powerful.
Instead, the more logical approach is to see the manager as operating within constraints imposed by the organization’s culture and environment.
The Organizational Culture
Just as individuals have a personality, so, too, do organizations.
We refer to an organization’s personality as its culture.
Organizational culture is the shared values, principles, traditions, and ways of doing things that influence the way organizational members act.
This definition implies:
- Individuals perceive organizational culture based on what they see, hear, or experience within the organization.
- Organizational culture is shared by individuals within the organization.
- Organizational culture is a descriptive term.
It describes, rather than evaluates.
Seven dimensions of an organization’s culture have been proposed:
- Innovation and risk taking
The degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and take risks.
- b. Attention to detail
The degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis, and attention to detail.
- Outcome orientation
The degree to which managers focus on results or outcomes rather than on the techniques and processes used to achieve those outcomes.
- d. People orientation
The degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect on people within the organization.
- Team orientation
The degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals.
- f. Aggressiveness
The degree to which people are aggressive and competitive rather than easygoing and cooperative.
- g. Stability
The degree to which organizational activities emphasize maintaining the status quo in contrast to growth.
Strong versus Weak Cultures
Strong cultures are found in organizations where key values are intensely held and widely shared.
Whether a company’s culture is strong, weak, or somewhere in between depends on organizational factors such as size, age, employee turnover rate, and intensity of original culture.
A culture has increasing impact on what managers do as the culture becomes stronger.
Most organizations have moderate-to-strong cultures.
In these organizations, high agreement exists about what is important and what defines “good” employee behavior.
Culture is transmitted and learned by employees principally through stories, rituals, material symbols, and language.
An innovative culture should have these characteristics:
- Challenge and involvement
- Freedom
- Trust and Openness
- Idea time
- Playfulness/humor
- Conflict resolution
- Debates
- Risk taking.
The Organization’s Environment
The general environment includes these broad external conditions that may affect the organization: economic, political/legal, sociocultural, demographic, technological, and global conditions.
- Economic
- Political/Legal
- Sociocultures
- Demographic
- Technological
- Global.
- Economic conditions
Include interest rates, inflation rates, changes in disposable income, stock market fluctuations, and the general business cycle.
- Political/legal conditions
include the general political stability of countries in which an organization does business and the specific attitudes that elected officials have toward business.
Sociocultural conditions
include the changing expectations of society.
Societal values, customs, and tastes can change, and managers must be aware of these changes.
Demographic conditions
Including physical characteristics of a population (e.g., gender, age, level of education, geographic location, income, composition of family) can change, and managers must adapt to these changes.
Technological conditions
which have changed more rapidly than any other element of the general environment.
Global factors
include global competitors and global consumer markets.
Environments differ in their amount of environmental uncertainty, which relates to:
- (1) the degree of change in an organization’s environment and
- (2) the degree of complexity in that environment
Degree of change is characterized as being dynamic or stable.
In a dynamic environment, components of the environment change frequently.
If change is minimal, the environment is called a stable environment.
The degree of environmental complexity is the number of components in an organization’s environment and the extent of an organization’s knowledge about those components.
If the number of components and the need for sophisticated knowledge is minimal, the environment is classified as simple.
If a number of dissimilar components and a high need for sophisticated knowledge exist, the environment is complex.
As uncertainty is a threat to organizational effectiveness, managers try to minimize environmental uncertainty.
Reference
(2003). Introduction to Management and Organizations. Peqarson Education Canada IncLink