Fundamentals of Management
Chapter 1:
Organization: a systematic arrangement of people brought together to accomplish some specific
purpose.
Characteristics of an organization:
- It has a distinct purpose.
- There are people working to achieve the goals of the organization.
- The organization is structured.
Organizational members can be divided into two categories:
Nonmanagerial employees: people who work directly on a job or task and have no responsibility for
overseeing the work of others.
Managers: individuals in an organization who direct the activities of others.
Managers can be classified as:
Top managers: individuals who are responsible for making decisions about the direction of the
organization and establishing policies that affect all organizational members.
Middle managers: individuals who are typically responsible for translating goals set by top managers
into specific details that lower-level managers will see get done.
First-line managers: supervisors responsible for directing the day-to-day activities of nonmanagerial
employees.
Team leaders: individuals who are responsible for managing and facilitating the activities of a work
team.
What is Management?
Management: the process of getting things done, effectively and efficiently, through and with other
people.
Scientific management: the use of scientific methods to define the ‘one best way’ for a job to be
done.
Efficiency: doing things right, or getting the most output from the least amount of inputs.
Effectiveness: doing the right things, or completing activities so that organizational goals are attained.
Four different types of management functions:
- Planning: defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing plans to coordinate activities.
- Organizing: determining what needs to be done, how it will be done, and who is to do it.
- Leading: directing and coordinating the work activities of an organization’s people.
- Controlling: monitoring activities to ensure that they are accomplished as planned.
,Management roles approach:
Managerial roles: specific categories of managerial behaviour, often groups around interpersonal
relationships, information transfer, and decision making.
- Interpersonal roles: involving people (subordinates and persons outside the organization)
and other duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature.
- Decisional roles: entailing making decisions or choices.
- Informational roles: involving collecting, receiving, and disseminating information.
Four general management skills:
- Conceptual skills: analysing and diagnosing complex situations to see how things fit together
and to facilitate making good decisions.
- Interpersonal skills: working well with other people both individually and in groups by
communicating, motivating, mentoring, delegating, etc.
- Technical skills: job specific knowledge and techniques needed to perform work tasks.
- Political skills: building a power base and establishing the right connections to get needed
resources for their groups.
Small business: an independent business having fewer than 500 employees that doesn’t necessarily
engage in any new or innovative practices and has relatively little impact on its industry.
The small business manager’s most important role is that of spokesperson. In contrast, the most
important concerns of a manager in a large organization are directed internally, deciding which
organizational units get what available resources and how much of them.
Social media: forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to
share ideas, information, personal messages, and other content.
More and more businesses are turning to social media not just as a way to connect with customers,
but also as a way to manage their human resources and tap into their innovation and talent.
Sustainability: a company’s ability to achieve its business goals and increase long-term shareholder
value by integrating economic, environmental, and social opportunities into its business strategies.
Employee engagement: when employees are connected to, satisfied with, and enthusiastic about
their jobs.
, Chapter 2:
External environment: factors, forces, situations, and events outside the organization that affect its
performance.
Such as:
Economic: interest rates, inflation, employment/unemployment rates, disposable income levels, stock
market fluctuations and business cycle stages.
Demographic: age, race, gender, education level, geographic location, and family composition.
Technological: scientific or industrial innovations.
Sociocultural: societal and cultural factors such as values, attitudes, trends, traditions, lifestyles,
beliefs, tastes, and patterns of behaviour.
Political/legal: federal, state, and local laws, as well as laws of other countries and global laws. It also
includes a country's political conditions and stability.
Global: issues (like a volcano eruption, political instability, terrorist attack, etc.) associated with
globalization and a world economy.
Sharing economy: an economic environment in which asset owners share with other individuals
through a peer-to-peer service, for a fee, their underutilized physical assets (such as a home, car,
clothing, tools, or other physical assets). Some analysts have included the sharing of knowledge,
expertise, skills, or time, as well.
The concept behind the sharing economy (or collaborative consumption) is putting underutilized
assets to good use. Asset owners ‘rent out’ assets they’re not using to consumers who need those
assets but who don’t want to or who can’t afford to purchase them.
How much does a manager make in how an organization performs?
Management theory proposes two perspectives in answering this question: the omnipotent view and
the symbolic view.
Omnipotent view of management: the view that managers are directly responsible for an
organization’s success or failure.
- Managers are directly responsible for an organization’s success or failure.
- Differences in performance are due to decisions and actions of managers.
- Good managers: anticipate change, exploit opportunities, correct poor performance, lead
their organizations.
- Profits up = managers get the credit and wards. Profits down = managers often get fired.
- Someone (the manager) is held accountable for poor performance.
- This view helps explain turnover among college and professional sports coaches.
Symbolic view of management: the view that much of an organization’s success or failure is due to
external forces outside manager’s control.
- Manager’s ability to affect performance outcomes is constrained by external factors.
- Managers don’t have a significant effect on organization’s performance.
- Performance is influenced by factors over which managers have little control (economy,
customers, governmental policies, competitors’ actions, etc.).
- Managers symbolize control and influence by developing plans, making decisions, and
engaging in other managerial activities to make sense out of random, confusing, and
ambiguous situations.
- Manager’s part in organizational success or failure is limited.
