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Introduccià N A La Admon en Ingles
Introduccià N A La Admon en Ingles
This introductory chapter lays put the general dimensions of the manager's job. It
introduces the role and the function of managers in the organization, identifies
requisite management skills, and examines the historical development of
management knowledge.
Defining Management
�The field of management deals with organizations. Our society could not exist or
improve its present status without managers to guide it organizations. Thirty years
ago, Peter Drucker, a noted management authority, proclaimed that effective
management was becoming the main resource of developed nations, and that it
was the most needed resource of developing nations.�Drucker's comments are
still valid and all countries need good managers.
There are many definitions of the term organization. In an early definition Chester
Bernard labeled it "a system of consciously coordinated activities of two or more
persons." �Hari Das said, that "an organization is an abstract social entity." Social
entity is "a structured group of two or more people brought together to achieve
certain objectives". According to Howard E. Aldrich,
Organizational Goals
Every organization has various types of goals. "Organizational goals are desired
states of affairs or preferred results that organizations attempt to realize and
achieve" (Amitai Etzioni). The idea of organizational goals has a long history in
economics, in which the classic position posits an entrepreneur or ownership group
which in turn establishes the goals of the firm. Alternatively, these goals may
represent a concesus arrived at by all members of the organization.
One useful scheme for describing organizational goals was provided by Charles
Perrow. He has identified the following types of organizational goals:
�* Officials goals. These goals are the formally stated goals of an organization
described in its charter and annual reports and they are emphasized in public
statements by key executives.
�* Operative goals are the outcomes that the� organization actually seeks to
attain through its operating policies and activities.
�* Output goals. These goals are the "end product," such as consumer products,
services, health care, or education.
�* System goals. System goals relate to the� organization itself, and they
consist of such things as growth, stability, profit, efficiency, market share.
* Derived goals refer to the way an organization uses its power and influence to
achieve other social or political goals (such as employee welfare, community
services, or political aims).
�* System goals. There are four system goals: survival, efficiency, control, and
growth.
�* Formal goals. Formal goals are used by managers to tell everyone what they
are doing.
�* Ideological goals. These goals are what the people within the organization
believe in.
�* Shared personal goals. These goals are what people within the organization
come together to accomplish for their mutual benefit.
For most organizations, goals are constantly changing and members of the
organizations must respond appropriately, by formulating new goals as well as
deciding which goals will be accomplished, and in what order.
Organizational Resources
�The term management can be and often is used in several different ways. Mary
Parker Follett, described management as "the art of getting things done through
people." �From Peter Drucker's viewpoint, managers give direction to their
organizations, provide leadership, and decide how to use organizational resources
to accomplish goals.�The term management in this thesis refers to the definition
of management described by Richard L. Daft:
There are two important ideas in this definition: (1) the four functions of planning,
organizing, leading, and controlling and (2) the attainment of organization goals in
an effective and efficient manner.�
The successful manager must actively perform basic managerial functions. One of
the earliest classifications of managerial functions was made by Fayol, who
suggested that planning, organizing, coordinating, commanding, and controlling
were the primary functions. �Some others theorists identify additional
management functions, such as staffing, communicated, or decision making. �But
now generally, there is agreement that the basic managerial functions are:
planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. �The additional functions (e.g.,
communicated, or decision making) will be discussed as subsets of the four
primary functions.
Planning
Planning is considered to be the central function of management because it sets
the pattern for the other activities to follow. "Planning means defining goals for
future organizational performance and deciding on the tasks and use of resources
needed to attain them" (Richard Daft). Planning encompasses four elements:
Organizing
Organizing is the managerial function of making sure there are available the
resources to carry out a plan. "Organizing involves the assignment of tasks, the
grouping of tasks into departments, and the allocation of resources to departments"
(Richard Daft)�Managers must bring together individuals and tasks to make
effective use of people and resources. Three elements are essential to organizing:
Leading
Leading is another of the basic function within the management process "Leading
is the use of influence to motivate employees to achieve organizational goals"
(Richard Daft).�Managers must be able to make employees want to participate in
achieving an organization's goals. Three components make up the leading
function:
Motivating employees
Influencing employees
Forming effective groups.
The leading process helps the organization move toward goal attainment.
Controlling
Organizational Performance
The performance is a global concept the represents the results of human activities.
Organizational performance is "the way in which an organization tries to be
effective" (Ricky W. Griffin). An organizations's performance can be measured in
many different ways. The most common ways are in terms of efficiency or
effectiveness. "Performance, ... is the attainment of organizational goals by using
resources in an efficient and effective manner" (Richard Daft). Effectiveness and
efficiency is viewed as subcomponets of performance. �As Peter Drucker has
stated, efficiency means "doing things right," and effectiveness means "doing the
right things."�The more complete definitions are that: "organizational efficiency
refers to the amount of resources used to achieve an organizational goal", and
"organizational effectiveness is the degree to which organization achieves a stated
objective"(Richard Daft). The more resources wasted during the production
process, the more inefficient the manager. If organizations are using their
resources to attain their goals, the managers are effective. Finally, "productivity is
the level of output of goods and services achieved by the resources of an
organization" (Ricky W. Griffin) Effectiveness, efficiency, performance, and
productivity are all important concepts for managers and organizations.
Performance is not single standard, but consists of multiple criteria. The level of
analysis of performance ranges from the individual employee to the user of the�
organization's products and services, and on to society in general. The focus of
performance can concern maintenance, improvement, and developmental goals.
The time frame for performance, from short term to long term, must be established.
How performance will be measured, ranging from� quantitative/objective to
qualitative/subjective measures, should be considered.
Ricky W. Griffin proposed a more detailed model that related performance,
effectiveness and productivity. This framework can help managers monitor all of
their activities and successfully carry out the control function at the organizational
level.
Types Of Managers
�The managerial functions must be performed by anyone who manages any type
of organized activity. With the basic understanding of management, defining the
term manager becomes relative simple. According to Ricky W. Griffin definition of
manager is as follows:
" A manager is someone whose primary activities are a part of the management
process. In particular, a� manager is someone who plans, organizes, leads, and
controls human, financial, physical, and information resources."
Levels Of Management
Most people think of three basic levels of management: top, middle, and first-line
managers.
Top managers are responsible for the overall direction and operations of an
organization. Particularly, they are responsible for setting organizational goals,
defining strategies for achieving them, monitoring and implementing the external
environment, decisions that affect entire organization. They have such titles as
chief executive officer (CEO), president, chairman, division president, and
executive vice-president. Managers in these positions are responsible for
interacting with representatives of the external environment (e.g., important
customers, financial institutions, and governmental figures) and establishing
objectives, policies, and strategies.
Middle managers are responsible for business units and major departments.
Examples of middle managers are department head, division head, and director of
the research lab. The responsibilities of middle managers include translating
executive orders into operation, implementing plans, and directly supervising
lower-level managers. Middle managers typically have two or more management
levels beneath them. They receive overall strategies and policies from top
managers and the translate them into specific objective and programs for first-line
managers.
First-line managers are directly responsible for the production of goods and
services. Particularly, they are responsible for directing nonsupervisory employees.
First-line managers are variously called office manager, section chief, line
manager, supervisor.
Responsibilities
�In large organizations, managers are also distinguished by the scope of activities
the manage. Functional managers are responsible for departments that perform a
single functional tasks. They supervise employees with specialized skills in a single
area of operation, such as accounting, personnel, payroll, finance, marketing,
advertising, and manufacturing. General managers are responsible for the overall
operation of a more complex unit, such as a company or a division. Project
managers also have general management responsibility, because they coordinate
employees across several departments to accomplish a specific project.
Managerial Roles
Mintzberg's observations and research indicate that diverse manager activities can
be organized into ten roles.�For an important starting point, all ten rules are
vested with formal authority over an organizational unit. From formal authority
comes status, which leads to various interpersonal relations, and from these
comes access to information, which, in turn, enables the manager to make
decisions and strategies.
The ten roles are divided into three categories: interpersonal, informational, and
decisional.
Interpersonal Roles
�* The leader role. This role involves leadership� directly (e.g., the manager is
responsible for� hiring an training his own staff). The leader role encompasses
relationships with subordinates,� including motivation, communication, and
influence.
�* The liaison role, in which the manager makes� contacts inside and outside the
organization with a wide range of people: subordinates, clients,� business
associates, government, trade� organization officials, and so on.
Informational Roles
�The processing of information is a key part of the manager's job. Three roles
describe the informational aspects of managerial work:
�* The monitor role. This role involves seeking� current information from many
sources. For example, the manager perpetually scans his environment for
information, interrogates liaison contacts and subordinates and receives unsolicited
information.
�* The spokesperson role. In their spokesman role, managers send some of their
information to people outside the organization about company policies, needs,
actions, or plans.
Decisional Roles
�The manager plays the major role in his unit's decision-making system. Four
roles describe the decisional aspects of managerial work:
�* The negotiator role. The negotiations are duties of the manager's job. These
activities involve formal negotiations and bargaining to attain outcomes for the
manager's unit responsibility.
These ten roles are not easily separate: "No role can be pulled out of the
framework and the job be left intact". However, this description of managerial work
should be important to managers: "...the managers' effectiveness is significantly
influenced by their insight into their own work" (L. Gulick).
Management Skills
Regardless of the sort of goals they must meet or their level of authority, managers
need to possess conceptual, human, technical, diagnostic, and political skills. The
first three skills have long been accepted as important for management, the last
two have received more recent attention.
�* Conceptual skills. Conceptual skill is the cognitive ability to see the organization
as a whole and the relationship among its parts. Managers need the� mental
capacity to understand how various functions of the organization complement one
another, how the organization relates to its environment, and how changes in one
part of the organization affect the rest of the organization.
�* Human skills. The manager needs human skills: the ability to communicate
with, understand, and motivate both individuals and groups.
The diagnostic skill is from Ricky Griffin, and the political skill is from Pavett and
Lau :
The extent to which managers need different kinds of skills moves from lower
management to upper management. Most low-level managers use technical skills
extensively. At higher levels technical skills become less important while the need
for conceptual skills grows. However, human skills are very important to all
managers. �
On the other hand, the organized knowledge underlying the practice may be
referred to as a science.�To perform at high levels in a variety of situations,
managers must be able to draw on the sciences - particularly economics,
sociology, mathematics, political science, psychology, and political science - for
assistance and guidance.
The tasks of modern managers require the use of techniques, practices, and skills.
In this context science and art not mutually exclusive but complementary.
The concept of management is not new; its has been practiced for thousands of
years, although terms such as management principles or management theory may
not have been used. �The Sumerians, the Babylonians, or the Romans have
provided numerous illustrations of effective management. �In terms of longevity,
"the most effective formal organization in the history of Western civilization has
been the Roman Catholic Church" (Harold Koontz and Cyril O'Donnell). However,
management gained in importance, as mankind progressed and moved into the
Industrial Revolution era.
Today's concept of management is the product of a long and complicated
evolutionary process. Essentially, four major forces affect management are
economic, social, political-legal, and technological.
Although not recognized as a separate school, the contingency and the systems
approach are also discussed in this section, which attempt to integrate the three
schools.
Scientific Management
�The management science school provides managers with a scientific basis for
solving problems and making decisions. This approach arose out of a need to
improve manufacturing productivity through more efficient use of physical and
human resources. It grew from the pioneering work of five people: Frederick W.
Taylor, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Henry Gantt, and Harrington Emerson.
Develop a science for each element of a worker's job to replace rules of thumb.
Job specialization should be a part of each job.
Ensure the proper selection, training, and development of workers.
Planning and scheduling of the work are essential.
Standards with respect to methods and time for each task should be established.
Wage incentives should be an integral part of each job.
�These four principles became the basic guidelines for managing the work of
individuals. Taylor's approach had a significant impact on American society; it led
to increases in productivity. His ideas also stimulated others to continue the
formulation of management thought.
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were a husband-wife team if industrial engineers. They
produced significant contributions in motion study and work simplification. �With
the use of motion picture cameras, the Gilbreth's found the most efficient and
economical motions for each task, thus reducing and upgrading production.
Working individually and together, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth developed numerous
techniques and strategies for eliminating inefficiency.
Contributions toward work scheduling and control were made by Harry L. Gannt.
�He tried to improve systems or organizations through task scheduling and
reward innovation. Essentially, Gantt's most famous contribution was the Gannt
chart, a system of control and scheduling we still use today.
Administrative Theory
3. Discipline. Employees must respect the rules that govern the organization.
4. Unity of command. Employees should receive orders from only one superior.
9. Scalar chain. A chain of authority should extend from the top to the bottom of
the organization. This chain implements the unity-of-command principle and allows
the orderly flow of information.
10. Order. Human and material resources must be in the right place at the right
time.
14. Esprit de corps. Managers should encourage a sense of unity of effort through
harmony of interests.
Behavioral School
The human relations movement grew from the Hawthorne studies. A group of
Harvard researchers, headed by Elton Mayo, conducted a series of experiments on
worker productivity in 1924 at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company in
Illinois. �These experiments have come to be know as the Hawthorne studies.
The Harvard researches suggested that the way people were treated had an
important impact on performance; individual and social processes played a major
role in shaping worker attitudes and behavior. Therefore, management must
recognize the importance worker's needs for recognition and social satisfaction.
Mayo termed this concept of the social man: individuals are motivated by social
needs and good on-the-job relationships and respond better to work-group
pressure that to management control activities.
Two of the best-known contributors who helped advance the human relations
movement were Abraham Maslow and Douglas McGregor.
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) , a practicing psychologist, observed that his
patients are motivated by a sequence of needs, including monetary incentives,
social acceptance, and others. He generalized his work and suggested a hierarchy
of needs. �Maslow's theory of "hierarchical needs" was a primary factor in the
increased attention that managers began to give to the work of academic theorists.
Douglas McGregor (1906-1970) advanced two beliefs for managers about human
behavior- Theory X and Theory Y.�Theory X takes a relative pessimistic and
negative view of workers. Theory Y represents the assumptions that human
relations advocates make. The point of Theory Y is that organizations can take
advantage of the imagination and intellect of all its employees.
The management science school provides managers with a scientific basis for
solving problems and making decisions. This school grew directly out of the World
War II groups (called operational research teams in Great Britain and operations
research teams in the United States).�Churchman, Ackoff, and Arnoff define the
management science approach as an application of the scientific method to
problems arising in the operation of a system, and the solving of these problems by
solving mathematical equations representing the system.
The term management science sounds very much like scientific management (the
approach developed by Taylor), but the two not be confused. The distinguishing
characteristics include:
Operations management refers to the various models and techniques in use. Some
of the commonly used methods are forecasting, inventory modeling, linear and
nonlinear programming, scheduling, simulation, networks models, probability
analysis, and break-even analysis. Operations management specialists use these
techniques to solve manufacturing problems.
Because management science thought is still evolving, more specific technic can
be expected.
During the lats 30 years, there have been attempts to achieve integration of the
three approaches to management. On of these attempts, the systems approach,
stresses that the organizations must be viewed as total systems. Another, the
contingency approach, stresses that the correctness of a managerial practice is
contingent upon how it fits the practical situation in which it is applied.
Several authors have further developed some ides of contingency thinking. One of
these important contributors is James D. Thompson, whose work in the area of
technology's effect on organization is already a classic.
Thompson argued that organizations that experience similar technological
problems will engage in similar behavior.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy is recognized as the founder of general system theory. The
system approach is based on the concept that an organization is a system. A
system is defined as a number of interdependent parts functioning as a whole for
some purpose. Here there are five components: inputs, a transformation process,
outputs, feedback, and the environment.
Open versus closed systems. According to Ludwig von Bertlanffy, there are two
basic types of systems: closed systems and open systems. Closed system are not
influenced by and do not interact with their environments. Open systems interact
with their environment. All organizations are open systems, although the degree of
interaction may vary.
Entropy. Entropy is a universal property of systems and refers to their tendency to
run down and die. A primary objective of management, form systems perspective,
is to avoid entropy.
Synergy. Synergy means that the whole is greater the sum of its parts. Synergy is
an important concept for managers in that it reinforces the need to work together in
a cooperative fashion.
The whole should be the main focus of analysis, with the parts receiving secondary
attention.
Integration is the key variable in wholeness analysis.
Possible modifications in each part should be weighted in relation to possible
effects on every other part.
Each part has some role to perform so that the whole can accomplish its purpose.
The nature of the parts and its function is determined by its position in the whole.
All analysis starts with the existence of the whole.
Systems theory offers the manager a useful perspective. For example, the
management system is based upon general system theory.
Recent Trends
length of employment
mode of decision making,
locations of responsibility,
speed of evaluation and promotion,
mechanism of control,
specialization of career path
and nature of concern of the employee.
Ouchi�s theory Z proposes a hybrid form of management that incorporates
techniques from both Japanese and North American management practices. In a
very short time, his ideas have been well received by practicing managers.
Summary
Those skills include conceptual, human, technical, diagnostic, and political skills.
Managers in the future will need greater human skill as well as conceptual skills.
Management skills may be acquired through education (formal course-word and
continuing education) and experience. Management principles are universal to all
types of organizations (e.g., business organizations, governmental organizations,
health care organizations, and churches).