Introduction to Management
Section 1.1
The Importance of
Business
Management
Objectives
 What management is
 The three levels of management
 The management process
 Three types of management skills
 The principles of management
 The role of women and minorities in
management
What is Management?
 Management is the process of deciding how
best to use a business’s resources to produce
goods or provide services.
– Resources include employees, equipment, and
money
 Managers are responsible for a variety of jobs:
schedule work shifts, oversee departments,
plan for the future, etc.
Levels of Management
 Senior Management is the highest level of
management.
– Establish the goals and objectives, of the business
– Decides what actions are necessary to meet those goals
 Senior management usually includes:
–
–
–
–
Chairperson of the board of directors
Chief Executive officer CEO
Chief Operating Officer COO
Chief Financial Officer CFO
Levels of Management continued
 Senior management is not involved in the company’s
day to day problems
– They concentrate on setting the direction the company will
follow
 Middle management is responsible for meeting the
goals that senior management sets
– Department heads and district sales managers
– Sets goals for specific areas of the business and decides what
the employees in each area must do to meet those goals
Levels of Management continued
 Supervisory Management is the lowest level of
management
– They are responsible for the day to day operations of the
business run smoothly
– In charge of the people who physically produce the company’s
products or provide its services
– Forepersons, crew leaders, and store managers
 The three levels of management form a hierarchy or a
group ranked in order of importance
The Management Process
 There are several ways to examine how
management works
– Divide the tasks managers performance into
categories
– Look at the roles different managers play in a
company
 Roles is a set of behaviors associated with a particular job
– Look at the skills managers need to do their jobs
Management Tasks
All managers perform activities that can be divided into five
categories:
 Planning-a manager decides on company goals and the actions
the company must take to meet them
 Organizing-groups related activities together and assign
employees to perform them
 Staffing-decides how many and what kind of people a business
needs to meet its goals and then recruits, selects, and trains the
right people
 Leading-provides the guidance employees need to perform their
tasks. Ensure company’s goals are met
 Controlling-analyze account records and make changes if
financial standards are not met
Management Roles
 Most management roles fall into three categories:
 Interpersonal roles-relationship with people. Provides
leadership within company and interacts with others
outside of the organization
 Information-related roles-require a manager to
provide knowledge news or advice to employees
 Decision making roles-are those a manager plays
when changes in policies, resolving, conflict, or
deciding how best to use resources
Management Skills
 Conceptual Skills-helps manager understand how
different parts of a business relate to one another and
to the business as a whole
– Decision making, planning, and organizing
 Human Relations Skills-managers need to understand
and work will with people
– Interviewing job applicants, forming partnerships with other
businesses, and resolving conflicts
 Technical Skills-specific abilities that people use to
perform their jobs
– Operating a word processing program, designing a brochure,
and training people to use a new budget system
Principles of Management
 Managers often use certain rules when deciding how to
run their businesses
 A principle is a basic truth or law
 Developing principles of management is more
complicated than scientific principles
 Management principles are developed through
observations or deduction
– Deduction is the process of drawing a general conclusion
from specific examples
Principles of Management continued
 Management principles are more likely to
change than physical
– Interpreted differently by different people
 Management principles are viewed as guides
to action rather than rigid laws
 Important part of being a manager is being
able to recognize when a principle should be
followed and when it should not.
Women and Minorities in Management
 For many years managers of large and
medium sized US businesses were almost
exclusively white males
 In the 50s and 60s women in the workforce
were mostly secretaries, teachers, salesclerk,
and waitresses
 Minorities were confined to menial jobs such as
custodial work and manual labor
Women and Minorities in Management
 Avon, eBay and Lucent all have women or minorities
CEOs
 Hewlett-Packard was the 1st of the 30 largest U.S.
companies to appoint a women CEO-Carleton Fiorina
 In 2000 women held 44% of managerial position in
public administration
 In 2002 women made up 25.1 percent of Senior
Executive Service (federal government’s highest
managers)
Women and Minorities in Management
 Despite many changes most senior managers in the
country are still white men
 In 2002 only 16% of executives (Fortune 500) were
women and 71 of the companies had no women
officers at all
 In America’s top 50 companies minorities only account
for 24 % of the managerial staff
 Why? Because of the glass ceiling-an invisible barrier
that prevents women and minorities from moving up in
the world of business