LECTURE # 1 & 2
Chapter 1 – THE CHALLENGE OF
MANAGEMENT
What is Management?
 Management is the process of getting activities
completed efficiently and effectively with and
through other people.
 Management is the organizational function like
sales, marketing, finance or investment that get
things done efficiently, to gain the best return
on all the resources.
What Managers actually do
 Most influential study conducted by Mintzberg
(1980)
 He found managers’ actual work methods
differed drastically from their popular image.
 Unrelenting pace
 Brevity, variety and fragmentation
 Verbal contacts and networks
Managerial Roles
 Role is an organized set of behaviors
 3 roles Mintzberg observed were:
 Interpersonal
 Informational
 Decisional
Within these roles he outlined 10 more specific roles
that managers play.
 Interpersonal role: grows directly from a
manager’s position authority and involves
developing
and
maintaining
positive
relationships with others.
 Informational role: relates to receiving and
transmitting information so managers can
serve as the focal point of the organization.
 Decisional role: involves making significant
decisions that affects the organization.
 Figurehead: symbolic duties of social nature
 Leader: builds relationships with subordinates
 Liaison: maintains networks of contacts outside work
unit
 Monitor: seeks information about issues affecting
organization
 Disseminator: transmits information
 Spokesperson: provides organization information to
outsiders
 Entrepreneur: acts as initiator
 Disturbance handler: takes action when company faces
unexpected difficulties
 Resource allocator: distributes resources
 Negotiator: represents the company in negotiations
Management Functions
 Planning: done by top managers
 Organizing: more important for top and middle
managers
 Leading: essential for first-line managers
 Controlling: common to all hierarchical levels
Managerial Knowledge
 Knowledge base includes information about an
industry and its technology, company policies
and practices, goals and plans, company
culture, the personalities of organization
members and important suppliers and
customers.
Managerial Work Agendas
Kotter (1982) suggested managers focus their various
efforts productively through work agendas.
 Work agenda is a loosely connected set of tentative
goals and tasks that a manager is attempting to
accomplish.
 Managers develop agendas during first 6 months.
 They address immediate and long run job
responsibilities.
 These agendas are used with formal organizational
plans.
Factors influencing work agendas
Demand, constraints and choices.
 Job demands are activities a manager must
perform in his job. E.g. achieving his targets.
 Job constraints are factors which limit what a
manager can do. E.g. resource limitations,
legal restrictions or technological restrictions.
 Job choices are work activities the manager
can perform but they are not forced on him.
Management Skills
Skill is the ability to engage in a set of behaviors
functionally related to one another leading to a
desired performance level in a given area.
 Technical skills: skills of a specialized field
 Human skills: interpersonal relationships with
subordinates and others.
 Conceptual skills: ability to visualize the
organization as a whole and understand how it
fits in the wider industry.
Performance
Drucker (1967) pointed out that performance
achieved through management is made up of 2
dimensions.
 Effectiveness: the ability to choose appropriate
goals and achieve them. E.g.
 Efficiency: ability to make the best use of
resources in process of achieving goals. E.g.
Managerial Job Types
Managerial jobs vary on 2 dimensions:
 Vertical dimension: focusing on different
hierarchical levels
 Horizontal dimension: addressing variations in
managers’ responsibility areas
Vertical Dimension
Managerial jobs fall in three categories:
 First line managers/supervisors: managers at
the lowest level of the hierarchy.
 Middle managers: managers beneath the top
levels of the hierarchy.
 Top managers: managers at the top level of
hierarchy.
Functions of Management
 Planning is more important for top than for
middle or first-line mangers.
 Organizing is more important for top and
middle than for first-line managers.
 Leading is much more essential for first-line
supervisors than for higher-level managers.
 Controlling is common to all hierarchical
levels.
Management Skills
 Conceptual skills are most needed by top
managers.
 First-line managers have the greatest need for
technical skills. Middle managers and even top
managers must have some kind of technical
skills.
 Whereas human skills are required at all
management levels.
Promoting Innovation
 Innovation: a new idea
 Intrapreneurs:
individuals
who
engage
in
entrepreneurial roles inside organizations.
 Intrapreneurship: process of innovating within an
existing organization.
 Idea champion: individual who generates a new idea.
 Sponsor: middle manager who recognizes the
organizational significance of an idea, also helps
facilitate its implementation.
 Orchestrator: high level manager who explains the
need for innovation and provides funding.
Horizontal Dimension
 Functional
managers:
managers
with
responsibility for a specific, specialized area of
the firm.
 General
managers:
managers
with
responsibility for a whole organization.
 Project
managers:
managers
with
responsibility for co-ordinating efforts
involving
individuals
in
different
organizational units working for a project.