SUBJECT MATERIAL

MANAGEMENT THEORY

BY

PROF. SASMITA MISRA

MANAGERS AND MANAGEMENT

Globalization, diversity, and increased competition are changing both the

nature of managerial work and the paths to career advancement. In the
new paradigm, the primary responsibility of management is to create
learning capability throughout the organization. Many companies are
reinventing themselves toward something called the learning organization.
This is a philosophy or attitude addressing what an organization is and the
role of employees. Everyone in the organization participates in identifying
and solving problems, enabling the organization to continuously
experiment, improve, and increase capability. The focus is on quality and
customer satisfaction. The learning organization emphasizes teams and
systems rather than hierarchy to maximize performance.

Rapid environmental shifts are causing fundamental transformations that

have a dramatic impact on the manager’s job. The shift from an industrial
age to an information age has altered the nature of work, employees, and
the workplace itself. In the new workplace work is free flowing and flexible.
The shift is most obvious in e-commerce and Internet-based organizations.
All organizations are facing the need for greater speed and flexibility. The
most striking change now affecting organizations and management is
technology. One of the biggest technological advances is the Internet,
which is transforming the way business is done. People around the world
are connected in the flow of information, money, ideas, and products.
Interdependencies are increasing. Customers today operate globally and
they expect organizations to provide worldwide service. Managers have to
understand cross-cultural patterns, and they often work with virtual team
members from many different countries. Diversity of the population and
the work force has become a fact of life for all organizations. Organizations
are learning to value change and speed over stability and efficiency. The
 new paradigm recognizes change and chaos are the natural order of things.
Events in today’s world are turbulent and unpredictable, with both small
and large crises occurring on a more frequent basis. Managers must
rethink their approach to organizing, directing, and motivating workers.

Organizations bring together knowledge, people, and raw materials to

perform tasks no individuals can do alone; without organizations, how could
DVDS be made available?

An organization is a social entity that is goal directed and deliberately

structured.

Social entity is two or more people; goal directed means the organization is
designed to achieve some outcome or goal such as make a profit.

Deliberately structured means tasks are divided and responsibility for their
performance is assigned to organization members.

Effectiveness is the degree to which the organization achieves a stated

objective; effectiveness means providing a product or service that customer’s
value.

Efficiency refers to the amount of resources used to produce an output or a

product or service, based on the how much raw materials, money, and people
are needed for output.

Efforts to improve efficiency can hurt organizational effectiveness; Delta

Airlines increased efficiency with spending cuts and fell in terms of on-time
performance.

The ultimate responsibility of managers is to achieve high performance, which

is the attainment of organizational goals by using resources in an efficient and
effective manner.

Managers direct the activities of others in an organization. They have

titles such as supervisor, department head, dean ,and division manager
,vice president, president and chief executive officer ,operatives are non
managerial personnel. The management functions are planning, organizing,
leading, and controlling. Planning means defining goals for future
organizational performance and deciding on the tasks and use of resources
needed to attain them. The management activity associated with planning is
to select goals and ways to attain them.
Organizing typically follows planning and reflects how the organization will
try to accomplish the plan. The management activity associated with
organizing is to assign responsibility for task accomplishment. Leading is the
use of influence to motivate employees to achieve the organization’s goals.
The management activity associated with leading is to motivate employees.
Controlling means monitoring employees activities, keeping the organization
on track toward its goals, and making corrections as needed. The
management activity associated with controlling is to monitor activities and
make corrections.

The different types of management types under vertical differences are the
top managers, middle managers, project managers, and first-line managers.
Top managers are at the top of the organizational hierarchy and are
responsible for the entire organization. A middle manager is one who works
at the middle levels of the organization and is responsible for major
departments. A project manager is responsible for a temporary work
project that involves the participation of people from various functions and
levels of the organization, and perhaps from outside the company as well.
First-line managers are directly responsible for the production of goods and
services. Functional managers and general manager’s functions occur
horizontally across the organization. Functional managers are responsible
for departments that perform a single functional task and have employees
with similar training and skills. General Managers are responsible for
several departments that perform different functions.
MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS:

As coined by Luther Gullick:

1. Planning
2. Organizing
3. staffing
4. directing
5. coordinating
6. reporting
7. budgeting
Examples

1. An excellent example of a leader during turbulent times is Anne Mulcahy,

CEO of Xerox. Although Xerox’s woes are far from over, Mulcahy has gotten
the company off the critical list. One characteristic that has gained her the
admiration and respect of employees, customers, and shareholders alike is
her willingness to tell the truth. Mulcahy is also fiercely concerned about
people. Even during the darkest days, she refused to consider preferring
instead to focus everyone on rebuilding for the future. Her willingness to
work with subordinates on the front lines has expanded her credibility and
enabled her to energize people who were previously demoralized and
hopeless. Despite the company’s financial distress, she rejected a plan to
abolish raises, and she implemented symbolic gestures of appreciation, like
giving employees birthdays off.
2. At IBM, a new CEO is shifting values toward an adaptability culture to support
a new strategy that requires flexibility, speed, and innovation. Sam
Palmisano believes culture is the key to transforming IBM for a new era. The
key themes that emerged were customer relationships, innovation and trust.
Palmisano has made a number of moves to signal the new cultural values.
When he asked the board to cut his 2003 bonus in half and set the money
aside to be split among IBM’s 20 top executives based on performance as a
team, Palmisano made a powerful statement. The environment surprises
managers and leaves them unable to adapt their companies to new
competition, shifting consumer interests, or new technologies.
3.

UNLOCKING CREATIVE SOLUTIONS THROUGH PEOPLE

 At Microsoft Work-Life Balance Pays Off

How does a company where people work long, hard hours win an award for work-life
balance? It seems a paradox, but employees voted Microsoft UK the best company to
work for in the UK partly because of its attention to work-life balance issues. Microsoft
UK’s director of people and culture, says employees choose to work long and hard
because they love technology. However, they have the flexibility to work when and
where they need to. If employees want to work on Sunday and go golfing on Monday,
they’re empowered to do so. Microsoft’s attention to people and culture pays off. The
attrition rate of hard-to-find technical employees is at 2 percent. An astounding 93
percent of employees say they “feel proud to work for the company.