Contemporary Management Overview

Contemporary Management Overview

• Contemporary management involves the application of management functions (planning, organizing, leading, and controlling) to organizations.
• Effective management strives for efficiency (using resources wisely) and effectiveness (achieving the right goals).
• Managers use resources (people, machinery, raw materials, information, skills, and financial capital) to accomplish organizational goals.

Learning Objectives

• Understand key management concepts (organizations, goals, and management processes).
• Apply management functions within organizations.
• Describe the role of a manager within an organization.
• Analyze management issues and challenges.
• Categorize management theories.

Management Key Concepts

• Organizations: Groups of people collaborating to achieve shared goals.
• Goals: Desired future states that organizations attempt to achieve.
• Management: Process of leveraging organizational resources (people, assets) to achieve goals through planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Organizational Performance

• Efficiency: Measure of how effectively resources are used to achieve a goal (minimize input).
• Effectiveness: Measure of how appropriate goals are and how well they are achieved.
• High performance is achieved by effectively and efficiently utilizing resources to meet customer needs.

Managerial Concerns

• Efficiency: Doing things "right" (optimizing resource use to achieve a goal).
• Effectiveness: Doing the "right things" (accomplishing appropriate goals).

Managerial Functions

• Planning: Identifying goals and courses of action for organizations.
• Organizing: Structuring work relationships to achieve goals (creating departments and outlining authority/responsibilities).
• Leading: Directing and motivating employees to accomplish goals.
• Controlling: Evaluating performance and taking corrective action to reach goals.

Management Levels

• First-line managers: Oversee daily operations; supervise employees.
• Middle managers: Manage first-line managers and departmental resources to meet organizational goals.
• Top managers: Responsible for overall performance and organizational goals. The top management sets long-term goals and guides the organization.

Management Trends

• Empowerment: Giving employees more responsibility.
• Self-managed teams: Teams managing their own work and performance.

Managerial Roles

• Interpersonal: Figurehead, leader, and liaison roles interact with employees and the broader environment.
• Informational: Monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson roles gather, process, and disseminate information.
• Decisional: Entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator roles involve decision making.

Managerial Skills

• Conceptual skills: Analyzing situations to understand causes and effects.
• Human skills: Comprehending and influencing employee behavior.
• Technical skills: Specialized knowledge and abilities related to an organization's tasks.

Key Management Challenges

• Global competition.
• Maintaining efficiency and ethical practices.
• Managing diverse workforces.
• Utilizing modern technologies.

Management Theories

• Concepts: Individual ideas that explain aspects of the world (e.g., motivation).
• Theories: Broad explanations of relationships between concepts (e.g., Cognitive Learning Theory).

Scientific Management Theory

• Developed in the late 19th century.
• Focused on improving worker-task efficiency.
• Key Principles:
  • Analyze current work methods. Develop new ways.
  • Codify improved methods into rules and procedures.
  • Select Workers best suited to the new process.
  • Set performance standards and compensation based on output.

The Gilbreths

• Refined Taylor's methods via time-and-motion studies.
• Focus on analyzing component parts of tasks for maximum efficiency.
  • Improved accuracy and reduced worker fatigue.

Administrative Management

• Focused on creating efficient and effective organizational structures.
• Bureaucracy: Formal organization system focused on efficiency and clear authority structures.
• Key Principles:
  • Rules and procedures.
  • Hierarchy of authority.
  • Formal selection and promotion.

Fayol's Principles

• Developed fourteen principles of management.
• Principles include:
  • Division of labor.
  • Authority and responsibility.
  • Unity of command.
  • Unity of direction.
  • Equity.
  • Order.
  • Initiative ("taking initiative", encouraging innovation).
  • Discipline,
  • Remuneration of personnel,
  • Stability of tenure.

Behavioral Management

• Focuses on employee motivation, leadership, and improving worker productivity.
• Mary Parker Follett's work influenced understanding of collaboration between workers and management.
• Hawthorne Studies: Understanding aspects of worker motivation and behavior.

Theory X and Y

• Theory X: Assumes employees are inherently lazy and require close supervision.
• Theory Y: Views employees as motivated and capable of self-direction.

Theory Z

• Combines elements of American and Japanese management styles. Emphasizes long-term employment and work-group cohesiveness.

Management Science--Quantitative

• Quantitative techniques (linear programming, modeling, simulation) are used to optimize and maximize organizational resources.
• Focus on using mathematical approaches.

Organization-Environment Theory

• Explores relationships between an organization and the outside world.
• Input Stage: Acquiring resources.
• Conversion Stage: Transforming resources.
• Output Stage: Distributing outcomes.

Systems Considerations

• Open Systems: Interact with their environments.
• Closed Systems: Self-contained and do not interact with the environment.
• Synergy: Combined results of coordinated efforts is better than the individual results.

Contingency Theory

• Different approaches work best in different situations.
• The best approach depends on the specific circumstances and environment.

Structures

• Mechanistic Structure: Centralized structure, works best in stable environments and situations.
• Organic Structure: Decentralized; adaptable for changing environments.

Management Challenges during the Covid Pandemic

• Note that the provided documents did not offer explicit list of Covid-19 related challenges. Possible prompts would be good to consider in this context would include things like changes in employee relations or shifts in the workplace, economic shifts, changes to company structures, and new worker demands, and how to keep up with technology, all of which are potentially relevant for contemporary business challenges in the contemporary management framework.