Foundations of Management

Foundations of Management

• Characteristics of an Organization: Organizations are defined by their mission/vision statements, and the evolving nature of organizations (trends like turnover).
• Manager's Challenges: Managers deal with planning, organizing, leading, and controlling activities within their organizations.
• Management Roles: The roles are diverse and multifaceted.
• Management Theories: Different approaches exist, including the Classical, Behavioral, Quantitative, and Systems theories.
• Ethics: Different ethical dilemmas are prevalent; categorized by concerns like human resources, customer safety, and conflicts of interest.
• Stakeholders: Various groups, including customers and employees, have specific interests and concerns.
• Framework for Ethical Dilemmas: Strategies are available to resolve these conflicts when ethical issues arise.

Leading

• Human Personality: Personality traits—like openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (OCEAN)—shape individual characteristics, impacting job suitability and potentially job satisfaction.
• Personality Assessments: Tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and True Colors Test assist in understanding personality traits
• Job Satisfaction: Compensation and various factors like work environment influence job satisfaction.
• Employee Turnover: Understanding and mitigating factors influencing employee turnover is crucial for organizations
• Attitude and Behavior: Understanding individual attitudes, behaviour and values is essential to effective leadership
• Group Dynamics: Group and team dynamics (forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning) affect team outcomes and productivity
• Groupthink: Group decisions need to be examined to prevent poor decision making
• Leadership Styles: Varied leading styles, such as transactional leadership to transformational leadership, cater to organizational needs.
• Managerial Roles: Different roles (supervisor, facilitator, participant, coach) are deployed at different organizational levels.

Management Challenges

• Communication: Effective communication is crucial and barriers like semantic problems, physical distractions, and cultural differences should be overcome to create success
• Perception: Understanding that perceptual distortions and biases influence how individuals see issues and problems is important
• Stress: Workplace stress—with its impact on employee health and performance—can be measured with various instruments and analyzed
• Conflict Management: Different styles such as competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating can be applied to deal with specific conflict issues
• Motivation: Understanding drivers and concerns about motivation is essential to manage employee performance.

Planning and Controlling

• Planning: The process of planning involves setting organizational goals and developing strategies to achieve them. Different types of plans (strategic and operational plans) exist
• Rewards: Extrinsic and intrinsic factors influences employee motivation.
• Strategic Planning: Strategic planning focuses on long-term organizational goals. Various models such as SWOT and PEST analyses need to be implemented
• Levels of Strategic Planning: Levels like corporate, business, and functional encompass different aspects of strategic planning.
• Corporate Culture: Companies need a corporate culture that aligns with its objectives and goals
• Change Management: The process and strategies for successfully leading organizational change need to be addressed

Organizing

• Organizational Structure: Different organizational structures (e.g., hierarchical) play a role in how work is organized and managed.
• Workforce Trends: Shifting trends (outsourcing, virtual work, use of technology) transform how organizations structure their work.
• Job Design: Designing effective and motivating jobs is crucial for success.