Management Functions and Skills Quiz

Study Notes

Management Functions: Planning, Organizing, Leading, Controlling (POLC)
Management Levels: Top Managers, Middle Managers, First-Line Managers, Team Leaders, Non-managerial Employees
Managerial Roles: Interpersonal (figurehead, leader), Informational (spokesperson, disseminator, monitor), Decisional (negotiator, entrepreneur)
Efficiency vs Effectiveness: Efficiency is resource utilization; effectiveness is goal achievement. A manager can be efficient but ineffective (using resources well for the wrong goal) or ineffective but efficient (using resources poorly for the right goal).
Managerial Skills: Conceptual (analyzing situations and cause-effect), Human (understanding, leading others), Technical (job-specific knowledge/techniques)
Core Competency: Unique skills, knowledge, and experience of an organization that makes it outperform others.
Managerial Challenges: Managing for competitive advantage, technological advances, inclusion and diversity, globalization, ethical standards, sustainable development, happiness and meaningfulness

Scientific Management (Frederick Taylor): Systematic study of task-person interactions for efficiency improvement.
- Taylor's Four Principles: Study work, codify procedures, select and train employees, reward performance.

Bureaucracy Principles: System of organization with formal authority, hierarchical structure, and strict rules.

Hawthorne Studies: Experiments on worker fatigue and performance, revealing social/psychological factors in work.
Early Behaviorism (Munsterberg): Identifying best people for jobs, optimal psychological conditions, influence methods.
Mary Parker Follett: Emphasized horizontal communication and knowledge-based authority.

The text does not provide detailed information on quantitative approaches to solving problems.

Open vs Closed Systems: Open systems interact with the environment; closed systems do not.
Synergy: Combined effect greater than individual efforts.
Feedback: Information about reactions to outputs affecting inputs.
Inputs, Transformations, Outputs, Feedback: The process of using inputs, transforming them via organizational capabilities, producing outputs, receiving environmental feedback.

SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
PESTLE Analysis: Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, Environmental factors
Five Forces Model: Threat of new entrants, threat of substitute products, rivalry among existing firms, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers.
VRIO Framework: Value, Rarity, Imitability, Organization (competitive advantage framework).
BCG Matrix: Corporate portfolio analysis, categorizing products as Stars, Question Marks, Cash Cows, Dogs based on market growth/share.
Corporate-level Strategy: Deciding which businesses to be in.
Business-Level Strategy: Competitive strategies within an industry.
Functional-level Strategy: Supporting the business-level strategy within functions like marketing, operations.
Strategic Management Process: Mission, vision, assessment, strategy formulation, implementation, control

Six reasons for control: adapt to change, discover errors, reduce costs, detect opportunities, provide feedback, decentralise decision-making, facilitate teamwork.
Three Types of Control: Feedforward, Concurrent, Feedback
Balanced Scorecard: Measures organizational performance from four perspectives: Customer, Financial, Internal Business, Learning & Growth.

Organizational Structure Features: Common purpose, coordinated effort, division of labour, hierarchy of authority, span of control.
Centralization vs Decentralization: Centralized decision-making vs distributed decision-making.
Organizational Culture Levels: Observable artefacts, espoused values, underlying assumptions.
Four Types of Culture: Clan (internal/flexible), Adhocracy (external/flexible), Market (external/controlled), Hierarchy.

How OD Works: Diagnosis, Intervention, Evaluation, Feedback
Ten Reasons for Resistance to Change: Predisposition to change, surprise, fear of the unknown, climate of mistruths, fear of failure, loss of status, disruption of culture, peer pressure, lack of tact, non-reinforcing reward systems.