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# Management - Meaning, Characteristics and Functional Area ## Branch of Knowledge and a Mental and Moral Training - Management is a discipline, including principles, techniques, functions and problems regarding management. - Management discipline has drawn most of its principles and techniques fro...

# Management - Meaning, Characteristics and Functional Area ## Branch of Knowledge and a Mental and Moral Training - Management is a discipline, including principles, techniques, functions and problems regarding management. - Management discipline has drawn most of its principles and techniques from subjects like Economics, Commerce, Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, Operational Research, Ecology, etc. - Basic fundamentals and principles of management remain the same in all business and industrial units all over the world. - This discipline has acquired the concept of universality. - Management is a subject of study to know the role of a manager in the present social system or to specialize in a particular functional branch of management such as financial, marketing, production or personnel management. - In the present world, ownership and management are considered as two separate entities as management requires a formal acquisition of requisite knowledge and skill. ## Management - As a Group - Management is a group of all those persons who are engaged in managing the affairs of a business or industrial unit. - They are entrusted duties and given authorities to execute their functions. - Management is concerned more with formal and informal groups rather than with individual efforts. - Without active and efficient co-operation between different people, nothing can be achieved. - **Sir Charles Renold:** "Management is the process of *getting things done through the agency of a community*." - **Koontz O'Donnell:** "Management is *the art of getting things done through and with the people in formally organised group*." - Koontz has further said, "It is *the art of creating an environment in which people can perform as individuals and yet co-operate towards attainment of group goals.* It is the art of *removing blacks to such performance, a way of optimising efficiency in reaching goals*." ## Criticism of Koontz's Definition of Management - Management is not only an art: Koontz has taken management as an art but it is not true. - Management is not only the management of personnel: - It has two reasons. - First is that the management not only manages the personnel but also manages other material resources such as material, machines, techniques and procedure. - Second, the importance of management does not lie in how many persons are working under managers but it lies in the efficient planning and decisions taken by the management. - Management does not mean coercion: - Management wants to attain required goals by getting maximum work from the workers. - But actually management does not mean coercion but it means to attain group goals through co-operation. ## Drawbacks in the Above Outlook of Management - Principles of management are temporary. - Principles of management lead towards bureaucracy. - Principles of management are affected by monetary consideration. - Principles of management change with time. - Principles of management are dynamic. - As principles of management are affected by human activities, there are problems in its growth.