MANAGEMENT

Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it be a business, a not-for-profit organization, or government body. Management includes the activities of setting the strategy of an organization and coordinating the efforts of its employees or volunteers to accomplish its objectives through the application of available resources, such as financial, natural, technological, and human resources. The term "management" may also refer to the people who manage an organization.

Management is also an academic discipline, a social science whose objective is to study social organization and organizational leadership. Management is studied at colleges and universities; some important degrees in management are the Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) and Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) and, for the public sector, the Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree. Individuals who aim at becoming management researchers or professors may complete the Doctor of Management (DM), the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA), or the PhD in Business Administration or Management.

In larger organizations, there are generally three levels of managers, which are typically organized in a hierarchical, pyramid structure. Senior managers, such as the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or President of an organization, set the strategic goals of the organization and make decisions on how the overall organization will operate. Senior managers provide direction to the middle managers who report to them. Middle managers, examples of which would include branch managers, regional managers and section managers, provide direction to front-line managers. Middle managers communicate the strategic goals of senior management to the front-line managers. Lower managers, such as supervisors and front-line team leaders, oversee the work of regular employees (or volunteers, in some voluntary organizations) and provide direction on their work.

Theoretical scope

Management involves identifying the mission, objective, procedures, rules and manipulation[3] of the human capital of an enterprise to contribute to the success of the enterprise.[citation needed] This implies effective communication: an enterprise environment (as opposed to a physical or mechanical mechanism) implies human motivation and implies some sort of successful progress or system outcome.[citation needed] As such, management is not the manipulation of a mechanism (machine or automated program), not the herding of animals, and can occur either in a legal or in an illegal enterprise or environment. Management does not need to be seen from enterprise point of view alone, because management is an essential function to improve one's life and relationships.[citation needed] Management is therefore everywhere[citation needed] and it has a wider range of application.[clarification needed] Based on this, management must have humans, communication, and a positive enterprise endeavor.[citation needed] Plans, measurements, motivational psychological tools, goals, and economic measures (profit, etc.) may or may not be necessary components for there to be management. At first, one views management functionally, such as measuring quantity, adjusting plans, meeting goals.[citation needed] This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Henri Fayol (1841–1925)[4][page needed] considers management to consist of six functions:

forecasting

planning

organizing

commanding

coordinating

controlling

(Henri Fayol was one of the most influential contributors to modern concepts of management.[citation needed])

In another way of thinking, Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933), allegedly defined management as "the art of getting things done through people".[5] She described management as philosophy.[6][need quotation to verify]

Critics[which?], however, find this definition useful but far too narrow. The phrase "management is what managers do" occurs widely,[7] suggesting the difficulty of defining management without circularity, the shifting nature of definitions[citation needed] and the connection of managerial practices with the existence of a managerial cadre or of a class.

One habit of thought regards management as equivalent to "business administration" and thus excludes management in places outside commerce, as for example in charities and in the public sector. More broadly, every organization must "manage" its work, people, processes, technology, etc. to maximize effectiveness.[citation needed] Nonetheless, many people refer to university departments that teach management as "business schools". Some such institutions (such as the Harvard Business School) use that name, while others (such as the Yale School of Management) employ the broader term "management".

English-speakers may also use the term "management" or "the management" as a collective word describing the managers of an organization, for example of a corporation.[8] Historically this use of the term often contrasted with the term "labor" – referring to those being managed.[9]

But in the present era[when?] the concept of management is identified[by whom?] in the wide areas[which?] and its frontiers have been pushed to a broader range.[citation needed] Apart from profitable organizations even non-profitable organizations (NGOs) apply management concepts. The concept and its uses are not constrained[by whom?]. Management on the whole is the process of planning, organizing, coordinating, leading and controlling.

Nature of work

In profitable organizations, management's primary function is the satisfaction of a range of stakeholders. This typically involves making a profit (for the shareholders), creating valued products at a reasonable cost (for customers), and providing great employment opportunities for employees. In nonprofit management, add the importance of keeping the faith of donors. In most models of management and governance, shareholders vote for the board of directors, and the board then hires senior management. Some organizations have experimented with other methods (such as employee-voting models) of selecting or reviewing managers, but this is rare.

In the public sector of countries constituted as representative democracies, voters elect politicians to public office. Such politicians hire many managers and administrators, and in some countries like the United States political appointees lose their jobs on the election of a new president/governor/mayor.

History

Some see management (by definition) as late-modern (in the sense of late modernity) conceptualization. On those terms it cannot have a pre-modern history, only harbingers (such as stewards). Others, however, detect management-like-thought back to Sumerian traders and to the builders of the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Slave-owners through the centuries faced the problems of exploiting/motivating a dependent but sometimes unenthusiastic or recalcitrant workforce, but many pre-industrial enterprises, given their small scale, did not feel compelled to face the issues of management systematically. However, innovations such as the spread of Hindu numerals (5th to 15th centuries) and the codification of double-entry book-keeping (1494) provided tools for management assessment, planning and control.

Also, Machiavelli wrote about how to make organisations efficient and effective. The principles that Machiavelli set forth in Discourses (1531) can be adapted to apply the management of organisations today:

An organisation is more stable if members have the right to express their differences and solve their conflicts within it.

While one person can begin an organisation, "it is lasting when it is left in the care of many and when many desire to maintain it."

A weak manager can follow a strong one, but not another weak one, and maintain authority.

A manager seeking to change an established organization "should retain at least a shadow of the ancient customs."[10]

With the changing workplaces of industrial revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries, military theory and practice contributed approaches to managing the newly-popular factories.[11]

Given the scale of most commercial operations and the lack of mechanized record-keeping and recording before the industrial revolution, it made sense for most owners of enterprises in those times to carry out management functions by and for themselves. But with growing size and complexity of organizations, the split between owners (individuals, industrial dynasties or groups of shareholders) and day-to-day managers (independent specialists in planning and control) gradually became more common.