Management Principles and Perspectives Vocabulary Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcard set for Chapters 1 and 2 of Griffin's Management (14th Edition), covering fundamental management roles, skills, functions, classical and behavioral perspectives, systems theory, and key models.

Organization

A group of people working together in a structured and coordinated fashion to achieve a set of goals.

Management

A set of activities directed at an organization's resources (human, financial, physical, and information) with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner.

Efficient

Using resources wisely and in a cost-effective way.

Effective

Making the right decisions and successfully implementing them.

Manager

Someone whose primary responsibility is to carry out the management process by planning, making decisions, organizing, leading, and controlling resources.

Planning

Setting an organization's goals and deciding how best to achieve them.

Decision Making

A part of the planning process that involves selecting a course of action from a set of alternatives.

Organizing

Determining how to group activities and resources within an organization.

Leading

The set of processes used to get members of the organization to work together to further the interests of the organization.

Controlling

Monitoring organizational progress toward goal attainment to ensure performance arrives at the intended destination on time.

Top Managers

A relatively small group of executives (e.g., President, Vice President, CEO) who manage the overall organization, creating its goals, overall strategy, and operating policies.

Middle Managers

The largest group of managers in most organizations (e.g., Plant Manager, Division Head) responsible for implementing top management policies and coordinating lower-level managers.

First-Line Managers

Managers (e.g., Supervisor, Coordinator, Office Manager) who supervise and coordinate the day-to-day activities of operating employees.

Marketing Managers

Managers who work in areas related to the marketing function, including new product development, promotion, and distribution.

Financial Managers

Managers who deal primarily with an organization's financial resources, overseeing activities such as accounting, cash management, and investments.

Operations Managers

Managers concerned with creating and managing the systems that produce an organization's products and services, including inventory control, quality control, and plant layout.

Human Resource Managers

Managers responsible for hiring and developing employees, including HR planning, recruiting, selection, training, and compensation design.

Administrative Managers

Generalist managers who are not associated with any particular management specialty and possess a basic familiarity with all functional areas.

Figurehead Role

An interpersonal role involving ceremonial or symbolic duties, such as taking visitors to dinner or attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

Leader Role

An interpersonal role involving hiring, training, and motivating employees.

Liaison Role

An interpersonal role involving serving as a coordinator or link among people, groups, or organizations.

Monitor Role

An informational role where a manager actively seeks information that may be of value to the organization.

Disseminator Role

An informational role involving transmitting relevant information back to workplace colleagues.

Spokesperson Role

An informational role where a manager formally relays information to individuals outside the organizational unit or company.

Entrepreneur Role

A decisional role in which the manager acts as a voluntary initiator of change.

Disturbance Handler Role

A decisional role involving handling unanticipated problems, such as strikes, copyright infringements, or public relations crises.

Resource Allocator Role

A decisional role in which the manager decides how organizational resources are distributed and prioritized.

Negotiator Role

A decisional role where the manager enters into negotiations with other groups or organizations as a representative of the company.

Technical Skills

The skills necessary to accomplish or understand the specific kind of work being done in an organization.

Interpersonal Skills

The ability to communicate with, understand, and motivate both individuals and groups.

Conceptual Skills

The manager's ability to think in the abstract.

Diagnostic Skills

The manager's ability to visualize the most appropriate response to a situation.

Communication Skills

The abilities both to effectively convey ideas and information to others and to effectively receive ideas and information from others.

Decision-Making Skills

The manager's ability to correctly recognize and define problems and opportunities and to select an appropriate course of action.

Time-Management Skills

The manager's ability to prioritize work, to work efficiently, and to delegate appropriately.

The Management Process Model

The interactive framework showing how planning and decision making, organizing, leading, and controlling interact dynamically to achieve goals efficiently and effectively.

Kinds of Managers Matrix

A structural view mapping organizational management by levels (top, middle, first-line) against specialized functional areas (marketing, finance, operations, HR, administration, other).

Sources of Management Skills Framework

The dual pathway model showing how managerial capability is acquired through a combination of an educational base and practical job experiences.

Theory

A conceptual framework for organizing knowledge and providing a blueprint for action.

Classical Management Perspective

A foundational management perspective comprising two branches—scientific management (worker productivity) and administrative management (total organization efficiency).

Scientific Management

A branch of classical management concerned with improving the performance and productivity of individual workers.

Soldiering

The deliberate action of employees working at a slower pace than their full capacity.

Gantt Chart

A scheduling tool introduced by Henry Gantt to plan and track work for individual workers or complex projects.

Administrative Management

A branch of classical management that focuses on managing the total organization to make it more efficient and effective.

Behavioral Management Perspective

A management perspective emphasizing individual attitudes, workplace behaviors, and group dynamics.

Rate Busters

An informal group label identified during the Hawthorne studies for workers who overproduced relative to accepted group output norms.

Chiselers

An informal group label identified during the Hawthorne studies for workers who underproduced relative to accepted group output norms.

Human Relations Movement

A movement emerging in the 1930s and 1940s that argued workers respond primarily to the social context of the workplace.

Theory X

A pessimistic view of workers assuming people dislike work, avoid responsibility, require coercion and control, and prioritize security over ambition.

Theory Y

A positive view of workers assuming work is natural, individuals are internally motivated, seek responsibility, and possess capacity for innovation.

Organizational Behavior

A contemporary field stemming from behavioral management that draws on interdisciplinary research to study job satisfaction, leadership, motivation, and group dynamics.

Quantitative Management Perspective

A perspective focusing on applying mathematical models, statistics, and quantitative techniques to management decision making.

Management Science

A branch of quantitative management dealing specifically with developing mathematical models to assist in decision making and problem solving.

Operations Management

A branch of quantitative management focused directly on applying management science techniques to optimize production of goods and services.

System

An interrelated set of elements functioning together as a whole.

Open System

A system that continually interacts with its external environment.

Closed System

A system that does not interact with its external environment.

Subsystem

A system operating within the context of a broader system.

Synergy

The condition where two or more subsystems working together produce performance greater than the sum of their individual efforts.

Entropy

A normal process leading to organizational or system decline when inputs are insufficient.

Universal Perspective

An approach to management that attempts to identify one best universal way to manage across all situations.

Contingency Perspective

A perspective suggesting that appropriate managerial behavior depends or is contingent on unique situational elements.

Management in Antiquity Timeline

A historical overview detailing early management achievements across civilizations such as Sumerians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and Venetians.

Steps in Scientific Management Diagram

Frederick Taylor's four-step process: developing a science for each job element, scientifically selecting/training workers, supervising method compliance, and planning work.

Systems Perspective Diagram

The input-transformation-output framework illustrating environmental resource inputs, internal processing systems, resulting outputs, and feedback loops.

Integrative Framework Diagram

A unified model showing how systems and contingency perspectives synthesize classical, behavioral, and quantitative schools for efficient and effective management.

Emergence of Modern Management Perspectives Timeline

A historical continuum tracing the development of classical, behavioral, quantitative, systems, contingency, Theory Z, and contemporary applied perspectives from 1890 to 2020.