Chapter 1: The Management Process Today

Vocabulary flashcards for Chapter 1: The Management Process Today, covering key management terms, roles, skills, structures, and concepts.

Management

The planning, organizing, leading, and controlling of human and other resources to achieve organizational goals effectively and efficiently.

Managers

The people responsible for supervising the use of an organization's resources to meet its goals.

Organizations

Collections of people who work together and coordinate their actions to achieve a wide variety of goals.

Organizational Performance

A measure of how efficiently and effectively managers use available resources to satisfy customers and achieve organizational goals.

Efficiency

A measure of how productively resources are used to achieve a goal.

Effectiveness

A measure of the appropriateness of the goals that managers have selected for the organization to pursue and the degree to which the organization achieves those goals.

Four Tasks of Management

The essential managerial process comprising planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Planning

The process of identifying and selecting appropriate goals and courses of action.

Strategy

A cluster of decisions about what goals to pursue, what actions to take, and how to use resources to achieve goals.

Organizing

Structuring working relationships in a way that allows organizational members to work together to achieve organizational goals.

Organizational Structure

A formal system of task and reporting relationships that coordinates and motivates organizational members so that they work together to achieve organizational goals.

Leading

Articulating a clear vision and energizing and enabling organizational members so they understand the part they play in achieving organizational goals.

Controlling

Evaluating how well an organization is achieving its goals and taking action to maintain or improve performance.

Department

A group of people who work together and possess similar skills or use the same knowledge, tools, or techniques to perform their jobs.

First-Line Managers

Managers responsible for the daily supervision of non-managerial employees.

Middle Managers

Managers who supervise first-line managers and are responsible for finding the best way to use resources to achieve organizational goals.

Top Managers

Managers responsible for the performance of all departments, ultimately responsible for the success or failure of an organization, who establish organizational goals, decide how departments interact, and monitor middle managers.

Top Management Team

A group composed of the CEO, the COO, and the vice presidents of the most important departments of a company.

Conceptual Skills

The ability to analyze and diagnose a situation and distinguish between cause and effect.

Human Skills

The ability to understand, alter, lead, and control the behavior of other individuals and groups.

Technical Skills

The job-specific knowledge and techniques required to perform an organizational role.

Core Competency

A specific set of departmental skills, abilities, and experiences that allows one organization to outperform its competitors.

Restructuring

Downsizing an organization by eliminating the jobs of large numbers of top, middle, or first-line managers and non-managerial employees.

Outsourcing

Contracting with another company, usually abroad, to have it perform an activity the organization previously performed itself.

Empowerment

A management technique that gives employees more authority and responsibility over the way they perform their work activities.

Self-Managed Team

A group of employees who assume responsibility for organizing, controlling, and supervising their own activities and monitoring the quality of the goods and services they provide.

Global Organizations

Organizations that operate and compete in more than one country.

Competitive Advantage

The ability of one organization to outperform other organizations because it produces desired goods or services more efficiently and effectively than they do.

Building Blocks of Competitive Advantage

The four foundations consisting of efficiency, quality, innovation, and responsiveness to customers.

Innovation

The process of creating new or improved goods and services or developing better ways to produce or provide them.

Turnaround Management

The creation of a new vision for a struggling company based on a new approach to planning and organizing to make better use of a company's resources and allow it to survive and prosper.