Fundamentals of Management (Chapters 1-6) - Vocabulary

Comprehensive practice flashcards defining foundational management terms across organizational hierarchy, history, environmental uncertainty, global business, ethics, decision-making, planning, and structural design.

Organization

A deliberate arrangement of people to accomplish some specific purpose, characterized by a distinct purpose, people, and a deliberate structure.

First-Line Managers

Managers at the lowest level of management who manage the work of non-managerial employees (operatives) involved with daily operations (e.g., supervisors, shift managers, team leaders).

Middle Managers

Managers between the first-line level and top level who link first-line and top managers, translating top-level goals into specific goals (e.g., regional, department, or division managers).

Top Managers

Managers at or near the upper levels of the organization responsible for setting overall direction, strategy, and operating policies (e.g., CEO, president, executives).

Efficiency

Getting the most output from the least amount of input; referred to as 'doing things right' and concerned with the means of execution.

Effectiveness

Completing activities so that organizational goals are attained; referred to as 'doing the right things' and concerned with the ends.

Planning

The primary management function that involves setting goals, establishing overall strategy, and developing plans to integrate and coordinate work activities.

Organizing

The management function that involves determining what tasks are to be done, who does them, how tasks are grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are made.

Leading

The management function that involves motivating employees, directing others, selecting effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts.

Controlling

The management function that involves monitoring performance, comparing it with goals, and correcting significant deviations.

Mintzberg's Interpersonal Roles

Managerial roles that involve people and other duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature: figurehead, leader, and liaison.

Mintzberg's Informational Roles

Managerial roles that involve collecting, receiving, and disseminating information: monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson.

Mintzberg's Decisional Roles

Managerial roles that revolve around making choices: entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.

Technical Skills

Job-specific knowledge and techniques needed to proficiently perform specific tasks; most critical for first-line managers.

Human Skills

The ability to work well with other people individually and in a group; equally critical across all levels of management.

Conceptual Skills

The ability to think and conceptualize about abstract and complex situations and see the big picture; most critical for top managers.

Universality of Management

The principle that management is needed in all organizations, at all levels, in all work areas, and in all countries.

Scientific Management

An approach pioneered by Frederick W. Taylor that uses scientific methods to determine the 'one best way' for a job to be done.

Therbligs

A classification scheme labeling basic hand motions, developed by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth to analyze and eliminate wasted motion.

General Administrative Theory

An approach to management that focuses on describing what managers do and what constitutes good management practice (associated with Henri Fayol and Max Weber).

Bureaucracy

An ideal form of organization characterized by division of labor, a clearly defined authority hierarchy, formal rules, detailed regulations, and impersonal relationships (Max Weber).

Hawthorne Studies

A series of studies conducted at Western Electric by Elton Mayo that revealed worker productivity is significantly influenced by social norms, group acceptance, and researcher attention rather than purely physical conditions.

Open System

An organization that dynamically interacts with its external environment by taking in inputs, transforming them, and distributing outputs.

Contingency Approach

A management perspective asserting that there is no single best way to manage; the appropriate action depends on situational variables.

Specific Environment

External forces that directly affect the achievement of an organization's goals, comprising customers, suppliers, competitors, and pressure groups.

General Environment

Broad economic, demographic, political-legal, sociocultural, technological, and global conditions that may affect an organization indirectly.

Environmental Uncertainty

The degree of unpredictability faced by managers, measured across two dimensions: the degree of change (stable vs. dynamic) and the degree of complexity (simple vs. complex).

Stakeholders

Any constituencies in an organization's environment that are affected by or have an effect on its decisions and actions.

Organizational Culture

The shared values, principles, traditions, and ways of doing things that influence the way organizational members act ('the way we do things around here').

Socialization

The cultural transmission process through orientation and mentoring that helps new employees adapt to the organization's culture.

Parochialism

Viewing the world solely through one's own eyes and perspective, failing to recognize that others have different ways of living and working.

Ethnocentric Attitude

The parochial belief that the best work approaches and practices are those of the home country.

Polycentric Attitude

The view that managers in the host country know the best work approaches and practices for running their operations.

Geocentric Attitude

A world-oriented view that focuses on using the best approaches and people from around the globe, regardless of geographic origin.

Multidomestic Corporation

An international company (MNC) that decentralizes management and other operating decisions to the local country (reflecting a polycentric attitude).

Global Company

An international company (MNC) that centralizes management and other operational decisions in the home country (reflecting an ethnocentric attitude).

Transnational Organization

A borderless organization in which artificial geographical barriers are eliminated, optimizing both local responsiveness and global integration.

Global Sourcing

Purchasing materials or labor from around the world wherever it is least expensive, representing the lowest-risk approach to going global.

Classical View of Social Responsibility

The view championed by Milton Friedman that management's only social responsibility is to maximize profits for shareholders.

Socioeconomic View of Social Responsibility

The view that management's social responsibility goes beyond making profits to include protecting and improving society's welfare.

Social Obligation

When a firm engages in social actions only to the minimum extent required to meet its economic and legal responsibilities.

Social Responsiveness

When a firm engages in social actions in reaction to some popular social need or public pressure.

Social Responsibility

A business firm's intention, beyond its legal and economic obligations, to act out of an ethical duty to do what is right and good for society.

Green Management

The recognition of the direct link between an organization's managerial decisions and activities and its impact on the natural environment.

Utilitarian View of Ethics

A perspective stating that ethical decisions are made solely on the basis of their outcomes, seeking the greatest good for the greatest number.

Rights View of Ethics

A perspective concerned with respecting and protecting individual liberties and privileges, such as privacy, free speech, and due process.

Justice View of Ethics

A perspective where rules are enforced fairly and impartially so that individuals receive an equitable share of benefits and costs.

Whistle-Blower

An employee who raises ethical concerns or reports unethical, corrupt, or illegal practices within an organization to internal or external parties.

Bounded Rationality

Decision making that is rational, but limited (bounded) by an individual's ability to process complex information, leading decision makers to satisfice.

Satisficing

Accepting solutions that are 'good enough' rather than spending excessive time and effort searching for the optimal alternative.

Escalation of Commitment

An increased commitment to a previous decision despite clear and accumulating evidence that the decision is wrong.

Programmed Decision

A repetitive, routine decision handled using a structured approach such as a procedure, rule, or policy.

Nonprogrammed Decision

A unique, custom-made, nonrecurring decision requiring heavy managerial judgment to address an unstructured problem.

Anchoring Effect

A decision bias where an individual fixates on initial information and fails to adequately adjust for subsequent data.

Sunk Costs Error

A decision bias where decision makers fixate on past expenditures of time or money that cannot be recovered rather than on future consequences.

Break-Even Analysis

A quantitative decision-making technique that calculates the point where total revenue equals total costs: $\text{BEP} = \frac{\text{Total Fixed Costs}}{\text{Price per unit} - \text{Variable cost per unit}}$

Economic Order Quantity (EOQ)

An inventory control model that minimizes the combined costs of ordering and holding inventory: $\text{EOQ} = \sqrt{\frac{2DS}{H}}$

Stated Goals

Official statements of what an organization says its goals are, often found in annual reports and public releases.

Real Goals

The goals that an organization actually pursues, as indicated by what its members are doing and where resources are allocated.

Strategic Plans

Plans that apply to the entire organization, establish overall goals, and seek to position the firm within its external environment.

Operational Plans

Plans that specify the operational details of how overall organizational goals are to be achieved in daily operations.

Standing Plans

Ongoing plans that provide guidance for activities performed repeatedly within an organization (such as policies, procedures, and rules).

Management by Objectives (MBO)

A goal-setting system in which specific performance goals are jointly established by employees and managers, progress is periodically reviewed, and rewards are distributed based on results.

Benchmarking

The search for the best practices among competitors or non-competitors that lead to superior performance.

Environmental Scanning

Screening large volumes of information to anticipate and interpret changes in the environment, which includes competitive intelligence.

Work Specialization

Dividing work activities into separate job tasks so that individuals specialize in doing part of an activity rather than the whole.

Departmentalization

The basis on which jobs are grouped together (e.g., functional, product, customer, geographic, or process).

Chain of Command

The unbroken line of authority that extends from upper organizational levels to the lowest levels and clarifies who reports to whom.

Line Authority

Authority that entitles a manager to direct the work of subordinates, creating a direct superior-subordinate reporting relationship.

Staff Authority

Positions with some authority created to support, assist, advise, and reduce the informational burdens of line managers.

Unity of Command

The classical management principle stating that an employee should report to one and only one boss to avoid conflicting instructions.

Span of Control

The number of employees a manager can efficiently and effectively manage.

Centralization

The degree to which decision-making authority is concentrated at upper management levels of an organization.

Decentralization

The degree to which lower-level managers and employees provide input or actually make operational decisions.

Formalization

The degree to which jobs within an organization are standardized and the extent to which employee behavior is guided by rules and procedures.

Mechanistic Organization

An organizational structure that is rigid and tightly controlled, characterized by high specialization, rigid departmentalization, narrow spans of control, high formalization, and centralization.

Organic Organization

An organizational structure that is highly adaptive and flexible, characterized by cross-functional teams, wide spans of control, low formalization, and decentralized decision making.

Matrix Structure

An organizational structure that assigns specialists from different functional departments to work on projects led by project managers, resulting in a dual chain of command.

Boundaryless Organization

An organizational design that is not defined by or limited to artificial boundaries imposed by a predefined structure, commonly including virtual and network configurations.

Learning Organization

An organization that has developed the continuous capacity to learn, adapt, and change through shared information, open team-based design, and empowered employees.