Principles of Management Vocabulary

Flashcards of key vocabulary terms and definitions from lectures notes about Principles of Management.

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.

Resources

People, skills, know-how, experience, machinery, raw materials, computers and IT, financial capital, patents, loyal customers and employees.

Organizations

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

Organizational performance

A measure of how efficiently and effectively managers use available resources to satisfy customers and achieve organizational goals;Increases in direct proportion to increases in efficiency and effectiveness

Efficiency

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

Effectiveness

A measure of the appropriateness of the goals an organization is pursuing and the degree to which the organization achieves those goals.

Planning

Choose appropriate organizational goals and courses of action and develop strategies to achieve high performance.

Strategy

Cluster of decisions about what goals to pursue, what actions to take, and how to use the 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 tasks and reporting relationships that coordinates and motivates organizational members so 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.

Organizations vision

A short, succinct, and inspiring statement of what the organization intends to become and the goals it is seeking to achieve – its desired future state.

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

Responsible for the daily supervision of nonmanagerial employees

Middle Managers

Supervise first-line managers; Responsible for finding the best way to use resources to achieve organizational goals

Top Managers

Responsible for the performance of all departments – cross departmental responsibility.

Top Management Team

A group composed of the CEO (Chief Executive Officer), the COO (Chief Operating Officer), and the vice presidents of the most important departments of a company

Conceptual Skills

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

Human Skills

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

Technical Skills

Job specific knowledge and techniques required to perform an organizational role.

Core competency

The specific set of departmental skills, knowledge, and experience that allows one organization to outperform another.

Restructuring

Downsizing an organization by eliminating the jobs of large numbers of top, middle, first-line managers and nonmanagerial employees to lower operating costs.

Outsourcing

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

Empowerment

Expansion of employees’ knowledge, tasks, and decision-making responsibilities

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.

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