Management Fundamentals: Planning, Decision Making, Organizational Culture & Structure, and Human Resource Management

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering Strategic Planning, Individual and Group Decision Making, Organizational Culture and Structure, and Strategic Human Resource Management from the Kinicki Management lecture series.

Planning

The process of setting goals and deciding how to achieve them.

Business Plan

A document that outlines a proposed firm's goals, the strategy for achieving them, and the standards for measuring success.

Strategic Management

A process involving managers from all parts and levels of the organization in the formulation and implementation of strategies and strategic goals to advance organizational purposes.

Mission Statement

A statement that expresses the organization's core purpose or reason for being.

Vision Statement

A statement describing what the organization wants to become and where it wants to go strategically as a long-term, idealistic, and motivational picture.

Values Statement

A statement, also known as a core values statement, that expresses what the company stands for, its core priorities, the values its employees embody, and what its products contribute to the world.

Strategic Planning

Planning conducted by top managers that determines what the organization's long-term goals should be for the next $1$ to $5$ years with available resources.

Tactical Planning

Planning conducted by middle managers that determines what contributions departments or similar work units can make with given resources during the next $6$ to $24$ months.

Operational Planning

Planning conducted by first-line managers that determines how to accomplish specific tasks with available resources within the next $1$ to $52$ weeks.

Means-End Chain

A hierarchy that shows how short-term goals and operational activities are connected or linked across an organization to achieve long-term strategic goals.

Action Plan

A plan that defines the course of action and outlines the specific tactics needed to achieve a stated goal.

Contingency Plan

A plan created as a response to possible future events that could threaten a company's operations.

SMART Goal

A goal that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, and has Target dates.

Management by Objectives (MBO)

A four-step process for motivating employees: (1) jointly set objectives, (2) develop an action plan, (3) periodically review performance, and (4) provide performance appraisals and rewards.

Cascading Goals

The process of ensuring that strategic goals set at the top level align and trickle downward into specific short-term goals and activities at lower levels of the organization.

Planning/Control Cycle

A continuous feedback loop consisting of two planning steps (formulate the plan, implement the plan) and two control steps (monitor progress, take corrective or reinforcing action) to keep plans headed in the right direction.

Decision Making

The process of identifying and choosing alternative courses of action from among available alternatives.

Rational Model of Decision Making

A prescriptive model, also called the classical model, explaining how managers should make logical, unemotional, and optimal decisions that further the organization's best interests across four stages.

Bounded Rationality

A concept proposed by Herbert Simon suggesting that the ability of decision makers to be rational is strictly limited by constraints such as complexity, time, cognitive capacity, and imperfect information.

Satisficing Model

A nonrational decision-making model in which managers seek alternatives only until they find one that is satisfactory and adequate, rather than searching exhaustively for an optimal choice.

Intuition

Making a choice without conscious thought or logical inference, operating either through expertise-based tacit knowledge (holistic hunch) or feelings-based emotional responses (automated experience).

Decision Tree

A graphical map of decisions and their potential consequences used to evaluate whether a proposed business action is legal, shareholder-maximizing, and ethical.

Big Data

Extremely large quantities of data requiring specialized statistical approaches and technologies to process, defined by the five Vs: volume, variety, velocity, veracity, and value.

Predictive Analytics

A branch of data analytics that combines historical data with statistical modeling and machine learning to forecast the likelihood of future outcomes.

Directive Style

A decision-making style characterized by a low tolerance for ambiguity and an orientation toward task and technical concerns, producing efficient, logical, and systematic decisions.

Analytical Style

A decision-making style characterized by a high tolerance for ambiguity and a strong focus on technical tasks, often leading to careful consideration of lots of information and alternative choices.

Conceptual Style

A decision-making style characterized by a high tolerance for ambiguity and an orientation toward social concerns and people, taking a broad, long-term perspective and relying on intuition.

Behavioral Style

A decision-making style characterized by a low tolerance for ambiguity and a strong orientation toward people and social concerns, emphasizing collaboration, support, and conflict avoidance.

Heuristics

Rules of thumb or mental shortcuts that simplify decision making but can cause errors by distorting how information is gathered and interpreted.

Availability Bias

The tendency of decision makers to use readily available information from memory, often recent or dramatic events, to make judgments.

Representativeness Bias

The tendency to generalize from a small sample or a single isolated event, erroneously believing it reflects a broader pattern.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to seek out and accept information that supports one's existing point of view while disregarding or discounting contradictory data.

Sunk-Cost Bias

The tendency to continue an unpromising project or course of action simply because large amounts of time, money, or effort have already been invested.

Escalation of Commitment Bias

A decision-making bias in which an individual increases their commitment to a failing course of action despite receiving negative feedback, fixating on potential future gains.

Groupthink

A cohesive group's tendency to strive for consensus and harmony for the sake of unanimity, leading to the avoidance of realistic alternative appraisals and poor decisions.

Devil's Advocacy

A group decision-making technique in which an individual is assigned the specific role of critic to challenge assumptions and uncover potential weaknesses.

Dialectic Method

A structured group decision-making process that fosters a debate between opposing viewpoints prior to arriving at a final decision.

Organizational Culture

The set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a group holds in the workplace, which determines how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to its environment.

Observable Artifacts

The visible physical manifestations of culture within an organization, such as dress codes, ceremonies, physical decor, awards, and observable rituals.

Espoused Values

The explicitly stated values and norms preferred and put forth by an organization's founders or executive leadership.

Enacted Values

The values and norms that are actually exhibited and carried out by employees and managers in an organization.

Basic Assumptions

The non-observable, core taken-for-granted beliefs and values that employees hold about their organization, which are highly resistant to change.

Competing Values Framework (CVF)

A model used to categorize organizational cultures along two axes: internal focus vs. external focus, and flexibility/discretion vs. stability/control.

Clan Culture

An organizational culture characterized by an internal focus and a preference for flexibility, emphasizing family-like employee commitment, development, and cohesion.

Adhocracy Culture

An organizational culture characterized by an external focus and a preference for flexibility, fostering innovation, adaptability, and risk-taking.

Market Culture

An organizational culture with a strong external focus that values stability and control, prioritizing competition, profitability, and achievement over employee development.

Hierarchy Culture

An organizational culture with an internal focus that values stability and control over flexibility, relying on formalized rules, control mechanisms, and structured schedules.

Organizational Socialization

The multi-phase process (anticipatory, encounter, and change/acquisition) through which a person learns the values, norms, and behaviors required to become an organizational insider.

Hierarchy of Authority

A core feature of organizations, also known as the chain of command, which acts as a control mechanism to ensure the right people do the right things at the right time.

Span of Control

The number of direct subordinates who report to a given manager, classified as narrow (few subordinates, forming tall structures) or wide (many subordinates, forming flat structures).

Centralized Authority

A management structure in which primary and critical decision-making authority is concentrated at higher managerial levels, minimizing duplication of work.

Decentralized Authority

A management structure in which decision-making authority is delegated down to middle- and supervisory-level managers to increase operational speed and flexibility.

Functional Structure

An organizational structure in which people with similar occupational specialties and skills are grouped together in formal departments.

Divisional Structure

An organizational structure where employees with diverse occupational specialties are grouped together based on similar products, customer groups, or geographic territories.

Matrix Structure

An organizational structure that overlays functional and divisional chains of command in a grid, creating dual vertical and horizontal command lines for employees.

Hollow Structure

An organizational design, also called a network structure, in which a central core of key activities is retained while non-core processes are outsourced to external vendors.

Modular Structure

An organizational design in which an organization assembles product chunks or modules provided by outside contractors.

Virtual Organization

An organization whose members are geographically dispersed and collaborate primarily via information technology, appearing to outside parties as a unified physical enterprise.

Strategic Human Resource Management

The process of designing and implementing systems of policies and practices that align an organization's human capital with its strategic objectives.

Internal Fit

A state achieved when all of an organization's human resource policies and practices reinforce and support one another.

External Fit

A state achieved when an organization's HR system as a whole aligns with its culture and structure to execute firm-level strategy.

Human Capital

The economic or productive potential of employee knowledge, experience, and actions.

Social Capital

The economic or productive potential of strong, trusting, and cooperative relationships.

High-Performance Work System (HPWS)

An approach to strategic HRM that deploys bundles of internally consistent HR practices to improve employee ability, motivation, and opportunities across the entire enterprise.

Person-Job (P-J) Fit

The extent to which an individual worker's competencies, skills, and personal needs match the specifications and requirements of a specific job.

Unstructured Interview

An interview technique that gathers candidate information without fixed questions or standardized scoring, typically suffering from low reliability and high legal vulnerability.

Structured Interview

An interview procedure in which each applicant is asked the same standardized set of questions and rated against a uniform scoring key, including situational and behavioral formats.

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)

A subjective behavioral appraisal tool that rates employee performance levels across defined scales grounded in specific, observable job behaviors.

360-Degree Feedback Appraisal

A multi-source performance appraisal method where an employee is evaluated by supervisors, peers, subordinates, and sometimes external customers or clients.

Forced Ranking

A performance review system in which all employees within a unit are ranked against one another along a predetermined bell curve, rewarding top tiers and remediating or firing the bottom tier.

Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

A formal progressive discipline policy outlining documented employee performance deficiencies, specific improvement targets, timelines, and consequences for failing to meet expectations.

Employment at Will

A common-law doctrine establishing that an employer may dismiss an employee at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all, unless prohibited by law or contract.

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

A federal law establishing minimum wage requirements, maximum workweeks before overtime pay is mandated, and child labor prohibitions for workers in interstate commerce.

Adverse Impact

An unintentional type of workplace discrimination occurring when an employment practice or test results in disproportionately unfavorable outcomes for a protected class.

Disparate Treatment

An intentional form of workplace discrimination where members of protected classes are deliberately treated differently than other employees.

Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment

A form of sexual harassment in which tangible job benefits, promotions, or continued employment are made contingent upon submitting to unwanted sexual advances.

Hostile Work Environment

A form of sexual harassment in which unwanted sexually oriented conduct creates an offensive, intimidating, or abusive working atmosphere.

Collective Bargaining

Formal negotiations between management and union representatives regarding disputes over compensation, benefits, working conditions, and job security.

Right-to-Work Laws

State statutes prohibiting collective bargaining agreements from requiring workers to join a labor union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.

Mediation

A dispute resolution process wherein a neutral third party listens to both sides, offers nonbinding suggestions, and encourages the parties to agree on a mutually acceptable solution.

Arbitration

A formal dispute resolution process in which a neutral third party evaluates arguments from both sides and issues a final, legally binding decision.