Topic A - Functions of Management

scalar principle

authority and responsibility flow in a direct line vertically from the highest to lowest echelons: clear and unbroken lines

unity of command

each is accountable to only one supervisor

six functions of management

1. Planning

2. Organizing

3. Staffing

4. Controlling

5. Directing

Planning

• involves determining what the organization or unit should accomplish and how to accomplish it

• it includes establishing goals, priorities, strategies, and performance targets.

Organizing

• arranging the unit’s structure and resources to carry out plans

• it includes identifying needed positions and assignments and defining relationships among authority, responsibility, and reporting lines.

Staffing

• involves obtaining and maintaining the personnel needed to perform organizational work

• Activities include recruiting, selecting, orienting, scheduling, developing, and retaining employees.

Controlling

• monitoring actual performance, comparing it with established standards or targets, and taking corrective action when needed

• it helps ensure that organizational plans and goals are achieved.

Directing

• Delegation is the directing function of assigning a task or responsibility to a qualified subordinate while granting enough authority to complete it. The manager remains ultimately accountable for the outcome.

motivational theories and strategies

supply a personal incentive for the worker

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

determinants of behavior, motivated by the desire to satisfy specific needs

Existence, Relatedness, Growth Theory (ERG)

• simplistic model of human needs that influence work behavior

• Existence: basic needs to exist (water, shelter)

• Relatedness: interpersonal, social aspects

• Growth: productive meaningful tasks

Herzberg’s two-factor theory

motivation and maintenance approach

• Maintenance (Hygiene) factors (satisfiers, dissatisfiers)

  • if present and perceived as good…satisfiers

  • if lacking or perceived as negative, dissatisfiers will interfere with work

  • do not produce motivation, but can prevent motivation from occurring

  • fair wage, insurance, retirement benefit, supervision, schedule, working conditions, interpersonal relationships on the job

• Motivators - call forth energy and enthusiasm, job enrichment

  • achievement, personal accomplishment, recognition, responsibility, participation in decision-making, opportunity to growth and advance

McClelland’s theory

suggests that all people have THREE needs:

• the need to achieve

  • the achievement motive is a desire to do something better or more efficiently

  • people with this need tend to gravitate towards sales and management positions

  • They are task-oriented and can manage themselves

• the need for power

  • the need for power enjoy competition and seek confrontation

• the need for affiliation

  • the need for affiliation is the desire to be liked by others, join groups

Mintzberg’s role theory of management

A framework that groups a manager’s 10 roles into 3 categories:

Interpersonal (about relationships/status):

1. Figurehead

2. Leader

3. Liaison

Informational (about handling information):

4. Monitor

5. Disseminator

6. Spokesperson

Decisional (about making choices/taking action):

7. Entrepreneur

8. Disturbance Handler

9. Resource Allocator

10. Negotiator

MacGregor

attitude of the manager toward employees has an impact on job performance (based on manager’s assumptions as to how employees view work)

1. Theory X (BAD!) - people inherently dislike work and will avoid it if possible; authoritarian, work-centered; workers prefer to be controlled and directed by pressure; motivation through fear; negative, autocratic

2. Theory Y (GOOD!!) - work is as natural as play or rest; management should arrange conditions so workers can achieve goals by directing own efforts; positive participative

Theory Z (Ouchi)

the value of the company is the people

• everyone who will be affected by a decision is involved in making the decision (consensus decision-making

scientific management - Taylor

work-centered - workers must work at fastest pace possible and at maximum efficiency; systematic approach to improving worker efficiency

• structure work situation to minimize motivation needed by supervisor

• find best way of performing tasks

  • focus on physical aspects of the job (assembly line, manufacturing)

Management By Objectives (MBO) - Drucker

• type of democratic management that provides control from within

• establish performance goals and objectives with employees

  • gives higher incentive value

  • overall control achieved through self-control by employees

  • management stresses accomplishments and results

• participative leadership

Hawthorne studies

Western Electric - Elton Mayo

• If you involve people in the the process, they become more productive

  • productivity due to: employees were given special attention, were involved in an interesting experience, and were well-treated by supervisors

  • work breaks increased productivity

• placebo effect (special attention improves behavior)

Expectancy theory

Beer, Vroom

• rewards serve as motivators only under certain circumstances

• employees must believe that effective performance leads to certain rewards

• employees must feel that rewards offered are attractive

• Path-Goal Theory focuses on leader’s effect on employee’s motiavtion to a behavior will result in a particular goal and how strongly a person desired the goal. Do they value the reward offered.

Most to least order of control (leadership styles)

Autocratic

Consultative

Bureaucratic

Participative

Democratic

Free Rein (Lassez-faire)

Autocratic leadership

demands obedience, most control, full responsibility, crisis control

Consultative leadership

asks for input, but makes major decisions alone

Bureaucratic leadership

by the book, follows procedures to the letter

Participative leadership

emerging trend in management

Encourage workers to participate in decision-making

Uses quality circles: small groups of employees who meet regularly to identify and solve problems

Democratic leadership

guides and encourages the group to make decisions

Laissez-faire leadership

least control, allows groups to make decisions

Leadership Grid

Blake, Mouton

• plots leader’s concern for people (employees) vs their concern for production

• scale of 1-9, 1 is low concern, 9 is high concern

Country club management (1,9 - production, people)

• employee-centered; seeking approval and acceptance

• comfortable, friendly atmosphere

Impoverished management (1,1)

• exert minimum effort to get work done

• desire to hang on, indifferent

• low concern for people AND production

Team management (9,9)

• high concern for BOTH people and production

• common stake in purpose

Authority, obedience, autocratic (9,1)

• focus on production, managing tasks

• domination, mastery, control

• people are commodities like machines

Leadership continuum - Tanenbaum and Schmidt

• Develop continuum or range of possible leadership behaviors

• Each type of behavior is related to the degree of authority used by the manager and the amount of freedom available to subordinates in reaching decisions

Tells decision → Sells decision → Discusses decision → Asks for input on decision → Collaborates on decision → Delegates responsibility for decision

Contingency approach: Fiedler

• In both highly favorable and unfavorable situations, a task-oriented leader is more effective (the group is ready to be lad)

• In moderately favorable situations, a relationship-oriented leader tends to be more effective because cooperation is more successful than task-oriented leadership

technical skills (techniques, procedures)

understanding of and proficiency in a specific kind of activity.

*Most important at lower levels of management

human skills

ability to work effectively as a group member, interpersonal

• important at all levels but imperative at lower levels of management

conceptual skills

ability to see organization as a whole

• importance increases at higher ranks of management

hard skills

specific, measurable technical abilities learned through education or training

• can be taught

soft skills

transferable interpersonal and behavioral traits that shape how you work with others

• must be developed and nurtured

nominal group technique

Delbecq (generate innovative, creative ideas)

• more structured and controlled than an ordinary brainstorming group

• has authoritative leader, controlled interactions, closely focused goals, rigid enforced procedures, responses strictly controlled by leader

• often sit in horseshoe formation; silent generation of ideas by participants

• round robin reporting - leader record ideas

  • group RANKS items in priority order; vote for final decision

Delphi technique (consensus of experts)

• designed to probe expert minds in a series of written interviews from which some consensus is sought

• participants do not meet

Pareto analysis, bar chart

illustrates the relative importance of problems

• work on the tallest bar or problem that occurs most frequently; correcting the “vital few” problems will have the greatest impact on quality

• most effects have relatively few causes

• 80-20 rule: 80% of a given outcome results from 20% of an input

  • (80% of sales come from 20% of customers)

Queue - queuing theory

• develops the relationships involved in waiting in line

  • used in analyzing flow of customers in a cafeteria - balance cost of waiting lines with the cost of preventing waiting lines through increased service

reward power

ability to reward another for carrying out an order, give incentives, praise to reinforce certain behaviors

coercive power

negative side of reward power, ineffective in motivating behavior change, may create resistance

• ability to punish another for not carrying out requirements

• used to maintain minimum standard of performance

position (legitimate) power

subordinate acknowledges that the influencer has the right to exert influence due to position (job title/rank)

expert power

belief that influencer has some relevant expertise that the subordinate does not; provides credibility; viewed as competent

referent power (personality, charisma)

based on desire to identify with or imitate the influencer, how well you are liked