1 The Management Process
2 Values, Attitudes, Emotions, and Culture: The Manager as a Person
3 Managing in the Global Environment
4 Decision Making, Learning, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship
5 Planning, Strategy, and Competitive Advantage
6 Designing Organizational Structure
7 Motivation, behavior
8 Leaders and Leadership
M
anagement
process
The manager uses resources and carries out functions to achieve goals
Human resources are the people needed to get the job done. Managers’
goals influence which employees they choose.
Financial resources are the money the manager and the organization use
to reach organizational goals. The financial resources of a business organization
are profits and investments from stockholders.
Physical resources are a firm’s tangible goods and real estate, including
raw materials, office space, production facilities, office equipment, and vehicles.
Information resources are the data that the manager and the organization
use to get the job done. For example, to supply leads to the firm’s sales
representatives, the sales manager of an office-supply company reads local
business newspapers and Internet postings to learn about new firms in
town.
Planning
Planning involves setting goals and figuring out ways of reaching them. Planning,
considered the central function of management, pervades everything a
manager does. In planning, a manager looks to the future, saying, “Here is
what we want to achieve, and here is how we are going to do it.” Decision
making is usually a component of planning, because choices must be made in
the process of finalizing plans.
Organizing and Staffing
Organizing is the process of making sure the necessary human and physical
resources are available to carry out a plan and achieve organizational goals.
Organizing also involves assigning activities, dividing work into specific jobs
and tasks, and specifying who has the authority to accomplish certain tasks.
Leading
Leading means influencing others to achieve organizational objectives. As a
consequence, it involves energizing, directing, persuading others, and creating
a vision. Leadership involves dozens of interpersonal processes: motivating,
communicating, coaching, and showing group members how they can
reach their goals. The leadership aspect of management focuses on inspiring people and bringing about change, whereas the other three functions focus more on maintaining a stable system.
Controlling
Controlling generally involves comparing actual performance to a predetermined
standard. Any significant difference between actual and desired performance
would prompt a manager to take corrective action. He or she might, for
example, increase advertising to boost lower-than-anticipated sales.
A secondary aspect of controlling is determining whether the original
plan needs revision, given the realities of the day. The controlling function
sometimes causes a manager to return to the planning function temporarily
to fine-tune the original plan.
Values, Attitudes, Emotions, and Culture: The Manager as a Person
Personality traits are particular tendencies to feel, think, and act in certain ways. These individual traits are used to describe the general personality of an individual. It is important to understand a manager’s personality because it influences his or her behavior and approach to management.
The Big Five is a group of five general traits that contribute to the composition of an individual’s personality:
Extraversion is the tendency to experience positive emotions and moods
expressed by affectionate, outgoing, and friendly demeanor. Being high on
this trait can be an asset for managers whose jobs entail an especially high
level of social interaction.
Negative Affectivity is the tendency to experience negative emotions and
moods, feel distressed, and be critical of others. Managers high on this trait
may often feel angry and dissatisfied and complain about their own and others’
lack of progress.
Agreeableness is the tendency to get along well with others. Managers high
on this continuum are likeable, tend to be affectionate, and care about other
people.
Conscientiousness is the tendency to be careful, scrupulous, and
persevering. Managers who are high on this factor are organized and self-disciplined while those who are low may seem to lack self-direction and self-discipline.
Openness to experience is the tendency to be original, have broad
interests, be open to a wide range of stimuli, be daring, and take risks. Those
high on this trait continuum like to take risks and sometimes choose to
become an entrepreneur, while those low on this scale tend to be more
conservative in their planning and decision making.
Other Personality Traits that Affect Managerial Behavior
The locus of control trait captures an individual’s beliefs concerning the amount of control they have over what happens to and around them.
• People with an internal locus of control believe that they are responsible for their own fate and see their own actions and behaviors as being important and decisive determinants of future outcomes.
• People with an external locus of control believe that outside forces are responsible for what happens to and around them and that their own actions don’t make much of a difference.
• To be effective, managers must have an internal locus of control.
Self-Esteem is the degree to which individuals feel good about themselves and their capabilities.
• High self-esteem is desirable for managers because it facilitates their setting and keeping high standards for themselves and gives them the confidence they need to succeed.
• People with low self-esteem are unsure about their capabilities and question their ability to succeed. Research suggests that people tend to choose activities and goals that are consistent with their levels of self-esteem.
Needs for achievement, affiliation, and power have been extensively researched by psychologist David McClelland.
• The need for achievement is the extent to which an individual has a strong desire to perform challenging tasks well and to meet personal standards for excellence. People with high levels ofthis need often set clear goals for themselves and want feedback on their performance.
• The need for affiliation is the extent to which an individual is concerned about establishing and maintaining good interpersonal relations, being liked and getting along with other people.
• The need for power is the extent to which an individual desires to control or influence others.
• Researchers suggest that high needs for achievement and power are assets for first-line and middle managers, and a high need for power is especially important for upper managers.
• A high need for affiliation is not always desirable within managers because it may cause them to try too hard to be liked by others, at the expense of ensuring a high level of organizational performance.
Values, attitudes, moods, and emotions capture how managers experience their jobs as individuals. Values describe what managers are trying to achieve through work and how they think they should behave. Attitudes capture their thoughts and feelings about their specific jobs and organizations. Moods and emotions encompass how managers actually feel when they are managing.
Terminal and Instrumental Values
• A terminal value is a personal conviction about lifelong goals or objectives. An instrumental value is a personal conviction about desired modes of conduct or ways of behaving. Basically you use instrumental values to get to the terminal one.
• Terminal values often lead to the formation of norms, which are informal rules of conduct for behaviors considered to be important within an organization. Examples might include behaving honestly or courteously.
Attitudes
An attitude is a collection of feelings and beliefs. A manager’s attitude affects how they approach their job. Two of the most important attitudes in this context are job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
• Job Satisfaction is the collection of feelings and beliefs that managers have about their current job. Managers who are high on job satisfaction generally like their jobs, feel that they are being treated fairly, and believe that their jobs have many desirable features or characteristics. Levels of job satisfaction tend to increase as one moves up the hierarchy in an organization.
• Managers who are satisfied with their jobs are more likely to perform organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Which is basically doing something over what you HAVE TO do and are less likely to quit.
• Organizational commitment is an opinion about the company as a whole
Moods and Emotions
• A mood is a feeling or state of mind. Personality traits and current circumstances often determine a person’s mood.
• Emotions are more intense than moods, are more short-lived, and are usually linked to a specific cause.
Moods and emotions affect the behavior of all members of an organization, including managers. Positive moods have a generally positive impact on the work and working environment, but on the other hand managers may make especially accurate judgments while in a negative mood.
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand and manage one’s own moods and emotions, as well as the moods and emotions of others. Managers with high levels of EI are able to prevent their emotions from getting in the way of making effective decisions. Emotional intelligence helps managers understand and relate well to other people.