Management Theory and Practice summary keywords and question hint answers

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Book summary of Management Theory and Practice

Management is a process of defining and creating an environment where people can work together to achieve specified goals and objectives.
The origin of the concept of management can be traced back to 5000 B.C. at the time of agricultural revolution.
The emergence of the management concept is attributed to the industrial revolution which was a shift from manual production methods to new manufacturing processes.
The five main characteristics of the industrial revolution are: specialisation, standardisation, synchronisation, maximisation, and centralisation.
The forces that have been behind the evolution of management thought are political forces, social forces, and economic forces.
In order to study management, two important approaches have been developed, namely classical approach and modern approach.
The classical approach to management can be studied under three heads, namely scientific management, administrative management, and bureaucratic management.
There are three approaches that fall under modern approach of management, namely the quantitative approach, systems approach, and contingency approach.
There have been many contributions to the field of management. Some of the notable scholars who have developed different concepts in management are Charles Babbage, Fredrick W. Taylor, Henry Laurence Gantt, Henri Fayol, Robert Owen, Max Webber, and George E. Mayo.
The latest trends in management have been the introduction of lean management and just in time concept. Other notable developments in management include 5S, Six sigma, and Kaizen.
Management plans and coordinates the activities of an organisation by making the optimum utilisation of all available resources.
Management is a goal oriented, universal, and continuous activity and a result of group effort.
Management is science as well as an art because it uses the systematic knowledge of enquiry and practical knowledge for learning methodologies.
The functions of management include planning, organising, staffing, directing, and controlling.
The activities of an organisation directly affect the environment and its stakeholders, such as customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and the society. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a voluntary approach that monitors and ensures that an organisation adheres to ethical standards and norms.
Administration and management involve integrating resources and directing individuals towards the achievement of goals. Some management experts treat administration and management as a separate entity, while some treat both as synonymous.
Management can be called a profession because it involves the existence of a body of specialised knowledge and formalised methods of acquiring training and experience.
Corporate culture can be defined as the pattern of shared values, beliefs, assumptions, and working habits of people in an organisation. It enables employees to develop a sense of belongingness towards the organisation.
To understand the complexities of cultural differences, two models are widely used namely Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture and Trompenaar’s seven dimensions of culture.
In the Hosftede’s five dimensions of culture, the dimensions are power distance, individualism and collectivism, masculinity/feminity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation.
In Trompenaar’s model, dimensions are universalism versus particularism, individualism versus communitarianism, specific versus diffuse, neutral versus emotional, achievement versus ascription, sequential time versus synchronous time, and internal direction versus outer direction.
In organisations, various cultures are present, such as mechanistic culture, organic culture, authoritarian culture, and participative culture.
A strong corporate culture has four main components, which are vision, values, practices, and people.
In an organisation there can be various types of conflicts arising due to cultural differences among employees. The types of conflicts are interpersonal conflicts, intrapersonal conflicts, intergroup conflicts, and intragroup conflicts.
In order to resolve different types of conflicts in organisations, various techniques are used such as avoiding, accommodating, competing, collaborating, and compromising.
The culture of an organisation requires a transparent communication system to enhance cooperation among employees.
To strengthen corporate culture, HR professionals adopt various practices, such as performance management, compensation and reward systems, recruitment and selection, and training and development
An organisational structure defines reporting relationships, employees’ tasks and responsibilities, communication channels in an organisation.
The six box organisational model and matrix model are the two important models which are used commonly by organisations to develop their structure.
Other types of organisational models include line organisational structure, line and staff organisational structure, functional organisational structure, and divisional organisational structure.
As per the Etzioni organisational theory, organisations use three different powers for directing employees that are coercive power, utilitarian power and normative power. These powers are related to three types of involvement, namely alienative, calculative, and moral.
The structure of an organisation is influenced by various factors such as organisation’s strategy, organisational size, technology, and environment.
In an organisation, communication is a process of conveying orders, instructions, and information to achieve the desired level of performance of employees.
The process of communication involves transferring information from one party to another. It includes encoding, channelling, and imparting information by a sender to a receiver with the help of a medium.
The receiver receives, decodes, and understands the message and sends his/ her feedback to the sender.
Effective communication is needed for conveying expectations to employees, ensuring a friendly work environment, managing change, and mitigating risks.
Communication can happen based on the target audience; purpose of communication; and communication channels used.
Business communication can be internal or external; formal or informal; verbal or non-verbal; and written or visual.
The basic tools of business communication include face-to-face communication, telephonic communication, e-mail, social media, and web conferencing.
Business communication has several advantages, such as saving time and cost, expanding the scale of business, increasing productivity, fostering a supportive team environment, serving the needs of internal and external customers, building customer relationships, and strengthening partnerships.
The barriers to communication can be classified into psychological barriers, personal barriers, organisational barriers, poor communication skills, fear of high-ranking, stereotyping, halo effect, lack of response, dilution of actual message, use of jargon, unfavourable communication environment, and distance.
A decision is a course of action or a conclusion that is derived after consideration of many factors.
Decision making is a problem solving process of selecting a feasible solution from all available alternatives.
The decisions-making process in an organisation involves a number of steps, such as defining the problem and collecting information, developing possible courses of action or alternatives, evaluating alternatives, selecting the best alternative, implementing the decision, and following up.
Organisations can use various types of decision making models for finding the solutions to problems. There are three models that are commonly used in organisations: rational model, bounded rationality model, and contingency model.
An organisation has a centralised decision-making structure if the authority of decision making is rested in the hands of top management.
In decentralised decision-making structure, the authority is dispersed at lower levels of management
In an organisation, decisions can be categorised on the basis of levels of management or nature of decisions.
On the basis of levels of management, decisions are classified as strategic decisions, tactical decisions, and operational decisions.
Decisions classified on the basis of their nature are programmed decisions, and non-programmed decisions.
Decision making is important to organisations as it leads to effective utilisation of resources, handling of problems and challenges, improved efficiency, increased motivation, etc.
Effective decision making requires correct, complete and timely information for analysis. For this, various information systems are used, such as ESS, TPS, MIS, DSS, and OAS.
Leadership is ability of individuals to inspire or influence others to perform efficiently in order to achieve common goals.
An effective leader has various characteristics of a leader include responsibility, unbiased trust, strong values, clear vision, consistency, and transparency.
In an organisation, classification of leaders is done on the basis of their core competencies, levels of proficiency, skills, and experience. In an organisation, there can be leaders at corporate, business, functional, and operational levels.
A leader follows various leadership styles to achieve the defined goals. The different styles of leadership include autocratic leadership style, democratic leadership style, free-rein leadership style, action-oriented leadership style, transactional leadership style, transformational leadership style, charismatic leadership style, bureaucratic leadership style, and situational leadership style.
In an organisation, leaders perform various roles, such as planning, motivating employees, communicating goals and objectives, inculcating team spirit, and making effective decisions.
Leadership and management are two different concepts but are interlinked and complementary to each other. Management is all about handling complexity, while leadership is concerned with managing change.
Leaders focus on developing the skills of team members so that they can make their own decisions and work efficiently toward organisational goals and objectives. These skills include communication skills, listening skills, time management skills, decision-making skills, risk identification skills, and motivation skills.
Effective leaders tap creativity, learning, awareness, and abilities of group members and encourage them to take decisions collectively.
Motivation can be defined as a psychological process or an internal feeling that helps individuals to attain their personal and professional goals in an efficient manner.
Motivation is needed for making productive use of human resources, reducing absenteeism and turnover, maintaining good corporate image, developing friendly relationships, achieving goals, managing higher efficiency, and increasing job satisfaction.
Motivational theories are broadly categorised into two types, traditional motivational theories and modern motivational theories.
Traditional theories of motivation aim to provide a basic understanding of how to motivate people in an organisation. These theories explain motivation in terms of financial factor only.
The levels of needs given by Abraham Maslow in the hierarchy of needs theory include physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-actualisation needs.
Psychologist Frederick Herzberg proposed the two-factor theory, which is also known as motivation-hygiene theory. According to Herzberg, hygiene factors generate job dissatisfaction as they tend to avoid unpleasantness. On the other hand, motivators generate job satisfaction because of the need for growth.
In contrast to traditional theories of motivation, the modern theories of motivation advocate that motivation is a complex psychological process and there are several internal and external variables that affect the motivation level of employees at workplace.
The Existence, Relatedness and Growth (ERG) theory by Clayton Alderfer synchronised the five needs identified by Maslow into three needs which are existence, relatedness, and growth.
David McClelland’s Need Theory is a motivational model that explains how the needs for achievement, power, and affiliation affect the actions of people.
According to the equity theory by J. Stacy Adams, individuals compare their job inputs and results with that of others. If they find inequality, it creates negative or positive feelings among them or decides their level of motivation/demotivation.
Motivating employees can be challenging for any organisation. This is because different people are motivated differently depending on their current environment.
Some common motivation techniques used in an organisation for motivating individuals include monetary and non-monetary benefits, job enrichment, job rotation, goal setting, flexible shifts, and skills development.
Some common motivation techniques used in an organisation for motivating groups include accomplishment/achievement, reward and recognition, affiliation, positive work environment, fair compensation, and skills improvement.
Change management can be defined as an approach to achieve the desired state of an organisation.
The process of change management includes various steps, such as identifying the forces demanding change, planning the change, implementing change and following up.
Forces of change necessitate change in an organisation. There can be internal and external forces of change in an organisation.
Resistance occurs due to various reasons, such as lack of capabilities, lack of incentives, and fear of technological upgradation and salary reduction.
Change can be managed by facilitation, education, involvement, negotiation and training programs.
Organisational development and change management are interrelated where organisational development is a planned changed effort for improving the efficiency of the organisation.
Leaders play a major role in change management as they inspire others for change.
MIS is a computer system that allows the management of an organisation to make effective business decisions by proving timely and accurate information.
MIS is composed of various elements, such as people, technology, and data, to produce meaningful information.
The collection of facts and figures gathered from different sources is referred to as data. When data is processed, it becomes information.
An expert system is a computer-based system that used to solve expert-level problems. It functions through its two important components namely knowledge base and reasoning mechanism.
DSS is a computerised system that helps managers in the decision-making process. It is divided into three phases namely intelligence phase, design phase, and choice phase.
There are different types of DSS available such as communication-driven, data-driven, document-driven, knowledge-driven and model-driven DSSs.
GDSS is an information system designed to aid management in the process of group decision making.

Important keyword of MTP

Anthropology: The branch of science that deals with the study of humankind. It mainly includes study of origins, cultures, biological development, and beliefs of humans.
Assembly line production: The arrangement of machines, tools, and workers wherein different parts are added to semi-finished products from one stage to the other until the final product is received.
Authority-responsibility relationship: A superior-subordinate relationship where a superior gives authority and the subordinate accepts responsibility.
Authority: Control over organisational processes and subordinates within the span of a manager.
Behavioural Science: Systematic analysis of human behaviour through controlled observation.
Brainstorming: A problem-solving technique wherein creative ideas and solutions for a specific problem are generated through group discussions.
Bureaucratic administration: A type of administration in which all organisational rules, procedures, and policies are decided by top management and passed to lower management.
Change agent: A factor that acts as a catalyst to change initiatives of an organisation.
Client server technology: A form of technology where one computer program makes a service request from another. The program that makes request is referred to as client and the other program from which the request is made referred to as server.
Coercion: An act of making another party take involuntary actions.
Compensation system: A mechanism of paying employees in exchange of services rendered or work performed by them.
Corporate Social Responsibility: The actions taken by an organisation to serve the interests of members of a society.
Cultural differences: Variations in the cultures of individuals due to differences in racial or ethnic backgrounds, language, dress and traditions.
Cultural fit: A quality of an employee to adapt to the culture of an organisation.
Division of labour: Assigning various types of tasks to different people to increase efficiency.
Ego-defensiveness: A situation when a superior may discard a good idea from subordinates because of his/ her ego.
Electronic Data Transfer: A process of transmitting data from one location to the other using various electronic channels such as emails and Web chats.
Environment: Surroundings, influences, or circumstances, under which an individual/organisation exists.
Give and take approach: An exchange process for negotiating or bargaining in which both parties receive something useful.
Globalisation: The cross-border integration of businesses and exchange of goods and services or resources between nations.
Goal setting: A process of deciding the desired outcome and devising a plan to achieve that outcome.
Hardware: Consists of the physical components of a computer such as monitor, mouse, and CPU.
Hygiene Factors: Factors whose absence leads to dissatisfaction among employees.
Innovation: A process of doing something in a new way or transforming an idea into generating something new that creates value.
Intuition: An ability of anticipating situations without using any rational processing.
Investment portfolio: A pool of investments or a collection of assets owned by an organisation with a motive to earn profits.
Job rotation: A process shifting an employee from one job to another within a working group.
Kaizen: A Japanese philosophy that aims to improve work practices and the efficiencies of processes.
Line command: A type of hierarchy followed in organisations wherein the authority of decision making lies with the top management. The decisions made by top managers are passed on to lower management.
Management: An act of planning, directing, organising, and controlling resources to fulfil the predefined objectives
Organisational development: An overall strategy that focuses on improving an organisation’s overall effectiveness often through the use of planned change efforts.
Participative management: A style of management where all employees take part in the decision-making process of an organisation.
Power: Legitimate and illegitimate control exerted by a person on others to achieve personal goals.
Profession: A practice that requires special skills and qualifications.
Resistance: An act of opposing something.
Responsibility: The state of being answerable to a superior.
Satisfaction: Fulfilment of one’s needs or expectations.
Science: Knowledge or study in a systematic manner achieved through practice.
Selective listening: It is a practice of listening only what is desired.
Selective retention: A psychological process where a person retains only that part of message that is close to his/her interests, values, and beliefs and leaves the undesirable one.
Slang words: Non-standard words and phrases used in informal communication.
Social networking: Online grouping of persons into specific groups.
Socio-Psychological factors: Factors that are related to people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
Software: Set of programs or instructions designed to perform a defined function, such as operating system.
Strategy: A plan designed to achieve long-term objectives.
Substitute goods: Goods that can replace each other whenever required due to change in conditions; for example, tea and coffee. key words
Supervision: An act of directing somebody.
Survival of the fittest: A phrase or an expression which means that an element or system that adapts best to the environment will continue to exist.
Synchronisation: Coordination between different events for the successful operation of a system.
To-do list: A list of activities that are needed to be accomplished on the basis of priority
Word of mouth: A form of verbal communication that helps to spread information about a product or service.

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